Flack's Revenge

Evolution of Media Relations

Believe it or not, there was a time back in the day when some journalists liked to get info by fax.

Over the years, in educational sessions we run for our staff at Fusion PR, I have emphasized that as times change, so do media preferences and the tools we should use to communicate with the press.

A number of years back (and still to this day) most reporter profiles in Bacon's cite email as the preferred mode of communications.  Email is easier to ignore, of course.

These days email seems broken; everyone is suffering from overload - especially the media - making it increasingly harder to break through and get email pitches noticed.

The positive side of this is that PR pros are being challenged to write crisper, more compelling email pitches with headlines that pop.  And yes, some reporters do actually save and file email pitches and occasionally surprise you with an inquiry.

On the other hand, I think email these days is increasingly the easiest way for lazy flacks to not get the results they are looking for.

So what are some emerging alternatives?  One way is through social networks, as I have blogged about (see Have you Friended a Journalist Today?)

These days, it is also increasingly possible to get the media's attention through the blogosphere.  This can mean writing a blog post, and mentioning the journalist.  Most people who blog track what is being said about them online.

Another way is to comment on their blogs, as many journos these days either have their own blogs or blog under their employers' brands.  Doing this does not preclude other methods of interaction of course - phone, email, yes, even fax (zigging when others are zagging is a time proven way to break through).

Connecting with journalists in this way could change your next email or call from a cold one into a warm one.

Tech Marketers Say SEM Rules, Blogging, Not so Much and PR is up There

Seems like 'tis the week for surveys.  My post yesterday cited a survey about PR and blogger relations.   Today I saw an article about a survey of executives at 350 technology companies from around the world, done by Eurocom Worldwide and Simpson Financial and Technology PR.

ENN, Ireland's IT Newswire, reported on the results in Deirdre McArdle's post tech execs are hot on search and cool on blogs.  According to the article:

While search engine marketing is regarded as a key investment for tech companies, corporate blogging doesn't quite have the same appeal. Just one in three respondents said they or their company have a blog, with 47 percent saying they do not blog. Around 16 percent said they plan on developing a blog in the next year.

That is not that much of a revelation, in my opinion.  Although blogging is disruptive in terms of the its impact on media, and hence PR, the direct benefits of blogging as a marketing tool seem a bit more nebulous.

PR was cited in the article as offering the second highest value among different types of marketing, just behind Internet marketing, and ahead of traditional tech industry gambits like trade shows and exhibitions.

Influencers Gone Wild in the Blogosphere (and Tech PR)

It used to be the dirty little (not so secret) in tech PR, that key influencers like industry analysts guess what, surprise, surprise... they have their own agendas and bottom lines to cover.

Well at least those influencers sported pinstripes, and wore their agendas and affiliations on their sleeves.

A danger in treating bloggers as just another breed of media or analyst misses the point that many have inherent conflicts of interest.  For starters, most have day jobs since blogging pays the way for a rare few.  Some consult, start companies, and take stakes in ventures related to the fields they blog about.

As top mobile tech blogger Ajit Jaokar said in his interview on this blog:

Most PR people do not understand the blogging world.  I am not a journalist.  I have different personas, for instance publisher, author, PhD student etc.  I find PR companies do not look beyond the obvious – they treat bloggers as targets for their press release and expect the blogger to be a journalist/media person – which in many cases, they are not.

So, you are well advised to not treat bloggers as just more names on media and analyst lists - get to know who the person is behind the blog.  This should not be that hard to do.

Also, I saw a fairly interesting and related post on Gawker today: Bloggers to Flacks: Pay Us

It discussed a survey by lobbying and PR firm APCO Worldwide about the state of blogger and PR relations.  Here's an excerpt from the Gawker post:

Over half of PR people said they do a good job sending bloggers relevant information, but two thirds of bloggers disagreed. And less than 40% on both sides agreed that "bloggers are journalists and should be treated as such."

...And the biggest disconnect of all didn't really make the bloggers look like the righteous bunch. 96% of flacks disagreed with this statement: "It is okay to compensate bloggers for writing about my clients, but it is not up to me to tell them to disclose the payment."

But almost half of bloggers agreed. They want to get paid, yo!

PR vs. Journalism: How the other Half Networks

A New Tool in the Box, by Ellyn Angelotti on Poynter Online encouraged me to update my post Have you Friended a Journalist Today?

The Poynter post discusses social networks from the journalist's perspective, describing the technology as a tool that can help journalists make connections and develop sources and info for their articles.

Looking at it from a PR-centric view, social networks give PR people another way to engage media - that is obvious.  The less obvious part gets to the question that many in our field find uncomfortable: what is the proper role of PR in a world of increasingly unmediated media?

