Damn, We are Good (and Stressed!!) – The Demands of the PR Profession

Posted on April 21, 2011 by rgeller

There’s been much buzz and many tweets about an article today in Ragan’s PR Daily.  It references a study by CareerCast that says that PR is the second most stressful field – ranking after commercial airline pilot (the most stressful), but ahead of others including emergency room workers.

This is not terribly surprising to me. I find PR to be a rewarding profession, and I enjoy the fast pace. However, it is a service business, assuming that you work for an agency. You have multiple bosses and many people to please: clients, agency management, team members, and of course the infuencers and media that you do your best to get attention from every day.

The story kind of reminded me of a post that I wrote for Fusion PR forum awhile back. Here is an excerpt:

The reputation of PR is not helped by the fact that many people outside the profession simply do not understand what it is about.

When you think about it, it is simply amazing that we go out there and get the job done every day, considering the many skills that the average PR person who manages accounts is expected to master. He or she must be a word smith; a storyteller; a good conversationalist; a salesperson; a customer support person; a marketing strategist; a manager and resource coordinator; an MC of sorts, to facilitate interviews and press events; and a media specialist.

Posted in Current Affairs, PR | 1 Comment

Online Privacy Fears: Does FOMO trump TMI?

Posted on April 15, 2011 by rgeller

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, by all means look at how a VPN can protect your data from being accessed by snoopers. Or why not reject all tracking cookies when you visit a website. Indeed there are information providers who take things too far, but there are also those who play by all of the rules. They abide by 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?

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Black and Bloomberg (Video Killed the Education Czar)

Posted on April 11, 2011 by rgeller

Bloomberg's embattled pick for schools chief, Cathleen Black, was removed from the position last week. In the end, it seems the empress had no clothes – or at least not everything needed to convince others (and herself) that she could do a good job as New York City schools chancellor.

I don't wish any ill will to Bloomberg or Ms. Black. The whole episode must be an embarrassment for both.

But I do like to riff on topics related to PR and communciations, and to spot and call out irony when I see it, and this episode was rife.

I think it is ironic that someone who comes from the media world was undone by the media spot lights. If it wasn't video and media training that doomed her appointment, it played a role, and showed how unprepared she was, according to this New York Times article excerpt:

Ms. Black struggled to grasp the complexities of the city’s budget process, despite intensive tutorial sessions that began on the day of her appointment and, according to advisers, never really stopped.

When her staff sought to prepare her for television interviews, through mock question-and-answer sessions, she tripped over basic facts and figures, including the process for deciding which schools to close…. Aides decided she was largely unfit for such high-profile appearances and all but ruled them out.

Ms. Black clearly could have used some more media training, she does not appear to be a very sympathetic figure, based on excerpts from the Times article Black Admits Being Ill Prepared:

A day after her surprise ouster as New York City’s top education official, Cathleen P. Black acknowledged that she was ill-prepared for the demands and visibility of running the nation’s largest public school system..

Although she endured stinging criticism of her management style and public statements as chancellor, she said that she was particularly irritated by unflattering snapshots of herself that appeared in the New York City news media.  “The worst pictures!” she complained.

…in an interview with Fortune magazine, her first since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg urged her to step down as schools chancellor on Thursday, Ms. Black also suggested that gender might have played a role in her rocky reception over the last three months.

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Study Identifies “Popularity Curves” for Online News

Posted on April 6, 2011 by rgeller

As I mentioned in my last post, I interviewed Jure Leskovec of Stanford University regarding new research methods that are shedding light on how news spreads online. The resulting insights should be of great interest to anyone in the field of communications – and the new methods open up doors to further research and understanding.

In this second post in the series, I explore the team’s methods and some of the first conclusions they reached. The researchers looked to nature – more specifically, the field of genetic evolution – for inspiration, and leveraged vast quantities of near real-time information from the Web.

“We developed an algorithm inspired by genetic sequences,” said Jure. ” It allows us to track the dynamics of info on a large scale.”

One of their breakthroughs was to focus on identifying short textual phrases – i.e. quotes – and explore how these are shared and mutate over time. This gave them discrete units of information, often associated with news stories; snippets that get repeated more or less intact, and that can be tracked “in the wild.”

