Author Archive for Linda Forrest

The Canadian response to PRSA’s #PRDefined initiative

By Linda Forrestprdefined word cloud 300x250 The Canadian response to PRSAs #PRDefined initiative

In my post on the subject of the PRSA initiative to create a new definition for PR, I likened the task to that of herding cats – ultimately futile.

But others closer to home have engaged in this exercise in the past, ending up with what they consider to be a successful outcome. Back in 2007, driven by the Canadian national PR association, the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS), a committee of PR experts endeavoured to develop a new north-of-the-49th-parallel definition. This was a collaborative research project that resulted in the adoption of their proposed definition by the CPRS:

Public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics, through the use of communication, to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals, and serve the public interest. (Flynn, Gregory & Valin, 2008)

For a thorough read about the process and the results of that exercise, I encourage you to read Judy Gombita‘s post on PR Conversations about the “maple-infused definition of public relations.” As you can see from the healthy number of comments on that post, the endeavour itself and its outcome were a hotly contested issue when the definition was first released.

Our own Francis Moran chimed in on his perspective about the Canuck definition of public relations in his own post earlier this year. His take on the matter engaged two of the three co-authors of the definition in the comments on that post about whether public relations had to be in the public interest.

Since Canada had its definition set and agreed upon by the primary professional association in this country, I was interested to see what the Canadian response was to the US-based exercise that the PRSA was now undertaking with its #PRDefined initiative.

Canadian definition co-architect Terry Flynn wrote a thorough post on the PRSA initiative for PR Conversations. Having been a leader of the process himself, he had a lot to share – what the PRSA was doing right with its project, where it missed opportunities, and what, in his view, the best possible outcome from the exercise could be.

Flynn’s thoughts echoed my own when he stated:

… the process of discussion, debate and dialogue about the nature and definition of the profession may be the ultimate winner in this initiative.

Canada’s process at arriving at their definition was disregarded by the PRSA initiative, something for which Flynn takes the organization to task:

While it is important and necessary to ensure that our professional associations and their members agree upon a definition that is relevant to the practice and profession today, I would suggest that the #PRDefined project has missed an opportunity to look North (and into the near past, as discussed in a 2009 PR Conversations post) and incorporate the results of a redefinition project that was initiated by the Canadian Public Relations Society.

The Canadian initiative was born from the discovery that as of 2007, Canada had 13 different curriculum standards for public relations education at the post-secondary level. To plot a course forward for post-secondary PR education across the country, the CPRS national council of education first set out to determine the intrinsic values inherent to the industry and from those values, then come up with a definition of the practice. It’s this determination of values that Flynn feels is missing from the PRSA initiative:

Understanding what a professional organization values helps to conceptualize, clarify and build consensus around the eventual characteristics of a definition of the practice.

This is an important step that I believe is missing from the current #PRdefined project. While there has been tremendous interest in the initiative—including, we’re told, 16,000 web page views, 900 submissions and 70 comments—it appears obvious from the current comments on PRSA’s dedicated website that there isn’t a clear consensus among the participants on the fundamental nature of the practice.

Ultimately, though, Flynn wishes the PRSA well in its efforts:

We applaud the PRSA in embarking on their definition project and wish them much success in developing a one-size-fits-all definition for the practice of public relations in the United States.

[edited for content - LF]

Canadian communications professionals too have chimed in on both the CPRS definition and the #PRDefined project.

Martin Waxman said on his myPALETTE blog: “while I like the Canadian result, I don’t feel it addresses our role in social media…I’m interested to see how the [PRDefined] process evolves and what we come up with. I’m sure when the final result is released, there will be some controversy and not everyone will be pleased. My hope is the definition is written in plain English, embraces our changing reality and once and for all answers that eternal question about PR: So what is it exactly that you do?”

Joe Thornley commented on the InsidePR podcast that he “isn’t sure that the PRSA’s ‘fill in the blanks’ crowd-sourcing approach will yield the type of definition that truly reflects the enhanced role of PR in the era of social media.”

The Canadian perspective is one that’s well-voiced on official and unofficial social media channels, Tweets, comments, and blog posts. But beyond that, there is a Canadian playing an integral role in #PRDefined. Daniel Tisch, chair of the Global Alliance for PR & Communication Management and president and co-owner of Argyle Communications, is part of the working group tasked with determining the new PRSA definition. Mr. Tisch was kind enough to respond to my original post on the matter with a thoughtful comment, which I’ve excerpted below:

I was pleased to support the world’s largest industry association as it went about updating its definition of PR, and I saw a great opportunity to bring both Canadian and international perspectives to the table.

As Tisch went on to say in his own blog post on the matter,

Will PRSA’s definition be the last word on this question? No. But it will have currency, reach and influence – particularly if it secures widespread participation. The participation itself – and the dialogue – it generates may be the greatest gift of all.

All public relations practitioners may not agree on a set definition – Canadian, American or otherwise – of our practice, but it seems we all concur that the discussion itself is the most worthwhile aspect of the endeavour.

