Flack's Revenge

Wired Magazine Says Science Needs to Up its PR Game

While providing PR support for a publisher of science journals, textbooks and online search and social media tools, I executed a number of campaigns that targeted researchers a couple of years ago. Part of the project involved studying the social media habits of this group, to better understand how many use various online tools and maintain blogs,for example.

We determined that researchers are (or at least were, at the time) a reclusive bunch when it comes to blogging. The competitive nature of their work compels scientists to keep their information cards close to the vest when it comes to online communications about topics they study.

So it did not surprise me to see the Wired article "Appeal to the Heart" in the latest issue that maintains that scientists need to do a better job communicating, and that they are losing the information war with pseudo science.

The article reported that attendees of a meeting of American Association for Advancement of Science discussed the challenges posed by climate change deniers. According to the piece:

...the answer isn't more science, it's better PR.  When celebrities like Tiger Woods or Tom Cruise lose control of their image... they hire an expert. What the climatology community needs is a crackerjack Hollywood PR team.

It goes on to quote an entertainment industry PR expert, from the firm that represents Ellen Page and Pee Wee Herman.

First off, I am not sure there is a problem here. There will always be extremists and true believers regardless of what hard science reveals.  It does raise a compelling question: who really is ahead in shaping public opinion on various issues that pit hard science results against alternative views?

Assuming there is something to be worried about, I am not sure I buy into the cure discussed in the article. Science cannot be reduced to a brand like cottage cheese or Pee Wee Herman, in my view. The issues are much more complex. The challenge is more akin to one that a tech PR firm would probably be well equipped to handle, as an example. Or perhaps a political PR firm, because to do this right you might need to mix it up, roll up your sleeves and possibly get tough. I am not sure if the seemingly straightforward but genteel tactics (recruit celebrity spokespeople, work harder to get the facts out) espoused in the article would have much of an impact.

Could there be anything more dry or boring than a contingent of white coated lab researchers lecturing the American public across all forms of media? Do celebrities have any credibility here? You need to wake people up, shake them by their lapels and get them to care. Al Gore and other high profile figures have been out there forever to little effect.

My advice is be dramatic and take no prisoners.  E.g. why not make it personal and publicize the views and leanings of the pseudo scientists to show how extreme they are?

I am not sure if the scientists would play along though; according to the article

"Scientists hate the word spin. They get bent out of shape by the concept that they should frame their message," says Jeniffer Ouellette, director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a National Academy of Science Program that helps connect the entertainment industry with technical consultants

(Yes, there apparently really is an organization like this.)

What do you think? Who is winning the information war and what approach should scientists take to better communicate their findings?

The Evolving art of the Headline

David Carr's Media Equation column in the NY Times on Monday discussed how the online world is forcing a shift in the way headlines are crafted.

In addition to explaining how the perpetual search of just about everyone for more search engine juice and eyeballs affect the way that headlines are crafted, he pines for the headlines of yesterday's print-dominated world:

... it’s a long way from the poetics of the best of print headlines. And not just The New York World at the turn of the century, which had wedding cake headlines that spilled gloriously down the page. Think of the expansive headline on The Wall Street Journal’s article on passengers trapped on a Northwest flight:

Wedding cake headlines? Sounds yummy, made me hungry and curious so I hunted down an image of the New York World which you see to the right.

I have blogged often about the importance of good headline writing (see my post Crafting Headlines that Pop).  Attention is now king (sorry content, you have been deposed), and whether you are writing the subject line of an email or a tweet, or press release headline, the words in the initial approach determine whether the reader will read further.

I don't understand or agree with everything in the article but Carr does make some excellent points and sheds light on a few things I didn't know.  He discusses the implications of a world in which headlines are written for machines rather than people to drive traffic based on improved SEO.   He says

Headlines in newspapers and magazines were once written with readers in mind, to be clever or catchy or evocative. Now headlines are just there to get the search engines to notice. In that context, “Jon StewartGlenn Beck” is the beau ideal of great headline writing. And both Twitter and Facebook have become republishers, with readers on the hunt for links with nice, tidy headlines crammed full of hot names to share with their respective audiences.  Slams

Keep in mind that all of the things that make headlines meaningful in print — photographs, placement and context — are nowhere in sight on the Web. Headlines have become, as Gabriel Snyder, the recently appointed executive editor of Newsweek.com, said, “naked little creatures that have to go out into the world to stand and fight on their own.”

