"Trust" is the Key to Growing Your Follower Numbers - Tell it to the Beast

The Daily Beast must have an editorial calendar that builds in a university ranking of some sort every few months to boost readership and grow its follower numbers.

Earlier this week the news website released a new list, "50 Druggiest Colleges," sending the public relations and administration offices of 50 colleges and universities scrambling to either respond or to at least generate a message that could be sent to students, faculty, friends and the media.

Just about every time The Daily Beast releases a university ranking, it gets slammed for its use of unscientific data and analysis.  In the instance of the "50 Druggiest Colleges" list, it included inaccurate information about at least one university which greatly influenced the institution's ranking on the list.  Subsequently, The Daily Beast reported the correction and dropped this particular university's ranking by 21 spots.

But the damage had already been done to this university and to the 49 others who made the list.  Who reads corrections?  And besides, The Daily Beast had already received what it wanted: coast-to-coast news articles on the ""50 Druggiest Colleges" ranking since nearly every state in the U.S. was represented.

Last month, Newsweek, another struggling weekly news magazine, and The Daily Beast announced a merger  resulting in the creation of The Daily Beast Newsweek Publishing.

Time will tell if this convenient marriage has legs or if it's just a weekend affair.  If The Daily Beast is looking to earn credibility in the world of online news, though, its best bet is to learn to be more responsible.  It might start by reducing its over reliance on data for its university ranking features from the likes of College Prowler and employ a scientific method for collecting and reporting on useful data. 

Marketing Trumps Reality

Exactly one year, one month and one week after I received my Droid in the mail from Verizon Wireless -- on the day it first became available back in 2009 -- the battery died. After 57 weeks, more or less, of being always on, the wafer-thin power supply to my mobile life finally gave out. Not a bad run.

So, on a cold, rainy Sunday in December I made my way to my neighborhood Verizon store to get a new battery. As usual, the salespeople in Verizon were helpful, and even moved me to the front of the customer queue since all I needed was a new battery.

The kid who eventually helped me asked if I wanted the standard Droid battery, or for an additional $20 the extended life battery that could go up to two full days without needing a charge. I never turn off my Droid, so the thought of going an additional 24 hours without a charge appealed to me and I opted for the extended life battery.

As the saleskid was ringing up my purchase he asked me if I needed a wireless connection for my laptop since Verizon was now offering 4G LTE which provides "true 4G" for my computing needs. I had to stop him right there and explain that the device he was hawking might be good, and even faster than anything else on the market, but it was far from being "true 4G."

Oh no, my enthusiastic saleskid countered, what Verizon offers really is 4G, unlike competitors such as AT&T and Sprint.

It was then that I noticed the logo on his black shirt -- 4G LTE with the Verizon logo underneath. I then noticed the same graphic in hundreds of places around the store -- big posters, cutouts, window stencils, endcaps, brouchures, small placards on the counters, etc. The entire store was one giantic promotion for Verizon's 4G LTE.

Verizon's marketing department had certainly done its job making sure customers were bombarded with the 4G message. Likewise, Verizon's sales department had done its job making sure its salespeople in stores pushed the 4G messaging, no matter how "untrue" it might actually be.

You see, according to the International Telecommunications Union, which sets global standards for the telecommunications industry, "true 4G" provides a net bit rate capacity of up to 100Mbit/s in the downlink and up to 50 Mbit/s in the uplink.

I asked my saleskid what the downlink speeds were for Verizon's "true 4G" and he motioned toward a placard that in full color showed that Verizon's LTE offered download speeds up to 12Mbit/s! He was very proud.

I had to point out to him that was roughly 10x slower than what the ITU had defined for 4G speeds. He looked at me as if I had horns. I could see him processing my comment. He was struggling to remember his sales training and the marketing literature.

"What does ITU stand for again? I should know this one" "What's 12 Mbit/s times 10?" "Who is this guy and why doesn't he just take his battery and leave?"

My saleskid stood there for a moment staring at me before he finally said, "Verizon has true 4G, and we're the only company that does."

I had to hand it to the kid, he was staying on message.

I also had to hand it to Verizon. The company's marketing department has spent millions of dollars on TV, radio and online advertising to promote its 4G LTE technology. It's spent countless dollars and hours training its sales staff and providing them with in-store promotional items. And it was working.

I took my battery and left the store, without buying a 4G LTE wireless device. But I couldn't help but wonder how Verizon's marketing campaign might have swayed others into buying the 4G mythology.

What Company Spokespeople Can Learn from the New England Patriots

Stacey James must be the most relaxed person in the room during recent New England Patriots press conferences.  Sure, James has had his share of challenges in recent years, such as the illegal taping scandal -- Spy Gate.  And we won't soon forget Randy Moss' meandering stream of consciousness press conference earlier this year which left everyone in the room, including James (I'm sure), scratching his head or worse.

But it when it comes to official team press conferences, either following a win or rare loss, Mr. James might as well be sitting in a Lazy Boy in the back of the room.

And why not?  He's vice president of media relations for the company with the best media-trained executives in their industry.  From the franchise owners (Robert and Jonathan Kraft), to the head coach (Bill Belichick), to the team captain and quarterback (Tom Brady) and on through every employee who is permitted to talk to the media -- the New England Patriots stay on message.

