Time 23:45

Golf is like social media, when you play with good players your game gets better. In reading and conversing with colleagues like David Meerman Scott, (World Wide Rave) Geoff Livingston, (Now is Gone) and Brian Solis (Putting the Public Back in Public Relations) you are bound to come up with a few good ideas. Brian Solis and I discuss a few of them in this podcast about the changes in PR and revising your organization to address those changes.

I come to this idea of an embedded corporate journalist as the result of accepting two premises 1) The public appreciates candid companies, and 2) companies can afford and have access to all communications formats (video, audio, and print) at essentially zero cost for information distribution.

In this environment companies can be successful at public relations if they engage in public relations. That is if they view their company as part of a universe, not the center of the universe. I refer to universe here as being the larger category of which that company is a part, it could be industry, job discipline, scientific community, that kind of universe.

With this company newsroom perspective on the universe, there are considerably more opportunities to comment on news going on in the universe. Things like government regulations and economic or trade reports are fair game for you to make a newsworthy contribution. Scientific advancements, industry trends, and other events in the news are all likely examples of places to make a thoughtful contribution. This brings me to the embedded journalist.

A journalist mentality looks at the big picture and focuses in on detailed elements of the picture. It is a mentality of describing how things relate to each other, not just how things relate to buying my widget. To have this perspective inside a company in today’s environment is an asset. Over the years I have believed one of my biggest faults as a PR person was that I was a former journalist. Today I’ve reversed that belief and embrace my journalistic roots.

This perspective inside a company combined with a senior management team who embraces the two premises above, will achieve the following:

1. Greater candor and with it credibility
2. More opportunities to be heard
3. Greater exposure to audiences that are involved in your universe

A company can deploy an embed journalist in many ways, someone on staff or on contract, that’s a budget issue. The more important point here is not the journalist person per se, but the way the company looks at information in its universe. For example, during a typical staff meeting are people looking outward for opportunities to participate, not just whether you have software version 7.1 coming out or whether XYZ company just became a new client. See what is going on in the universe and match it to expertise, information, thoughtful opinions among those in the company to make a contribution. Those contributions can take many forms, blogs, comments on blogs, presentations, news releases, videos, podcasts, and many others.

And to answer the question up front, Does this mean we report negative news? Yes, objectively, fairly and without the sensational headlines to boot. See there is an upside to an embedded journalist reporting negative news, you don’t need “sky is falling” headlines to sell papers, to fight the paparazzi, or compete with alien abductions at the checkout line. Another bonus, you can tell the whole story, you just need to tell it straight.

An interesting way to do this is with Pitch Engine. It is a platform to build social media news releases and get you thinking differently about news and the other audiences that will consume that information. This is not a replacement for wire service distribution, it’s a way to build in a process to form your message in a socially-friendly way.

Sometimes I think consultants (guilty) make a big deal about little things. I appreciate the social media news release for what it is, a neat package of information that advances a point with plenty of footnotes (links, videos, images, etc) to deeper associated content that is handy if you want more information, and a way to share this information with others (social distribution e.g. Stumble Upon, Facebook, Twitter etc). It’s kind of like your thesis paper in college with footnotes, references and a bibliography. You get that paper back and you got an A. Then you share that paper with others who borrow ideas, (what! Tell me you didn’t do that in college.) add their own perspective, and now we are back to the beginning of our story – being social will improve your game.

See you at NewComm Forum

Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFFOS to get $200 off the listed price. The conference is being held April 27-29 in San Francisco.

OR

Business Smart Tools

This half day session is in Stamford, CT, I have two tickets to give away to Marketing Edge readers, be the first to email me and we’ll get you there. Send the email to MarketingEdge AT ProvidentPartners DOT net with Business Smart Tools in the subject line. This event is being held May 5.

This is a tough position. An innocent product, Smarties candies, gets used by some in a non-innocent way. Kids are crunching up the little sugary disks, sucking them in their mouths which turns into smoke Yeah a little confectionery Puff the Magic Dragon action going on for fifth graders.

The wacky experiment/stunt has other connotations that swirl around in parents’ heads, like; “today you’re puffing Smarties, tomorrow it’s a Michael Phelps bong and before you know you’ll be like Crackhead Bob.” Yes it’s not a logical progression I admit, but sometimes parents (including me) get illogical when they see kids huddled around the computer watching YouTube videos suggested to them by someone on Penguin Club about smoking Smarties. And the way some of those videos are portrayed it’s not as if the connection to smoking other items is so far fetched. Reminder: I didn’t say this was logical, I do say it’s a PR reality which is difficult to deny.