This has me confused - the context is different and in some cases barely there (e.g. with Twitter) but there most assuredly is context online, and it is often very rich. Perhaps he is talking about Twitter, or headlines skimmed by a newsreader that are shown independent of context.

The Huffington Post is very advanced in this regard.  Carr writes:

The Huffington Post knows its way around search engine optimization, or S.E.O. as it’s known. A story about whether the president would play golf with Rush Limbaugh was headlined: “Obama Rejects Rush Limbaugh Golf Match: Rush ‘Can Play With Himself.’ ” It’s digital nirvana: two highly searched proper nouns followed by a smutty entendre, a headline that both the red and the blue may be compelled to click, and the readers of the site can have a laugh while the headline delivers great visibility out on the Web.

The Huffington Post sometimes tests two different headlines in real time to see which the audience is responding to. (“How to Reduce Your Oil Footprint” did better than “How to Say No to Big Oil and Reduce Your Oil Footprint.” Go figure.) The site also uses its Twitter account to solicit reader suggestions on headlines. Arianna Huffington, editor in chief and a founder of the site, rejects any notion that it is dumbing down in search of eyeballs.

Regarding long headlines, Carr writes:

There’s no room for that kind of discursive, descriptive run-on on the Web.... Google’s crawlers and aggregators like Digg quit paying attention after 60 characters or so, long before readers might. 

The article also includes commentary from Nick Denton and others on the evolving art of the headline.

The Circle of Life in PR

Death is part of life.

Predators feast on prey, thinning herds and improving the health of the greater ecosystem.  Carrion fertilizes the fields.  Fauna bloom and provide sustenance for the herds. And, so, the cycle continues.

The circle of life holds true in tech and PR as well.  The headlines and press releases brim with tales of death and rebirth.

As I have chronicled in my PR Death Watch series, sacred cows (i.e., anachronisms) of PR die as shiny  golden calves are born.  In a new season, the golden calf, once frolicking and so full of life, takes ill and succumbs.

Tom Foremski issued his death knell for the press release on Silicon Valley Watcher (Die, Press Release, Die! Die! Die!).

Just this week, we witnessed the death of the social media press release, the prodigal Phoenix once risen from the traditional press release ashes and now egested on the fallow field like so much excrement (see Ragan's story Has the Social Media Release Withered on the Vine?).

I attempted to resurrect the traditional press release in my post Revenge of the Press Release.

Having tired of tormenting the traditional press release,Tom Foremski has now turned to a new victim, voice mail and texting (see his story Pana.ma: Kill Voice Mail and Texting...).

And we have witnessed the birth of a brave new form of newswire (Reinventing the Newswire: CNW Acquires DNA13).

Yes, in nature, as in PR and tech, the circle of life continues and it is good.

Some Depressing Numbers for Traditional PR

I have a post on the Social Fluency blog today that charts the decline of traditional PR via some pretty depressing numbers.

It answers the question: what do professional photography and PR have in common?  Both have suffered from a decline in ad pages (hence editorial content) and magazine titles.

The post also links to an article that reports on the results of a survey which shows that PR agency salaries were down close to 11% in 2009.

3 Metrics to Help Stop Abandoned Blog Syndrome

The following is a guest post by Anne Giles Clelland of Handshake 2.0

Know thyself.

- Inscription at the Delphic Oracle

Know thyself.

Although the reasons for why we do what can be both, most of us tend to be one more than the other, either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.

"Which are you?"

This is a question I have begun to ask clients who seek to increase a corporate online presence, particularly through a corporate blog.  Since I can write about clients, but not for them - social media is personal after all - and blogging is hard work, so hard that 95% of blogs are abandoned, if we know the answer to the intrinsic-extrinsic question from the outset, we can help avoid the “lights on, nobody home” Abandoned Blog Syndrome.

Clients who answer that they’re intrinsically motivated, frankly, have an easier time maintaining a blog.  They enjoy their ideas, gain satisfaction from expressing them in words, and appreciate seeing their own work online after they click “Publish.”  The process itself is the reward.