Social networks and social media give us ways to listen to and directly connect with people of all types - traditional reporters, sure, but also bloggers, new and traditional influencers, and the public at large.

Ellyn's post outlined the need to proceed with caution and make every effort to ensure journalistic integrity.  Similarly, I think that the PR profession needs rules of engagement that help us maintain our professionalism while we use technologies like social networking to further the goals of our clients and employers.

These could include not using fake names, not gratuitously friending people, journalists, whomever - not spamming people.  These are things we avoid anyway, however as we get into the online world there are some nuances and perhaps more chances to get into murky ethical water.

for example one area that I think has tons of potential for PR, but is also fraught with peril, is the social graph (WhatIs definition).

Dion Hinchcliffe had a great post on social graphs back in January.  As the phrase implies, social graphs illustrate how people are connected in networks.

As I said in my Fusion Forum post, I am starting to realize that everyone who blogs or comments on blogs, everyone who participates in online social networks - we are the media. Advertisers will increasingly target us and try to tap into the trust and influence that results from the relationships we establish and the online reputations we build.

Hence, our definition of the word "influencer" will change . If you represent a client or employer in the field of Mobile Web 2.0, for example, perhaps you will find that it is no longer just the name brand analyst firms who are important to build relationships with.  Perhaps it is a mobile Web 2.0 blogger like Ajit Jaokar.  Or a consultant in the field who is doing groundbreaking work and also happens to have 1500 followers on Twitter, or 1000 Facebook friends / associates.

Marketers of all stripes are looking at tapping into so-called trust networks.  As the operators of social networks and advertisers struggle to find the right model, it is also important for PR to get this right as well.

More reasons for PR to Care about Wikipedia

My previous post Have a new Type of Product? Stake Your Wikipedia Claim advised innovators to leverage gaps in Wikipedia's coverage by defining emerging (or at least, as of yet undefined) categories and subcategories of technology.

Peter Blackshaw's article on ClickZ Ten Reasons Marketers Should Pay Attention provides an excellent follow-on.  He talks about affirmation, which sounds something like the root metaphors I described in my post Finding Words that Work in Tech PR.

[Affirmation] refers to the consensus of positive or negative truths about a business or brand.

Blackshaw further says:

...Wikipedia is rewriting the marketing script, because it's far and away one of the Web's most potent and powerful affirmation drivers. Once the primary domain of A-list bloggers and Web 2.0 elite, it's now unmistakably penetrated the online masses. Even those who don't use it are impacted by the conversation it shapes, online or off-.

All marketers should think hard about why Wikipedia matters, starting with affirmation.

He goes on to list the Ten Reasons to Care  mentioned in the title.

It seems to me that one of the primary reasons PR folks in particular should care about Wikipedia is because it can provide a way to help defend reputations and brand.  When we define our space or our brand on Wikipedia we can try to make sure the truths are fair and balanced.

As Blackshaw writes:

If everyone else is defining you on Wikipedia, you should be part of the process, too. If you're not monitoring your Wikipedia entry daily, start doing it. You really need to get early experience on the platform to prime yourself for fast turnaround.

SEO, social networks and Twitter, Oh My!

Here are some interesting links and articles I spotted over the past couple of days. 

PerkettPRsuasion had a nice wrap on last week's Boston Social Media Club event, including SEO tips for PR prfoessionals coursesy SEO-PR's Greg Jarboe, who also attended

JobMatchBox brought to my attention Yahoo OneConnect, a service that aggregates updates from different social networking sites (and can even display these on cell phones).

Brian Solis blogged about similar functionality now found on BlogCatalog in his post about their Social Dashboard.

Am I the only one on the planet that does not get the need for status update and group messaging systems? Aren't there enough other forms of communication and isn't there enough noise?  Do people really care about what I am doing from moment to moment, and vice versa?

People, let's differentiate between useful information and self absorbed chatter. Before we add more communication mechanisms, shouldn't we find better ways to tame the current ones?

Oh Well, perhaps I am showing my age as I turn 48 today.

On the other hand, someone who clearly does grok it is Laura Fitton, as reported on the Tech War Stories Blog last month in the post (with accompanying podcast) Twitter Magic.

But Twitter has inspired a passionate following. Some people make it their main online communications medium. It’s certainly changed Laura Fitton’s life. The Boston-based presentations consultant uses Twitter to meet influential people, find business opportunities and answer everyday questions. Twittering as “Pistachio,” she’s amassed a following of more than 1,500 “followers,” who value her ability to stimulate discussions with provocative questions and comments that fit into Twitter’s 140-character format. She’s a poster child for a service that is revolutionizing the way people interact with their social networks.

