When I began my career, the world was different in many ways. For one,
there was a free press. No longer.

Hold on. Hold on. Let me explain. The media used to report the news.   Some
better than others but they reported the news in a straightforward way.

Today, there is new media, traditional media, right wing media, left wing media and completely irresponsible media. This stew of media poses problems and questions for PR professionals. Who do we take a story to? Who do we avoid? Who do we risk alienating with a genuine and legitimate story that a particular media source takes umbrage with? All of this, unfortunately, makes our jobs more difficult and our nation less reflective of the principles that guided the Founding Fathers.

Take a real world current example. This winter, a CNBC reporter issued  a call for  Americans to rally against government spending by holding modern-day tea parties. The White House found the call a threat to the  President’s plans and took the reporter to task. CNBC itself is a media outlet dividied, half leaning right and half leaning left. Therefore, a debate began inside the network and its parent NBC, which is decidely left on most issues.

Then the balance of the media jumped into the fray, with most of the traditional media agreeing with the White House and Fox News heavily  on the side of those who decided to take up the reporter’s call and actually launch plans for tea parties on April 15, tax day.

For PR professionals with clients inclined to become  involved in the story–tax services, affinity groups, authors, political pundits– who to approach with a completely non political pitch became a minefield. Although the tea parties were going on around the nation, some of the media
refused to cover them, some made them headline news, others said they were more about Rush Limbaugh than taxes and drive by shooters in on the Internet impugned the reputation of people on both sides of the issue, not on the merits of spending and saving but on patriotism, racism and conspiracies.

I have known for some time that the media has been reduced to this  sorry state in our history. But on April 15, I watched in near disbelief as media, online and off, made decisions whether or not to cover significant protests inside the US and whether to hail or nail the men and women who decided to participate and those who did not.

I used to wonder if a story would be of interest to a reporter, editor, producer. That has always been part of sound PR. Now we all  have to wonder if we don’t get blacklisted by bringing ideas that are counter to the reporter, editor, producer’s politics.

That is not a free press. As PR professionals our world has changed.  It may not be politcally correct to talk about it, but we have to learn how to swim in new waters. And they are infested with sharks.

OK.  I am going out on the risk curve and making a prediction: In three years, no one will remember what Twitter was. What it did. Why millions did it.

But first, I have am embarrassing admission to make: I Twitter. Every week. Several times a week. Often when I have nothing to Twitter about. But then again, Twitter is really made for times we have nothing of substance to say but feel obliged to say it anyway.

Here’s the truth about my Tweeting (and, I suspect, virtually everyone
else’s):

• It is now a habit I feel compelled to continue.
• It does me absolutely no good.
• It is a gimmick being fueled by the media even though it has no redeeming  value.

On the digi PR front specifically, some in the ranks of the Twits,  are now viewing Twitter as a PR tool. Clients are being advised to follow journalists’ Tweets, on the premise that the journalists will then follow the followers.
Nonsense. One of the facts of Tweeting that is often camouflaged is that Tweeters who are or who view themselves to be of “importance,”– the high priests of Tweeting–expect to be followed and are not going to follow anyone, thank you.

Think of the big name journalists you may want to. have your clients follow on the assumption that these “stars” will, in turn, hang on your clients’ every tweet.

Zero chance of that happening. The fact is, the digi world is toy\fad crazy, with new social networks and digital applications growing like weeds. We dance to them like a hot new bubble gum song with an addictive hook until the magic fades, and it fades fast, and then we are off dancing to another one hit wonder.

It’s so cool today to be digital that we tend to jump on every new thing that comes along because, well, it appears to be cool. But we are not, as PR pros, in the business of being cool. We are in the business of helping our clients make news and shape opinion. And in doing so we have to guard against the blanks in our pistols that do nothing more than make us happy little Tweets, playing by the newest rules, and accomplishing nothing for it. We need to separate the digi forces from the wannabees and focus on the former.

Just today I watched a British news anchor on CNN have his Tweet promoted by having Anderson Cooper suggest that everyone follow the
Brit as he opines on Obama, high heels, and things he knows zilch about, such as the American psyche.

I am certain PR people watching were eager to sign on and have their clients do the same.