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on December 14, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — 5 Comments

Why redefining PR is not unlike herding cats

By Linda Forrestherdingcats 300x246 Why redefining PR is not unlike herding cats

The PR industry has been aflutter with activity in response to the recent efforts of the Public Relations Society of America to crowd source a new definition for PR.

Rather than leave it open ended, PRSA has gone with a fill-in-the-blank (in this case, parentheses) approach:

Public relations (does what) with/for (whom) to (with/for) for (what purpose).

If you wish to weigh in, submissions will be accepted at the above link until the end of the week, with a new definition targeted for publication before the end of the year.

It has indeed been quite some time since the term has been defined, nearly 20 years, during which time the means by which public relations is conducted has evolved markedly from dead trees to digital zeros and ones, shifting from a one-way conversation to a multi-stakeholder conversation.

From the PRSA website:

The PRSA 1982 National Assembly formally adopted a definition of public relations, which remains widely accepted and used today:

“Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

This definition is not without its provisos and asterisks however, further defining “organization” and “publics” as well as mapping out how PR operates as a management function. All this to say that what appears to be wrapped up in one neat, little sentence is in fact considerably more complex than that agreed-upon sentence communicates.

No matter how you define it, PR has exploded in a million different directions since 1982, as pointed out in this Forbes post on the issue:

What PR professionals do every day is hard to define. On a given day, PR professionals are social media experts. Reputation protectors. Speechwriters. Crisis communicators. Product promoters. Employee communicators. Conversation starters. Videographers. Issue managers. Webinar writers. Public affairs professionals. Event coordinators. Bloggers.

Sometimes, we even write press releases.

The personal computer, smartphones, social media and other technological advancements have radically changed the way in which organizations and their publics communicate. As the New York Times marketing reporter, Stuart Elliot, pointed out in his article on the topic:

Perhaps the most significant changes have occurred most recently, as the Internet and social media like blogs, Facebook and Twitter have transformed the relationship between the members of the public and those communicating with them. A process that for decades went one way — from the top down, usually as a monologue — now goes two ways, and is typically a conversation.

The means by which we conduct our work, the very nature of the work itself and the desired outcome of our efforts are all radically different than they were when last a definition was agreed upon. (It’s worth noting here that there were failed attempts at a redefining exercise twice in the 1990s, according to the New York Times article.)

Which leads me to why I feel this exercise is akin to my favourite idiom about herding cats: ultimately, it’s a futile task doomed to failure. And I am not the only one that thinks so, though some dismiss the effort for reasons different than my own.

PRSA chairwoman and chief executive Rosanna Fiske joked in the New York Times interview, “My parents, for the longest time, have been trying to figure out what I do for a living,” and it’s one of the very reasons that the association’s initiative is doomed to fail. For our whole industry to agree to a definition as set forth by a professional association that represents but a small percentage of the industry is unlikely. For that definition to express effectively what PR is, who does it and why, all in a manner that industry outsiders can understand, is an exercise in futility, in my opinion.

Also from the New York Times article:

Dan Tisch, chairman of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, said he considered the search for a new definition “a critical exercise” because “we as a profession have to explain what we do, in terms that are memorable, relevant, clear and consistent.”

Agreed, in principle, but, respectfully, how can we accomplish that, Mr. Tisch, when it’s a professional association that’s hardly representative of the whole industry (in your own words: “only roughly 10 percent or fewer” of those who work in public relations “are actually members of professional associations, subject to standards of practice and codes of ethics”) determining the definition and trying to define something that’s always in transition thanks to technological advancements that constantly change the job description, communications channels and success metrics?

I have limited understanding of the PRSA itself, but I can say from experience that some professional associations tend to be more about the process than the objective, which in this case is not necessarily a bad thing: getting dialogue going about what it is we’re doing is probably a worthwhile effort. But the process should be the objective here rather than trying to set a new definition, whose terms are either going to be too wishy-washy to effectively communicate to our parents what we do or too narrow to effectively encapsulate PR as a whole. Not to mention that we cannot predict what our industry will look like five, ten years down the road.

Rather than try and pin the tail on a swiftly moving target, I believe our efforts would be better spent doing what we do rather than trying to strictly define the parameters of our work; keeping the dialogue open and the definition flexible so that we can adjust accordingly when the next revolutionary technology shakes up our processes, goals and platforms.

Image: CodeMuse

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on November 30, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — 2 Comments

Return on investment served two ways

This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from April, 2010. We welcome your feedback.

Fotolia 27389812 XS 300x200 Return on investment served two waysBy Linda Forrest

I had a long and interesting chat with the publisher of a specialized trade publication this morning, the results of which turned my thoughts to the importance of getting a return on investment in PR. I mean this in two ways: first, getting the most value for your dollars spent with a PR practitioner or agency and second, getting the most eyeballs on your coverage.

With regards to the first, this was the particular scenario that I was discussing with the aforementioned publisher. Having pitched a series of contributed articles by email, I was calling to follow up and discuss the level of interest in my proposition. The publisher, a 30-plus-year veteran of the Canadian publishing world, talked about shrinking editorial space and how he’s unable to commit to publishing an article, however appropriate for his readership. With shrinking ad budgets, increasing competition from exclusively online publications and other factors, it’s not feasible for him to accept and commit, based on an abstract, to publishing something that would take up precious room on his pages. Rather, he’s suggested that we develop an article purely on spec, and that once submitted, he’ll review it and if he’s got the room and inclination, he’ll publish it.

