Online Community

I think we’re all agreed on the fact that successful online PR is all about communities – building them, maintaining them, and including them. Many of you may already know what you’re doing in the online world, but for those of us who need a little insight (I won’t mention names, but you know who I’m pointing at) here’s some info that might help us get started.

First, the key to success is getting a collection of like-minded people together. This strategy works because it puts together people who are already pre-disposed to think like you and to like the same things as you. It’s all about trust, and if you think like I do, I’m much more inclined to trust you (because I trust myself).

Next, get to know the people in the community you are forming. I mean, really get to know them. Their names, what they like, what they do, how you may be able to work together, etc. A small PR agency will often be able to rival large agencies just by utilising this personal touch. If they trust you, they will do business with you. And they will tell others to likewise do business with you. Try and make it a habit to talk with members of the community on a regular basis, maybe not daily, but often and sincerely.

Blogging, podcasting, tweeting, Facebook-ing, posting videos on YouTube, all help to build a community online, one that will grow if attended to. You can use these techniques to show people your knowledge and to share insights with them. Likewise, by responding and posting comments of your own on other people’s posts you show you have a genuine interest in what they are saying and doing. This is a great way to learn about customers, both present and potential.

Here’s a short, but great, video on building and maintaining an online community.

And if you’re interested in taking in some fantastic conferences next year on social media and what-not, have a look at this link to social media and online community conferences in 2011.

Incidentally, remember my post about the definition of PR where I asked if you knew who that quote was by? Well, it was none other than the godfather of PR, Edward Bernays. He said it in 1978 in his publication, “Propaganda” on page 47. Who’d a thought?

Don’t be bad-mouthin’ us consultants . . .

So I was reading this article from The Economist and it seemed to me that consultants are taking a little heat.

As someone who has worked both in an organization that has hired consultants and who has personally worked as a consultant, I would like to say that, just as in many areas of life, the topic of consultancy has two sides.

First, organizations, whether they are government or private sector, rarely feel that they’re doing a bad job at whatever it is they do. In fact, if no one said anything, they would likely stumble along as they have always done, oblivious to their own short-comings. Invariably, problems in an organization are brought to light by someone from the outside looking in – perhaps a stakeholder, parent company, or the taxpayer. Whoever it is, when they make enough noise, the officials at the organization generally make a great show of how concerned they are by hiring an outside consultant (usually at great expense) to come in and ‘lean’ the organization.

Think-tanks are held, workshops organized, and countless ‘best-practice’ debates are held over expensed dinners. At the end of a week, a month, or more, the consultant delivers a report brimming with suggestions on how to improve the process and maximize profit. The officials at the organization accept it with a flourish, congratulate themselves on a job well-done over another expensed dinner, and promptly file the report until such time as the recommendations can be actioned – which, in my experience, is never.

My point is there are consultancy firms who are unscrupulous and take advantage of hard economic times to milk companies who can ill afford it. But they are the minority. From what I have seen, most consultants genuinely do their best to offer sound, easily actioned advice. Instead, it is the organizations that usually fail to either implement the advice, or fail to sustain it. Then, when nothing is seen to have improved, the fingers immediately point at the consultants for going in and messing with processes they should have left alone.

What is Public Relations?

Consider this definition:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power. We are governed, our minds moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

Is that a little scary, or is it just me? Do you know who said it? I’ll let you think about it for awhile.

Facebook as a platform for PR

Here’s an interesting tidbit. We all know how great a vehicle Facebook is for advertising. But have you ever thought about using it as a PR promotional tool? I know you have. So have some others, and here’s what they say about it . . .

At an event held on July 26th, 2010, reps from various agencies showed off how Facebook can help you with your PR campaigns. A report on the Reuters Mediafile blog says that live-streaming special events, or even marketing pitches, could be a huge boost to your PR campaign. Facebook has even set up a page for PR professionals that you should definitely check out. It’s got all kinds of helpful info.

For some time now, Facebook has played a big part in PR campaigns. As more and more of our consumer base switches to online venues, we have had to follow them into the social network world. A presence on Facebook is paramount now if you want to reach the over half a billion users who make up its online database.

Public Relations and Search Engine Strategies

I recently came across a very cool tool that may be of interest to you. It’s called PRWeb, and it’s an online resource for disseminating news releases. Maybe you already know about it, but if not, it’s well worth looking into. Andy Beal, from the social media stats service Trackur, gives a heads-up on how it might benefit a PR practitioner.

