By Leo Valiquette
More often than not, clients of inmedia will set their sights on coverage in a flagship business publication like the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s or Fortune. Sometimes a client has a story that would appeal to such a prestigious publication, other times they do not. There is also the matter of whether such publications fit the bill as Tier One media targets for a specific client, but that’s a different post.
Regardless of the respect commanded by such publications, their writers and editors, struggling with fewer resources and tightened budgets, are as prone as anyone else to occasional inaccuracies and errors in their work. Perhaps they even, on occasion, fall prey to temptation and give their copy a little extra sensationalist spin to grab the attention of fickle readers.
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By Leo Valiquette
First up, a very happy New Year wish from all of us here at inmedia Public Relations.
Many of you were no doubt in the same boat as my wife and me over the holidays, at home with one or more young ones to entertain for two weeks during their break from school. Santa’s leavings only keep energetic rug rats occupied for so long. With various cousins in the west end of Ottawa all six years of age and under, the challenge for the parents was to find fun activities all could enjoy that did not involve exhaustive car trips or aimless visits to toy stores and pet shops.
So, given the vast expanse of Ottawa’s Countryside, what could we do that was easy, convenient and fun in the days leading up to Christmas Eve? Answering that question yielded an interesting example of how a business can position itself in its market niche and build goodwill with potential customers.
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By Leo Valiquette
For those of you who may have missed it, London has been a battlefield between police and tens of thousands of hostile student protesters over the past week as Britain’s coalition government targets higher education with its austerity measures intended to help with economic recovery.
Now, I don’t claim any deep knowledge of British politics, or more than a layman’s understanding of economics, but I couldn’t look at this powder keg situation without thinking that it is a sterling example of focusing too much on a short-term fix at the expense of long-term gain, a trap that can snare the management team of a company as easily as a government in power.
Despite campaign promises to the contrary, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Britain’s coalition government are voting through legislation that will allow university tuition to be as much as tripled and other support programs, such as teaching grants, to be canceled.
While this may put money in government coffers in the near term, I find it difficult to understand how making it more difficult to obtain an education serves the best long-term interests of the British economy, or any industrialized economy. I tend to agree with the general sentiments that Ian Parkinson, president of the Bolton branch of Britain’s National Union of Teachers, expressed in an article last week. Talented youth will be priced out of higher education, making it that much more difficult to find gainful employment in a tight job market, he said. And if the next generation of workers cannot secure well-paying jobs and are saddled with huge student debts, what impact will this have on overall consumer spending?
While the immediate economic pressures cannot be ignored, what happens five, 10 and 15 years from now, as baby boomers retire and shortages of skilled labour in key sectors of the economy become more acute? How can a nation innovate and be competitive on the global stage if its young people can’t afford the education that will prepare them to take up the torch?
It is an approach that attempts to fix an immediate problem without giving sufficient consideration to the future. Janice Calnan, a specialist in organizational change with whom I have worked, asserts that any organization in need of change, regardless of whether it is a government, a publicly traded company, or a startup trying to bring technology to market, must focus on a vision of where it wants to be, rather than on the immediate problems it faces. Focusing on the problems, she says, only begets more problems.
My interpretation of this is that focusing too much on your immediate challenges and how to resolve them will cause you to lose sight of the big picture. It is tactics in the absence, and at the expense, of strategy.
At inmedia, we have seen numerous companies fall into the same trap. When times are tough and key stakeholders, such as shareholders and investors, want to see results to improve fiscal performance, out comes the axe. Unfortunately, PR and marketing activities are often viewed as areas of business that don’t have enough impact on the bottom line and take the first hit.
But when the volume of leads filling your pipeline is in decline, the marketing machine must become that much more aggressive. We have consistently advocated that companies that maintain — or even increase — their marketing presence during a downturn emerge from the downturn stronger than their competitors since they are in a position to springboard into the new opportunities as they arise.
