Flack's Revenge

PR Predictions and Advice for 2009

- PR to Thrive in 2009
- Newsflash: Venerable Press Release Crushes Naysayers

Unlike many others, I am looking forward to good things for PR in 2009.   True, traditional media and even online media are struggling (the latter, based on ad spending, anyway). And the continued growth of social media is forcing us to re-evaluate our roles like never before, adapt and in many ways redefine ourselves.

 

I believe that, just like in the world of media, there will be a shakeout, and those who can't adapt will wither.

 

Those who can adapt will find a world of opportunity.  No one knows for sure when we will turn a corner in the economy, most signs point to an extended downturn.  Certainly, the early part of 2009 does not look encouraging, and it may not be until late in the year or 2010 that we come out of this.  It might even go on for years.

 

PR has proven to deliver outsized returns relative to other forms of marketing - studies have shown this.  So it only makes sense that the budget buzz saw that is wielded in tough times will first target other much larger marketing line items.

 

In fact, money might shift from advertising and direct marketing to PR if we prove that the ROI is there.  Demonstrating ROI will become critical no matter what your perch is in marketing.  In PR, this will be our only hedge for those clients - primarily startups, many in tech - that have placed all their marketing eggs in the PR basket and have few other marketing-related expenditures to cut.

 

I am unconvinced about reports of the death press release.  It does not seem to me that the volume of press releases is diminishing.  I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet the press release distribution services are enjoying a healthy amount of traffic.  And why not? Press releases continue to provide an excellent value.  They are an enduring institution. Press releases are the thin line separating news from pure marketing - they provide a veneer of respectability, and continue to be the stimulus for much online discussion and debate.

 

If you have a good story and can express it in a way that is comprehensible, interesting and resonates (I know, big "ifs" as there is much marginal press release content) you can launch a release and justify its cost at just about any budget level: there is increasing value to be gained as you move from freebie and low cost wires, to major wires, to paying extra for the PR "elbow release" required to move beyond sending and praying and get real editorial coverage. 

 

I was reminded of the utility and cost effectiveness of press releases during a weekly PR call with a client.  She remarked that they would no longer advertise routine updates and events and instead use press releases to get the word out.

 

[A caveat to all this is that shifting too much away from other forms of marketing does not benefit anyone in the long haul - less ad spending means weaker media, and it is important to have a good mix in your marketing]

 

The search engines prioritize information that is carried in a press release wrapper.  That is why I am unconvinced of the value of a social media release (SMR) that is published, rather than distributed, and is somehow supposed to be optimized to spread virally on social networks.

 

SMRs are more effort to create and take more time to navigate.  Shortened attention spans these days place a tremendous premium on information that can be understood and acted upon quickly.  The laudable goal to  make press releases more engaging, informative and sharable is at odds with ways information is indexed by search engines and found online, and consumed once found.  The complicated nature of SMRs is at odds with the need to be agile in communications.

 

In 2009 I think the major news distribution services will get better at handling the Web 2.0 accoutrements found in SMRs, and will continue to have an advantage in distribution.  So my advice for 2009 is to issue releases through wires and leverage blogs to amplify the news (search engines also give priority to fresh blog posts).

 

PR has generally been about conversations and words.  Here we have an advantage over advertising, when it comes to social media.  Yet, in the online world, mutimedia rules, giving an advantage to shops that leverage various types of media and can be entertaining - traditionally the strong suit of advertising.

 

Look to the forward thinking PR shops to get better at Web development and multimedia, and ad agencies to get better at copy and conversations.  Both will strive to find new and innovative ways to directly engage consumers through various types of websites, social media and social networks.

 

The drive to prove ROI, and the changing nature of the online world will drive innovations in Web metrics and PR measurement.  Measurement will need to catch up, and become more about real time interactions and engagement, and integration with closed loop marketing systems.

 

Thos who can master social media and its rapidly evolving mores will reign.

 

Those who can do the same while proving ROI will reign supreme.

Bernie Madoff, Scoundrel and Master Brand Builder

Last Friday's post was about Trust, namely trust and corporate blogs.  I continue with the theme of trust, this time within the context of word of mouth (WOM) marketing and brand building

You can call Bernie Madoff a lot of things.   I look at him smirking on TV, seemingly bemused by all the attention, and feel like clobbering him.   He really screwed a lot of people, and I agree with everyone who says he should be drawn and quartered in a public square, instead of banished to his bedroom in his mansion without dinner under house arrest.