For extrinsically motivated clients, the way is more challenging.  When the reward comes from the results of the process, not from the process itself, what’s an extrinsically motivated blogger to do?

Monitor metrics.

Once a blog post is published, it’s globally accessible.  Each access to the post?  “Score!”

The premier metrics monitor is Google Analytics, but its comprehensive complexity makes using it a task akin to writing a blog post itself.

For the busy corporate blogger who welcomes extrinsic rewards, here are three metrics to check quickly to hear the crowd cheering.

Blog Software Metrics

Right there on the blogging software’s dashboard is a traffic hit counter.  As soon as the post goes up, the blogger can see when someone else has seen it, too.  If the company’s blogging software doesn’t offer metrics, I recommend ditching it and using software that does.  On a busy day, if checking other metrics doesn’t happen?  No reward, no motivation, no next blog post.

Fans and Followers

Once a blog post goes up, either automatically or manually, the extrinsically motivated blogger needs to share links to the post on Facebook and Twitter.  In an age of media fragmentation, the days of a blog being found by people are over.  A blog needs to be brought to the people.

A benchmark count right now of Facebook fans and Twitter followers is essential.  Then the blogger adds well-written posts with meaningful content to the blog followed by thoughtfully expressed updates to social media channels.  Tracking the number of fans and followers generated - or not - by each post lets the blog’s audience guide the blogger about what's valued and what isn't.  (I check fans and followers before a post, then about 8 hours later - that's about the lifespan of a blog post on its own.) The blogger takes the hint:  Write what they value.  More fans and more followers result.  Checking the original benchmark often and seeing the comparative increase can feel like applause.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

Achieving results with a Google search results metric requires patience but can prove particularly rewarding to the extrinsically motivated business blogger doubting the R.O.I. of his or her efforts.  When people type search terms into search engines, 68% click a search result within the first page of results.  That means for 32% of search engine users, results on other pages essentially do not exist. 

When prospective customers uses a search engine to check out a company, what do they see on the first page?  If the company’s blog is not there - the personal expression of the company’s vision and mission - it can be.  High-value blog content, created consistently over time by a motivated blogger - whether through intrinsic or extrinsic reward - shared in social media channels, can move the blog to the first page.  A prospective customer can see what the company says, not only what others say about it.  If that blog-generated lead converts to a sale?  It's Hammer time.

Blogger, Know Thyself

My grandmother, just turned 100, still knits cotton yarn dishcloths for her daughters-in-law and granddaughters.  She finds knitting intrinsically satisfying and finds giving what she creates to those she loves extrinsically rewarding.  If she could not give her knitting away, would she still be motivated to do it?  Good question.  Answering for ourselves why we do what we do can give us great power to take actions that reward and inspire our motivation, whether to knit, to blog, even to consciously abandon a blog before we start it.

Anne Giles Clelland is the president of Handshake Media, Incorporated and founder of Handshake 2.0.

The following is a guest post by Anne Giles Clelland of Handshake 2.0

Know thyself.

- Inscription at the Delphic Oracle

Know thyself.

Although the reasons for why we do what can be both, most of us tend to be one more than the other, either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.

"Which are you?"

This is a question I have begun to ask clients who seek to increase a corporate online presence, particularly through a corporate blog.  Since I can write about clients, but not for them - social media is personal after all - and blogging is hard work, so hard that 95% of blogs are abandoned, if we know the answer to the intrinsic-extrinsic question from the outset, we can help avoid the “lights on, nobody home” Abandoned Blog Syndrome.

Clients who answer that they’re intrinsically motivated, frankly, have an easier time maintaining a blog.  They enjoy their ideas, gain satisfaction from expressing them in words, and appreciate seeing their own work online after they click “Publish.”  The process itself is the reward.

For extrinsically motivated clients, the way is more challenging.  When the reward comes from the results of the process, not from the process itself, what’s an extrinsically motivated blogger to do?

Monitor metrics.

Once a blog post is published, it’s globally accessible.  Each access to the post?  “Score!”

The premier metrics monitor is Google Analytics, but its comprehensive complexity makes using it a task akin to writing a blog post itself.