One way to prime the pump and differentiate your brand from competitors is to employ a highly consultative approach, rather than market yourself based on cost and features. In this way, you develop a thorough understanding of the prospect’s pain and the willingness of the prospect to address that pain. They will come to see you as a trusted partner who is eager to serve their best interests. Having established this kind of relationship, where do you think they will turn when they are ready to spend again?
While reducing cash burn and improving cash flow are, of course, paramount when times are tough, austerity measures must be implemented as part of a long-term strategy. Don’t axe those activities that are vital to your ability to act when opportunity comes knocking. Without such vision, your organization may find itself too weak and forgotten by the market to take advantage of the recovery when it comes.
Picture: The executioner’s, or “heading,” axe on display at the Tower of London.
By Leo Valiquette
There has been no shortage of commentary on the ethics and relevance of WikiLeaks’ recent dump of politically embarrassing diplomatic cables and its threat to target Corporate America next.
To which I say, who cares?
Now don’t get me wrong. This is without a doubt a serious matter that warrants grave consideration by anyone with secrets, or a brand, to protect. But philosophical discussion around the “ethics” and “relevance” of such unauthorized disclosures is missing the point.
Bernie Charland at Public Relations Rogue wrote a great post last week about why WikiLeaks’ actions have “little in common with the ethos of Web 2.0, and it certainly doesn’t represent the best of social media.” He concludes his post with the valid point that the question to consider isn’t whether WikiLeaks can make this kind of information public, but whether it should.
However, I contend that the real crux of the matter is that, barring some heavy-handed government or court intervention, WikiLeaks will. And even if the Powers That Be were able to shut WikiLeaks down tomorrow, the path has been laid for others to follow. WikiLeaks, like Napster, will be paid that greatest of compliments – others will attempt to duplicate, or even improve upon, its model for disrupting the status quo.
Which means that for anyone who is sensitive about how they are perceived by the public, partners, associates and other stakeholders, the best defence is a proactive, rather than reactive one.
Here at inmedia, we regularly preach the merits of being engaged with the online community as a means to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and keep tabs on what is being said about your products and services and those of your competitors. (See Alex’s Part 1 and Part 2 on the subject from the perspective of the B2B revenue cycle.)
For everyone out there who remains leery, skeptical or scornful of social media, I have only one thing to say. WikiLeaks demonstrates that the decision whether or not to engage with the online community may be made for you by a third party who is external to your organization, a third party who may not be acting with your best interests in mind. In essence, Web 2.0 and social media are of vital importance to you whether you want them to be or not.
It therefore behooves any brand to have in place a strategy for crisis communications, a key part of which is building a vibrant online community that allows for interactive engagement with key stakeholder groups. Far too few organizations, however, have taken this proactive step.
In an article last week, E.B. Boyd at Fast Company cited a Harris Interactive poll in which only nine percent of respondents said they have crisis protocols in place.
Boyd spoke to several crisis communications experts who agreed that disclosures of the WikiLeaks sort are more likely to hit an organization’s reputation rather than reveal confidential corporate information. However, this can be just as damaging. Boyd pointed to the example of Bank of America, rumored to be on the radar as WikiLeaks’ first Corporate America target. Just the rumor of this hitting mainstream media was enough to cut three percent from the bank’s stock price in a single day.
At one time, the best defence against seeing anything embarrassing about yourself or your organization in print, on TV, or on the radio was to live by this simple rule of thumb – if you don’t want it out there, don’t write it down and don’t say it. “Burn the tapes!” But today, with disgruntled employees able to so easily hit “send” on a damning email, or walk out the door with a whole encyclopedia of embarrassments on a thumb drive that can suddenly appear on a Facebook page, this is no longer enough. You have to accept that dirty laundry of one sort or another is going to get out there, sooner or later. Just because your organization or brand isn’t big enough to warrant the dubious honor of a WikiLeak, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there, empowered by Web 2.0, with the means and the intent to do some serious damage.
