First Person PR

Side note — clearly, I’m catching up on my reading :)

BtoB Magazine has a great piece in this week’s issue, “Introducing the Next Generation of Tech Marketing,” that’s worth the read. It talks about several social media tools and technologies that you may already be familiar with, as well as a few to start playing around with: widgets (I love the Facebook app on the iPhone), social feeds, data portability, mashups and open mobile. Granted, some probably fall into the marketing camp, but they’re still worth looking at.

Also in this week’s issue is a short piece on how large companies are embracing social media, like official Facebook groups. It’s not rocket science, but they’re good snippets to have in your back pocket in case any exec says “no one’s doing this.”

We in PR talk a lot about the blurring lines between traditional and new media. We’re constantly trying to determine if we’re working with a journalist leveraging blogging for real-time reporting, a citizen journalist using blogging to act as a reporter, or a blogger acting as a journalist to drive traffic to the blog. Unfortunately, sometimes the blogger’s journalistic persona changes as often as the weather. Kara Swisher provides a great example of the difference between journalist bloggers and non-journalist bloggers.

Greg Jarboe wrote a great piece a few weeks ago on SearchEngineWatch.com called “Measuring PR in cold, hard cash.” He talked about the need to “measure public relations in both PR outputs and business outcomes.” The article resonated with me because I spent most of the last six weeks trying to do just that.I’ve been all over the web looking at case studies and searching for ways to quantify – in business terms – the results of my PR program. I actually found some great ideas and will be sharing that in a post this week. But first, I want to talk about what I didn’t do.

In the midst of my digging for ideas to map PR results to business outcomes, I received a direct mail piece from a NY-based PR firm claiming last year they “achieved an average ROI of 500% on behalf of its clients.” It’s quite a claim and it definitely caught my attention. But then the letter went on to claim that “for every dollar [X PR company's clients] paid for public relations, they would have had to have spent at least five times that much to achieve similar results with advertising.”

(sigh)

Okay folks, I know a lot of PR people fall back on the advertising value equivalent as a measure of success. As an industry, we struggle to attach dollar figures to our results – something that the c-suite wants. So I can understand the appeal of this comparison. But it is flawed on so many levels.

First, let’s accept that a comparison chart is not proof of ROI. ROI, as you know, means return on investment. Specifically, it’s defined as: the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. The key words in that sentence are money gained. NOT money saved. NOT money that could have been spent elsewhere. Simply, money gained. To show true ROI on a PR program, you’ll need to attribute sales to that program. When the amount of sales exceeds the entire cost of the program, you’ve got positive ROI. Of course, this is difficult to track specifically to PR, so the PR person who can demonstrate ROI is few and far between.

Assuming you accept all of the last paragraph, I’ll admit I can still see the why folks try to show that PR is more cost efficient than advertising – because many times we must compete for the same finite budget. That’s where the practice of calculating advertising value equivalents comes into play. This is the practice of measuring the relative size of an article, mapping that to the cost of a similarly sized ad in the same publication, and then claiming that the article was worth the same amount of the cost of an ad.

Even if you’re trying to show why budget should be allocated to PR over advertising, it’s still a very flawed practice for oh-so-many reasons. First and foremost, ads are created by the company. That means they’re on message, positive in nature, typically have a call to action and the company in the headline, and don’t mention the competition, except to bash them. How much of your editorial coverage fits that exact description? Exactly, so you can see how quickly the comparison falls apart. Also consider how much an ad on the front cover of BusinessWeek would cost, since it’s impossible to get. Or the value of PR results in the form of analyst endorsements, industry awards, speaking opportunities, and even a presence in the blogosphere. How much would advertising there cost? You get my point. (For a great list on why this method is incredibly flawed, check out this post.)

I still agree with Jarboe that we must start mapping PR outputs to business outcomes, but we can’t take the easy look-at-how-great-these-numbers-are way. We also can’t simply push coverage numbers and call it a day. I think the right answer is a hybrid of good ol’ fashioned PR results, such as coverage and industry accolades, measured against business outcomes, like increased traffic or leads, with a quality overlay to account for improved perception. I’ve been experimenting with several ways to do that (with zero budget), and will present those in my next post for your feedback. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I’m hoping as an industry we can figure it out (and soon).

Today’s news that Marketwire has revolutionized the social media release caught my eye. In case you haven’t seen it, Marketwire is integrating social media components into their newswire.

