Murphy's Law

Snaring students…

Harris Interactive and 360 Youth have released a report revealing the top ten tips for marketing to students.

Did you send that e-mail?…

I’ve posted before about care when using e-mail.  It’s generally accepted that if you are communicating sensitive news, try face-to-face, but if you have to use e-mail, make sure you write it with external audiences in mind. In other words, think InternalMemos.com!

A blog I read this morning brought this to mind.  Many of us are required to follow up with journalists on stories they’ve written which either show our client/employer in a bad light or contain innaccuracies.  While we are all well versed in writing said correspondence, stop and think.

Maybe it would be better to try and call them.  At the very least make real sure that you are careful when writing an e-mail to a journalist.

Sean Gallagher is the technology editor for Baseline.  On his blog this week he posted an e-mail he received from Sun Microsystem’s PR team on an article he wrote in the January issue.  He describes it as a “PR love note”.

The note is fine, it communicates Sun’s point of view forcefully.  But have a read of it and review that e-mail you’ve written before you hit “send”.

Some PR reading….

A new organization that promises to provide a US national business development network for independent PR consultants has been launched. The group is called PR Connections.

Brand Week has an op-ed on PR versus Advertising written by Marc Hausman at Strategic Communications.

According to the Guardian, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas have retained Weber Shandwick for an impending court battle with UK magazine Hello!.

The Tennessean reports that a local school is considering an $125,000 year long PR contract to improve communications with parents.

Forta Patchie, the bronks* – and the inside story on Google… 

The Boston Globe magazine has a great feature on Google.  It includes an inside look at the company, how Google is changing our browsing habits and how our past can continue to haunt us with people we have never met.  It’s a wonderful article.

*”Forta Patchie” was one of the search terms that was displated when Neil Swidey, who wrote the feature, was in Google’s reception where a large screen shows all the latest searches, live. And before you check, there are no hits returned!

PR news round-up….

A new book called “The Influentials” aims to show the best means to identify and target early influencers.  According to the book blurb, “One American in ten tells the other nine how to vote, where to eat, and what to buy”.  The book gets a good, if short mention in the Washington Post. To be fair to Burson Marsteller I should point out that they’ve had their “e-fluentials” running for quite some time.

California PR firm FutureWorks has announced they are opening a new division to focus on PR for wineries and gourmet food.  PR expansion is good news. However, their Flash-rich site is a much deserved latest addition to the Hall of Shame!

The Seattle Times has more on yesterday’s story from the Holmes Report on that e-mailed internal memo. (Ouch!)

The New Jersey News has a story on how Public Relations will be the key battle ground for doctors and lawyers in their opposition to the growing number of malpractice suits.

Karlin Lillington has a link to the New York Times who reveal that Key3Media, the organizer of Comdex and JavaOne is seeking bankruptcy.

Not strictly PR-related, according to this story in ZDNet, software companies are increasingly using blogs to encourage feedback and ideas from customers in the development process.

Being the master of multi-media communications (part 2)…

The increasingly digital nature of information presents a lot of challenges for all communicators.  In particular it provides a more ‘interesting’ environment for Public Relations practitioners who have to track, monitor and manage all this information. While we all hope we can avoid mishaps, there are enough sobering episodes around to make us all re-examine how we view computers, e-mail and the Internet.

In the latest horror story, the Holmes Report  outlines how Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky, a New York-based advertising and public relations firm, inadvertently e-mailed confidential internal client documents to journalists. The firm is blaming it on a virus.

I’m sure we all sympathise with the victims, however here are some tips to help you avoid this happening to you:

1. Invest in up-to-date Anti-Virus software NOW – it’s not expensive and it will save these type of mishaps as well as data loss through infection of your computers.  Also make sure you update your virus checker at least once a week, but preferably daily – most of the latest packages will do this automatically for you.
2. Carefully consider the tools you use.  Remember that most viruses are written for the most popular operating systems and applications.  Today that means Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. A lot of us use Microsoft Outlook for contacts, calendering and e-mail.  Given the propensity of viruses for Outlook, consider alternatives such as ACT!, Goldmine, Organizer, or even a generic database such as Access or FileMaker.
3. Manage your files.  Rather than leaving files as attachments in your e-mail client, consider saving the file to your hard drive or network drive and deleting the e-mail.  This will reduce the size of your e-mail application, ensure all the files you need are in one place and increase the performance of your e-mail client.
4. Delay your e-mail.  In most e-mail packages you can send e-mail immediately or you can choose to store outgoing e-mail for a specified length of time.  Delay it!

Being the master of multi-media communications…

These days Public Relations professionals have to be skilled in a wide diversity of media.  We are no longer simply the owner of press releases and backgrounders.  Today we have to be able to write good online copy, use e-mails for sharp pitching etc.

A fundamental part of these skills includes an understanding of the best way to communicate online.  We need to understand that because the Internet consists of users with different PCs, different browsers and different quality connections to the Internet, the best approach to web communications is catering for the lowest common denominator.

PR people must also inherently understand that their audience want relevant information that is quickly and easily accessible.

Richard Bailey wrote on Friday of the sad demise of Gnash Communications one of the leading UK dotcom PR agencies (think Lastminute.com).  Gnash were an early entrant into our PR Flash Hall of Shame which showcases PR agencies who believe that advertising through Flash is the best means of communicating over the Internet.

I’ve added a few more new entries to the Flash Hall of Shame (you can see a full listing here).

Whenever I add a company to the list, I regularly get angry e-mails from the listee and as a result I have put together an explanation of why Flash is bad. I even point them to the creators of Flash who themselves warn against the use of Flash intros and if that isn’t enough I point them to the ever-enjoyable Skip Intro.

I’m also very happy to remove anyone from the Hall of Shame who repents and goes back to website design as it is supposed to be… HTML.

Responding with no response at all…

So your company is braving a difficult economic environment. Rumors abound about your senior management jumping ship, and who will replace them.  To make matters more complex, you are announcing your results on February 5th 2002 so you are in the “quiet period”.  What do you do?  Or what do you NOT do?

Well Sprint are in this very situation.  There are rumors everywhere about the company’s senior management, but the company is obviously under pressure because of the quiet period and most probably the machinations of the remaining senior management team. It’s not easy, but here’s what I don’t think you should do.

Don’t put out a press release entitled: “Sprint Responds to Current Speculation” and then write in the body:

“Sprint has declined to comment on media speculation regarding management succession.

As previously announced, Sprint will release its fourth quarter financial results on Feb. 5, 2003. The results for both the FON Group and PCS Group are expected to be consistent with the guidance provided by the company on Dec. 12, 2002. “

That’s it… Not exactly solving anything is it?  They would’ve been better off saying nothing.

The Kansas City Star has analysis here.

Measuring your reputation online…

According to a story in DestinationCRM, MediaMap the purveyors of online media databases, and latterly the providers of PR-specific CRM, have partnered with Cymfony to provide a means of analyzing online reputation through scanning magazines online, websites, discussion groups etc..

Cymfony themselves offer a “Brand Dashboard” product, which is I guess the basis of the MediaMap deal.  It looks impressive and runs through your web browser.

Pricing is on application.

PR Opinions now on http://www.natterjackpr.com 

Phew, after an evening spent tweaking FTP settings, exporting files and uploading and re-loading, PR Opinions is now up and running.  The reasons for the change from Blogger were many-fold but primarily performance and ease of use for me.

The PR Opinions RSS feed has changed as well.  The new RSS feed is: http://www.natterjackpr.com/rss.xml.

My contact details haven’t changed, e-mail me tpmurphy@addr.com

And for the record the Google page ranking is currently at 3…