Are you Sliming your Customers with Crumby Content?

Posted on March 30, 2012 by rgeller

Pink Slime. This foul concoction has all the ingredients, food groups, if you will, for a media and attentional Stop-pink-slime firestorm; it has a catchy name, a manufacturing process that makes “like watching sausage being made” sound wholesome, is an apparent threat to our children, and illustrates bureaucratic indifference or stupidity.

(OK, now this is really too funny, but hey who am I to frown on PR ploys; see this article Governors to Eat ‘Pink Slime’ Burgers in Push Back Against Outcry over Additive).

We have a small school and it does not serve hot lunches, so there is less of a concern in my town – but it does seem scary, the stuff that schools consider good menu items for growing minds and bodies.

Reading these news reports made me think about the types of things that some marketers try to pass off as nourishing content for unsuspecting customers and prospects.

We know the type when we see it:

  • White papers that are thinly veiled sell sheets
  • Case studies that flog features using cryptic jargon, and are less about benefits, in language that is easy for customers to understand
  • Press releases that are jargon-laden and all about chest beating

OK, it is maybe a too cute and convenient analogy but I could not resist it, and urge marketers to take the time to ensure quality materials, that are educational, have real information value, are easy-to-read and understand, and are not just marketing slime.

Posted in In the News | Comments Off on Are you Sliming your Customers with Crumby Content?

Google’s Adding Semantic Search, Now What? Tips for Marketers

Posted on March 29, 2012 by rgeller

Google recently announced that they will be adding semantic search capabilities. The SpinSucks blog wrote about this, and what the changes mean for B2B marketers. Here is an excerpt:

Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported Google will be changing its search engine (“The changes to search are among the biggest in the company’s history…”) to include semantic search. Semantic search will help the search engine to better understand meanings of words to provide more relevant search results. Not long after that article, CNET published a story about how Google plans to penalize “over-optimized” sites to make it fair for sites that produce high quality content which may not be optimized for search.

I shared the post with Tony Grass of E-Market Intelligence and asked him for his thoughts. Tony is an expert in this area. His firm is a consultancy that generates leads and sales by identifying the best prospect groups for each client, projecting ROI, and pulling them in by what they want. If you find yourself asking “why can’t I find my site on Google?” then listen up. He said:

  • Do not try to optimize for traffic where you cannot deliver targeted value. Be about what you are about. Provide decisive value to the prospect traffic you most want, and can best sell to.
  • When choosing the keywords to optimize with, remember “It’s not what you want to sell, it’s what they want to buy.” Your website is for your customers, not you, and the keywords are the voices of your customers telling you what they want.
  • All search optimization is competitive. For example, an industrial manufacturer is not competing with Victoria’s Secret, or even Home Depot. You only have to be optimized better than your competition, and once you’ve decided on your keywords the top websites listed when you search with those keywords are your competition
  • Don’t use gimmicky shortcuts. If they work, they get eliminated by the next algorithm change. Invest in ‘white hat’ methods and you will have a quality investment that keeps its top positions and gets stronger every year. The above 4 points outline your strategy. Use a full-service SEO expert (includes writing) with good business thinking, or an SEO marketing agency that understands the ins and outs of the business and can keep up with the constant changes – it’s a game won by experts.
Posted in In the News, PR Tech | Comments Off on Google’s Adding Semantic Search, Now What? Tips for Marketers

Content Curation: Overcoming Challenges, Tapping Opportunities

Posted on March 22, 2012 by rgeller

There’s been a number of topics related to content curation this week, and I thought I’d write this post that summarizes them and looks at the bigger picture.

My monthly column on Neal Schaffer’s Windmill Networking blog explained what content curation is, and how it can be used to lead social conversations and boost marketing efforts. Curation does this by opening the floodgates of great content, making it easier to keep your social media channels brimming with timely and relevant info.

Neal followed up my post with his own, which offered great tips for taking content curation to the next level,

Overcoming Challenges and Concerns

One thing that I did not mention in my post is that there are some concerns and misunderstanding about content curation.

