Flack's Revenge

The world got an interesting glimpse into Samsung’s marketing playbook this week when CMO Todd Pendleton testified at the patent trial against Apple. This New York Times story relates his version of the steps the company took to build its brand and take the leadership position in mobile handsets.

According to the piece, when Pendleton started with Samsung in 2011, he did not even know they made smartphones; Pendleton, and many others associated the Korean manufacturer with TVs and other electronics. Here’s an excerpt:

At the time, Samsung was still number 4 in the market… He decided to build a brand around “relentless innovation” by shipping the best hardware… before anyone else… Samsung began a marketing campaign called The Next Big Thing, which aggressively mocked the iPhone while promoting Samsung devices as the best on the market.

He was asked whether Samsung “plotted to surpass Apple.” Pendleton replied, “Our goals at Samsung are always to be No. 1… to beat everyone.”

Dumb question, great answer! The current cell phone market has a lot of players, each offering something or the other in terms of features (or gimmicks, depending on how you look at it), serviceability and carrier-phone combinations to pull consumers into their court.

Plus, most brands are known to have some form of partnership going with tertiary-part makers who are responsible for most if not all the parts that make up a modern cell phone today.

In that light, it is hard to know what to think about all this. How far should a company go to protect its intellectual property? And what constitutes IP?

You can find good arguments on all sides of the debate. On the one hand, I can sympathize with Apple, as their lunch was eaten by Microsoft and the PC clone industry years ago. Microsoft Windows used some of the same UI innovations as the Mac OS X, which came before it. Now, in the post-PC smartphone era, Apple clearly wants to turn back the tide of the threat posed by Google’s Android OS – and, let’s face it, Android does cop many of the nicest UI features of iOS.

But the Mac OS was influenced by work that came before it, at Xerox PARC. And why is Apple suing Samsung, and not Google? It seems to be part of a calculated legal strategy, and not just some noble effort. The Samsung CMO testified at a trial in which the company is suing Apple for patent infringement, go figure.

You, however, really need a playbook to follow all this, and it is not clear how consumers will benefit from the costly legal jousting. Hasn’t the Droid horse already left the barn? Before the lawsuits are settled, we will be ready for the next wave of innovation, and another round of lawsuits five years down the road, I suppose.

At any rate, the Samsung branding playbook demonstrates the power of great marketing. They prevailed against one of the worlds’ most loved products and stellar brands.

We were in a messaging session with the client, the kind of exercise where you work together to try to find the words that explain tech in a compelling and easy-to-follow way.

These can be messy affairs, like mud wrestling. People get attached to certain ideas and words. They sometimes like to use hype, buzzwords and cryptic jargon (think buzzwords and jargon are the same? They are not, according to this post on Social Media Today).

While there are elements of brainstorming involved – you want to get the creative juices and ideas flowing and hear from all – you also need to guide the sessions with a firm hand and be direct about what you think works, what doesn't and why.

Deciding what sounds best can get contentious. Job title and force of personality can influence the process. People can get religious about tech domains, philosophies and labels.That is why it is good to have an agency running the session, to be an impartial sounding board and messaging leader/moderator.

In this case, the client wanted to explain things step-by-step, in a dry manner: i.e. to state the need, and what the tech actually does. Not that I am opposed to clarity; but I thought that it might help to start with an attention-getter – words that describe the company's very impressive tech breakthrough and what it can mean for clients.

In the end we were saying pretty much the same thing – but the ideas the PR team floated got to the point much more quickly. In today's busy and noisy world, people just don't have the time or patience to sit through a long story.

When I suggested a key phrase, the client said "now that's a killer message!" I thought of other things that are "killer" in tech, like apps – and shot back: "No – it's killer rap!"

Do you got killer rap? Or do your tech messages need work? I will be writing more on this topic; also, we will host a seminar that takes you inside a messaging session, shows how the sausage gets made, so-to-speak, and can help with your pitch.

Dorothy Crenshaw wrote a nice post about the decline of the tech PR launch on the Impressions blog.   She writes Some former colleagues in tech PR and I were talking recently about the “good old days” when nearly every tech launch included a splashy press conference. Today, not so much.  In my book, that’s a good thing. Lavish press conferences… have always struck me as a lazy strategy. But launches have changed…

She goes on to list the reasons, such as a changing media landscape, and increassing emphasis on software, consumer tech, startups, and closer oversight of the spend by VCs.

