Tracx Helps you Start Making Social Media Sense (and ROI Dollars)

Posted on March 10, 2011 by rgeller

One of the nice things about blogging is that people are constantly bringing to my attention things that they think will Monitoringpng (2)
interest my readers (please see my post Why I Like Getting Pitches).  This helps me discover new things.  Since I write about PR and social media, I am often approached about the latest gizmo or news that relates to these areas.

That is how I came across Tracx, and I am glad that they found me.

Social media can present tremendous challenges when it comes to making sense out of all the chatter, planning activities, and determining impact.  Tracx helps with these things in a better and more holistic way, when compared with other products I have seen.

The beautiful dashboard presents myriad charts and views in an easy-to-understand format, and lets you drill down, explore, plan and execute activities to your heart’s content.  It makes you fell like you are sitting in the cockpit of an F16 fighter jet, or the Pentagon war room.

I provide more details in my post on Social Fluency today, and urge you to check out Tracx.

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

Posted on March 4, 2011 by rgeller

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).

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Bulldog Reporter Piece on State of PR Blogging

Posted on March 2, 2011 by rgeller

A Pew Research study that was in the news last week concluded that youg people are spending less time on blogs and more time on Twitter and Facebook.  This has led to some questions about the state of blogging and what this means for people in the PR field.

In my article that is in Bulldog Reporter today, I explored this topic – in brief, I argued that blogging remains relevant; but those who are involved with PR and social media need to make sure that it is just one part of an integrated strategy.

What do you think?  I urge you to visit the link, read the article and participate in the discussion.

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

Posted on February 28, 2011 by rgeller

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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6 Degrees of Celebrity Train Wreck / Charlie “Sheeny”

Posted on February 25, 2011 by rgeller

I like to focus on the positive stories, even though I know that it is sometimes negative ones that can get the most attention.  A lot of this has to do with my belief in Karma – I am, after all, in PR and what goes around can often come right back.

I will, however, make an exception with the news about Charlie Sheen’s rants to the news media.

In my opinion, Sheen wins the “Double D-bag” award – and the D in this case does not refer to breast size, although that would clearly appeal to him. The Ds in this case are single-syllable words, however I will leave out the specifics so as not to stray too far from the normally very civilized tone of this blog (OK, one of them is “dirt”).

My suspicions that he is a very unpleasant and sleazy person were confirmed with the latest news about his rants to the news media and the suspension of the show in the wake of yet another outrageous report about hooker and coke parties.

You can now add the label “anti-semite” too, as in his diatribes he went out of his way to goad the show’s (Two-and-a-half Men) creator, Chuck Lorre, who is Jewish, as reported in the New York Times yesterday:

…the actor assailed Mr. Lorre, calling him a “clown” and a “charlatan” whose “tin can” of a show Mr. Sheen said he had converted into “pure gold.”

For no apparent reason.. Mr. Sheen said Mr. Lorre’s real name is Chaim Levine. He was born Charles Levine; a Hebrew version would be Chaim. The comment struck executives at both CBS and Warner Brothers as anti-Semitic…

In response to the shutdown, Mr. Sheen sent a comment to TMZ. Again he attacked Mr. Lorre, saying, “What does this say about Haim Levine [Chuck Lorre] after he tried to use his words to judge and attempt to degrade me. I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows.” He added,“I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong.”

Hmmm… while we are on the subject of not-so-subtle digs, perhaps we should take a closer look at Mr. Sheen… after all, his nose does look a little “semitic,” shall we say?   And Charlie – isn’t there a Jewish name that would fit, like Chaim?  And Sheen – short for Sheeny? Perhaps he is a self-hating Jew – naaa… porn stars and coke?? As my mom would say, “that is not a very Jewish thing to do”.

If I feel sorry for anyone, it is Sheen’s publcist, if he has one – good luck in rehabilitating his image.

There, I feel better already.

Posted in Current Affairs, Events | 2 Comments

Are You Tweeting to Me? I’m the Only One Here

Posted on February 24, 2011 by rgeller

The Middle East is on fire with revolution. As many news articles have documented, social media has played a key role, e.g. dissenters have used Facebook to organize and Twitter to have their voices heard. The governments in power have responded by trying to squelch the chatter.

The Internet was supposed to be this fault tolerant, decentralized system that is not easy to defeat – yet, as the recent New York Times article reported, the Egyptian government successfully located its “off switch.”

It seems that next arms race will be in cyberspace; Kelsey Judd recently wrote on the Fusion PR Forum blog about speak2tweet.

After the Egyptian government cut off the country’s Internet access, the companies Google, Twitter, and SayNow (Google’s newly acquired social-media-voice company) found a way to help the people by creating speak2tweet. It’s a cool new service that allows people to call a phone number with a message that is posted to Twitter.  The alternative service is not restricted to the normal limit of 140 characters.   Egyptian protestors used this as a tool to express their outrage and bring to light injustice… This is revolutionary because it allows people to tweet without the Internet; all they need is a voice connection.