This is an eminently reasonable proposition and he’s not alone in this position. However, look at it from my standpoint as a content developer for hire, and that of my client. It’s no easy feat writing a 1,000-plus-word article and the creation of said article would cost not inconsiderable time and money. Is this the best use of my limited time, given that each hour spent on the account has a dollar figure attached? Would my time be better spent creating content that I am certain will be published? This is calculus that has to be figured out on each and every opportunity that comes along: Is this the best use of my time and my client’s dollars?

Then there is the other half of the equation: the potential value of the coverage in terms of prospective customers, partners, channels and others who will see the article and pick up the phone. Trade publications can be highly focused propositions; they come as niche as you like. So, if you’re trying to reach a small specialized group and this opportunity, if it comes to fruition, will get your message out to them effectively, perhaps it’s worth your time and effort to develop a piece on spec.

Just a few weeks ago, another of my clients flat out turned down the opportunity to submit an article for an exclusively online publication. Having reviewed the circulation numbers for the print edition and the number of site visitors, it just didn’t make sense to them for me to spend my time writing an article that would be seen by limited readers, especially in an industry where hard copies get read far more frequently than virtual ones. For this client, it simply didn’t provide the return on investment that they were looking for, and that’s just fine. There are plenty of other opportunities to pursue on their behalf where the ROI is higher.

Each opportunity needs to be assessed and then harsh decisions made. There’s no right or wrong answer here; each circumstance requires each client and each PR practitioner to weigh the pros and cons of the situation and make an informed decision about how best to invest time and effort for the most return.

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on November 25, 2011

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What makes a good PR person?

By Linda ForrestChecklist 300x199 What makes a good PR person?

In my last post, I wrote about how PR practitioners annoy journalists. It’s ironic that many of the issues come down to a failure to implement the fundamentals of successful communication. So, in an effort to clear up exactly what it is that reporters want from PR people, this post aims to list the traits of a good PR practitioner, with a healthy dose of anecdotes from PR agency executives and reporters sounding off on what they think are essential attributes. While some posts I came across while researching this post were downright effusive about how wonderful PR people are, others contained language that might be deemed unfit for work.

The reporter’s view

I’ll start off by referring back to the very informative blog post by Matt Hartley, the editor of the Financial Post’s Tech Desk, wherein he demonstrated a learned understanding of the symbiotic nature of the relationship between reporters and PR professionals:

When I was in journalism school, I never realized just how much of my day as a working reporter would be spent sifting through press releases and dealing with public relations professionals.

It’s true, some reporters have no time for PR people. Reporters are busy, so sometimes it’s understandable that they might get a little impatient with someone who is pitching a story in which the reporter clearly has no interest. Personally, I do my best to be polite to PR folks and give them my full attention.

Unless of course they’re calling me on deadline, then all bets are off.

Most reporters understand that PR professionals are in a tough spot and that they’ve got a job to do, just like us. They’ve got clients on one side with their own set of demands, and reporters on the other side, who often couldn’t care less about your company … that is, until something goes wrong, then that same reporter’s demands for more information can never be satiated.

This understanding and respect is crucial to successful PR. We need reporters but they also need us. Things always run more smoothly when that’s understood on both sides of the fence. Be respectful.

Some reporters playfully communicate their frustrations about what not to do as a PR person, like veteran technology reporter Rafe Needleman does on his blog Pro PR Tips. For example, his Tip #185:

If, on the marketing site you want me to see, you have “As seen in…” graphics pointing to other coverage you’ve gotten, make sure you link to the coverage you seem to be so proud of. Otherwise, for all I know, the coverage was glancing, negative, or perhaps nonexistent.

Fair to say that he’s stressing the importance of transparency.

The PR executives’ view

From a PR Newswire blog post about the role of PR in the news cycle:

Victoria Harres, PR Newswire’s director of audience development, noted the role public relations plays in surfacing stories, and reminded us that non-profits and NGOs also make use of PR.

“Public relations people play an important role in bringing things to the attention of journalists. There are not enough journalists in the world to make sure that every story worth telling is told,” she said. “A good PR person will understand individual journalists’ beats and provide relevant information that helps journalists do their jobs without spending significant amounts of time finding out when events are happening, when products are launching, or if there is a coordinated effort to send money and aid to some part of the world where tragedy has struck. Let’s not forget non-profits also use PR professionals to make sure their stories are told.”

Victoria has hit the nail on the head by stressing the importance of understanding individual journalists’ beats. This is essential and depends on the PR person’s research skills. Be informed.

Earlier this year, James Crawford of CustomerThink did a roundup of why he feels that the renaissance PR person needs to be a jack of all trades: a risk-taker, a creative artist, content marketer, door buster and technician.

The challenge: being all those things at once.

The takeaway? Be flexible, be a multi-tasker.