Yet as a marketer I can't help but appreciate that the debacle is also a reminder of the power of word of mouth marketing and the enduring strength of brands.

Bernie Madoff was rich and controlled tons of money but in terms of image he was a little guy - his name was not a household one.   He did not do overt marketing or Super Bowl ads.

Instead, he marketed through his immediate and extended social networks.   He took people out on his boat, which was ironically named Bull, and spread the word through his country club network and amidst NY and Palm Beach, Florida society.

He cultivated an aura of exclusivity, using classic buzz building techniques that leverage snob appeal and get people to line up for access to a scarce commodity.   He built a mystique, knowing that saying less sometimes does more.

The strength of the brand was such that no one questioned what in retrospect now seems pretty obvious. 

Everyone knows that the market frustrates attempts to do what Bernie claimed he did, namely generate predictable returns over long periods of time.   Sooner or later all gambits fail, as market conditions change or people figure out what you are doing and replicate your strategy, and in doing so in large enough numbers, eventually take the wind out of it.

So how could Madoff fool so many people for so long?  How could he thrive and get money from institutional investors when there is supposed to be controls, government oversight and due diligence?

This gets back to the brand of Bernie Madoff, built on his status as a pillar of the community, former NASDAQ chief, and philanthropist.  Bernie was safe.  Bernie was trusted.   You are in good company when you invest with Bernie.  Central to the scheme was the predictability and moderate rate of the returns.   The returns were consistent but not so flashy as to really cause lots of scrutiny.

Predictability, steadfastness and reliability were baked into the Bernie Madoff brand, he took it to the bank and took his investors down in the process.

Conquering Information Sprawl in Tech PR

The NY Times had a nice roundup of tools and strategies to conquer information sprawl last week, Staying Informed without Drowning in Data, by Jenna Wortham.   At the end of this post I list the links of the various websites and tools mentioned. 

In the fast-paced world of tech PR, there is no greater imperative than keeping up with the buzz of the day.  The article made me reconsider my own techniques for staying up-to-date.  So, I thought it would be  interesting to explore this topic and share my results in a series of posts.

The exercise involves evaluating the available information sources, matching these up against needs and then figuring out a way to manage the flood of information.

In terms of sources, there are the online counterparts of traditional media brands, online only news media, blogs, sharing and bookmarking sites such as Delicious and You Tube, social news sites and micro blogs.  This is how things break down at a high level, of course there is tremendous variety in each category.

As far as information appetite, the types of information that I like to track (on a business level) include:

• Media, blog and micro-blog mentions of my clients and their competition
• Media, blog and micro-blog discussions of related trends and topics
• Topics that are being buzzed about, the rising stories
• General business and political stories and trends

Further, it is good to be able to go beyond the headline and main story and explore chatter in the various blogs, forums and comment threads (why not throw newsgroups and email lists in for good measure)?

There are fee-based services that can provide help in collecting and filtering information, ranging from those that got their start focusing on traditional media and in varying degrees have expanded to include blogs and online media (Nexis, Factiva, Meltwater) to those that specialize in monitoring online media and conversations, such as Radian 6 and Buzz Logic.

The latter category would seem to be pretty much a requirement in terms of doing a good job tracking online media and conversations if you are working with larger companies and well known brands; in which case you need something that is "industrial strength" to wade through all of the mentions.

For this series I will focus on the freebie services and strategies.  I start by listing the ones mentioned in the NY Times article, which included a bunch that I have not worked with.

I list them under the categories cited in the article:

Social News and Bookmarking Sites

Digg
Reddit
Propeller
Delicious
Mixx
Newsvine

Meta Social News Sites

NewzNozzl

Stories from Selected Sources

Addictomatic
Yahoo! Buzz
BuzzTracker

Buzz Feed

RSS Feed Readers

FeedDemon
Google Reader
Bloglines

RSS Filters

ReadBurner
RSSMeme
LinkRiver

Digitized Newsstand

Tabbloid
Feed Books

Why People Don't Trust Corporate Blogs and What to Do About It

There has been some buzz about a Forrester report's  conclusion that people do not necessarily trust corporate blogs.   A number of tech PR agencies have chimed in, and there was an article just yesterday on IT Business Edge about this.  It said:

According to a blog post from Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff, just 16 percent of folks who read corporate blogs say they trust them.