If you’re trying to promote either your client or a product or service for your client, one of the best things you can do for them is to position them so they will get picked up by search engines. PRWeb makes this easy by literally pushing the item into their network of news sites and search engines. From there, not only will potential customers latch onto it via online searches, but journalists will as well. You have the potential for some great coverage at a very reasonable price.

What makes this even better is the ease with which you can begin using it. No particular skill is necessary as all the resources are provided for you by PRWeb. They also make it easy for you to imbed social media releases, which are gaining huge popularity with online consumers of information due to their easy readability.

For a low price of $80 you get a release listed on their site, which is visited by some 2-3 million people per month, Google News and Yahoo News. Basic stats are included for how well your release did. The next package does that plus it’s sent out to a listing of 35,000 journalists who have opted for the viewing. At the top end you get all that plus distribution via the Associated Press to the top newspaper in 100 designated marketing areas. They also allow video, access to geographical stats, which is a Google map showing you the location of people who have read your release, and reporting stats. Here’s an example . All for $360! A pretty good showing for a reasonable price.

PRWeb can also link your releases, which is great for keeping it all together for a client. A new feature ‘tweets’ your release the instant it goes live, and we all know how great Twitter is for spreading a wild-fire.

Want to check it out? Sign up for an account here. Or, you can also view a nifty tutorial that explains it all in simple language.

Could public relations be the future of journalism [gasp]? Maybe . . .

Last week I spoke about the migration of journalists to the sunny shores of PR, and quite frankly, I wasn’t too keen on the idea. But after I got bashed a little for my viewpoint, I decided to look around a little more to see what other people are saying on the subject. I have to admit that I may have been looking at this from the wrong perspective.

I recently heard some great ideas on crisis management from a fellow who works for Edelman, a large American based PR firm. I decided to check them out and it seems that even they have been recruiting from the trenches of journalism. Not long back, it seems, they hired Richard Sambrook, previously with the BBC, to act as their chief content officer. More than that, they also appointed Stefan Stern, late of the Financial Times, as head of strategy. Hmmm . . . There seems to be more to this than a mere overlapping of two complimentary fields. I think there might actually be a merging, or perhaps more to the point, a morphing of PR in the works.

I’m not sure that I agree or not with the assertion by some that companies should bypass traditional news outlets and go directly to the public, but if they do, then it should be handled by their in-house PR department or an agency in lieu. Then it occurred to me that if this practice is slated to become the norm, then maybe what we’re seeing is the transformation of PR into a new breed of journalism. A hybrid of sorts. That’s funny, because last week I joked about the absurdity of me becoming a journalist, but maybe that’s exactly what I’m becoming and I didn’t know it. Maybe in view of the surge of social media and online news sources, PR is becoming the new journalism. Is that possible? Could PR practitioners one day rise to the pseudo-godlike stature that journalists once enjoyed in the golden era of print, when saying you were a reporter brought nods of respect, and people believed that whatever you wrote had to be the truth, and journalism had that aura of authority?

This article I found in The Independent, suggests that PR firms are indeed becoming the new wave of media. In the article, Sambrook claims that “every company has to be a media company in their own right.” He goes on to say that Edelman is even “starting to take over territory that traditionally ad agencies or marketing divisions would have occupied.”

I also came across this interesting video in which Matt Keough from Fathomseo talks about the future of online PR and how it will effect search engine marketing. It’s only four minutes long, so check it out.

Wow. Maybe my move into PR was more strategic than I thought.

Do hacks make good flacks?

So here’s the thing . . . 

If it’s true that bloggers are the new journalists, and that traditional media channels can be sidestepped by going directly to the source, what will become of traditional journos? Word on the (virtual) street has it that more and more of them are joining the rank and file of PR houses. Even Jeffrey Birnbaum, a big name at the Washington Post, who for many years made a career of covering lobbyists, has jumped ship and signed up as president of BGR Public Relations (I guess they didn’t know I was looking for work). Anyway, you can read about it here if it interests you. 

But wait a minute . . . I’m not so sure this is a good idea – journos becoming PR consultants. Yes, they have many years experience in the media industry, and yes, they will certainly have some of the best contacts in the biz. But, are they the best choice for handling a client’s issues or crisis management? I don’t think so. No offence, but they come from a different world. Journalism and PR are both roads in the industry, but they don’t run parallel to each other. I’m afraid that because journos are trained to be objective rather than to take decisive sides of an issue, I don’t think they necessarily will make good public relations people. Add to that the difference in academic training (PR practitioners are trained to identify and manage stakeholders, take charge of a crisis, and limit impact on a client’s reputation) and I just don’t see a good connection. (Think of me becoming a journalist. Yikes!!). 