However, I don’t think this “Social Media 2.0″ is going to be the press release’s salvation, because it’s still plagued by bad, buzzword-laden writing. For example, take the second sentence of the release, where I think Marketwire is trying to say something about distribution:

Social Media 2.0 advances today’s press release format, offers public relations professionals a multitude of content options, and distributes news in a variety of mediums to distribution channels beyond traditional media distribution networks.

I also think there’s some subtle irony to a social media release — designed to reach online users who frequently embed links in their text and know to click on a hyperlink — using the phrase “click here” so many times (Perhaps last night’s Patriots loss has me a little extra snarky).

If you can get beyond the actual release, I do think this is good news for the PR world (assuming they aren’t charging an arm and a leg for it). I’m particularly interested in the assortment of tagging and tracking capabilities. But, as a profession, we still need to work on the quality of our release writing. Otherwise, we’re just putting lipstick — and new distribution — on a very ugly pig.

Everyone’s talking about last night’s 60 Minutes interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. I watched it and came away thinking “what a wasted, multi-million dollar PR opportunity.”

The piece started out sounding like an early Valentine for Zuckerberg, but then it turned into an uncomfortable — and sometimes painful — interview. I won’t spend much time on his actual performance — it’s safe to say that he’s in desperate need of some media training. Even Lesley Stahl interjected at one point that Zuckerberg has been described as being awkward.

More than his uncomfortable performance, I was really surprised that Facebook/Zuckerberg squandered such a huge opportunity. I flinched each time he was thrown an excellent transition question and he missed it. For example, here are a few key topics that he didn’t insert into the interview:

1. For all it’s hype, Facebook is still the #2 social network behind MySpace. Why would I join Facebook over MySpace? I’ll admit I was waiting (and hoping) for a slam about MySpace’s multiple cameos on Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” … but they never came. I was expecting to hear Facebook’s value vis-a-vis MySpace, though.
2. No really, why do I want to join Facebook? Early on, Lesley got excited when a former colleague reconnected with her after setting up her profile — which gave him a perfect segue to throw out a dozen other examples of people reconnecting, business people networking, or even someone finding their college sweetheart. Anything beyond Scrabble? Given the demographics of 60 Minutes’ viewers, I was particularly expecting to hear a few reasons why the Gen X and Boomer generations should join. Instead, he talked about Scrabble. Now, I love the Scrabble app just as much as Zuckerberg apparently does. Unfortunately that’s about the only use I’ve found for Facebook so far, and I was waiting for him change that.
3. Can a 23 year old really run a $15 billion company (setting aside that it’s not actually worth that, for a moment)? Lesley brought this up a few times, and Zuckerberg’s three word answers didn’t cut it. Why not point to how quickly the company is growing? Why not talk about him solidifying funding and Microsoft’s investment? Surely there could have been a FEW examples to address this. Why not point to what he’s already accomplished as CEO?
4. Is Zuckerberg really a visionary? This one came up a few times, most notably when he was compared to the Google Gazillionaires. What a great opportunity to talk about where he sees Facebook going, how innovative the company is vs. other hot startups, etc. Yet, we got nothing.
5. Was all the bad publicity wrong about Beacon and Facebook’s ads? With this one, Zuckerberg gave a little answer, but I don’t think “Facebook needs to pay its employees” was the right answer. I’ll grant him that it’s a legitimate reason to start monetizing Facebook’s audience, but he should have given several other, much more compelling, reasons. And then immediately followed those with an explanation about how/why the privacy concerns of Facebook users have been addressed.
6. Why should Facebook employees feel proud about working for him? At any point, Zuckerberg could have talked about how revolutionary/innovative/etc. the company was, but he didn’t. I don’t even remember him smiling when he spoke about the team working for him.
7. What’s next? I wasn’t expecting to hear any product news, but Zuckerberg could have thrown in a few teaser comments to keep me interested in Facebook in the coming months.

As I write this, I wonder how involved Facebook’s PR team was with this opportunity. From my vantage point, either Facebook doesn’t view PR as a strategic component to the company’s success, or Zuckerberg is a classic example of a CEO who thinks he knows PR and won’t take guidance. Or, he needs a new PR team. Regardless, I think the entire Facebook team botched a huge opportunity last night that might not come his way again.

What did you think of the interview?

Today, I was struck by a major difference between working for a PR agency and doing PR inhouse — perspective.

I’ve talked about how great the camaraderie is at an agency, and it’s still something I miss. But I realized today that in-house PR folks are exposed to so many more perspectives about a company than an outsourced agency could ever be.For example, I sit next to a team of people focused on client retention. I hear their calls all day to existing customers, and get to hear some interesting conversations. Internal planning meetings typically include an interesting sampling of people across job functions who all represent different stakeholders (our customers, our technology, our investors). It’s fascinating to hear how everything affects everyone else.