Advertising Age has a nice article about social networks from a marketers perspective (What is Marketer's Biggest Challenge...?)

In terms of which types of agencies have the most credibility here, writer Michael Bush says:

Social networking is all about relationship building, and while that may be in the DNA of the public-relations industry, it has done a poor job of claiming that birthright.

Interesting viewpoint, but then it is Ad Age.

It IS Easy Being green in Enterprise Tech PR

Seems green is the new black in enterprise (especially data center) tech.

The din of coverage we have seen - and companies looking to be pitched as green solutions - is becoming deafening.

Does that mean that a green shakeout is in the works?  Or that Green Tech will soon enter the Gartner Trough of Disillusionment?   If so, it could be an extended trough - how many thousands of years is global warming supposed to be happening over?

Well, anyway, unlike other tech fads, green solutions do look beyond immediate (and more "superficial") corporate goals of productivity, profit, market share etc.  As such there is an inherent feel good component - no question, the good opportunity to be a media darling (it is not always just the bad news that sells).

But as one somewhat cynical client asked:  do most IT managers really care about this?  Are there really corporate mandates to embrace green technology, and as such will related media coverage set the inbound sales phones jingling?

All good questions.

I think the pitches and the clients that will stand out are not the ones where there are gratuitous (read: slapped on) green components, but where you can argue significant power, space and waste savings.  These usually translate to cost advantages (or TCO, more accurately),  which helps cover bases for those who are more bottom line (and to the right on the political spectrum) oriented.

Ajit Jaokar speaks out on Blogging and the State of PR

I had the opportunity to interview A list blogger (and wireless industry author, publisher and consultant) Ajit Jaokar about his views on social media and the changing nature of PR.

Ajit’s blog OpenGardens has been consistently rated as one of the top mobile blogs.  Ajit literally wrote the book on Mobile Web 2.0, is part of the Web 2.0 working group and his company Futuretext has published many important books about mobile and tech.

Ajit is very much connected with what is happening in the industry, and seems to be a one man PR machine – you can see him speaking at just about every important industry conference, and his blog and views are often cited on other blogs and in the media.

If your work touches the mobile and telecom spaces, you may well already know about Ajit.  So I’ll cut to the chase, the interview text follows:

Please share your views on the state of PR

PR has evolved quite a bit, and that is a good thing.  It’s not just the big magazines and publications, but now there are many blogs to pursue as well.

You can track people who are speaking about companies and see what the blogs are saying about clients or subjects on – if I may use that term – “long tail” publications.

Doesn’t this create an attention diffusion problem? 

That may be true, but there are also many long tail opportunities.  My blog speaks to very specific areas, and that is a key difference between what works on a blog vs. traditional media.

For example, I have been covering on-device portals, Android, open social networks, Mobile Ajax and so on.  These are very specific topics that often may have a small group of companies involved.  Issues related to device and network integration are fairly complex.  I am following this, and also feel that topics like cloud computing, and how this relates to Web 2.0 and the work companies like Google and Nokia are doing is important.

So, I believe that specialization is important – it is no longer just the broad technology categories, but sub-categories that are being followed.

Has your blog helped with the success of Futuretext? 

We were thought leaders in this space even before the blog.  I had wanted to start a magazine, but blogging achieved the same on a global level,   I started it 3.5 years ago. Today the blog has close to 800 entries.  Many of these are complex, article type entries. So, the blog has a lot of content.

The blog is a sub domain of the main site, so people who link to the blog also link to the main site.  This drives ratings in Google; it is a form of SEO and helps market every book we do.

There are also indirect benefits, as the blog positions us as being thought leaders in the space.  People have found us and our publishing company through the blog.

It helps us get feedback and do R & D.

We don't pay too much attention to comments, or to promoting the site.  Instead we focus on content, it is more important to be consistent and have clear viewpoint.  The blog has a philosophy (in Open Gardens).  It is not random; having an ethos and consistency help build audience.

So the blog has helped to market our books.  Although there is some overlap between online free content, and what winds up in the books, we have found that the blog has increased not cannibalized sales.

Also, we have found that aggregation services have helped boost our traffic – people extract our content and add it to their newsletters.

That trend is important, and we think it is really good, despite concerns by some that it is parasitic.

What Else Has Changed in PR?

Clients of PR agencies now have more options to get their viewpoints out (as opposed to previously, when they had only a few major publications).

What has been your experience in working with PR People?

