Category: General

PR Round-up…

Devolution of Media

For the uninitiated, Jim Horton is the grandfather (in a nice and not age related way!) of PR blogs, he was the first practitioner publishing content online in a meaningful way, even without RSS :-).  He continues to provide reasoned, in-depth coverage of the industry today, and he’s just published an essay: Devolution of Traditional Media and what it means to PR which takes a look at how changes in the media landscape and the rise of social media may impact PR. Worth a read.

 

Twitter PR

Shel Holtz has a great post, which could have been included in the round-up below, looking at Twitter and how their recent service problems are a great example of why communicators can add value to a business and an entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, most people who make such observations about PR base their views only on what they observe. What they observe is pitching. PR pitches are blatant and, frequently, annoying. (Heck, I work in PR and get frazzled at the staggering number of clueless pitches I receive every day. In a PRWeek article, Wired.com’s senior editor, Dylan Tweney, articulates what a lot of victims of bad pitching feel: “I don’t have the luxury of blacklisting people, because if they have news, it doesn’t matter whether I like them or not, or whether they’ve been good at pitching in the past. I’ll still need to hear about it.")

What’s not visible to most people, however, is the work that occupies most PR practitioners most of the time, and it isn’t pitching or getting ink. The mere fact that pitches are what you see most of the time doesn’t mean that’s the lion’s share of what goes on in most shops. If Loic were to spend a single day with an account team at any well-known agency, he’d probably amend his post.

 

 

Ready for the Digital Savvy?

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb reports on new research from Scarborough Research on the "digitally savvy" – the most high-tech consumers in the US.

 

According to Gary Meo, SVP, Print and Digital Media Services at Scarborough Research, this is an important group to monitor because their shopping patterns could "presage behaviors of consumers across the country."

PR & Social Media.. there is a bigger picture kids… redux

OK so since I pressed "Publish" on my last post on this matter, there’s been some additional commentary I thought was worth following up on.

 

Pull back from the picture

The one-and-only Mr. Scoble weighed in on the matter of "PR Secrets". As with Monsieur Le Meur’s post, Mr. Scoble makes some interesting points, but again these people are talking about PR as if:

a) It’s only concerned with Web 2.0 and the online world – it’s not

b) PR is press relations – it’s not

 

There’s a couple of points I’d call out:

PR now stands for “Professional Relationships.”

No, Robert, PR stands for PUBLIC Relations, it’s about communicating effectively with ALL individuals, groups and communities relevant to a company, group or individual. While I know there’s a lot of kudos for inventing new words, acronyms and terms (think "Jumping the Shark", Smeedia 🙂 , etc.) the real definition of PR is fine thanks.

Robert makes a lot of sense, but again, it’s a partial commentary that ignores much of what PR people do day-in, day-out, albeit there’s some good advice around online communications.

The reality is that PR people are going to have to continue washing and dressing and going out into the real world for some time to come.

 

You don’t need PR at all if you have a great product.

 

Oh my word. Oh my word. <sigh>

 

Some PR advice

image

I found a video commentary from Neville Hobson via Trevor Cook.

 

What’s the issue with "targets"?

Todd Defren has a post related to Mr. La Meur’s point on the use of the term Targets.

My response? Target, target, target, target, target, target, target, target.

PR has always been about relationship building. 

The tools and the nature of how that works may be changing and evolving, but relationships have always been central to great PR.  That ain’t new.

So what if people use the word target?  Does it really matter.  What if we replace targets with Blancmanges? Is that better?

"We’re aiming at a number of blancmanges."

Jeez.

Let’s start calling out some of this stuff folks.  Just because it’s "right-on" doesn’t mean it’s true or meaningful.

Just my two cents.

PR & Social Media is not black & white

You know often the best bit of advice we can get is to step back and look at the bigger picture rather than the small blurry dot we sometimes get so tightly focused on.

This piece of advice is often very relevant for the “digerati”.

How many times do these folks focus on destruction? “X is dead/dying”.

Traditional media and PR are two common targets, but I think the digerati often reduce the value of their insight with their binary approach to the online world.

Often the truth isn’t black or white, it’s grey.

My latest example is Loic Lemeur‘s post: “PR secrets? Bullshit“

Loic takes an axe to Brian Solis‘ TechCrunch article: “PR secrets for start-ups“

Now these kind of posts (Loic’s not Brian’s) typically wind me up.