I agree that the tech PR launch is not what it used to be, but at Fusion PR we have stopped thinking about launches as one-shot, Big Bang events long ago. It is for the reasons she lists, but also due to an increasingly noisy media/social media environment in which a burst of coverage is just not as impactful (also, most of our clients are startups – very rarely have they relied on press conferences, even going back to the start of the agency, during the dot-com era when VC dollars and PR fees flowed more freely).

For many of our clients, a launch is not just a debut, it's a process that occurs over a period of time, and involves a number of related steps. Sure, it may start with a major announcement or unveiling, but rarely is that enough to really launch a company or product.

Also, while her point "software [which is less tangible and visible] trumps hardware" may have been true at one point, this is changing.  What about the all of the excitement and buzz about maker culture (typified by the creativity behind Arduino, Raspberry Pi) Google Nest, wearable tech, 3D printers, connected cars, etc.?

Anyway, Crenshaw's larger point is well taken, I enjoyed reading it and appreciate the chance to chime in on the changing nature of tech PR launches.

Note: This post is an excerpt from my content marketing column on Maximize Social Business

I have a confession to make. I am an autoposter.

Why is this so tough to admit? Auto posting is controversial because it can result in spam if you’re not careful. Social media purists often react badly to any kind of automated posting or engagement. Perhaps they feel that a scheduled tweet is somehow less authentic.

I believe that auto posting (e.g. automating or scheduling updates), and its busy cousin auto-cross-posting (repurposing content across multiple networks) can be great ways to gain content, social media marketing efficiencies and boost results.

When done correctly, you can make the most effective use of original and curated content, and increase output across multiple channels. Do it with a light touch, be smart and you can have your auto posting, and satisfied users and communities too.

In this post I share tips based on research, my own experiences, and input from some of the top experts in the field.

The Mission: Improve Results Across Multiple Channels

Auto posting fits in with other tactics that are designed to boost social media efficiencies and output, like content curation, which I have covered in previous MSB columns. In 9 Surefire Content Promotion and Distribution Tips, I touched on auto posting only briefly, mainly to caution against a lazy and haphazard approach.

As I said at the outset, you need to be careful when auto posting so as not so spam or double up on content, and to make sure that updates are the right format, tone and style for each network/audience. E.g., there are quite a few ways to send your tweets to Facebook or LinkedIn. But are your goals and audiences different for each? And do the hash tags make it obvious that you are just sending your tweets over, without much thought or care?

Duplicate content or crosstalk can result from poor posting rules and methods. E.g. you can set up your WordPress blog to send a tweet when you have a new post; but be careful to avoid simultaneously tweeting the same thing from Buffer or HootSuite.

It can help to pick tools that are extensible and/or offer lots of built-in support for auto and auto-cross-posting. WordPress is open source and has a rich ecosystem of plugins, templates, etc. I have found that it offers more options than TypePad, for example. Driving auto posting from a central blog hub can work if your needs are modest (say, a single blog plus several social channels).

The ideal solution lets a team apply rules – to make sure the right content is going to the right places, from a hub or console – and edit updates and content before they go live, to adjust for each network. The benefits of a central, holistic approach are that you can better avoid crosstalk and be smarter about sharing the right content and updates in the right places.

Experts Chime In

I wanted to learn more. So I sought advice from experts, and asked:

• If you take necessary precautions and are not just blasting everything everywhere – are there ways to programmatically repurpose content across multiple networks?
• Bonus points to do this holistically vs. point-to-point – and to distribute original with curated content.
• Which tools and approaches work best?

Here are their responses. It is interesting to note the differences in outlook, acceptance and approaches.

Neal Schaffer: “Tap new and evergreen content”

Neal Schaffer needs no introduction; however if you are new to this forum and Neal’s work, he runs the Maximize Social Business group blog, and is a social media consultant, author and Forbes Top 50 social media influencer. Here is his response:

“Humans can’t scale, so there is a need to rely on some automation in order to scale your organization and ensure your message becomes part of the conversation. Some avoid automation to the point that they never end up posting at all, which is a disservice to their community as well as themselves.”

As far as best practices, I think we should look at two scenarios:

New Content: Auto-posting gives you the ability to ensure that your message is, at a minimum, communicated to your community. Can some people see through that it is automated? Sure. But if it is new content and relevant, I have found social media users to be accepting if done at a minimum of frequency. This can be achieved through a number of tools that can manipulate RSS feeds. My current favorites are HootSuite (which offers broad support for social networks) and PostPlanner (has niche support for Facebook) as well as the WordPress JetPack Publicize plugin.

