There seems to be no shortage in innovation around the short URL. Still shortening with Bit.ly? You’re so 2010! To be fair, Bit.ly continues to offer new functionality, most recently with the even shorter J.mp option. But if you want to do something exciting with your short URLs - while creating more visibility for your brand, here are three new tools to try:
Bre.ad – Still in private beta, we’ve been excited about trying Bre.ad ever since Ben Parr reviewed it on Mashable because it offers the opportunity to promote your brand every time someone clicks on one of your short URLs. With Bre.ad, you create a webpage (called a Toast) that promotes your brand (or product, promotion, etc). When one of your followers or fans clicks on your Bre.ad link, they’ll see your Toast for five seconds before being redirected to the webpage you’ve linked to. Ever the early adopter, Lady Gaga is already using it.
YOURLS – Promote your own company instead of the tool you’re using by creating custom URLs with YOURLS (your own URL shortener). Simply install YOURLS on your server, buy a short domain, point the short domain at your website and you have your own shortening service.
BridgeURL – BridgeURL is brilliant when you want to share a collection of links. You enter your list – favourite YouTube videos, top restaurants to visit during a trade show, mediacoverage, to name a few potential examples, and BridgeURL presents them as a slideshow. Try it here http://bit.ly/jm5Z3M and see a collection of our consumer clients.
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social media
Posted by Annie Klein on May 25, 2011 at 12:20 PM
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CareerGuide recently published a list of the "10 Most Stressful Jobs of 2010" and stuck PR officer at number two, behind commercial airline pilot. Obviously, this is hilarious. PR can be stressful, but normally no one dies or is maimed. ("Bruised ego" and "thick skin" don't count as injuries.)
No matter--we're told it's rough to be in PR today. At least we can take consolation in the fact that our industry is growing far faster than most, according to The New York Times.
What's the problem with PR, you ask? Professional communicators love to talk, but maybe we don't want to reveal much about the stress inherent in our profession because we can't stop worrying about image. Never let them see you sweat, right? Or perhaps we know that much of the worry comes from the people who we need the most. Clients, reporters, analysts, physicians, bloggers, etc. are generally a pleasure, but isn't there always one that's a handful?
I for one think we're in control of much of our own angst. To that end, I wanted to offer 10 suggestions to my fellow PR pros.
Media relations: Tell a great story
1. Unless we're representing Pfizer, IBM or the like, reporters are not obligated to cover our clients. Giving them a reason to want to is our job, but we need to set aside our indignation at being left out of stories if we didn't contact reporters in the first place. We ought not to accept it when we hear grumbles like, "they have to pay attention to us or they're bad journalists." Feel your blood pressure return to normal when you accept responsibility and refuse to be angry.
2. The opposite is also true: the fact that a reporter covered a topic doesn't mean she will do so again. Nothing is more thankless than going to a reporter essentially to ask her to rewrite the story she just filed. When we're asked to contact a journalist with a loser of a message like "we do that, too," we should work to develop a more thoughtful response that will make us feel confident in our contribution and present clients in a more favorable light.
3. Take guidelines on how to work with reporters with a grain of salt. When journalists describe how they want to be approached, the real message is often "accept the status quo" because many would like to be left to cover the same big companies repeatedly. They say they track the whole industry and they'll call us if they want to talk with our ankle-biter. Sorry, but no--we need to package our client's story and take it to reporters. So no delusional statements like "he'll keep the information on file."
4. Kissing up to reporters is bad for our self-esteem and with a few exceptions, unproductive. Most of them have shown time and again that they want insight into trends, information that's not obvious or intuitive, news that's really news, and so on. They don't need vacuous comments like "great post" from us on their blogs.
Client relations: Be honest
5. Is anything more stressful than overpromising and, as a result, underdelivering? We owe it to clients to tell them in clear terms what we think is achievable for their budget or situation. When they're excited to talk with us about a big media tour that their VP of sales suggested and we know those haven't worked for at least five years, let's not tell them we're going to fill the day and then go back to our desks and stress.
