Mike’s Points

Courtesy of Poynter’s Romenesko, the Baltimore Sun has a story today that shows the importance of local media: ” 61 percent of consumers look to their newspapers as an essential source for local news, events and sports.”

Next came television with 58 percent, then radio with 35 percent, followed by approximiately 6 percent for major Internet search engines as sources for local news and information.

For national news, 71 percent of those surveyed relied on network, cable and satellite TV as primary or secondary sources. Newspapers (33 percent) were next, followed by Internet sources like Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL News (28 percent).

Not surprisingly, the availability of Internet news sources has eroded newspapers’ readership:

“[T]he ‘interactivity and personalization afforded by the Internet’ has not only cut into newspaper readership but has weakened the link between reading and shopping, which ultimately costs publishers money.”

For those of us in public and media relations, we need to be aware of where those we want to reach get their information. If you are working with a local or regional client, the traditional outlets are still best.

Now, how you reach those outlets (mail vs. e-mail, etc.), is another post for another day.
– Mike

Technorati tags: newspapers, surveys, public relations, PR

I guess it depends on the size of the client. Right?

“AdWeek” had a very interesting piece this week about a supposed switch of companies who are now decentralizing their agencies rather than following the lead agency concept.

Of course, there are many factors to consider for this trend shift. Essentially, however, it boils down to:

“Among the factors contributing to the swing toward expanding agency rosters is the rise of global chief marketing officers who, in the past, consolidated business at one shop to make it easier to manage and to ensure brand consistency, and now are focused on creativity, said Arthur Anderson of Morgan Anderson Consulting in New York. “

Is the role of the agency to assist in branding strategies and consistency, or to provide the creative to try to enact those strategies? (For the purposes of this post, I’ll include PR-related activities under the “creative” category.)

Like a lot of agencies, my employer touts itself as being strategically oriented. We don’t do creative just for the sake of being creative. There’s a purpose — all of what we do is tied to the overriding focus of our clients’ branding and communications approach.

Of course, the “AdWeek” story focuses on large, multi-national and/or multi-brand companies. And, the relatively speaking larger agencies that work with them.

Maybe that’s it for those of us who work on the agency side of the business: If you want to focus on creative, work with large, generally household names, and enjoy competition with other agencies on the same client, then go big. If you want a bigger role and provide branding along with creative input to the client, go small.

The large companies have CMOs and staff, regional and global offices, and often IR people. Their focus is on branding; not creative.

The small and medium B2C and B2B companies don’t have the staffs and regional offices to focus solely on branding. More often than not, the key “marketing” people are sales-focused. With multiple responsibilities, they don’t have the time to focus on branding, much less creative. So, they rely on their agency (note singular) — if they have one — to play a greater role in branding, creative, and other aspects of marketing communications.

But, regardless of our agency size or the role we play, we all have one thing in common: No matter how connected we (feel we) are with a client, it is easy to forget that we are still an outside cost. While agency professionals are all about relationships — with clients and clients’ customers — we must not forget about the pure business aspects of what we do. We’re still just a supplier. Another vendor. Subject to the whims of budgets and client personnel changes.

Whether we are in “creative” or “branding,” we must focus on providing the best value to clients — while always being ready to replace them when they get ready to replace us.
– Mike

Technorati tags: advertising agencies, public relations, PR, marketing

As you should know by now, Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer started The Bad Pitch Blog in January.

While I offered to post good pitches — from PR pros and journalists — no one has taken me up on my offer .

Now, it looks like PR Squared’s Todd Defren has started The Good Pitch Blog.

Wonder what criteria Todd will use to publish a good pitch? Will he take possibilities from PR pros and journalists alike? What about guest bloggers with tips on pitching?

Also, it looks like The Bad Pitch Blog has fueled still another similar blog: The BadHack Blog. (Thanks to Stuart Bruce’s A PR Guru’s Musings.)

– Mike

Technorati tags: public relations, PR, Good Pitch Blog, Bad Pitch Blog

Looks like I cracked the top 100,000 blogs with 26 sites generating 66 links to my little piece of the blogosphere. (Actually, one of my two pieces of the blogosphere.)

Yes sir, my blog has a Technorati rank of 97,956!