But why? He wants fans. He doesn’t want dialogue. He wants groupies. He doesn’t want media pitches.
How do I know?  I am one of the millions who have fallen for the Fad of The Century.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t read my Tweet. It’s a waste of time. And keep your clients far away from anything that doesn’t draw a straight line to the news.

Case in point: One of my firm’s clients is a major force in serving and protecting the interests of the business community. In this absolutely legitimate capacity, they are required at times to take positions on highly controversial issues of public policy. They do not expect to win every debate; they simply want to explain their stand, in the name of the private sector, make their case and allow intelligent people to decide based on a full view of the facts (from both sides of the ideological line).

However, the opportunity for a civilized debate or public discussion is cut off at the pass by Web activists who post outrageous lies about a given issue and, in a hit and run scenario played out thousands of times a week, they disappear into the night.

What makes this difficult for PR people representing clients like mine, is that a) the “activists” post on prominent (although often radical) Web sites, which provides them with an aura of credibility, and b) regardless of how irresponsible their postings (in many cases, rants) may be, they can have an impact on public opinion and this becomes magnified by the traditional media picking up on the so-called story and running with it.

Then, what starts out as a charge or an opinion, becomes fact! When you, as a PR counsel, want to counter the claims, you may find there is no one to talk to. The source of the story, the initial catalyst for the firestorm, is, in true “activist” fashion, hiding out until the time is right to strike again. They don’t want a fair discussion of the issues; they want to smear your client and watch with glee as their tactics work.

So what do we do? Stoop to their level and engage in dirty tricks? Make irresponsible charges? As tempting as that may be, we should resist the urge to roll in the mud. A professional remains a professional only as long as we retain our respect for the ethics of our profession.

The better way, the way we are handling the current issue with our client, is to frame the case not at the lowest place on the intellectual spectrum but instead at the highest; in this instance in the constitutional rights surrounding it. And we are taking the message to responsible journalists in a consistent and persistent manner.

In the end, we believe we will prevail. The digital world can be a complex universe to navigate, but nothing important is ever easy.

Well, not exactly. But a growing number of reporters and editors are actually following my movements and tracking my thinking.

Let me explain. A few years ago, one of the members of my firm’s team suggested that I begin to Twitter. Considering that I was just starting my Unconventional Thinking Blog, I wanted to focus on that and, equally important, I had no appetite for what I viewed at the time as a digital gimmick.

Some time later I began to Twitter, but only half-heartedly, in part because I didn’t think it would ever build a real following.

And then a month ago, I noticed that an editor I had not talked to in six months at least was following my Twitter postings even though they had been few and far between. Just when I thought it was a fluke, another reporter showed up on my Twitter following.

I started thinking that the traditional model of PR people tracking down media may be changing in a way none of us could have predicted. As we all begin to communicate increasingly though digital pathways, including Twitter and Face Book, reporters, editors, PR people and our clients can share ideas that build relationships and lead to story ideas without pitches and press releases.

We engage, this way, in informal conversations. We build and enhance media friendships that weren’t likely to evolve in the standard modalities. I discovered many years ago that the best salespeople never really sell anything. They simply educate and inform and the sale takes care of itself.
It becomes the by product of this information exchange.

I see a similar dynamic occurring in the PR process. On Twitter, I am musing about all manner of observations and experiences that have nothing, on face value, to do with PR.

But I have also learned years ago that face value is the superficial level.
All of the real action occurs beneath the surface.

You can send 100 media pitches a day and get nowhere. Have lunch with a reporter, bring a good idea, and it’s likely you’ll walk away with a story. Think of Twitter as the 21st century version of that lunch. And keep in mind that the old ways are fading into the woodwork across all fronts. Will you be in the rear or at the vanguard?

The biggest problem PR faces is that when it “works” clients often  think it “fails.”

The conundrum has to do with the definition of “works.”  Too often in  the insular PR community, “works” means the story was placed and  there is a clip, a tearsheet, to show for it.

But from the client’s perspective, this is only a midway point.   It’s like an ad agency saying we created the commercial and it ran on  NBC. Our job is done.

No. From the client’s view, whether it is PR or advertising, qualified  leads and/or customers is what they are looking for. Clips and commercials mean nothing but expense unless revenue grows. PR is not  an exercise unto itself, but conducted correctly and effectively, is  a true driver of growth.

