Category: General

Yesterday’s post on RSS generated some interesting feedback both via e-mail and the comments below. I thought it might be useful to expand on some of these areas with regard to the role of RSS in PR.

No religion required

You won’t find any zealous procrastination here.  RSS is a communications tool, pure and simple just as e-mail is a tool. It’s not the answer to the world’s ills but it is useful.

Nothing replaces good PR practice

RSS is a tool.  It’s not a replacement for good PR practice, it is simply a new communication channel. As a result, the standard set of PR activities are still required. You still need to work on building personal relationships, communicate effectively and understand market dynamics. You still need to inform and educate your audience about your client. RSS is a second stage PR technology – it comes into play when you have created awareness.

RSS is not just for Press Relations

I estimate that the majority of subscribers to our RSS feeds are not journalists, they are customers and partners. As more communication takes place online, then we (PR pros) all have to look at how we are helping our clients or employers to communicate, not just with the media, but staff, customers, partners etc. 

RSS provides a useful way to deliver information to any audience because it doesn’t clutter their inboxes and it alerts them when there’s news.

RSS behavior is unknown – so let’s make some rash assumptions

It’s too early to understand how people will use RSS feed to gather information.  As it’s still in its formative stages we can only guess.  So here’s my prediction.

People will group relevant RSS feeds together.  If we take the example of a journalist with a range of technology beats, they might have one group for Web Services, one group for Operating Systems etc. By simply clicking on the RSS group they can immediately see which companies have made announcements.  If you group your RSS feeds by sector, you can include large, medium and small organizations and in seconds have a view of the latest developments across an entire sector.

I think people will subscribe to company feeds if those companies are relevant (and obviously they are aware of them).

RSS is new…

The truth is we don’t know how effective it will ultimately become, however we do know that people are already using them and a growing number of companies are providing them.  Back in the early 1990’s the number of people with e-mail was relatively small, but that didn’t mean we didn’t need e-mail!

PR is a complex business that often involves a leap of faith, sometimes a story you think is a killer never gets picked up, sometimes a small story spreads like wildfire.  Advertising is guaranteed, PR is a little more unpredictable. Give RSS a try, if you’re unhappy with the results, don’t use it.

All I can share with you is my own experience with RSS, which to date has been very positive. We simply treat it as another distribution channel along with our in-house lists, our wire service etc.

UPDATE: EWeek have an interesting case study on how a technology firm, Triple Point Technology, is using RSS to maximize communication across departments.

I just had an interesting e-mail discussion with a friend of mine regarding when it’s appropriate to have an RSS feed.

He is working with a client and has encouraged them to provide an RSS feed for corporate news. All good right and true so far…

However, they were a little sceptical.  As a small company they only have probably a limited number of news items every month – two on average and they are concerned that it doesn’t warrant an RSS feed.

My advice is that there is no critical barrier on the number of news items you push down your RSS feed. The beauty of RSS, is that even if you only publish an item every six weeks, your audience’s RSS reader will flag the new item as it’s published.

We don’t really know at this point how people will use RSS readers, however it’s very likely that individuals will subscribe to companies they track and even small companies can participate.

There may even be a role for PR agencies here, just as with the G2B Group example last month, where journalists subscribe to agency RSS feeds, and there they can read about all the clients – or as Elizabeth Albrycht has suggested, the agency could provide sectoral feeds for “Semiconductors”, “Developer Tools”, “Gardening Tools” etc.

This stuff is still in its formative stages, but journalists (primarily tech to date) are already using it.  Can you afford to ignore any audience? Remember it’s not the size of your RSS feed, it’s the quality 🙂

Reuters takes a look at the time-honored practice of hiding bad news.

It seems a lot of PR people were busy breaking bad news last week while the rest of the country were tucking into cooked Turkey. 

Among the companies use the holiday period to cushion bad news were: Federated Investors Inc.  (PDF) (Tuesday night – results of an internal investigation), Lumenis (A stock exchange de-listing notice on Wednesday after trading closed), Microlog (Loss of government contract), Visteon (New CFO not joining).  Interestingly the stock in all these companies, other than Federated Investors, suffered heavy reverses on Friday even though it was a shortened trading day.

Now in fairness, many of these firms may have had legal requirements to get this news out, regardless of the timing.  SEC regulations don’t give you a lot of flexibility on timing, however timing is a well known weapon of news squashing. If I remember correctly, the UK government was accused of using the Queen Mother’s death to hide some bad news (I think the allegation was unproven).

However, while these quiet time announcements *may* reduce short-term column inches, does it help organizations in the long run?

Communication is a long-term process.  This means that it includes the good and the bad.  If you don’t front up the bad news, your audience might feel a little aggrieved. A more rounded, mature approach to dealing with bad news can often prove more beneficial.

To dust off the academic case study, Tylenol’s handling of their tampered drugs issue got them more positive press and perception than probably any of their “good news” communication.  Bad news is a fact of (business) life, what seperates the good from the ugly is the ability to communicate well is hard times while being professional enough to claim mea culpa when it’s required.