And what happens when an employee of the New England Patriots deviates from the company's key messages playbook or when an employee of most any company does so?

Well, it inhibits the company's ability to leverage the interview to achieve company goals.  Remember BP's Tony "I'd like my life back" Hayward's handling of last summer's Gulf Coast tragedy?  I think Hayward is now based somewhere on the Russian front.  Or you can ask wide receiver/diva Randy Moss how beneficial to the New England Patriots his self-serving rant was, that is, if you can remember what franchise is employing him these days.

Before going into a media interview, a spokesperson must have specific goals for that interview.  Once the interview goals have been defined, they can be converted to key messages.  Like many smart organizations, the New England Patriots have a playbook of perpetual key messages and also develop each week a list of time sensitive, relevant key messages.  By limiting the number of points its spokespeople are asked to get across, the Patriots have more control of what ultimately appears in print or what is heard on the radio and seen on TV.

An example of a "perpetual" Patriots key message came on Sunday evening following the Patriots win over the Chicago Bears.  While at the podium during the post-game press conference, Belichick was informed that Patriots arch rival New York Jets had just lost to the Miami Dolphins.  "Oh, we can't worry about that," Belichick said. "We can't be scoreboard watching and worrying about every team in the league.  We worry about ourselves and just try to play well.  Whatever else happens, happens."

The message: the Patriots organization is the master of its destiny.  The Pats alone can control what they do on the field and they do so by being hyper-prepared.

An example of a time-sensitive message came from quarterback/captain Tom Brady yesterday during his weekly locker room press conference, talking about this weekend's match up.  "Yeah, we're in a good position, but we can be in a bad position really quickly ... Green Bay is a hell of a challenge for us. ... (They have a) great quarterback, great offensive scheme, great receivers, and a hell of a defense."

The message:  Any team good enough to be playing in the NFL is comprised of quality athletes.  Despite their leadership position, the Patriots never take any team for granted and respect every competitor no matter what their record may be. The Patriots take the high road, no matter who is doing the talking.

Listen to this week's conference calls with other team executives, such as the Patriots' director of player personnel or the defensive backs coach.

Like their head coach and quarterback, they too are trained to be on message and on target.

For Social Media Marketing, it's the End of the Innocence

It was really just two or three years ago when many "traditional" public relations agencies and their business-to-business clients were wondering if social media marketing was just another shiny new toy, a passing fancy, an amusement for idle minds and hands that would have its 15 minutes of fame and then fizzle.

Since then the question has transitioned from "what if social media marketing is real" to "how do we maximize it for our business?" Add to the list "how do we make sense of the hundreds of social media marketing channels, applications, and analytical tools, etc., that are evolving and being ushered in and out on a daily basis?" And "which ones are right for us and our key stakeholders?"

Flashback:  excluding the early adopters, from 2007-2008 business-to-business public relations and marketing professionals started to kick the social media marketing tires in earnest.  At that time, many professionals and their organizations were signing on to LinkedIn and Twitter for the first time just to be there;   to see what the fuss was all about.  Yes, the great recession influenced the number of LinkedIn and Twitter newbies as these platforms are ideal for job hunters.  But a great many also were logging on to figure out how to begin integrating social media into their existing marketing efforts.

Then in 2009, providers of marketing services in the business-to-business world started their deep dive, en masse, into social media marketing.  And at the same time, PR agency prospects took stock of whether the agencies involved in their new business reviews were walking the social media talk. Do you blog and comment on blogs?  How many Twitter followers does your agency have?  What type of content are you generating and tweeting?  Do the managing partners tweet?  What should we do?  If they didn't ask, they were thinking it.

2010 was a watershed year for the marketing services industry as far as the impact of social media marketing is concerned.

Today, as 2010 winds down, if you live in a B2B world and work in public relations and/or marketing, you are likely (hopefully) well versed in social media marketing -- as a counselor and/or as a practitioner. Because the train has left the station.  In 2011, social media marketing loses its innocence and you better be planning for it.

Confessions of a (sometimes) Twitter User

I've had a Twitter account now for several years. In fact, I have three Twitter pages -- one where I share personal thoughts and information, one for a hobby of mine and a third for work. In the beginning, I used to post to all three many times per week, and on occasion, several times per day.

But over the past months my Twitter activity has declined. It may be because I'm active on three different social networks or because I'm trying to manage the messages in my four email accounts. It could be that I read a couple of newspapers every day and try to read the many magazines to which I subscribe. Or it could be that I spend any available time reading numerous online news sites and blogs, or try to write for one of the two blogs to which I regularly post. I also listen to the radio and watch TV, which also takes up some of my "media" time.

My reduced Twitter use may also have something to do with the fact that I was getting inundated with tweets -- literally several every couple of seconds. By the time I'd read and commented on one, or re-tweeted it, 15 more demanded my attention!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy social media in general and Twitter specifically, but with so many social media and news outlets, it's hard to keep up with all of them. Apparently I'm not the only one feeling a bit overwhelmed.

