Category: General

The Bad Pitch blog has unearthed a fascinating site I hadn’t heard of before: AngryJournalist.com which provides a welcome facility for journalist to vent about what’s bugging them.

While there’s plenty of venting about PR, I was actually surprised there wasn’t more.  Unfortunately the site is anonymous and there’s no tags or categories so you just have to wade through the comments, but it’s an interesting browse…

PR people who don’t do their research. They insist on wasting my time to promote their pathetic story which if they knew ANYTHING about our paper would know that we’re not interested at all. As well as asking if I would like to meet with a representative from their organisation when they visit a town four hours away from me.

They’re probably getting paid more than me too…bastards.

#1091

Kevin Dugan who runs the Bad Pitch blog, has also pulled together an incredibly detailed list of links to resources and tips on Twitter.  The depth of the tools, tips, workarounds took me a little by surprise, but then I’m still struggling with twitter.

Just in case your were feeling all happy and content, two UK bloggers had the misfortune to ask me my opinions on the state of PR and blogging recently…

 

Sarah Stimson: "I met my latest interviewee, Tom Murphy, about 18 months ago when he was delivering part of the "Delivering the New PR" conference…."

 Link

 

 

 

 

The last Friday I had a very interesting chat with Brendan Cooper of the famous PR Friendly index…

 Link

Earlier today I had the pleasure of attending Croke Park for the Ireland-Scotland Six Nations match.

Sitting in the Hogan stand we had a fantastic view and as usual there was vociferous support for both teams.  Everyone was having a great time except that is for the poor woman sitting in the row ahead of us.

Three times during the match she looked up from her newspaper to glare at someone in a row behind her who had obviously shouted too loudly and made it hard for her to concentrate on her paper. She didn’t watch one minute of the match.

Two things:

Why oh why would you waste €70 on a ticket for a match you’re not going to watch? Surely you’d be better off finding a nice warm bar?

Secondly if you’ve no interest in watching the match why bother going when you are denying someone who would love to watch the match live?

Sometimes I really wonder… below is one of the tries she missed.

 

As long as I have worked in PR there has always been an uneasy relationship between those that practice in an agency and those that practice in-house.

As someone who has spent time in both roles, this doesn’t really surprise me.  After all working in an agency and working inside are in many respects very different jobs. I always tell students they should try and get experience of both sides of the profession, because at the very least, it will provide them with a broader perspective.

Over the past couple of weeks I met with a number of friends and former colleagues and I was stunned.

On a number of occasions I heard working in-house referred to as a type of nursing home for those no longer able to work in a "real job" i.e. the agency.

The comments were prefaced with: "no disrespect Tom but…"

The interesting things was that these comments came from people with little or no in-house experience.

There is no doubt that the differences between agency and in-house are many fold, but just in case anyone is looking at moving in-house as part of their end of career wind down process, I’d think again. 🙂

Working in-house isn’t a retirement plan…

Just stop for one moment. 

Think about where people go to find out about your company, your client, your product, your service or your industry.

It’s pretty straightforward.

They use a search engine.

Search Engines are incredibly important in ensuring that your company is top of mind among current and prospective clients.

I’m always amazed at how few PR people think about search engines. Understanding Search Engines, IMHO, is central to understand how you manage online reputations – and drive business.

But there’s another side to Search Engines….

There was a very interesting story in yesterday’s UK Sunday Times entitled "Smeared on the internet? Call in the cleaners".

Firms such as Reputation Defender (US), Tiger Two (UK) and Distilled (UK) offer services which promise to ensure that the top search results about you are positive.

This isn’t just simple search engine optimisation however. 

 

The services ensure that only friendly entries appear on the first few pages of results when a client’s name is run through search engines such as Google.

 

It’s reputation cleansing.

Reputation Defender charges $25,000 per year for the basic service rising to $300,000 for the premium version..

 

Michael Fertik, chief executive of Reputation Defender, said one of his clients was an academic psychologist in London anxious to “bury” the fact he had written about his own depression.

“Demand for the service is extremely high. Almost all our customers are private individuals and our top clients are high-pro-file business people,” said Fertik.

No one phrase chills my blood more than the declaration: "they just don’t get it".  It’s remarkable how often you hear it.  I find the closer you are to a particular ivory tower, the more often it occurs.

Translated it means "it’s all about my views", if they disagree they’re stupid. It’s anathema to good communication. [As of course is using words like ‘anathema’ – don’t worry I spot the irony!]

The other thing that never ceases to amaze me is you can take one bit of research.  Publish it to 1,000,000 people and you will get 500,000 different "findings" drawn from the same data.

If you work in PR, you probably have a good insight into research.  But that doesn’t mean that research findings aren’t interesting.

Some examples from Edelman Trust Baramoter

• Higher trust (on the whole) in business than in government
• Highest ever levels of trust in traditional media (be still my beating heart)
• Young respondents relying on social media (Wikipedia the #2 source of credible information – and young people have higher levels of trust across most media types… oh my lord…)
• 85% of respondents will pass along good or bad experiences of a company
• News is the #1 online destination – usurping shopping
• Blogs are a trusted source among only 14% of respondents (the word "only" is my emphasis)

Another interesting piece of research I came across is from Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research) in the United Kingdom which found that 18% of people have started listening to more live radio since they started subscribing to podcasts.

What do all these statistics mean?

Search me.

My take is that all this research, in my opinion, underlines that communications, media and audiences are a complex, interrelated set of elements.  There isn’t one right answer.  There’s significant differences between geographies and age groups, between online and traditional media.

Which brings me back to my headline. 

Beware the emperor’s couture. There isn’t a one size fits all.  The reality is that, with some specialist exceptions, good and effective communication requires us to work with traditional and online media, traditional and online channels and traditional and online tools.

In summary, more work 🙂

The revolution isn’t coming – but the evolution is.

You can download the full Edelman Trust Barometer report here and the key findings here.

Ireland specific

If you’re interested in the specific Irish findings jump over to Piaras.

Damian Mulley asks the question: "How should PR companies engage with Irish bloggers"

I think the unfortunate term “new media” had made PR companies think (lazily) that the same rules of engagement apply to bloggers as to existing journalists. Not that existing journos are very happy with the way some PR companies bombard them with crap. And as I wrote that last sentence I get a press release from an Irish PR company about the opening of a Conrad hotel in China. Jesus.

I’m glad Damian is throwing the question out there, because blogging still has some way to go in Ireland.  It’s growing strongly but we’re still not on a par with the UK, don’t mind Spain, France or the US. Just look at the number of Irish PR bloggers on the right hand sidebar.

Bernie has also posted his views on the subject.

I’m re-posting my comment for posterity:

Tom Murphy Says:
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 am

Damian,

Good post, it’s no harm to get this question out in the local market.

I’m a PR person (and a blogger) and to me it’s quite simple, Public Relations, when you boil it down, is about good communications (yes I know there are shady practitioners and practices – but in 99.9% of cases it’s about communication).

Good communication, regardless of the medium, era, channel or tool is about understanding your audience.

Blogs are no different in that regard.

If PR people wish to communicate with a blogger – and by doing so reach their readershop – the basics of good communication remain valid:
1) Does the blogger accept communication for PR people – or do they see PR people as the spawn of satan?
2) Is your information relevant? – not only to the blogger but their audience
3) Is the information valuable?
4) How does the blogger prefer communication?
5) Have you talked with the blogger before?
6) Have you taken the time to read the blog?

The problem is that often people get lazy and just spam irrelevant information to anyone they can find.

That’s not PR, that’s not communication, that’s just laziness.

Of course the rules have changed, so where, in the past, journalists often just cursed the PR people and binned the press release, bloggers can now name and shame. That should be a deterrent against spamming – but it doesn’t appear to be.

If it’s any consolation I get spammed with press releases all the time – which I suppose serves me right!

When you boil it down, “blog relations” is about good communication, it is about common sense and it’s about common courtesy. Any PR people following those rules will be fine.

PR people aren’t the spawn of satan but often they don’t help themselves through lazy communication. I don’t apologize for them. If you get lazy, irrelevant pitches then call them on it.

