By Leo Valiquette
Pondering the place of social media in the marketing and PR toolkit has been a familiar theme on this blog as the industry as a whole attempts to understand how best to approach and manage audience engagement with such a dynamic, informal and immediate variety of channels as those that fit under the general heading of Web 2.0. (Or maybe we’ve already moved on into Web 3.0. Who can keep track?)
Should you blog? Should you tweet? Should a company hang out its dirty laundry for all to see? To whom can companies turn for advice and how can they validate the credentials and experience of those who claim to be the gurus with the answers?
It’s a pickle, for certain, and one that will only weigh more and more on the minds of companies through 2009 as they struggle to build awareness of their brand and their value proposition as recessionary pressures nibble away at the bottom line.
I’ve come across an interesting array of perspectives and opinions on these matters over the past couple of days.
Beth Harte explores the question, Is social media the same as marketing? and reaffirms the most basic precept: Social media is best considered and approached as one part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. Her post also raises the quite valid concern about carpetbaggers who claim to be experts in the area.
Robert Geller writes about how pervasive social media tools such as Twitter have become, emphasizing his point with the example of how it is being used by the Israeli government as a communications tactic in its latest flare up with Hamas and the Palestinians.
But a social media tool’s popularity can pose problems, even security risks, for those who use it. As we have seen this week, Twitter’s success has attracted the attention of those with malicious intent. Terry Sweeney writes about how “the public nature of Twitter — like Facebook or web mail or P2P file-sharing sites — means it offers a rich petri dish for online mischief,” which has left the service scrambling to save face. And while this may not be sufficient reason to abandon the service, Terry suggests it warrants a hard look at what benefit can be derived from Twitter before jumping on board.
All that matters in the end is understanding your business, the audience you are trying to reach and using only those tools or tactics that make sense as an effective means to achieve your business development and customer service objectives. What’s hot is irrelevant.
By Leo Valiquette
Well here we are, heading into this brave new world of doom and gloom that is 2009. While countless others have expounded on the year that was and the year that will be with reviews, predictions and every top-10 list imaginable, I thought I would start the new year by repeating the most basic consideration that should guide our efforts for the next 12 months — content is king.
Mass layoffs in the media business across North America made headlines throughout 2008, from major television networks to the most weighty names in the daily newspaper business. I came across an interesting post over the holidays at the Fusion PR Forum which reflects on the apparent inability of big newspapers to understand they are in the information business, rather than the print business, and adapt accordingly.
Horizontal media outlets are going through the kind of pruning that over the past decade already hit many of the trade and industry titles that are typically the focus of our efforts here at inmedia. Resources are tight on all fronts, emphasizing the need to bring to the media compelling stories that clearly demonstrate why a particular company, and its product or service, merits coverage instead of any number of others.
“Why should I cover this?” asked one gruff journalist when I rang him up with my best pitch on behalf of a client before Christmas. A valid question to be sure and one for which I had a ready answer. But articulating the benefits of my client’s offering, its uniqueness in the market, only served to keep him on the phone. Securing a story opportunity depended on coming back with a strong reference customer willing and able to discuss the value and ROI of the client’s offering.
Before Christmas I executed a launch exercise for another client. In the process of speaking with what we had determined were the Tier One media targets for this new client, one theme quickly emerged, the value of being able to offer up reference customers to validate the technology and demonstrate uptake in the market. Most media outlets didn’t care to hear the company praise itself. They wanted the real-world perspective of customers that saw the value of opening up their wallets for the product.
Media want a good story, not a sales pitch better suited as advertising copy. Beyond being able to offer up references who can speak for your product or service, the principle also applies to how one deals with the media when they have agreed to an interview.
Eric Bergman of Bergman & Associates reinforced the point last week on Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog that reporters don’t want to be spoon fed key marketing messages that have been crafted ahead of time. They’re in the business of asking the questions that provide them and their readers with insight and understanding. Corporate messaging may serve one well in the context of a news release, but it hardly fosters a positive relationship with the media if it is regularly used to avoid direct answers to direct questions. Check out Eric’s example of the used-car salesman and you’ll get the point.
By inmedia
In case you missed them, here’s a roundup of our posts from December.