Regarding Twitter and speech integration, there is a related story that is more about road warriors than revolutionaries.  Time Magazine wrote this week about new social media apps for car dashboards.  One example cited is Ford’s AppLink:

Then there’s Ford’s AppLink, a new feature of the manufacturer’s Sync infotainment system. A conceptual cousin of Entune, AppLink lets creators of apps for Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone handsets build software that uses Sync’s display and speech capabilities rather than inducing you to futz with your phone when your eyes should be on the road… OpenBeak.. lets you listen to your Twitter feed using Sync’s speech-synthesis feature.

 

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As the Media Turns: Has Apple Bulldozed One Deal Too Many?

Posted on February 18, 2011 by rgeller

It is one of those truisms that is especially relevant in the PR world: don’t pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel. While in most cases it is electrons that are at stake these days, the principle is the same – and one that seems to be lost on Apple.

Using the same approach and sharp elbows that worked so well in music and smart phones, and in an apparent attempt to convince yet another distressed industry that rising tides of coolness and brand can lift all ships, Apple is playing hardball with publishers and media companies.

I am talking, of course, about Apple’s efforts to find a mutually agreeable model for monetizing content from publishers, and this week’s chapter, in which the company announced the launch of subscriptions on its App Store.  If the move was meant to appease the industry – which had complained about lack of support for subscription pricing – this has not worked, judging by the headlines.

Let’s not forget, these are media companies, which all have pretty big megaphones, of course. These are the downtrodden left-behinds of the digital era, a group that has the sympathy of the public and vaunted principles of the Fourth Estate (and its status as a special and protected institution) behind them.

If Apple is helping them find a way out and show a way forward with new content platforms and monetization gambits, it is on their terms.

Did they make their latest move because they want to respond to industry conerns, or is it because others like Google are cozying up to publishers with better deals? Probably a little of both, see this post Clash of the Tech Titans: Google One Pass vs. Apple.

I have started to see some negative articles about a vendor that has always been a media darling (what a tortured relationship, this morning an NBC Today newscaster discussed possible government antitrust action Apple and almost in the same breath gushed about an Apple store coming to Grand Central Station).

Yesterday’s Wall street journal article Apple Risks an iPad Backlash said:

By playing hardball with media companies on App Store subscriptions, Apple risks a painful rebound. Few media outlets can afford to not have their mobile applications available through Apple’s App Store. With the iPad, Apple has an early lead in tablets, with a 75.3% share of global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter, Strategy Analytics estimates. And while its share of smartphone shipments was only 16.1%, the iPhone is the phone of choice for many affluent consumers. But that hardly justifies Apple’s terms for subscriptions sold within its App Store. The company will keep 30% of the revenues and won’t automatically give publishers information about their subscribers.

Yesterday, TechCrunch ran a post Why are You Defending Apple? It said:

As you’ve doubtless heard by now, yesterday Apple revealed its new fee structure for premium content: all apps that offer premium content outside of the App Store have to also offer it via Apple’s official in-app purchases (this includes Amazon’s Kindle) and Apple takes a 30% cut of all subscriptions…

My reaction has been one of trepidation. I don’t like where this is headed, and I think that many who consider themselves technophiles are completely dropping the ball by rationalizing what Apple has done……

I don’t like the precedents that Apple continues to set. The App Store has existed for less than three years, and Apple has been drastically changing the rules on the fly…

I don’t take issue with Apple demanding a small processing fee to handle credit card transactions, but 30% is too much, especially combined with the restriction that publishers can’t change their pricing to adjust to the tax. Not every business will be able to offset the decrease in margins with the increased purchase volume promised by one-click payments. And companies that are in the business of reselling premium content with fixed costs, like MOG or Amazon, don’t have many options… The App Store isn’t a storefront in the way that Amazon.com or Walmart are – this isn’t just an extravagant affiliate fee. We’re talking about the primary method of app distribution for one of the most important computer operating systems, ever.

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What’s Wrong with Tech Marketing – and How to Fix it (Forrester Interview)

Posted on February 15, 2011 by rgeller

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. It might also encourage you to read into techniques like TURF analysis to gain new insights from data gathered.

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’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. Forrester

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Forrester to Tech Marketers: Grow Up!!! (Interview with Dr. Tom Grant)

Posted on February 10, 2011 by rgeller

I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Thomas Grant about a new report from Forrester: Tech Marketers Pursue Antiquated Marketing Strategies. Handshake 2.0 blogger Anne Giles Clelland had alerted me to the study, which sounded very relevant to the client base that we serve at Fusion and Social Fluency. I asked Tom if he’d share the report and entertain some questions, and he graciously consented.

In a nutshell, the report says that technology marketers are overly product and new business-driven, under-invest in research and customer relations, and don’t understand or use social media to full advantage. The last part is ironic because it was the techies that invented social media, and were among the first to flock to blogs, and news groups, bulletin boards and IRC chats before that.

It seems that tech companies show their marketing immaturity by pouring their energies and budgets into flogging new products to new customers – it is apparently all about the leads, lead, leads (the video segment above features outtakes from the great movie Glengarry Glen Ross, which was about down-in-the-luck realtors and their obsessive focus on sales leads).

