Flack's Revenge

There's Gold in them Thar Apps - and App Developers

Forbes had a nice story today, The Rise of Developernomics.  It included a link to David Kirkpatrick's famous quote and article: Now, Every Company is a Software Company.

The article today was about the importance of software developers, and the economics of nurturing and keeping top talent.  The writer, a contributor named Venkatesh Rao, argues - very convincingly - that there is no better place to put your money these days than software developers:

Unless you are a professional investor (and probably even then), places to store surplus capital today where it will even be safe and/or not depreciate too fast (let alone generate a return) are getting incredibly hard to find.... But there is one safe haven, if you know how to invest in it: software developers.

Is it true?  Can developers really be that much in demand? As I read the article, I thought about all of my friends who have worked in IT consutling and software development - and the ups and downs they have experiencecd, particularly here in NY.  The banking industry turmoil and competition from offhsore outsourcing has taken a toll.

Yet, most if not all of these people are working today.  I also thought back to the NY Tech Meetup event that I wrote about yesterday - nearly every company that demo'd closed with an appeal for developer talent.

No doubt, one of drivers of software developer demand - and the reason that every company is turning into a software company - is because of the growth of mobile apps.

Indeed, Venkatesh cites the following example:

Perhaps you are a baker with a small business — you are effectively useless, not because bread isn’t important, but because surviving in the bread business is now a matter of having developers on your side who can help you win in a game that Yelp, Groupon and other software companies are running to their advantage. If your bakery doesn’t have an iPhone app, it will soon be at the mercy of outfits like Yelp.

Mobile apps need not just developers but marketing - and, on that note, I'd like to point out a post that I wrote for the Handshake 2.0 blog: Getting Your Apps in Gear.  The topic, and title (a play on the phrase from the desktop software world, getting hindquarters, or a synonym for this, in seats) grew out of conversations with Anne Giles Clelland (who runs the site) about app marketing and PR. It is about how to drive downloads and usage for your apps.

I encourage you to visit Forbes and Handshake 2.0 and read these articles.

Tablets Lead Way to Power News Consumers, and Apps for PR

More people are using tablets, and in some cases spending more time with them than other devices and media channels. What are the implications of this trend for the PR field?

For starters, tablets can update and improve on many applications and projects. E.g. in my series of posts we explored reinventing the clip book, turning it into a dynamic, electronic magazine (see this post for one solution, devised by team member Kesley Judd). I am sure there are other examples of tablet apps, and potential apps that have relevance for PR.

Further, our jobs have gone beyond simply getting a nice placement to also caring about how the hit is shared and read, and to playing more of an active role in keeping stories alive and increasing exposure through social media channels. If you look at the tablet within this context, and consider the results of recent research, then ideas for PR start to jump out.

Paid Content wrote about a new report from Pew Research that describes news consumption habits of tablet users.

Tablet owners read a lot of news… The Pew study was conducted in conjunction with The Economist Group and found that half of tablet users use their devices to consume the news on a daily basis.. According to the report, 30 percent are spending more time with the news than before they had a tablet, and one-third are seeking out new news organizations on their tablets they didn’t frequent on their computers or televisions.

The article and report revealed that tablet users in large numbers (40%) are reading news via Web browsers, and (sadly, for the news business) paying for news content only in small numbers (14%).

Further, according to Journalism.org:

Eight-in-ten tablet news users say they now get news on their tablet that they used to get online from their laptop or desktop computer... [a majority] say the tablet takes the place of what they used to get from a print newspaper or magazine (59%) or as a substitute for television news (57%).

Also, it is not just about consumption but also WOM and social sharing:

Fully 85% of those who get news on their tablets said they had talked with someone about a long article they had read there. Some 41% of tablet news users say they share news through email or social networking...

The results point to the emrgence of tablet users as power news consumers; PR efforts need to align with this trend. We should be tracking how news gets on tablets, and exploring ways to get through to the tablet news consumer.

App Against the Wall (Yer Busted, and, Yes, There's an App for That)

It is tempting to think, wouldn't it be great if all of life's problems could be solved with a simple app?

This question occurred to me as I read a NY Times article yesterday; About to be Hauled off in Handcuffs? Press Send. It described an app, inspred by the Occupy Wall Street movement, that can help you if you are getting arrested. 