Much of the concern centers around the fact that it necessarily involves the use of third party content to achieve your goals. There are potential legal and copyright issues, and some just think it is wrong to do this regardless of the legalities.

This type of concern was thrust into the limelight recenlty when some pointed out that there are copyright issues related to how people use Pinterest, whiich is essentially a curation platform.. These stories have started to take some of the air out of all the buzz that the service has been getting.

Windmill Networking legal blogger Michelle Sherman posted earlier this week about how to reduce the risk of legal issues related to Pinterest.

While Pinterest is all about images, much of the controversy over curation relates to news articles. E.g. the cleverly titled post Aggregator’s Dilemma on Poynter starts off by asking:

When you aggregate content, what obligation do you have to the original source — and to readers?

It goes on to explore the question in detail, and shares best practices and answers from a range of editors of websites that employ aggregation.

Suzanne McGee recently shared this AdAge article, Introducing the Ethical Council on Blogging and Aggregation . Writer Simon Dumenco describes the new group, which he is heading, and points to a longer piece on the topic by David Carr of NY Times.

Carr wrote, in his Media Equation column:

So where is the line between promoting the good work of others and simply lifting it? Naughty aggregation is analogous to pornography: You know it when you see it.

Some might conclude that curation is the last bastion of the unoriginal and lazy social media striver. As the referenced articles above point out, there are right ways and wrong ways to go about curation; the lines may not always be clear when good curation crosses over and becomes poaching. But standards and best practices are now emerging.

Further, effective curation is a skill; there’s no question it can boost your content output, but doing this in a way that is effective requires time, effort, and knowledge (see Curation ain’t No Cure for the Lazy Blogger Blues).

Note: It may seem like I strayed from the original topic in discussing issues related to journalism and aggregation, rather than curation and social media. The topic led me to wonder about the difference between the two: aggregation vs. curation, that is, as they seem to be almost interchangeable. I did a search and found out that there is a difference. Here is the best explanation I could find, via Idealog.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Is Rush Limbaugh “Winning Ugly”?

Posted on March 16, 2012 by rgeller

A little friendly Twitter banter, a shared link, and an article in the NY Times reminded me of the words “there’s no such thing as bad PR” – and how much I disagree with them.

It started when I saw a tweet from Tom Bebbington, a likable PR guy who often shares some good finds on Twitter:

His Tweet said

@TomBebbington An interesting take on Rush Limbaugh’s current troubles (will annoy if you lean left): Don’t Kill the Crisis, Milk It!

I am and it did – I read the article in the above link: Don’t Kill the Crisis, Milk It! Why Rush Limbaugh’s “Slut-Gate” Is the Best Publicity in the World.

Blogger Skip Mahaffey, whoever he is, writes very well, but seems misguided. Acknowledging that what Rush said was wrong, and noting Rush’s apology, Skip goes on to say:

Didn’t satisfy your personal sense of outrage, did it? If you were hoping that this will be what finally puts an end to Rush Limbaugh, I have some very disappointing news for you: It ain’t happening. (Isn’t this the same guy who skated through a drug scandal? Was his rehab covered by his insurance? “Irony, table for one.”)

Let me hip you to something: The outrage, the ongoing conversation, the endless media focus, is nothing but Manna to Rush. In truth, he doesn’t want it to end, sort of. Rush has gone from cash cow to milkman. Keep talking about me, milk those babies dry! A great radio man I worked for many years ago always said: Publicity is publicity. Good or bad, just make sure they spell your name right

Regarding the departing advertisers, Skip says:

But in truth, for Rush everything IS fine. Don’t worry Ditto-heads, Rush is still collecting his paycheck and will continue to until he decides it’s time to hang up the headphones. Rush Buddy, I’m right there with you. Apologies and damage control are a pain in the ass and seemingly do nothing but appease people that you don’t want to (but must) deal with in order to keep the peace and more importantly, KEEP THE MONEY COMING.

