Media Inquiries Into PR Departments Should Not Be an Exercise in Frustration

Posted on May 20, 2013 
Filed Under Media Relations, Social Media | Leave a Comment

You’re a busy journalist. You’re on deadline. You’re trying to round up sources and interviews for a story you need to crank out today. One of your most promising sources is not responding, gone off the grid. But you’re still hopeful, especially because she and her company have PR representation.

So you go to the PR agency’s website, looking to email or call someone from the agency and either enlist their help or leverage the connection into a direct call with the source.

But wait: You get to the “Contact Us” page, and you hit a wall. What? Instead of a helpful list of members of the team, with their areas of specialty, their email addresses and their phone numbers, not to mention their Twitter addresses, you hit a cinderblock. You get one of those “Fill-Out-This-Irritating-Web-Form-And-Send-An-Email-To-Some-Anonymous-Address” pages.

You get one of those contact pages on websites that force users to send their media inquiries via email to a faceless, nameless depository and hope that they get a response in a timely manner.

Guess what that journalist is going to do? Correct.

Which leads me to ask: Why do PR firms—communications agencies, after all—use those depersonalizing forms? I know a lot of companies do it, and maybe there’s a good reason, but I say not in PR.

In PR, the whole point is to connect with stakeholders—especially the media—in as expeditious a manner as possible. In PR, with a few exceptions, the chance to tell your story is something to be embraced. So why make it hard? It makes no sense. You’re not doing yourself, or your clients, any favors that’s for sure.

For that matter too, the strategy is debatable even for companies that don’t often get a lot of media inquiries. That’s because, due to the rise of “content marketing,” every company is now a quasi-media company and needs to be able to respond to inquiries—from either media reps or customers—with more speed and more substance.

For PR agencies, the whole objective is to humanize—you. Your firm. Your clients. By having a faceless Contacts page you’re ultimately robbing yourself of the opportunity to get your messages out and cultivate relationships.

Social media is rewriting the rules for PR and dramatically changing how PR reps communicate with the media. Fair enough. But PR departments and agencies that insist on using a faceless, “Media Inquiries” page on their websites, are, when you come to think about it, being downright anti-“social.”

Matthew Schwartz: @mpsjourno1

 

 

To Write Well is to Advance in Your Career: 7 Tips for Aspiring Writers

Posted on May 17, 2013 
Filed Under Digital PR, Media Relations, Social Media, Staffing and Management | 3 Comments

Has writing become a lost art, a nice-to-have skill but not a necessary one? I sure hope not. For those of us who cherish the written word and are prone to find typos on cereal boxes or wine bottles, we appreciate a well-constructed sentence that concisely conveys a point. Smart communicators know that good writing is essential, not optional.

PR News hosted a Writing Boot Camp at the National Press Club on May 14, and I was pleased to see hundreds of PR professionals of all levels taking time to hone a skill that can be a game-changer for their career. That is, if you’re a terrible writer, how far can you really go at your company? If you can’t consistently communicate a message creatively and succinctly, how likely is it that your stakeholders will look down on your brand and possibly move on?

If you recognize you have writing deficiencies, do something about it now. Don’t wait. It’s all well and fine to be a social media expert or a great account manager. But sooner or later, you will be found out:

“She’s great with the clients in person, but have you seen her emails? They make no sense.”

“We can’t give him that report to write, because we’ll be up all night rewriting it.”

“Did she miss the punctuation class in grade school?”

To avoid such maligning, I’ve compiled seven tips to help you become a better writer:

Read at least 3 articles a day: Whether online or in print, read about current events and take note of how the writer is articulating a point, how quotes are being used, how the article begins and ends.

Resist the urge to abbreviate: In a short-messaging world, we think what works in a text or tweet is OK in an email, a memo or a press release. It’s not. Spell out words. Make your sixth grade English teacher proud.

Say it out loud: after you’ve written a business piece, read it out loud. Does it make sense? Can it be improved? Is it so long that you tire of hearing your own voice?

Avoid jargon: At the Writing Boot Camp, trainers implored the audience to avoid hyperbole and be real about how “innovative” your company is or whether “best” and “great” are really the right words to make your stakeholders believe in your product. For more tips on avoiding jargon, check out my Boot Camp coverage.

Know your channel: It’s been said that Twitter is the office and Facebook is the dinner table: your messages should reflect the channel you’re writing for. Where it gets sticky is with email communication.  Know these things about email: your email can be forwarded, especially if it’s irresistibly incomprehensible; don’t use emoticons in emails to people you’re not close with, and (drumroll…) you can use spell check with your emails.

