As overt and shameless mediaphiles, we PR folks jump at any chance to get an inside look at how the media machine works. You had us at hello, you are the wind beneath our wings, we just can’t quit you and we’d like to wear your skin, media. So, when PRSA hosted a panel titled “Inside the Newsroom of All Things D,” I was ready to rock. Oh, and did I mention this event was held on the Facebook campus? That’s right – the opportunity to check-in atFacebook, on Facebook was not overlooked. Score.
While we waited for the panel to begin, most of my PR brethren were locked to their phones furiously reading Google alerts, re-tweeting and having other out-of-body, media driven experiences. And then, the All Things D panel of Mike Isaac, Ina Fried, Liz Gannes and Beth Callaghan arrived on stage to answer all our burning questions.
“How do you like to be pitched?”
“So...what exactly is your beat?”
“What are you working on right now?”
“What makes for a good story?”
You don’t have to be MacGyver to realize that everyone repackaged the same question in a different way. All we really want to know is “What do we have to do to get you to write about our clients?”
Then, Mike Isaac said something amazing. Brilliant, in fact. I half expected him to drop the mic and walk off of the stage. He said, “Remember that we are both humans just trying to work together in this rat race of news.”
And, here’s what’s beautiful about that.
Obsession with news, and those who make it, comes with the territory. We are junkies with powerful enablers like The Huffington Post, Associated Press and New York Times. While we are all still waiting for the technology that delivers news alerts directly to our frontal lobes in real-time, it is easy to forget what’s behind the curtain at Oz – a real person.
There is no trick, or secret code to good public relations. While we may wish there was a formula of X + Z = WSJ coverage, let’s be real – none of us went into PR because of our stellar math skills. If given a choice between the superpowers of flight or invisibility, most PR folks would ask – which can I trade for a psychic connection with media?
PR superheroes aren’t those who live inside their news feed 24-hours a day. They are the ones who simply tell a compelling story, to the right people, grounded in the real world with relatable, human elements.
Heck, I could get used to this human thing. Now, if I could just figure out how to spin it.
When asked what makes their model different during an INFORUM panel discussion with Pando Daily’s Sarah Lacy at the Commonwealth Club San Francisco, Fab.com’s CEO Jason Goldberg and CCO Bradford Shellhammer immediately quipped with those phrases.
Launched last June, Fab expects to do $100 million in sales this year. Fab.com’s business model may be an anomaly, but they’ve hammered home that in order to keep consumer interest in the fickle world of e-commerce, a brand has to get to the heart of the matter: liking what you’re selling.
Fab.com is a design-focused flash sale site combined with innovative social commerce features. The site features daily sales and design inspirations from everyday users and established chandlers alike. Yet throughout the panel discussion, the two heads of the company did not say they were a flash sale site. On the contrary, they consistently maintained the message that they were there as a medium (they prefer the term “platform”) for consumers who enjoy seeing and/or purchasing design-centric items.
Shellhammer divulged that every brand, not necessarily each item, on the site has to be approved by him before it goes live on the site. And he has gone on record that he doesn’t care if there is a large quantity of the item or if it’ll sell well. Just as long as he likes it.
The idea of curation versus profit margin is a tricky concept. On one hand the idea behind an e-commerce is to sell product. Otherwise it wouldn’t be an e-commerce. On the other, having more of an abstract (read: emotional) take on presentation and the products themselves takes the uncomfortable thought of “we’re SELLING you something” out of the experience. Or at the very least, it can push the consumer to purchase because there isn’t that cold pressure to buy.
Bringing the NEED for the design instead of the LOW COST of the product seems to be the magic bullet that Fab.com has found. They just hit the 4.8 million user mark, and generate over $300,000 in sales a day. And this is with products from varying artists and designers of different retail industries that are sold at a discount- but not so cheaply that the costs overrides the consumer focus on the product.
Interestingly enough, Project Runway host Heidi Klum coined the catchphrase “you’re either in, or you’re out” in regards to the designer hopefuls cast on the tv show. The question that remains for us is: How do you maintain an enduring experience for consumers when even pop culture changes?
More music, more excitement, more #inbound12! Day 3 and no signs that this team is slowing down. As Darmesh very excitedly shouted, "a few years from now we will say 'remember when Inbound was only 2800 people!'" So to keep it concise- things are moving fast and it's awesome to be on this train.
There's a massive transformation about how we input into the world, now we have an accelerated pace! In the same note, there's a shift in the pattern of shopping and learning and we have to transform to match human behavior. People are getting better and better at blocking out the traditional marketing format.
We used to use the phone and marketers could find us… now we have caller id and can screen! We ignore mail, let it pile up because we know it's nothing important. Email, we can now prioritze our inboxes and send messages to spam and use Ad Blocker to block ads.
We need to create marketing people love! This means we create remarkable content and then use that content to pull people in (stop interrupting people with emails and blasts and let them come to you!)
2. Where's inbound marketing going, what does the next 6 years look like? And how does 1+1=3?
Simply put: We use content to pull them in, and context to pull them through!
The key to context is making magic and making your tools work together in completely new ways. Based off an Amazon example we can all understand, Darmesh and Brian call this magic making effect the 1+1=3! You know how when you go to Amazon.com it's like your best friend recommending a book. For instance, they suggest books on tennis, dogs, and marketing to me... perfect, my three favorite things! The more presonalized it gets, the more we want to use it... this is the context engine in action and the next generation of marketing!
3. What HubSpot is doing to power the next phase
HubSpot3, the biggest release in HubSpot history, is revolutionizing the way our contacts, leads, landing pages, blog posts and social media all can work TOGETHER to get us results. And I, for one, am excited to use it!
Closed Loop Social with HootSuite and HubSpot - Craig Ryomoto @craigryomoto Director, Pro User Growth & revenue HootSuite
Now that we have social media, how do you prove ROI from social media? This is called closing the social loop. Without getting into the details too much, the basics include:
1. Listen to your customers, competitors, and influencers
2. Engage with your audience in their platform of choice
3. Analyze and understand the results and engineer better outcomes
How to create eBooks and Webinars Your Prospects Will Love - Maggie Georgieva, Inbound Marketing Manager, HubSpot
Maggie is an Inbound Ninja and shared some great tips on creating remarkable content:
Base your content decisions on DATA
Look at blog analytics, which posts get the most views?
Look at page performance, which page is doing the best?
Landing page analytics, which people are visiting the page and thought it was compelling enough to fill out the form
Email marketing analytics, look at the names that resonate with people
Look at which format gets you the most return, if it is eBooks do a ton more!
What if you don't have much data? Check other sources of data (Google news and enter an industry keyword, see what's recent and newsworthy and being published)
When to publish? The more social media updates, landing pages, web pages etc… the more leads you get
31-40 landing pages gets you 7x more than 5-6 pages --> PUBLISH MORE
Prefect is the enemy of good, Voltaire… just get good content and stop trying to make it perfect--> PUBLISH OFTEN
Publish more and often:
Repackage the content: Expand a blog and make it longer, reduce an eBook to a blog. Repurposing the content to publish it more.
Combine 20 how-to blog posts into an eBook or guide
Curated Content- re-packaging content! Go to LinkedIn and find a conversation or ask people what they think about a specific topic and gather the quotes and information etc.
101 awesome marketing quotes, 54 pearls of marketing wisdom, learning LinkedIn from the experts (use numbers and images)
Ask yourself:
Is your offer compelling enough?
Did you target the right audience, did you send it to the right people?
Are you not sending enough traffic to it?
Key steps for suceeeding with marketing offers
Don't optimize before you build strong foundations. Use real data to drive your content strategy. Publish often & iterate later do more of what's working
There were three other great discussions today that covered Increasing Facebook ROI, Introverts in Marketing, and an amazing guide to Making Content Work for You in A Sales Pitch! Stay tuned tomorrow for more marketing magic from #Inbound12!
At the risk of using an Olympic metaphor one month too late, public relations has evolved into two forms of running. Social media is the sprinter, or Usain Bolt, and traditional media relations is Meb Keflezighi (if you know who he is), or the marathoner.
Social media is a world of short bursts in which you can largely control the narrative. With 140 character tweets, three paragraph blog posts and spontaneous Facebook and LinkedIn campaigns, it’s possible to create the exact message you want to reach the exact audience at the exact time. If you can drive and control your campaign the way a sprinter rockets down his assigned 100 meters of space on a smooth precise track, you will win.
Media relations doesn’t work this way. You don’t have the control like you do with social media. Just like in a marathon where the weather and the course are as important as the competition, the success of a media relations campaign is not solely based on the quality of your narrative. It is impacted by outside factors such as a reporter’s subjective interest in the story, a larger competitor’s news trumping yours or last second external events that occupy the media agenda for days on end. You also must rely on outside parties like customer references and outside experts to tell your story, in the same way that a marathoner is dead without electrolytes and PowerBars. The campaign cycle for media relations is also a much longer process; results don’t happen overnight. It requires patience, endurance and flexibility, and to never give up until it is over.
Olympic sprinters and marathoners must specialize; endurance is useless to a sprinter and blinding speed is relevant for only the last 10 meters of a marathon. Companies however, must develop and execute a strategic social media and media relations campaign if they are going to win the gold medal of customer awareness that drives adoption.
Thunderstruck, ACDC's awesome track, was the background to a video of Boston in it's glory with sunny skies and a fancy helicopter winding through the neighborhoods below. Flash to Darmesh and Brian (HubSpot co-founders) wearing track suits and aviators enjoying the ride. Finally, after lots of lead up- they "landed" at the conference and gave a funny and formal welcome to #Inbound2012.
1. First up was a discussion about horizontal content. This is content thats broad and thin that people will find when searching broad market category search words. He's a music lover and the example was typing in "indie music concerts" where results span from live music in a particular city to worldwide festivals and bands.
2. After this broad discussion, he explained vertical content that is much more specific and deep. This is content to help drive people into very specific search terms and where you may type in the actual band name in the search like "sts9 tour" bringing you right to the exact content you are looking for. (sound tribe sector 9, yeah, I've seen them!)
3. Last, and most important is Real Time content: discussions and content about whats going on right this moment. This instant. RIGHT NOW! Using a #bostonlivemusic as a search explains what's happening right now.
Lessons learned: Is one of our clients doing something cool today? We CANNOT operate in campaign mode, we have to unlearn this "planning" mode and go live! Discuss current content and keep the conversation relevant!
Did I forget to mention that he brought Cyndi Lauper up and she sang some blues to kick us off?
5 Steps to Becoming an inbound Ninja- Everyone Watch Out!
This discussion was led by Mark Kilens, manager of customer training, HubSpot @markkilens
1. Goal setting- setting smart monthly goals for traffic and leads is a great way to get started on your inbound plans.
2. Traffic generation- Be social. Be fun. And always be creating content! Mark straggly stated, "Live by the 50/50 rule: 50% of your own content 50% other peoples content"
3. Conversion- Create lead generation content (white papers, ebooks, guides, webinars) where the commitment to read that content is a little higher. From there, create a call to action- landing page- and most importantly a thank you page with next steps.
4. Nurturing- nurture leads into becoming customers through both the lead generating content and the social content. Create smart lists: all of the leads that downloaded an ebook and are 4 weeks old and are b2b. Narrow the list and send them a relative blog through EMAIL MARKETING. Build trust by sending relevant info at the right time.
5. Analyze - Measure the views and make sure calls to action are several pages. From there, look at Clicks to determine how many people are actually clicking on the call to action. Finally, analyze the submission rate of that call to action
Keynote Rand Fishkin, @SEOMOZ @randfish "Choose Short Men & Tall Women"
To get the talk going, Rand creatively showed us two graphs:
1. Male Messaging & Female Attractiveness Graph (men think all women are attractive and will talk to everyone)
2. Female Messaging & Male Attractiveness Graph (women think nobody is attractive and will talk to only a very few that could possibly be attractive)
Digging deeper, we saw that women say they will only look at men above 5'9 and it's just completely irrational!
Removal of a single, irrational bias may yield remarkable results!
From there, Rand discussed 12 bias's that we marketers have about SEO. For example, the # bias was listed as: Ranking Position is all That Matters. This is simply untrue. The CTR (click through rate) is influenced by more than position. Sometimes, it's the authors photo listed third in the search results or possibly a link with amazon ratings that's fifth on the list that is more important to viewers etc. It can even be the date of publication that is enticing moreso than the first positioned link!
For a deeper review of this talk and many more, including Social Media 3.0 -a review of the relationship between individuals and brands, stay tuned to for more news from #INBOUND12!
I was delighted to see that Professor Joseph Kimble has updated his book Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please. Professor Kimble has spent years making the case that business, legal, medical and government professionals should replace "forbidding, verbose, unclear writing with plain language." File this under - easier said than done.
In hundreds of media coaching sessions through the years, I've had many top executives nod impatiently when reminded that they need to keep their story simple and impactful. Then, as soon as they're asked a few questions, they launch into long answers littered with cliches, acronyms and jargon. As if that isn't frustrating enough, they're subsequently surprised to find that the reporter left their empty answers out of the published piece.
As Professor Kimble has written, "Using plain language pays off for everyone in fewer mistakes, faster compliance, better decisions and less frustration."
The best communicators know there is no shame in telling a simple, powerful story. Lincoln used fewer than 270 words in the Gettysburg Address and he rocked the world. Business professionals should take heed. Audiences (reporters, analysts, investors, customers, prospects, etc.) listen to those who speak clearly - and they come back for more.
Amid all the coverage of this week's Surface tablet launch, it struck me that Microsoft didn't appear to give much thought to addressing an important question - what will MSFT's traditional hardware partners think of this move?
A Reuters story indicates that partners were kept in the dark about Redmond's plans. For a variety of reasons, that makes sense. But not having a standard reply ready for the launch is odd, to say the least.
One item that really stuck out was a New York Times report that Windows head Steven Sinofsky, when asked if Surface would damage ties with partners, "gently pushed a reporter in the direction of a stand of Surface tablets and said, 'Go learn something.'" Hopefully this incident was taken out of context. It had to be, right?! It's hard to believe that this issue wasn't anticipated during the enormous planning process leading to the launch.
Regardless of a company's size, one of the cardinal rules of messaging is to anticipate difficult questions. Think of it as a chess match - what challening questions might reporters, analysts, employees, customers, channel partners and prospects ask? And how will you respond to these moves? Consider your options and take the time to craft thoughtful and credible responses.
The answer doesn't have to be long and full of details. In fact, often the best answers are quick, confident and matter-of-fact. But for goodness sakes, be prepared!
Bob Brown, executive news editor of Network World, a coveted trade publication for technology companies, visited Schwartz MSL Boston offices recently. Bob works with Network World reporters to shape the weekly news coverage. With CTIA fast approaching, we sat down with him to learn about the key mobile and wireless trends that are going to make the headlines at the show this year. Bob also shared some useful tips on what kind of news the reporters are interested in covering and how companies can get featured in the publication.
In our continuing series of interviews with mobile influencers leading up to CTIA and Interop, Rob Skinner sat down with Craig Mathias, one of the most respected voices in wireless and enterprise mobile strategy. In a wide-ranging conversation, Craig discussed the hot-button issues in mobile, from carrier strategies around consumer data consumption to the landscape for mobile unified communications in the enterprise. We hope you enjoy his insights.
With wireless and mobile trends likely to dominate the discussions at CTIA 2012, the show promises to be a great venue for organizations to network and learn more about this critical market. Vendors have many wonderful opportunities at the show to meet with influential journalists, analysts and other industry experts as the show ‘unofficially’ kicks off a busy year in marketing, sales and public relations for many companies. Being practical and creative is the best way to make an impact at the show.
To learn more about opportunities at CTIA 2012, Schwartz MSL has created a Road to CTIA 2012 Planning Guide to help you navigate the PR and marketing opportunities at the show, and give you useful advice on strategy, as well as a timeline to help you plan ahead and even some tips on other fun things to do in New Orleans.
For further advice or information on how Schwartz MSL can partner with you, download Road to CTIA 2012 Planning Guide.
Here at Schwartz MSL, we correspond with mobile analysts and media every day. We’d like to share some of their insights on mobility leading up to CTIA in this series of videos, podcasts and blogs.
On Friday, the Boston Business Journal released its annual list of Boston PR firms and Schwartz MSL landed at #1 based on number of PR employees. We're pleased for the recognition and congratulate the other agencies that appear on the list.
The industry is growing, without a doubt. A little more than a year ago, the venerable U.S. News & World Report projected the number of PR jobs would increase by 24 percent between 2008 and 2018. Seems like we're seeing a nice amount of that growth here in Boston.