It also begs the question, if all the journalists become PR people, who will fill the void left by the journos? And don’t say bloggers. 

Hey, I told you not to say that. 

If you’ve got a few minutes, check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CbiMXV8U4M. It spoofs the love/hate relationship between journalism and PR.

Is social media killing PR?

With the proliferation of bloggers and do-it-yourself journalists, the question has been raised as to whether or not we even need PR anymore. Traditional PR practitioners can be bypassed by information seekers going directly to the source. Add to this that we are fighting against years of accumulation of bad PR reputation, and it becomes understandable when our value as an industry is questioned. How can an industry that speaks so highly about their client’s reputation, have any credence when their own reputation is often in question? That was the topic of discussion by a panel in November 2008 at the Horn Group in San Francisco. 

Well, let me say this about that: Social media is NOT killing PR as an industry. It IS killing the weak and useless in the industry who are filling our PR coffers with smoke and magic with mirrors instead of with sound strategic advice garnered, not just from a tally of years in the business, but from solid, relevant, and practical PR education. That’s where the problem lies and that’s why we don’t have a solid body of knowledge to legitimize our profession as just that – a profession. 

We’re changing all that, though. The PR practitioners who will do well today and tomorrow and who will take our industry to the next level are the ones who are pursuing a post-graduate education specifically in PR and corporate communications. They are learning how to use social media strategically. Organisations must realise this and begin to look for specially trained individuals instead of just those who have a name in the business, but who have not been specially trained. 

Don’t need PR anymore? Of course we do!! In fact, we need PR more today than ever. But we need a new breed of PR. We need practitioners who know what they’re talking about and have learned to utilise the new tools of today, like Twitter, Facebook, and forums to name but a few. It is this elite group of practitioners, and no one else, who will finally bridge the traditional and digital PR sectors. No – more than that, they will merge the two so seamlessly that they will cease to be two separate entities in PR and become instead just PR. 

Let me see bloggers, Tweeters, or anyone else do that.

Social media is blazing new trails for PR

I think social media trails have given PR a huge boost. Now that many organisations have their own Facebook page, Twitter accounts, blogs, etc., they need qualified people to keep an eye on it all and track both negative comments and positive comments about the firm. This is really where you can get a feel for what the word is ‘on the street’ about a company and its policies or products. PR practitioners can track any public’s mood swings quite easily online. But the great thing is, a PR specialist can also respond directly to negative comments and thereby reinforce a company’s image in far less time than it would take by conventional means, i.e., compiling a press release, putting it out in hopes of being picked up, and then following the news for days to track its coverage.

 A savvy PR professional can even help firms start their own media trails if none exist. YouTube is another great place for companies to get their name and message out by using creative means. It’s all there for the taking. As PR practitioners, we just have to convince company executives that we are the ones who they need to create and monitor all these media vehicles, and in fact, more and more exectutives seem to be realising just that. Many job postings now carry the stipulation that the applicant be conversant with social media networks.

 I might finally have to bite the bullet and create my own Facebook account so I can at least talk about it with some semblance of authority. Damn!! I was so enjoying the bliss of ignorance.

A Golden Age for PR

I recently read an article in The Economist called, “Good news: Other firms’ suffering has bolstered the public-relations business”. It hints at a coming renaissance for public relations practitioners, due in part to the suffering of so many businesses over the past year. With the publics’ outcry at huge and (perceived) unjust severance packages, government bail-outs, and falling shareholder’s value, the corporate world has never needed so many PR professionals so badly. 

The figures back this up. According to a report by a private-equity firm, American companies spent $3.7 billion on PR in 2009, an increase of nearly 3% over 2008. This may be because PR is often cheaper than mass advertising, and the results are becoming easier to measure. So too, PR practitioners are expanding their role, encompassing more than just getting their client’s name mentioned in the paper. Now they’re also organising events, creating plans to enhance their client’s reputation, and managing all the corporation’s stakeholders – not just the shareholders. 

It seems that corporate big-wigs are finally beginning to see the importance of having a professional PR practitioner as part of the management team. Good news indeed!