Time 27:53

The problem with many companies trying to get PR and media coverage is they think like a company. They need to think like a news organization about themselves, their industry, and the communities in which they play. In the first Marketing Edge episode for 2009 we talk with Kevin Dugan, co-author of the Bad Pitch Blog. The Bad Pitch Blog is a must read for any PR or corporate communications professional, and more importantly, clients of PR organizations. Why clients? Because you don’t want to put your organization or your firm in a situation where the pitch becomes the news. We get into how not to craft a bad pitch and approaching PR with a different perspective in part because social media has changed the landscape of public relations

Meanwhile here’s an old PR versus new PR list for 2009, Kind of like a PR fashionista list.

Old PR Thinking

New PR Thinking

That’s just a few, we can always talk more, start with a comment either below or at 206-600-6887. Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter for every comment we receive. Happy New Year!

Time 28:49




What’s in a word? Plenty. Not just a word, but the right word at the right time in the right places can catapult your company to the top of the Google heap. As a former journalist, I’m always thinking about the news angle, whether it’s for clients, this podcast, or the pure enjoyment of staying on top of the issue.

The beauty of this is, search engines think like news people as well. The major search engines pick up trends across the net, reward in-bound links to your page, and give recognition to first movers.

Having a focus and priorities for your marketing and SEO objectives can level the playing field against larger competitors. For example a small, and excellent company VigiLanz, develops infection control software that helps clinical pharmacies comply with a specific Federal mandate called National Patient Safety Goal 3E. With the goal of being focused on this very important aspect of their product, the objective was to produce a high Goggle ranking. The strategy of copy changes to their website and clear editorial intent in news release topics garnered a top rank in Goggle on the search of NSPG 3e software This success, however, can be short lived if there is not a dedicated effort to continue producing content that supports and I contend advances the conversation of your focused topic. (VigiLanz is a client)

Another tactic is to piggyback on the news cycles of topics in your objective. For example, say your area is financial risk management in commodities, when the government announces a new policy, the markets move a certain way, or the monthly trade report references movement in commodity, there should be blog posts, news releases, and copy changes on specific areas of your website to capitalize on the coverage of the topic. To the extent you can get a jump on the topic momentum by using social media trending tools like Radian 6 or Trackur to mention two options at either end of the sophistication spectrum.

In this podcast, I chat with Lee Odden, a nationally recognized SEO consultant. Lee and I share ideas on SEO, PR, and affiliate marketing tactics. Odden also writes the Top Rank Blog, one of the better blogs on the web. Odden will be speaking on a panel at the Affiliate Summit Jan 11-13 along with Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim.

YOU COMMENT WE GIVE FOOD

For every comment we get at 206-600-6887 or on this blog, Provident Partners will buy a food item for a local food shelter. So give someone a hot meal by giving us your opinion. Happy New Year.

The future of news is both a fiscal and emotional issue. Newsrooms across the country are struggling with the economic realities across the spectrum from energy costs to the impact of the internet. On the emotional side, the press, vilified as it is by those whose agenda it suits, still remains a cornerstone of a free, democratic society.

Somewhere in the 1980s, the discussion of fairness of news organizations became a central part of the political and general discourse in American society. This debate chipped away at the credibility and integrity of journalism as an institution. The bickering, some real, some imagined combined with the explosion of blogs and citizen journalism created threads of 19th century yellow journalism which was woven into the once trusted resource of Cronkite and Murrow. The result is a crossroads for American journalism.

Despite the gloom of many newsrooms, it is an exciting time for American journalism. When accomplished reporters for the New York Times (and many other newspapers) are not constrained by one format and can tell their story with video on their newspapers website, that is exciting. It is exciting, when a television reporter can extend their piece, which before the web was a one time only production, to include conversations from viewers via a blog. It is an exciting time when the insights of citizens can be tapped to cover a topic that may only affect a small neighborhood, but nonetheless, makes that community grow closer.

The issue is in large part about the money and who will pay for this information. Economies of scale of the mass produce and consume 1900s no longer apply. Financial sustainability of the news media as we know it now requires innovation on the part of the news organization to develop new products, creativity on the part of business/advertisers to financially support communities and causes in which they believe, (without getting in the way of truthful reporting where appropriate), and citizens to become more involved with the news.