Examples included Sarah Palin’s famous “lipstick on a pig” remark, from the 2008 presidential election, and an Obama quote regarding the the stimulus bill: “I will sign this law into legislation shortly…”

They used Web data as a vast Petri dish for their experiments. The methods are a significant advance over traditional techniques of studying media – which typically marshaled teams of people to pour over hard copies, annotate and highlight the topics of interest.

Their test bed is called MemeTracker (see the website and related research paper).  By tracking mentions of the quotes among 90 million articles from 1.6M mainstream media websites and blogs, they learned how various quotes spread, and variables that affected this.

The team checked their results against intuition and noted the role of obvious factors that influence how “catchy” news is. E.g. they explored the roles of recency (“new” is inherently interesting), imitation (some will mention the news simply because it is hot, and others are buzzing about it) and novelty. Further, they determined that different types of sites exert varying degrees of influence, and that collective actions (e.g., the herd mentality) and personal networks can play roles in how news spreads.

By categorizing the websites (as newspaper, news agency,TV station or blog aggregator) they learned about the influence of each.

“Memetracker showed phrases have different patterns of temporal variation,” Jure said.

Six different types of popularity curves emerged, that were a function of what types of site first mentioned the quoted phrase.

Please see the graphs below, from the paper “Patterns of Temporal Variation in Online Media.” As Jure explained to me in this excerpt of the interview:

Cluster C1 is typical – everyone is sort of there at same time. With cluster C3 there is a very quick uprise then slower decay, this is something generated by news agencies; A is on top earliest, B (bloggers) the latest. With C6, there is a spike, then it slowly dies off – this is generated by bloggers. With C4, bloggers are late – with, C5 bloggers are early.

Q: So is this a function of who broke the news first, rather than the type of info?

Exactly – we tried to argue that is a function of who, not what. The theory finds six patterns, and we found same ones on Twitter, so the results are robust; depending on when different media types appear in discourse, it forms a different shape

The results begged all kinds of questions, and made me wonder how PR people and social media specialists can use this understanding to improve their campaigns. I will take a deeper dive and explore the latest research in my next and final article in the series.

Jure

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New Research Sheds Light on How News Spreads Online

Posted on March 31, 2011 by rgeller

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.

Posted in PR Tech, Reading Files, Web/Tech | Comments Off on New Research Sheds Light on How News Spreads Online

CTIA Wrap: AT&T Steals Thunder, Proving Peril of Launching News at Shows

Posted on March 24, 2011 by rgeller

I just wrapped up attendance at the CTIA show in Orlando. It was two action-packed days, filled with client, media and analyst meetings.

CTIA is one of the few mega tech shows left., and it was great to walk the show floor and experience the energy and excitement. The sheer size of the Orange County Convention Center and number of exhibitors meant lots of walking and made it a challenge to get to everything on my list.

As I walked into the show on Tuesday, I was amazed to see a space carved out in the middle for CNBC, with lights, cameras and Jim Cramer blaring.  He and his panel were of course focused on the big news: the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile (see below for more on this).

In my conversations, comparisons were inevitably made with CTIA shows past. One exhibitor crassly noted the "booth babe index" (actually, he used a cruder term, but I will spare you) as evidence that the show is back, after a couple of down years.

The show also proved the dangers of holding on to big news for release at an event like CTIA.  We know it is tempting, because the world is watching, and there is more press coverage focused on the industry at these times.

Yet shows are the opposite of a slow news day. so there is more competition for the headline and readers. And, as big and impressive as your news is, there is always much larger news that can come along and eclipse it.

As was reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal article Sprint CEO Blasts AT&T Deal:

AT&T's surprise deal forced attendees across the conference to compete for attention. Samsung Electronics Co., for example, picked the CTIA conference to launch two new tablet computers.


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Times Profiles Press Secretary, Recalls his Classic Media Burn: “You are a hack!”

Posted on March 21, 2011 by rgeller

The New York Times recently profiled Jay Carney, Obama's new press secretary. The article covered Carney's background, and how world events have thrust him into the hot seat without much of a honeymoon period.

The job of a press secretary is a far stretch from the tech PR world that I inhabit, still I found that it was interesting to read about is background, and similarities and differences with Robert Gibbs those and others in the role previously,

Jay Carney was formerly a journalist, and covered politics before becoming the communications director for Joe Biden. The article explores how he fits into the administration, points out the benefits of having direct access to the chief executive when you are handling media relations, and of being a strategic advisor as well as a press representative.  It says:

But among the reporters who cover the White House, the question is whether Mr. Carney’s connections are the right ones. He does not report directly to the president as many other press secretaries have, but to the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer . Some are concerned that he will never have the access Mr. Gibbs enjoyed as a hybrid counselor-spokesman, a rarity among modern press secretaries.