Evergreen Content: Many companies have content that is evergreen, and considering it’s a best practice to post the same content multiple times in the same network (because we are all looking at different things at different times), tools can be used to ensure that this content is always part of your conversations. Once again, the frequency at which you post evergreen content could become a challenge – as well as ensuring that the content is still relevant today. The only tool that I have found, which I have also become a big fan of here, is SMQueue.”

Robin Good: “Blasting is blasting!”

Robin Good has been writing about news mastering, syndication, curation and collaboration from the earliest days of the Web. His MasterNewMedia blog is one of the top sites for these topics. Robin replied:

“You either automate this process or curate it manually. Yes there is some middle ground, but I think that the best and most fruitful way to repurpose content across different social networks and audiences is by manually customizing for each one.

The middle ground may be in using some tools that relieve and lighten part of this repurposing process, but never in relinquishing to an automated scheme. For example, I can curate a story on Scoop.it, and then repurpose it for Facebook and LinkedIn by rewriting the headline and intro completely, or send it to Twitter by simply adding relevant hash tags to it.

Similarly, it is important to note that different industries can use automation marketing in unique ways. For example, whereas businesses in the finance sector can use automation marketing tools like this one to build and scale automated marketing campaigns, companies in other industries might use these tools in different ways.

For instance, I can use IFTTT to create recipes that help me in automating part of this repurposing and personalization, but certainly at the sacrifice of some spontaneity and genuine communication. Blasting is blasting – see if any of the great journalists or authors ever do it. So a lot depends on the goal: is it “gaining” more eyeballs or clients, or is it about providing valuable info at the right time in a true personal voice?

I actually challenge you to show me any programmatic repurposing of content that doesn’t look automated, and that is evidently better than going the manual way. I’d love to discover that there are ways I am not considering.”

In response to my question about a holistic approach, Robin replied:

“Use a tool that allows you to treat content as an outlet-independent item. You write it once, but then it can go to many different places: websites, newsletters, social media channels, RSS, etc.

A number of tools, including HootSuite, OpenTopic.com or Scoop.it, and many others, allow you to do so, but there is actually a new breed of tools emerging that is designed from the ground up to help you do just that. The prime example of this new breed of content creation and distribution / repurposing tools is Shareist.com. Another one you could take in consideration is Co-Schedule.com.”

Robert Rose: “Yes, but avoid copy and paste shortcuts”

As head of Content Marketing Institute’s end-user client consulting practice, Robert Rose is a noted industry expert and authority who has graciously shared insight for this column a number of times.

Robert and the CMI team counsel some of the world’s biggest brands, so he is very familiar with enterprise scale solutions.

Here is what he said:

“The short answer is, yes, there are ways to programmatically repurpose content across multiple networks. Many modern enterprise WCMS (Web content management systems) will do this for all the owned channels – including social media. Many will even dynamically present this content based on attributes that are appropriate for that particular channel or network. For example, I can write an article for the website, and have the CMS automatically post an abstract to my blog’s right rail, which links to a “short version” on a landing page – with a call-to-action for the “full PDF” after a signup. Simultaneously, it could post a version of that article to Facebook, a tweet to Twitter and so on and so forth. This is the best way to think about content re-use across owned channels – whether or not you use a sophisticated CMS system to do it automatically, or hand-craft it across the same.

There are also ways to automatically repurpose content across various hosted networks as well (I call these rented channels, even though they are not necessarily paid for). These include things like RebelMouse, or Paper.li or those types of things – where I automatically curate and aggregate the various things I’m sending out into the world to create a “portal” into my brand’s particular point of view. This, to me, is interesting and is certainly fairly effortless (as most rentals usually are), but your mileage will definitely vary here.

Finally, on the curation side, there are also tools like PublishThis, where you can use their “light content management tools” to add your brand’s particular (and hopefully unique) point of view. I like this – especially when brands take care to package a number of stories – because it builds a unique content platform that adds an opinion to what would otherwise be just an aggregation of links.

The key in all of this, whether it’s a curated or owned strategy, is that it’s re-purposing not just re-using. Inherent in its name, re-purpose means that the content is altered for a different purpose. So, to the point you very appropriately made, it’s not just copying and pasting – it’s actually taking the time to figure out how the content can be different for an alternate purpose – and then executing that.”

I had the privelege of submitting a post for CommPRObiz, a news hub for 75,000 C-suite and communications professionals, according to the ProfNet description. My topic, which ran yesterday, was a response to the recent Huffington Post story: Courting Controversy has Not Only Made Media Redundant; it’s Skewed the News

In that piece Lorraine Devon Wilke deplored the state of media today and blamed the usual suspects: our short attention spans, social media, and a relentless focus on the next big story, regardless of its significance or whether its aready been done to death.