Break the right rules: let’s face it, the AP Stylebook is a guide not a rule. You can break rules in writing in the interest of creativity and keeping people awake. Every now and then start a sentence with the word “And” or remove a verb from the sentence, for effect.

Think in headlines: As you begin to write a piece, ask yourself what the headline would be. Likely you’ll change that headline several times. If you can’t come up with a headline, then you are unclear about the message you’re conveying.  Every story has a headline.

Any other tips you’d like to add? If so, please chime in. And don’t abbreviate.

- Diane Schwartz

On Twitter: @dianeschwartz

 

On the Power of Optimism in PR Communications

Posted on May 10, 2013 
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

Earlier this week I noticed this tweet from Business Insider’s Henry Blodget:

“RT ‪@SullyCNBC: I’ve interviewed many successful people over the years. Many began with nothing. ALL shared one trait—optimism.”

Blodget, of course, was retweeting a comment by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, whose tweet sparked a conversation among his followers and was retweeted more than 30 times.

Later that day I saw this report on Gawker, a video called “This is Water,” tied to the audio of a 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College by the late novelist David Foster Wallace. The speech is about empathy, and perseverance, and outlook on life and career. It’s inspiring and well worth listening to.

Both the tweet from Blodget and the Gawker story got me thinking about the notion of optimism in marketing and communications. That simple concept—a worldview, a sense of the glass being half full—is a powerful tool, and one that people tend to underestimate. People respond to optimism in very real ways. Of course, when you talk about optimism, you can also get very new age-y, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about how an intangible thing—an attitude or approach—can be converted to very real, tangible results, in both careers and communications.

Consider this report on the declining deficit, and how all the U.S. economy needs to take off is a sense of optimism.

Or this one, where a sense of optimism among global business executives led to their believing that their marketing efforts and sales would improve.

So why is it, then, that the pessimists and the cynics often have the aura of credibility? Even in Blodget’s Twitter conversation, someone said that on Wall Street, the bears are viewed as the smart ones. But data, and plenty of examples in the field of communications suggest that optimism is a legitimate PR strategy. Take this study by Margaret Greenberg, president of a Connecticut consulting firm, and Dana Arakawa, who, with Greenberg, is a graduate of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania.

The report showed that optimistic managers are more likely to be engaged managers, who are more likely to engage employees; engaged employees, in turn, are more optimistic and productive than disengaged employees, and their increased productivity increases profitability.

A report in PR News illustrates the point: Maytag, in the middle of a product recall, launched a Facebook page with the explicit objective of turning negative feedback into positive dialogue. The result? The Maytag Facebook page went from 400 disenchanted fans to 42,000 fans (at of the time of our report).

What’s more:

• Throughout the period analyzed, engagement spiked by 4,000%.

• Maytag’s “Big Game” sweepstakes increased likes by 5,000 and ultimately began the wave of engagement.

• The “Faces” gallery received more than 12,000 submissions.

• Money wrote an article that mentioned a positive customer service interaction on Maytag’s Facebook page.

The takeaway for PR pros? It’s simple: build a campaign (and a career) through a positive outlook, an empathetic approach and an optimistic demeanor, and watch as markets and stakeholders respond with increased engagement. Everyone wants to associate with a contented person and a positive vibe.

—Tony Silber
@tonysilber

7 Key Communications Takeaways from ‘Iron Man 3’

Posted on May 6, 2013 
Filed Under Media Relations, Staffing and Management | Leave a Comment

In ‘Iron Man 3,’ there’s a scene featuring a reporter shoving his iphone in Tony Stark’s face asking him to make a public statement to his enemies.  Stark stares into the iphone, makes his superhero threat, then throws the reporter’s phone into oblivion. The press just can’t catch a break these days.  Like many CEOs, Stark could use some media training.

In the spirit of heralding the start of summer blockbusters and because this blog can’t really be a movie review, I give you seven practical communications lessons from ‘Iron Man 3′:

  1. Keep your sense of humor. If Tony Stark can get kicked, smashed and thrown out of airplanes and still have a sense of humor about it, surely you can handle a disappointment at the office.
  2. In a press conference, do not give out the home address of your CEO. Repeat, keep executives’ home addresses confidential.
  3. Look for answers in less obvious places. Clue are everywhere – check the shadows, look around you, ask questions. You’ll eventually find what you’re looking for.
  4. It’s hard to get close to someone if you’re wearing armor. Shed the pretenses, be yourself.
  5. Don’t discount the people you meet at parties, on elevators and places in between: they may come back to haunt you, or help you.
  6. Stay until the end: anyone who has watched a Marvel superhero movie knows to be on the lookout for the Stan Lee cameo and to stay until after the credits, when there’s a short reel featuring another Marvel superhero and a forthcoming movie.  It’s the treat you get for surviving all the credits. (By the way, check out the incredible overhead on this movie.)
  7. Test your piece of work in other markets: Even before hitting U.S. theaters a few days ago, ‘Iron Man’ bagged more than $500 million at the box office overseas. Success begets more success. If you know you’ll get a great reception from other audiences, start there to increase buzz and confirm the epic quality of your work.
  8. Kids are cute and lighten the mood when you’re trying to beat the competition. Feature them in your next campaign.

-  Diane Schwartz

@dianeschwartz

Measurement is Sexy. Really.

Posted on May 1, 2013 
Filed Under Crisis Management, Digital PR, General, Internal Communication, Measurement, Media Relations, Social Media | 5 Comments

There you are, reporting to your CEO on the outcome of a recent PR campaign you spearheaded. Your excitement is contagious as the CEO wants to know more about the positive tone, product awareness and visual dimensions, more about your company’s share of voice and the way you were able to tie sales to the efforts. He asks you what the ad equivalency would be for this PR campaign and you explain, patiently, that AVEs are not how we measure anymore; that’s for amateurs. You refer a few times to the Barcelona Principles, but you had him at “awareness.”

Measurement is the new black. Those who measure their PR understand the profound impact the activity can have on a company’s brand and bottom line. Measurement experts go far in their career because they have gained a keener understanding of their activities by tracking what’s important and by dispensing of activities that bear either no fruit or rotten fruit. One of the best indicators of an organization’s support of the PR department is its investment in measurement and its willingness to listen to the results (however tough they may be) and heed PR’s counsel.

What used to be cordoned off as the geeky discipline within PR, measurement and research is now integrated into everything communicators do. Or it should be. Whether it’s measuring the impact of a tweet or analyzing the performance of a year-long community relations effort, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

In a recent PR News/CARMA survey, roughly 10 percent of respondents admitted they don’t typically set objectives for some campaigns and don’t measure social media, and nearly 64% still use clip counts more than other metrics. And surprisingly, 32% said the primary reason they measure is because their boss or senior management requires it. Until we get the 32% of PR pros to measure because they want to be better at PR and until we get 100% of communicators setting real objectives, then we are not done with evangelizing the power of measurement.

- Diane Schwartz

@dianeschwartz

PS: At PR News, we are bringing hundreds of communicators to the National Press Club on May 15 for our annual PR Measurement Conference. We’ll share measurement tips, tactics, war stories and advice. Hope you can join us for this “sexy” event.  I hope you’ll join us. Email me your hot-button measurement questions to pose to the speakers at dschwartz@accessintel.com.

 

 

 

How to Take Public Relations a Notch or Two ‘Furthur’

Posted on April 29, 2013 
Filed Under General, Social Media | 2 Comments

The Grateful Dead, the Grandaddy of jam-band music, called it quits in 1995 soon after the death of lead guitarist (and first among equals) Jerry Garcia. The Dead’s 30-year run, which included nearly 2,300 concerts and a unique musical styling best described as “electric Dixieland,” is safely ensconced in the annals of Rock and roll history.

Furthur

But the Dead’s legacy carries on through Furthur, which was founded in 2009 by Dead frontmen Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. Similar to the Dead—a pioneer in “social marketing”  before the term existed—Furthur offers PR and marketing execs a string of lessons on how to sustain your audience and grow your brand.

As I traveled up and down the Northeast corridor in the last two weeks to catch a couple of Furthur shows during its spring tour, I thought about what communicators could learn from the band:

> Respect your audience: Furthur communicates strictly through its music. Aside from Weir or Lesh saying, “We’re going to take a short break,” at the end of the first set or “Good night,” after the encore, the band doesn’t kibitz with the audience but provides them with three-plus hour of music, which is what people actually paid for. Regardless of your market, don’t distract your audience with peripheral and/or disposable information, but the content that means the most to people.

> Don’t repeat the same content over and over: While most musical artists have a cookie-cutter approach to their concerts (same set lists, same notes and even the same guitar solos in the same slot), Furthur never performs the same show twice. The band is constantly adding (and subtracting) to its song repertoire and developing new musical arrangements, which keep fans guessing. Indeed, to keep your fans engaged don’t rely on the same material but find new PR vehicles to keep your overall message fresh (without having to reinvent the wheel).