This May, the wireless industry will gather for one of its biggest events, CTIA Wireless. In addition to the trade show packed with vendor booths, the event will offer a variety of educational sessions. This presents an excellent opportunity for executives at forward-thinking wireless and mobile companies to position themselves as thought leaders at one of the industry’s most significant events. CTIA is currently accepting proposals for potential panelists and presenters at the event. This is an excellent way to build a reputation as a leader in wireless. Here are some of the tips we offer to our clients seeking speaking positions.
• Develop your proposal around a hot topic. The mobile industry is innovating quickly in a number of areas, from mobile payments to mobile device management, machine-to-machine communications and dozens of other areas that impact both consumers and businesses. These sweeping trends are catching the attention of CTIA attendees – your buyers. The speaking organizers at CTIA have assembled an agenda that helps explain emerging trends to attendees. In your proposal, focus on the emerging and broad trends where you can offer expertise.
• Struggling to find a topic that’s best for you? Engage in discussion with analysts in your market space and ask them what they’re hearing from the industry. Your investors can also be useful in providing a bird’s-eye view. Also comb through magazines and blogs for the hot topics that are most relevant to the industry.
• Develop relationships with decision-makers at CTIA. On a daily basis, CTIA staff and executives communicate with the industry’s leaders. Meet with influential leaders at CTIA team to share your opinions about industry trends from the front lines. You may then find yourself invited to speak on a panel.
• Propose a full panel, not an individual speaker. Executives from the leading companies in the mobile industry are chosen as keynote speakers and panelists. However, if you’re with a smaller company, you’ll need to get strategic. Think of the relationships you’ve built and leverage them. Is there a well-regarded analyst that shares your views? Do you have a customer that can provide real-world insight into your topic? How about a key partner from a highly visible wireless organization? Assemble a panel with all of these experts and offer an irresistible proposal to CTIA.
• If you are invited to speak at CTIA, pull out all the stops to make sure you ace the assignment. The CTIA staff closely monitor the success of individual speakers and panels. If your session attendees rate you highly, you have a greater chance of being invited back.
Make sure to get your speaking submission in by the deadline of January 15th. The competition for speaking opportunities is high, but the time spent in crafting a successful abstract is well worth the effort.
Need guidance in preparing a speaking submission? For further insight contact Schwartz MSL Boston at (781) 684-0770. The agency’s wireless practice represents some of the leading companies in mobile, and we can help you, too.
Wyonona Redmond, president of the National Black Public Relations Society (NBPRS) speaking at the opening reception held at the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee
The National Black Public Relations Society (NBPRS) held their annual conference, October 27-30, 2011 in Milwaukee and this year I had the opportunity to be there. The theme for this year’s conference was:“The Network at Work: Managing Transitions, Techniques and Technology for Business and Career Success.” Some of the most respected African Americans in the communications industry were there including former journalists who started their own boutique PR agencies, corporate communications professionals, agency PR practitioners, bloggers, PR freelancers, authors and community relations professionals.
Throughout the conference I had the opportunity to attend a variety of workshops but one that particularly stood out to me was:“Breaking In & Staying In: Realities & Strategies for Blacks in PR.” The panel highlighted the importance of building relationships with co-workers to bridge racial differences and we discussed the value of not focusing on being the only minority at the company but rather being aware of how to constantly develop new skills, think outside the box, promote integrity and stay up-to-date with the clients business.
Although only 4.7% of the marketing, advertising and PR industries are made up of ethnic minorities, conferences such as this are a huge step to help diversify the industry, recognize African Americans in the industry and showcase their achievements. Wyonna Redmond, president of NBPRS, defines PR as this: “Our job in the public relations field is to communicate ideas, evoke feelings, shape images, enhance or change perceptions and build relationships.”More diversity in the industry will mean more perspectives and different ideas being shared, which can only lead to helping grow the industry. Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American female senator, said it best in her keynote address at the conference: “When all the cream is allowed to rise to the top, the butter is bound to be better!”
The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project, along with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, has released the results of a phone survey of more than 2,000 American adults who were asked about local news sources. The report, "How People Learn About Their Local Community," is a must-read if you run local programs or otherwise target local or regional media.
The report is the first of its kind because it parses out types of local information consumed through different types of media. The authors explain that "[c]onventional research has tended to ask people about local news and information generically with some variation of a simple question: Where do people turn most often for their news? Asked that way, the majority of people answer local TV .... And this new survey, too, finds that local TV is the most frequently used medium for news and information ...."
However, and I'm highlighting, "[t]his survey also took a new approach as well, asking people about the information sources they rely on to get material about 16 different specific local information areas. The result is a more complex portrait of how people learn and exchange information about community. The new data explodes the notion, for instance, that people have a primary or single source for most of their local news and information."
So, more people use TV to get local news and information than any other single source, but if you pull apart types of information, other sources rise to the top of the list of preferred media.
Pew offers an interactive tool that lets you examine responses based on age of the respondents and type of information. They say that age is the most important factor in determining preferred media type. "Simply put," the authors say, "one generation into the web, older consumers still rely more heavily on traditional platforms while younger consumers rely more on the internet. Among adults under age 40, the web ranks first or ties for first for 12 of the 16 local topics asked about." They move on to explain that newspapers and TV outpace the web in terms of sources for local info sources for people over the age of 40.
To me, this means that local healthcare programs that prioritize coverage with local TV affiliates and newspapers are still critical for reaching older audiences, but that communicators should be sure to look for every opportunity to secure coverage with local bloggers and other online outlets to reach younger people.
The report also points out that almost half of all adults get information on their smartphones or other mobile devices. This is terrific reminder for all marketers that their web presence should be designed with mobile users in mind.
I want to share some really exciting news about Schwartz Communications. After 20 years of independence, we’ve become part of MSLGROUP---one of the world’s largest public relations and engagement agencies.
It takes something special to change two decades of independence. And we’ve found it in an amazing organization with talented employees, terrific clients, and a shared passion for storytelling in all its mediums. Our unique and shared strengths mesh very well.
As Schwartz MSL, we’ll continue our focus on “innovation companies of all sizes” and the technologies, treatments and services that transform business, save lives and conserve our natural resources. But as part of an outstanding industry leader, we now have a new assortment of engagement and marketing services, and a network of thousands of additional experts in more than 80 MSLGROUP offices worldwide.
We’ve moved to a truly global stage, and Schwartz MSL will continue to lead the way in delivering the reach, influence and creative service offerings our clients need to create new markets or transform existing ones. We hope you’ll enjoy our next act, which you can follow here in our blogs and on Twitter at @schwartzmsl.
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?
I've been trying, pretty much in vain, to make my salads from our building's cafeteria taste like something. My latest strategy is putting so many jalapenos and Tabasco sauce on that I can't actually taste anything at all. Thank you, Altoids! And thank you, Google Reader, for bringing me updates to my many blog subscriptions so that lunchtime is always full of new ideas, if not flavor.
One of today's posts from paidContent talks about a broad reorganization of editorial responsibilities at Thomson Reuters, which of course runs Reuters. It says:
"As the internet has changed the game for how news is accessed and distributed, Reuters and its rivals, Bloomberg and Dow Jones, have been working for the past few years to streamline and refocus their respective operations to take better advantage of multimedia and attract a broader business audience.
"[The new editor in chief]'s move from the professional division a year after arriving at Reuters--following his departure as BusinessWeek's EIC as it was in the process of being sold to Bloomberg--has compressed those efforts as he's put his stamp on the newsroom quickly.
"For example, earlier this month, Chrystia Freeland was put in charge of the company's interactive efforts in the newly-created post of editor of Thomson Reuters Digital."
If you read other articles about recent changes at Reuters, you'll see that they and the other wire services are adjusting the way they operate in order to take into account things like the consumption of news on mobile devices (smartphones and iPad-like readers). That's a change in the way information is presented. Is the type of information they're working with also changing? I see, in yet another article, that Reuters is trying to offer more consumer content to supplement its business information.
That got me thinking about the wires in general. Wire stores are an integral part of much of Schwartz's work because one article about a medical therapy, an IT security breach or trends affecting an industry at large can be syndicated in dozens or hundreds of other outlets. While going direct to people using social media is important, it shouldn't come at the cost of also going broad (or high, if you like) to potentially reach millions of readers or viewers in national and local media, which tend to pick up wire stories.
As Reuters changes and looks to incorporate more video and stories that will appeal to people using all those mobile devices, it seems smart to revisit your approach to working with the wires and to ask yourself whether your content is likely to pass muster by outlets that want to stretch beyond straight business news. Not as a replacement for more precise messages for other outlets, but as an important addition.
What do you think--is your communications program wire-ready?
The lettuce image is covered by a Creative Commons license. My salad, however unique, is not.
I've been considering a post I read last week from Joshua Benton on the Nieman Journalism Lab blog. I wouldn't say that I missed the point that Mr. Benton is making in "Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social media decline and a tough road ahead." He's talking about the early success, or maybe lack thereof, of The Daily, a news brand launched two months ago for the iPad. As I read his post, however, I thought about some general implications for how companies measure the effectiveness of PR programs.
In the post, Mr. Benton describes how he's extrapolating information about the size of the paid readership of The Daily. He has to resort to an educated guess because "[n]o one outside of News Corp. and Apple has a reliable way of knowing how often people read The Daily." Contrast this to data available about most websites and web-based publications, which can sort of be measured using tools like Alexa.com and Compete.com.
As a surrogate for those tools, Mr. Benton looks at stats about the volume of Daily articles that paid subscribers share via Twitter. Basically, more tweets probably indicate more readers. He knows that this is an imperfect measure, but it's what he's got. Using it, he's suggesting that the "general direction" for the publication is down.
That's probably interesting to the many people who are trying to figure out whether the iPad and other readers will help news publishers make more money. But for me, as a PR person, the take-away message is that as more content is consumed on iPads or other readers, it may become even tougher to measure the number of people a publication reaches. This makes the accuracy of one of the easiest PR metrics to gather--impressions--even more suspect.
But if publishers choose not to report their iPad or other reader figures, where does that leave PR people who tally results based on number of impressions? Making bigger and bigger guesses over time, it seems. To me, this argues for marketers making more of an effort to keep our collective eye on what really matters, which is action taken by people who read those articles. More website traffic? Shortened sales cycles? Improved reputation? These sorts of things can be tough or expensive to measure, so many companies pass them up in favor of what they can put their finger on.
Maybe Apple will become the new Cision and start selling data about how many people actually buy magazine and newspaper apps. In the meantime, I took Mr. Benton's post as a reminder to pay attention to evaluating what matters--action undertaken because of PR--and not to simply collect figures that are readily available.
Google has launched a magazine, Think Quarterly, and mailed the limited number of copies (they printed only 1,500) to advertising partners in the UK. The magazine, Google's first, was created and published in the UK and is also available online.
Since we, as lovers of technology PR, of course pay attention to Google and pitch editors of magazines (although it's not at all clear to me that Think Quarterly is pitchable), I thought the debut was worth noting. You may have caught the news yesterday on Mashable.
This issue is almost 70 pages long and is all about data, how people are trying to wade through it and find value ("data obesity and how to treat it"), how basing business on facts can be beneficial, etc. There are also several topics of interest to advertisers (e.g., "how to maximize return on search advertising").
Click on the image above if you like to check out the full issue.
Within SxSW there is a small group of die hard people that are involved in the financial services and banking industry that meet to discuss the role technology will play in the evolution of this market. Since I work with many companies in the financial services and payments industry, I always make it a point to check out the sessions.
The two most intriguing sessions of the second day of SxSW day both dealt with innovation. The first claimed to look at changes in the way lending happens thanks to new ways of looking at data. It really ended up being an excoriation of payday loans and an examination of new types of lending - from community based business loans to modified payday loans that are designed to focus solely on people paying their bills.
Payday loans and serving the underbanked are two issues that the industry has grappled with for a number of years. While I learned about some new technologies, a key takeaway is one that translates into the second session as well, clearly communicating your deals and offerings is a great way to build loyalty. And if you have a new service people need, they are likely to try it out.
The second panel of the day had a very unassuming name, "Banks, innovate or die!" it ended up being one of the most contentious and interesting panels I have been to in a while. A former Citibank employee, Lendingclub executive, SmartyPig and others were discussing the future of innovation in the banking industry.
The comments were cutting and included such gems as:
Citi is your bank, not your mother! It's not our job to remind you to pay your bills
Customer service is easy when you have just a few thousand customers
The key takeaways from this session were things that I have heard quite a few times in the past but are worth repeating:
People expect greater transparency from their financial institutions. To me though this is not necessarily how they are using your money, but helping customers better understand how their finances are being used as well as what fees they are being charged and what services are available. (full disclosure, Schwartz represents companies that provide services and products for banks and credit unions.)
Customer service is another challenge. Some called it a way to innovate, I see it more as a way to differentiate. It is important to note that the baseline customer service expectations continues to grow, so FIs that aren't using it as a way to get closer to the customer are missing opportunities and giving start ups and credit unions a chance to take their customers.
The most interesting point was made at the end of the session. The next battle for banks will not be against startups but likely against Google and Apple and others.
While the companies differed when discussing competitive threats, there was almost universal in identifying where they expect to see innovation over the next few years - mobile banking and payments. This is a shift even bigger than the introduction of the ATM, particularly as the younger generation that has their mobile phone as their main communications device begins to graduate college and enter the workforce. The moderator stated that by 2015 mobile will be the primary banking channel. The other area for innovation that many identified was in P2P loans.
The only other area of universal agreement was the need to revise FINRA rules to allow for greater social media engagement. Overall though the hours of discussion drove home two points:
The industry is experiencing a significant increase in the pace of innovation which will likely accelerate with mobile.
It is an exciting time to be working with companies in the financial services industry.
SxSW is alternately described as a tech party a la COMDEX in the mid 90s, Spring Break for techies, DEMO for those trying to reach young, hip, consumers and a conference that has jumped the shark. To me it is a great event and a great way to make connections, hear great speakers and have thought provoking conversations.To get myself in the right frame of mind, I listened to Alice's Restaurant on the plane flight to Austin.
For my first session at SxSW I went to hear industry pundit Brian Reich discuss how social media is like an asteroid approaching the earth. Basically his premise was that we need to fundamentally change the way we think about things, and nowhere is this more important than with those issues that transcend business (hunger, oppression, disaster relief). He believes that the way we address serious issues is no longer working.
We are not capitalizing on the power of the connected society. I agree with him in that the "networked" society is still in its infancy, and despite all our activities over the past 15 years, the true impact is still just now being felt.
What really stuck me was that many of the transcendent issues are the issues that businesses have been struggling with since the dawn of social media, and frankly, since communications became a strategic discipline.
How do we impact change?
Are we measuring the right things?
Raising awareness is a great and necessary first step, but it is not enough.
Don't get me wrong, there were great ideas that came out of the session (the crying need for more transparency in how donations are distributed, how giving people choices on how their money will be used will encourage more donations, etc.,)
I disagreed with some of the points being made. People that just gave money were being called lazy. I spoke up at that and pointed out there is a full spectrum of engagement. Business realize not everyone will be an evangelist for their product or spend hours on the messageboards answering questions. You need to treasure those folks, but you need to respect all stakeholders, regardless of their activity level. To do otherwise jeopardizes what you are trying to accomplish.
Another telling point to me is many of the people in the audience were from NGOs and were starting to realize the way they should measure needs to change. (I felt like I was at an IPR meeting). How many people tweeted about your cause is just a measure of activity. It's like the old days of PR measurement when hits were the only thing that mattered.
Even how much money you raise (while still vitally important) is just a measure of activity. The true way to impact change is to have NGOs and charitable organizations report on the tangible results. What did the money do?
In the end, the session was thought provoking and a great start to SxSW. It reminds us as communicators and interested parties that if we keep doing the same thing and just use new channels, we will have same challenges in new channels. We need to think differently and make sure we are solving causes, not just serving them.
Some obvious, and some not so obvious trends that we’ll likely see in Orlando
In less than two weeks, CTIA Wireless 2011 (@CTIAshow; #CTIAW11) will bring together 40,000 members of the North American wireless community, from carriers to device manufacturers to app providers to the technical widget makers that make wireless work.
As a PR industry executive that has followed, pitched, attended, applauded and even cursed CTIA Wireless for the past eight years, I feel partially qualified to make a predictions blog post (from a marketing/news-driven point of view). What better way to write a predictions blog than with a couple top three lists?