One can help to drive this growth through traditional PR, of course, but digi PR in the mix provides a powerful advantage. As consumers are exposed to the PR message online, they can click immediately to  the client’s site and take measurable action.

Using Web analytics, we can trace the site visitor’s movement from a story in an online publication to the client’s site to the deposit of an email address or even more gloriously to the client and the wheels  of commerce: a sale!

PR,  as a profession,  suffers from a lack of high respect in the  CEO’s suite when compared to finance, operations and R&D. But it need not be this way.  The concept of demonstrating that wisely conceived and effectively executed PR may produce a clip book but more  important, produces sales, can and should be applied to all of public  relations. Digi PR provides the playbook for how to make it work and  prove it.

For now, toss out the clip book and replace it with a sales graph.
When the arrow climbs, PR wins because the client does!

So the 44th President of the United States has figured out a way to keep his Blackberry. Actually, as Commander In Chief he probably said,”I’m keeping it. Try and stop me.”

So he is now outfitted with a new Berry that, like his Presidential limo,is supposed to be impenetrable. Specially encrypted by the same kind of math geniuses who make sure you can’t hack into his desktop.

The big deal in DC now is having access to the President’s email address. His very personal and super private one, that is. It’s the biggest status symbol in the Capitol: a badge of membership to a very special club.

But that’s only one of the President’s Blackberries. The other is a mass communication tool that he uses to raise money, build hype, jazz the base, hold the Obama version of fireside chats.

Now that the $140 million, Great Recession Inauguration Party is over and the new man in the Oval Office’s honeymoon has come to an abrupt end as the promise of “Change” collided with the real world. Obama is reaching out to his faithful on BerryForce1, the mass communication version that is, prompting them to have house parties to drum up local support for his stimulus package.

For years, when popular Presidents wanted to go over the heads of the media and straight to the electorate, TV was the medium of choice, addressing the nation directly from the White House.

But as good as Obama is on TV, he is a master of the digi world, and he uses it with great skill. As PR professionals, we cannot do any less. As your clients seek to influence policy, claim a share of the federal spending binge and compete for the President’s attention, we must fight with fire.

Consider this key point: most of the people who voted for the new President don’t watch Katie Couric nor read The New York Times. These may be impressive PR hits in many quarters, but that’s a holdover from another fading era. Bloggers and websites have more power than all of the traditional media combined.

Today, it is a battle of dueling Berries. Are you in the game?

Why is President Obama clinging to his Blackberry as if it is a Secret Service lifeline? If he has a message to deliver, he can call in an adoring media and spread it around the world within seconds.

Besides the stated desire to stay close with his friends, which he can easily do in a million other ways (would you accept a ride on Air Force One to visit your buddy in The Oval Office?), he wants the unfiltered capability of the Internet. No editorial interpretation of his message (no matter how loving ), no third party messenger, no favors owed to anyone.

This is precisely why I have been beating the drum on the power of digital PR. We can venture directly into communities of interest to our clients without begging journalists for tickets of admission.

The rules of the game are changing. The other night, I saw a TV news show reporting on emails Obama has been getting on his email broadcasts to his constituents. Funny, the media is now reporting on people who are placing “stories” directly with the source, going directly to, well The Commander In. Chief. Or the many media commentators who now report their email feedback online.

When I want to reach a million people, I can seek to interest the media in what I have to say. And I do that. (Including an 1:30 am Toronto radio show last night.). But I can also write this and my Unconventional Thinking Blog (on MSCO.com) and presto, the message sails across cyberspace.

The direct line. We are talking to each other. What a country!

I have noticed over the past year how CNN, which used to trail far behind Fox in terms of broadcast innovation, has catapulted ahead. Its sets, its graphics, its special news and feature segments are compelling and dynamic. And CNN’s move to more centrist politics is wise, ceding less of that market to its competitors.

But where CNN really shines now, where they are The Masters of the Game, is in the fusion of traditional and digi media.

Watch “AC 360” on any given night and you will see the mastery in action. Throughout the program, anchored by Anderson Cooper – in a crisp hip fashion that makes Katie and his other counterparts on the evening news shows look like Walter Cronkite dinosaurs reading teleprompters in an age before anyone except mathematicians every heard anything sounding like Google — there is a continuous interplay with the Web.