To me, the issue of trust and corporate blogs seems almost besides the point.

I mentioned awhile back that people trust blogs more than traditional media.   This has been supported by studies, one of which I referenced in that post.

If traditional media are seen to have veiled conflicts of interests, there is no ambiguity with corporate blogs.  They are written by people with an obvious commercial interest and axe to grind.

Does that mean a corporate blog is necessarily a bad idea?  I have always maintained that "corporate blog" is an oxymoron because when a blog is underwritten by "corporate" this means that you generally will get some party line.  People tend to want to listen to and believe the truly independent (if there is such a thing) voices.

Yet corporate blogs can be a good thing to the extent that they put a human face on the company.   Blogs tie in with the social media-driven ethos of transparency.  They can be great sources of information provided that they are not run like old style PR and marketing mouth pieces.  Particularly for certain industries, where people want to learn and stay attuned to specialized knowledge that a vendor's employees may have, a corporate blog is still a very good thing, even though in the grand scheme of themes they are not the ultimate harbingers of independent thinking.

Better yet is to encourage the individual voices within your organization to speak out in social media, within certain guidelines of course.   Their corporate affiliation is part of their personal brand.   Their specialized knowledge and efforts to communicate in the social media sphere make them ambassadors for the corporate brand.

Did Team Obama Flub its First Crisis Communications Test?

Opinion columnist Kirsten Powers thinks so, as she wrote in her piece NY Post piece Bungling on Blago yesterday.  According to Powers:

The Obama camp has managed to violate almost every tenet of crisis communications - starting with Rule No. 1: Get all the information out quickly, accurately and fully.

It's imperative that reporters don't learn something from a third party that you could have told them. And, in the era of nonstop news, "quickly" means within 24 hours...

Obama's response has been an exercise in dripping.

Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday, Dec. 9...In the intervening time, Obama has repeatedly stated defensively that he had no contact with the governor or his office and had not discussed the Senate seat, as if either would somehow be inappropriate.

In a Dec. 10 interview, he refused to say whether Blagojevich talked with his top aides: "It's an ongoing investigation. I think it would be inappropriate for me to . . . remark on the situation beyond the facts that I know."

But then, in a press conference the next day, he had no problem stating emphatically, "I'm absolutely certain . . . that our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat" - and then said he needed to "gather all the facts" about what contact took place so he could release that info.

Which left everybody scratching their heads: How could he be "absolutely certain" if he still had to gather the facts?

The Obama team has sometimes claimed that it's holding off on giving details at Fitzgerald's request - and sometimes that it will talk specifics as soon as it has found exactly what contact occurred. Which is it?

She points out a couple of times that none of this should matter because there have not even been allegations about any improper involvement from the Obama camp.  Of course, there should be contacts and even some possible deal-making between Obama's staff and the governor's office over who will fill his seat (within appropriate and legal guidelines, of course).

She concluded:

The only scandal here, in short, is the way Obama's camp has mishandled the whole matter.

It is hard for me to argue with her logic.  At the same time I think that it is refreshing to see that there is after all a mere mortal with human flaws in Obama (hard to believe this, given all the positive coverage and heightened expectations). 

Hopefully he will be more focused on good policies and governing then on how he spins.

Blag Hair Day

I decided that I needed to put aside for a moment my deep thinking on the state of PR and tech to explore something really weighty, namely embattled Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's hair.  It is something bizarrely fascinating, and it seems that even the serious news stories begin or end with an aside about his hair.

So, without further adieu, here are some of the better jokes I have heard (most come from last Saturday's SNL Weekend Update):

Frank Rich (while being interviewed on the Don Imus radio show this morning):  It's like its own warm up act.

Amy Poehler: It looks like you are wearing a toupee that is also wearing a toupee!

(Badum!)

Seth Meyers:

Is that really your hair or did you grow out your eyebrows and comb them up?

