Summer is great - the sun is out (even here in Glasgow), the barbecues are sizzling and the holiday feeling is everywhere. We might be facing an economic downturn, but the people will be damned if they’ll let it prevent them taking their summer break!

Of course, the holiday vibe can make things a bit challenging for those back in the office, especially for PR folk, who depend so much on stakeholder responses to help move projects forward. July and August can be a time when the best laid PR plans can end up being thrown out the window as a key spokesperson, reporter or analyst zooms off for a well-earned break, leaving a germinating news release or story pitch floating in limbo until their return.

But just because your most pressing work item has stalled, there must be other things that you can turn your attention to this summer. Here are a few that spring to mind:

- Look beyond the current stage in the process, is there work that can be addressed that is not dependent on your stalled step? Dealing with future items now will help things breeze through when things get moving again.

- Water the plants. Summer isn’t fun for everyone.

- Start looking towards the inevitably manic period that will occur in the September/October timeframe. Whatever preparations you make now will help you cope with the whirlwind that is to come.

- Buy ice cream for your colleagues and bring a bit of summer into the office.

- Use the time to get in touch with some of your key media contacts that you haven’t had time to chat with for a while. While they may also be away, there’s a good chance you’ll catch a few of them in the office, and these conversations can often yield some interesting opportunities.

- If you’re having meetings, why not try and arrange to have them at an outside location? Seems a shame to be stuck in meeting rooms when the sun is beating down outside.

- Develop some kick-ass pitches. Revisiting messaging and coming up with some new story ideas is always a good thing to do, especially if you have a little extra time on your hands.

- Write a blog post about it. Nuff said, really!

Technorati Tags: public relations, vacation time, planning, managing workflow

Since joining the inmedia team after almost a decade working in traditional media, I’ve been somewhat bemused by all the talk in the blogosphere of the impact of social media. Traditional media is withering away, some would have us think, in favour of content driven by the people for the people. The mass communication tools of Web 2.0 (whatever that really is) have empowered citizen journalism like nothing else could.

It’s the next generation of that same old video-killed-the-radio-star debate that’s been going on since, well, the advent of video. I heard it when I went back to school for journalism in the late 1990s. I lived it for eight years at a weekly business publication where the web wasn’t considered a threat, but a boon in the daily challenge of keeping on top of breaking news when your product hit the street only once a week. In that context, the web was the great equalizer. We enjoyed consistent, strong web traffic because our readers saw the paper as a trusted source of news and insight that was relevant to them.

I’ve blogged on this before, that being viewed as a trusted source of news will become even more important, not less so, in this age of citizen journalism. There is no doubt that traditional media is being forced to give some ground before a new challenger, but for the forseeable future they will co-exist.

This fact is readily apparent when one looks at the reach and influence of the trade and industry press that we target for our media outreach efforts on behalf of clients. As I write this, I’m in the final days of assuming Linda’s responsibilities before she heads off on maternity leave. The number of newsletters she subscribes to in order to keep her finger on the pulse of the news and issues relevant to her clients is astonishing. These are influential and widely read publications that we can’t afford to ignore if we are to provide the high degree of client service that inmedia prides itself on. And yes, there are influential bloggers among them, but many of those bloggers are still journalists working for a traditional media channel.

While the death of traditional media has been exaggerated, so too has the demise of traditional public relations and marketing efforts. In fact, shops like Social Media Group and Livingston Communications purport to focus exclusively on social media marketing and communications. In announcing the merger of the two agencies this week, Livingston CEO Geoff Livingston told PRWeek that agencies that attempt to provide both social and traditional media outreach end up selling their clients short because doing both “hampers their thinking.”

Huh?

That’s brand positioning speak if I ever heard it. Maybe I’m old-school and my perspective on the matter betrays archaic thinking, but I still think all these channels that fall under the heading of “social media” are just another set of tools to be integrated into a larger public relations and marketing strategy, not a strategy in and of themselves to be focused on to the exclusion of all else. And wiser souls much more savvy with this stuff than I agree. You engage with one or more of these channels because it makes sense to do so, because you’ve been able to confirm that they will allow you to engage in a fresh and impactful way with a specific segment of your community you have deemed important to your business growth and development. It must be much more than “let’s do social media because it’s all the rage right now,” or “drop Facebook, I’ve heard about this new thing called Twitter.” 

Bottom line, no one knows for sure how the prevalence of social media will impact traditional media, or traditional public relations for that matter, over the long term. But even the telegram is still around, so that should tell us something. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that the message remains more important than the medium and being able to create a clear and impactful message will always be key.