I feel the blood pressure rising as I scroll.

But in this instance, I have drawn breath.

You see Loic makes some good points with regard to building awareness for your product online such as:

Build strong links with your community, learn from them everyday, enhance your product. If you get coverage from the smallest blogger go and comment to thank him. Do not be obsessed by numbers and results, it is long term relationships that matter.

or…

The most important asset that a startup CEO has or should build is his community. It has nothing to do with marketing. I took me 8 years since I started blogging in 2003 to have a community and it is no marketing. It is about sharing every day thoughts, tips, advise, learnings with the community.

But Loic also makes the same old self-styled digerati mistakes.

No, I’m not talking about the shameless name dropping…

Everybody tries to pitch Scoble and Arrington. They are tired of the same formatted boring pitches that come to them exactly the same. They are my friends and if I had tried to pitch them like hell they would have never have.

Though I must admit part of me gags when I see it.

No it’s the fact that he’s viewing the world through a very narrow lens. His own.

My advice to CEOs is to read his post, he raises some interesting points.  Then step away from your monitor and remember this is only one part of the world you have to deal with.

If you have time to build great relationships and communities, then by all means do.  Do you have the passion, energy and knowledge to be the face of your company? Then do.

PR is about more than getting mentions on blogs or links on Twitter. Contrary to what you may read online, it’s bloody hard work. It takes time, it takes commitment.

Not everyone is Loic Lemeur and not everyone operates a Web 2.0 start-up (even if it sometimes feels like they do!).

My advice for PR people is to read Loic’s post.  There’s great commentary on the growing need for companies to get involved with the community, to converse with customers and partners.  And there’s also a need for professional communicators to ensure that the company is heard.

Your challenge is to ensure you understand the online world, while bringing real-world perspective and understanding to the table (regardless of what Loic says).

As for the tirade against the word “targets”.  For the love of jebus have you nothing more important to be getting upset about?

Get over yourself.

Three PR/Smeedia Shorts…

1) Kami Huyse has posted an analysis of a joint Brodeur-Marketwire survey  on reporters’ view of social media. 

 

2) Brian Solis has written his second PR feature in as many weeks for TechCrunch this time focusing on "PR secrets for start-ups".

Public Relations is experiencing a long overdue renaissance and its forcing PR stereotypes out from behind the curtain where they operated comfortably for far too many decades. It didn’t begin this transformation because of Web 2.0 or the latest Social Media wave, but instead in the 90’s when the Web gained mass adoption. Yes, it’s taken that long and it will continue to evolve over the next decade as communications professionals struggle with putting the public back in public relations.

3) Steve Rubel points to a post by Erick Dafforn on how Tumblr (an online mini-blogging service I wasn’t aware of) responded via social media such as FriendFeed and Del.icio,us to a customer issue/concern.  Interesting.

Ireland: Eamon Dunphy interviews former government press secretary

You may have already heard this, but I missed it.  Last week Eamon Dunphy interviewed former government press secretary Mandy Johnston.

The interview includes her thoughts on her times with Charlie McCreevy and of course with Bertie Ahern.

 

"..my role wasn’t to make to me popular, I was there to make a politician popular or to help explain a politician’s policy that’s all I was there for, I had no interest in endearing myself to journalists and I’m not afraid of the media, and so I told the truth did what I had to do for my political masters and I couldn’t make any apologies for it, everbody can’t be popular, sometimes yes you have to be the tough person."

 

You can download the podcast of the show (and Dunphy’s other shows) here.

Flacks need to lighten up…

Interesting post by Bernard Lunn on ReadWriteWeb regarding how PR people need to adapt to meet a changing world, with different expectations.

…The Internet makes command and control models pretty obsolete. Sure, some data has to be controlled. The financial results for a public company need to be issued in a certain way to comply with SEC regulations. But that’s about it. Whether you use a newswire service or your blog, the key is lighten up on the process and get into the flow. That flow may be a blog, or Twitter, or Facebook or any of the above and more. The general point is simply about availability and transparency.

If you really have a great story to tell, that will get even the most jaded journalist interested.

Public relations needs to evolve from gatekeeper and process manager to coach, helping the front line managers work effectively with media and the market. That assumes that their clients are enlightened enough to give them that mandate.

Worth a read.

By the way the comments have the usual mix of interesting, irrelevant and ignorant comments, though as always, worth a browse!