So what should the company that produces Smarties do? This issue has gone beyond “YouTube” and into mainstream media with all the hysteria that brings. In this Fox News piece, Smarties has a response statement, but on the Smarties website NOTHING. The days of the one channel, one media outlet statement are over in PR. You can’t make a story go away by believing that only the viewers of that particular program have seen the piece. It takes a lot longer and lot more luck to “Duck” a news cycle if the issue is on social media.

My recommendation is address this issue on their home page at the very least. If they want to be bolder and use the same channels being used to promote the smoking of Smarties that would be even better. The tone of their message need not rise to the level of severity as the Fox News piece. They could approach it with some humor so kids will pay attention, and a serious side so that parents will appreciate that the company is aware of situation.

Come on Smarties, get on YouTube with something creative not just some suit, talking head reading a statement written by legal.

The other tactic is do nothing, hey this has been around for a while, the more popular Smoking Smarties YouTube video was posted in December 2007. It will go away from mainstream media for sure, but you can bet the long tail of the web will have next year’s crop of fifth graders jonesin for their hit of Smarties.

Time 25:48

When people ask me what is the ROI on a social media relationship I often think of my wife. Let’s see we are married 22 years, have 5 kids that have yet to complete college, braces, went through 2 Suburbans vehicles for the last 10 years, I mean there are not many cars that can hold a family of 7. I figure financially this relationship might not be the jackpot most CFOs would appreciate.

I raise this point first because as the web becomes more social, the quantification that corporate America has come to rely on for every action seems a bit callous when it comes to time spent online. Long before the social web, plenty of sales managers said this to a less than stellar sales rep, “you seem to be playing a lot of golf with John, when is he going to sign a contract?” Perhaps the same phrase can apply when it comes to the time spent on twitter or in social communities, blogger sites, and Twitter, however, I suggest online relationships have a more complex nature than golfing with a “targeted prospect.”

In this episode of the Marketing Edge podcast, we discuss what to measure in a PR relationship with KD Paine, author of Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success It is not just about the number of press clips. Today’s measurement equation, if you have the patience for it, goes deeper in both the measured topic, and with whom to cultivate relationships around your business objectives.

Some of the tools KD uses are:

1. Buzz Logic
2. Twinfluence
3. Xinureturns

A Twitter Tip

Twitter is most noted for being a great tool to promote your cause and otherwise build relationships that are primarily focused on externalizing a message. There are other ways Twitter can be used to learn more about the market and competitive information. One of them is creating key words in www.search.twitter.com or using hashtags to attempt to collect the tweets around a topic, conference or other category you select.

Let me share a non-business example. When you are driving, do you ever go just a little bit faster when a certain song comes on? Yeah you know what I mean, so for the fun of it while on Twitter one night, I created a # (hashtag) called #Gofast which started a running dialogue about songs that make people Go Fast. I suspect a couple of insurance companies are monitoring this string right now and will update their applications to include this very question.

In this podcast, I highlight another Twitter tactic that flies under the radar which may give greater insight into what competitors are doing.

More Shout Outs

I get just a tad over the top in responding to listener comments. Apologies in advance to any friends with Boston accents, but you gotta admit, the running battle between who speaks better Bostonians or New Yorkers is pretty funny. Thanks to Kevin Newnan for the sound files used in the podcast of Boston phrases, his website The Wicked Pissah is hilarious. It hasn’t been updated in 10 years, but it still ranks high in searches for Boston Accent sound files.

Also a hat tip to the Guy’s Guide to Marketing to Women by Stephanie Holland a.k.a. Sheconomy on Twitter – I suspect this has both business and personal application (Mother’s Day is coming up and all).

Hope to See You at the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit

A terrific conference is scheduled for April 27-29 in San Francisco. It is a combination of the Society for New Communications Research of which I’m a senior fellow and the marketing conference produced by Chris Brogan, Paul Gillin and David Meerman Scott. Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFCOMBO2 to get $200 off the listed price.

Let’s connect some dots.
DOT 1 – Social media recognizes, even rewards candor and honesty.
DOT 2 – Traditional media is declining and those journalists that remain must do more in the same amount of time – God Bless You.
DOT 3 – Recession is causing executives to search for something less costly, more effective in marketing.
DOT 4 – Companies realize they are not the center of the universe, just part of it.

A recent article I wrote for Upsize Magazine, a business publication in Minnesota, received some traction yesterday on Twitter thanks to a few re-tweets, thank you for that Twitter readers. It was called “For better PR create a newsroom culture in your company.”  So I thought I’d highlight it in a blog post.

The executive summary of the article is this, with the dots I mentioned above, there is an opportunity for corporate PR to have more of a news mentality than a promotional one which will be more beneficial to the company’s communications goals. Dots 1 and 4 mean if you are less of a corporate shill and contribute to an objective conversation of issues impacting your universe, others in the online world, journalists, bloggers, customers et. al. will respond favorably.