“That (releasing bad news during holiday periods) kind of ploy can really break down confidence and trust,” said Michael Morley, deputy chairman for PR firm Edelman.

Welcome back to everyone who was celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday – amazing how fast the Internet was yesterday 🙂

Some good news to kick off the run to Christmas. It looks like Technology PR is back in recovery mode after three very tough years.

A recent story in PR Week took a look at the Technology Sector and in particular Technology agencies.  The findings were interesting.  While no one wants to proclaim a turnaround, the recent strong US economic figures and the ad hoc PR Week survey (see below) both point to healthier times ahead.

Of course the landscape has changed since the heady days of the late nineties.  Clients want more value, it’s still a buyer’s market and business development tends to take a lot longer these days.  But given the bloodshed in the sector over the past couple of years that’s a small price to pay.

My one criticism of the PR Week piece is that they continue to ignore the smaller tech agencies and the in-house crew.  I’d be interested in the views of both of these vital constituents.

The PR Week Tech PR survey polled a host of US technology PR firms including: A&R Partners, Access Communications, Antenna Group, Citigate Cunningham, Connect PR, ContentOne, Edelman, Greenough Communications, The Hoffman Agency, Horn Group, Lewis PR, McGrath/Power, O’Keeffe & Company, OutCast Communications, Ruder Finn, Sterling Communications, Sparkpr, Text 100, Topaz Partners, and Waggener Edstrom.

The findings were interesting:

 Tech Billings over the past year have grown for sixteen of the agencies (status quo for three and down for one)

 From November 2002 to April 2003 these agencies averaged five new clients, from April 2003 to November 2003 that figure has jumped to an average of ten new clients.

“Tech is coming back,” declares Luca Penati, EVP and GM of Edelman’s Silicon Valley office. “There’s no doubt in my mind. I remember when [Sun Microsystems CEO] Scott McNealy said [the downturn] was like someone turned off the lights. I think someone has turned the lights back on, but they’re using a dimmer.”

There’s not a whole lot of PR content around given the week that’s in it, however I have found some interesting (and not so interesting) PR-related links:

 B.L Ochman has a good piece on Why PR has an image problem.

 Some tips on improving your personal business image… not that I think you need them..

 PR Week has a roundtable with those most interesting of PR practitioners, the entertainment gang. 

 Delta Airlines’ new CEO is using “Public Relations” to overcome their recent difficulties – inside and outside the company – PR in it’s widest definition of course.

 Paris Hilton’s attempts at PR… nuff said

 Last but not least… as regular readers will know I am a big fan of RSS. Interestingly without the hype of Weblogs etc. it’s growing nicely and being adopted by unexpected sources – that to Darren Barefoot for the link!

 

The Online Journalism Review takes a look at how newspapers are merging their online editorial team with the print team.

Another indication of how the Internet is being integrated alongside our existing media mix.

[Thanks to MarketingWonk for the link]

Contrary to the recent findings in the Thomas L. Harris/Impulse Research survey, research carried out by Vocus in their latest newsletter found that 80% of respondents expected their PR budget to grow (48%) or remain the same (32%).

This priorities for this new budget are: adding new headcount (43%), outsourcing (agencies?) and staff training and development.

 

John Dvorak makes a living by being the grumpy old man of technology journalism. And he’s very good at it.

He has taken another swing at blogs and makes some interesting points – I’m all for pragmatism –  and some rash assumptions.

Steve Gillmor over at EWeek has called him on it and John wasn’t backward about coming forward to his own defence.

It’s an entertaining discussion and in many ways an interesting alternative opinion to the incessant blog-waving that we’ve had for the past year and a half.

How does this affect Public Relations? Well here’s my two cents.

Firstly if we take the PR profession, blogs have been positive.  There are a small but growing number of PR people blogging every day. These are all new sources of PR information, opinions and thoughts that were not available in the pre-blog period.  So that’s a good thing. You never stop learning in this game and I always find it fascinating to hear the thoughts of fellow practitioners.

On the wider question of blogs and PR, it’s important we are very very pragmatic.

I think blogs are an important new media for us and there are two elements:

1) Corporate blogs – which provide a useful means of communicating with customers, sharing thoughts and snippets.

2) Blog Relations – the process of targeting bloggers who are relevant to your client’s industry/market etc.

Now if you’ve tried these activities and neither is of any importance to your client, walk away and maybe try again in a while.

My personal experience is that both elements have added value to my work over the past two years (and I’m not including this dusty old blog).

But our resources are always tight in PR.  To be successful we must focus on what works not what smells nice.  So if blogs are working, keep at it, if not, leave it go.

The most important thing is that you make the effort and don’t make the mistake of ending up on either end of the opinion spectrum – pragmatism gets results.

News has reached us that a new PR book is hitting the shelves near you.

Entitled: “The Public Relations Practitioner’s Playbook”, it’s a 256 page guidebook to efficient Public Relations. 

I think it’s designed for the less experienced practitioner, though I don’t think you ever stop learning in this business.

It’s author is M. Larry Litwin an assistant professor of communications at Rowan University and it retails for $47.95.