For the busy corporate blogger who welcomes extrinsic rewards, here are three metrics to check quickly to hear the crowd cheering.

Blog Software Metrics

Right there on the blogging software’s dashboard is a traffic hit counter.  As soon as the post goes up, the blogger can see when someone else has seen it, too.  If the company’s blogging software doesn’t offer metrics, I recommend ditching it and using software that does.  On a busy day, if checking other metrics doesn’t happen?  No reward, no motivation, no next blog post.

Fans and Followers

Once a blog post goes up, either automatically or manually, the extrinsically motivated blogger needs to share links to the post on Facebook and Twitter.  In an age of media fragmentation, the days of a blog being found by people are over.  A blog needs to be brought to the people.

A benchmark count right now of Facebook fans and Twitter followers is essential.  Then the blogger adds well-written posts with meaningful content to the blog followed by thoughtfully expressed updates to social media channels.  Tracking the number of fans and followers generated - or not - by each post lets the blog’s audience guide the blogger about what's valued and what isn't.  (I check fans and followers before a post, then about 8 hours later - that's about the lifespan of a blog post on its own.) The blogger takes the hint:  Write what they value.  More fans and more followers result.  Checking the original benchmark often and seeing the comparative increase can feel like applause.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

Achieving results with a Google search results metric requires patience but can prove particularly rewarding to the extrinsically motivated business blogger doubting the R.O.I. of his or her efforts.  When people type search terms into search engines, 68% click a search result within the first page of results.  That means for 32% of search engine users, results on other pages essentially do not exist. 

When prospective customers uses a search engine to check out a company, what do they see on the first page?  If the company’s blog is not there - the personal expression of the company’s vision and mission - it can be.  High-value blog content, created consistently over time by a motivated blogger - whether through intrinsic or extrinsic reward - shared in social media channels, can move the blog to the first page.  A prospective customer can see what the company says, not only what others say about it.  If that blog-generated lead converts to a sale?  It's Hammer time.

Blogger, Know Thyself

My grandmother, just turned 100, still knits cotton yarn dishcloths for her daughters-in-law and granddaughters.  She finds knitting intrinsically satisfying and finds giving what she creates to those she loves extrinsically rewarding.  If she could not give her knitting away, would she still be motivated to do it?  Good question.  Answering for ourselves why we do what we do can give us great power to take actions that reward and inspire our motivation, whether to knit, to blog, even to consciously abandon a blog before we start it.

Anne Giles Clelland is the president of Handshake Media, Incorporated and founder of Handshake 2.0.

Introducing Tomorrow's Topic and Guest Blogger

Blogging and Twitter offer a smorgasbord, a constellation of people to communicate with  and share info and ideas.  I am constantly amazed by this, and have "met" a bunch of great people that I otherwise never would have.

Yet, the word "met" needs to go in quotes because I have never actually met most of these people in real life.  As such, there are limits to how well I can really know them.  Many, if not most, seem like partially formed images. 

Then, there are those who do seem very vivid and real to me, despite the fact that we never met.  One such person is Anne Giles Clelland.  Anne is:

• An entrepreneurial, marketing and social media dynamo
• Pioneering news ways to help clients get value from social media; her blog Handshake 2.0 is one example
• A tireless booster for economic development in the Southwest Virginia locale that is her base of operations (she is up for a Rising Star Award at NewVa Corridor Technology Council TechNite 2010)
• A triathlete
• A former school teacher

I am pleased to say that Anne will be guest blogging here tomorrow on the topic of avoiding abandoned blog syndrome.

Are you a Serial (Agency) Killer?

I wrote a post on the Fusion PR Forum blog today that explorers the phenomenon of the serial PR agency switcher.

Many companies find that they need to switch gears with regard to agencies and PR quite often.  The post offers some ideas about what might be going wrong in these situations, and advises a holistic approach to assessing PR needs and identifying potential problem areas.

I encourage you to visit the blog, read, and comment.

Super Bowl for PR

It is fun to watch the Super Bowl for just for the commercials, even if you are not a big football fan. The annual event is great PR for the advertising industry given all the buzz about the campaigns, their entertainment value, and the stories and drama behind the controversial ads.