In the aptly named post “What it takes to be a PR person,” the author rounded up the traits they saw as being essential to success in this field. Dividing the list into human skills, which included attributes like patience, congeniality, critical thinking, and ethics, and professional skills, which covers off writing and multi-tasking, the post is peppered with insight from PR execs:

“Writing skills are the most difficult thing to find. Once people can write, I feel that pretty much everything else we can teach.” – Jeffrey Sharlach, Chairman and CEO, The Jeffrey Group

“The people have to come to the standard that I value, and draw that ethical line in the sand and never cross it. Be a straight shooter, don’t lie. Anyone that is devious in public relations is going to be found out, and will fail.” – Howard Rubenstein, President, Rubenstein Associates

“If you are not knowledgeable on what is going on today, how do you advise clients or companies on what to do tomorrow?” – Al Golin, Chairman, GolinHarris

Be informed. Be ethical. Be a good writer. Exhibit patience.

This post only scratches the surface, but gives an introduction to some of the traits that together make up good PR practitioners according to both reporters and executives. Given that your next story or your next job might come from these folks, best to take heed.

Image: Mobile App Testing

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on November 16, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — 2 Comments

Technology reporters on the record: how PR flacks annoy them

By Linda Forrestannoyed phone Technology reporters on the record: how PR flacks annoy them

“You’re doing it wrong” can be an irritated admonishment of your practices or a helpful push in the direction of improvement. It’s all a matter of how you see the world, whether you’re a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person.

In the longstanding symbiotic relationship between PR professionals and reporters, there have been tomes written on how one side thinks the other side is failing and flailing.

Inspired by National Post tech reporter Matt Hartley‘s thoughtful blog post on why we hate your press release, this round-up shares the words of a few technology reporters as they point out the areas for improvement in the modern PR professional’s approaches.

From Matt’s post:

Over the years, I like to think I’ve developed a good rapport with many members of the PR community in Canada. I feel I’ve grown to understand their craft, and I feel that I’ve developed wonderful professional relationships with some incredible individuals. Some of the best stories and biggest scoops of my career have been facilitated by PR folks.

Indeed, without the help of my PR contacts, I wouldn’t be able to do my job.

However, some PR folks just don’t get it. They don’t understand what I do, or the very nature of the reporter’s job. They don’t understand my publication. They pitch me silly stories at inconvenient times. It’s frustrating, and these few individuals give the PR profession a bad name.

Rather than just bemoan the shoddy efforts of what he recognizes are but a few of our ranks, he goes on to detail the top ten things he loves about press releases, and the top ten things he hates. All valid points and any PR practitioner hoping to engage with the media could stand to read his missive.

In his post entitled What annoys technology journalists about PR, freelance journalist Stuart Dredge provided direct quotes from other reporters about what they didn’t like about their interactions with PR professionals. Their complaints fell into a number of specific categories:

Not researching the target

The first category is self-explanatory. In his comments, though, Dredge brought up an excellent point: he, like many other reporters, have changed beats over time. On behemoth websites for major media outlets, however, the wrong reporter may be listed as covering a beat that they no longer do. It’s up to both the outlet to communicate the correct information about who currently covers a beat and the PR practitioner to make this determination before launching into their pitch, or including a reporter on an email list. We just switched media database providers because our existing one offered no insight into when the record was last updated; just because someone covered telecom five years ago, doesn’t mean they do now. Yet another reason to not rely fully on a media database alone; building an up-to-date media list is a time and labour intensive exercise for which there are no short cuts.

Not following through

Be responsive. Provide the media with what they need to cover your company. Dredge comes to the PR flack’s defence on this one saying, “Yeah, this can be frustrating, although I appreciate that a PR person working on a bunch of clients is as likely to get sucked into non-responsiveness as I am with deadlines.” Ask any PR practitioner and they’ll tell you a horror story about a reporter tearing their head off for deigning to call to follow up a release. You’re also likely to hear stories of the best possible coverage coming from following up a release or pitch with a well-timed, respectful phone call. I strongly disagree with the much floated idea that the phone call is dead. PR practitioners need to know their market – the specific journalist’s preference for communication via whatever channel (okay to pitch via Twitter, prefers phone calls to email, etc.) It’s part of our job. Do it.

Hassling

It’s common sense: don’t be a jerk. Be persistent, not annoying. A healthy amount of pushback on a “no” is acceptable; if they won’t cover this sort of announcement, what will they cover? Dig to find out why your story doesn’t meet the editorial threshold and what you can do to leap over that hurdle.

Dredge sums it up nicely:

Talking to people, the real problem here is that a follow-up call about a relevant thing when you’re not on deadline is A Good Thing. A follow-up call about something not so relevant when you’re busy is not. Hassling is in the stressed mind of the beholder (or something). That said, it’s about politeness on both sides – ‘Do you have time to talk now?’ and ‘Actually, I don’t, but this time might be better’ seems like a friendlier way forward.

Another thing: the ideal call from my point of view is ‘we have this company, they’re doing x, might that be relevant?’ – literally two or three sentences, as a lead-in to either me asking more questions, or asking for the release etc. I get the impression with some calls that people have been told they have to give me the full five-minute pitch – even if 10 seconds in I say ‘that’s good, can I get the release?’ or ‘No, I don’t cover that’.