Let’s begin with the obvious predictions…
1) Tablet Obsession—Sorry smartphones, but tablets will take the device lead at CTIA. Manufactures like Samsung, RIM and Apple will all be pushing new tablets and their “first, best only” features, wicked fast operating systems and vertical applications, from healthcare to utilities to the boardroom.
2) 4G/LTE—We can’t talk about tablets and smartphones without mentioning the network. 4G and LTE certainly aren’t new topics, but the reality of these high-speed networks finally rolling out is sure to drive a number of discussions from the keynotes to show floor chatter. Look for data package debates to fall under this category. Side note: I frankly can’t hear “4G!” and not think about the Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber Super Bowl commercial.
3) Apps—Like a Chinese menu, there are apps for everyone and nearly every conceivable problem. Tablet applications are becoming more popular and Android and Microsoft apps are available in iPhone like numbers. In fact, MSFT recently announced that it’s adding 100 new mobile phone applications a day. My personal favorite app remains Shazam. I’ll be on the lookout for its replacement at CTIA Wireless 2011.
I conducted a little research before listing my not so obvious predictions. The following word cloud is the result of a Radian6 social media search on “CTIA Wireless” over the past 14 days. While nothing jaw-dropping presented itself, I think we can pull out a few conclusions.
Here’s the not so obvious list…
1) CTIA Goes Global—While the prominence of “international” in the word cloud is likely the direct result of the conference name, what caught my attention was “world” in the lower left portion of the cloud. While Mobile World Congress is still the king of international wireless shows, CTIA is gaining ground.
2) Innovation Driven by Smaller Players—Sure the carriers (see keynote) and the major device manufacturers will garner most of the media fanfare at CTIA, but if you look a little deeper, it is the emerging growth startups and app developers that drive the true innovation. Just check out this year’s Emerging Technology Award nominees…not many household names on the list. We are proud that Schwartz client WellDoc is on the list.
3) Marriage of Wireless and Retail—I’m not talking about retail stores for purchasing new devices, but more along the lines of retail communities adopting wireless as a marketing and selling tool. Expect a significant amount of news around retail-focused apps designed to help companies reach/influence more consumers on a regular basis to sell more stuff.
Marketing and PR people across the country are already attaching their company to larger trends with storylines and product news (both real and manufactured) to get on the crowded radar screens of the hundreds of media and bloggers attending CTIA Wireless 2011. It is a proven technique for getting smaller companies heard above the CTIA noise. So what trend are you riding to CTIA glory?
This could also have been titled "When Surveys Go Bad."
Surveys are one of the most popular research tools in a public relations executive's quiver. Too often though surveys are abused, twisted and the methodology is tortured until it screams in pursuit of a compelling headline. Too many surveys don't use random sampling, or extrapolate from too small a sample size.
One of the most coveted placements for research for coverage is the USA Today "Snapshots" section. The editors there have high standards and typically require solid methodology, and an interesting angle.
Which is why I am scratching my head over today's (January 18, 2011) snapshot in USA Today's LIFE section.
Take a minute, click here and then on the LIFT tab and see if you can figure out what is wrong with the survey...
What struck me is the question: "Which utility or communication service is most important" (emphasis mine).
When you look at the results, they total 332%. Not 100%. You can't have more than one MOST important thing. That's the very definition of "most important." There should have been a forced ranking, or consumers should have been only able to choose one option.
Now don't get me wrong, I could have a lot of fun and see some interesting insight from the data. More than 1 in 3 Americans (More than 70 million over 18) would chose the Internet over water, heat or electricity (would they really)?
Cells phones are valued as much as the Internet.
The only way I can make this infographic make sense is if the question was "Do you agree with the following statement: X is the most important utility.") Where people could answer yes to more than one question.
I loved Rob Pegoraro's answer about "the Cloud" in his recent Washington Post column. His response to a jargon weary reader was terrific - "cloud computing is nothing more than a fancy phrase for having an Internet site host your data and the programs you use instead of keeping them on your computer." Later, he said "the Cloud" is often used as just a meaningless buzzword. He's right!
The number one demand from tech executives to their PR team is "get us business press." Unfortunately, business reporters are often reluctant to speak with tech executives because of their tendency to unleash a torrent of geek-speak. In most cases, the reporter, rightfully, has neither the time nor patience to sift through this verbal rubble looking for a story.
I have conducted media coaching sessions with hundreds of executives over the years - and to a person, they recognize that cliches, acronyms and jargon are a turn-off. Nonetheless, the vast majority can't break the addiction to using meaningless buzzwords as soon as the interview begins.
Executives must be able to explain, in easy to understand terms, how others benefit from using their product or service. Verizon's latest campaign is a useful example. While touting their 4G LTE technology they don't waste a second describing what it is (thank goodness). Rather, they explain the benefits - e.g. the ability to download a song in four seconds or watch live TV in mobile HD on a laptop.
If you want great business coverage in 2011, then learn to tell compelling - jargon free - business stories. Sounds simple, I know - but very few executives prepare and practice properly for interviews. Those that do make the effort often get the best results.
The new 2010 U.S. census data that is starting to be released today will have a profound impact on our economy. From shifting the balance of political power, to insights into changing American demographics, much of the data will take quite some time to digest.
Yet there are some practical concerns that public relations professionals should start incorporating starting today. Most importantly, the base numbers PR pros use when extrapolating from large, random-sample telephone surveys needs to change.
For the past 10 years of so, the more conservative approach has been to use the following data:
Number of Americans (total): 281,421,908 - It's actually the resident population as citizenship is not factored in to the number.
Number of Americans (over 18): 209.1 million
Number of households : 105.5 million
While we have to wait for many of the new numbers to come out, the main number is:
Number of Americans: (total): 308,745,538
Hopefully in February 2011 we will have updated information on how many Americans are over 18 and how many households there are.
While the Schwartz Communications Research Group typically uses the over 18 number for extrapolation, the overall number is important to note. If a survey found 5% of Americans engaged in an activity, this has shifted from 14 million to 15.4 million.
Note: Public relations professionals need to be careful when extrapolating data to be sure that it truly was a random sample, the sample size was large enough and they are following proper survey methodology.
The other element to stand out for me was the budget for the U.S. Census. It was more than $7 billion. (Although they should be applauded for coming in more than $1.8 billion under budget). Now who else would love a research budget like that?
What other information is striking you based on the Census report?
CNN released the results of an "inaugural global research study into the power of news and recommendation." They conducted it by surveying 2,300 people around the world between June and August of this year to help advertisers understand the value of news stories that are shared via social media.
A CNN executive, Didier Mormesse, said in a statement that "the commerciality of the social media space is fast becoming apparent and this study means that for the first time, we are able to substantiate the value of shared news from an advertising perspective."
The results indicate, CNN says, that people who receive news from those they know through social networks are "19% more likely to recommend the brand that advertised around that story to others and 27% more likely to favor that brand themselves."
I bear in mind that CNN was looking at ads that accompany stories, not brands or companies mentioned in the stories themselves. As a PR person, I'd care more about the latter. But the study was still informative because it gives some insight into the most popular shared content (not to mention that it shows how CNN's been able to quantify the value of social media to their business). "Ongoing stories" about international or national news make up 65% of shared material, breaking news is 19% and 16% is stuff people are sharing to kill time or to provide a distraction. "Visually spectacular" stories are most likely to be shared via social media, as are pieces on science or technology.
CNN also notes that "the 80/20 rule applies to the findings. 27% of all sharers account for 87% of all news stories shared."
Adapting these survey results for PR, I think that if I can offer a compelling video or interesting photo to a journalist, it may make the resulting story more likely to be shared. In fact, you could back up a step and make what I think is the reasonable assumption that if you have images or video to offer, you may up your chances of being included in a story in the first place.
Another thing I think PR people can learn from CNN's survey results is that once the story appears, I'd want to make sure to get it to the 20% of people who push out 80% of news that travels via social media. Naturally I'd already need to know who in my industry is a prolific sharer or news and have worked to get them following me. If I can find the news just as soon as it appears and share it with them while it's still fresh and not hours old, I'd think it would up the appeal of my news to the 20%.
The Boston Globe is taking a different tack. On September 30, the Globe announced that they'll create a paid version of the site next year and make much of their content available only to subscribers. The paid approach has worked for WSJ.com, certainly. I'll be curious to see how things pan out for the Globe, although I suspect they won't if they don't offer some pretty differentiated content. (Paul Gillin takes a deeper look at what's up with the Globe with "Milking the Circulation Cow.")
I'd think the Globe will still make that content attractive to people who want to pass it around by allowing shared links to work for a short time.
To my eye, CNN's approach of showing the people who really pay the bills--advertisers--the value of sharing content via social networks, putting some specificity behind the kinds of stories that get shared and the resulting impressions that readers have of those advertisers seems more promising than sequestering content on a paid site.
That's just me, though. Which approach do you think is likely to succeed? Or are both strategies to making money smart given the companies' individual situations?
The middle of this week, I zoomed off to attend the Digital PR Next Practices Summit put on by PR News. New York is an easy trip, so maybe I shouldn't have packed my "tell me something I don't already know" attitude, but that's how I approach all conferences. If I have to so much as budge from my desk, it needs to be worth it.
PR News didn't disappoint. As I sat and waited in vain for a wireless signal adequate to let me use my computer (let's not talk about why one would hold a tech conference in a building that has an anemic wireless network ... or maybe it's my computer), I scanned the attendee list. About 275 communicators from a range of big companies, including many huge consumer, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and tech brands. Plus universities, non-profits, government agencies and even religious organizations.
I had to resort to tweeting from my BlackBerry, but at that point didn't care because I was excited to be around so many other PR people. They were friendly and you can imagine just how loud a room of nearly 300 professional communicators can get.
The conference turned out to be excellent and well worth the time and money. I won't recap every session, but here are a few of my top observations.
The first panel, "Creating the Digital PR Dream Team," dug into the topic of getting the people and resources together to engage in and measure social media. The three panelists, who were from GM, the Archer Group and Kaiser Permanente, shared very specific info about who's on their social media teams and how they interact with corporate comm's, marcom, legal and so on. They talked about what they collaborate with agencies to achieve and what they prefer to handle internally.
The director of social media and digital communications from GM, Mary Henige, said they create one or two videos a week to share. This reminded me of a fantastic InsideView infographic on social media stats that I'd seen the night before. It says that Fortune 100 companies create an average of 10 videos each month to share online. I don't always think big companies lead the way in PR, but clearly they've got the budgets required to clean up in video.
Lee Mikles, CEO of the Archer Group, urged attendees to "say no to the Twitern," or cheap labor brought on to handle a company's social media interactions.
This resonated with me because I personally can't stand it when companies assume that social is free. I know they want it to be free in the same way that I'd like someone to trim my hair for free. Because darn if it's not expensive and it seems like it should be cheap. But I don't want someone who doesn't listen to me and know what they're doing to take on the job and the same holds true for companies and digital media. Just because someone "grew up online" and uses Foursquare to let the world know every time they enter a Starbucks does not mean they understand your business, your industry or your customers' preferences and problems.
Holly Potter, VP of PR for Kaiser Permanente, answered a question about hiring social media specialists by saying that she didn't find much value in "siloed expertise." Those who claim to be social media gurus almost invariably are not.
I agree that we're all learning and learning quickly and think good sense dictates that one not pretend to be thoroughly knowledgeable about something that's changing as quickly as social media. For a few years now, I've been a very interested observer as individuals or small agencies have pushed a focus on social and claimed that companies can ignore branded media. It's human to have a strong interest in the new thing, but it's shortsighted and shows a basic lack of understanding, however, when companies opt to focus on social alone.
I think the fascination with the new is giving way now and has shifted over the past year to a more balanced perspective. For some companies, it reflects a newfound understanding that digital isn't free and that social and branded media are so thoroughly intertwined that they can't be pulled apart and managed in isolation.
After panels on new social media tools and measuring ROI, I had to take a break to charge my BlackBerry. So I skipped the talk on how VW successfully launched a mobile gaming application. I kind of regret it in that I want to know as much as possible about this stuff, but I think I was also voting with my feet. I'm informed but not always impressed by successful PR campaigns that were accompanied by big budgets.
A thoughtful keynote at lunch by Sarah Evans of Sevans Strategy preceded a panel on identifying and engaging "the right" influencers. Then, on to the discussion that contained the most new info I absorbed all day--digital tactics and crisis communications.
Dallas Lawrence, managing director at Burson-Marsteller, made numerous good points, but one that really rose to the top of the pile was that it's too late for companies to get into social media when a crisis arises. (He said that crises can be brought about online by groups attacking your company or brand, by individuals who just don't like you or by external events.)
I suppose this is a bit like one of the basics of reputation management--if you work over time to develop a good reputation, you're better able to recover from crises. You may draw down your reservoir of good will, but at least you had something to draw upon and you're likely going to recover faster if people had a perception of you and it was positive. Perhaps they see the bad thing that happened as an aberration.
Mr. Lawrence noted that you can't adequately respond online if you aren't already part of online communities. Those communities may not be linked (e.g., people "following" you on Facebook aren't necessarily with you on Twitter), so it's not as if you can communicate through just one channel when things go wrong. You can't, for example, expect that if your company gets dragged through the mud in a video, you're going to be able to address the problem by communicating via a press release or corporate blog. You need to already be using the channels that your audiences choose to use in order to get through to them.
In all, I'm glad I stood up from my desk and attended the conference. What social media events have you found most informative lately?
MarketingProfs has a nice summary of a Booz & Co. B2B Marketing Survey. I thought the numbers were useful, so here they are.
The survey includes feedback from 132 marketing executives across several industries. Not a huge number of respondents, but okay, so let's see what they say.
Looking at expected marketing budget allocations over the next two or three years, 67% of respondents expect to spend more on social media. Digital comes in second at 64% and PR at 61%.
I'm not sure how marketers separate those three things in their minds--social media, PR and digital are very much intertwined these days. For example, I don't think most companies view social media as totally distinct from PR anymore. But you get the idea--these are three areas of anticipated growth.
TV and radio will continue to take a hit, it seems, with 74% of marketers cutting budgets. It makes sense if you consider that social and digital can be more carefully targeted toward desired audiences and that PR is increasingly measurable and more of a precision instrument than it was even just a few years ago.
Looking at the question of digital marketing, Booz finds that 87% of those surveyed want to build deeper insights into their client bases. (I'm not exactly sure what the other 13% would like to do--presumably distancing themselves from their clients isn't part of the overall game plan.) Developing custom content is important to 82% of those surveyed and to fully 90% of those classified as "marketing leaders."
It seems that content has quietly but quickly asserted itself as core to the marketing mix. Companies have obviously figured out that they have to be self-sufficient when it comes to telling their stories--they can't really count on anyone else doing it for them and it's necessary fuel for many a social media program.
We all like to think of ourselves as "marketing leaders," right? So how do these numbers compare to what you've got planned?
The image above is copyrighted by Kev Griffin and covered by a Creative Commons Licence.
Recently in the "You're the Boss" blog on NYTimes.com, Jennifer Walzer, CEO of entrepreneurial tech company Backup My Info!, documented her change of heart when it comes to hiring outside public relations help.
To me, a PR person, this post was fascinating and I give Ms. Walzer a lot of credit for sharing her thought process on a topic that many people make a show of dismissing outright. ("You don't need PR! Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Those people invariably work for companies that I've absolutely never heard of, but that's okay, right? I'm sure they're big in their own worlds.)
Ms. Walzer writes: "You may remember one of my posts from last year in which I talked about not needing a public relations firm because we were getting plenty of media coverage organically. Well, as I looked back on that coverage recently, I realized that it was more focused on me as a business owner than on the company and the team. And right now, I'm so busy building the company, training new employees, and managing my pregnancy that I haven't had time to seek speaking and interview opportunities."
This situation, in which an entrepreneur has had some PR success but needs to devote more time to running the business and to life in general, is a common one for many Schwartz clients. Or maybe something's happened--a competitor is starting to become more visible in the marketplace, the firm is about to achieve a substantial milestone and is ready to talk to a broader audience or industry analysts are telling the company that they're referring it to their own clients, who respond that they've "never heard of them"--and it becomes clear that they need to step it up on the PR front.
Social networking has obviously greased the skids for many smaller companies because it can allow them to attain a decent level of visibility by working through friends, and friends of friends. I've had CEOs tell me that they know it's time to hire a professional because they've tapped out their personal networks.
Have you seen the movie "Finding Nemo"? If so, you'll remember the last scene, in which a group of tropical fish have greatly exerted themselves to get out of their aquarium and make it to the ocean. Each has rolled its way across a busy street protected by a water-filled plastic bag and plopped into the ocean. Nice escape! Yet they're still in their bags, bobbing around. "Now what?" one asks.