It is a little ironic because the NY Times wrap noted that the most popular ads were either user-created or user-inspired.  (I tweeted about this, and one person replied "If true why do we need advertising professionals?"  You could ask the same question about PR, given that anyone can launch a blog or write and post a press release these days.  A source in the article said that user input "complements efforts by marketers to engage and involve consumers.")

It makes one wonder why the ad industry does not produce ads like these every day.  If you are in PR, it might also make you envious of all the nice attention for advertising and wonder if there ever could be the equivalent of the Super Bowl for PR.

PR Checklists: What is the State of the PR Program?

My post on Tuesday discussed PR process and checklists.

There are many types of checklists covering many different areas of PR. They can be about things as seemingly trivial as covering for a colleague on a briefing (my team sometimes regrets asking me when they see my checklist of info needed to make sure that I have everything), to large projects like events management.

Since President Obama just gave his State of the Union address I thought it might be a good time to ask: what is the State of the PR Program for your accounts? The checklist below is one I put together that can help a PR team make sure that the basics are in place and that the account is in good standing:

PR Toolkit

Key Messages
Last update / frequency of update

Thematics
Last update / frequency of update

Media/Analyst/Bloggers lists, graded for:
Accuracy
Categorization
Core list identified
How up-to-date it is

Editorial calendars, awards, graded for:
Completeness
Usefulness
Key opportunities called out

PR plan, graded for:
How up-to-date it is
Goals identified

Results / coverage

Quality - Did messages get through?  Did stories reflect our key themes?

Quantity - Did we have sufficient coverage?

Comparisons: vs. competition; previous year results; against goals identified in plan

PR Mix - Are you using a good mix of tools? Relying too much on any single approach?

Of PR, Checklists and Happy Work Places

The turning of the calendar in a new year is always a good time to reflect and look ahead.  In PR, we take start of the year as an opportunity to make sure that account basics are in place and develop PR plans for the coming months.

I was inspired towards this end while working with our teams at Fusion PR by a very relevant article and book.

The article, Thinking Happy Thoughts at Work, from the WSJ, ran last week and was timely.  Many work places are not particularly happy right now given cutbacks and the general state of business.  The article described strategies that companies are using to deal with this, and focused in particular on the growing trend of using happiness coaches:

Indeed, the happiness coaches go beyond traditional positive-thinking approaches, taking new tacks that tend to ring true with workers. Some examples: Write e-mails to your co-workers every day thanking them for something they have done. Meditate daily to clear your mind. Do something for somebody without expecting anything in return. Write in a journal about things you are thankful for; look for traits you admire in people and compliment them. Focus on the process of your work, which you can control, rather than outcomes, which you can't. And don't immediately label events good or bad, but remain open to potentially positive outcomes of even the most seemingly negative events.

One passage that caught my attention was the idea of focusing on process and not getting so hung up on things that are out of your control.  This especially tings true for PR.  We cannot control the media, bloggers, or marketplace conditions.  We emphasize these facts when we do media training with clients.

Through a focus on repeatable processes, and careful attention to each step we can achieve excellent results for our clients while injecting a does of sanity into our work lives - and hopefully leading to a more rewarding and happier career and existence.

Very much in line with this train of thought, I took note about all the recent buzz regarding the book Checklist Manifesto.  The author has gotten tons of coverage for his book and approach.  The following text is from the NY Times review of the book:

Doctors often overlook or omit steps in the multitude of tasks we perform every day. As Atul Gawande argues in “The Checklist Manifesto,” these are situations where a simple to-do list could help. For example, a five-point checklist implemented in 2001 virtually eradicated central line infections in the intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, preventing an estimated 43 infections and eight deaths over 27 months. Gawande notes that when it was later tested in I.C.U.’s in Michigan, the checklist decreased infections by 66 percent within three months and probably saved more than 1,500 lives within a year and a half.

Gawande, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a staff writer at The New Yorker, makes the case that checklists can help us manage the extreme complexity of the modern world.

It seems obvious to me that simple checklists can be part of the processes that help us manage our work and deliver results for clients. I will share some of the PR checklists I am working on in an upcoming post.