The reporter does repeat some cliches related to media relations – e.g. it implies that you are at a disadvantage in media relations if you are not a rabid partisan, and also says press secretaries are bland obfuscators:

Mr. Carney took over from Mr. Gibbs in mid-February, and so far has avoided stepping into controversy. He has been quickly expanding his fluency in the blandspeak that all press secretaries must master.

On the other hand, it was interesting reading about Carney's burn of a Washington Post Columnist:

Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist, recalled an e-mail he received from Mr. Carney while he was working for Mr. Biden. The subject line was “You are a hack.” The e-mail continued, “Fabrication is a legitimate tool — for fiction. You should try it; it suits you.”

Who out there in PR has not been sorely tempted to deliver a line like that?

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Should People Get Media Training Before they use Twitter?

Posted on March 17, 2011 by rgeller

Over the past several years we have seen the PR field challenged as never before, and change, as tactics that outlived their usefulness were updated or fell by the wayside. I know this because I have lived and blogged about it – recall my PR Death Watch series of posts.

However a funny thing happened on the way to peace, love and social media understanding. Some picked their heads up and realized that: yes, traditional media still matters. And so do press releases (see Revenge of the Press Release).

And what about other conventions that may now seem quaint – like media training, and prepared statements?

In a world where everyone has a microphone, it does not take long before quite a few start to sound like those bores with the cringe-inducing speeches and wedding toasts.  I share below a couple examples by way of recent articles that prompted this post, with excerpts in italics:

Wall Street Journal – City Ballet A Twitter over Posts

New York City Ballet is set to become one of the country’s first major performing-arts companies to govern its employees’ posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social-media outlets.  And Devin Alberda, a member of the company’s corps de ballet, is part of the reason why.

After news of his boss’s drunk-driving arrest was made public, Mr. Alberda tweeted: “Thank goodness riding the subway while intoxicated isn’t a misdemeanor offense,” adding the hashtag “#dontfireme.” In another tweet, he mocked a character in a production…

New York Times – When the Marketing Reach of Social Media Backfires

…what happens when behavior on social media is deemed antisocial? Two large marketers, Aflac and the Chrysler Group, are struggling to answer that uncomfortable question in the wake of incidents that took place within days of each other. The incidents, involving remarks on Twitter that were judged to be tasteless, inappropriate and insensitive, point out some inherent risks of social media.

It is interesting, because the very formality of public speaking or a press interview would normally put most people on guard; but put them in front of Facebook and Twitter, and they just blurt, oblivious of the consequences.

You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and I don’t think anyone wants an overly scripted world in which people need handlers to tweet. I do think some form of social media training is called for, and companies that haven’t done so already need to come up with and enforce reasonable social media policies.

People who tweet or blog on behalf of a company (or even if they are doing so independently, but their name is closely associated) should go through some basic training akin to media training to govern the ins and outs of social media. Some of the rules of the road may seem to be common sense, but there are many gray areas and pitfalls.

Posted in In the News, Marketing, PR, PR Tech | 1 Comment

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

Posted on March 15, 2011 by rgeller

The Public Editor column in the New York Times shines a light on how the paper covers news and seeks  Silverbullet 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.

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9 Common Press Release Errors and How to Avoid Them

Posted on March 11, 2011 by rgeller

This week B2Bbuzz featured an article that I wrote on how to make the best use of press releases in support of PR and marketing programs.

The press release has suffered an indentity crisis in recent years.  Some have questioned their continued relevance, and fail to use them to full advantage.

My article argues that press releases should remain an important part of the PR and marketing arsenal, and explains common errors and how to avoid them.  The errors fall into the categories below.

  1. Failing to Have a PR Strategy and Plan
  2. Issuing Too Few or Too Many
  3. Underestimating the Importance of the Press Release
  4. Overthinking press releases
  5. Striking the Wrong Tone
  6. Assuming it is Just About News Coverage
  7. To wire or not to wire
  8. Avoiding “Send and Pray” syndrome

If this is a subject that you are interested in, I urge you to visit the B2Bbuzz link and read the article.

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