Picture not-so-perfect (sending big attachments)

Sending your release as an attachment is just plain a bad idea. Attaching big photos to your email is also verboten. Have an online repository of downloadable high-resolution images, links to videos, and provide these upfront. Having a well-stocked newsroom on your website is essential.

Standing on the shoulders of giants (piggybacking on the release of a rival company, sending over clients’ comments the day a story is in the paper)

Dredge said that he didn’t really take issue with these, er, issues. If an outlet is writing about a client’s space, why shouldn’t they counter or add to or support whatever conversation is happening in their media marketplace? Reacting – either positively or negatively – to coverage is standard practice as well. Following up to thank the reporter for coverage is never out of place and if there are additional comments that the coverage itself has brought about, send them along. If something in the article is factually incorrect, it’s important to provide those details too (but be aware that the toothpaste is already out of the tube in the echo chamber that is social media.)

I’d highly recommend both of the posts referenced above – regardless of what side of the divide you’re on. You just might learn something that improves your practice if you’re a PR flack, or at least know that you alone are not the sole hack suffering the bad pitches of shoddy PR practitioners.

Image: Paul and Partners Inc.

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on November 4, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Technology marketing, inmedia Public Relations — 2 Comments

PR frights and hauntings

By Linda Forrestedvard munch the scream PR frights and hauntings

In honour of Halloween, this post is a round-up of the frightful ways that PR can scare away prospects and editors and how bad PR haunts those who neglect to adhere to best practices. Boo!

Frightfully bad PR practices

Last month, I wrote a whole post about bad publicity, but it’s worth scaring you silly again with the key points. At this very moment, there are PR practitioners who can’t write, can’t pitch, who are selling short your opportunity to tell your story, offering all strategy with no implementation or implementing a spray-and-pray program without any strategy to back it up. Frightening, isn’t it?

As a PR practitioner, nothing is scarier than reading about shoddy practitioners bilking clients with often significant fees, lessening, I might add, the esteem of our profession as a whole in the eyes of our future prospects. Reading stories about PR people harassing, disrespecting, bullying or otherwise giving people like us a bad name jeopardizes our ability to do our job. You sure don’t want to be the next PR person to call a reporter who has just had a bad experience with another practitioner; regardless of your approach, there’s a good chance your pitch will fall on deaf, if not disgruntled, ears.

There is no shortage of tech PR horror stories. TechCrunch is rife with them. From the headline from earlier this year, “Seriously, Timothy Johnson, Your Idea of How to do PR for Clients is a Joke,” which says it all, to “Anatomy of a PR Spin (aka How to Lie Like a Pro), this site proves that angering the side which has the attention of the marketplace’s ears and eyes is a dangerous game to play. Perhaps the most famous altercation between the PR industry and the technology media was Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s banning of a very long, very public list of PR practitioners who he accused (and probably rightly so) of sending useless and inappropriate emails his way. Huge amounts of digital ink were spilled in the debate back and forth as to whether his actions were warranted and appropriate, but as he later said, “I did this after years of abuse.” Everyone has their breaking point, and he had reached his.

How bad PR can haunt its perpetrators and victims

In my last post, I ended on the note that “while today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s bird-cage lining, things written online live forever.” Because of this fact, bad PR practitioners have nowhere to hide — inclusion on Chris Anderson’s list, for example, is irrevocable. Take for example, Gawker’s ongoing hate-on for Ronn Torossian. It’s safe to assume that Timothy Johnson will never place a story with TechCrunch again. Perhaps it’s time for a career change? If an individual has conducted themselves in a less than professional fashion, they have the option of turning their lives around, switching careers and trying to move on. But when a company commits a PR atrocity, it can be haunted for years to come. Example: when I say British Petroleum, what comes to mind?

There’s a whole cottage industry of websites devoted to outing companies that flub PR and practitioners who give PR a bad name. Scary stuff.

You need look no further than your nearest search engine if you want to read hair raising, terrifying tales of PR gone wrong.

Happy Halloween!

Image: TechTown

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 28, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Random thoughts — Leave a comment

Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

By Linda ForrestSeanParker 300x117 Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

Earlier this week, TechCrunch readers were given a rare treat – the chance to engage in a public forum with a technology icon: Sean Parker. One of the founders of Napster, founder at Plaxo, a former advisor to and the first president of Facebook (who bears little physical resemblance to Justin Timberlake who played an, according to Parker, historically-inaccurate, party animal version of him in last year’s Oscar-nominated film, The Social Network), and now director at Spotify. In short, Sean Parker has been an architect of many of the “large-scale societal shifts” of the last 15 years.

So, it was with great interest that I clicked on (and subsequently retweeted) the following Tweet:

SeanParkerTweet Thanks to social media, the interview is never really over

Our Francis Moran, a seasoned reporter, wrote a post on our blog back in 2008 entitled “The interview’s never over” in which he cautioned readers about the perils of gotcha journalism, how interviewees can stray from approved messaging when the interaction between reporter and subject turns casual.