> Use your company’s operation as a vehicle for charitable efforts:  At every show and just before the encore Phil Lesh makes an impassioned plea for people to become organ donors; in 1998 Lesh underwent a liver transplant as a result of chronic hepatitis C infection. Lesh’s donor crusade is a reminder for brands that, in order for their charitable effort to truly resonate with audiences, the effort has to hit close to home and provide a personal connection to the chairman, CEO or company founder, for example. This way, the effort comes off as the real deal and not something the company is doing just for the sake of doing so.

> Nurture the newbies:  Along with Lesh and Weir, Furthur includes drummer Joe Russo and lead guitarist John Kadlecik, who are considerably younger than Lesh and Weir. While Lesh and Weir ultimately call the shots onstage, Russo and Kadlecik are given a wide berth for musical improvisation and exploration. That’s something that should hardly be lost on grizzled PR veterans: Hire younger people who love your brand and are comfortable with your corporate culture, but not so comfortable that they fail to bring new ideas to the table and alternative ways of cultivating your audience, er, fans.

What do you think your favorite band can teach us about PR?

Follow Matthew Schwartz: @mpsjourno1

Questions All PR People Must Be Asking

Posted on April 26, 2013 
Filed Under Digital PR, General, Measurement, Media Relations, Social Media, Staffing and Management | 8 Comments

Oscar Wilde once said that the “question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.”  For sure, asking the right questions early and often is the answer to a lot of problems we face as communicators.  Inundated with projects, challenges, crises, pitches and meetings, we are easily seduced by the sirens of Completion: get it done, no tough questions asked.  Throughout your week, you are inherently set up to ask tough questions. How often do you ask the right ones, however difficult the answers might be?

Below, I’ve started a list of key topics and questions to ask in your PR life. Please add to it – what do you have to lose?

* A PR Campaign: Can it be measured and what will the key performance indicators be?

* Interviewing your Next PR Star:  What’s your best mistake and why?

* Choosing a PR Firm: Whom will I be working with day to day and what’s his/her experience?

* Choosing a Client: Are their expectations realistic and will we click on a human level?

* Forging a Nonprofit/Charitable Partnership: Does this organization align with my company’s goals and do we have time for this?

* Your Team: Whom can I recognize today for a job a well done?

* Your Customers: How can I “wow” them this week?

* Pushing a Viewpoint: Is it really worth pursuing?

* Managing a Crisis: Who is affected by this crisis, and what’s the worst that could happen?

* Social Media: Do we really need to be on this platform? If yes, why? If not, let’s not waste precious time.

* The Media: What great story do I have to tell and why should they care?

I look forward to your contributions to this list!

- Diane Schwartz

@dianeschwartz

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kill Your Brand (For a Few Minutes)

Posted on April 22, 2013 
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

The death of your brand: have you ever thought about it? Have you considered the implications of its demise, for better or worse? What might be lost in the marketplace of ideas, products or services if your brand no longer existed?

Excuse my pessimism, but it might be time to think about your brand’s vanishing act.

We often hold post-mortems on projects, events or campaigns to determine what went right and wrong. Then we go back to our desks, the criticisms and accolades tucked into a corner of our brain for use next time around. We may also discuss the “banana peels” leading up to a campaign or event – where might we slip and how we can avoid it.  But have you ever brought your team and customers together and asked them this question: If our brand no longer existed, what would you miss most?

Go ahead: envision the death of your brand, or, worse yet, of your company or agency. Imagine its non-existence.

Would customers revolt? Would they be screaming on social media in a Veronica Mars/Arrested Development sort of way to bring your brand back? If you’re a PR firm, would your clients’ reputations go downhill fast and would their own companies hit a wall because your firm is no longer counseling them?

Would customers send you letters begging for you to bring the brand or product back to the marketplace? Do they need your product so much that without it they are a wreck, either emotionally, physically, academically or financially?

With your product dead, would customers flock to your competitors and get on with life just fine?

Would there be a deafening silence: no one complaining, no one missing the uniqueness of your brand? Worse yet, no one even noticed you were gone until they read the obituary?

Before you make the next move with your brand, have your employees and customers fill in the blank: If this brand went away, I would _____________.

How they fill in the blank may be the key to your survival.

- Diane Schwartz

Five PR Lessons From ‘The Voice’

Posted on April 15, 2013 
Filed Under General | 4 Comments

Why are so many of us addicted to “The Voice”? For me, it’s not because I am constantly reminded of what a poor singer I am.  I have my kids to remind me of that. Why I like “The Voice” over other reality shows has more to do with the mix of great singers, charismatic judges and weekly lessons in finding something nice to say over and over to countless strangers.

