Flack's Revenge

Louis CK Conquers Media, Heeds Mom's Advice: Just Tell Them Everything

Louis CK is a comic hero for every man, an unkempt alternative to the more mainstream comedians (think Seinfeld or Dane Cook).  He is irreverent, dark and just plain damn funny.

I have greatly enjoyed Louie's work, inlcuding his  FX and HBO series.  That is why I was pleased to see reports of Louie's recent successful effort to market content directly to his fans.

I first learned about this last week in the GigaOm piece: What Louis CK Knows that Most Media Companies Don't  The article says:

Until recently, comedian Louis CK was known mostly for a hilarious clip about how “everything is amazing but no one is happy,” which lampooned our inability to recognize our own good fortune and led to a TV show. Now, he has become the new poster boy for the idea of selling content directly to fans, after the success of a video download he offered on his website without any digital-rights protection. And that success contains lessons for traditional media companies who continue to lock down their content and otherwise fail to take advantage of the social web.

What Louie did, essentially, was bring his content directly to the public via his website at an affordable price ($5) without imposing restrictions or digital rights protection - avoiding the tangle of overhead, middlemen fees etc. that he otherwise would have had to pay. In other words, Louie made it cheap and easy - and is profiting in the process. He has also been getting a ton of great press.

The NY Times' David Carr covered this yesterday in his Media Equation column:

The show could be viewed as the consumer wished, with no rights protection or expensive subscription. A buy-it-and-watch-it proposition, no cable company involved...While I was talking with him on the phone Thursday night, he checked his Web site and about 175,000 people had bought his special through PayPal. He expected 200,000 total downloads by the weekend, which meant he would have grossed $1 million. After covering costs of about $250,000 for the live production and the Web site, that’s a $750,000 profit. And he owns the rights, and the long tail of buyers, in perpetuity.

As a PR person, I had to chuckle about his approach, and media relations advice that Louie's mom gave him (from NY Times).

The transparency of the enterprise, including its cost in relation to how many people bought in, was the subject of media coverage all last week.... “It feels weird having numbers out there, because that’s my personal income,” he said. “But I talked to my mom, who is a pretty judicious, careful person, and she said, ‘Tell them everything. Just let it all get out there.’ So that’s what I have been doing...” 

I don't know if I would always agree with that approach, but the advice seems to be working for Louie.

Wall Street Journal says Product News can Counter Bad Buzz and Lift Stocks

The Journal wrote last week about the effects (both good and bad) that social media reviews and other forms of online chatter can have on a company's stock price.

Online reviews can...have an impact on the stock price of the companies offering those products, lowering average returns by nearly 0.1% in as little as three days, according to a new study...

In what should be good news for stock pickers that have a social media analytics bent, the data can apparently predict a stock's performance:

Both positive and negative user-generated chatter seemed to predict market returns a few days ahead of time, the study found.

In what shoulld be good news for tech PR and marketing, the article concludes that issuing a press release can help:

Managers can take steps to combat negative reviews. New product announcements can increase positive buzz about digital products, such as cellphones and computers

It is an interesting time for buzz about social media buzz; Judy Gombita, a friend and co-contributor at Neal Schaffer's Windmill Networking blog (yes, I just signed on to blog there as well), wrote a great post yesterday about what social media buzz can mean for crisis management.  Judy also pointed me to a good article in the Telegraph about online chatter and blunders in social media marketing

On the Internet, Nobody knows if You are a Dog - or a Friend

Judy Gombita wrote a nice guest post for Marketing Mel, a very thoughtful essay about the layers of   friendships and relationships. 

Judy reflected on a term that she learned from one of her teachers when she was in school ("friendlies" vs. friends), describes how she came to know Mel and write the guest post, and links these ideas to the broader world of on and offline relationships. She wrote (excerpts below in italics):

...inserted into my lexicon was her novel word and intermediary concept: “friendlies.”  ...your friendlies are more than acquaintances, but haven’t reached the status of fully bloomed, time-tested lasting friends

..... it was through #solopr (one of my “featured” chats) that I met Marvellous Mel...I respect and very much like everything I know about Mel—her smarts, integrity, sector expertise, warmth, people skills and sense of humor. Yet in my mind at this stage I still classify Mel as a “friendlie” rather than a friend.

Why?  Simply because we haven’t known each other long enough to test the long-term strength of our online alliance.... But it’s still early days.