Most PR people do not understand the blogging world.  I am not a journalist.  I have different personas, for instance publisher, author, PhD student etc.  I find PR companies do not look beyond the obvious – they treat bloggers as targets for their press release and expect the blogger to be a journalist/media person – which in many cases, they are not.

How do you like to receive info?

I get too many press releases.   They are generic, I take them less seriously.  I prefer to get info via direct emails.  There are few people who write well.

I read extensively online and offline.  I read BusinessWeek, and Wired when I fly, which is often.  I read Fortune and Forbes.

I use Google to track RSS feeds.  I subscribe to Techmeme, and use keywords to filter news.

What blogs / bloggers do you follow?

GigaOM, Dion Hinchcliffe, Irv Wladawsky Berger, Jonathan Schwartz, Mobile Crunch, NY Times, Google blog, Scoble, O'Reilly, Register, and Tech Crunch.

Thanks, Ajit!

 

Have a new type of product? Stake Your Wikipedia Claim

I have read various posts recently about ways to leverage Wikipedia when it comes to getting the word out about company and product info.  One or two suggested drafting entries defining the company in question.  This could work, however, according to Wikipedia:

... our notability policies and guidelines allow a wide range of articles - however, they do not allow any topic to be included. A particularly common special case of this is pages about people, companies or groups of people that do not assert the notability or importance of their subject, so we have decided that such pages may be speedily deleted

Let me suggest another method - one which might be less obvious but perhaps more interesting.

Especially for smaller technology companies that might  be breaking ground in emerging technology categories - or making a difference in (as of yet undefined by Wikipedia) segments of existing categories - why not start an entry under the name of the category?

(For a longer discussion about the relevance of technology categories in marketing and PR writing, see my post  Assume the Positioning. For my post about the importance of Google and Wikipedia to PR see A Publication of One ).

I have taken on clients recently who are doing really interesting work in areas of technology that are growing in importance, but as of yet the tech categories do not have Wikipedia entries.

To me, this seems like a yawning gap just waiting to be filled.  The PR plans advise that the clients show leadership by carrying the banner for the categories at large.  And what better way to do this than by literally defining categories on Wikipedia?

Of course, the entry needs to be written in a factual and neutral way - I am by no means advocating spamming Wikipedia or crafting an entry that hypes the client.  Even apart from a discussion of ethics, and violating the spirit of Wikipedia, from a practical standpoint there are legions of editors who would cut it back down to size and tone, if not brand the offender as a Wikipedia miscreant.

The gainsay would be indirect - via an entry that adds to the world's knowledge on the category - and direct, because the client's name could be mentioned in the body, and a link provided to the company's definition in Wikipedia if this exists. 

Again, to be neutral you should include names of other competitors in the space as well.  And, unless you provide links to disinterested third party sources (white papers, articles) validating the space, the powers that be might not let the entry stand.

Having said that, there should be a distinct advantage to being the first to literally define the space - you get to insert your world view, highlighting for example the issues in the space that the client feels are important and uniquely solves.

Do Most Agencies Lack Social Media Cred?

An article in Social Media Insider (Blogger's Block...) reported on agencies' adoption of social media (or lack thereof).

The reporter, Cathy Taylor, cited a study from Cymfony that concluded that agencies don't get it when it comes to social media.

Although the report and her article focused primarily on ad agencies, it would not surprise me if some of the same realities also apply to the world of PR agencies.

The "news" that agencies of all stripes don't really understand social media wasn't exactly a shock to Cymfony Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer Jim Nail, either. "They can talk a good game .... but they don't walk the walk," he said. The study, which is the result of 71 phone interviews with marketing people in the U.S., Canada, France and the U.K., found that agencies are still mostly concerned with using social media as a viral blast technique, when, to some extent, the real action is in conversations, good or bad, about a company's products and services.

I particularly liked this quote in the report from Eric Kintz, a Hewlett-Packard marketing exec and blogger: "I think they [agencies] are somewhat helping. But they need to show how social media has helped them further their own agenda. So if an ad agency comes to me, I'd ask if they have their own page on a social network site? Are they posting videos on YouTube? Do they have their own blog? And how has it helped them in their own business?"

The truth is, if you wanted to while away a few hours looking to see if agency senior executives have Facebook pages (besides the digital shops, that is), or MySpace pages, you'd be pretty frustrated.

Interesting suggestion, does this mean we will see some trash talking soon on PR and ad agency blogs as to who is the most (or least) social media drenched?

Not to defend laziness in the industry, or being behind the curve - both of which I have railed against on this blog. 

But let ye who is without 10,000 Facebook friends cast the first stone.  We are not the story, the client is, and if clients picked agencies based solely on self promotion and networking, well they just may get very good self-promoters and nothing more.