I see it this way. Before 2000, the news was a cookie sheet. A metal surface used to produce the same product on a regular basis. Today news is the cookie dough. Consumers of the news want to shape the information as they need it. They want to add to it from other sources, they want to share it with anyone and everyone, and they want to consume it wherever, whenever, and however it best suits them. Journalism will thrive when it figures out how to generate revenue with this new dough.

People like Chris O’Brien and the Next Generation Newsroom project are in the middle of these exciting times. The Project for Excellence in Journalism and Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute has done an wonderful evaluating the trends in news organizations and the way Americans are consuming information.

Today, Thursday, June 12 I’m participating in a panel on the changing face of the news media put on by the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. Add your comments below, email them to me at amaruggi AT providentpartners DOT net or tweet them at www.twitter.com/AlbertMaruggi

Panel Discussion – Changing Face of Media/Alternative Media Sources/Credibility vs. Sensationalism.
Purpose: We are interested in exploring whether or not, how and why traditional media such as newspapers and television are being supplanted by internet resources and user generated media such as Youtube and Facebook. How are younger generations (Gen Y) using the new media and how they will gather news and information in the future.
Moderator:
Liz Bogut – Communications Director, Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce
Panelists:
Joel Kramer, Editor and CEO of MinnPost.com
Kristin Henning, Publisher, The Rake
Barbara Laskin, Media Relations Manager - Macalester College
Thom Fladung – Editor - Pioneer Press
Albert Maruggi - Founder and president of Provident Partners

Thank you to Valeria Maltoni, the Conversation Agent, for interviewing me on social media and journalism last week for her blog. The profession of journalism has changed considerably since my days in front of the camera and the mic. (early & mid 80s if you must know) Now, the web makes every medium - multimedia. One of the most compelling and brilliant video news packages was produced by the New York Times, with writer Manny Fernandez and videographer Brent McDonald . The piece was called Johnny’s Cave.

Even in these changing times, the venerable newspaper of the country’s largest city still carries these words on its masthead “All the news that’s fit to print.” The fact is, as the multimedia desk as grown from a small pilot to a full fledged news desk under the direction of Martin Nisenholtz, the Sr. V.P. of Digital Operations, the more appropriate maxim is all the stories that can be told.

The New York Times with its multimedia capability and blogs, are becoming the real-time diary of a city and a nation. They are giving life to video stories that are suffocated by the time constraints of television. Take a moment here to realize that a newspaper may now be in a better position to tell video stories, than standard television. On the other side of this medium divide, television stations are asserting their multimedia assets and driving traffic to their websites.

The financial prize is tapping into dollars non-existent prior to video the web, the Star-Tribune newspaper is taking ad dollars from television stations for video ads. More on this from radio and broadcast consultant Mel Taylor.

The application for companies in these changing times is to evaluate your stories for their strongest appeal. If you have a visual story, you can tell it to a monthly magazine and give them access to the visual elements. You can enhance a printed news release with audio or video components tied back to a website or if you are that daring, consider a full fledged social media release, but that is a topic for another post

Tomorrow I’ll address the issue of social media as more a movement and less a market, which was another theme the Conversation Agent got me going on and was commented on the Jump in the Pool

The airline America loves to love, Southwest, is in a bit of a safety issue with the FAA and Congress. It is reported that some safety inspections were not conducted or planes not grounded. This post is to highlight Southwest’s PR handling of the situation.

As is the tradition of Southwest, they are upfront. Right on the home page of their website is a link to their statement on the story. Excellent. Some would counsel to put it in the news section, let the issue go through a 24-hour cycle and be done.

Compliments to Southwest and their entire team for their candor on the matter. In what appears to be an issue more about paperwork, bureaucracy and miscommunication instead of dangerous conditions. The language being used by media and Congress is predictably emotional: “unsafe,” “threatening safety,” and from Congressman James Oberstar, “one of the worst safety violations.”

The investigation also involves the Whistle Blower Program, which in itself creates an “us versus them” situation and not at a “Let’s see what happened here” investigation.

In addition to the Southwest statement being in position A on the website, the CEO, Gary Kelly, was on CNN this morning and made the expected rounds of media coverage. While this issue must go through its cycle, the initial round, which included Southwest airlines voluntarily disclosing missed inspections last spring, shows Southwest performing in accordance with its image of being upfront with its passengers.

