Mike’s Points

Maybe it’s USA Today’s fault, maybe blogging is to blame or maybe I have Twitteritis. But, my attention span and getting around to putting together a post of any length is lacking of late. (Good thing there’s a monthly TalentZoo column and the periodic free-lance gig to keep me honest. See page 10.)

Regardless, here’s one post with a couple points for your digestion and review:

A lot on the Internet is free — but there’s still a price

There’s a lot of “things” free about social media. Blogging is free. Social networking is free. Sharing pictures and video is free.

Outside of social media, a lot on the Internet is free. Email is free. Job searching is free. And, a lot of information is free.

And, some of that information is questionably accurate. As an example, Sandeep Krishnamurthy  has a very interesting article at iMediaConnection: Beware: the search advertising sky is falling. There’s good food for thought in Professor Krishnamurthy’s column. However, some of his stats — from compete.com — were questioned by Bill Burke.

Website stats from compete.com are free. So are those from quantcast.com. And, I’m sure there are similar others.

Ah, remember, you usually get what you pay for. Buyer beware.

While social media — which clearly should be a subset of public relations (I ain’t talkin’ advertising) – may be free, doing it well requires an investment in time. Time to get to know the online community to which you are marketing. Time to develope a relationship and comfort level with the community. You don’t need to be buddy-buddy, but any good PR practitioner knows that true success is about relationships. Not about getting “hits.” It’s about connecting your employer or clients’ products and services with the needs and wants of your audience. (For more on this, see one of my TalentZoo columns.)

How best to teach?

You often hear or read in sports that the best managers and coaches know as much about human nature and pyschology as they do about their sport’s fundamentals and tactics. They know which players to pull aside privately to deal with an issue and which will respond better by a public tongue-lashing.

Chris Brogan publically called out a company this week for poor pitching. Chris Anderson at Wired called out a bunch of supposed PR pros for poor pitching. CrunchNotes does it. And, when it occurs often enough, the BadPitch Blog does as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s easy to pick on mistakes PR people make.

I’m not saying what Chris B. or any of the others did was wrong. Sometimes, to get someone’s attention, to really get through to him/her, you need to call ‘em out.

There are times — guess it’s up to your own judgment — when a private approach is best taken to teach someone the right way to do their job.

Just because you can easily give someone a public tongue-lashing, doesn’t mean you should.

– Mike

Photo from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0317_060317_two_headed.html

(*First, if you are reading into the headline that I or PR communicators should treat their target audiences like children, you’re reading too much into the headline, taking it literally or trying to start something. That’s not the point of this post. If you still believe it is, please leave. Otherwise, I would most appreciate it if you continued reading and left your $0.02 with a comment.)

During some email back and forth a couple weeks ago with Ann Handley regarding a comment I left on her blog, I was reminded how much my children teach me. Then it hit me — that much of what I’ve learned being a parent is very relevant to public relations and marketing communications.

Each child is different, so you can’t parent them each the same way. Different temperaments, different personalities, different abilities, different ways they react to me (and my wife. From here on out, whenever I say me, I mean us).

The same goes with the audiences we are trying to market and communicate to. Each person is unique and reacts in different ways for what “works” for reaching him or her with the message. At the same time, there are generalities we use in parenting our children. We can’t say the same thing four different ways. The same goes for communicating to our audiences. For example, look at reporters at a particular media outlet. There might be a company-wide policy or preference for receiving news, or for when you can contact them.

Be patient because each has his/her own time table. You never really know when something that you’ve been telling or trying to teach your children will finally click and sink in. Or, when you tell one to do something — clean up, for example — he or she will do it, but do it his or her own way. If you don’t have a set time table yourself, that’s fine in most cases.

The same goes for pitching a story. It may be a great story, but the timing for that particular reporter may not be right. You may get a call from that reporter a week or couple months later — because the story was good, but he/she couldn’t for whatever reason act on it then. That’s also why you need to constantly remind your audience of your client or your employer with marketing messages — because the audience may not need your product or service now — but will in three months. Best to be top of mind.

You need to know and be involved in your children’s lives. Yes, that may be an obvious one, but it’s easy to be more of the care-giver — looking after their basic needs — than being a parent and playing with your children. My wife and I have a nearly nine-month-old daughter. While I love her as much as the others, I look forward to the time when she is less dependant on me (when we can communicate better, when she can easily sit up on her own, etc.). While the baby stage is great, it also is great when we can interact more. And, when I need to be less of a care-giver of my daughter and I can spend fun, quality and more quantity time with all my children.

The same point goes for our audience: Essentially, you need to know your audience; not just market or spew forth messages to them. Research, read, contact and even interact with your audience. Know what they like and dislike, their preferences. That’s one of the great advantages of social media: market feedback and interaction.

Yes, really knowing your audience is not easy, but you’ll have a much higher rate of success than the proverbial throwing a lot of mud on the wall and seeing what sticks. Besides, how else can you do point #1 above if you don’t know your audience?

The basics: You need to want to be a parent, or at least be open to it and take it for the important responsibility it is. There’s been enough times when I’ve heard about, seen or read about people who really should not be parents. More often than not, they’re too selfish. I have felt sorry for their children, and hoped that God would particuarly watch over them. For the vast majority of people who are parents, even if they didn’t at first want to be, they were responsible enough to know and take on the sacrifices and life re-focusing that’s often required to raise children.

As with public relations and any profession, you need the basics. You need to know stuff like good writing (grammar, how different tactics call for different writing styles, etc.), have a solid work ethic, be honest and ethical, have a natural curiosity for your clients’ businesses (and definitely your employer’s business!), and have a sincere interest in others.