If you tilt to the left (or are a right-leaning but reasonable person), and just read the above, your blood is probably boiling (as mine was when I first read this).

But I put this aside – in the interests of continuing a civil debate with a Twitter friendlie – and defending my assertion that there is in fact such a thing as bad PR, I responded to Tom, and he replied.

Here is the exchange:

@rgeller Yes annoys RT @tombebbington: Interesting take on Limbaugh troubles (will annoy if lean left) Don’t Kill Crisis Milk It 

@rgeller There is such a thing as bad PR IMO RT @tombebbington: An interesting take on Rush Limbaugh’s current troubles… 

@TomBebbington @rgeller For most of us, yes. But when your image is based on calculated outrage, something like this is a win.

@rgeller D TomBebbington Could see ur point but when advertisers leave & he’s increasingly marginalized even by right, is that a win? Getting radioactive, fine by me

One thing I won’t dispute is the fact that this episode will not likely end Rush’s radio career (as Skip so eloquently put it in his statement above). But it is a long stretch from “Rush isn’t going anywhere” to “this PR is great for him.”

Despite the fact that Rush apparently thrives on caluclated outrage, there is such as thing as going over the edge into isolated, extremist nut job territory, and I think that is right where Rush has landed.

The Times article I referred to above was this Wedensday’s Media & Advertising column: After Apology, National Advertisers are Still Shunning Limbaugh.  Here is an excerpt:

…the boycott has been a headache for the advertisers and the local radio stations that have received complaints from Mr. Limbaugh’s critics. There have been “logistical difficulties” in moving ads away from Mr. Limbaugh’s program, Lewis Dickey, the chief executive of Cumulus Media, said Monday in a conference call with investors. Last week, some local listeners even noticed silence — “dead air,” in industry parlance — instead of ads

You know you have jumped the image shark when you are the subject of an SNL skit – and last Saturday they led off with one that parodied Rush (see above).

Call me crazy but I do think there is such a thing as bad PR. In tennis, there was a term and book of the same name by the famous coach Brad Gilbert called Winning Ugly. He says “it is always better to win ugly than lose pretty.” No question, Rush’s words were ugly, and I do not think he is winning in this case.

Posted in Campaign Analysis, In the News | Comments Off on Is Rush Limbaugh “Winning Ugly”?

Time for a (Social Media) Performance Enhancer? Not so Fast!!!!

Posted on March 6, 2012 by rgeller

I have been active for a number of years on social media.

This blog has been in existence since 2007. I am not a young guy anymore, and let’s face it, just don’t have the energy that I once had. It is not easy to crank out posts, day after day and week after week.

These days, after writing, it sometimes takes me more time to recover and be ready to write again. Also, I have found that my engagement is not what it once was. Meeting people on social media, sharing content, and atracting comments on my blog – these activities made me long for the stamina that I once had.

It is a delicate topic and a bit embarrassing, but my performance was becoming an issue.

These thoughts went through my mind recently and prompted the question: Was it time for a social media performance enhancer?

And so I signed up for Visibli, a seemingly miraculous widget that that identifies the user as the source of content and facilitates sharing. It seemed to be a great way to build and reinforce my personal brand, by identifying me as someone who discovers and shares great content.

Things seemed to go swimmingly until I got an email expressing confusion from Anne Giles Clelland of Handshake 2.0, whom I respect tremendously (we have collaborated on content and exchanged guest posts) with the subject line “Mr. T.” I had just tweeted a link to her blog. She said:

When I click the Visibli link, I get the attached screenshot linking to Mr. T’s account. When I click on the Twitter icon, for example, it goes here, not to @rgeller…

She asked if my account had somehow gotten hijacked. When I explained to her what Visibli is, and why I was using it, Anne replied, eloquently:

I’ve wandered far and wide in social media but almost 4 years in, I’ve come back to what seems to have the most power over which I have control directly to name, to identify, to brand – the blog. Visibli may have meant well but it seems to have security issues. Looks like your profile now has your name, but the Facebook and Twitter icon still go to Mr. T and the LinkedIn icon goes to Barack Obama. I’m scared to click the other icons.