Similarly, Judy and I have had some very nice online exchanges, and at one point she invited me to write a guest post for PR Conversations.  I suppose I am friendlie, and perhaps on the way to becoming a friend of Judy's.

Ironically, just this Sunday, I had the chance to take in the movie Catfish (spoiler alert), which looks at the layers and nature of friendships from another (and much darker) perspective.

This amazing documentary was created by young NY-based filmakers - I won't give everything away, but will say that it shares the experiences of the lead as he got very close to the various members of Michigan family (and the family's Web of friends) based on a reality that was presented through Facebook - a false reality, as it turned out.

In the movie, Facebook was presented as a storytelling medium, an artist's canvas that can let people paint any reality that they desire.

Thought provoking stuff, as you might imagine, for a PR person and anyone, really, who dabbles in social networking (and who doesn't these days?).

New Research Sheds Light on How News Spreads Online

Breakthrough Identifies Roles of Influencers and Paves the way for Further Study

A story in the New York Times recently caught my attention. The simple title Why Some Twitter Posts Catch on and Others Don't, seemed to promise an article that would finally answer the question that plagues most PR people at one time or another; namely, "why does one client or news item seem to get more attention and sharing than others?" (Of course, this question is usually followed by "how can I ensure that my news gets the most sharing and exposure?").

Interest in these types of questions led me to the field of memetics years ago. Memetics is the science that seeks to explain how ideas spread.  It says that the heartiest units of information, or "memes," catch on, and are passed along from person to person (helping to define and shape cutlure); while the weaker ones are quickly discarded and forgotten. Call it information Darwinism, if you will.

However, after reading several books on memetics, and struggling with how to apply the theory, I concluded that it is more of a soft than a hard science (or a pseudo science, some say). I have written a number of blog posts on related topics (see my Interview with Doug Rushkoff and Memes Gone Wild).

The TImes article cited above offered some very useful information, and led me down a path that helped me better understand advances in the study of how information spreads across social networks. I interviewed Jure Leskovec of Stanford, one of the researchers behind a paper quoted in the article.

Below, I share some excerpts from the Times article that I found to be interesting, and, in a series of posts over the next few days will blog more about what I learned from the interview with Jure.

...researchers at Cornell and a few other universities like Stanford are finding patterns in the way information catches on in cyberspace...

The structure of a social network ... can have more influence than the size of a group, researchers say...

An earlier Stanford study found that bloggers, over time, had more influence than mainstream publications in areas like technology or entertainment.

...the way information spreads online is often more complicated than viral transmission, in which one person passes a link to, say, a YouTube video directly to another person. As with political topics, people often wait until a number of friends or trusted sources have promoted an idea before promulgating it themselves.

...Content from news agencies tended to spike and gain the most attention immediately, while news that started on blogs or was picked up by bloggers often experienced several peaks or rebounds in popularity as time wore on.

Professor Leskovec says the studies provide a quantitative way to predict which stories will hold attention and which will fade rapidly, based on who covers the material first. In a few years, he says, “we will be at the stage where marketers will be more mathematical and less intuition-driven..."

Clearly, this was a topic that begged further exploration. I wanted to understand (and help my readers better understand) how online influence works, who is most influential for different types of news (with tech being the area that is nearest and dearest), and what we can learn to help us get the best possible visibility for our news.

Stay tuned and read the next in my series for more on this.

How Times Reporters Use Twitter (A Cocktail Party with Journalists)

The Public Editor column in the New York Times shines a light on how the paper covers news and seeks  to help readers better understand the reasoning behind their stories and editing decisions.

This week, Public Editor Arthur Brisbane covered how some of the New York Times reporters use Twitter.

I found it to be ironic because, while reporters sometimes look down on PR (I am not saying the ones listed below do, I am speaking in general terms), their use of Twitter reminds us that they are not above a little self promotion and personal brand building.  Also, the article left me more convinced than ever that PR people who are not on Twitter are missing out in a major way, as Twitter is like a "cocktail party" between journalists and readers (to use the words in the title of the article).

Here is an excerpt:

...some Times writers and editors have become prolific at it, sending out thousands of tweets to thousands and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of followers. For them, the online service, which allows you to transmit 140-character messages and links, has emerged as a vast medium of information exchange...By selecting a universe of tweeters to follow, they can track news sources of all kinds, including rival journalists. They can create listening posts across every topic they need to monitor.