Instead of only looking inward to pick off the low hanging PR fruit such as new product release, new hire (or recent round of layoffs), earnings (or lack thereof) report, and new client win (Oh please God), instead of that, let’s dig deeper and examine how the company appeals to a segment of the market, how it is participating in new technology standards, what is its reaction to the Obama stimulus package, or where it envisions job skills changing in their industry.

Have a heart and make it easy on everyone, build a story for multiple platforms, Dot 2. Journalists are writing blogs, hosting podcasts, and in general breaking their butts to accommodate new media. Package your content in those formats, meaning, produce a series of soundbites that can be used in a podcast, create a video (preferably not talking heads) that enhances the storyline, post a powerpoint on Slideshare with pretty charts and graphs, better yet, also have those single images available on a newspage or blog post for easy linking. Yes, this is more work, but it costs much less to do today than just a couple of years ago.

Which brings me to Dot 3, all formats are affordable, video, audio, even news distribution services (depending on which one you choose). I said affordable, not free. Sure, tools like Help a Reporter Out and Pitch Engine , and on Twitter MicroPR among others can be used at no cost, but someone needs to put this stuff together. Time is money and people still need to eat. However, shooting quality video and multi-purposing that content is a fraction of what it was. I bet for around $5000 (either time or cash) you can get a comprehensive story told in video, audio, images, and text that can be used across many platforms such as YouTube, Blip.tv (an example of a B2B video channel for enterprise software), iTunes, Flickr (just see how many people take pictures of coca cola),Utterli (a great platform for producing audio and other content) blogs, and other appropriate platforms.

Throughout the year pick off several issues and you’ll look back to see the following:

1. Better position in the market as a thought leader/player
2. More news media mentions and coverage in social media
3. More conversations about your company
4. More and better information that sales teams can use
5. Higher quality employment candidates

Put the dots together and you’ve got your self a fully functional, multimedia newsroom, ready to capitalize on issues in your universe, whether they are generated internally or externally, framed in a style that is more valuable to your audience and distributed in a channel that is likely to share your story with others. What’s your take?

Two for the Price of One Conference

An invite to attend the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit in San Francisco April 27-29. It’s a combined conference with strategic and tactical workshops on using online marketing, PR and social media. There is a line up of terrific speakers and ample opportunities to focus in on your specific questions. The NewComm Forum, sponsored by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) is colocating the forum with the sponsors of the InBound Marketing Summit making for a comprehensive event.

Marketing Edge listeners and readers, email me for a discount code at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with NewComm in the subject line.

Time 16:48

Public relations is changing before your eyes, don’t believe me, visit Help a Reporter Out a website where reporters post their inquiries for experts, guests, and story angles. Then, the site’s founder Peter Shankman emails those inquiries out morning, noon, and night. No, I’m not kidding, three times a day. In fact, I use his emails as a reminder to feed my dog. She gets a cup of food at each email and is pretty happy about it (see smiling photo). Shankman is also a pet lover who, on the HARO website, supports several animal non-profits including Best Friends Animal Society and the Search Dog Foundation, helping train dogs to locate disaster victims.

Back to public relations, you may think HARO this is similar to ProfNet or other services, and you are right, but the world of social media is changing business models and Shankman is adding value at less cost.

The way PR is changing requires change on the part of companies buying PR services and delivering those services. Practicing PR for 25 years, I’ve found the equation of PR firm and client interesting. A firm is paid by a client to advise and implement services the success of which is on a third party, reporter or blogger. In that equation I’ve always considered the journalist very similar to a client in their own unique way. They, at times had a specific need for information or at other times just a general curiosity of information I might have. Finding the match of client information and journalist need is the Golden Ticket.

Here are some points for both buyer and provider of public relations services during these changing times.

For buyers of PR services

1. Think about PR before you have a problem
2. Be a resource before you want to pitch
3. Technology speeds distribution not necessarily learning about reporters
4. Don’t just measure clips, measure the real-time way people respond to company

For PR professionals

1. No substitute for learning about reporters by studying their work (this includes bloggers!)
2. Don’t rely on any one list, (purchased or otherwise), search for journalists using social media
3. Your value is not just in pitching, nor some ancient relationship, it’s the knowledge of what will interest said reporter/blogger.
4. Don’t be afraid to advise your client to expose their talents/expertise directly to reporters via social media.

Thanks to Peter Shankman for your time, Provident Partners just donated to Best Friends – see social media does work.

HR

The Marketing Edge book contest for February is The Perfection of Marketing by James Connor, to enter the contest email me at marketingedge AT provident partners dot net and in the subject line put the word perfection.

You can get on the podcast with your questions or comments by calling 206-600-6887, we’d like to hear from you. That will make us smile.

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.