Anything that comes between me and my message or my client and my client’s message is something I’ve come to want to delete, not add. I haven’t used sharing tools with frames because I felt like I was doing what I said a link does – transferring some of my good brand or my client’s good brand to the tool’s brand. I do the same with Facebook and Twitter – give them some credence by using them. They’re good tools used by a lot of good people and companies so I’m okay with it. But I spend so much less time with them than I used to. Content is my best gift to the world and it, currently, is being rewarded online so I feel so lucky that time spent on content is time well-spent.

It sounds like great advice. In fairness to Visibli, I probably would have not caused the same degree of confusion and concern in a close social media confidant if I had at least set it up with the right links to my social profiles (Doh!).

I have not removed the Visibli yet but am seriously considering it – I will keep it on a short leash for now (I have corrected the links) and reevaluate my usage of it in light of Anne’s words.

Posted in PR Tech | 1 Comment

Romney Event Illustrates the Death of the Photo Op (PR Death Watch Continues)

Posted on February 28, 2012 by rgeller

I have not kept up with my PR Death Watch series, posts about the changes that have been rocking the CameraPR field, and the dangers of not adapting (the last post about this was in 2010, see Circle of Life in PR).

Part of me feels like the topic has been done.  By now, it is pretty obvious how the profession has been changing, and thankfully, more in our field are waking up, adapting and in some ways redefining the job (see my post Innovation is Alive and Well in PR, which references a series that I wrote for Bulldog Reporter about this).

But I saw an article in the NY Times last week that reminded me of the series and made me think that one more PR tool may need rethinking.  So why not do one more PR Death Watch post for old time sake!

It was about a carefully staged Romney photo op, anchored by a major policy speech.  The location (Ford Field, a 65,000 seat indoor football stadium in Michigan) was important and symbolic given today’s primary and his roots in the state.

By all indications it was a successful event – if you watched it on TV.  The cameras showed a large and  receptive crowd.  However, there was more to the story (exceprt in italics).

Mr. Romney could be seen standing at a lectern in front of a backdrop that had the logo of the Detroit Economic Club, the event’s host. And when the stadium audience of about 1,200 people clapped, they filled the screen as cameras panned across them.

But in the age of Twitter and the Internet, that is not all that matters.

Before Mr. Romney had uttered a word, reporters began posting pictures online showing the stadium from every available angle — almost empty, except for the chairs set up on the field itself, near the 20-yard line.

The article shows how the photo opportunity has changed. It is now easier than ever to glimpse behind the curtains and see what is really going on at that carefully staged event. Ideas like greater transparency driven by social media may seem trite, by now but this example illustrates that they are not empty cliches.

Does this mean that photo opps are a bad idea? Are they really dead, or should they be? No, just that you need to take into account all views, and lose the blue smoke and mirrors because people will see right thriough them.

Posted in Campaign Analysis, Current Affairs, PR, PR Tech | 1 Comment

Social Media: To ROI or not to ROI, that is the Question

Posted on February 24, 2012 by rgeller

This week on Windmill Networking, I wrote about how to measure and earn ROI for social media-fueled Dollar-signs
content marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, before you even get started, your campaign can get lost in the corporate approval quagmire: one, because securing any or more investment for social media can sometimes be tricky, and two, the whole thing may be viewed as risky, since it may take the company out of its comfort zone of tried-and-true marketing tactics.

The more general topic of ROI for social media is a hot one, and there are a range of opinions.

On Windmill Networking, Neal Schaffer said, in his article, There’s No Such Thing as Social Media ROI; It’s Called Business ROI:

Social media, like your website and internal IT technology, becomes part of your company’s infrastructure over time. It’s not a question of having a robust social presence just like you need a robust website: You simply must have them.

On Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik said, in his post Best Social Media Metrics:

You don’t participate in social media to only drive business outcomes. I cannot stress that enough. If that is your primary objective you are going to suck at it

Problogger Media CFO Sean Jackson made some excellent points in the article: There is No ROI in Social Media Marketing:

The truth is, marketing will never produce an ROI… marketing activity is not an investment.. An investment is an asset that you purchase and place on your Balance Sheet….Marketing is an expense, and goes on the Profit & Loss statement.

People who use the term ROI see marketing as something to buy…But smart companies see marketing as an integral part of doing business — a necessity no less important than the company email system, their computers, or their office lease.

The questions about using social media to support marketing – how to justify, fund it and ideally earn and prove returns – reminds me of the more general topic of marketing tech. I wrote about this back in 2009: Don’t Underestimate the Soft benefits of Social Media.

I have spent many years, introducing marketing technologies; I might be showing my age, but we faced similar questions when trying to get sales teams to adopt CRM in the early 90s, or organizations to buy Lotus Notes in the 90s; these were infrastructure plays too, but we found that it was just good business to propose pilots that had strong business cases, usually tied to some quantifiable business result.

Similarly, while I agree that social media investments are fundamental, not all costs are fixed, and some can be tied to campaigns like marketing; these should promise a return.

Also, taking an ROI-driven apporach can help justify the spend and sell in projects for smaller organizations that are cutting their teeth on social media and may have tighter budgets, or others that are the later adopters.

Suffice it to say, it is just good business sense and corporate politics (if you unfortunately need to engage in politics) to make sure that your efforts deliver on some kind of projected return; this gives you credibility to get more funding, and may make it easier to get support for campaigns that dleiver soft vs. hard ROI results.

Posted in Tech, Web/Tech | Comments Off on Social Media: To ROI or not to ROI, that is the Question

Silicon Alley’s Miles Rose Chimes in on PR for Startups

Posted on February 17, 2012 by rgeller

As a NYC-based tech PR pro, I like to keep my finger on the pulse of the tech community here.  One way to do this is via the NY Tech Meetups (see my post about the NY tech scene and the December 2011 NYTM).  I also follow their email ListServ, which features discussions about the state of tech, and about challenges, opportunities and resources for startups.

This week, someone posed a question about PR.  A new app developer had been burned by an agency, and was looking to the list for advice on what do next.

Silicon Alley’s Miles Rose rose to the occasion with what I thought was a very eloquent definition, and good advice on next steps.

I am featuring his comments bleow as a guest post.  Thanks Miles!  it is great when someone truly gets it, and can communicate the value of PR, and how to work with an agency.

PR is both an art and a science.

What do you want to see accomplished from a PR campaign?

There a many stories which will interest the media from your activities. You should find a firm which can help develop and get them placed with the media.

There is always too much expectation given the reality of PR.

  • You have to develop a story
  • You have to share the story with a writer
  • The writer has to sell the story idea to the editor
  • The writer has to write the story
  • The story has to be edited
  • The story has to run, lots of stories dont run with the attention we feel they are deserving.

Successful PR is a dance between serving their clients’ needs and solving the problems of the media.

I think you have a lot of really good potential stories and many media outlets that would be of interest. If you knew the market, knew the writers, knew the story, you could do this yourself, You probably don’t have time, and its not your prime activity.

I would suggest that you create a small PR project, interview a few PR firms, and see which one gets it. Unfortunately, selecting professional service organizations is like dating, it’s both time consuming and expensive. But if you know what you want, and that reality is the reality of the marketplace, you will do fine.

Posted in PR | Comments Off on Silicon Alley’s Miles Rose Chimes in on PR for Startups

PR 2.0 Lessons from the Republican’s Twitter Play Book

Posted on January 31, 2012 by rgeller

Yesterday, I tweaked the Republicans for the way they market their candidates.