6. Remember that companies hire agencies to gain outside perspective. It's tough not to buy into groupthink, but clients are working with us and not just internal staff because they want to benefit from the agency's collective experience. They'll be disappointed, not pleased, if all we do is validate ideas they've already considered.
7. If you're trying something new, say so. Much of PR today is an experiment, so even if you've been working in this industry for years, you're probably giving new ideas a go. If you don't know whether something will work, that's okay. But don't relay a false sense of confidence.
8. Help clients gauge how media, analysts and others really respond to what they're hearing. We hurt ourselves when we imply excitement that isn't there because we're setting our clients up to be let down. A reporter hearing us out doesn't translate into "they're interested." They took a briefing doesn't mean "they're excited about the news." We should have the confidence to not manufacture emotion.
Don't doubt your own knowledge
9. We shouldn't let the fact that we've done this 500 times keep us from trying new things. It's not so much that we'll become obsolete, because we're all aware of that threat. It's more, I'd suggest, that we'll render ourselves irrelevant if we fail to appreciate that sometimes just jumping on an idea and quickly executing is what it takes to show results. It might even be fun.
10. We can do math. PR people undercut ourselves all the time by saying we don't get numbers. Is that supposed to be impressive? We all know that metrics are critical in PR. If we haven't figured out a way to quantify results, we need to take the time to learn about the topic. If we can't read earnings statements, we need to take a class on investor relations basics for PR people.
What do you think--can we aim to make PR number three on that list next year?
Tags:
CareerGuide,
client relations,
media relations,
PR,
public relations,
stressful jobs
Posted by Laura Kempke on May 11, 2011 at 2:22 PM
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Lately, a few outside experts have visited with us here at Schwartz. We love it, because it allows us to test our thoughts about how tech PR and healthcare PR are changing with people "outside the Schwartz firewall." It also allows us to twist the arms of our guests and get them to sit down on camera so we can ask them some questions.
Ann Handley came to Schwartz recently for a couple hours of fun mixed with good discussion about the state of content marketing and how it fits with a company's overall marketing program. Ann recently teamed with C.C. Champan to publish Content Rules, which is a fantastic read and provides an excellent analysis of practical content marketing examples.
Ann sat down with my co-worker, Laura Kempke, to discuss some trends and best practices with regard to content marketing and PR. You can watch below. The Schwartz digital team goes further in an earlier post by poking fun at a particularly "amusing" story related to Ann's visit.
Tags:
content marketing,
social media,
tech PR
Posted by Ross Levanto on May 3, 2011 at 4:46 PM
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Recently our good friend Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs came over to visit us here at Schwartz. We asked her if she’d sit down for a quick video interview with our own Laura Kempke, SVP Content Marketing Services, and Ann agreed.
Before the interview, Ross Levanto, another SVP here at Schwartz, and Laura and I took Ann out for some tasty Thai food at Green Papaya in Waltham and basically laughed through the entire lunch. Some of the fun was focused on Ross finishing two entrees before the rest of us finished one, but a lot of our discussion was around content marketing. We got on the topic of creating content for the healthcare industry and other highly regulated industries and how challenging that can be. Ann admitted that in previous interviews she had been asked about how organizations in regulated industries should go about creating content, and that she always hated answering that question. It is in fact, quite a loaded question, and one that’s not easy to answer without looking at a specific organization’s situation.
After lunch we returned to Schwartz for Laura’s interview with Ann. About 2 minutes into the interview Laura proceeds to ask Ann the exact question about regulated industries that Ann told us she hated. Ann of course answered it amazingly well, and laughed with us afterward about how Laura tried to “stick it to her.” After we told this story to some other folks at Schwartz, a few members of our digital team thought it would be funny to hear the story directly from those who were involved. Here’s what happened:
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Ann Handley,
MarketingProfs,
regulated industries
Posted by Matt Duffy on at 1:38 PM
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