At the same time, people with such varied backgrounds bring entirely new perspectives to any conversation. The questions are different, the thought processes are different, the examples of what has worked are different. I find that it brings a new level of understanding and access to the PR program that I don’t believe you can get over the phone.

I will say that I think agency PR people benefit from a different type of perspective. I loved working with multiple VPs because I found they all approached problems from a different perspective. And while the fundamental programs were relatively similar, each one offered a unique view. Mix in the ability to work on multiple clients across industries (something I craved — having completely different clients kept things interesting), and you’re presented with yet another perspective. Often, I’d brainstorm ideas and challenges with multiple people just to see their different approaches. Ultimately, looking at a problem five different ways becomes a great asset.

I’m still not ready to say one is better than the other, but more I do the more I realize just how different they are.

Happy 2008!

It’s been several days (22, to be exact) since I posted, and several weeks since I’ve posted regularly. In fact, right about the time that Chris had his public “i hate stupid pr people” meltdown, I basically stopped blogging. I’m not sure why, but all of a sudden the blogosphere felt like a Mean Girls sequel and I didn’t want to participate.

So I stopped. But I didn’t go away — I caught up on several books I wanted to read, I found several lesser known blogs that I now follow, and for once, I started watching my traffic. I mean really paying attention to your every click on First Person PR. I learned a lot about you, my readers, as well as about myself and where I want to take my blog. Now, please allow me to join every other blogger to share some lessons learned and how those lessons formed my blogging resolutions for 2008:

1. My traffic and subsequent new RSS subscribers grew more after I stopped posting. At first, this was bothersome. But then I noticed that a very small subset of my posts were getting all the new traffic. Ah yes, my friends, I found out there really is a long tail! Want to know what the common theme was on those top traffic getting posts? If you guess social media, you’re wrong. Instead, my five most original post topics (i.e. – those not building on an existing blog thread/conversation already taking place) delivered more new readers than all the other posts combined. With that, 2008 blogging resolution #1 is to focus my posts on unique topics.
2. I also started paying attention to the linking habits of my existing subscribers (I admit: all this tracking felt a little Big Brother-ish). Not surprisingly, any post relating first-hand experience compelled many of you to jump out of your feed reader and onto my blog. I’m honestly not sure there’s value in having you actually click onto the site if you’re a faithful reader, but those same post topics directly correlate to the most popular search terms sending traffic my way. Could that be word of mouth marketing at play? My key take away here is that you’re most interested in hearing what works and what doesn’t, and how the agency and corporate PR worlds differ. Which means 2008 blogging resolution #2 is to share my first person experiences (get it? I’m being clever…).
3. During my self-invoke hiatus, I spent more time talking with fellow bloggers. I mean really talking — at events and via email. The conversations were both interesting and educational (fortunately, I took notes for future posts because many of these discussions address my first resolution). Those conversations reminded me how important networking still is. I think many bloggers fall into a trap of cross-linking without ever actually interacting. Could some of these conversations taken place in the comments section of our blogs? Probably. But I think the end result was more valuable to me. So 2008 blogging resolution #3 is to remember to that the best networking requires an actual connection be made.
4. And finally, 2008 blogging resolution #4 is to comment more on other blogs. True, this isn’t based on a lesson, and it doesn’t help resolution #3. But, I enjoy reading your comments so I need to pass that on.

Since my resolutions are meant to improve my blog, if there’s something you’d like to see more (or less) of, please let me know!

Last week, I attended the SNRC’s Annual Research Symposium in Boston. It was an interesting day, with the majority of the agenda focused on communications professionals presenting real world case studies (refreshing).

I was planning to digest the content and then write a few smart posts, but figured I’d share what I took away from the event (my notes might jump a bit).

Panel: New Media, New Influencers & Implications for the PR Profession

This panel had several prominent bloggers – including Paul Gillin and John Cass – presenting case studies from companies they’ve interviewed in the last year about corporate blogging.

Pulling from their examples and the discussion, here’s the list of what seemed to work well for corporate and CEO blogs:

• Allow the blog to reflect the company’s/CEO’s personality
• Focus on building an audience by mixing thought leadership topics with more personal topics (not updates on your children, but rather iTune playlists, the Red Sox vs. Yankees, etc.)
• Interview other industry experts – even competitors if it’s relevant
• Feature an ongoing quiz or survey to maintain traffic
• Update three times a week to improve SEO
• Comment on OTHER blogs to truly engage the audience
• And finally, measure success across several dynamics (traffic, comments, etc.)