The company that's worked hard to handle PR on its own, doing what it can when it can, seeing what's possible and being tantalized by it, but really not knowing what to do next, is a good candidate for hiring an external PR firm.
Ms. Walzer came to the decision that now's the time, but was worried about "shelling out money without any guarantee of performance." If I were her, I'd wonder about results, too--any executive would. In her case, she chose to evaluate the number of speaking engagements or media interviews her agency secured over a relatively short period of time. Some of the people who commented on the Times' blog entry noted that a PR person with a decent amount of experience in the client's industry can simply call in favors or work through established contacts to nail those numbers.
Of course they can. The real value of that project is helping the client get a feel for whether they work well with the PR team. Many companies can achieve a certain set of initial results from any number of firms, but stick around because they feel confident in their team over time--they become "sold" on the people and their ability to answer the "now what?" question, not just schedule a few interviews.
Once the PR team is past that "getting to know you" period and has established some confidence in their skills in generating an initial volley of whatever flavor of results the company is looking for, the question becomes "how extensive is your repertoire?" Just as the entrepreneur worked through her network and then hit a wall, will the PR team stop producing once past those first few months?
PR success over the long term rides on a number of factors and the effort that the PR team puts forth on your company's behalf to hit those initial metrics is only one of them. Here are just a few that come to mind for me:
1. PR team's ability to tell a great story--Running a solid PR program requires that you understand where your company fits against the much broader backdrop of your industry, as well as knowing what stories journalists want to tell. The New York Times did not give a small company an opportunity to talk about data backup; they gave a CEO the chance to explain how she changed her mind about an important business decision. Understanding that those are two totally different stories, but that both lead Times readers to http://www.backupmyinfo.com, is the PR person's job.
2. Willingness of your customers to validate your company's claims--The VP of marketing for a tech company is not, unfortunately, a highly credible media source. But his customers are, so the challenge is to get those customers to tell your company's story for you.
3. Nature of your technology--The tech industry goes through phases, as we're all well aware, and when a technology is hot, the PR team is going to have more tools at its disposal. Without a doubt, it's their job to help mundane technologies seem interesting, but that's a tall order when you're selling something like OEM components. PR success for that OEM is simply going to look different than PR success for other firms. Setting expectations properly is critical.
4. Client's ability to deliver--Even companies with a hot technology and enthusiastic customers can flub PR if they don't respond to their PR team in a timely manner. Any delay--whether it's getting a journalist information they've asked for, delivering products on time, producing a knowledgeable spokesperson for commentary or rising above internal politics and making a decision--causes the program to lose momentum. Many companies fail to appreciate how integral their active participation is to PR success.
5. PR agency's understanding of industry changes--PR, like every profession, evolves. I'd say that we're in the midst of what might, at some point in the future, appear to be a lurch forward brought about by changes in the media world and by the use of social technologies. If you remember your geology or evolutionary biology classes, you know about punctuated equilibrium--the theory that change happens slowly, but then the rate speeds up for a period of time. It's pretty clear that PR is changing quickly right now and your agency's ability to keep up with or lead it can play a part in your success.
What items have you found to be important over the long term when handling PR internally or working with an agency?
My post last week that highlighted the most overused words in a press releases was very well received. Since so many of you liked it, I decided to take it a step further and turn the top 25 buzzwords into Buzzword Bingo cards. I didn’t want to slight anyone, so I created one card based on Sherk’s recent post, and the other card based on David Meerman Scott’s post from last year.
Here they are for your viewing and reading pleasure. May you never complete a bingo!
Feel free to download, share and use as you want. Give copies to all the PR people with whom you work. Remember, only by acting together can we stop buzzword abuse.
For those that don’t know what Buzzword Bingo is, Wikipedia has a pretty good description.
To paraphrase Tom Foremski, “Buzzwords. Die! Die! Die!”
I remember a time when everything was a robust, scalable, enterprise-wide, mission-critical, client/server, WYSIWYG, CORBA development solution with OLE.
Well, maybe not quite that bad, but there are definitely words that have been overused when it comes to press releases. In some cases, these words have been so overused, their meaning is completely devalued to the point the eye skips over them.
Recently one my clients sent me a link to a great post from Adam Sherk on The Most Overused Buzzwords and Marketing Speak in Press Releases. He did some great analysis of words overused in press releases for the past year. His post also reminded me of a David Meerman Scottpost on the topic from last year.
The lists are useful, but different people learn in different ways.
I decided to take Sherk’s list and turn it into a word cloud of the most overused words in PR. I weighted everything based on the actual frequency of appearance. To me the word cloud really drives home how some words are so overused they lose their meaning completely, even more than a list of the words.
So without further ado, the word cloud of the most overused words in press releases.
I applauded the effort, but didn't blog about it at the time, because it just seemed like common sense and the way Schwartz has been conducting public relations on behalf of our clients for years. As the Schwartz Communications Research Group continues to grow, though, I did want take a minute to chime in.
Some of the principles have always been the essential foundation of what we do as an agency and as responsible practitioners.
Set goals
Measure results not activity
Quantify business impact when you can
Social media should be measured
AVEs (ad value equivalencies) don't measure PR
I was a bit surprised by the ordering of some of the other Principles as I have found more clients focus on message delivery/inclusion and would put that above tone. Typically, I would want to segment by message and then tone rather than the reverse.
These principles are essential for showing the true impact of public relations. Many practitioners talk about wanting a seat at the table. At Schwartz I have found we get our seat at the table by providing strategic counsel; showing the business impact of PR; understanding business drivers and challenges; and presenting creative ideas that support the business objectives.
I was recently speaking with a young man heading off to college to study engineering. I reminded him there are two key things every engineer needs to remember:
1) F=ma 2) You can’t push on a rope
I wish PR had a formula as easy as F=ma for calculating impact. But then I realized engineers don’t either.
For them impact is calculated: P=(Fimpact2L/2AE)=(m2σ2gh/LAE)=(m2gh/LAρ)=mgh
or
Just like there is no one measurement formula for impact, there is no one solution for PR measurement. What measurement is right for your company depends on your business objectives. Align measurement at the start of every engagement and measure results and you are off to a good start.
Over the weekend, I finished reading Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead. It was an engrossing, powerful read. For those not familiar with Gallipoli, it was a major campaign in World War I involving the British, French, and ANZAC invading a Turkish peninsula. It is a defining moment in Turkish history. In total more than 130,000 people died and there were more than 500,000 casualties. It was also a campaign fraught with missed opportunities.
As I was reading it, I could not help but draw comparisons to some common public relations mistakes that are still being made today. While I know there are perils of adopting military campaigns to business, there are a few lessons that I thought would be good to share.
Don’t be blinded by the new way of doing things—New technology is great, but it rarely completely replaces proven systems. In the case of Gallipoli, some British Generals took the new lessons learned in France and made them the only way to do things, without adapting them to the local setting. They refused to advance without strong artillery (which they didn’t have) even though there were no trenches and few opposing forces. As a result, they gave the Turkish Army time to dig trenches and bring in more forces.
The same can be applied to communications. Social media is empowering. It is an essential component of great communications in the modern communications era. Without it, companies are missing great opportunities and their campaigns won’t be as powerful. But traditional media, influencers, mavens, messaging and listening still apply. Don’t be blinded and only pay attention to the shiny object, or you will miss opportunities. Make sure your communications campaign is designed for your specific needs, and not a cookie-cutter “Social Media Scenario #1.”
If you wait for every “i” to be dotted, you will lose – Careful planning and strategy is essential to any communications campaign (particularly consumer PR), but planning at the expense of decisive action is a recipe for failure. The same applies to communications. Careful research and strategy is essential. But there is always one more question that can be asked. There is the temptation to wait for the perfect opportunity (brand name customer reference, analyst data, etc.,) but those situations are few and far between. You need to find ways to communicate effectively without having everything you need.
Don’t be dissuaded by setbacks and changes– The British were dissuaded a number of times when they could have had decisive victory by a minor setback or something not going exactly to plan. We do not operate in a static world, and plans will change. As communications professionals, we need to adapt to those changes and continue forward. Don’t overreact to minor announcements from competitors or allow them to change your overall strategy. Focus on your goal and keep driving to it. You win by moving forward, not by retreating or moving laterally. The same applies to communications and public relations campaigns.
Trust your people – There were times in the invasion when the senior managers were well removed from the front and couldn’t react to a changing and fluid situation. Even more telling, the junior officers were trained not to move without command from superiors. As a result, there were numerous examples of when the British opened an unopposed new front, but did not advance, because the staff on the ground waited for orders. The opportunities were lost.
The same holds true in communications. Managers need to avoid becoming logjams. Trust your staff and encourage them to seize any opportunity they see. If you train them well, you will avoid the careless mistakes. But if every small decision must be centrally approved, you will miss many great opportunities.
Earlier this week, the Publicity Club of New England recognized the best public relations and social media campaigns and tactics of the past year. The Bell Ringer judges were senior practitioners from Chicago and Boston.
Schwartz is proud that we have continued the tradition of being recognized with more Bell Ringer Awards for work we have done with our clients than any other PR Agency in New England.
Most gratifying to us this year is that we won 10 Gold Bells for our clients, and that Schwartz was recognized for having the two best campaigns of the year, winning both Gold and Silver Bells, for its work in the business-to-business, healthcare and high-tech public relations categories.
When asked by many, how do we continue to win so many awards, we believe it is based on two key elements:
1) As a strategic communications firm, we understand that we don’t succeed by ourselves. Schwartz works closely with our clients to make sure our communications, content and public relations activities help them realize their business objectives. It is this close relationship, senior level involvement and comprehensive approach - including social media, content marketing and inbound marketing services - that help our programs succeed.
2) We don’t expect our clients (or Bell Ringer judges) to measure our work based on the “thud factor”, or in social media Thud 2.0. Our work, and our award entries, are judged on how we helped public relations close the loop with sales, patient recruitment or other business objectives.
For the 2010 Bell Ringer Awards, this ranged from driving qualified leads from trade articles to creating enough demand to crash one client’s servers. It included driving hundreds of patient inquiries to cutting consumer misperceptions in half. It is based on helping drive hundreds of thousands in product sales to opening new channels with key prospects.
We are proud of the work of our employees and our clients. If you have any questions about how we can help your company, let us know.
Today is a big day in the for consumer technology professionals…Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Apple WWDC. It is mostly showing off upcoming technology and putting the stake in the ground for competitors to try to beat. While there were a few hiccups with his demos, the content more than made up for it.
This was one of his best keynotes in years.
I will leave the roundup to the news sites, but there are a few things that were said today that I thought might be interesting quick takes for our clients and consumer technology and mobile developers:
Apple claims that third-party developers have now generated $1 billion in revenue for themselves through the Apps store, even with Apple’s cut. There have been 5 billion total downloads.
Apple shared a Nielsen report that states the iPhone now has 28% market share for mobile devices. RIM is still in the lead with 35%, Windows 19%, Android 9%. I expect the number of software applications developed for the device to continue to explode.
There are more than 15,000 Apps submitted each week. Companies need to keep this in mind. If you build it, they may not come, for they won’t be able to find you. A successful iPhone app launch can be supported by a strong public relations, social media and inbound marketing campaign. By combining these three elements, consumer tech companies can help their apps stand out from the crowd.
Apple has added a gyroscope, which will make the iPhone and even better gaming platform and open up new opportunities for developers
Apple is introducing the iAd platform, which enables developers to embed banner ads and open a new revenue stream. I need more details to see how well received this will be. It is telling that Jobs states it is to help developers keep costs down, but then he only lists the largest brands as signing on to start and no mention of developer controls. He claims there will be $60m in iAds, which will make it a sizeable percentage of the mobile ad market.
It appears the new iPhone will be a significant upgrade and I am excited. Apple’s new Retina Display really caught my eye (no pun intended). At Schwartz we have worked with quote a few online photo and photo-based social networking companies and the crispness that is possible with Retina Display is outstanding. I can see companies in markets ranging from radiology to photo editing really digging in to this potential.
Strong month for the Schwartz team with a SABRE Award in "Research for Publicity" for its work with Javelin Strategy & Research.
The Schwartz team and Javelin combined professional and social media to promote Javelin's annual identity fraud report, increasing media coverage 126 over previous years, and a whopping 97 percent of all articles emphasizing at least two key messages.
In addition to Javelin, some terrific clients were honored with nominations: medical device company Bioness, antivirus and desktop security software provider ESET and boutique healthcare investment services provider Leerink Swann. Although they didn't take home trophies, it's the first time Schwartz has emerged with four finalists in the SABRES and the work remains outstanding.
There's a great case study on Schwartz's work with Bioness, including a campaign that delivered $4M in sales leads. Check it out!
The classic 80s movie “When Harry Met Sally” follows two people through the years, originally stuck together for a Chicago-to-New York drive, then by chance bumping into each other and finally into love and a long relationship.
This is not unlike what we've seen happen with marketing and sales. Anyone with tenure in the business world knows that these two organizations need to be brilliantly in love and joined at the hip, moving together or else stumbling separately.
There was a time where a great “story” got ink and everyone was happy. Pump up the volume. But now, every good business is looking to connect the sales impact of initiatives, in marketing, public relations, everywhere. Many chief marketing officers are now experts in inbound lead generation, in addition to the traditional staple of brand, awareness and visibility. And the real magic is where they intersect, with one driving the other.
Today’s announcement of Schwartz's partnership with HubSpot is another great example of the transformational work we’ve been doing for years: tying storytelling to sales at all turns, and even rejecting stories that may seem to have cool headlines, but don’t move a needle on any measurable front.
Some of the most interesting work Schwartz is doing for its clients today is what we’ve dubbed “closed loop communications” --- being able to execute a strategy that loops directly into inbound marketing efforts. We’re creating content of interest, optimizing and pushing it out with professional and social media relations, search marketing and other services. That in turn is driving awareness, measured in web traffic and leads. Then we're reporting back on exactly what’s working, who’s looking and what’s prompting action in a client’s communities.
At Schwartz, we’ve nailed an outstanding strategy and process for doing this through many different types of approaches, tactics and tools, including inbound web marketing (leveraging HubSpot), digital video content (including some brilliant video marketing solutions from Visible Gains) and other strands. Whether you're in healthcare, technology, cleantech or consumer, we understand your business and the right mix of levers to pull, buttons to push, and people to influence to deliver tremendous impact.
The best meal on the menu is closed loop public relations. Order it.
Late last week I attended a panel discussion in San Francisco entitled, “Can Fairness and Accuracy Survive in a Page-View World.” Participants included Ina Fried from CNET, Eric Knorr from InfoWorld, Owen Thomas, the new executive editor at VentureBeat, and David Patton, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who is now with Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. The panel was moderated by media analyst and former journalist Sam Whitmore.
From left to right: Whitmore, Knorr, Thomas, Fried, Patton
The panel generated an animated discussion about the changing face of the media industry. The panelists paid particular attention to the enormous pressures that journalists and their editors face to quickly post the news of the day, regardless of source verification or fact checking in order to drive page views that can be monetized. Over the course of the event, the panel discussion covered four main areas:
• Page views—It was no surprise to attendees that publishers are measuring page views, especially for online only sites. But as Thomas commented, you need to know your audience and have a clear vision of the audience you want to create. To illustrate the point, Thomas said that since joining VentureBeat as executive editor a month ago, he hasn’t checked the page views yet as he first focuses on refining his vision. See this mediabistro post for his thoughts on this topic.
• Audience creation—Today writers stand on their own, as audiences are no longer built-in like they were with print publications. Most traffic to stories is driven by stand-alone links, not the publication’s homepage. Some publications have a formal policy requiring journalists to tweet, as is the case with InfoWorld. Others like Fried aren’t required to use Twitter but do it automatically; creating an audience is what reporters do.
• Rise of bots—Bots make SEO critical. Knorr said “If you don’t optimize for SEO, you die.” Thomas said “Computers are making humans easier to use,” underscoring the idea that bots can control the exposure to certain thoughts humans put out there. Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera was in the audience and shared tips on how to be at the top of Techmeme:
-Identify the holes in what’s out there. If an article fills a void, it will generate an audience.
-Consider posting more thoughtful, analysis pieces on the weekend to avoid the competition with breaking news. By saving it for a slower time, it may reach more people.
-Titles must be clear to readers so they can scan online headlines and identify what is worth reading to them.
•Competition with newsmakers—The newsmakers today can publish direct and circumvent the news media altogether. Steve Jobs’ recent statement that outlines why the company would no longer offer Flash support is an example of this new competition. As Thomas mentioned, Jobs’ Thoughts on Adobe quickly rose to the top of Techmeme and eclipsed “the news” of the day.