Here are some of the takeaways (words in italics are excerpts):

Twitter helps journalists track news sources of all kinds

David Carr, media columnist for The Times... said Twitter frequently puts him ahead of the news curve: “Twitter is my default news feed.”

Twitter helps them sift through information

Patrick LaForge said that:

Other Twitter users “curate” the Web for him...“which means they find, analyze and comment on useful links that interest me far more quickly than I could ever do for myself..."  Mr. Carr said, “you can see what is getting heat and what is not.”

It Helps them Research Stories and Float Ideas

[Nicholas Kristof] said, he is planning a possible trip to Mauritania and has used Twitter to query his million-man follower group in search of expertise on the country — with good results... He has used it also for something that blogs and columns just aren’t appropriate for, he said: publishing a hunch.

Twitter helps reporters build their personal brands

Twitter also enables writers to super-publish their work... effectively pushing a cloud of links far beyond the reach of The Times’s Web site and print edition.... Down this path Times journalists go, not surprisingly, in search of a greater following. “Twitter does turn us all into marketers,” said Brian Stelter, who covers media issues.

Role of Publicists in the Oscar Chase; One Seat was Vacant

If you like movies and handicapping contests, there is no better time than Academy Award season.  And if you happen to be in PR, as I am, it is interesting to follow news reports about all the behind-the-scenes marketing, maneuvering and gamesmanship that is done to try to influence the outcomes.

I enjoyed the show last night - I thought the hosts did a great job, and the quality of movies that were up for awards seemed to be better in general this year.  I also enjoyed reading a couple of related articles in the New York Times.

The first article featured Times reviewer responses to reader questions about movies; one question, posed to Manohla Dargis, was about the Social Network vs. King's Speech - the answer highlighted the role of publicists and press in the Oscar race:

Q. What do you think accounts for the seismic shift from the total dominance of “The Social Network” on the awards circuit to “The King’s Speech” replacing it as the front-runner over the last few weeks?

MANOHLA DARGIS The idea that “The Social Network” was ever an authentic front-runner for best picture is a nice idea and a total media fabrication. Every year entertainment journalists, aided and abetted by movie publicists, try to spin some kind of drama out of what has become an interminable “awards season....”  Two easy ways to stir up interest and trouble are to locate a villain (as in late 2001, when nasty chatter about “A Beautiful Mind” oozed into the mainstream) or create a media-friendly slugfest, as with last year’s trivializing battle of the exes (Kathryn Bigelow versus James Cameron). With no obvious villains available this year the, er, reigning narrative is that “The King’s Speech” has unexpectedly emerged as the one to beat at the Oscars...

The second article ("The Missing Guest at the Oscar Party") sadly reminded us that Ronnie Chasen, a publicist who would normally be there and working the room, was not because she met an untimely death last year.

 

 

Are People Born Good Writers? 9 Steps to Better Writing, from James Ellroy

Time magazine has a celebrity interview feature called "10 Questions."  A month or so ago, Time readers posed the questions to James Ellroy, author of great noirish fiction - a number of his books hit the best seller lists and became movies, like L.A. confidential and The Black Dahlia.

One question in particular caught my attention (please see following excerpt):

Q:    Are people born good writers?

James Ellroy: No. You have to read, read, read, read, read, read read, read and read. And as you read for enjoyment and edification, unconsciously you assimilate the rudiments of style and technique, and when it comes time for a person to begin to seriously write they either have it or they don't. The level of artistry can be enhanced, chiefly through hard work - but you read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. It's an informal education that is oddly formal by dint of the very fact of reading.

I had remembered reading the passage but could not track it down.  Time makes it almost impossible to get content through their Web archive, even if you are a subscriber to the print magazine and have their smartphone app (I am and I do). I did find this YouTube clip which, features the Q and A session with Ellroy.  He is a pretty intense dude, check it out, you will see what I mean.

Ellroy offers sound advice. Folks who work in PR agencies are constantly looking to up the writing games of their teams - this is one way to get them to try to do it.