Look out Buzz . . . look out Micro . . . here I come!
– Mike

Just playing around with the links, putting them in categories, working on the look, etc.

Now, with all the A-listing discussion going around, don’t go a-thinking that I’m making my own blog hierarchy and rating system. We only have so much time in the day, and can’t read all the blogs all the time we want to. So, how I categorized them just seemed like a logical way.

My links, just like me and my blog are works in progress. There are other blogs I sometimes read — Scoble or his son for instance — that I haven’t added yet.

What do you think?

Leave it?

Have other titles?

Or, just list them?
Take care, and good night/morning!
– Mike

Every so often, someone on the Young PR Pros group at Yahoo! Groups will ask about the qualities needed for someone in public relations.

Yes, there’s the basic writing, spelling and grammar skills needed. But, what else do we need to effectively practice our public relations craft?

Integrity: Whether you work for an agency or an in-house department, there are demands for generating income and showing value for your work. That’s fine. But, if you concentrate on those outcomes alone, you likely will fail the integrity test. Provide the best recommendations and counsel you can, and perform your job with passion and honesty to accomplish your clients’ or your employer’s objectives. Focus on doing what’s right, and the income and value will follow.

It’s like the job counselors always say: Don’t worry about choosing a job that will make you rich. Focus on doing what you enjoy and love, and the success and satisfaction will follow.

Jeremy Pepper’s post about Ethics and PR Blogging helped plant the seed for this post.

Empathy: Those in public relations and other communications efforts rarely are experts in their various markets. Therefore, to communicate with the customers, prospects, decision-makers and key-influencers, we need to understand them. We need to research their needs, and put ourselves in their shoes. Otherwise, what we do is at best an educated guess. Being empathic includes communicating with media. (See one of my early posts on working with the media.)

Curiosity (okay, nosiness): This plays into being empathic. Since we are rarely experts for the clients and companies we work for, we have to want to dig to learn what the sales and technical people know. Read/View the media that reach prospects and customers. Stay in contact with the people who work with customers and prospects day-in and day-out. Talk with the customers yourself. Inquire.

Be open-minded: It means more than being curious. It means being open to new ideas and ways to do things. Just because you were successful with a trade show plan last year, doesn’t mean you have to follow the same path this year. How are the objectives for this year’s show different? Don’t stick your nose up at new technology. You don’t have to immediately embrace it, but you should be aware of it — and use it when appropriate.

So, do you have the right stuff?

What other qualities should PR practitioners posses?
– Mike

Technorati tags: public relations, PR

By now you’ve read the story about some PR firm called Edelman hiring some blogger call Rubel. Maybe you’ve heard of them; maybe you haven’t. (In case you missed it, what you just read was sarcasm.)

Guess Edelman’s hiring of Steve Rubel backs up the old adage of, If you can’t beat them, join them. But, in the business world, you don’t join them. You buy them.

It definitely has happened in the dot-com world, as well as in the funeral home business, window suppliers, the auto industry and others. (Just a taste of some of the B2B industries my employer has done and does now work in.)

Innovation and new technology rarely come from the big, often hierarchical and bureaucratic companies. Far more often than not, those and other qualities come from individuals and small companies who don’t have the capital and human resource muscle to compete with the big boys. Instead, they do have the creativity, freedom and nimbleness to develop and implement new ways of doing business.

Innovation and creativity are easy ways to set yourself and your company apart from larger and more established companies.

Now, once “bought,” the challenge for the creative-thinking types is to not fall within the traps — lack of flexibility, too much planning and not enough action, etc. — that typically exist within large companies.

Don’t go thinking too much into this post. I’m in NO WAY saying that Phil Gomes, Michael Krempasky, Jeremy Pepper or Rubel have sold out. I don’t know Krempasky, and it does appear that Gomes and Pepper have maintained the independent thinking that made them successes early on and landed them their recent gigs. And, from the PR stuff about Rubel and Edelman, it seems Rubel will have the same freedom.

After all, if new technologies like blogging will truely become part of our culture and life, they won’t take off without the push from the big boys.
And, that’s my point.
– Mike

P.S. UPDATED: Found a Krempasky image.

Technorati tags: blogging, Michael Krempasky, Jeremy Pepper, Phil Gomes, Steve Rubel, Edelman, public relations

Business Week’s Stephen Baker has an interesting and informative piece about how major corporations — like McDonald’s and Cannondale — are using blog technology to replace their intranets.