A report released today by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project says that of all the Americans who log onto and use the Internet, only 8 percent of them use Twitter, and that a much higher percentage of Internet-connected Latinos and African-Americans use the service than whites.

There were other interesting findings from the study as well. Again, of all Internet users, 7% of men used Twitter while the number was 10% for women. Only 5% of white Internet users use Twitter while the number for blacks is 13% and Hispanics 18%. Urban dwellers use Twitter at more than twice the rate of their rural counterparts, 11% to 5%, while suburban usage fell in the middle at 8%.

Age also plays a factor in who uses Twitter. Fourteen percent of those 18-29 years old use the service, but the percentage drops to 7% for 30-49 year olds and 6% for those over 50.

So despite the estimated 50 million tweets per day in the US in 2010, a relatively small number of Internet-connected people seem to responsible for them.

Please feel free to tweet these findings.

The Won't Do Nation

Way back in September 2009, President Obama went to Hudson Valley Community College in New York to give a speech on innovation.  The choice of location was interesting, as the southward journey of the mighty Hudson River tells a sequential story of the demise of the American economy. 

The Hudson Valley runs due south from Albany to New York City. It is bordered on both banks by the tracks of railroads and the ancient mansions of families with names like Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Delano, Astor and Rockefeller. On its southward journey it passes towns like Schenectady -- which Thomas Edison chose as the birthplace of GE. Then it moves further south past Kingston, Poughkeepsie and East Fishkill, which once housed more than 50,000 IBM employees in 3 bustling plants that built and tested mainframe computers and designed and developed advanced semiconductors. Those plants today are shadows of their former prosperity. Further south, it passes IBM's headquarters in Armonk, its research center in Yorktown Heights and continues to New York City, where it rolls past the palatial offices of investment banks and AIG.

So it was an interesting venue on that day 15 months ago when the President laid out a three-part plan to rejuvenate innovation in a country and a region that once set the bar for the world in technology innovation.  His plan called for:

1. Investing in the Building Blocks of American Innovation. 

2. Promoting Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship, and 

3. Catalyzing Breakthroughs for National Priorities.

It was a bold and detailed plan that you can see in the accompanying diagram. It set as a priority restoring American leadership in fundamental research.  As we stand on the verge of continuing the Bush-era tax cuts, the idea of restoring our leadership in R&D seems remote. We appear to be a nation and an economy hell bent on cutting costs rather than investing in the kind of research and development that made us the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world for over a century.  While there are many who claim that stimulus plans rob future generations by burdening them with debt, it is hard to believe that the residual impact of cuts could exceed the negative impact of not investing in research and development required to create new jobs, revitalize industries, support education, create new industries and keep us focused on innovation in a world that is increasingly competitive.

We have always been a defiant nation. That has served our greatness when directed at outside threats.  But it serves to hasten our demise when used against each other. We seem to have forsaken the "Can Do" attitude that fostered more than a century of innovation along the banks of the Hudson River and across the nation. We have replaced it with a "Won't Do" attitude that divides us and defies any attempt to unify us in a common purpose to restore our greatness.  Has protecting wealth trumped stimulating innovation and the ability to compete globally?

Which Companies Will Lead the IT Industry's New Mainstream Platform?

'Tis the season for predictions.

Let's see.  Well, we have the 2011 world prophecies from top psychic astrologers.  I was elated to read on this web site that "all predictions of life on Earth and End of the World in 2012 will turn out to be false and untrue."  So not only "false" but "untrue" as well.  Now that's a relief.

The 2011 Oscar predictions started making the rounds in October. CNBC announced earlier today that on Dec. 8 it will unveil its predictions for the 2011 economy.  I also saw an article about the 2011 food trend predictions made by 1,500 chefs.  And of course there are thousands of professional sports-related predictions including this one from The Orange Country Register:  Lakers will lose!

But in a sea of annual predictions on subjects that are really just trivial, there's one list that I look forward to each year at this time.  And once again, it did not disappoint.

If you haven't seen International Data Corporation's 2011 IT industry predictions, you can find it here.  You to have register with IDC to read it, but if you want only the summary here's the press release.

Here are the reports' highlights:

• spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30% from this year.  Why?  Because more and more businesses, small, medium and large, are realizing the friendliness of cloud economics, the flexibility and reliability of cloud computing models, and that security issues have been over-stated;
• mobile computing will continue to explode.  Ok, that's obvious.  But what about this:  IDC says close to 25 billion mobile apps will be downloaded next year! That's compared to "only" 10 billion or so which were downloaded this year.  It's not time to kiss our PCs good-bye quite yet.  But it will be interesting to see how the manufacturers with PCs in their DNA reinvent themselves in a world where mobile computing dominates, and
• in 2011, business finally gets social.  More than 40% of SMBs will use social networks to promote themselves and we'll see a consolidation tsunami as the bigger software suppliers scoop up social software vendors to fuel their social business efforts.

The key prediction from IDC is not only will cloud computing, mobile computing and social networking grow and mature next year, but they will "coalesce" into a new, mainstream platform.  And the players who are today's leaders in the cloud, mobile and social may not be the same companies who will be leaders of the new coalesced platform.