It also reminded me of my long career, and how I almost flunked my first writing course in my freshman year of college. I was a constant irritant to the professor, and just could not seem to get my arms around the writing assignments. Then, I transferred from Brandeis University and entered the college of engineering at BU. Engineers are not known to be great writers. I'll spare you all the gory details, but twenty plus years later I work in PR, enjoy writing, and many people say I am good at it. I would have to say that reading has contributed to helping me improve as a writer - and that connection only really hit home after reading Ellroy's interview.

It really is like a collective subconscious (or Greek chorus), consisting of all of the voices of the writers you have read - sitting in the back of the mind and guiding your work.

CNET Says "Press Conferences are Over"

I take my responsibility for maintaining the PR Death Watch list seriously.  It is a lonely and thankless vigil. So little free time.  So many PR sacred cows to slay, and anachronisms to highlight; all those knives to keep sharp; so much blood to drain from cutting board (well, you get the picture).

That is why I thought "great now I have some help, from none other than CNET!" when I saw the headline Press Conferences are Over (thanks for your tweet about this @bakertweets).

In reading further, though, it became clear that the story is not about the death of the press conference; rather it related a journalists' pet peeves, and was based on reporter Kent German's experiences at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

German has some good tips that are worth reading.  See the link for the full story, and the following excerpts:

I may be in the minority here, but I'm at a press event to work. I'm there to get in, get the news and get out because I have a story to file. A bar is nice and food is welcome, but I don't need either. Skip the chitchat and the fluff and let's get on with the program.

...If you do hold a press release event, there are a few things to remember-

 First off, your product, and not the location in which you show it, is the star of the show. A location can be an accessory of sorts, but when it becomes inconvenient or ill-suited to the event then I don't care how fashionable it is....

Remember that we'll want to take photos of the phones that you unveil, so please give us the light we need to do so.

Seriously, folks, you could hold your event in a tent and I would be there. It's my job to attend, so if the tent has enough room, the Internet works, we have a place to sit, and press check-in isn't complete chaos... then I'll be a happy camper.

But even better,.. Just send us an e-mail with your announcements. You know we'll cover your news anyway, so let's just save each other time.  

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.

PR and the Decline of Western Civilization

USA Today reviewed the book "PR: A Persuasive Industry? Spin, Public Relations and the Shaping of Modern Media"

I have not read the book yet, but the review included some interesting tidbits worth commenting on.

The authors are apparently from the field of PR (can you really call PR an "industry").  Judging from the title, anyway, it would seem to be a sensationalistic and negative take on the profession, although, according to the reviewer, the authors take a balanced view.

Reviewer Seth Brown starts out by noting: Public relations, oddly enough does not have great PR.

A little later he says: Industry professionals come down on both sides of the issue.  Some say that PR is generally truthful while other say that white lies are part of the job.  A poll of insiders revealed that most don't feel that telling the truth is part of the job.

Here it is not clear whether he is getting this from the book or from other sources; a reference would have been nice.  I am not sure what "insiders" were polled, but it seems like an outrageous statement that everyone I know in PR would dispute.

At worst it seems downright inflammatory and inaccurate, at best it presents a naive and incomplete view.  As anyone skilled in the art of rhetoric knows - politicians, lawyers, pundits, educators, yes journalists, too - there are many shades of truth and presenting a side of reality that is consistent with your worldview while not going out of your way to simultaneously argue an opposing view is not quite the same thing as being a liar.

Another interesting conclusion has to do with PR's role as being a major influencer of the news of the day.  Obviously, an important goal of PR is to get our clients portrayed prominently and favorably in the media.  Despite the (at best) ambivalent view of journalists towards PR, according to the review:

Yet without the PR industry, Morris and Goldsworthy argue, there would be little news.  A 2008 study of news stories in U.K. newspapers found that more than half contained mostly PR material.  A study in the Columbia Journalism Review found that more than half the stories in an edition of the Wall Street Journal "were based solely on press releases."

Here I feel very mixed.  On the one hand I am impressed that we apparently have this much of a role in shaping the news.  On the other hand, again, this does not seem to jibe with reality and I am sure the good hard working journalists at the respective publications would take issue with the conclusions.

The review does say that it is not easy to evaluate the role pf PR, and correctly notes that PR is low cost when compared with advertising.  According to the Seth Brown, the authors do defend PR and say that it is by itself amoral, hard to define and important to a free press.

Brown concludes: If you are looking for a book to conclusively answer your PR questions, keep looking.

What questions?  Does everything need to have precise boundaries and be easily reduced?