Here are quick examples of how the above two are using blog technology:

“Over the last month, Cannondale has opened its corporate Web site to 15 of its sales and marketing staffers. Each one now has the tools to file his or her own updates, press releases, photos, and news about the race teams Cannondale sponsors.”

and

“The first corporate blogger at McDonald’s was Chief Operating Officer Michael Roberts, who launched his internal blog last fall. He used it to spread information through the company’s global operations and receive feedback. Now, according to [Chief Information Officer Dave] Weick, McDonald’s is distributing blog access to thousands of employees, who will use them to report on operations at restaurants worldwide.”

While many praise blogging as this great social media, the real value is how the technology behind blogging will be expanded and re-purposed.
– Mike

Technorati tags: internal communications, blogging

The Chicago Tribune/KRT has a good piece about corporate blogging and, of course raises the question of authenticity. (You can read it here and here.)

The story points to good reasons for corporate blogging:

Nevertheless, corporations are expected to keep on blogging, seizing the new opportunity to communicate with customers and employees in a first-person, conversational style, as well as to advance their marketing strategies.

and

“Companies are looking to be perceived as more fluid and flexible,” said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek Inc., which tracks blogs. “Those goals are often at odds with the very real protocols within companies.”

But, the real value of a coporate blog is from Michael Sexton, president of Trump University, who works with the real estate magnate:

Business blogs perform better as soapboxes than as sales or corporate communication tools, because of the doubts they engender, Sexton said. “People are increasingly skeptical about what they read on the Internet.”

Blogs are not the proper avenue for overt promotion. They will still promote a company, but it’ll be more like an educational, corp by-lined column about an important issue, trend, etc. Still, corporate blogs offer many advantages over other forms of official corporate communications:
> Gives the company a personality (whether there is one or multiple corp bloggers); makes the company seem more informal and more human.
> Allow for direct communication interaction — via comments — between corp execs and the public.
> Allow for rapid response to misinformation (why GM’s Lutz started) and rumors; also opportunity for quick communications to employees, the public and media during crisis and other times when it is needed.
> A level platform — or soapbox — no matter the size of the company. (Though, the blog’s audience reach will depend on the quality of its content and how well it is marketed.)

Of course, the KRT story raises the question of authenticity. Not surprising, B.L. Ochman was the voice for authenticity — even questioning Lutz’s blog: “I’m 1,000 percent sure the GM blog wasn’t all written by Bob Lutz.”

Ideally, blogs should be authentic: actually written by the identified blogger. If not, then I see two alternatives:

Have a group of corp execs blog. That way, it’ll relieve the burden of blogging. Yes, the pressure to maintain blog — especially once you’ve started consistently posting — can be stressful and distracting from one’s primary job responsibilities. A couple or group of bloggers for a company can relieve that pressure, and offer views from multiple apsects of the company (engineering, sales, customer service, etc.).

Ghost blog: Have a trusted, well-informed public relations professional work closely with the corp exec(s) to develop topics on which to blog about. While I’m not totally sold on this yet, I’m leaning toward ghost blogging being acceptable. That is only if there is close collaboration between the PR contact and the exec, and the exec approves posts before they are published.

For more reading on corporate and ghost blogging, see here.
Take care,
Mike

Technorati tags: corporate blogging, blogging, public relations, PR

WOW!

A total of $310,000 was raised in less than two weeks for Super All Year (S.A.Y.) Detroit — an idea started by Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press sports columnist, WJR Radio host, author, etc., etc.

The initial goal was only $60,000 to help the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries add 30 beds, a van with professional personnel to pick up homeless residents, hire a full-time mental health professional and provide 24/7 care through mid April. (Details and additional links are in my original post.)

According to the story at WJR, the money will benefit not only the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, but C.O.T.S., the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, Cass Community Social Services and the Neighborhood Service Organization as well.

Despite this age of instant news and information, I’ve not found any other report on the 2 p.m. news conference Wednesday that announced the results of the Super All Year Detroit effort (as of 9:45 p.m. 2/8/06.). However, here’s Albom’s Wednesday column that gives some details.