Technorati Tags: media, social media, public relations, citizen journalism

I was intrigued last week when the Marketing Profs newsletter opened my eyes to the fact that so-called “Generation Y” appears to love direct snail mail. Given how “plugged in” younger people are these days, this seems utterly counterintuitive, but it is indeed the case. One wouldn’t assume that amongst the electronics that are so prevalent in young people’s lives, they’re keeping their coupons clipped, but indeed it sounds as though this can be an effective way to reach this audience. Certainly more relevant information for those marketing a consumer play, but as entrepreneurs get younger and more skilled young people rise through the ranks in the workforce, it’s a good idea for those in the B2B space to be conscious of the habits of this age group as increasingly they are decision makers in the business world.

Marketing to different age groups has indeed been a hot topic in the marketing newsletters of late, as the Daily Dog also pointed to a piece on bridging the generational gaps with PR programs at the end of last week. It’s important, regardless of what you’re marketing, to be conscious of your audience and implement the marketing activities and methods that are most likely to bring about success. Perhaps these articles will provide you with some insight into your market and how best to reach them.

Technorati Tags: demographics, marketing

In previous posts, we have made fleeting reference to the changes in our business since we each began our PR careers and also to our interest in clean technology and protecting the environment in other ways. A post in today’s MarketingProfs newsletter marries those two topics together and therefore resonates with us.

When I was involved in more consumer focused media relations and publicity, there was, at the time, a requirement for hard copy press kits by the hundreds that were packaged together with the consumer goods we were offering up for review, sent out by mail, by courier and offered up at media events. As time wore on and as technology and how people accessed and consumed information changed, we gradually got away from hard copy photos and press kits in favour of electronic versions. Although it was not with environmental considerations in mind at the time, upon reflection, there was indeed a monumentous reduction in the amount of paper and energy used to distribute the relevant media materials.

Fast forward to present day, when technology is even more pervasive in our lives. I honestly have a difficult time recollecting the last time that I put together a hard copy media kit, but can confidently say that it was at least several years ago. It’s great that our industry has moved, or is making the move, to be more environmentally friendly, whether it’s a conscious effort or a happy by-product of the changing way in which media gets its information.

Technorati Tags: environment, public relations

Over at ReadWriteWeb, there’s an interesting discussion underway about the concept of a “community manager” and the need for this entity early on at a startup company.

The question, however, is whether this job description is simply an extension of the PR department or a separate, if complimentary, position. In addition, in the early days of a startup, how much money should be devoted to this kind of role when cash is scarce and the company founder should be taking a leading role in cultivating the company’s community?

If you look at any component of a comprehensive and strategic public relations strategy, having a person dedicated to a particular role or set of responsibilities is definitely more effective than a scattergun approach in which one person is challenged to wear several different hats. In addition, how you manage relationships with your community should also be conveyed in a philosophy that is permeated throughout the entire culture of your organization at every level.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: startup, management, public relations, community relations, community manager

Media monitoring is a function of every PR firm, but how comprehensive a service are you getting? There are a hundred and one services and solutions out there, but each comes at a cost and, for the average PR firm, there isn’t an unlimited budget for such things.

We use a few tools that, when combined, provide a fairly comprehensive report on clients’ coverage. However, there are still some pieces of coverage that aren’t always picked up on, typically in niche publications without much web content.

The best form of media monitoring is knowing where your coverage is likely to appear and keeping an eye open for it - although this is admittedly less practical for coverage of news announcements, where monitoring tools really come into their own.

Ensuring you are subscribed to the more niche publications on your target list should cover the possibility that your tools and services miss something. Of course, this becomes less practical if you are monitoring coverage that is occurring all across the globe.

Ultimately, you have to achieve a level of media monitoring accuracy that is acceptable to you and your clients, at a reasonable budget, while understanding that there may be some pieces that will slip through untracked.

If anyone has any particular tools and services or combinations that they have found to work particularly well in terms of effective monitoring, I’d be interested to hear from you. 

Technorati Tags: media monitoring, public relations

My wife and I were listening this morning to a local CBC radio story about a filmmaker who had invested very large sums in the production of short video clips intended for viewing online or on mobile devices. I was only half listening, so please excuse the lack of more precise details. The point is that he was quoted as being “hopeful” that an arrangement he had forged with Canadian ISP Sympatico would eventually pay dividends for him if his content drove higher viewer numbers that, in turn, drove higher ad revenues for Sympatico.