At the time of his post, Twitter had about 200,000 active users per week, while Facebook had 100 million users. Compare those figures with today, where Twitter now boasts 100 million active users and Facebook touts 800 million users. In other words, the echo chamber of the social web is exponentially more powerful than it was just three years ago. That social media platforms are so very pervasive in our daily lives gives us the ability to interact with one another on a previously unheard of scale. How media is generated, distributed, consumed, passed on… all of these activities have been radically altered by the public’s adoption of social media and its willingness to communicate on these channels.

And so, when TechCrunch posted an article with the (in keeping with good Huffington Post-style tradition) salacious title, Sean Parker On Facebook Privacy: “There Is Good Creepy, And There is Bad Creepy,” the interview subject himself responded in the comments.

In the age of social media the interview is never really over, as evidenced by Parker’s calling out of the editors for naming the article based on a flippant comment.

“This is why business leaders don’t typically joke around about their own products in public. I guess I’ll go back to being serious,” said Parker in a Facebook comment on the article.

As I said at the beginning, Parker engaged with regular folk who commented on the article, providing rare public access to a technology entrepreneur of his renown. His comments ranged from petty name-calling to intelligent discourse on the nature of privacy.

This scenario brings several points to mind:

1. The media doesn’t always get it right

Take it from someone who sends media materials with the right information out to the media, only to have incorrect information reported. This week I had correspondence with an editor who had interviewed my client send me copy for approval that had not only the executive’s name incorrect, but misspelled the company name throughout. Parker himself commented on the inaccuracies – accidental and otherwise – that exist about him in the public realm:

I have a largely fabricated, exaggerated, and distorted version of my life story broadcast to the public. And not by sites like Facebook or Twitter, but by good old-fashioned mass media. If anything social media is my only salvation from the tyranny of media that I don’t control; it’s the only chance I have to tell my own story, lest it be told inaccurately (or worse, maliciously) by others. This is why I’m suddenly engaging so deeply with social media–I want to reclaim control over my life. I would much prefer a “candid version of my life story” to a Hollywood screenwriter’s dramatized version thereof.

2. Social media has democratized editorial coverage

It used to be that if inaccuracies were printed about someone, it was an onerous, elongated, laborious undertaking to correct them. And in most cases, the toothpaste was out of the tube. But, most if not all traditional media do have a mechanism for retracting or correcting wrong or misleading information. In our digital age, edits can be made to text instantaneously. Interview subjects can post comments the moment the publish button is pushed. Most profoundly, no longer is the editor the only one with editorial control over content: whether you’re Joe Blow or a billionaire iconoclast, you have the power to affect editorial content, through social media, self-publishing, or other digital means.

3. You never know who is reading your stuff online

I am willing to bet that the first few John Q. Citizen commenters on the article had no expectation that the article’s subject would be reading – and in some cases responding to – Facebook comments on an online article. This is a good lesson that you never know who is reading material you post online. It could be your childhood friend you haven’t talked to in 20 years, your prospective employer, your mother, your idol, potential customer, business partner… Don’t say anything in a public forum that you wouldn’t want anyone in these categories to read, because they can. And while today’s newspaper is tomorrow’ bird-cage lining, things written online live forever.

Image: TechCrunch

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Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 21, 2011

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Posted in: Public and media relations, Social media, Technology marketing — Leave a comment

PR’s David & Goliath: doing media relations for SMBs vs. large corporations

By Linda Forrestbigdoglittledog 300x222 PRs David & Goliath: doing media relations for SMBs vs. large corporations

Back when I was doing publicity in the music industry, working largely for independent artists, I’d often discuss with my colleagues what it would be like to be the publicist for a major, in-demand, household-name artist, how different the job would be. Rather than spending the majority of my time on outreach, I rather imagined that the role would be relegated largely to that of gatekeeper, traffic cop and reputation manager.

When it comes to media relations for technology companies, the same discrepancies apply – there are some distinct differences between doing media relations for a small- to medium-sized business and doing the same for a multinational conglomerate. But there are some best practices that hold true regardless of whether the company you’re promoting with its media marketplace consists of two employees or two thousand.

A smaller company is less likely than a large company to have internal PR capabilities

Startups and small companies need to strategically allocate every dollar to deliver the most profound ROI, otherwise the entire business is in jeopardy. Therefore, in smaller companies, specialized roles, like that of PR practitioner, are often allocated to external resources. With larger companies, the ROI on every single marketing dollar is less tied directly to the well-being of the company; when larger companies hire PR firms, it’s usually to augment internal capabilities rather than add capabilities the company doesn’t already possess.

With a startup, you’re probably more likely to see the founder and CEO as the PR contact (he or she is the chef, cook and bottle-washer too) as an agency, whereas with a big corporation like Microsoft, there’s a list of PR contacts as long as your arm – some internal, some external (usually with a known industry player, a proportionately large global PR firm.)

As of 2008, there were approximately 9,000 PR agencies in the U.S., ranging from one-person operations to multinational corporations. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that employment in the field is on the rise:

Employment of public relations specialists is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. The need for good public relations in an increasingly competitive and global business environment should spur demand for these workers, especially those with specialized knowledge or international experience. Employees who possess additional language capabilities also are in great demand.