It's like you have a proceeding hair line

(Badum Badum!)

Amy Poehler:

It's like someone put the hair on backwards on one of the Fisher Price people.

The first time I saw you I thought you were walking away.

(Badum Badum!)

Little Known Facts about Blago's Hair

According to the NY Times, Blagojevich does not suffer underlings gladly - he

 ...can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president.

Chicago Sun Times reports that Blago's hair may be a sign of narcissistic personality disorder.

The Changing World of Content and What this Means for PR

The NY Times had a great article, written by Virgina Heffernan, about the changing world of media.  It explains how growing media choices and ways of consuming media are having a profound impact on the ways content gets done.  So journalists and writers need to reconsider their story lines, as do the owners of  publishing vehicles.

In PR we tend to sometimes get myopic and focus on the issues most obviously affecting us without looking at the big picture.  It was interesting for me to consider the impact of these changes on the intermediaries we seek to communicate with and through (true, social media allows anyone to be a publisher, but until or unless we all become A list bloggers, we will seek to get our messages heard through others).

The following excerpt from the article is aimed at journalists, but the message could just as easily apply to PR:

The journalist Jeff Jarvis has lately blamed his peers for not apprehending better the changes to our profession wrought by digital technology. The writer Ron Rosenbaum has responded that the best journalists were too busy working to philosophize: they were reporting, writing and editing. Both are right. For 10 years, journalists have hoped to avoid radical job retraining. And who can blame anyone in any profession, midcareer and set in her ways, for avoiding seminars on writing Google-friendly leads or opening her sources to readers?

Virginia Heffernan goes on to pose a provocative question and explain what this means:

Does anyone still believe that the forms of movies, television, magazines and newspapers might exist independently of their rapidly changing modes of distribution?

Sounds an awful lot like the "medium is the message" idea pioneered by Marshall McLuhan way back when.

She uses an example to make the point:

The fact that articles live in digital form and no longer, primarily, on paper, frees them from certain constraints that seem absolutely normal to old-media people and archaic if not just stupid to everyone else...

When advertisers become content providers, magazines lose ads and finally drop off newsstands. With no newsstands and no covers, there is no need for cover lines; with no cover lines, the story no longer has to be written in the cover-line-justifying way.

She concludes with some advice (again, without many changes the words could apply directly to PR):

People who work in traditional media and entertainment ought either to concentrate on the antiquarian quality of their work, cultivating the exclusive audience of TV viewers or magazine readers that might pay for craftsmanship. Or they should imagine that they are 19 again: spending a day on Twitter .... Then they should think about what content suits these new modes of distribution and could evolve in tandem with them. For old-media types, mental flexibility could be the No. 1 happiness secret we have been missing.

PR as a profession need to be cognizant of these trends and adapt accordingly.

More media choices and the rising importance of digital distribution does not just mean more places to pitch and get coverage - it means a fundamental re-evaluation of how we communicate, the stories we tell and what we expect to get out of it.

Economic Crisis for Dummies

Since the recession has pretty much settled in (can someone please tell me why it took the government a year to officially declare that we have been in a recession?) I guess we might as well get used to the fact we are probably going to be in this for some time.

It is hard to know what to think, precious few called this before it hit so why are we to believe that the prognosticators have it right now?

Anyway, if you haven't already, now would be a good time to dig in and get a better understanding of what actually happened.   I saw two great articles that really helped me in my understanding.

The first was in Portfolio, entitled simply The End, by Michael Lewis, star author of Liar's Poker and Moneyball.

He picks up where he left off in the book Liar's Poker, an excellent read about a newbie's experience (namely his own) at Salomon Bros. on Wall Street in the late 80s.

In that book he predicted the demise of Wall Street, and positions recent developments as the logical book end to earlier crises.  In short, Wall Street's way of doing business - of producing nothing of actual value and vastly overpaying its people - is now really, finally done and over with.   The accompanying picture, shown here is pretty wrenching and depressing (I know a lot of people who spent their careers on the Street).

Lewis is a great story teller and he makes this all actually very interesting and edge-of-the-seat gripping, as well as understandable.   He relates the experiences of some of those who saw this coming, and describes the roles of the instigators.   I won't give away too much of the ending, except to say that there is a climactic showdown in which ex-Salomon Bros. head John Gutfreund - the Wall Street Lion whose career Lewis effectively destroyed with Liar's Poker - agrees to sit down and have lunch with Lewis.