(Francis’s note: December was, clearly, a thin month for our blog. We pledge to be more faithful with our posts in this new year. In the meantime, belated best wishes for the holidays and to all our readers, we wish you a peaceful and prosperous 2009. Thank you for reading our blog.)
Francis
Dec. 1: A Christmas gift for Lesotho
Dec. 18: Attention software company CEOs: Boost your PR investment to survive downturn
Leo
Dec. 4: The best laid plans …
Dec. 8: Plain talk and hard numbers about PR
Dec. 12: Naughty or nice a matter of circumstance
Danny
Dec. 31: Embargos: What’s all the fuss about?
By Danny Sullivan
Following Michael Arrington’s pre-Christmas attack on PR embargoes, I think it’s a topic that is still worth exploring, particularly for those unfamiliar with how to use them effectively.
Why would anyone agree to embargo a news story in the first place? An embargo is supposed to be a tool that makes things easier on the time-constrained reporters who cover breaking news, allowing them the time to build their story ahead of the release date. The company providing the embargo realizes the added benefit of helping insulate coverage of their story against the possible negative impact of bigger “on the day” news, and can also gain more detailed coverage as a result.
So it’s like an exclusive? No. An exclusive is given to a single outlet, whereas an embargo is a set date and time for release of the news that can be agreed upon with any number of media.
But how can you ensure that the embargo is not broken? Herein lies the rub. An embargo is not a legally binding contract and is entirely based on trust. As such, embargoes should only be taken up with media that can be trusted to adhere to them.
The growing problem with using embargoes in today’s online society is that there is now much more to be gained from breaking them. As Arrington explains, “Traffic and links flow in to whoever breaks an embargo first.” This added incentive to break the agreement means that the trust element is ever more important.
So, are embargoes no longer a worthwhile option for the PR professional? On the contrary, I would argue that they are still just as useful as they have ever been. The point is not to use an embargo without due care and attention. Sending a news story to 50 media contacts with “Embargoed until…” marked on the header is not going to cut it. At a minimum, agreement has to be reached through personal contact with each target before any information is imparted. But it is also important to ensure that those contacts you are reaching out to are the least likely to break the story – for example, they should have an ongoing interest in your company and products, or you should have already dealt with them successfully in the past. Media that value the relationship they have with your company are much less likely to break an embargo than those that have little real knowledge of your story and will think nothing of damaging the relationship in order to be first with a story.
By Francis Moran
Okay, I’m sure that headline reads like a naked sales pitch for our services here at inmedia Public Relations. And while it most certainly self-serves that function, it’s actually one of 18 tips on sales and marketing to help you recession-proof your software company published last week on softwareCEO.com. (I’m indebted to my good friend Jason Flick for bringing this article to my attention.)
We have consistently advocated that companies that maintain — or even increase — their market presence during a downturn emerge from the downturn stronger than their competitors and in a position to springboard into the new opportunities that the eventual recovery will bring. So it’s no surprise to us to hear other sales and marketing professionals echo that sentiment.
The softwareCEO.com piece, the second in a series that also includes 18 tips on finance and operations, is full of terrific advice. Within the piece on boosting your PR investment, it cites software marketing expert Judy Schramm of JMR Consulting and three low-cost ways in which your PR presence can be boosted. (We’ve been doing all three for some time now.)
I also liked the sales tips it outlined and I wasn’t surprised to see they came from Steve Kraner of Sandler Sales Institute. We’ve worked in the past with Sandler’s Ottawa-based sales-training guru, Terry Ledden who advocates that rather than trying to compete with other salespeople on price or feature set, you differentiate yourself from the outset by employing a highly consultative approach that helps you develop a thorough understanding of the prospect’s pain and the willingness the prospect has to address that pain.
I don’t know how many times over the past few months I’ve heard seasoned technology entrepreneurs say that downturns represent an opportunity, not a setback. The tough operating conditions wash the marginal players out of your way, force you to focus on where you create real value, and both reduce the cost and increase the impact of raising your voice in your marketplace.
Update: My Google Reader just fed me a post from the excellent Out of the Fog Marketing blog drawing attention to a Knowledge@Wharton article in Forbes titled, “Don’t skimp on ad budgets.”