The recent emergence of social media in public relations is expected to increase job growth as well. Many public relations firms are expanding their use of these tools, and specialists with skills in them will be needed.

Employment in public relations firms is expected to grow as firms hire contractors to provide public relations services, rather than support more full-time staff when additional work is needed.

A smaller company is more likely to have budgetary constraints, devote marketing dollars to other activities

Smaller revenues mean smaller marketing budgets. Despite the fact that PR is proven to bolster fundraising efforts, a small number of startups that were looking for investment deployed this tactic, according to a PRWeek article from 2008:

  • Startup companies that engage in PR campaigns are 30% more successful in getting funding within one to three months than those that don’t.
  • Forty-four percent of the respondents who used PR outreach received funding in the one-to-three-month time period versus 14% of those that did not.
  • Seventy-eight percent of respondents who said PR helped in their funding efforts are planning to use some of their VC dollars for additional PR.
  • Ironically, the survey also found that only 18% of the 300 startups surveyed had a PR program in place during the funding process.

    • PR requires significant sustained effort, human resources and expertise to be done well. When there are limited marketing dollars to invest in various marketing methods, they tend to be allocated to “easy” marketing activities – Google ad word campaigns, for example, according to a 2009 blog post on Buzzgain.

    Media relations for smaller companies consists predominantly of outreach, where larger organizations elicit more inbound inquiries

    It takes a sustained PR effort to establish what we call a Rolodex factor with the media, the point at which your most influential media know to call you for perspective on issues in your marketplace, which they include in their coverage of events and issues that impact your market. With a large corporation, the public – media included – can be very familiar with your company, its products, its position in the market and the Rolodex factor is pretty much a given. This is where my gatekeeper/traffic cop analogy comes in: the job becomes more about routing calls to the proper departments, managing access to designated spokespeople, governing messaging and positioning.

    When you’re a smaller company, unless you’re truly the next big thing and can prove it, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to influence the agenda of the media. Instead, it will be about where you fit into the agenda of the media, rather than how the media can bend to suit your will.

    Best practices reign, regardless of your company’s size

    No matter whether you’re a party of two or a conglomerate of 2,000, your company needs to provide the media with the tools required to cover your company. Have a well-stocked, easy-to-find online newsroom. Our Leo Valiquette, who spent a decade as a business journalist, wrote a great piece on engaging the media when he was new to our team, most of which still applies in spades.

    There may be some differences between media relations for David versus media relations for Goliath, but regardless of the organization’s size, adhering to best practices will position you well with your media marketplace.

    Image: Suzie’s Den

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 14, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, Startups, inmedia Public Relations — 2 Comments

    In PR, timing is everything

    By Linda ForrestTiming In PR, timing is everything

    If real estate is summed up by the expression, “There are three things that matter in property: location, location, location,” PR could easily misappropriate a slight variation of that: “there are three things that matter in public relations: timing, timing, timing.”

    This post is just a sampling of the many ways that timing matters in PR.

    To every news release, there is a season.

    If you are sending out a news release (I recently blogged about what sorts of news is best suited to this tactic), there is a right and a wrong time to send it out.

    If you have mobile news to share and Apple is holding a press conference that day, even if it is to release the iPhone Meh, that is not the time to try and pitch reporters who cover your space. They are busy and do not want to be interrupted by your phone calls, emails and tweets. Sometimes, bad timing can’t be helped; breaking news does not adhere to an editorial calendar. But in the main, we at inmedia subscribe to the belief that the start of the business day (for the Eastern time zone) on Tuesday is the best time to issue a news release. This approach is supported by data from the top newswire distribution services, according to a post on Journalistics about The Best Day to Send a Press Release:

    PRNewswire suggests sending news in the middle of the week and to steer clear of Mondays and Fridays. Business Wire, on the other hand, suggests early in the day, early in the week for most press releases. readMedia, a social media release startup, sees little difference in weekdays, but advises against sending releases on weekends for obvious reasons.

    These are not hard and fast rules, however. If you have bad news that you have to distribute, Friday at the end of the day may be the best time for it. While public companies are beholden to stringent disclosure rules that dictate what and when company information must be shared, private companies have more leeway and can strategically release news, good or bad, as they see fit. We also subscribe to the theory that if they (in this case, the media) are going to run you out of town, get out in front and make it look like a parade — meaning that it’s best to be the deliverer of your own bad news, especially in today’s 24-hour news cycle, rather than let your messaging be controlled by the market.

    Plan ahead

    We’ve blogged repeatedly about maintaining PR through the summer (again, further bolstered by the 24-hour news cycle) as coverage may not appear for months after it’s been pitched, secured, facilitated and drafted. Long-lead trade publications still drive purchasing decisions in B2B, so strategically plan your campaigns so that coverage falls when it has the highest impact on the buying cycle of your prospects.

    Where are you talking to?

    Though news value can trump time zones and language, you still need to consider where your prospects, partners and customers are geographically. If it’s an Australian announcement your U.S. company needs to make, sending out your release at the close of the Australian business day or in the middle of their night may not be the best approach. Be conscious of timing when reaching out to journalists as well. No west-coast reporter is going to appreciate a call to their cell phone at the start of the east coast’s business day.