She made some excellent points, but I argued that there is a bright side (here’s an excerpt from my post):

…this reality, which gives us BuzzFeed memes, viral headlines and click bait; and half-baked stories, rushed out to beat the competition; and rehashed content; also makes possible citizen/fringe journalism, the kinds that help solve crimes; and out corporate and political malfeasance. It gives us open science / data / government, and crowdsourced innovation and funding… a “skewed news world” presents opportunities for marketers who can mine the media noise and influencer chatter; technology vendors to help with the same; consumers in search of information; and for publications to pioneer new models.

Since my post came out I have seen other very significant articles that relate to the topic (the first two should be of great interest to the tech sector, as the cited stories go into detail about tech media):

• The Wall Street Journal wrote that ad dollars are getting stretched thin as news websites proliferate; according to the story: Helping drive the latest boom is a belief that established news media outlets, including websites of newspaper and magazines, don’t much appeal to younger people who rely on social media or other newer outlets for their news.
• David Carr of the New York TImes wrote two relevant pieces within the past few days: Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself and Web Journalism: Bubble, or Lasting Business? His articles cover the migration of top reporters to Web news properties, the tension between original reporting and aggregation, impact on news reporting, and the growing importance of branded content advertising vs. commodity banner and disply ads.
• A Media Post Search Insider story supported one of the tenets of the Huffington Post story; amidst all the noise, we are misinformed, and ignoring data about what is truly important: In a recent poll by The Wall Street Journal, out of a list of 15 things that Americans believed should be top priorities for President Obama and Congress, climate change came out dead last, behind pension reform, Iran’s nuclear program and immigration legislation. Yet, if we look at the data… quantifying the biggest threats to our existence, climate change is consistently near the top.

In closing I’d like to thank Fay Shapiro of CommPRObiz for the opportunity – she ws a pleasure to work with – and my friend Judy Gombita for turning me onto the site.

Beyoncé schooled the music world with the release of her new record, announced with a simple one-word “Surprise!” (the caption of the Instagram video that she shared with her 8M followers). It was the social media update heard around the world, led to record tweets and sales in short order, and some to wonder whether music promotion would ever be the same. Soci like Spotify.

The NY Times wrote:

The release of a blockbuster album has historically come to a few standard marketing moves. Flood the radio with an early single. Book as many TV appearances as possible. Line up partnerships with big retailers and consumer brands.

The stealth rollout of the album, “Beyoncé,” upended the music industry’s conventional wisdom…

In bypassing the industry’s traditional promotional machinery, she demonstrated social media’s power to amplify news and to forge a direct connection to her audience…. [It] showed the marketing value of no marketing.

What does the episode mean for the future of PR and marketing? For starters, it is likely to add to the debate about the continued relevance of press releases, PR, and even media in launches and other promotions. After all, why go through the bother of conducting an elaborate PR campaign and winning over the media when you can forge such a direct connection and rally your customers to action via social media?

If you work in tech PR, however, as I do, then I would be careful about such knee-jerk reactions. Most tech companies (especially B2B) don’t have legions of rabid fans that are hanging on every move and desperate for a new product. In the tech PR world, the goal is often to communicate with audiences beyond customers, including channel partners, influencers, job seekers, and investors.

Earning media and influencer validation through PR can help pave the way to the adoption of the tech.

I do think a good lesson for the tech crowd and other industries is to be open to innovative ways of sharing and breaking news.

Stay tuned to this blog, I will be writing much more about this in the coming weeks

I want to alert my readers that the NY Times has unearthed a story so big that it earned placement on the first page of the National section of the Sunday paper (taking up six columns across the lower third of the page).

Here is the scoop: they learned that the official White House photographer has first crack at presidential pix; and sometimes shares the best ones directly over social networks without the helping hand of a newspaper, essentially scooping the papers and creating tension with photo journalists).

I don't think this breaking story will end here. The Times might be hot on the trail of an even bigger one; about how the White House and even some companies hire murky figures called communications (or PR) pros. 

These people have inside access to the organizations' leaders – and sometimes publish the nice stories in suspicious documents called press releases. Through miracles of modern technology, the puff pieces can be shared with readers directly – again, without the helping hand of a real publication. These efforts, too, could create tension with journalists over access to sources and info.

There are so many takeaways and angles here, that I don't know where to begin. Perhaps one thing it proves is the old saw that you really should not pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel.