Murphy's Law

In my professional capacity I get between five and ten e-mail pitches from PR agencies interested in presenting their credentials in any given week.

Given that I was once that soldier, I deal with such enquiries in an sympathetic manner, the truth is that we may look to outsource some of our PR function in the future so it’s useful to talk.

However, one bugbear I have with some of these pitches is the empty promise syndrome.

With little or no knowledge of my business, many of these pitch e-mails promise business coverage, national coverage etc.

Now working in the business for as long as I have, one of the key tenets is “take nothing for granted” or as the late Fred Hoar remarked:  “advertising is pay for play, while public relations is pray for play”. 

You can’t promise your employer, client or family coverage in top outlets. That’s not how this business works – I wish it was!

Any type of coverage whether it’s trade, business, radio or television is dependant on a whole range of factors inside and outside your control. Of course a good PR professional can make the difference between coverage and anonymity, but nothing can guarantee those inches.

You can promote your expertise, illustrate your past successes with clients, demonstrate how much you want the business, but promising results?

That’s an empty promise.

Dan Gillmor one of the most popular blogging journalists on the web (3.5 million visits during 2003!) points to an interesting article from Doc Searls on Internet Marketing.

“Through the Internet, however, consumers can do more than just consume. They can participate in marketing communications. This can allow marketing communications to evolve from a peripheral activity to a primary function — one with close ties to sales, customer service, marketing, R&D, operations and just about every other activity that stands to benefit from customer participation.”

It’s an interesting view and an interesting piece – particularly given it was written in January 1995! It’s weathered well.

Dan also points to a story in Washington Post on how Wall-Mart is trying to soften its public image by putting the sales messages in the background.

“Wal-Mart’s surveys showed consumers mistrusted the company’s labor practices and its impact on the community. Shortly after the ad began airing in late September, Wal-Mart suffered another blow when federal agents raided its stores around the country and arrested about 200 undocumented immigrants working on cleaning crews.”

To follow up on my recent postings regarding RSS and PR.  Elizabeth Albrycht and Mitch Wagner (who has also updated his blog) kindly took the time to post some additional comments to the discussion and if you’re interested in RSS (and media relations) I recommend you take a read. You might even add your own opinions!

Kevin Dugan has moved his blog “Strategic Public Relations” to a new home at Typepad and he’s rather happy to be providing an RSS feed at last!

Well as we move towards the end of January has anyone seen a decrease in Spam?

It seems to me that the volume of spam keeps growing and the only people who have taken any notice of the CAN-SPAM Act are legitimate businesses who only account for a tiny fraction of the spam we get every day.

So as usual, legitimate businesses have been trying to understand the Act and its implications. Legitimate businesses have been changing their e-mail practices to adhere to the act and in the meantime the major source of spam, i.e. the people who inform you of new wonder drugs, illegal software and amateur photo opportunities have continued on regardless.

We need more than CAN-SPAM and given the impact of spam on global business I’d expect a more concerted effort to stop those people who are causing such grief on a daily basis. Mr. Gates says the spam problem will be solved in two years… I won’t be placing any bets on that prediction.

Phil Gomes who previously wrote his own weblog before hosting the G2B Group’s version has re-started his original blog.

 

Mitch Wagner took the time to comment on my post last week on RSS. I think he raises an interesting issue.

He ponders “how is an RSS feed going to make you more effective at PR? Why should we assume that the RSS feed will contain content any more interesting to me than any of those (irrelevant PR) e-mails and phone calls?”

Of course the answer is RSS doesn’t mean the content is any better. The fax, the word processor and the Internet have failed to change the nature of PR information and how it’s delivered. However RSS does add one additional feature to the mix.

If there are companies worth tracking, news can be quickly and easily scanned in one place (the RSS reader).  Furthermore, RSS is completely democratic.  You decide if you want to subscribe or not.

So if I do a good job with a journalist (or a customer or a partner) they will add my feed(s) to their RSS reader and there’s a much higher chance of them seeing and even reading the news. That’s a big win for PR and can (when the majority of companies in a market are using RSS) help everyone keep up with breaking news in a far easier way than e-mail or even web sites.

As E-mail continues to die on its feet, then if a growing number of people begin to use RSS to keep up to date, every company must work hard to ensure the content they are providing is relevant so that people will remain subscribed.

I admit we are at the very early stages of RSS, however as it gathers momentum it should have benefits for the company and the media. Now if I send rubbish across my RSS feed I know I run the risk of people unsubscribing.

Will it stop stupid phonecalls? No.

Will it stop stupid irrelevant e-mail? No (in the short run)

Does it provide a far easier way of keeping on top of the latest news from hundreds of companies? Yes.

In summary, RSS is a tool that helps in managing the exponentially growing volume of data.  Unfortunately it’s an addition and not a replacement for what went before.

Dylan Greene has some well argued points on why RSS is not ready for “prime time”. While I think many of his thoughts are absolutely valid, in my opinion they don’t preclude the use of RSS today.

Here’s why I think that’s the case.

The simple fact is that the best solution to a problem, particularly a problem related to technology, is not always the one that wins. In fact the best, most complete and well built solution rarely wins – think Microsoft Windows.

From a PR perspective what we want from RSS is a mechanism that can automatically communicate with our audience (journalists, analysts, customers, partners etc.) and inform them when there is something new and noteworthy taking place.

Why do we want this mechanism? Well it is an alternative to the spam-filled inboxes of our audience.  It is cost-effective and very efficient at alerting your audience and delivering the content.

It is also a very effective tool for overwhelmed PR practitioners, who can quickly and easily keep up to date with the latest news and developments from key publications and companies.

Does it offer archives? No.

Is it user-friendly (or is my mother likely to use it)? No.

Is it interactive, offering the ability to make comments? No.

Does any of this matter for the purposes of communication? No.

Sure there are improvements that can be made to RSS.  But the fact is, it is highly efficient at publishing information. If someone needs an archive or the ability to add comments then visit the website where the content originates.

The more we try and add bells and whistles to this thing the greater the opportunity for missing the point.

RSS works today, a growing number of companies offer the feeds, a growing number of journalists and customers are subscribing to them warts and all.

Of course RSS isn’t a replacement for e-mail and there’s no doubt that many people will treat RSS as some techie fad. That’s always the way.  But we’re already getting the benefit of RSS and it can’t hurt you to try.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing.

 

 

Good news for any PR people who enjoy reading fellow practitioners thoughts on the business and its challenges (see links on the top left of this page).

A new PR blog has been launched by Constantin Basturea.  The blog is entitled PR meets the WWW.

Newsday has a story discussing how Martha’s PR onslaught hasn’t yet repaired her damaged reputation but that it is recovering.

Although most of us are developing attention deficit disorder as we battle the increased workloads, the deluge of information and the stress of managing the balance between work and home, I don’t think our lack of attention is so bad that when she’s still in court we’d forget she was in court.  If you catch my drift.

PR takes time.  Building relationships, trust and understanding isn’t solved by throwing millions of dollars at a PR-Advertising campaign.  No matter how hard we try. 

Martha (and her legal advisors) was slow out of the gates realising the importance of communicating with her audience, she’s making up for lost time and there’s no reason why she can’t recover.  Look at Exxon’s results….