P.S.: And as you’d expect, it’s on the Southwest Airlines Blog as well. Keep us posted, Southwest, and while it’s good to know your passengers are still using you to get away, your PR team is staying put to work professionally through an interesting situation.

My side comment: Blog leader Paula Berg is a class act in any situation. Great work, Paula.

I am paraphrasing a quote attributed to former House Speaker Tip O’Neill who said “All politics is local.” Given how technology has collapsed time and space, it is accurate to say then that all politics is social, as in the social communities that have common interests shared on the web in many forms. With a couple of keystrokes these interests can be inspired, appeased, and heard. Their message can spread around the world in the format that most powerfully communicates their message. So it is with this foundation and a decade in politics and more than a decade in the private sector world of communications I’ve come to the following key elements of social media.

1. Social media is like grassroots organizations
2. Little issues can spread like wildfire if ignored
3. Political skills are required to understand the implications of social media on a corporation and its interested communities
4. Corporations should develop their own communities of interest that are active in social media beyond that of their own corporate site
5. Understanding social media requires openness within a corporate culture
6. Corporate functions such as customer relations, call centers, sales and service departments, research, and product development can potentially benefit from and contribute to social media, so coordination is critical.

These characteristics and situations are part of what goes on in political and public policy campaigns. This is why I believe experience in those areas is especially helpful to corporations seeking to understand and participate in social media.

This also gets into the issue a bit of who owns social media and a thread of that conversation is at Mitch Joel’s blog Twist Image.

Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology has a post on the political war room angle of social media.

The social media idea path is like watching cells grow and multiply. Here is the exciting path of this idea related to Dunkin’ Donuts and the Super Bowl. Sunday, January 20, I’m on Twitter the night of the Green Bay/New York Giants NFC Championship game. People tweeted about the final moments of the game and upon its conclusion, I started tweeting with my Boston friends who like Dunkin’ Donuts, how that popular east coast franchise can capitalize on the Super Bowl with two teams competing from their two largest markets, Boston and New York City. Those friends included Doug Haslam, Chip Griffin, Geoff Livingston (DC guy but also responded to tweet string), Scott Monty, Sarah Wurrey, and Mike Volpe.

A quick review of the Dunkin’ Donuts website reveals that Dunkin’ has extensive experience working with NFL promotions and even has run contests with both the New York Giants and New England Patriots. Excellent. Dunkin’ Donuts slogan is America Runs on Dunkin’ - Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?

On Monday, January 21, I thought of an idea and blogged about it on our marketing blog about a Super Bowl contest that ties into the slogan, Dunkin’ Donuts Has a Super Opportunity , the team with the most rushing yards would earn for that market a free something, maybe a Dunkin loyalty card with a free cup of coffee loaded on it or a free coffee during the two hours after the game (you get the picture). I also sent in a link to the idea on the Dunkin’ Donuts website, through customer relations.

on Wednesday, January 23, I received the resonse below. I’ve given the response grades, and invite yours as well. A couple of more data points here. 1) I did not submit to a PR or media inquiry because I did not find an email for one on the site at the time and 2) Dunkin’ Donuts is currently running (pardon the pun) a user generated campaign on You Tube called How Do You Keep America Running.

Here is Dunkin’s reply to our Rushing Yardage contest idea:

Dear Albert,

Ref # 4488839
Here are my grades for their response:

1) Timeliness they at least replied within a couple of days. - A Excellent,

2) Sincerity, it looks like a boilerplate response - C to me some of the copy is a bit condescending , however, I can understand this given that someone might claim rights to an idea, which leads to my next grading topic,

3) Legal cover, nice job lawyers - A

4) Brand loyalty impact, has the response improved your feeling of the brand - B While the response did not uniquely notice the submission, it did attempt to respond in a timely and polite manner and for that Dunkin’ Donuts deserves some credit.

Overall It’s a B, time for another coffee.

Time 18:45

The old maxim “you don’t argue with the guy who buys ink by the barrel” isn’t as accurate as it once was. The combination of blogs, new online publishers like TechCrunch and the Huffington Post, and social media sites are creating new opportunities for professional and unpaid journalism.

The key to social media’s success is voices. The dilemma for social media is finding and determining the valuable content of those voices for you. Helium.com is a Web site designed for long-form written content and has an interesting way of sorting out what’s valuable. The site attracts those who have a desire to write, and its 90,000 members rate the articles on the site, giving all readers some guidance on the quality of the content.