It’s a brave new world. Journalists—like technology executives and technology PR professionals—are learning how to use today’s tools to their advantage in telling important stories, developing their brand and creating audiences. They are sharing best practices at work and helping each other to figure out how to succeed in a dynamic environment. That said, it was clear from the discussion and audience Q&A that followed, the underlying foundation of good journalism remains unchanged. To paraphrase Fried: “a good journalist has to bring something new to the table.”
This is the same advice we give to clients every day who want to raise their exposure in the media: what insight on a particular topic do you have to share that is new, thought provoking and not just a rehash of what’s out there? For journalist and clients alike, there’s always a place for quality content and fresh perspectives.
Google rarely issues press releases; the company that defines the current tech economy to many releases news on its blog. Earlier this month, Google distributed a very short statement directing people to its website to see its most recent earnings news.
The statement by Google is significant. Press releases are a main method public companies use to inform audiences about material events, as companies must simultaneously disclose material news. Press release distribution services, such as Business Wire and PR Newswire, exist to satisfy these requirements. In the case of Google, they decided to merely post their earnings release on a blog and use the distribution service to note that the content is there for all to see.
I am not a lawyer, and decisions about simultaneous disclosure and the material nature of news are to be made by lawyers, but there has been some discussion as to whether blog posts satisfy simultaneous disclosure. The SEC decided a couple years ago that they do satisfy disclosure, but the guidance issued at the time left a lot of gray areas, and many companies, based on my observation, are still relying on press release distribution as a primary means of disclosure. Even Google straddled the line; while their earnings release was online, they used a standard distribution service to tell everyone it was there.
Interpretations of the SEC rules are vital to the future of the press release, one would argue. If lawyers think blog posts satisfy disclosure, it would eliminate one of the primary reasons for press release distribution.
For a long time, PR companies have talked about the end of the press release. The ubiquity of the Internet as a distribution platform puts the spotlight on the good old-fashioned press release, which has had a place in PR since the industry's beginnings. Almost all technology PR and healthcare PR pros will agree the press release is "old school," yet press releases are still requested by every professional journalist we talk to.
While press releases are still a fundamental PR tactic, their role in what we do is changing. Not to mention the fact that press releases themselves are changing.
My industry brethren over at Shift Communications came up with the infamous "social media press release," which they originally defined as a press release that is formatted so as to be easily digestible by the media. More recently, the definition of a social media press released has morphed and forked, with some saying it's a release that can be easily shared or interacted with. Others describe it as a release that incorporates multimedia.
Now, obviously, press releases are read by a far larger number of audiences than just the press. (Even though they are still called press releases.) Anybody with a web browser can read a release on a company's website. Schwartz's teams talk all the time about writing the press releases differently so as to appeal to the strategic audiences of a given piece of news.
Since press releases are published on the web, they are vital for search engine optimization. News distribution services, such as Business Wire or PR Newswire, assist SEO by placing press release content all over the web. Creating a well-written, optimized release and then distributing it with these services can affect your SEO rankings.
The ongoing discussions about the demise of the press release are driven by the ubiquity of the Internet and the fact that a blog post to a company website can reach anyone. Which brings us back to Google, their propensity to issue news via blog posts, and the increasing number of examples of other entities that are following suit.
Take the White House. White House officials post often to the White House's own blog. The New York Times regularly references White House blog postings in its coverage. White House officials often refer reporters to the blog for additional commentary or more information.
We have been actively incorporating blog content into our clients' programs---and we even manage and write blog content for a number of them. Our client ESET has a very active and well-read blog (content by ESET employees) and a very popular podcast series that is produced by the Schwartz team. Across our clients, we tell reporters, analysts and other influencers to read our clients blogs on an ongoing basis. We often brainstorm material that can augment announcements. The supplemental material makes for good blog content; and we use other promotion channels to refer audiences to it.
Are press releases dead or dying? People like to say so, because press releases have been around for ever. In reality, a press release is just one of the many types of content that are a part of a PR program; likewise, standard press release distribution is just one of the many channels a PR program can use to reach a target audience.
A well-run, organized technology PR or healthcare PR program recognizes the value of press releases, blog content and other content, as well as the various channels that reach target audiences. Such a firm is not overly reliant on press releases, nor overly dismissive of them, but rather understands how PR today involves a variety of methods to connect strategic messaging with strategic audiences.
When talking about social media, the truism is that people need to try it for themselves to truly understand it. That much learning comes from trial and error.
Over the weekend, I was reading Dreadnought, by Robert K. Massie. The book focuses on naval developments and politics of the later Victorian Age, leading up to World War I. One of the passages in the book struck a strange (and unexpected) chord with me.
Robert Cecil, Third Marquess of Salisbury (and three times Prime Minister of Great Britain) was one of the key political figures of the time.
He was a quintessential early adopter – having some of the first telephone lines and electric lights in all of England. Yet his approach to child rearing is what struck me.
Lord Salisbury believed in letting his children explore on their own to develop a passion for learning. Most notably he left one of his sons alone for a few days, and (as he wrote) “Having tried all the weapons in the gun-cupboard in succession – some in the riding room and some, he tells me, in his own room – and having failed to blow his fingers off, he has been driven to reading Sydney Smith’s Essays and studying Hogarth’s pictures.”
It’s an amusing, and slightly scary, anecdote to read. Now, to me any gun going off is a warning sign, let alone firearms being discharged in my house. Yet unfortunately, it too well describes the way many companies approach social media. Powerful guns (social media tools) are available to every corporate communications department. They think to truly engage in it you need to let people play with the guns first, and if nothing too bad happens, they can get down to the serious business of learning and fix things for the second attempt.
Schwartz is a strong advocate of everyone being engaged. But instead of seeing if people blow their fingers off, Schwartz is a proponent of rigorous training and guided engagement. Social media needs to be integrated at all levels of a company. Not something less experienced people play with and see what happens, hoping not to blow anything up too much. Experienced, senior level people need to be guiding the discussion and plans. That is how you will get the best results. If your agency or your company does not have senior level resources dedicated to social media engagement, training and strategy, you need to take a step back before any fingers get blown off.
I am not saying anything revolutionary here, but I was just stuck that the same philosophies that were used more than 100 years ago, are unfortunately all too prevalent today when it comes to social media.
Last Friday The New York Times ran an illuminating feature on women in the technology world. "Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley" describes a tech and VC community that's perhaps not been overly welcoming to women. An excerpt:
"Tech communities in Silicon Valley and in other hubs -- like New York, Austin, Tex., and Boston ... -- pride themselves on operating as raw meritocracies ready to embrace anyone with a good idea, regardless of education, age or station in life.
"For women, though, that narrative often unfolds differently."
I'll pause right there and note that I almost didn't read this article because I figured I already knew what it would say. It's not that I think the issue must be avoided or that there is, in fact, no issue at all. It's just that I already know that men are well represented in the tech world and I don't need the Times to confirm it for me. I've long felt that I'm here to do a particular job and if I'm doing it for companies comprised mostly of men, marketing to people who are mostly men, so be it.
For example, I've never been one to attend women's networking events or to seek out interaction with people just because they're women. There's always a group of junior coworkers who I'm paying extra attention to at any given time and trying to help in some way, but I know I've not tried to "mentor" more women than men. Call me naive, but I'd rather not get too caught up in whether the person I'm working with is male or female--there's a finite number of hours in the day and I'd prefer to put my focus on the collaboration at hand.
So I don't think I'm particularly obtuse, but I just didn't feel like reading the Times article on women in high tech. I relented only because I felt I should read it simply to be informed, the same way I should be informed about the Google security breach or IBM's earnings. Here's what struck me:
- 35 percent of database administrators ARE women.
- 22 percent of network administrators ARE women.
- 20 percent of programmers and software engineers ARE women.
Those numbers are dismal, you're thinking. And in the grand scheme of things, they are. But to me they were eye-opening because I've had companies that market products to these people--to DBAs, to network or system administrators, to developers--tell me, literally, that these people are essentially all men. (Of course I know they're not all men. But I'd have believed that the numbers would've been similar to the figure below for women in hardware engineering, for example, at about eight percent.)
Acknowledging that a small but still significant percentage of potential customers are women--discontinuing the practice of assuming the prospects are just about all men--seems like a smart move for marketers of business technology.
So what does this mean in practical terms? My most basic observation is that as they move money from traditional advertising toward more personal interactions via social media and social networks, tech marketers have got to be in a better position to reach potential customers, partners and employees who are women. (Advertising from IT companies, when it exists, features images of guys in suits jumping over stuff, guys in suits shaking hands or stoic-looking guys keeping watch over servers, or it makes something of an attempt to be gender-neutral by showing the product or an abstract image.)
When it comes to PR, I think about tactics like arranging for clients speak to local groups of Java developers, for example, or Oracle database administrators. Those meetings have been successful vehicles for clients to make connections with potential customers. But knowing that people who have children are less likely to attend networking events in the evening than people who don't, and understanding that most women with children who work outside the home don't have stay-at-home husbands, one might assume that evening networking events may not draw as many women as, say, mid-day events.
I wonder whether this shift away from one-to-many toward one-to-one allows tech marketers to start targeting a small but still meaningful percentage of their potential customers in a more thoughtful, and successful, manner.
Today in advance of its Chirp Conference, stories appeared about how Twitter was going to start offering promoted tweets in 2010. People are commenting - What does this mean? Has Twitter flown the coop? Will fan backlash cause it to soon be singing in the Choir Invisible?
I for one am glad to see at least one way in which Twitter is monetizing its service. Despite what some companies have done, you can only go so far without positive cash flow. What does this mean to the average user?
Probably not that much.
A random, I mean highly targeted, Tweet will be inserted into a user's Twitter stream (not sure what that will do to my multiple TweetDeck stream). Initially they will only appear as a result of Twitter search. Ads/sponsored tweets will be removed if they don’t generate much engagement.
For those that follow a lot of people (like I do), that sponsored tweet may fly right by. For those that follow a few folks (which appears to be the majority of people not in marketing, PR or social media) it might be an unexpected interruption. But people will gloss over it quickly.
Reports have it that only one ad will appear at a time. This may make it difficult for the niche marketers. While I have a passion for personal financial management software, I also love soda and coffee, and expect Starbucks to trump any PFM vendor in terms of volume and response, relegating the PFM ads, I mean sponsored tweets, to much less frequent appearance.
What are some key takeaways for consumer technology, green and B2B marketers and PR professionals.
This is a new and intriguing way to leverage the Twitter channel to drive some short-term engagement and customer response.
Sponsored tweets are not a replacement for authentic, two-way conversations. They may help attract a new audience in a flock, but the audience will not necessarily be loyal, remain engaged or start to follow you. The only way to do that is through interaction and providing value beyond a deal of the day.
The sponsored tweets could be a good complement to existing initiatives and crisis communications campaigns. (I can foresee a day when Toyota uses a sponsored Tweet in the future to spread the word about its response to customer concerns).
This will benefit the brands that have an established Twitter presence. Do not think of this as a solution for building a long-term, loyal, base. You need to reach out to folks to do that, not expect them to reach out to you.
This week I met a young woman who writes a popular blog about dining out in the Boston area. A sophomore at Harvard College, she has built a following for her blog among young foodies, which has generated a second following: PR agencies that represent restaurants.
Like many popular, grassroots bloggers, it seems that she has become a journalist almost by accident. She asked me a simple but important question. “If a PR person invites me to an event for their client,” she said, “Do I have to write something? And if I don’t, will they retaliate somehow?”
“No,” I said, “You don’t have to write anything. You are a journalist. You write only what you care about, what you think is compelling. That’s what journalists do. There is no quid pro quo. You don’t owe PR people anything if you attend their event.”
Typically, I said, when journalists take the time for a briefing or an event, the chances are good they’ll go on to write an article or maybe just a mention on their blog. That’s just being a productive journalist who uses his or her time wisely. And if you never write about their clients, eventually the PR people will stop inviting you to their events.
For me, with more than 20 years of PR experience, this conversation crystallized the shift in reporting created by the social media revolution. Just 10 years ago, the print and broadcast media employed thousands of journalists who graduated from journalism programs fiercely embracing their journalistic integrity. Our jobs as PR people was to bring them stories that were so compelling, so newsworthy, that the reporter would take an interview with our client and write a story.
Now the ranks of journalists are thinning while an army of bloggers has sprung up in their place. Each blogger makes up his or her rules as they go along. If they are lucky enough to become popular, bloggers may start to wonder, as she did, what, if anything, they owe to those friendly PR people who keep offering them story ideas and inviting them to fun events. And another question is even more important: what do bloggers owe to readers who rely on their opinions?
The fact is that independence is the source of a writer’s authority, credibility and power. PR simply mirrors that credibility. Every good PR person prizes the stories about their clients that are written by good, skeptical, independent journalists, whether they write for a popular blog or for The Wall Street Journal. Winning their good opinion is an achievement we value highly, and so do our clients.
So if you are a young blogger, here’s some advice from a PR pro who has arranged interviews with some of the smartest business journalists of our times. Do you owe anything to the PR people who invite you to events or send you interesting pitches? Nope, you do not owe us a thing. Nada. Zip. And that’s just as it should be.
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this afternoon and, the New York Times reports, "... ProPublica became the first of the new breed of online, non-profit news organizations ..." to win one of the awards. One of ProPublica's reporters won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting for a story on what happened in a New Orleans hospital shortly after Hurricane Katrina. The piece ran in the New York Times Magazine and on ProPublica's website.
As communications people, Schwartzers have had a close look over the last several years at some dramatic changes in the world of "traditional" journalism. Even the most established media outlets have been under tremendous financial pressure due to the plunge in ad revenues. From the trades to the biggest of the big business and national outlets, it seems they've all been affected.
Blogs get most of the attention for supplanting traditional media. For some types of stories, blogs do a good or even great job. I've wondered for some time, though, about the type of story for which ProPublica was just recognized--investigative journalism. Specifically, I've worried that it'll no longer be funded by publishers who consider it too expensive. And if they don't do it, who will?
Taking a look at ProPublica, it's clear that it's not someone's hobby--it's run by some very experienced editors who come from "mainstream media" outlets. Still, their business model is different than those of the big publications and the organization has been in existence for just two years.
I'm heartened to see that a group of journalists who stepped out of the world of traditional media have had the same impact you'd expect from a big, prestigious publication, but in a small non-profit. Congratulations to them on their achievement.
Oh the pressure of the big show. CES. RSA. NAB. Interop. These are major venues for many tech vendors, including countless clients. The pressure to announce big news - even if the time isn't right - presents problems for many clients. Some struggle with the ethical and business dilemma of announcing products that are still evolving day-to-day with no foreseeable ship date or corresponding revenue.
It begs the question, is pre-launch the equivalent of vaporware, and how do you make the most of the opportunity a trade show provides?
Vaporware defined Wikipedia describes vaporware as “a product, usually software, that has been announced by a developer during or before its development, if there is significant doubt whether the product will actually be released.” The term dates back to the 1980s and there’s even a running list of known vaporware on Wikipedia.
One long-awaited product that evaded the vaporware watch list was CrunchPad, now called the JooJoo tablet, with recent reports in Engadget, PC Magazine and elsewhere that it is finally shipping—just as the iPad is also coming to market. Both JooJoo and iPad were pre-announced long before development was completed and the products were on the road to eager consumers.
Pre-launch without getting burned When clients ask about how to pre-launch visionary technologies at their most important event, the first question we ask is, What are your goals?
If generating reams of news articles is your top priority, you might want to reset expectations or reconsider. With fewer beat reporters going to trade shows, competition for media exposure is steep. Most hard news reporting from the show floor focuses on major industry developments and commentary from industry luminaries.
Don’t mislead a reporter about a new product and damage an important relationship in the process. It’s okay to discuss future technologies but call it what it is – Alpha or even pre-Alpha, a prototype or skunkworks project if it’s unclear whether it will ever come to market. By respecting reporters and not wasting their time if you don’t have anything concrete or truly time-sensitive to discuss at an event, you’ll win in the long run.
On the other hand, if the main goal is showcasing prototypes of next-gen products to engage customers and prospects, and further define your long-term technology roadmap as well as that of an evolving market category, a trade show could be the ideal venue. Industry events provide a captive audience of target customers and enable companies to get feedback from user communities and industry analysts. Customers drive innovation as much as vendors do. A request for major new features, a redesign or companion technology from a major customer can push vendors into rapid development, often without a clear sense of the final outcome and product delivery dates.