"In addition to creating new markets and opportunities, this restructuring will overthrow nearly every assumption about who the industry's leaders will be and how they establish and maintain leadership," said Frank Gens, senior VP and chief analyst at IDC.

In 2010, the cloud, mobile and social all found their rhythm.  Things will get even more fascinating next year when they share the same stage on prime time. 

I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait! 

New King of the Court

No, it's not LeBron James. It's Apple Computer. Since 2008, Apple has been the most-sued company in the technology industry. It's most recent battle, being heard this week by the International Trade Commission, is against Finnish telecom giant Nokia over patents relating to the iPhone. At stake is the leadership position in the US smartphone market. Apple is trying to protect its right to import the iPhone, while keeping at bay its most powerful rivals, particularly smartphones powered by Google's Android operating system, the world's most popular smartphone software. I'm not going to go into the specifics of this particular case, or any of the dozens of lawsuits Apple has pending, rather, I'm more interested in why Apple has become the most litigious company in technology. The statistic that caught my eye was the time frame of Apple's ascent in courtroom appearances -- 2008 through today. What changed in 2008? Ah yes, the iPhone was available and was the hottest phone on the market. Prior to 2008, most of the technology patent battles happened among companies such as Intel, AMD, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Qualcomm and Oracle. But after 2008, Apple raises to the top of the heap. Apple's ubiquitous presence in the courtroom is because smartphones, and the applications that run on them, have become such essential parts of our lives. Not an hour goes by that I'm not either talking on my smartphone, sending a text, checking email or surfing the web. And who am I kidding? An hour? Try every few minutes, and I'm not alone. In the past, the battleground for our attention was on the PC, so it was natural for HP, Dell, Intel, AMD and Microsoft to sue anyone who dared venture near their turf. Today, that battleground is our iPhones, Droids, and Blackberries. Conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley has long been follow the VC money to determine the hot emerging tech market. But a corollary to that adage is watch who is suing whom to determine what market is currently hot and making money. Today that market is smartphones, and the hot company is Apple.

The 10 Worst Things Your PR Agency Could Tell You

If you ever worked for a big public relations agency, my list of "The 10 Worst Things Your PR Agency Could Tell You" will look very familiar. 

Smaller agencies are guilty of some of the things on the list too.  But generally, smaller agencies and bigger agencies approach client service quite differently.  I've worked for both.  First a boutique tech agency with the mantra of "senior people doing hands on work."  I also worked for a very large global PR agency.

PR pros working at smaller agencies do so for lots of reasons.  It could be the lack of bureaucracy or the opportunity to be involved in more decision making that are the main attractions.  One of the reasons that keeps rising to the top, though, is they want to continue to do client work -- no matter how senior or experienced they may be.

At smaller agencies, where staffs are lean and mean, chances are the senior-most individuals at the firm are rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty.  At larger agencies, this is less frequently the case because there are so many P&L and administrative things to do.  I mean, who has time for client work?

That's my intro.  Here's the list:  

1. We can't get any coverage for you if your customers won't speak to the media.
2. We ran through your monthly budget in the first two weeks of the month, so we have to shut things down until the new month.
3. We can't have the entire account team on our weekly call with you because your budget is too small.
4. We just took on a competitor of yours as a new client, but don't worry as we have a separate team working on that account.
5. We just took on a competitor of yours as a new client and since their budget is bigger than yours, we're forced to drop you as a client.
6. We're increasing our hourly rates as of January 1.
7. We understand that your business is soft, but your reduced budget is too small for us so we have to part ways.  
8. We thought you said the press release was approved "as is."  That's why we sent it out.
9. The lead person on your account is leaving the firm.
10. We'll get it to you tomorrow, promise.

The Dawn of the Anti-Blogger

I think a lot of marketing communications people and other creative types got excited when blogging became part of the day job vs. a nice-to-have.  While blogging is one more task on top of many in a day in the life, it offered a respite from the more processed writing style associated with business communications. Generating and delivering content using traditional marketing communications tools -- news releases, white papers, presentations, brochureware, case histories, etc. -- requires more of a left brained approach.  Writing a blog entry, however, allows the writer to exercise the brain's often less used right hemisphere, where creativity, intuition and subjectivity rule.

And while the traditional tools all serve a purpose as part of a marketing communications campaign that may include product publicity, cause marketing, thought leadership, influencer relations, issues management, etc., they only communicate out and provide little or no feedback loop. By design, these tools don't encourage conversation or the exchange of information.

When integrated into a broad communications campaign that does includes two-way communication channels -- like blogging -- they continue to be very effective, however.

Still, traditional business communication forms often don't allow for marketing services pros to be what many of us are or "secretly" want to be:  thoughtful and creative writers.  Writing for business is all about business.  It's what we do to generate awareness for our clients so our clients can sell more products and/or services and make more money and so we can get paid. Ask any professional blogger why they blog.  It's for the same reasons.

For the rest of us, the non-professional blogger, blogging was making it possible for us to scratch our creative and expressive itch. It's a format, so we thought, that gives us just the right amount of editorial and artistic license that news releases and white papers, generally, deny us.  It gave us a new outlet that satisfied the "I want to be a thoughtful writer" craving many of us have suppressed for too many years. So we thought.