This community grading apparatus rewards objective, accurate articles and banishes self-promoters to the valley of propaganda. (There really is no such place on Helium.com. That was my editorial license to say that garbage articles are ranked at the bottom.)

It’s a combination social media community, wiki (kind of ), blog and content provider. There is also a way for other publishers of Web sites and print publications to post requests for articles. Writers then submit articles for that particular topic for the publisher to potentially purchase. It is like a job board that matches buyers of articles to providers of content. Hey, it might not be enough money to quit your day job, but it is a way to fulfill a passion, share knowledge, and build your expertise and writing portfolio.

Helium.com also allows for contributions to non-profit groups, including Teachers Without Borders and Collegiate Society of America, as articles are purchased. It’s the concept of giving back to the community for writers as well as tapping into those non-profits as sources of quality articles.

Communicators should review this site as another step in determining the social media strategy. These are the interesting attributes of Helium.com:

• Source for industry trends across tens of thousands of topics
• Venue for your ideas and passion
• Potential revenue if articles are purchased
• Establish greater credibility as a writer
• Give exposure to issues that are not being covered in the mainstream media
• Plant the seeds of debate that others nurture -– that, after all, is the essence of social media

Marketing Edge Holiday Giveaways: Yippeee!

1. Society of New Communications Research Symposium VIP (very impressive pricing) in Boston December 5 and 6: Give a look at the agenda at www.sncr.org/symposium and if you want to go, e-mail me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net and I’ll send you codes for a little dough off the top.

2. Join the Conversation book giveaway contest: Joseph Jaffe’s latest book is the talk of the Amazon charts, and we will give a copy away on Dec. 19, with an added bonus. In the spirit of joining the conversation, I have included written commentary in many of the chapters. It’s the ultimate form of keeping the conversation going. Send me an e-mail with “Conversation” in the subject line and you’ll be included in the random drawing.

3. Movie trivia in this podcast episode: Listen toward the end of the podcast for a sound clip from a movie. Tell me what movie you think it came from and we’ll give one person who provides the correct answer a $10 Subway gift card. Hint: It’s a classic! Either send me an e-mail or submit your answer in the comment section.

NOTE: Provident Partners donates a food item for every comment (on the blog or by e-mail) we get. Our monthly budget for this community program is $100/month.

After a few days to let things settle and let me think (and as the story now bubbles up to the New York Times), here are a few observations about Chris Anderson’s post about blocking a group of PR people from e-mailing him and the subsequent comments:

PR lessons

1. College communications and PR professors should make this post mandatory reading. Don’t send e-mail to a reporter if you haven’t read some of his work. Repeat this mantra throughout your school years and into the workforce, if in fact there is such a thing as “pitching reporters” five or so years from now.

2. CEOs of PR firms need to evaluate the structure of the process that allows such e-mail tactics. By that I mean revenue model, client demands, training, mid-level oversight, database compilation — everything in your firm. There are dozens of reasons for sloppy pitches. Uncover them.

3. Use Anderson’s comments to your advantage. Show your clients (particularly the most demanding ones) that if they can’t generate real news and you can’t package what they have in a way that is interesting to the audience of your specific outlets, that’s not something a longer or more “big-name filled” media list can fix. Period. It’s a product issue, not a PR issue.

We’ve been in situations where the client says, “Call Walt Mossberg and get in there.” The correct response is to point out what Walt Mossberg requires to even be considered, then work to make those qualities a reality for your client. Not until your client walks the walk can you expect someone like Mossberg and Anderson to talk your talk.

4. Media databases are fine as a starting point, but just like any list, they’re not perfect. Having said that, Chris Anderson’s pitching tips as listed in Cision’s MediaSource as of Nov. 5, 2007, clearly state that his preferred method of contact is snail mail, that he should not be sent pitches when there’s an appropriate editor on staff, and that news releases should be sent to the magazine’s general e-mail address.

Now, the main email address is listed as editpress@wiredmag.com. I trust that the main e-mail as listed in Bacon’s — Cision; hate the new name — is not going to Chris’ inbox. If it is, then that’s a problem, eh?

And it says mail, as in snail mail. That’s great. The guy says he doesn’t even want an e-mail. Why? I bet it’s because it’s too simple to send him crapola when using e-mail. Here’s an idea: Actually hand-write him a note. A technology editor pitched with a hand-written note — that’s rich. But the point is, he’s eventually going to “black-list” folks that way, too, by never opening his paper mail again. It’s the message that matters, not the medium.