Good luck, my wife commented, adding that the nut of getting web content to pay is still, to a very large degree, yet to be reliably cracked. Besides adwords, what’s your play?

Well, for some time now, I’ve been hearing about the growth of internet advertising, especially its growth outside adwords. Our family breakfast discussion this morning was timely given a research report out of IDC just today that said, “Worldwide spending on Internet advertising will total $65.2 billion in 2008, which represents nearly 10% of all ad spending across all media.” The researchers went on to predict, “this share will reach 13.6% by 2011 as Internet ad spending grows to $106.6 billion worldwide.”

This is good news for our filmmaker and others seeking to monetise their content through advertising revenue. Still, IDC said, spending on display ads would not outstrip spending on adwords anytime soon, with display ads expected to account for only 20% of all online ad revenues, compared to fully 33% for adwords and just a shade ahead of the 19% share claimed by classified advertising.

This, I believe, is where internet advertising is missing the boat. And it’s a point I have not heard made by most of those talking about advertising on this medium.

Research consistently shows that as much as 80% of the purchase decision-making process takes place within one metre of the product itself; in other words, in the store aisle while the consumer is eyeballing her or his array or choices. At that critical stage, most advertising is but a dim memory.

The internet is the only place, outside of in-store or point-of-purchase advertising, where the opportunity to promote a product lives cheek-by-jowl with the ability to actually purchase the product. This incredibly powerful cohabitation of promotional message with the product itself is the very force behind the planet’s most successful e-commerce sites such as Amazon, but it is a force seemingly only dimly understood by too many of today’s online advertisers who fail to grasp that the internet is not just a medium, it’s also a marketplace.

Until these two elements come together — medium and marketplace — the full potential of internet advertising will not be realised and our local filmmaker will never become rich.

Technorati Tags: internet advertising, adwords

This morning on my way into the office, I saw about 50 grown men (sad to say there wasn’t a female among them) camped out outside a Rogers store to be the first to get their hands on an iPhone 3G, available today for the first time in Canada. The long line ups and eager anticipation extend beyond Canada’s borders as the new version of the phone has some additional bells and whistles that have Mac-philes and the hoi polloi alike very excited.

When I saw the faithful gathered this morning in aim of a common goal, I was reminded of “back in the day” when, prior to the internet, I lined up for hours and hours to buy concert tickets at the local Ticketmaster outlet. That situation, like this, was a “you snooze, you lose” proposition as I’m confident in saying that it’s doubtful that the little Rogers stand in the Rideau Center has enough iPhones on hand to meet the demand and only those brave souls who were in line prior to the store’s opening are likely to be entirely unproductive today at their jobs as they play with their new toys.

My point, and I do have one, is that the buzz surrounding this product has reached a fever pitch, and that people who perhaps have never had a mobile phone, let alone a whiz-bang PDA like the iPhone, are chomping at the bit to get their hands on one. This not only increases the demand for mobile applications, but also means that a whole lot more people will be using Canada’s wireless infrastructure, not to mention entering the world of constant accessibility.

As PR practitioners, we have to be constantly available to our clients. One never knows if and when breaking news could hit and we need to respond to it immediately or switch into crisis mode at a moment’s notice. To that end, the introduction of the iPhone to our team has been wonderful - allowing each of us to have access to our email and the internet no matter when it is, no matter where we are. As Francis has said on occasion, yes, it’s a leash, but it enables us to take vacations and be out of the office, if need be, yet still be plugged in. The trick, then, becomes unplugging, not checking your email as soon as you awaken and as the last thing at night. Oh, who am I kidding - we all do that anyway, regardless of whether we’re using our computers or our iPhones to connect.

To those of you who are just getting your first iPhone today, congratulations and enjoy. I think the employers of the world must have come together to encourage this release on the last day of the workweek in the hope that the anticipated lost productivity would be limited to a sunny Friday and people will spend the weekend, off the company clock, experimenting with their new gadgets.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, connectivity

Almost exactly 10 months after publishing our very first blog post on September 14 last year, here we are celebrating post number 250! It’s been a fascinating journey of learning and experimentation, and I’d like to share some of that with you today.

If 250 posts in 10 months means we’ve written about 25 posts per month, then we have slightly bested our target of averaging one post per business day. There have been a few thin weeks along the way as client requirements dominated our time, but in the main, we have achieved what we set out to do by way of posting frequency.