For better or worse, though, these are the facts:  SEO, page ranking, backlinking, link baiting, ping services, social bookmarking, etc., are working overtime to put blogging in the same class as the traditional forms of business communications. The irony to me is that blogging gives us suppressed creative writers a creative outlet within our profession, finally, only to be microscoped by Google Juice.

Beth Harte, client services director at Serengeti Communications, initiated a Facebook discussion earlier this week on this subject, and puts it quite simply:  "But at the end of the day writing only for Google Juice doesn't always provide real value to your clients/customers.  Or, if you're a non-professional blogger like me, it's just not fun."

Perhaps we are seeing the dawn of the anti-blogger - folks who blog because they have something to say and care less about page rank and comments.

The Generation Gap is Shrinking When it Comes to Digital Privacy

More and more people, across generations, are learning the hard way that the posting of certain kinds of personal information on social networks can be a bad idea.

As we age, do we become more private?  Do we become more protective as we accumulate more things in our lives, like a reputation built over a lifetime, material wealth or opinions we'd rather not share with the world but only with the closest of friends?

If the results from a new report from technology and market research firm Forrester Research, Inc. hold true, then the answer to these questions is "yes."

Credit social media with helping to bridge the generation gap among Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and even Millennials (to some extent, anyway) on at least one important issue -- digital privacy.

It appears that no matter how old we are, we spend some time worrying about social media-related privacy.  And the older we are, the more time we spend worrying about it.

While 18 to 29 year-olds -- aka Millennials -- are the least concerned (as you might expect since the use of social media is in their DNA), even their privacy concerns increased over a year ago, according to the Forrester report.

Baby Boomers, as you might assume, are the most concerned about social media-related privacy --especially the older boomers, aged 54 to 64.  Their privacy concerns jumped from 32% to 50% in a single year.  Younger boomers (44 to 53 years of age...and includes me!) express somewhat less concern and are more closely aligned with the attitudes toward online privacy as Gen Xers (30 - 43).  With that said, privacy concerns for both younger Boomers and Gen X also increased over 2009.

Companies like Google and Facebook are constantly in the news due to digital privacy issues.  Google recently created a privacy-centric fund and donated $8.5M to it largely as a result of the mishandling of its Google Buzz launch last February.  And Facebook, it seems, is forever digging out of the privacy holes it creates for itself.

Social media is evolving and so too are users' attitudes toward it. Backlash against social networks dictating privacy policies to customers is growing stronger. 

Older Gen Xers aren't too far away from the half way point in their lives.  And as Sid Yadav of VentureBeat points out, it would behoove Facebook to "figure out a middle ground on privacy before its first users reach middle age."

All Else Being Equal, Chemistry Unlocks the Door to a Long-Term Partnership

A pro golfer always assumes their competitor is going to make the putt -- the putt that's going to keep a match alive, or win it, or send it to extra holes.

Of course, pros miss key putts on occasion.  But the truly makeable clutch putts that may mean the difference between a first place finish and a four-way tie for second place, well, the pros make those much of the time.

I have the same attitude when it comes to pitching new business against other PR and marketing agencies.  And it's been my attitude for the 13 years I've been working for first a $40 million tech firm, then a $150 million multi-practice agency and now a relatively new boutique.

This attitude of mine is that most agencies pitching the same piece of business are going to do many of the same things to win it.  If you read David Kean's "How Not to Come in Second," which was making its way through agencies everywhere four or five years ago, you know about his eight ingredients for pitching:  be organized, know your audience, solve the problem, price properly, deliver a great presentation, generate unstoppable momentum, and demand feedback (win or lose).

Kean's ingredients for winning will likely always be relevant.  And all great agencies adhere to guidelines like his, albeit customized to suit each agency's differentiators or "secret sauce."

So assume for a moment that a business prospect is meeting with five agencies.  And during the pitch phase, each agency demonstrates proven experience in the prospect's industry; the ability to generate meaningful online and offline awareness and coverage; creative, breakthrough program ideas; strong media and client references; and, in general, the ability to be an excellent business partner to the prospect.

How does the prospect decide on a new agency in this situation?

I think the answer is "chemistry."

When I was the client and involved in agency reviews, I would visualize what it would be like working with the various pitch teams day-in day-out, during good times and bad, for better or worse...until...

When I meet with prospects today, I always advise them to do the same.

The importance of great chemistry can't be underestimated when it comes to selecting a business partner and cultivating a relationship that maximizes value for both parties.

I'd be interested in hearing what role you think chemistry plays in a business partnership.

10 Public Relations-related Discussions I Could Live Without

Everyday I look forward to the avalanche of creative ideas, links to information and news I wouldn't see otherwise, the levity, the quirkiness and the provocative conversations, blogs, tweets and posts and all that spills forth from my favorite social media networks.

Well, almost all that spills forth... 

We're probably a lot alike in that we start each day by browsing Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc., and end each day pretty much the same way.  We want to know "what's new" even before we get out of bed (some of us).  And in just a few minutes, before we take that first sip of Sumatra or Chai, we have a pretty good take on the conversations that took place while we slept and about what's trending for the day ahead.