5. The media are changing. PR folks, maybe you don’t need these publishers anyway. If you have a good story, tell it yourself. Tell it by being a part of the discussion on the Web, and if the publishers want to write about that content, then they will find you. I’ve seen this work first-hand: no pitches, no calls, no lists. Just follow up between reporter and client directly as a result of blogs or podcasts. Let whoever wants it come and get it. PR is dead. Long live PR.

6. There are great PR firms on this list: Weber Shandwick, Fleishman-Hillard, Edelman, Tunheim. I’m sure they have opportunities to break stories. Is Wired the only outlet? Of course not. Perhaps Fast Company will get the first call the next time one of these firms has an interesting story. In the old days, it was said that you shouldn’t argue with the guy who buys ink by the barrel.

Well, Times — I mean, times — have changed, and now lots of people buy bandwidth by the megabit. If you’re really upset about this public chastisement, there are plenty of ways to re-evalaute the media landscape. While I don’t necessarily recommend this option, it sure might give some people satisfaction.

7. A warning to those PR pros pounding their chests about not being on the list and condemning those that were: If it’s open season on any person and any e-mail, it can be you next week in some other blog. Yes, there is a lesson here and it may be this: Who needs PR firms if they are going to make a mistake that some intern inside a company trying to get free press would make?

8. On the other side of number 7 is this: Only use PR firms who have relationships. Really? You mean that even if your client has a garbage story, your buddy Chris is going to write about it? I mean, you have a relationship, don’t you?

Crazy, isn’t it? If it were only about relationships, then, as a result of Anderson’s post, PR rates should double for those firms who claim to have them.

On that issue, I found a disclosure on Chris Anderson’s blog that is noteworthy:

The list of my potential and real conflicts is impossibly long and I find it arbitrary to only list the conflicts that involve money (such as a paid speaking gig), since the friendships are much more likely to influence me. So for those of you who care about such things, be forewarned: I don’t follow (or believe in) j-school standards of impartiality. The only thing I will promise is that I have no financial stake in the future prospects of companies I write about, which means no investments of any kind in them. If I praise them it will be because I’m honestly impressed, not because I hope to share in their financial success.

Chris doesn’t follow (or believe in) j-school standards of impartiality and his friendships are much more likely to influence him. Hmmm — good to know.

One last note here: Chris Perkett, president of Perkett PR, outlines how one of her firm’s people ended up on the list in this comment on Chris’ original post. If the story is true, then including this person on the black-list is just not right. While being frustrated is understandable, including someone that has had an e-mail exchange with him in the past is wrong.

To Chris Perkett: Well said, though I don’t think it will do much good.

We have a new account executive on staff to lend us a hand — two, actually.

We at Provident Partners have increased our workforce by 50 percent with the recent hire of Kirsten Johnson as an account executive.

Kirsten is a recent graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She previously worked in public relations for the Nebraska Soybean Board. Her addition to the Provident Partners staff means big things for this growing agency, which is at the forefront of integrating traditional, multimedia and social media PR tactics for clients.

Our boss (founder and president), Albert Maruggi, had this to say:

“I’ve been in this business for 25 years –- in front of the camera and in the inner circle of communication strategy sessions. Today we’re witnessing a sea-change in the way our society, its members and its institutions communicate, learn and interact.

“I call this the ‘trans-’ era: trans-media, trans-generation, trans-location. This era calls for the right combination of traditional marketing communications, true public relations and new-media strategies. Kirsten’s strong writing, new media savvy, and unique perspective of potential solutions for clients is a perfect fit for the Provident Partners culture.”

Kirsten, a native of Roseville, Minn., has also worked for Swanson Russell Associates, a 75-person public relations agency in Lincoln, Neb. Her recent work with colleagues in a senior campaign class, for which Johnson served as PR director, was honored with a “Marketing Maverick” award from the Lincoln chapter of the American Marketing Association.

“With this 50 percent increase in our workforce, we expect our productivity to increase by about 100 percent,” Maruggi said. “In all seriousness, with everything that’s happening on the Web and with these new media tools, communication and marketing are changed for good. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take our work seriously. And to that end, we’re delighted to have Kirsten aboard.”