Cooper’s sidekick Erica Hill simulcasts on the CNN website throughout the show, with Cooper making regular reminders to follow Hill on your laptop as you watch him on your TV screen.

And then adding to the cyber connection, viewers’ emails are read aloud and treated as fodder for commentary by the anchor, reporters or panels of talking heads. This reached a crescendo during the election coverage, with all panelists seated on the set with their laptops open, reading emails on exit polls and citing bloggers’ views on where the action was heading.

CNN weekend anchor Don Lemon continuously invites viewers to follow his chatter and to post updates on my space, Facebook, I reports and twitter. His is a TV show that weaves people in and out of various media simultaneously.

In fact, CNN no longer calls itself a network. It now invites the world to stay on top of the news through the “networks” of CNN. This multiplicity of communications channels includes CNN TV, CNN website and CNN mobile. In preparing for the Obama inauguration, CNN plans to capture viewers and listeners wherever they are and by whatever reception device they prefer to use, from a plasma screen to an iPod.

CNN does it best but the others are catching on and will soon level the playing field. For PR pros it doesn’t matter who wins this arms race. It is simply important to understand that it is the future in the here and now. We can try to hold back the tide with a hammer, but it’s not stopping for anyone or anything.

If you are not pitching the network(s) of Reuters, Fox, CNN, NBC, and the like, you will not be making news. It’s that simple. And its that complicated.

Mark Stevens

CEO

Many times, this Blog pinpoints the interaction between digital and traditional PR.

More specifically, my point that in a viral world, one hit leads to another in an exponentially greater and faster pace than ever before in history. So much so that once the viral fission is unleashed, it moves beyond our control, and that’s a good thing, because it radiates further than you could propel it if you managed the process inch by inch.

With the Internet, once you toss a rock into the water, if the rock is big and provocative enough, the ripples emanate from it, sometimes with the force of a tidal wave.

One of my recent Digital PR blogs resulted in my being called a moron and a loser and that was the good part. It all began when I made an appearance on Fox Business TV, taking what I knew would be an unpopular position supporting certain corporate bonuses at a time when they are deemed to be in bad form, to say the least.

I believe in the position I took and my firm put the interview out on YouTube. In any case, a blogger read my digitial PR Blog, went to the YouTube video I referenced in it, and then wrote a scathing attack on me in his Blog.

He didn’t like my opinion. He doesn’t like my book titles. He detests me (we have never met or even talked) and he went into a major rant about all I stand for. (Or I should say all he thinks I stand for.).

So a TV interview leads to a YouTube video which spawns a Digital PR Blog which activates an anti-Stevens Blog. Just the kind of chain reaction I believe is the beautiful and powerful thing about the fusion of the traditional and the digital worlds.

The anti-Mark blogger however thought I was terrible in my TV interview and that in so many words, said I knew nothing about PR and should fire myself and my firm.

So I guess I need to put out an SOS. Or do I?

It’s that time again when most of us are making New Year’s resolutions. Most are about weight, money, bad habits, unfulfilled dreams.

I think it’s safe to say this is the only one you’ll see about digital PR. But that’s what this Blog is all about, so try these on for size:

• Get very familiar with one lesser known social networking site and figure out how to make it work for your clients.
• Study three major blogs, get to know the writers and develop a strategy for placing stories with them and having them launch a viral wave.
• Build relationships with five digital journalists. Get inside their heads, determine what they love to write about and then race ahead of the curve by providing them with more than they expect.
• Stop thinking that you are focused on either traditional or digital media. You must be active in both, especially effective at fusing their combined power.
  
• Get your most traditional and hidebound clients active in a digi vehicle they would never consider launching on their own. For example, if you have a colorful client–one who moves in interesting circles or does innovative things–have them send reports on their initiatives, their comings and goings, on Twitter.
  
• Experiment with a video press release. One that makes a point in a roundabout way, telling a story or starting a trend without the use of prose. Let the picture, on the Web, tell the story.
  
• Convince that client that tells everyone, with pride, “I’m a dinosaur when it comes to the Internet. I don’t even use a computer,” to launch a personal website and a PR campaign structured to drive visitors to it

There is something captivating about being on the Web. There is something captivating squared about making it work for you and your clients