Unfortunately, however, much of the creativity and thoughtfulness that is shared within our social networks - I'm finding -- is being offset by the seemingly never-ending regurgitation of (too) familiar discussions.  I am specifically speaking of the conversations taking place within the world of public relations. And more specifically, technology public relations.  

This may sound a bit like whining to you.  I'm sure it would to Seth Godin, who blogged just today about whining.


Mr. Godin says whining is just a waste of time.  He's right.  Still, I believe everyone has the right to whine, albeit only once in a while.

Today, it's my turn.  

With that, I give you my short list of regurgitated, recycled and restated discussions which are taking place in a PR-oriented social media community near you. All are discussions we, 'er I, can live without:  

• Is traditional media really dead?
• Press release:  R.I.P.
• Who should own social media? Ad agency, PR agency, in-house team or social media agency?
• Why PR agencies missed the social media train.
• What journalists hate about PR people.
• 10 essential tools for measuring social media (especially annoying when they're tools you never heard of and when you click on the links half of them are already obsolete!)
• How to pitch bloggers.
• How many CEOs are actively using social media.
• How do you measure PR success?
• Is PR dead?

Phew.  Quite a list.  But I'm sure I missed a few, so please feel free to weigh in with your personal favs.  

  

After Innovation and Marketing, Everything Else is Detail.

The great business educator Peter Drucker once said that business is about only two things: innovation and marketing.  Everything else, he said, is details.  

So when these two elements appear simultaneously, something magical happens.

Something...like the iPad?

The iPad was anticipated for at least six months ahead of its launch in April 2010, and 3 million of the devices were sold in the first 80 days. Yet, more than six months later, there is not one viable competitor in the market.  Despite volumes of media speculation and analyst forecasts, there still is no competitor to Apple in the hottest new segment of the personal computing and mobile markets. 

Apple expands its market around the globe, adds retail and partner channels and readies for an update to its OS, while its formidable competitors struggle with basic design for v 1.0.  They debate form factors, operating systems, interfaces, design, applications and battery life before they even tackle the harder of question of figuring out what is left of the market and how steep do they have to discount to win customers away from the iPad.

In the iPad, as in most things Steve Jobs creates, innovation and marketing aligned. A visionary and passionate leader, an incredible design, a Blue Ocean market opportunity and a product that exceeds the expectation of its customers have made the iPad a runaway success. That doesn't just happen one morning when someone wakes up and decides to find an innovation.  It happens when leaders are passionate about building cultures around innovation, design and usability and rigid about making sure it occurs at every level of the company and never stops.  

When that occurs, a product can be marketed with the deft subtlety of the iPad because the product speaks for itself.  I would ask you where, in the iPad does innovation stop and the marketing begin? That is what makes Apple great.  Peter Drucker would be pleased.

Public and Analyst Relations Should Be Housed Under One Roof

An increasing number of technology companies are seeing the wisdom in assigning public relations (PR) and analyst relations (AR) under the same in-house communications manager. That is, at least, the observation here at 3Point.

In recent weeks we've met with a number of companies who have asked us to include a treatment of market analysts, aka industry analysts and never to be confused with financial analysts, in RFP responses and proposals.

I don't know if I'd call it a trend quite yet.

And things could flip the other way -- housing PR and AR in separate departments within the same company -- at any time.

But for now, I'm going out on a limb and saying that more companies are integrating the reporting responsibilities and activities of their in-house PR and AR teams.  To me, these are companies that get it.

If you've worked at a PR agency for some time, you've probably had this experience:  you're meeting with a prospect and talking to the chief communications officer or head of corporate communications to understand their communications challenges and needs.  You ask about how AR is handled.  The communications chief grimaces and reveals that AR sits elsewhere in the organization, sometimes even reporting into the the office of the CFO. 

What?  The CFO?

In most cases, the head of communications wants to own AR.  One reason is that at many large companies, AR pros are considered to be more "strategic" than the PR folks (subject of a forthcoming post) and their compensation may reflect this. Also, AR budgets can be substantial as they must fund "paid" analysts relationships.  So it's the golden rule: he/she who has the gold, rules. 

But there are other, more concrete and important reasons why a corporate communications chief wants and should have responsibility for both. A proactive, well-managed and quantifiable AR program works hand-in-glove with a PR program. After all, the two programs are striving to meet the same goals.  Here are just a few: 

• to build and sustain positive, productive relationships
• to build positive visibility
• to highlight competitive differentiators, and
• to ultimately generate more revenue by selling more products.

I'd love to hear your opinions on this issue.

Moving Strategy from SWAT to SWOT

Companies have to move fast in the world of a voracious 24-hour news cycle that feeds on the slightest development and then spits out an issue for digestion by vast social media networks.  Small issues can become tidal waves in hours. We see it happen every day. There are no ideal solutions for dealing with the reality of instant access in a highly transparent environment. As in everything, advance strategic planning helps.  But situations that call for rapid fire decision making are usually caused by unexpected issues that are difficult to anticipate. Prior direct experience helps, but the range of possibilities confronting a business in assessing its choices can make an an individual's relevant experience one dimensional.