@Dennis makes a good point, don’t take any communication at face value, always do your own research. That’s good journalism
As @Bernie points out there’s no excuse for PR people not to understand this stuff, there are hundreds of blogs and podcasts covering these issues every day – do some browsing
@Orlaith – I disagree that the relationship between bloggers and PR people has to be antagonistic. Yes there are silly PR people, yes there are silly bloggers, but on the whole this is about communication. Just like the real world, some people will like your client/company and some people won’t. That’s life…

Tom

I have spent a lot of time knocking Twitter over the past twelve months. (In fact I think it’s fair to say that I’ve probably been less than complimentary about it in every single talk I’ve given…)

About a month ago, I decided to delve a little deeper into it.  I downloaded some software and have been lurking ever since. (Not very Web 2.0 of me I admit).

It’s certainly interesting.  There’s some good discussion and you get a lot of fantastic links to information, blog posts etc. You could think of it as an additional "RSS" feed if you like.

Having said that, I haven’t yet mastered the whole "participation" element. I am still struggling with yet another channel, more information and I’m not sure I have anything terribly interesting to add in between e-mail, RSS, meetings etc. But that’s a work in progress….

The reason for the post, is that if like me, you still don’t get Twitter then there’s two interesting posts about how Twitter might be useful from a PR perspective – I think the jury is still out on the longevity of the medium, but these are worth a read in terms of putting some perspective on how Twitter can help in online communication/networking:

• Paull Young: "Examples of Twitter Providing Business Benefit"
• Doug Haslam: "Twitter: Where’s it @ for Business"

I will never tire of saying that you need to build your network, and its trust in you, before it can work for you. Any venture into Twitter starts with a small network, and an unclear view of how you will get value. However, as you stay with it, and find more relevant contacts through your current group.

For me the biggest issue remains time.  The biggest challenge of "Web 2.0" (sigh) isn’t "…the death of <fill in your choice here>" but rather the management of time, resources and brain power.

Twitter is certainly interesting and *perhaps* it  will become an essential for all PR pros.

In the meantime I need to start thinking what I’ll get rid of.

Sally Whittle poses the question: "Who needs PR agencies, exactly?"

Is any headline as likely to cause a feeding frenzy? [Well maybe one is more likely]

Her point is summarized as:

So, here’s my question: what do these companies miss out on by not working with a PR agency?  I must admit, as a hack, I love the idea of not needing to go through that intermediary when I’m following up a story. But I’m not an expert in what PR agencies do over and above this stuff, so I could easily be missing something.

So what does a fat monthly retainer get you?

Having spend many years in an agency, and even more outside, it’s a great question.

[For this discussion we’re assuming PR is press relations rather than the broader Public Relations definition.]

Hiring a good PR firm, that will do a great job for your business is hard. Full stop.  PR is about people and good people are hard to find.

But there are also a wide array of different approaches to PR management.

At one end of the spectrum you have the "complete in-house" model and at the other you have the "completely out-source" model and there’s a lot of wiggle room in between.

If you’ll forgive the rash generalizations:

• In-house staff often bring more company and product-specific knowledge and sometimes more passion – a much underrated quality.
• Agencies often bring valuable perspective and potentially a broader reach into the media market.

There’s obviously more than that, but I think it’s a useful way to outline the divide.

In my experience a mix and match approach often works best.

I believe you do need communications expertise in-house, but agencies do provide a useful means of scaling your reach and providing context on what’s going out in the real-world.

So, to summarize I provide the ultimate PR answer: it depends. 🙂

My online (self) interest isn’t necessarily focused on the widgets or the hyperbole, but more about where we’re headed and how it’ll look when we get there.

There’s no doubt our world is changing, but the big questions is how?*

My view is that while the Internet is heavily laden with people’s opinions, it’s light on facts.

PR firm Brodeur conducted a survey (PDF Press Release – sigh…) of 180 journalists and their views of the impact of blogs on traditional news coverage.

Some findings:

• Blogs are a regular source for journalists (75%)
• A quarter of journalists have blogs (28%)
• The majority believe blogs are having an impact

Some may view this as the online equivalent of surveying turkeys on Christmas, but I don’t.

I still (currently) believe that ultimately we’ll see a re-balancing of online and off-line but we won’t see the death of either.

Chris Thilk has a very interesting post on the report.

 

*It goes without saying, but I’ll type it anyway: I don’t buy the PR doomsday scenario.