Our best-practices posts, which highlight a particular part of our media relations practice, often using a client case study as illustration, are among our most consistently read posts. Such posts were a key part of our editorial strategy for the blog.

We have been less successful achieving two other parts of the editorial strategy. We have written fewer pieces that comment on what’s going on in the wider world in which our clients live, and we have had many fewer guest posts than originally hoped for. Both these targets are a function of not having a dedicated blog editor spending the kind of hours necessary to find stuff for our writers to comment on and recruiting posts from our clients and others in our network.

Our readership, after growing quite rapidly over the first two months, has averaged about 650 visitors per month, on top of our roughly 100 RSS and email subscribers. (This latter number ebbs and flows a bit but continues to grow steadily by about 10 a month.)

Our internal objective was to have more than 1,000 visitors at the one-year mark. We hit 793 site visitors last month, and topped 800 at least once, so I think we are well on our way.

More to the point, though, is what our blog has done for our organic search engine rankings. Even by month three, we were seeing extraordinary improvements, going from could-not-be-found to top-50, top-20 and, in many important areas, even top-10 results for the kinds of searches we believe prospects run when looking for a PR company. We have yet to be able to link a new piece of business directly to such a search, but we know that many prospects have read our blog and are impressed by what they see there.

We could do a much better job of building out the links that would make us a more active part of the extensive community of bloggers who write about public relations and technology marketing. Again, having an editor with more time to devote to this would improve our effectiveness.

Now, the tough part. Has it been worth the investment?

Well, I said at the outset that I would hold off on hard ROI calculations until we had a full year under our belts. I can say that it is a very expensive proposition maintaining a blog with so much original content. We are timekeepers, so I know exactly how much this costs. I’ll keep that amount under wraps for now but will say that anyone who believes Web 2.0 tactics like blogging are free or low-cost either ain’t doing it right or ain’t counting up all the costs.

Speaking just for myself, I have thoroughly enjoyed once again having an outlet (pulpit? soapbox?) for my views on certain subjects. I know many others around here have equally enjoyed being able to share their views and opinions. From that perspective, it has been very worthwhile.

Bottom line: We see value here and we intend to continue. Thank you for joining us, and keep coming back.

Technorati Tags: blogging, web traffic, web metrics, public relations, technology marketing, Web 2.0 

Oh nuts

A few weeks ago in a blog titled, The interview is never over, Francis talked about how one should never assume an interview with a journalist (or a blogger) is over until said journalist is out of earshot.

In the age of citizen journalism and the blogosphere, those ready with a notepad or tape recorder aren’t as easy to identify as they once were, so it behooves anyone concerned about how their comments and opinions can impact not only their image but that of their organization to avoid provocative, off-the-cuff remarks. Bottom line, if you don’t want to see it in print, don’t say it. And that doesn’t apply only to your discussions in public, it also applies to comments made in a public place where there could be a recording device lurking nearby.

Case in point, last night The New York Post featured the headline Jesse Jackson says he wants to cut Obama’s ‘nuts out’. Unfortunately the good reverend, who once aspired to be the first black U.S. president, made the comments off camera in a TV studio and failed to realize a microphone nearby was recording.

Tapping into the brain trust

In recent meetings with a new client, we discussed the wealth of knowledge stored in the grey matter of the company’s chief tech guy. We talked about the value of being able to tap into this resource to position the client with the media as a thought leader in its space.  This is an excellent way to maintain media exposure and interest for a client when there are no major corporate announcements in the pipeline. Editors and journalists are always looking for subject matter experts to comment on trends and issues.

The challenge, of course, is getting this busy executive engaged in the process of expelling his knowledge, perspective and cutting insight onto paper or a corporate blog.

It’s a common problem. At the PR Communications blog, author John Cass offers some tips on how to kickstart the process from his book, Strategies and Tools for  Corporate Blogging.

You’re boring, other people aren’t

Lastly, there’s the issue of networking. Some people are natural social butterflies for whom it comes naturally. For introverts like me, it’s a skill that requires practice and focused effort. Regardless of whether or not it comes easy, it’s a necessary business development tool that must be mastered, regardless of whether you’re a hack, a flack, or an executive of a start-up seeking potential partners, customers, investors and employees.

Piaras Kelly on his blog offers some insights of his own on how people can overcome their inherent aversion to networking at gatherings and make the most of the business development opportunity before them. One obvious tip: talking about yourself is boring, talking about others is interesting.

Technorati Tags: media relations, thought leaders, thought leadership, networking, business development, blogging, corporate blogging, New York Post, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, John Cass