So, how do companies identify strategic choices when the pace accelerates or the pressure increases?


How do you try to provide a context that can rapidly find the major points you need to consider in coming to the right course of action?  Using three basic elements can provide a very useful solution when fast paced strategic decisions need to be made.

• Process:  It is surprising how many companies don't have a defined and tested process for dealing with rapid fire strategic issues. This is like responding to a fire without an escape plan. So we counsel companies to develop a clear process for identifying what to do when fast strategic decisions are required.
• Team: The second element is to assemble a small team of the right people -- usually 5-7 members who either have direct involvement in a situation and/or a cross section of related and authoritative backgrounds in specific areas. For example, if a competitor announces a disruptive technology aimed directly at a company's core market, sales, marketing, research, and product development teams are rallied together. When a new product is delayed, marketing, sales, finance and engineering meet to decide the potential impact from several aspects. When a CEO leaves, HR and PR teams are quickly aligned to develop a plan for internal and external communications.
• Tools: If a company has done 1 and 2 -- defined a process that includes access to the right SWAT team for a particular strategic choice -- the third element is to define the choices and their potential impacts to reach the best decision as fast as possible.  This is where SWAT teams need to become Strategic SWOT teams.  

Strategic SWOT starts with a traditional approach identifying internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats.  The key to turning SWOT analysis into a strategic tool comes in the filters you apply. Here is a brief four-step process anyone can use to master this:

• First, use the S-O filter to match the internal strengths with external opportunities and list these in the upper left quadrant of a two-by-two matrix.

• Next, match internal weaknesses with external opportunities and list these as Weaknesses-Opportunities (W-O) strategies in the upper right hand quadrant.  

• Align internal strengths with external threats and list these Strengths-Threats (S-T) strategies in the lower left hand quadrant.

• Finally, use the lower right right quadrant to list Weaknesses-Threats (W-T) strategies by aligning internal weaknesses with external threats.

At this point, your SWOT list should be transformed into a number of potential strategic options to consider.

In a perfect situation, most companies would choose offense: strategies that applies company strengths toward the greatest opportunities -- S-O strategies. But rapid fire strategic decisions don't always involve opportunities to show your best stuff. In general, here is what the the other three quadrants will lead you to consider:

• W-O strategies overcome a client's weaknesses to pursue opportunities.
• S-T strategies identify ways to reduce vulnerability to external threats. 
• W-T strategies establish a defensive plan to prevent the firmʼs weaknesses from making it susceptible to external threats.

Strategic SWOT is not a perfect solution, and the strategies are not automatic.  But used properly with the right cross section of team members, it can get you a lot closer to better decision making when time constraints are the most pressing. If you've had experiences -- good or bad -- using this or another form of SWOT, we please let us know.

Tell Your Story

In recent weeks, I generated a couple of posts with the theme of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Specifically, I was referring to two constants in the public relations business. The first was that PR pros have been practicing for decades what is today called "content marketing." The second was despite the proliferation of social media and new digital forms of communications, the majority of tech journalists and bloggers prefer e-mail-based communications vs. all other types.

I also called out a few of the revolutionary changes in our business, many influenced by advancements in technology.  For example, how we write with SEO and SEM in mind.  The entrée of real analytics to how we measure results vs. the THUD factor days of old.  And even how the Rolodex is being replaced by services that peg story ideas to specific journalists and bloggers.  For example, HARO, PRManna.com, Reporter's Source and PitchRate, among others.

Remember the Rolodex? Ever have one on your desk? 

They still exists, of course, but they mostly reside in Gmail, Linkedin, Twitter, etc., these days.

For a PR pro, the size of their over-stuffed Rolodex used to be a badge of success.  It communicated to colleagues, competitors, clients and prospects that they were connected.  And their vast connections meant they could open doors and close deals.

Today, a Rolodex -- real or figurative -- doesn't matter nearly as much as it used to.  The advent of HARO-type services reinforce this position.

Instead of asking "who do you know?," clients and prospects should be asking their PR and social media agencies about their process for researching and developing clients' stories; their process for creating memorable, diversified content based on strategy and messages; and their process for engaging their audiences in a conversation.  

Having close connections at the Wall Street Journal, Fortune or InformationWeek are nice-to-haves.  Crafting the right story on behalf of your client and communicating it to their customers, though the right channels, are must-haves.  

Strategic Tools for Strategic Content

Content is useless if it doesn’t tell a story.  A story is not very helpful if it doesn’t relate the right information about a company’s brand.  Yet, time and again, we see content-centered communications programs in the market that appear completely disconnected from brand or strategy. 

Here are three ways you can use communications as a catalyst to define real business strategies and messages into your programs:

1.  Strategic SWOT:  We’ve all done SWOT.  How do you turn it from a list to a strategic tool?  The answer is quite simple: align strengths with opportunities to identify offensive strategies.  Then align weaknesses and threats to identify defensive strategies.

2.  Develop an elevator statement: These statements have been a cornerstone of communications for years, However, in a 140-word world, they are more critical than ever.  Fortunately, there is a great new website that steps you through the process of building your elevator pitch quickly and powerfully.  Try it at Buzzuka.