Key considerations
Identify goals—Determine what is most important - press coverage, customer engagement or general buzz at the booth – and if a major venue is the best option.
Be clear—When previewing next-gen technology, call it what it is, a prototype or a skunkworks project that is being tested for viability and for general customer and end- user feedback.
Contextualize it—Explain how it fits within the technology roadmap and existing product ecosystem, and the broader story your company is trying to communicate.
Make it tangible—Show a prototype or visual schematic to illustrate the merits of the product under development and what sets it apart; provide initial test results if available.
Don’t lie—Don’t promise to deliver product by a date that’s virtually impossible to meet.
Keep market updated—After the initial announcement, update relevant constituents about the status of the product.
While it might be harder than ever for small companies and start ups to secure news coverage at big events that feature billion dollar global enterprises, it’s not impossible.
One Schwartz client previewed a prototype of new mobile networking software at Macworld. The company exhibited at the show to network with developers who might want to use its SDK to embed the new software into their products. Our client had spent six months on R&D, had a working prototype, and field test results to share with customers and reporters. From all counts it was a success and the client was pleased with the experience, both as exhibitor and from the resulting news coverage.
Help PR succeed If you’ve decided to pre-launch at an event, below are top ways to help your communications team succeed:
Prepare early—Give PR enough time to get ready by educating them on the new development and the impact it will have on the market.
Pre-brief reporters—Share the news before the chaos of the event to increase the odds of getting your product announcement included in show daily reports.
Share data—Reporters like hard data; when possible, incorporate proprietary industry research, preliminary test results to make the product real.
Enlist customer support—Connect reporters with customers who can address the need for the new product. Customers can convert a background meeting into coverage.
With trade show season is in full swing, stress about the big event is palpable for many tech executives and their PR counterparts. But careful prep work and clarity on goals will ensure everyone gets the most out of the event.
I recently came across a new survey from the folks at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. They asked Americans how they get their news. Most get it from multiple channels - no surprise there. The channel results surprised me though.
The top three sources:
78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station.
73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or FoxNews.
61% say they get some kind of news online.
At Schwartz we are one of the many who understand the sea change of social media. But it is good to take a step back and remind ourselves that just because we may be living on blogs, Twitter and Foursquare; and just because we read about declining broadcast ratings; local and national television news still have great power to inform and educate. Communicators should not ignore these channels.
There's no standard definition of public relations--it generally includes things like internal communications, media relations, investor relations, community relations, crisis communications and a several other marketing subdisciplines. But one near constant in PR is the need to communicate through someone else--a reporter, an analyst, a blogger, an employee who you'd like to be an ambassador of sorts to other people.
Over the past few years, the media relations world has had to adjust the way it reaches audiences or constituents because the media itself is under such pressure. As advertising revenues have dropped, magazines, newspapers and broadcast outlets have laid off journalists and pushed assignments out to cheaper freelancers, offered more syndicated content than original material or folded altogether.
[Two great and very different resources that can help you keep abreast of these changes are Paul Gillin's Newspaper Death Watch blog ("Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism") and, on Twitter, themediaisdying.]
The media is, as people who are good at commiserating often say, "going through a tough time." As a result, companies can't rely on reporters covering them the way they could in the past, particularly if they're using old tactics to communicate.
So how are forward-looking companies dealing with this bump in the road? Largely by understanding that success in media relations today means ability to create smart, oftentimes visually appealing content that journalists can use. This tends not to be a press release about your latest product upgrade; rather, it's insight about trends, timely expert commentary, a willingness to be controversial, graphics and video, and articles or blog posts that require minimal editing.
Companies, even their marketers, often don't have a feel for what, of all the things they could say or do, is going to capture the most media attention. It's the PR person's responsibility to advise on topics like this.
It's also the PR person's job to help produce content. When companies know they're going to want a lot of it, though--a blog created and constantly updated, extensive white papers written and so on--many healthy mid-sized and large businesses have turned over the past few years to that pool of journalists who have been laid off or chosen to leave their publications for more stable environments.
In a podcast with Fresh Ground, Steve Wildstrom, who covered technology for BusinessWeek for years and is one of the most widely known tech correspondents, talks about how some reporters have become "journalists in residence" blogging for companies, not about products, but about topics of "intense interest" to those companies. He happens to be blogging for NVIDIA. Other examples abound--check out my colleague Tim Whitman's recent run-down of who's employing some very prominent security industry journalists, including Ryan Naraine, Dennis Fisher, Rob Lemos, Brian Fonseca and Joris Evers.
Mr. Wildstrom said that he thought his work might meet with some resistance from former colleagues, but that's not been the case.
I was also reminded of the primacy of good content when I checked out the DK Books video on "The Future of Publishing" that's been making the rounds through March. "Content is more important than packaging," they say. DK is talking about the book industry, but when I look at the changes in tech and business journalism, I think DK's assessment is equally apt.
I started my day at CTIA yesterday at the IDC breakfast where we heard from several analysts with updates on semiconductor trends for mobile devices, sustainable practices in the mobile industry, and user interface trends.
On the semiconductor front, 4G won't bring in significant revenues for chip vendors until 2013 according to IDG. The big six vendors who control the lion's share of the market are offering platform and vertically integrated solutions to capture BOM and create stickiiness. More market consolidation is expected.
With corporate responsibility becoming a big part of branding and PR, the mobile phone industry has started to embrace sustainable practices. The first step is reducing packaging, which has an environmental impact (reduced landfill, lower emissions) as well as driving down costs of shipping and packaging manufacuring. Mobile vendors are also looking at hazardous waste reduction and handset recycling. Stephen Drake ranked Nokia highest in his green comparison of mobile vendors, with Sony Erickson and Apple in the numbers 2 and 3 spots.
William Stofega looked at the various user interface approaches on mobile devices. He mentioned a few innovations worth checking out. Eye gaze technologies use gaze control for gaming. Synaptics in collaboration with TAT Design debuted a squeezable mobile device, the Fuse, late last year. Approaches that give the user a feeling of texture are on the horizon. He also predicted that patent wars over touch technology could decide which vendors win over the hearts and wallets of consumers.
I'm off to the show floor for the last day of CTIA 2010.
SxSW starts today, and there will be five days full of panels, discussions and debates of interest to technology and consumer technology companies, social media and public relations professionals. I checked in this morning, and found out SxSW is not really a morning crowd...
I will be live tweeting and blogging regularly from some of the most interesting panels and sessions. What struck me as I was perusing the program is the amount of attention being given to online banking and the future of finance. There are about a half dozen programs on the topic.
So check in at the Crossroads throughout the weekend for my updates and thoughts on this dynamic gathering.
Traditional and social media relations are connected and shouldn't be viewed as "either/or," Schwartz Communications President Bryan Scanlon says in a new video interview with PRWeek.
He describes how the agency, which serves established and entrepreneurial businesses in industries that include healthcare, technology, cleantech and professional services, performed over the past year and notes that our diversification across industries, lack of reliance of a handful of big clients for revenue, and ability to span social and traditional media at a time when many agencies push one over the other were sources of strength in 2009.
Bryan also answers questions about agency and client PR workloads in 2010 and notes that the recession has forced both ends of the PR team to focus on the highest value activities--those that help bring sales leads, drive website visits and close sales.
Most technology innovators are eager for positive, on-message media coverage to build their brands, drive sales leads or support other business goals. But unless you're already a tech industry behemoth, getting consistent, repeated media coverage across a variety of publications and channels takes some creativity, a fair amount of knowledge of what makes a good story and a ton of persistence.
When a technology company has before it an opportunity to work with a journalist, blogger or other influential individual, they're going to want to make that interaction as perfect as possible. Right?
You'd think so, but technology companies torpedo their chances of securing media coverage by doing, or by failing to do, some pretty elemental things. These mistakes have nothing to do with faulty communications strategy or going to the wrong journalist with the wrong story. They're more basic and they're pervasive in some companies' PR programs. Maybe the belief that the problems are small makes some people underappreciate their impact, but they kill coverage all the time.
The good news, then, is that they're fully within the tech company's control and doing this stuff right can make a huge difference in PR results. If the PR team detects these problems as they're occurring, they're remiss if they don't point them out, but ultimately only the tech company can fully correct these media relations errors.
1. Fail to provide a spokesperson. Your PR person has possibly just walked through walls to get a journalist to agree to talk with your company's expert. That reporter wants to hear from one of your smart people and if your industry is driven by breaking news, he needs to hear from that person minutes from now. In some cases, we may have the luxury of a couple of hours or days to provide an expert source. In either case, any small to mid-sized tech firm should be able to get an informed spokesperson on the phone quickly.
2. Neglect to prepare for the conversation. Your PR team will give you information about the blogger or journalist before your interview and tell you what she's been covering lately. You want to look at this information before, not during, the conversation. And there's no substitute for spending a little time reading the reporter's recent articles yourself. You'll feel more confident during the interview and be in a good position to give the journalist information that she'll find useful.
3. Miss scheduled briefings. Everyone's busy. Everyone also has a mobile device that allows them to contact their PR team before missing a briefing. Journalists are as stretched as anyone and we have to respect their time. Along those lines, we need to plan ahead to conduct the interview from an area with a decent cell connection and low background noise. Anything else will guarantee that the reporter will get off the phone with us at the earliest possible moment.
4. Respond on your own timetable. Media relations success is largely about being in the right place at the right time. A big part of that is understanding that reporters work on deadlines that are anything but leisurely; we have to conform to deadlines or forfeit coverage. It's hard for everyone involved, but if options are "I'm in the story" and "my competitor is in the story," priorities become a little clearer.
5. Decline to provide photos or graphics. Technology media are increasingly interested in telling stories that have a visual component. Your PR team should work with you to anticipate these needs, but when requests come for something we don't have on hand, know that providing it can mean the difference between coverage and exclusion from the story. Particularly when all that's required is a photo of the new executive, there's no reason for not being able to quickly provide one. Grab your camera and get it done.
6. Refuse to discuss pricing. Everyone who works in the B2B technology industry understands that there's no set price for anything and that stuff tends to be pretty expensive. And you didn't invent volume discounts--journalists understand the concept. So we need to have an answer to the elemental question, "how much does this cost?" Some journalists can't or won't cover our story without being able to say "pricing starts at ...."
7. Talk about confidential material and then ask the reporter not to use it. The #1 rule of media relations is "don't say anything you don't want to see in print." It's unfair to journalists to give them information that you later ask them not to use. They generally don't want to see you get into trouble, but you, in turn, should understand that it's a problem for them to not use material that they consider interesting. Don't put them or yourself into this painful position--if your PR team has asked you not to talk about how that big customer is using your product and about to toss the big vendor out on his ear, don't do it.
8. Decline to discuss competitors. Maybe we truly don't have any, but most tech companies do. We don't need to offer up information about competitors, but if asked, we do need a coherent answer. Your PR team will work with you to think through how to answer this question, but flat-out refusing to address it makes it hard for the reporter to cover you because he needs to be able to place your company, particularly if it's small, into some larger context. Really, we should view questions about competitors as opportunities to talk about who we're challenging.
9. Ask to review the article prior to publication. Some journalists will allow you to take a peek at quotes, but most will not. And protests about having been misquoted in the past aren't that convincing, so the key here is to work with your PR team before the interview to think critically about the messages you want to convey and then take care not to go off on a tangent. Normally if we prepare for conversations and stay focused, we will come out of interviews feeling comfortable, not worried about what we said and how it might have been interpreted.
10. Speak in PowerPoint. Reporters and bloggers don't want a canned presentation--they want information that's tailored for them. Your PR people should tell you that using a PPT for media briefings is generally discouraged. Nothing says "I've had this conversation with all your competitors" like reliance on canned information.
11. Be boring, ramble, speak in monotone or otherwise fail to sell. Your PR team will help you understand what the journalist wants to learn about, how much time she has and what messages you need to deliver. It's then on the spokesperson to seal the deal by offering informed and timely conversation. Spokespeople from most companies should adopt the mindset, because it's nearly always true, that they need the journalist more than the journalist needs them and that the interview is not going to be an intellectual give and take. The spokesperson's job is to inform or educate the journalist and to convince her that this subject is worth her time. Make it interesting or expect to hear from your PR team that the reporter will "keep the information on file."
12. Assume the relationship is personal. Journalists value connections to people at tech companies if and only if those connections yield useful information. Perhaps they included us in an article or two, and that's great, but the challenge is to keep coming back with fresh info. If we cease to provide that, we should expect to be left off the short list of companies to include in stories going forward.
Your PR team, whether they're inside your company or with an agency, should be working to keep you on the straight and narrow in all these areas. You can help your technology company eke out every last bit of media coverage if you understand that these little mistakes can have a significant impact on your coverage.
This week, I experienced the best and the worst that social media has to offer. One brand committed an epic FAIL, while another drove home some overlooked points and won respect (and likely customers).
First, let's look at a case study in what not to do. By now, most people have experienced Twitter auto responses when they start following someone. I tend to advise my clients to not use them. Twitter is about personal engagement. A canned response is anything but personal, or engaging.
Yet yesterday, I received an autoresponse that my colleague Tom Parnell stated "could be the textbook example of "what not to do." I agree. While I will not reveal the name of the offender, the message has to be shared.
"Hey there {firstname}, thanks for the follow! I really appreciate it! I can't wait to visit {location} and meet up with you."
There are so many things wrong with this, but beyond the failed script - why would anyone think a Twitter follow is an invitation to visit me in person? Make sure your response is authentic appropriate.
Remembering Old School
On a more positive note, Herb Connolly Acura of Framingham, Mass., is an example of a company that did something very right. Too often in the social media world people focus on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. They forget the Web 1.0 communities that brought people together and still do - listservs and message boards.
Chris Connolly, the president of Herb Connolly Acura of Framingham is not someone who overlooks these communications channels. Framingham has three very active listservs. Framingham is one of the largest towns in the U.S. (66,000 people) and there are more than 1,200 subscribers to the listserv (about 2% of the residents subscribe - a small but engaged group).
Yesterday, a subscriber posted a complaint about the prices at the Connolly dealership and said that people could get the same service for lesser prices at independent mechanics around town. People in Framingham listen to recommendations on this listserv and the wiki, so this type of complaint could have a negative effect.
Chris Connolly's responded directly to the customer complaint. It was prompt, professional, addressed concerns and also highlighted the benefits of the service. (Following is the text used with Chris's permission - I just removed some names.)
"I've seen the messages posted about our prices and our services earlier. I will say that we are always very conscientious about our pricing for our work performed. We constantly check the market against other dealerships and independent facilities. I don't think it's fair to compare the price of services performed when the worked performed is not the same. I know that [X] does not have an alignment rack at their shop. Whenever we perform a 30,000 mile service we also perform a four wheel alignment. That is $99.95, so our prices were actually very comparable, within $20, according to [consumer] when that is taken into account.
"As for the tire we always suggest factory recommended tires. We offer the same brand and the very same speed rating as the vehicle has on it when it's purchased new. Again we're very competitive when we price our tires and all of our tires come with road hazard protection, so if you damage it hitting a pot hole or something else in or next to the road, you can bring it back to us and we'll replace it for free. Of course we can always offer anyone a cheaper option, something that isn't factory recommended, as many of the tires stores do today.
"We always wash, wax and vacuum every vehicle that comes in for any service, including an oil change, for free. We check for any service bulletin that might have been sent out about your vehicle, offer free loaner cars or a shuttle ride to home or work. We also have free Wi-Fi in our waiting areas at anyone of our dealerships. If you find your vehicle is ever returned dirty or the work is incomplete or you feel like you didn't get your money's worth for any of our work, then I want to know about it. Please reach out to me at [cconnolly at herbconnolly dot com] and let me know. We want to take care of your car and make sure that you are happy and we've exceeded your expectations every time you visit."
To me that is a textbook response and one that needs to be applauded. It was on message, addressed the major concerns and was customized.
(Note: I am not a Herb Connolly customer and have never been there. This is not an endorsement of the service or the dealer.)
Companies and communications professionals need to remember - even a customer complaint is a chance to win more customers. And the old channels can't be forgotten.
Rumor has it they are going to be making some big announcement on Wendesday...Like many other tech executives and PR folks, I will be watching the news conference to find out that latest surprise from Steve Jobs.