That said, in order to measure success, you need to have an early consensus on the blog’s goal. Then, make sure you’re measuring the relevant factors. For example:

• If the goal is career advancement, measure levels of recognition
• If the goal is to build a community, track the level of engagement with comments, guest posts and feedback sections
• If the goal is to drive sales, track leads and $$$
• If the goal is thought leadership, track the increase in press interviews, speaking invitations, etc.

Presentation: The Blogging Power Continuum (Joseph Carrabis)

This presentation fascinated me because it was based on a project that took super smart brain scientists (my terminology for them), threw in some quantum physics (or something equally technical) and then applied that science to analyze a subset of the blogosphere. In all seriousness, Joseph talked about a research project he’s conducting that takes a very scientific approach to measuring conversation across multiple aspects in the blogosphere (he even claims that they called the last presidential election). As an experiment, his team looked at the current presidential candidates’ blogs, including comment strings, and then mapped which ones were driving conversations and which ones were following conversations.

Out of that research, Joseph shared the following advice (some we already knew – but now it’s backed by fact):

• What is power about in the blogosphere? Respect.
• The most flexible communicators have the most “power” in the blogosphere because they can explain ideas to the masses and therefore have broader reach.
• How do you gain power in the blogosphere? You gamble:
  • Give credit where it is due
  • Admit your mistakes
  • Manage your discussion (think of your audience as clients)
  • Be honest
  • Lead the discussion
  • Explain everything
• How do you share power (and you must share power to maintain it … “give a little to keep a lot”)
  • Recognize other’s authority and experience
  • Accept chastisement graciously
  • Never argue (not to be confused with discussion. As Joseph said, “Inquiry, discussion and explanation come from differences.”)
  • Be willing to learn
  • Encourage the discussion
  • Never cover

Panels: Award Winning Case Studies

Several panelists shared case studies of social media in action, including a first hand account of the Coke/Mentos video. A lot of this was consumer-focused and interesting, but one comment really caught my attention (I don’t remember who said it): “Embracing social media and traditional outreach together creates a ‘PR Loop Effect’ that ultimately compounds the effect/result.”

Presentation: Social Media Global Trends

Shel Israel gave the closing presentation which shared highlights from a global survey on social media he conducted with SAP. It was a great presentation and he posted the report in a few sections on his blog, which is definitely worth the read. Below are the seven lessons Shel shared with us.

1. Social media is kids’ stuff
2. Social networks is the killer app
3. Culture matters. Language matters.
4. Measurement is improving, but it’s still unclear what to measure.
5. The geek-to-suit gap is shortening. Kids overtaking geeks.
6. Lose control to gain influence.
7. The world is not yet flat, but it is getting hillier.

Shel’s closed the presentation by sharing his thoughts on the study and his predictions. The most notable for me was his advice to “watch the kids – they’ll lead you in the right direction.”

The folks over at The Bad Pitch Blog issued a call for the top things PR people should never say to reporters. People got creative in the comments and on Facebook, and Kevin and Richard posted a PDF with their top 10 picks. Yours truly even made the list with my suggestions (and got a little AdAge fame):

• Sorry, we’re only briefing top tier media on this news.
• We’ll give you a local exclusive on this. The WSJ is doing a piece, but we don’t view you as competitive.
• Since you didn’t cover us after our last meeting, you really owe us a story.
• I saw an interesting piece on CNET and thought you’d be interested in doing a similar story.
• No executive is available to talk about this. But it’s big news, trust me.

Check it out and make sure you add the blog to your RSS feed (seriously, it’s one of my favorite blogs — some of the pitches they post are like watching a face lift on TLC. I cringe, but I’m horrified and entertained at the same time).

And make sure you let us know if you have more suggestions to add … maybe it’ll turn into a top 50 list soon!

As follow on to my last post, here’s a great blog entry by Rohit Bhargava called, “7 Lessons On How To Be a Great Client.” It provides great advice for clients looking to build lasting relationships with PR/marketing/communications agencies.

Read Rohit’s piece for more details, but his seven key pieces of advice are:

1. Provide clear direction
2. Invite us to the table early
3. Be honest about success factors
4. Take the advice you are paying for
5. Know what you don’t know
6. Understand that changes affect timelines
7. Ask our advice

Have any others you’d like to add?