3. Be clear about what you mean by strategy.  Michael Porter, the father of modern strategic thinking, said it best:  Strategy is what you choose not to do!  Clients and communications programs can get easily bloated by trying to do everything instead of trying to do the strategic thing.  Take a look at one of our earlier blogs to understand the relationship among strategy, objectives and how to use them the right way.http://www.3pointcommunications.com/Beyond%20the%20Arc/blog.php?id=3331023617869510929

E-Mail Rules the Roost For Tech Journalists and Bloggers

Technology journalists, working in print and online -- and bloggers - overwhelmingly prefer e-mail as their preferred method of communicating with PR pros.    

Amen.

Despite the many alternatives to email, from cloud-based collaborative apps to social media channels to the telephone, tech journalists and bloggers say e-mail is king.  

This news flash is according to the good folks at PRSourceCode, a service provider to PR professionals, which recently released this stunning news -- among other tidbits -- in its 5th annual "Top Tech Communicators" report.

A little about the PRSourceCode survey and report:  a survey was administered to more than 800 tech journalists and bloggers in the third quarter of this year.  The results were made public a few days ago.

The survey also asked the participating journalists from such industry stalwarts as Wired, CFO, Information Week, eWeek.com, and CIO, among others, their picks for top tech PR agencies and top in-house tech PR practitioners.  

But for the purposes of this post, I find the recommendations for becoming a "2011 top tech communicator" much more interesting, at least until the time that 3Point Communications makes their top 10 list!

What I find most interesting from the survey results is that for all of the mind-numbing changes the PR professional has had to adapt to in recent years, the core tenants of how we find success haven't changed all that much.  

In last week's post I sided with Ford Kanzler of Marketing/PR Savvy, who argued recently that  content marketing has been a successful PR strategy for decades.

So this week it's only fitting that I'd report the same: that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The PRSourCode results help me make my point.  Here they are:

• While the tech journalists and bloggers encourage PR pros to "experiment with new media," their emphasis is on e-mail based communications.  More than 90% of the print journalists prefer e-mail communication and online journalists and bloggers are right there with them.   A distant second is communications via Twitter.

What about in other aspects of practicing sound tech PR principles, like being proactive?  Nearly 80 per cent of the participating journalists report that their sources and ideas for stories come to them via PROACTIVE pitches from PR folks.  Oh, and ensure you read past stories from the journalists you're pitching so you learn what they're interested in before pitching them. The same rule applies to pitching bloggers.  This is new?  No, I don' think so.

How about this gem:  journalists want PR pros to get back to them quickly because they have this thing called a "deadline."  Oh, and don't promise what you know you can't deliver.  Aren't these just the basics of doing business, whether your working in PR, journalism or most anything else?  But the fact that the survey respondents point these issues out tells us that not every PR pro approaches the job in the same way.

I should note that the bloggers who participated in the survey prefer to hear from PR pros via Twitter and Facebook more so than their print and online colleagues.  But as noted earlier, the vast majority of bloggers prefer e-mail above all other channels.

Click here if you want to view the full report.  My guess is the 6th annual report will look pretty much the same.  

Still True: the more things change, the more they stay the same

A recent blog post from Ford Kanzler of Marketing/PR Savvy has been getting its fair share of attention on Twitter and the blogosphere.

Kanzler's post, "Content Marketing Has Been a Successful PR Strategy for Decades," makes the claim that the term Content Marketing is a shiny new term for an age-old marketing and PR technique.

I couldn't agree more.

To me, Kanzler's post is a reminder that although the public relations profession has morphed in recent years -- as have many professions, thankfully -- the PR person's keys to success have fundamentally remained the same for eons.

Case in point:  creating exciting content and distributing it through targeted channels has been part of the PR pros daily regimen for years.  Today, it's called Content Marketing.  The reality is that PR pros have been practicing Content Marketing for years.

We just used to call it PR.

Here's how Junta42, a content marketing firm, defines content marketing:  Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience -- with the objective of driving profitable customer action. 

Sound familiar to any PR pros out there?

When we, as PR people, interview a product manager about a new software release, we turn it into (hopefully) remarkable content in the form of a press release -- just as we have forever. And then we market it to specific audiences.

When we interview a client's customer about how our client's solution saved their customer time and money and improved product quality, we turn it into exciting content in the form of a case history, a blog post, a by-lined article, an instructional podcast or Webinar, Web site or You Tube video, etc., and then we promote it.

When we want to pitch a story to an influential journalist or blogger, we create content in the form of one exciting "teaser" paragraph to peak their interest.

Yes, how we exchange this content and measure it has changed significantly, especially in recent years thanks in large part to technology advances.  And we reach our clients' audiences in new formats and on new devices, and this will always be changing.

Joe Chernov, Eloqua's director of content, said in a recent tweet:  "'content marketing'" is different now, w/rise in SEO, collapse of print, networked customers who need info to share."

His points are very valid.  Content marketing is different now. 

But so is Kanzler's point, who says, "Just don't think that calling it content marketing makes it something entirely new."

What do you think?  Is Content Marketing an updated handle for a battle-tested discipline?