According to the article, the I'm Getting Arrested app:

... allows users to write a message and identify recipients — friends, family, a lawyer — in advance. Then... they can push a button to send a text message blast.

So, how is this relevant to PR? The rise of smart phones has led to a growth in apps (see my post It's an App, App, App, App, App, App, App World). Apps and tablets are now transforming how people receive, consume and share content. These trends mean big things for PR:

1. If you are in tech PR, you may have an app company for a client one day
2. New ways of computing mean new tools that can support our work
3. People are using these apps and tablets to receive and share news

No, there is not (for better or worse) simple apps that can solve all of our problems, including the challenges that we face every day in PR. However, through this series, I hope to help readers better understand the app and tablet world, and what this means for PR.

Please stay tuned for the next installment (and lots of bad app puns too!).

B-M Fiasco Another Example of the Transparent PR Campaign

One week later there are still some rumblings about the Burson Marsteller Facebook fiasco. It is a spectacle that continues to draw attention and coverage.

If we look at the episode more closely, however, it becomes clear that all the hyperventilating is a bit overblown. Also, I'd like to take the story back to where it started, as a PR pitch made public, and question assumptions people may have about what has become a now familiar story line, namely the outing of PR tactics and pitches, and offer advice and context in terms of what this means for the field and the future.

I, for one, am a little tired of seeing the PR industry and our pitches swatted around like sport. When one approaches a journalist in confidence, the assumption is that the information and source will be protected. If they don't like our pitches, there are many options outside of publicly outing offenders and destroying reputations and careers - change the channel, hit unsubscribe, delete, filter, etc.

I'd also like to point out that in other fields the types of tactics employed by the B-M team are done all the time. E.g. in political PR, opposition research, planted stories - all in a day’s work in politics, and doesn't raise too many eyebrows. I am not justifying sleazy behavior, but just pointing out it is not at all that unusual.

In his post Hyperbole Meets Hypocrisy: Googlegate Jeremy Pepper also said, essentially, that the outrage is overblown, and that in tech too, there is a long history of competitive sniping and creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) - he is correct, but I have to say in my many years in the field of tech PR, I have not seen PR teams brought into the mudslinging and story planting all that often.

This episode (and others like it where PR pitches and tactics are outed) seems to show that we are entering an era of the transparent PR campaign. I pointed this out in my post Media Wonderland: Down a Rabbit Hole and Through a Looking Glass.

The best defense is to be good at your craft, focus on relationships and not transactions, deliver great and targeted pitches, and adhere to the highest level of ethical standards. As much as PR desires confidence in media interactions, it is safest to assume that your tactics and motives will be outed and communications will be thrust onto the public stage and held under close scrutiny,

Lies My Social Media Guru told Me

I am starting a series of posts that aim to refute common social media myths.  One of the most persistent ones is that mainstream media doesn't matter anymore, and its corollary: anyone can be a publisher these days and take their stories directly to the people via social networks and media.

Certainly there are some elements of truth to the above statements.  Mainstream media has changed, and arguably has less influence in today's multi-tasking, short attemtnion span, media-saturated world.  And it is also true that anyone can start a blog or sign up for Twitter and start publishing to anyone who cares to tune in.

But it would be a mistake to write off traditional media, and assume that you can have the same impact by creating your own social media channels alone.  The folly of this type of thinking is illustrated by a post I read today on Social Business: Tech PR - Your Company Blog is not a Media Outlet and Never Will be.

Kate Schackei refers to recent Amazon cloud outage to make her point, and says:

As for your blog, maybe you’re widely read and maybe you’re not. Certainly many cloud customers knew to go to Amazon’s blog to see what was going on with the outage. But what impact did the blog have beyond the existing customer base? What impact would a post there have on the vast swath of potential cloud users who do not have the early adopter mindset — and may even be watching for problems now to determine whether the cloud is safer than it sounds? Nada. Those people went to read the New York Times blog, the Wall Street Journal article, or corresponding stories on ZDnet, ComputerWorld, Forbes, or Fortune. And you know what was said there? “Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.”

Blogging is important; but so is inviting questions from people who hunt for hot stories and bedrock truth for a living. And to get in that kitchen, you have to be prepared to take the heat. To imagine that your company blog takes the place of availability and openness with the press is to take a dangerously insular view of your audience and community. Which works, I guess, as long as you don’t want them to grow.