At PR News, we find there’s a PR angle to every story, to every brand, to every situation. In the case of “The Voice,” I want to share a few take-aways for anyone who spends their day in communications and management.

Listen.  Sometimes you need to remove your sense of vision and all the biases that come with it. You just might look at someone differently and hear something you never expected.  While I don’t recommend turning your chair around in a meeting and closing your eyes, a keen focus on listening will help you hear a message loud and a clear.

Diversify. When putting together a team, mix it up. “The Voice” judges choose a wide array of talented contestants for their teams; Blake isn’t choosing all country singers and Usher isn’t picking all hip-hop singers.  They are looking for that X factor, for people with potential and by choosing a diverse group of singers they are hedging their bets.

Encourage.  Notice how the judges are so darn nice to every contestant. They find something encouraging to say to those who aren’t chosen this time – in normal parlance known as “losers”.  The judges don’t criticize.  They implore the contestants to work on one or two weaknesses and invite them to try again.

Laugh.  When there’s chemistry among a small team – such as with Shakira, Adam, Usher and Blake – laughter ensues. Take time to find the humor in your day. Something has to be funny.

Be Real. There’s one aspect of “The Voice” and with many reality shows that irk me and possibly you too: the supposed live tweets as we’re watching the show. You’d have to be a fool to believe there isn’t a ghost tweeter for each of the judges. The second a contestant wins or loses, we see a tweet from the judges as if they are telepathically sending a message to their iphone to tweet a sentiment. C’mon, we’re smarter than that (right?).  When you like a brand as much as I like “The Voice” and you feel the judges are otherwise authentic, the fake tweets can sour the experience.  Just show the viewers’ tweets on the screen – after all, we need a voice too.

- Diane Schwartz

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re All Geeks Now

Posted on April 9, 2013 
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Yottabyte Era.

Yottabyte, which is equal to one quadrillion gigabytes, is the term to describe the next frontier of data technology. We’re now in the so-called Exabyte. Before that we had Terabyte and Petabyte eras.

However you define the amount of data that’s at the disposal of PR and marketing professionals, the volume is mind-boggling.

“There’s no escaping the fact the velocity is ridiculous,” said Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business, who delivered a keynote speech last week at Arthur W. Page Society’s spring meeting. “It’s not just that there’s a lot of data, and it’s not just that it’s hitting us quickly; it’s coming from a range of different sources and a lot of them are weird and new and, by our old standards, they’re kind of ragged and unpleasant to look at it.”

The speech, titled “Understanding Big Data,” underscored the growing onus on PR professionals to get a handle on the “Big Data” that is increasingly at the heart of online communications.

“The conversations around the things that we’re interested in are becoming more data-driven, certainly not overnight [and] certainly not exclusively data driven,” McAfee said to an audience of senior-level PR execs attending the meeting. “But we’re heading in this direction and I don’t see us going back the other way, simply because the truth is in the data and the tools are becoming more widespread.”

He added: “Are you and your organizations ready for this kind of change, or are you going to continue to pretend that these issues aren’t out there, and continue to operate and communicate as if you’re in a small-data world? I think that would be a very poor strategy.”

Call it the revenge of the left-brain, in which in order to succeed PR pros must increasingly adopt a “coldly logical” way of assessing information and data, possibly at the expense of more creative endeavors (right-brain).

One solution is for PR pros to develop a “geek map,” or create robust strategies for online communications and social media that stem from data, according to Suzy DeFrancis, chief public affairs officer at the American Red Cross.

“If a 130-year-old organization like the American Red Cross can jump into social data and big data, anybody can do it,” said DeFrancis, who was part of a panel discussion at the conference titled, “Putting Big Data to Work.”

DeFrancis discussed how, via its digital operations center, the American Red Cross was able to harness Big Data to inform the public (and to provide assistance) during Hurricane Sandy last October.

“This was the first disaster where we really saw the ability to put data we were acquiring from the pubic into action,” she said. “It no longer became something in the communications department, it became something that we were using for our operations.”

The challenge for PR pros is paramount: Embrace Big Data and invest in the tools that will help communicators make sense of all the content that’s informing their markets and messages. It’s an opportunity that, if Arthur W. Page Society’s spring meeting is any indication, could make or break the future prospects of public relations.

Follow Matthew Schwartz: @mpsjourno1

 

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