The second article, Debt Watchdogs: Tamed or Caught Napping, ran in the NY Times last week.  It answered a big question for me.  Namely, the investment banks' (and now, auto manufacturers') efforts to get government help have thrust them into the klieg lights.   Meanwhile, quietly skulking in the shadows has been the credit rating agencies.   Where were they in all this?   Wasn't it their ethical and legal obligation to send up a flare about the toxic debt that they rated?   The Times article takes an in-depth look at the role of these companies in the mess, and in particular drills down on the conflicts of interest and drive to profitability that no doubt were a factor.

More on Blogging and PR

A nice thing about blogging for PR is that it helps us walk in the shoes of a journalist and understand what it means to fill white space and work on a deadline (even if the latter is self-imposed).   It leads to some appreciation for the life of a  journalist, and thus helps us empathize with the people we approach to interest in our clients' stories.

I have been at if for about two years now, and have been gradually building my traffic and ranking.  At some point Flack's Revenge was added to Cision's database, which meant a lot to me because of course many of my peers (including the agency I work for, Fusion PR) use Cision to track blogs and traditional media.

I knew that part and parcel with being listed in Cision was the fact that I would sometimes get pitches.  These last two items - being listed in a media database and getting pitched - of course add to the picture of what it feels like to be a journalist.

Since I blog about PR and tech it is only natural that the people in technology for PR take an interest in what I write.   One of the people I have struck up a nice dialog with is Heidi Sullivan at Cision.   She approached me early on about some of my Twitter and blog musings on these topics and we have gone back and forth quite a bit since.

That is exactly the way it is supposed to work.  Social media has given all of us soap boxes we otherwise would not have.   And it gives us the tools we need to listen and engage.   Clearly, Cision is doing a good job of listening to and communicating with their market, as evidenced by their social media team, their comprehensive blogger directory, Twitter efforts and the Cision blog.

To bring things full circle, I was mentioned on the Cision blog on Friday, as the subject of an interview Heidi did regarding PR and blogging.   Thanks, Heidi, for taking the time to chat with me about this, and for posting the interview on your blog.

The Kids are Alright (Daughter's First MacBook)

The Geller household experienced a technological sea change as this traditionally Dell-centric family acquired our first Apple PC, a new MacBook on the occasion of our eldest daughter's 16th birthday.

No big deal you say, except for the fact that I communicate about technology for a living, and am a lifelong student of marketing, tech and the convergence of the two areas.

It is one thing to read about the cult of Jobs and the Mac.  It is quite another to experience it first hand.

We have been through our share of computers, and I am sure that just like in many other households they have multiplied, sprouted wireless networks, and occupied a larger portion of our entertainment, school and work-related lives.  Perhaps we have gotten a little jaded and even spoiled with all this technology. 

When my daughter said she wanted a Mac notebook, I discussed this with my wife.   In serious and hushed tones we discussed the implications of all this - having a new OS and way of computing to support and deal with.   My wife wanted me to make sure I let my daughter know what this meant - Mac's don't work exactly like PCs, you'll  need some new programs, etc.   Except for the blindingly obvious fact that most kids have been there and done that already in the classroom for years, duh, as most schools sport Macs these days.

So of course our fears were unfounded.   It gives you a sense of nostalgia to hear your teenage kids squeal with delight like little children.   It was nothing short of sheer joy as they powered the system up, and it took them through the simple set up steps.

"Make sure you go upstairs and help them with this - bring the documentation and other stuff," wife said.

What documentation?  What other stuff?  It was all a no brainer, they did not need technical support from the vendor or dad for this gig.   They had miraculously gotten everything up and running, and onto our wireless network with almost no effort, making me feel like the proverbial unneeded Maytag repair man.

The two sisters, who normally might be fighting were huddled over the MacBook, computing away in no time.   A little later, there were some raucous noises from upstairs and I thought that the girls were killing each other.  I went up to see what was going on, it turns out that they had fired up a video chat program and were having great fun with another friend using some kind of photo booth program that distorted their images.