It looks like some of the data leaked out inadvertantly due to a CNBC interview with a McGraw-Hill executive, as reported here by Erica Ogg of news.com
The buzz has really started to rise. I just did a quick audit of Twitter volume for Apple using trendistic,
As you can see, the volume of the discussion is on a hypergrowth trajectory. Currently more than half a percent of all tweets are about Apple. With more than 27 million tweets a day, that translates into more than 162,000 tweets today. It will be interesting to see what it looks like tomorrow. I feel confident in projecting four of the key hashtags will be #apple #tablet #jobs and #(insert new product name)
Update (1/27 2:45 p.m) I just ran the chart again, and Apple is dominating with 6% of overall Twitter share of voice. That translates into a run-rate of 1.6 million tweets today. Impressive. More interesing will be the tonality analysis.
This shows the power of social media, when combined with some traditional PR approaches.
Tom Foremski, one of the more thoughtful observers of interactions between PR people and journalists, has a couple of fascinating recent posts on "the killer pitch." In the first, he says that because some reporters' compensation is based on page views, the killer pitch would be the PR person's claim that they can drive traffic to the journalist's website. He goes on to say that PR people don't really know how to do this.
"Well, that's not entirely correct," I thought--PR people understand that clicks matter and we aren't completely unable to influence them now and then. Certainly, we've had people comment, and sound pretty happy, I might add, when they've enjoyed a boost in traffic after a company links to a favorable article. So as I read the first post, I thought, "okay, I may personally not have enormous ability to pump up a story that makes my client look good, but I know how to advise the client on promoting it, which can have the same result."
Then, in a follow-on post, Mr. Foremski puts a finer point on the question and wonders whether agencies can "reliably drive traffic to specific stories." This idea is more focused and far more interesting.
If journalists are evaluated based on page views and, at the same time, PR people create a repeatable approach to promoting the stories their clients like, and do so in a way that affects the reporter/blogger's bottom line, the media's role as a critical observer of an issue or industry can't help but be negatively impacted. (You really want to read the original posts and comments.)
It's a big topic to consider. When I initially read this, I thought that the question of "the killer pitch" was a timely twist on questionable but sadly common tactics like trying to buy positive editoral coverage by advertising or sponsoring publications' conferences, currying favor by giving select reporters exclusives on news items that you know more than just one would find appealing and--the PR equivalent of holding your breath until you turn blue in the face--not communicating with reporters who don't see eye to eye with your client.
However, the issue that Mr. Foremski describes is new. The question is what happens when the reporter covers his or her industry carefully and thoroughly, with an eye to clicks but not primarily motivated by them, but companies become adept at elevating the prominence of coverage they find most flattering. Obviously, companies will effectively hide from search engines coverage that's negtive or even just balanced.
It seems to me that it would take more than a few submissions to Digg and some tweets to do the trick, but when I check out one client's Twitter following of a couple thousand and then consider that some of those people are active re-tweeters of links to our news coverage, I wonder whether the scenario that Mr. Foremski is talking about might really come to pass. In particular, I can envision it in segments of the tech industry that have relatively few reporters left.
Really, it's the flip side of what some companies already do when they try to bury a particularly bad article by stepping up the pace of their own news releases for a few months, thus loading down search engines with fresher content.
At any rate, Mr. Foremski's posts are the most interesting I've read so far this week.
Let me start out by saying there's no question that social media has a place in technology PR and any company should look to their tech PR agency for social media expertise. We advise all of our clients about social media. Depending on the audience they are trying to reach and the message they would like to promote, we incorporate appropriate social media tactics into our efforts.
A side project I have been working on is to determine how social media PR can stand on its own---What results can one expect from purely social media tactics?
One premise I can investigate fairly easily---but that is not immediately apparent in conversations I have with colleagues---is that social media is driven in a major way by coverage that is written by professional journalists. Consider the launch of Microsoft Windows 7. Not sure what day Microsoft actually made the announcement? One way to find out is to evaluate social media coverage of Microsoft over the past month.
I created the chart below using Radian6, a social media monitoring tool that Schwartz is now using quite regularly. The red line charts, on an ongoing basis, social media coverage of "Microsoft" and "7." Can you guess, based on this chart, when Microsoft issued the press release announcing Windows 7, and saw the corresponding wave of coverage about the new O/S?
The blue line represents social media coverage that included a link, meaning the coverage was inspired by something else that was written. I am making a big assumption that most of those links refer to media coverage. Don't worry, my research is just starting, and I plan to investigate this more thoroughly.
A few things strike me about this graph. The social media coverage that refers to something (presumably coverage by professional journalists) tracks nearly identical to the overall social media coverage for Microsoft. This would suggest a direct link between coverage by journalists and social media placements. Also, you will notice that there was no uptick in social media activity after the Windows 7 launch. Social media coverage continued to track to coverage by journalists. And, in fact, you will see that social media activity has recently significantly tailed off.
If social media is an animal to itself, why didn't social media coverage continue to rise after the news came out? Where's the viral effect?
Again, there's no question social media is important to tech PR. There are campaigns Schwartz has led where social media proved highly effective in creating visibility while contacting journalists proved futile. It depends on what a company is trying to promote and the audience they are trying to reach. At the same time, the process of contacting reporters and getting them to cover news is a fundamental element to any social media program.
This week at the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo, analysts offered some hope to high tech marketers whose budgets have been trimmed during the recession. According to Gartner, the IT market hit bottom in 2009 and will start to slowly climb out of the trough in 2010 with a 3.3% increase in IT spending. However, IT spending won't rebound quickly. Peter Sondergaard, Gartner's global head of research, predicts that the market will not recover to 2008 levels until 2012. Technologies at the top of IT's agenda include cloud services, business intelligence, virtualization and social media.
This is good news for tech marketers caught in the budget squeeze mandated by investors and corporate boards when the recession accelerated. The challenge for marketers now is to position their companies to charge out of the recession in a stronger, more competitive position.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but the bottom of the market is the right time to rev up your PR and digital marketing. Why? Because your competitors are also constrained by tight marketing budgets. The company that bets on growth and invests in marketing now will get more attention while the competition is quiet.
Right now PR and digital marketing are all about smart, creative approaches. Here are a few tips:
- Tap into relevant communities rather than investing in building your own. Use tools like Technorati and Radian6 to track social media conversations and figure out where you need to participate.
- Think like a reporter, not a sales person, when you create content for your blog. Attract prospects with useful information that draws inbound links and traffic. Use lots of photos and video, even for technical products.
- Expand your social media circles through blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Turn employees into ambassadors for your company by guiding them to reinforce the corporate brand. Microsoft's advice to thousands of employees who blog about the company: Be smart.
- Recognize the value of "conventional" media. According to the First Amendment Center, traditional media is still the primary news source for 72% of Americans. Traditional media coverage gets widely circulated on social media like Twitter, blogs, even email. It has a huge impact and credibility.
For some interesting examples of investing in marketing during a recession, check out this article by Andrew Razeghi at the Kellogg School of Management: http://tinyurl.com/6562pf.
On Thursday, October 8, Mark W. McClennan, APR, a vice president here at Schwartz, will be speaking at the PRSA Northeast District Conference in Rochester, New York. The session looks at "What Social Media Lessons Can You Learn From Fruitcake, Caves, Coupons, Viruses, Death and Pregnancy?"
One of the interesting divides that is occurring in the social media world is between those that can discuss the theory, and those that have actually researched, developed and executed campaigns. This presentation will showcase some of the campaigns that Schwartz has helped develop and successfully execute for our technology and healthcare clients.
It's not too late to register to attend Mark's session (and 19 other great sessions) by going to www.prsarochester.org. If you are interested in learning more, contact us.
The Twittersphere, talk radio and the Web is abuzz with a recent comment from President Obama about Kanye West. During an "off the record" part of a CNBC interview, a reporter asked President Obama what he thought about Kanye. Obama called him a jackass.
Now based on a poll on TMZ.com, about 98% of the American public agrees with him. (And I do as well), but it also means that for a few seconds, President Obama forgot rule #1 of media training.
Or to paraphrase Jack Palance in City Slickers "The secret of media training is one thing."
Nothing is off the record.
Ever.
Rule #2 is a variation on the theme - Don't say or write anything you do not want to see in print.
PR professionals remind our clients about this regularly. And yes, there are times you need to make judgments and share confidential information when speaking to analysts and reporters who agree not to use something or get deep background.
But as I remind my clients, even then, even if you have an NDA, there is still a chance it can and will get out. So be careful what you say.
My favorite example of violating rule #1 occurred about 10 years ago.
A senior executive at one of my clients was being interviewed by a major national magazine for a standalone profile. The interview went great, the key messages were clearly communicated, things were looking great. The reporter closed his notebook, put it in his pocket and as they were walking out the door the reporter asked the client "You know, it seems like you really have fun here and enjoy your work."
A nice, innocuous question.
My client, thinking the 90-minute interview was over (despite our earlier prep) told the reporter. "Yes. It's so much fun here it's like I am smoking pot all day."
Now I fully admit, I did not say "Don't make illegal drug references" as part of media training, but after this was said, all I could see was a pull quote in 36 point type. Luckily, we managed to kill it, but that one, post "formal interview" comment could have had a very negative impact on the entire story.
As for rule #2 - I remember one executive who was a thought leader on financial services and technology. He was regularly quoted in the top trades and national media. During one interview he was commenting negatively on another executive and how he managed to take a top company and ruin it. The comment made great copy and was prominently displayed. But what the executive didn't know was that another division of his company was working on a deal with the company he just insulted. Needless to say, things went poorly.
Which brings me to media training rule #3 - Always think before you speak. Every executive needs to remember and follow those three rules.
The mobile industry is in a conundrum. Companies from Apple to Blackberry to Nokia to Qualcomm are all pushing to make the mobile phone the ubiquitous computing device, wherever ever you are, whatever you are doing. With the growth of data-capable phones doubling since 2005 and now representing 88% of phones on the market in the US according to CTIA, they are succeeding. We are addicted to Crackberries and forbidden fruit.
But is it healthy? Recent Federal studies have demonstrated that driving while texting is bad for you and anyone near your car. It is even worse than drinking and driving; at least you are trying to concentrate when you are drunk. Excessive texting is even changing the political makeup of State legislatures. New York billionaire and wanna be Governor Tom Golisano threw a fit when New York State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith spent a meeting with Golisano playing with his Blackberry. Golisano consequently convinced several Democratic representatives to switch to the Republican Party. And GigaOM just published a story that warns of the harms to relationships and overall health from being too connected.
Given this growing backlash, how can mobile companies market their products and services without perpetuating the problems of the 24 X 7 man? Do iPods and Blackberries now have to come with labels like cigarettes that warn that too much usage could cause harm? Should phone companies invest in medical and psychological research to convince the public that they understand that further evidence is needed to understand the issues? Are we far from a book called “Thanks for texting?”
In an ultracompetitive industry of huge gizmo launches and Tweets that chronicle the minutia of daily life, the marketing pros in the mobile industry have to figure out how to promote the value and cool factor of their devices. They can’t be seen as driving destructive behavior that is no longer funny or annoying but can kill. Otherwise the cute songs in the iPod ads could go the way of Joe Camel.
Last night it was announced that the Philadelphia Eagles have signed Michael Vick. Every brand in the NFL is a consumer brand, and for the most part they try to give off a family friendly image. In one fell swoop the Eagles went from this:
To this:
For sports fans, this means the Eagles may have a better team this year. Operationally it may make sense for the organization. But it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long term. I will be most interested to see how the Eagles handle this PR challenge and the role the Eagles PR team played both internally and externally. It is the role of the PR counselor to stand up and point out when business decisions may have a deleterious effect on a company's brand.
I would be surprised if the Eagles PR staff did not do so.
In my opinion, the Eagles brand has been tarnished. The goodwill the team has built up over the years (and the great community and PR work done by Donovan McNabb and his mother) has taken a short term hit.
What lessons can PR professionals take from the Eagles/Vick signing?
1) When presented with a choice like this in your company, remember you are the voice of the brand and the public with whom the company interacts. You need to make sure executives look at the potential negatives of any business decision.
2) Practice, practice, practice - Make sure everyone is on board with the same message. Judging by today's media coverage, the Eagles appear to have done a phenomenal job with Andy Reid, Donovan, Tony Dungee and Vick. It you are going to do something that may negatively impact your brand, do it quickly and have a uniform message. Make sure you keep the lines of dialogue open to those that may have concerns.
3) Monitor and respond - The Eagles (not surprisingly) seem to be doing a great job responding to inquiries on all fronts. If a consumer brand is doing something its core customers may not like, it should not limit itself to just the "friendly" channels.
Be sure to monitor and engage social media and provide people the information they need. The Eagles Website has videos from the press conference and stories. The blog has some good content. I would have counseled them to take it a step further and have a fact sheet and easy access to official quotes (and audio) so any blogger/reporter can use them. I did a quick search and couldn't find an official Eagles presence on Twitter, and this is currently one of the top Twitter topics. This is something they should consider for the future. Not because it is the hot social media channel, but because their fans are there and actively engaged.
As many Americans know right now, the government Cash for Clunkers program is kicking off. Auto dealers and manufacturers are making a big push behind it - and here in Mass. the push is even greater with the sales tax increasing by 25% shortly.
What stuck me interesting is PR Week's take on the situation. Its Breakfast Briefing newsletter was all about "Automakers are kicking off an advertising blitz to coincide with the federal government's "cash-for-clunkers" program...Among the participants, Toyota began running national and regional ads late last week for the program, which goes until November 1. GM and Chrysler ran full-page print ads as part of the effort."
That's great and advertising is part of the communications mix, but I would be interested in learning more about the full PR effort - not just the advertising push. There are 1,900 videos on the topic on YouTube alone. How are manufacturers looking to stand out from the pack? (Note: Kelly Blue Books video here caught my eye) - but I am not sure the manufacturers want their message communicated in that way. Twitter is also abuzz.
It's an interesting program and many stakeholders are keen to educate consumers and communicate their own key messages. This is a topic all communications professionals should watch over the coming week. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
For me, while I have a "clunker" as defined by the government. I plan to keep it for now. The one message that never seems to get out is that when you trade it in and get a new car - you also get car payments...
Just in. Schwartz's EnteroMedics team has won a Bronze In-Awe Award from the Healthcare Communications & Marketing Association. (It used to be known as the Medical Marketing Association.)
The award recognizes Schwartz's outstanding work supporting EnteroMedics' clinical trial recruitment and its EMPOWER study of an experimental device for obesity. The seven-month campaign helped drive enrollment in 13 different U.S. sites.
At the heart of our efforts were feature stories in high-impact national and local media driving awareness of the clinical study and encourage potential study participants to call into the call center or go to the website to determine if they would be eligible for the study.
Total audience for print and broadcast outlets? 65 million from 140 stories in print, broadcast and Web across multiple U.S. markets from San Francisco and San Diego to Minneapolis and Cleveland. From the San Francisco Chronicle to the CBS Early Show and Good Morning America.
I recently received a news brief from Jane's Defense in my email inbox. The headline intrigued me: "USJFCOM explores network-free warfighting."
I read some more and the tease - “US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) has conducted a comprehensive wargame that, among other things, evaluated the military's ability to fight without networks” - reminded me of something important:
As communications professionals, we are living in an ever increasingly-networked world. Laptops, e-mail, IM, Twitter, IP phones and the Web have replaced the typewriter, letters, faxes, delivery services and press conferences. But what happens if we experience disruption? Blackouts, solar flares, or other events can shut us down for hours or weeks. But most likely the world outside continues moving.
While our challenges would never be as severe as those faced by the U.S. military, we can take lessons from the foresight the military is showing. Many of my financial services clients and I have these discussion as part of our crisis planning during any engagement.
I remember doing a lot of this a decade ago as the Y2K crisis approached. I was one of many communications professions for which New Year’s Eve 2000 was a day of work, not a night of celebration.
Following are three tips to keep in mind.
1) Plan for the worst – You do not need to be a manufacturer, an airline or a healthcare company to have a crisis. Part of your communications planning process should be spent thinking about what are the challenges you may face, and how will you respond to them? You won’t get them all, but if you identify the five most likely issues, you won’t be scrambling to make up responses on the fly.
2) Rehearse – The USJFCOM didn’t just think about these issues. They practiced them. Companies should have crisis drills where they practice their response. This year’s Best of Silver Anvil Award winner, Northern Illinois University, received the Anvil for the work they did during a crisis. They credit the skills of their response to the drills they ran.
3) Make sure “everyone gets the word.” Crisis planning should not be limited to just the communications and public relations department. Give guidelines to everyone and make sure people know where the plans are in case you are unavailable. It’s the little things. How are you going to get the message out, monitor the discussion, change the Web site and keep the company informed?
Last weekend I spent a few days with 140 colleagues and competitors at the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference. From there I went to the Silver Anvil Awards. It was a great time and I learned a number of new things. Most of the topics would bore our loyal readers, but there were a few items that I thought might be of interest.