Today I give back with a post that offers some grudging respect for how they have been using Twitter in this campaign season, which l learned about in the NY Times article For Campaigns, Twitter is Both an Early-warning System and Weapon.

The article shares ways in which the campaigns have used Twitter to stay on top of trending topics and rapidly respond to developing stories… as well help create the stories.  The article says:

If the 2008 presidential race embraced a 24/7 news cycle, four years later politicos are finding themselves in the middle of an election most starkly defined by Twitter…With 100 million active users, more than 10 times as many as in the 2008 election, Twitter has emerged as a critical tool for political campaigns, allowing them to reach voters, gather data and respond to charges immediately.

Some of the tactics mentioned can be used to support other types of communications efforts, with the caveat that there are few things that rival a presidential campaign when it comes to the volume of media interest, coverage and Twitter chatter.

I have distilled information from the article and present it below as list of tips (excerpts are in italics). 

Keep fingers on the pulses of media sentiment, interest and bias

Mr. Romney’s operation… believes that it can ferret out bias among reporters by analyzing their posts.. Their war room compiles all the Twitter messages from the press corps at every event and e-mails them to the campaign staff.

Mr. Romney’s aides say they can get a sense of where a story is headed before it is published simply by reading reporters’ Twitter messages

Correct the record

The campaign will push back on posts that it thinks are incorrect or unfair, and nearly every reporter who covers Mr. Romney has received a Twitter-inspired lecture

Engage directly with and influence consumers/voters

With Twitter, rapid response has an even bigger role, with campaigns needing creative ways…to push their message, hoping to attract the attention of reporters and supporters.

Mr. Gingrich’s political team… used Twitter to reach out to voters who had posted positively about guns, a group he felt would be receptive to Mr. Gingrich.

Use sponsored tweets to amplify the message and align with hot topics

Campaigns can pay for “promoted” messages and accounts so that when users search Twitter for certain words or phrases, the campaign’s account or a particular post is the first result.

Rally supporters

Twitter has transformed debates, aides to various campaigns say. Mr. Hemingway said he provided Gingrich supporters he considers “influencers” with debate-night instructions, from hashtags to the best times to post.

Use as a focus group

The campaigns can also monitor segments of the electorate to see what arguments are resonating. During a few of Mr. Obama’s recent speeches, his campaign posted some of the lines on Twitter and watched which were most shared…For a top Romney strategist, Twitter is the lens through which he consumes debates. “You can just follow the reactions,” he said. “It’s basically a focus group.”

Respond to competitors

When Newt Gingrich said in a recent debate that he was a man of “grandiose” ideas, Mitt Romney’s campaign pounced. It sent mocking Twitter messages with a hashtag, “#grandiosenewt”, encouraging voters to add their own examples of occasions when they felt Mr. Gingrich had been “grandiose.”

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on PR 2.0 Lessons from the Republican’s Twitter Play Book

If Data Center Tech Were Marketed like the Republican Candidates

Posted on January 30, 2012 by rgeller

I heard about the latest out of a seemingly endless number of Republican debates, and thought back in GOP-Debate
amusement about a comment a friend posted on his Facebook page.  He said, sarcastically I hope, that he was looking forward to more and hoped they continued even after the election.

The campaign season so far also made me wonder what it would be like if data center tech was marketed like the Republican candidates.  Here are a few possibilities, below – do any others come to mind?

  • The leading vendors would host industry round tables in every market timed to key events in those markets
  • The round tables would be staged like Jerry Springer talk shows, where questions are designed to start fights and rile the audience
  • The participants would all argue about whose solution holds truest to industry ideals like high performance, bandwidth, improved energy and space efficiency and low latency
  • They would pile on the market leader and attack it for not achieving those ideals in a socially acceptable way
  • Their leaders would fight over who was most like industry icons
  • Their leaders would call each other out about hype, bluster and grandiosity

Most of all they would talk, talk talk.

 

Posted in Campaign Analysis, Current Affairs, Events, Fun Stuff | 1 Comment