From what I heard on Albom’s program, donations came in from 29 states, several countries, at least one ship (from a member of the military) and corporations. Among the corporations was Ilitch Charities for Children.

Ilitch Charities for Children, the charitable arm of Ilitch Holdings, Inc., announced today that it will provide a gift of up to $150,000 over two years to help fund a new Infant Care Center for COTS (Coalition on Temporary Shelters). This donation will allow COTS to move forward with the renovation of their facility to provide child care for infants age 0 - 2-1/2.

While slightly less than half of the $310,000 raised was from the Ilitch Foundation, I’m sure the bulk of the remaining $160,000 was raised from ordinary people. Like you and me. In only two weeks.

WOW!
– Mike

For your surfing, reading and commenting pleasure, have a look at some other great points I found online during the past few days.

Maria Sanchez: Cost Efficient PR for Nonprofits (infOpinions?/Robert French)

Evaluating Citizen Journalism (PRLinker/Ryan McGrath)

Hit ‘em right back media relations (Canuck Flack/Colin McKay)

60 Percent of Americans Don’t Read Blogs (Communication Overtones/Kami Huyse)

EU Communications Plan - no blogs? (Conversationblog/Philippe Borremans)

Prescription for newspapers that want to increase readership and revenue (BrassTacks Design)

Take care,
Mike

The other day, I made a point about how and why a “clip” on a blog can have greater value than a traditional media clip.

Since then, I’ve read a couple or so other posts about measurements on blogs. Communication Overtones/Kami Huyse has one; Micro Persuasion/Steve Rubel has another. (Stowe Boyd has a post about it, but I’ve not read it yet. Kami reference a few items in her post.)

For traditional media, circulation and audience rating stats are commonly used to help gauge the value of clips. Of course, if you are really tied into your client or employer, you can track “share of conversation” and changes in sales.

Ultimately, that is what we should use. But, this is not a perfect world, so we need other ways to measure the impact of clips.

I’m not going to get into how to measure blog and social media clips. If curious, I posted a brief comment at MP.

Why can blog clips have more influence — thus higher value — than traditional media clips? Essentially it is because they tend to have a better qualified of decision-maker for an audience than traditional media. By that I mean the reader seeks out the blog rather than the blogger seeking out the specific reader. (Bloggers don’t have circulation/subscription departments.)

For one, note that I state can; not do. That is because of the usual subject of the blogs we read and how that subject affects our lives play a role.

POP! PR’s Jeremy Pepper had an interesting and generally positive post about coComment. I respect Jeremy’s opinions and coComment looked interesting. So I asked for a code, received one, and I’m in. Pretty simple. But, if it would’ve taken more than a few minutes of my time, I wouldn’t have gone through the process. I would’ve waited a few days or next week.

No big deal.

So, while work-related blogs have an influence, it’s still only work. I really enjoy my job and blogging, but am not emotional or extremely passionate about my job or my blog.

However, if a parent blogger I was familiar with and respected posted a negative comment about a particular brand of child safety seat my wife and I used, you bet I would react. I’d investigate the post and, if I any reservations, we would not use our seat. Would I react the same if I saw the same information in a parents’ magazine?

Probably not as much because there wouldn’t be the personal or other bond with the magazine reporter vs. the blogger. After all, the blogger is just like me, right? Just another parent — blogging because he/she wants to. Unlike a reporter, it’s not her/his job to write about car seats and parents’ issues. Plus, ulike a magazine reporter, I could have contacted the blogger directly to ask questions.

> Unlike traditional media, blogs are much more personal. Blogs are the Internet’s version of word-of-mouth communication. And, we all know that word-of-mouth advertising has a greater influence than any other type of advertising or communication. Blog visitors are not necessarily looking for factual information. They/We are looking for information and opinions we cannot get elsewhere. If we want pure facts, there are enough ‘net resources.

> Blogs can be much more targeted; “nichely-focused.” Traditional media is pretty much broadly focused. Even trade publications go after a national or regional group. Any post — positive or negative — is viewed by a higher quality audience. Regular visitors to blogs have a strong personal or professional interest in the topics.

Now, all we need is a way to quantify the greater amount of value from a blog clip vs. a media clip.

Maybe we just need have closer ties to sales to really see what impact we have.
– Mike

Technorati tags: public relations, PR