You can listen to my thoughts on why now is the time to ramp up the PR and marketing investment; how measurement drives results; and learn about a free research and analysis tool by clicking here.
Schwartz and our clients received 26 awards recognizing media, special event and social media efforts in Healthcare, Consumer, Social Media and High Tech PR programs.
Pardon me as I brag for a moment. This work spanned 19 clients across our practice groups. It's like a good rock concert with multiple acts---you're a bit stunned and hard of hearing the next day.
The Bell rang a lot for Schwartz, and it's a tremendous testament to the quality of our clients, and most importantly, the outstanding staff we have and results they deliver.
Hooray!
(P.S. This is on the heels of two 2009 Bulldog Awards for outstanding media relations on behalf of our clients Epocrates and Bill Me Later.)
Today, many Americans were anxiously awaiting the California Supreme Court's Decision on Prop 8. With offices in California and Massachusetts this is something I have been following.
As the buildup was happening to the 10:00 a.m. PT ruling on Proposition 8, I was wondering which communications channel people would turn to for the news. Would it be Google News? CNN? Drudge? Twitter? So I asked on Twitter...One person commented that the most effective channel is the one that is open - and that is an important lesson for communicators to remember.
Yes, you want broad reach when disseminating your message. But if you have timely news, you want to reach the channel in which your customers and prospects are engaged. It doesn't matter if one channel reaches two million and the other three million, if the one reaching 300,000 has 250,000 engaged and interested parties - that may be the best.
For the record, I found the news out first on Drudge, then Twitter and then CNN. The site refreshed more quickly than my Twitter stream. But I could gauge reaction to the ruling much more quickly on Twitter than any of the other channels. Which brings up another key point to remember - the best channel for communicating the message is not necessarily the channel that will energize your base. Once the message is out there, it will take on a life of its own. Communicators need to be aware of these nuances and incorporate them into their plans.
Not sure if I am supposed to give props to a competing agency on this space, but the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) invented by Shift Communications a few years back was a novel idea.
Today, the SMPR means different things to different people:
-- Originally, an SMPR meant content organized online so that it is easily digested by the media. Features are presented in bullets; it's easy to click from content to supporting quotes; and graphics and other content are easy to find to support a story.
-- Some services today describe an SMPR as a press release that is formatted and presented so it is easy to share. A newer example is Pitch Engine, where one finds readily available tools for sharing a release on Facebook, posting a release on Twitter, or using other social media platforms.
-- Certain news distribution services, such as PR Newswire or Business Wire, describe a SMPR as a release that is augmented by multimedia content, including videos or pictures, and a release that includes hyperlinks within the body of the release.
-- Some describe an SMPR as any combination of the above.
The reality is that press releases serve a far greater audience than just the press. Anyone who visits the web can end up reading a press release. Furthermore, since press releases are syndicated by distribution services and are often modified slightly and presented on news web sites, they can have significant SEO value.
The topic of the SMPR was front and center this week, mainly because of a webcast produced by Hubspot that noted how old fashioned press releases, without fancy graphics and presented as just plain text-- are more likely to be syndicated than any form of a SMPR. In addition, Hubspot postulated that the old fashioned releases were better for SEO, since links were more likely carried in the syndicated releases.
The report prompted some debate since Hubspot tried to find away to measure an instrument used in PR-- a marketing function that itself is very hard to measure.
Internally here at Schwartz, we have been debating SMPRs, press release distribution services and the role of a press release for some time. Here are a few points related to the conventional wisdom internally and the discussions this week:
-- Adding visuals or videos to a press release makes the press release more attractive to media and any other audience that views it,
-- For companies especially interested in SEO or web traffic, it's a better course to host visuals, video, graphics, etc. on the company's website, and then link back to the website from the press release,
-- Making the release easier to share is important, and the best press rooms today are those that incorporate tools for sharing content right in the press room,
There is no clear-cut guidance on this issue, and we're experimenting with a number of press release distribution options and press release formats here at Schwartz. If you are interested, keep reading this blog or drop me a line (rossl@schwartz-pr.com).
Newsweek just completed a live interview of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on its Facebook page. In the PR world, we spend a lot of time thinking about the convergence of social and traditional media. This interview marks one of the boldest moves to date by traditional media to bridge these worlds.
This interview also exemplifies the continuing march of consumer technology into the news making process. We’ve all heard about the Twitter reports that were the first wave of “news” from the Mumbai bombings and “Miracle on the Hudson” flight. The iReports from CNN have given virtual media credentials to thousands of citizen journalists and their video phones. Companies post their own news in via YouTube videos and iTunes downloads.
What’s interesting to watch is the way these technologies have moved from the periphery to the epicenter of the news process. It began when new technologies started giving voice to viewers, listeners and readers. Soon a wave of simple consumer friendly applications began turning people into self publishers able to share the news and events that matter to them. Reporters and publications have increasingly adopted such tools to spread the reach of their coverage and to nurture contacts and find ideas for future stories. Newsweek is taking that next step in this process, co-opting a third-party consumer channel for its own news reporting.
Media companies are in innovation mode, trying to come up with new content and attract new audiences while managing costs and headcount. If Newsweek, with its readership of over 2.7 million, can find new readers to engage with via Facebook, then the floodgates will open and consumer technology will move one degree deeper into the inner sanctum of news making.
Over at Journalistics, Jeremy Porter considers a timely and under-appreciated topic: "The Impact of Dying Newspapers on Older Readers." He notes, "While many media companies work to preserve their future with digital strategies aimed at younger audiences, they are simultaneously alienating themselves from their older (and often most loyal) readers." It's worth a look.
A parallel trend that we're seeing is a decline in local TV affiliates' ability to cover healthcare news. ("Local programs" that medical or healthcare PR agencies run are designed to reach target audiences, including patients, through their town's newspapers, radio programs or TV news.) Many affiliates don't have the budget anymore to cover medical news more than a few times a month. One Boston TV station isn't sending camera crews out anymore to gather healthcare stories. A sad statement if you consider how important medical research is to Boston's economy, not to mention the individuals who live here.
I'm sure that some older people are comfortable getting their news online and that more will follow. I do hope, though, that it's not all WebMD and stories created for national audiences. Hopefully it'll still be available in most towns written by local journalists who know the community and medical centers and have the professionalism (guess I haven't seen any hyperlocal sites covering healthcare news) required to work with patients and their families.
So it looks like the Boston Globe lives – for now – and probably will continue for some time. After weeks of brinksmanship and a couple of all-nighters, the Guild, the NY Times Company, the pressmen, the guy who drives that coffee truck with the siren that comes by every morning at 9:30…all the parties agreed to a brutal $20 million of cuts to keep the paper going.
I’ll avoid for now the predictable hand-wringing and solemn pronouncements about the death of mainstream media, disaggregation, social media and all the rest. It’s all been said. But on a more personal note, I’m relieved. A great city should have a great newspaper – preferably several. And although the Globe is certainly not the paper it was 15 years ago, it’s still a good-to-very-good daily paper. Even after endless rounds of layoffs and buy-outs, it still has some great reporters and great columnists. The photography has always been excellent and it still is. It’s impossible to imagine Boston with only the Herald as the region’s newspaper.
Many PR people have mixed feelings about the Globe (to put it mildly). Our local and regional clients all want coverage in the area’s premier paper, yet it’s often a tough pitch. The business section has been shrinking for years. The editorial staff has been shrinking. Many PR people feel the Globe has a subtle anti-business stance and sometimes takes gratuitous shots at companies.
Still, I’ve been reading the Globe every morning for almost 30 years. I love it, I hate it, sometimes it makes me crazy, but I can’t imagine it disappearing. For now, it seems we’ve avoided that. But after years of reductions and this latest round of truly brutal cuts, let’s hope that in a year we’ll see a paper we’ll still care to read.
Creating compelling content for smart consumers was top of mind as Digital Hollywood kicked off with packed sessions, prestigious speakers and conversations that often returned to how to best engage online consumer audiences who are spread out across many, many sites. Everyone agreed that the entertainment industry maxim "content is king" is critical to reaching today’s empowered consumers who pick and choose what they read and watch and for the most part bypass advertisements.
As the role of marketing and public relations increasingly becomes that of content creator, buzz builders can learn from the playbooks of Hollywood marketers. Monday’s session "Strategizing the Campaign; Selling Movies, TV and Video on the Web" revealed tips from top brass at Comcast /Fandango, Microsoft, Fox, Paramount who have kept box office ticket thriving this spring through their creativity, tenacity and innovation
Know your target audience so that you can personalize the online experience to their individual tastes. Survey your customers to determine their interests. You may find some surprising results that can become a part of your online brand experience.
Be experimental, but integrate too. Online allows marketers to try something new and get immediate feedback. Develop your digital marketing strategy in tandem with traditional marketing to create a single multi-faceted campaign.
Budget time and money for "clever" content. Don’t let content be an after thought. Consumers expect free, unique compelling content that intelligently starts a conversation that they can participate in.
Provide depth for online audiences to dig deeper into content, get involved and be "in the know." Make your biggest fans feel special with exclusive content (like WATCHMENS’ multiple trailers and WOLVERINE’s contest for the red carpet premiere) or prizes (swag, anyone?)
iPhone apps are hot - but then you knew that. Fandango had a WAP platform for years, but had little traction until it launched an iPhone app 6 weeks ago with basic functionality to buy tickets on-the-go. Half a million downloads later, consumers are now watching mobile trailers too.
Listen to consumers, and respond - Fast! The beauty of instant online feedback is also a responsibility. Consumer’s told Fandago they wanted to be able to log into their accounts on their iPhones rather than enter credit card info to buy tickets. Fandango listened and built in the functionality within 2 weeks.
Enlist Viral Armies - Every marketing campaign should include an "Alpha Fan Strategy" to engage a Digital Street Team to be your online ambassadors. First you need to get to know your #1 fanboys -- the 10-15% of your audience that wants more than to consume or share content. Give them the tools to create a mash-up, design a T-shirt, build an add-on widget to extend your brand experience.
Don’t Stop the Feed - Keep evaluating engagement measurements to determine what’s working, what’s not and what to do next. Most importantly, keep giving fans more of what they loved, but with innovations. You’ve got their attention - now you need to keep it by getting even more creative.
While in San Francisco last week for the RSA conference, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced he was running for Governor. He made his announcement on Twitter.
At the same time, the Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, announced he was running for re-election. He also first "officially" made his decision on Twitter. [Since I work for a Boston PR firm, I had to get the hometown plug in here.]
I remember that when Hillary Clinton announced she was running for President, she did so on YouTube. It was clever then. Now it seems a political candidate must use a new media method to announce their intentions, or risk being clumped in the "old school" category.
While the new media tools are changing the way communication is done, they are not replacing reporting from reporters. And they are not replacing the content created by reporters.
The same morning Mayor Menino made his announcement on Twitter, The Boston Globe ran a front-page story discussing his planned announcement. The Mayor's campaign website launched the same morning, as did a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page. These new-media vehicles were pre-populated with content.
At Schwartz, we incorporate new media into our healthcare PR and technology PR programs. We constantly coordinate the creation of content for press releases, contributed articles, or blog posts. We dovetail published content with our outreach efforts to reporters.
At the same time, we must be cautious. Since new media is a buzz word, new media tactics often overshadow tactics to reach reporters and others who then publish content read by strategic audiences. For all the popularity of new media tools, the results of Schwartz's clients still show that the best way to drive interest is by generating media coverage.
New media cannot be overlooked. Coordination is critical. And the combination of publicity and using new media to attract an audience is vital for marketing success.
Today is the day the Red Flags Rule goes into effect for financial services companies and other organizations. What is this rule? According to the FTC, "The Red Flags Rule requires many businesses and organizations to implement a written Identity Theft Prevention Program designed to detect the warning signs – or "red flags" – of identity theft in their day-to-day operations."
While there was some talk about this late last year, the overall volume of the discussion has been very light. A quick Google search turns up just 57 articles on the topic over the past week as the deadline approached. The blogosphere has been more active, but this is a relatively quiet topic.
This is not a Rule with little impact. The Federal Trade Commission projects it will affect more than 11 million creditors and 3,500 financial institutions. It impacts any business that extends credit to customers, uses credit reports to make credit decisions or extends, renews or continues credit. According to the release this includes many service companies such as: "finance companies; automobile dealers that provide or arrange financing; mortgage brokers; utility companies; telecommunications companies; non-profit and government entities that defer payment for goods or services; and businesses that provide services and bill later, including many lawyers, doctors, and other professionals (emphasis mine)."
Of course, as of yesterday, today really isn't the day, as the FTC announced another delay in enforcement of the new rules - this time until August 1. More information on the Red Flags Rule is available from the FTC here.
This is more than just a compliance requirement. It provides services companies an opportunity to communicate with their customers and reassure them of their security commitment and plans. Keeping customers informed of your compliance with these rules can help build a deeper bond and allay any fears they may have. This is a key issue that is often overlooked - compliance reporting can be leveraged to help businesses. In this era of transparency Red Flags Rules should be discussed more and should be a key part of organizational communications around fighting identity theft.
By now, people have likely read about the Air Force One "Photo Op" in New York City that caused significant panic among some residents of the city and outrage by the mayor.
This reminds me of two truisms:
1) There is always someone who doesn't get the word.
2) If you can think of a way for what you are doing to be interpreted negatively/inappropriately, thousands of people are thinking of it that way.
But in today's connected communications environment, there are more channels than ever for services companies and organizations to get the word out.
I am admittedly playing Monday Morning Quarterback here, but the Air Force is very good when it comes to social media communications. From the blogging decision chart to the Twitter channel they know how to get the word out. I am surprised they did not use those channels to inform people of the event, or respond to criticism.
I am not here to cast blame, but rather look at best practices services, technology, consumer and other companies can use in their PR efforts to avoid events like this.
1) Game out scenarios and prepare response channels - Proper planning is essential. This is Crisis 101. When developing an event, be ready for what can go wrong and have a response plan in place. Even if nothing goes wrong, it is not a wasted effort.
2) Answer questions before they are asked - If a call comes into 911 or the customer service center, it is often already too late. Yes, those people need to be prepped (and NYC did a good job there), but realize there are multiple channels consumers turn to for information. Have your Website updated, Tweet about it, reach out to all stakeholders, prep your sales force and your marketing team. If it is a big enough initiative, make sure everyone in the company is away - for in today's social media environment, everyone is a company spokesperson. Even better, be proactive and post the information prior to an event if possible.
3) Overcommunicate: Include everyone who can be effected - There are times to talk quietly, but when doing a major public event, make sure all key stakeholders have been contacted and are aware of what you are doing and why. This ties back into proper planning, but there is no excuse for companies not to communicate with all stakeholders.
4) Respond quickly and accurately - Changing the story mid-way is not a good response. Give the facts and give them quickly.
By following these four steps, people would have been better informed and much of the criticism would have been muted.
Congratulations to Schwartz and its long-time client partner CheckFree (now Fiserv). We are a finalist in this year’s PRSA Silver Anvil awards, which are pretty much one of the most prestigious awards in the PR industry. The nomination, in the "Marketing Consumer Services Technology" category, highlights our work promoting green living and fighting fraud with online bill payment. This is a testiment to a great client who is committed to research and creative campaigns, and a close, long-term working relationship.
Schwartz and CheckFree (Fiserv) secured more than 1,500 articles and on average the majority of articles contained at least two key messages and/or statistics. Green coverage for the campaigns ranged from key blogs and regional papers to the Sierra Club magazine. Working closely with CheckFree, partner banks and the industry, the company offered various promotions, including an offer to plant a tree for each E-bill activated. This generated more than 125,000 new users and planted that many trees. If you are interested in finding out more, visit ebillplace.
The identity fraud campaign was just as successful, and generated more than 1,000 total articles, blog posts and TV stories. More than 60% of the articles contained at least two of the top messages including paying bills online is safer than mailing them.
A client for ten years, the CheckFree (now Fiserv) and the Schwartz team partnership is no stranger to awards. It's the fourth time in seven years that the CheckFree/Schwartz team is a finalist---and we took home the gold for two of those.
I wonder if we have a Meryl Streep thing going here?
“How do you like to be pitched?” 
Launched last June, Fab 
The middle of this week, I zoomed off to attend the Digital PR Next Practices Summit put on by PR News. New York is an easy trip, so maybe I shouldn't have packed my "tell me something I don't already know" attitude, but that's how I approach all conferences. If I have to so much as budge from my desk, it needs to be worth it.
From left to right: Whitmore, Knorr, Thomas, Fried, Patton