In today’s Web 2.0 world, you can no longer rely on simply keeping the leak in the dike plugged with your finger. You have to develop a strategy for crisis communications that levers all of the tools at your disposal, including social media, against that inevitable day when the dike breaks.
By Alexandra Reid
Some people have called me the Grinch because I wait until December before I start getting all Christmassy. I don’t buy a tree, string lights, buy presents, play Christmas music, eat pumpkin pie or drink eggnog until the 12th month dawns. I’m sorry if I sound like a downer, but Christmas decorations look depressing when they droop outside in November rain and hearing songs like, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” and, “Have a holly jolly Christmas,” playing in shopping malls as early as September drives me crazy. (It’s a short drive, I know). I’m not saying that I don’t like Christmas. In fact, I love Christmas. I just think that everything has its time and place and getting fanatic about our biggest holiday before its time has come dilutes its marvel and meaning. It’s curious how the one-day Christian holiday and the gathering of friends and family became an excuse to produce lame Christmas albums and go on three-month-long shopping marathons.
However, my Grinchy heart grew three sizes yesterday as December 1 chimed in the time to be festive and trumpet my Christmas spirit. I’m an arts and crafts nut with an assiduous sweet tooth so my beau suggested we build a gingerbread village as a merry display for our dining room table. We ate candy and built, licked icing glue from our fingers and designed for hours, until we created the vision you see alongside.
Naturally, the creative process of building this gingerbread village got my mind churning. I thought to myself time and time again, “Wow, building this gingerbread village is so similar to building an online community!” Here’s why:
Patience and practice equal perfection
As I said, this gingerbread village took us hours to create. We considered what candy would be used for the rooftops, skating rink, pathway and ground; where they would go and in what combination. Each piece had to be held in place for a number of minutes to dry.
Building an online community through social media takes a lot more time than just a few minutes. It can take months and even years. You have to put a lot of thought and consideration into each person with whom you connect, how you will engage them and how you will strengthen your relationship to them. This process is ongoing, and so requires a great deal of patience. Connections can grow slowly when you are new to social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, but if you put in the time and social effort, you will grow a good community. The key is to never give up.
Real is always better
We used dark and white chocolate almond bark from a local chocolatier to build the pathway and rock gardens. All the candy was selected to be as fresh as possible. Sadly, we didn’t have the resources at hand to bake our own gingerbread, but it’s something I hope to do next year, because real is always better.
It is important to remember this while you build your communities. Discover your own voice and be loyal to it to show others that you are a real human being. People are naturally attracted to others who are genuinely interested in the conversation so be personable and express real life experiences and opinions that bring value to the subject matter.
The best bring together a mixed bag of colourful and fun flavours
We used 14 different kinds of candy to bring this gingerbread village to life, including liquorish, gummies, multicoloured and multiflavoured chewy and rock candies, crystallized white, red and green sugar, and dark and white chocolate. Yum!
When socializing in online networks, always keep an open mind and open invitation to people with various perspectives, opinions and backgrounds in order to grow a dynamic community. Diverse voices drive great conversations as they can offer perspectives others may never have considered otherwise. As in any social situation, you are bound to cross paths with a bad apple. While criticism is vital for personal and professional growth, harsh language and personal attacks should never be tolerated. Keep your community clean and fun by packing it with constructive people.
They are both gifts to be shared
I’d likely end up very ill or in hospital if I tried to eat this whole gingerbread village alone, so I plan to share it with company later in the month.
In social media, you will be most successful if you share intelligence, advice and experiences with others in a reciprocal manner. Talking solely about yourself is not social. Instead, ask others their opinions on certain issues to drive discussions. Acknowledge others when they have accomplished something and share information about happenings in your marketplace or in your community. You will have a much easier time growing your community when others see that you are sharing the space.
Those are my observations. Do you have any other ideas, or perhaps gingerbread tales of your own?
Grinch photo from: The Invisible Seductress
By Leo Valiquette