I include a few excerpts of the report below, as well as from my interview with Tom. There is so much good ground we covered that I will include more details from the Q & A in a follow-up post.

Compared with other industries, B2B technology industry companies treat marketing as an opportunity to sell new products and services to new customers. For these vendors, the product is the axis around which marketing efforts turn. The primary objective is leads…..

The high rate of potential innovation in the tech industry plays a large part in setting these priorities…The company is obliged to describe each new offering to customers, so product marketing from commercials to 3d product photography is an ongoing concern. Appealing to new customers is a primary reason for adding products and services…

In the typical technology company, development teams sit at the heart of the organization…In this mindset, development creates value in the form of products and services. Other groups, such as sales and marketing, are merely responsible for delivering it. This chain of assumptions leads to a disproportionate emphasis on product marketing… One of those unintended costs is the tech industry’s relative indifference to market research….

One of the surprising results of our survey was the tech industry’s perspective on social media. While tech industry marketers talk a great deal about how social media have transformed all aspects of a company’s relationship with its customers, these same marketers treat social media primarily as a public relations channel…

The report says that technology companies can improve their marketing by taking the following steps:

Get past product marketing…

Include sustained activities more prominently in marketing metrics

Test these new strategies in social media channels

For further details I urge you to visit the link and purchase this report (others too, as it turns out Forrester has a selection of relevant reports on marketing best practices).

Q and A with Dr. Tom Grant of Forrester (Part 1)

What was the methodology?

It was a really big survey… in this case, since we were talking to both tech companies and other kinds of companies… we decided: this a great opportunity to see what distinguishes the tech industry from a marketing perspective.

How are you defining “tech?”

These are ISVs, hardware companies, services companies… people who are in the business of either producing hardware and software or whose job it is to help deploy it successfully … there are a lot of B2B companies… but [some of the companies] do other things, it was not exclusive of B2C.

On social media (and lack of effectivenes in using it)

I’ve always had a gut feeling that tech companies were a little too self-congratulatory about how cutting edge they were about social media… a lot of [their ineffectiveness] does have to do with, first of all, the heavy product emphasis, [in many cases] the entire company is acculturated into thinking about products and not necessarily about the value stream from the customer’s perspective. The other part of it is this emphasis on leads; if it is not a lead-generating activity, then what the hell are we doing?

It sometimes takes a very dramatic change to get out of that mode

Tomorrow: Finding a Cure (From a Scream to Market Whisperer)

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Imaging Centers up their Image

Posted on February 3, 2011 by rgeller

I am a sucker for a good headline and a good story about PR. That is why yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article Boosting Medical Scans’ Image caught my attention (it also doesn’t hurt that I have three radiologists in my family and I worked as a field service rep at GE Medical Systems early in my career).

It seems that imaging centers are working hard to add amenities and become more inviting places in advance of tougher accreditation rules coming in 2012 that might drive up costs. Also, manufacturers of these systems – like my old employer – are making the scanners more patient-friendly and less intimidating.

According to the Journal:

Some hospitals are upgrading their imaging facilities, giving them a spa-like feel intended to help patients overcome fears they may have of the procedure. The Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga., has added amenities like separate dressing rooms. The women’s area offers warmed waffle-weave robes, household magazines and a waterfall. For men, the waiting room resembles a mountain lodge with dark teak wood, traditional robes, masculine colors and hunting and fishing magazines.

At some children’s hospitals, imaging machines are decorated in an outer space, jungle theme or a “pirate island” theme to represent an “adventure” for young patients getting a scan. Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital near Chicago even added Jeff Koons’s artwork to a CT machine and room. Some hospitals are buying Philips Electronics NV’s miniature “Kitten” scanner, which children can put a special toy through that activates a video about how the scanning process works.

This kind of reminded me of other types of establishments that became famous for turning otherwise hum drum experiences into entertainment events; theme restaurants like Rain Forest Cafe come to mind, as well as supermarkets like Stew Leonard’s here in the Northeast – they have petting zoos and talking cows in their dairy isles.

While I don’t know if people will go out of their way to get a scan for entertainment value anytime soon, it seems that these changes can be good for the business of medicine, good for patients and good for the image of the profession. The article relates the experiences of one imaging center, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital:

The new equipment and facility has meant 80 patients a day are now scanned at the new clinic, up from 45 at the old clinic on the same number of machines. She says the redesigned machines mean fewer patients need sedatives to help get through the scanning procedure.

I decided to get my older brother’s take; he is a radiologist, CEO at Hudson Valley Radiology Associates, and chairs various hospital and medical boards; in short, he knows the field well.

Dr. Mark Geller said: “Imaging centers are focusing on customer service and patient satisfaction in an effort to differentiate themselves in the marketplace from their competition and in anticipation of reimbursement regulations looming in the future tied to patient satisfaction. It is good business, plain and simple. All of this is good for patients and referring physicians. The unfortunate part in all of this is the assumption that quality of care is the same everywhere. That is simply not the case. Making a care decision purely based on amenities may not be in the patient’s best interest. My counsel would be to shop quality first (equipment, doctors, technical and support staff), and then, all things being equal thereafter, chose your provider based on service metrics and ambiance.”

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