    Be in the right place at the right time

    When there are issues or big players’ announcements upon which your company has a perspective, act fast and harvest the PR opportunities arising from that coverage. Reporters and editors will want to speak to sources for their opinions, reactions, feedback and, if you put yourself in the right place at the right time, you can reap the benefits.

    Use your time wisely

    Time management is an important skill for PR practitioners to master. Be conscious of your own deadlines as well as the availability of your client’s knowledge keepers and spokespeople. Breaking news will require that you act fast to develop the necessary messaging and materials, so keeping a good handle on your overall workload will free up your time to be responsive in a rush situation.

    Be respectful of your media targets’ time

    Too many times I’ve read about editors and reporters bemoaning the fact that PR people try to take up their precious time at inopportune times. Journalism is a stressful occupation, with deadlines and demands from editors looming large. When reaching out to target media, take a moment to ask them if it’s a good time to talk; monitor their Twitter stream to see if they’re in the office or offsite, pushing against a deadline or something else that would require their attention; if you do connect with them, keep it brief.

    Image: ForDesigner

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on October 7, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — 1 Comment

    High-fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    By Linda ForrestREM%20 %20New%20Adventures%20In%20Hi Fi High fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    This one goes out to R.E.M., a band whose breakup last week reminded me of their full discography, including New Adventures in Hi-Fi, hence the focus of this post.

    Wikipedia describes high fidelity as follows:

    high fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound or images, to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response.

    The best PR is high-fidelity PR. PR practitioners act as the conduit through which the marketplace receives our clients’ messages. In order to achieve the most accurate, worthwhile coverage that supports our clients’ overall communications objectives, the process itself needs to be as friction free as possible. But, in some cases, that’s easier said than done.

    Media relations involves a number of different parties, the number of participants increasing dramatically the bigger the company is. With small startups, PR resources typically have direct access to the founders and chief executives at the client company. In these scenarios, there’s less chance of broken telephone muddling up your message between the proverbial horse’s mouth and the media. As additional layers of complexity are added to the organization, there is more potential for noise and distortion to be introduced. The corporate structure of the client company will determine the access that PR has to the CEO; perhaps the PR team reports to a marketing director who then liaises with corporate communications who has a direct line to the CEO. That’s two additional levels of people (and their personal and departmental objectives and agendas) that messages have to trickle down through, before PR resources are pitching to the media. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but in the main, the larger the organization, the more gatekeepers and approvals processes required before information is made available to the PR flacks and before questions are answered by client executives.

    Some noise was made back in 2007, when Chrysler shifted PR reporting from direct to the CEO to HR instead. There was a great blog post around the time of that shift, called “Why PR needs a seat at management’s table,” which included links to articles on the importance of PR having a direct link to the CEO, no matter the size of the company, including this one from Detroit Free Press reporter Mark Phelan:

    An effective communications team can steer management away from bad decisions and build long-term plans to help the company succeed.

    That’s just one of the advantages of your PR resources having direct access to the CEO. Unfortunately, it seems as though the trend is, at least with the female practitioners that reside within what ABC called the Velvet Ghetto in its landmark 1985 study and 2002 follow up, heading in the wrong direction:

    In the area of access to senior management, 50 percent of respondents in “The Velvet Ghetto” said they reported directly to the CEO, whereas in ABC Profile 2002, only 35 percent said they report directly to the CEO. In 1985, 80 percent said they always had direct access to the CEO compared to only 53 percent in 2002.

    Respondents to PR Week’s 2010 Corporate Survey indicated that more than half are reporting directly to the CEO, an encouraging statistic:

    Reporting1 High fidelity PR requires open communication between agency & client

    It’s near impossible to have high quality transmission of the strategic objectives of the C-suite transmitted to and through PR if direct access is not given. Futurist and entrepreneur Ross Dawson, who wrote a blog post on the future of PR more than five years ago, recently revisited his earlier post, which contained the following:

    Previously, PR executives very rarely had access beyond the Chief Marketing Officer, and often were managed by considerably more junior client staff. Those PR executives that demonstrate they can understand their clients’ strategic issues, and engage at that level of the organisation, will have the opportunity to do so. Moving beyond the ever-more trenchant issues of reputation management and related spheres, agencies can extend themselves to work with clients on other critical and highly relevant issues such as customer-driven innovation.

    It’s really this point that led to the creation of the strategic marketing consultancy, Francis Moran & Associates. After operating inmedia Public Relations for more than a dozen years, it became clear that our clients and prospects had a need for strategic marketing counsel and implementation that extended beyond PR; that each senior member of inmedia had strategic marketing experience and that we have an extensive network of best-of-breed marketing implementation specialists enabled us to diversify and build out our service offering. But that’s not my point: That we were able to have those conversations with the decision makers at those prospect and client companies enabled us to recognize that need. If we were not given direct access to the executive team, not only would our ability to conduct high-fidelity story telling have been hampered, so too would our business development efforts.

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    Posted by: Linda Forrest on September 29, 2011

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    Posted in: Public and media relations, inmedia Public Relations — Leave a comment