Online Privacy Fears: Does FOMO trump TMI?

The Journal had a big What They Know article series about the growing market for information about online personal info and activities; it cast the vendors that serve the market in a pretty dark light. Earlier this year, TIME magazine ran a similar piece. And, just yesterday, the NY Times had a story How to Fix (or Kill) Web Data about You.

What all of these stories have in common is that they send an alarm about online users' vulnerabilities regarding personal information and privacy. And, if in the process, the most influential of media knock the vendors who serve the industry down a few pegs - well, isn't that the point?

I am not saying it is not a valid issue, and that there aren't information providers who take things too far. But there are also those who play by all of the applicable online privacy and marketing information rules and regulations and offer a valuable service to the marketing and PR industries.

I can't help but thinking, too, that most people really do not concern themselves much with the issues raised.  An article in Sunday's Times discussed social networks and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) - basically, the angst one gets about missing out on fun while reading others' social media updates. Ironically, FOMO can compel us to share more, not less.

It must not just be FOMO bot other human impulses that compel us to tweet, blog, Facebook, etc. My point is, in a world where we wear our activities, thoughts and opinions on our online sleeves, do people seem to care much about guarding online privacy? Are the media's concerns overstated?

Google Refresh is a Good Thing for PR, Social Media and the Web

Google was in the news this week for making significant adjustments to its search algorithm. Their move was an apparent response to all the outcry about high rankings for low quality content, which in turn has been driven by the growth of content farms and other attempts by many to game the search system.

I think this is a great move and should result in changes that benefit those who work in PR and social media, among others. I work hard to generate original content that I hope will be interesting to others, and is not  driven by what people are searching for at any given moment. So do the people I work with and our clients.

The growth of content syndication sites and content farms has led to a lot of noise and garbage that just gets in the way of things on the Web. Sure, there is some good content on these sites. But as anyone who tries to monitor topics and brands and wade through never-ending streams of Google alerts quickly realizes, there is a ton of redundancy and garbage. Even when you do find good articles, the syndication sites make it hard to understand the original source and date of the information.

The Wall Street Journal had a couple of stories this week on the topic.  Google Reorders Web Winners discussed likely winners and losers, and included the following quote from a Google spokesperson:

... "people generating original content and maintaining high-quality websites" benefit Google.

Another article in the Journal introduced the term "article vomit,"  which, amazingly, was coined by someone from one of the offending sites, who also pointed to changes that are forthcoming:

He added that authors will now be required to write a minimum of 400 words an article, up from 250 words, along with many other changes to improve quality.

Clearly, given Google's influence, the changes will hopefully encourage longer and higher quality articles (and perhaps even stem an apparent decline in blogging, a topic that I wrote about in Builldog Reporter this week).

What's Wrong with Tech Marketing - and How to Fix it (Forrester Interview)

As I blogged last week, I spoke with Dr. Thomas Grant of Forrester about a new report: Tech Marketers Pursue Antiquated Marketing Strategies. Our wide-ranging discussion covered many topics that should be of interest to Flack's Revenge readers.

The report calls technology marketers out on the carpet for being too focused on lead generation and new business.  When compared with other industries, the techies simply do not spend the time or money that they should on market research or customer relations, and do not use social media or PR to full advantage - it is instead all about big bang events, product releases and other news, and talking rather than having thoughtful conversations.

No doubt, some will wince at its conclusions, however, the report does offer suggestions for improvement.  In Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Grant, I tried to zero in on these things, elicit examples and also find out more about ways in which tech marketers can more productively use PR and social media, and work with media and analysts.

Read on, and if this is a topic that interests you, I encourage you to visit the Forrester site as they have a selection of interesting reports that pertain to marketing.

Do companies ever make the transition (from being product-driven to market and customer-driven)?

it is wrenching... and sometimes takes disruption.

Discussion about SaaS as an example of disruption that is changing thinking

What really struck me about SaaS was that it kind knocked people for a loop... they started saying things like "Well, this isn't just a delivery model, this is a business model... we have to have a very different engagement model around our customers, we have to design our products differently."

In a way, what had happened was that they had been thrust into a very close relationship with customers that didn't exist necessarily in an on-premises world... with many layers of obfuscation between you and ultimately what people were doing with the technology... and suddenly people realized, well, damn, customers aren't just interested in things that are new, and they're not just interested in products, and they're not just interested in us as a vendor in delivering products that are new...

[This] has led people away from emphasizing too much what is new, and new leads and so forth... obviously from the statistics, not everyone is there yet.

Emphasis on the new, new thing

One of the things that companies have learned is that, [while] new is good... new is not always intrinsically and obviously valuable.   That is why the pace of innovation in the tech industry is a double-edged sword... on the one hand, it allows people to come up with things of value and deliver them to the market quickly, but often also lets them deliver things that are not of value, or not explain the value as effectively as they should because they're rushing to get it out and then they move onto the next thing.

On relatively small budgets for press and analyst relations (see chart)

The conceit that because we are developing new technology, we are defining the market, ergo there is no market research to be done is patently wrong.  Aside from the fact that not every technology [and] innovation is disruptive to that level, also, too, it is the case that you are addressing a human need; people do express their needs usually in a pretty clear fashion that you can then do market research about...

it is unfortunate that they don't tap available resources as much as they do, nor... other sources of influence... It is, especially in the B2B world, a pretty complex process... in the best of all possible worlds, you are trying to create some sort of a cascade of positive viewpoints on what you offer as a vendor that go, ultimately, into not just a press release or a piece of marketing collateral but ultimately go in a conversation between a CIO and a colleague when they sit down together... you're ultimately trying to reach that kind of conversation.

I don't think that is something the tech industry has effectively mastered... again, not just press and analysts, but other people might be important influencers... they don't get that picture too clearly.

There's an unfortunately standard model for doing analyst relations...  what analysts don't enjoy is talking to a vendor only when there's a huge announcement, and there's this carefully stage-managed conversation... frankly, the analysts have a hard time getting a word in edge-wise, because there's this gushing fire hose of information about this big new thing... that's not as effective as being in a more conversational mode with analysts....

Are tech companies under-investing in PR relative to other industries?

I think they are under-investing where PR is going... PR doesn't have to be just about announcements about new products.

One of the areas that is often misunderstood is the value of a new success story... what people look for in a success story is not necessarily what vendors think they are looking for... which is usually just validation that the vendor is wonderful.

If you are looking at PR as a conduit for information that will have an effect on a potential buyer or will help keep a customer loyal, having a story about how someone addressed a problem - even if the vendor is a minor character or not even mentioned - is still going to get my attention... 

What about tuning into vendors content on blogs and Twitter, assuming it is interesting and an area you cover you'd want to tune into that, right?

Yes... and I do, for example since I do write a lot about social media as an input into the development process, I'll follow a blog like, the social product development blog that PTC has... I've gotten to know one of the persons who posts there a lot and I have a lot of respect for what she has to say.  We're willing to follow what a social media outlet has to say regardless of whether it is a vendor or somebody else. 

We asked Cisco how has social media effected their launch process... they said, well what happens is that the spike of activity flattens out a bit, there's more conversation they have to engage in leading up to a launch event and there's actually, on the trailing side,more going on afterward... not just a "show up and throw up" event, then they rush off to the next big launch, but they have to engage over a longer time.

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?

New eBook on Market Positioning

At Fusion PR, we have teamed up with Silicon Valley tech marketing and strategy guru Rebel Brown on many successful product launches and company rebranding/turnaround efforts.

I am pleased to let you know that Rebel's new eBook It’s Not About You Anymore, P.S. It Never Was is out now (free download, no registration required).  It describes her approach to developing positioning that works.

According to the book:

Buyers do not use marketing propaganda to make decisions – whether they are consumers or B2B buyers. Buyers want credible evidence – and they don’t necessarily view vendors as the best source for those credible facts. Besides, B2B customers can find out every 'truth' they want to know about you. Give them a search engine and they are off and running on a factfinding frenzy. And thanks to social media – not all they learn will be facts. They’ll learn how others feel about your business. Market perception is more important than ever before.

Rebel reminds us that every position needs to be unique, discusses how to develop a positioning matrix, and explains the importance of focusing on the "pivot points" regarding your market, company and solutions.

The book offers great advice for anyone involved in tech PR and marketing, I strongly recommend it.