After all this, please don’t think I’m elevating the role of PR and marketing communications to that of parenthood. Being a parent is by far one of the most important things I’ve ever have and ever will do in my life. That’s why, I’m looking at parenting and seeing what I can apply from it to my job — not the other way around.

-Mike

UPDATE, March 7, 2008: The fine folks at CustomScoop’s Media Bullseye republished the below post. I updated the content to include two other services: CyberAlert’s BlogSquirrel and CustomScoop’s BuzzPerception.

See a need, fill a need: It’s a philosophy that is one of the primary themes of Robots (and what inspired Rodney).

You could also say it’s the driving force in a free market, and why many businesses are started.

While social media is still in its infancy — it’ll have a long life, so many years is still an “infancy” — many who’ve been involved have several years experience. Some of us, even have a couple!

However, while the social media populous has been and continues to grow, the tools available to public relations professionals have been lacking, compared to what we’re used to offline. Offline, there’s media tracking services like Luce (okay, BurrellsLuce) and Bacon’s (okay, Cision), as well as newer online and less costly services like Factiva (via the WSJ) and NewsLibrary.com. If you’re tasked with keeping track of clients’/your employer’s media coverage, it’s great knowing you have other professionals and reliable services to work with.

But, online? It was much more manual and, from my experience, included doubt because social media was so new, and there. seemed. to. be. so. many. blogs! Early search engines like GlobeofBlogs, Technorati, BlogPulse and Google Blog Search while free, were very manual and still left a bit of doubt.

However, 2007 saw and early 2008 has seen the birth of many new social media tools. Tools that actually have functionality and make our jobs easier. Still, there’s spam and junk blogs to filter out, but the functionality of these tools versus what’s mentioned above is like day and night.

Here’s a rundown of the tools I’m familiar with — please offer your comments and positive/negative feedback if you’ve tried them, or add your own cool tools. (When possible, I’ve included what I know about each of the services — but by no means are my comments below a thorough commentary of all tools noted. For your own use, please review/evaluate these services yourself.)

Comprehensive tools

Techrigy’s Social Media Manager: Covers blogs, as well as a discussion boards/forums, social bookmarking sites, Flickr, YouTube and other, Twitter, etc. Offers a lot of functionality and flexibility. Note: I had an extensive evaluation of SM2 last fall and into early 2008 before we committed to a contract with Techrigy. I’m very satisfied with SM2, and company has been extremely responsive to suggestions and on-going communication.

Radian6: Similar to Social Media Manager in its range of social media covered. It’s been in the news every so often with contracts with some notable agencies. Note: I had demo of Radian6 early this year, and liked what I saw. In many ways, Radian6 and Social Media Manager are comparable — though each have their “differentiators.” There were a few key differences as to why we chose SM2.

Visible Technologies’ TruCast: I’ve not had a demo of TruCast, but from its site and from some communication with a sales person, it seems to offer capabilities comparable to the above: a “comprehensive solution for social media analysis and participation. Our enterprise level solution enables clients to complete the conversation by allowing them to track, analyze, and participate in blogs, forums, social networks and online communities.”

Forums/Boards

As a smart man once twittered — “forum mining is a tough nut to crack; it’s the deep, unsexy social web stuff that’s oft influential AND overlooked…” — discussion forums and boards are more important than blogs in social media monitoring in many ways. You can obtain so much feedback and trend information on companies, issues and industries by monitoring and participating. And, unlike blogs, you have only a few places to look.

Awhile ago, I had a post about a number of vertical forums and boards. Now, without time-consuming, in-depth searching, you can use board-focused search engines to find, review and monitor them.

BoardReader: “BoardReader was developed to address the shortcomings of current search engine technology to accurately find and display information contained on the Web’s forums and message boards.” (Personal/Local note: It was developed by some U of Michigan people! Go Blue!)

Twing (courtesy of the aforementioned “smart man,” aka Mike Manuel): “Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities.”

Omgili: “Omgili is a specialized search engine that focuses on ‘many to many’ user generated content platforms, such as, Forums, Discussion groups, Mailing lists, answer boards and others.”

Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter what tools we use — clients/employer just want quality, cost-effective results. However, it sure is nice when the marketplace sees enough demand to develop tools to make our respective jobs easier and more effective.

See a need, fill a need.

– Mike

Control of branding and “the message” or word-of-mouth talk about a company, product, service, issue, etc., is a common theme in social media. It’s been written about in many books, on many blogs and, heck, even in person I’m sure.

And, it came up in a brief back and forth Twitter conversation I had with Geoff Livingston Thursday.

Maybe we’re talking about the same thing, but taking a different approach. Maybe it’s just semantics. Or, maybe we disagree.

As I’ve said in the past, businesses ultimately have control. Or, at least, the most influence.

Let’s start at the beginning: Essentially a company forms when someone sees a need in the marketplace and tries to fill it. (Yes, there are variances, like when a someone makes a product and then tries to find a need, but let’s stick with the basic premise.)

Before that company starts, there is no conversation, reputation or perception about it. It didn’t exist.

That company markets its products, so has contact with prospects, vendors and, ideally, customers via marketing communications, sales personnel, retailers, customer service personnel, etc.

Then, prospects and customers react to those “touch points” with the company — and have the opportunity to give their opinion of the touch point, whether its bitchin’ about a product online or giving rave reviews to the next door neighbor.

What online communication and social media — email, blogs, boards, etc. — have done is give consumers more power. More influence. More opportunity for our voices to be heard by a larger audience. Yes, more control over how ABC Company Inc. and its products are perceived.

But, remember, WOM is as old as history. (Just ask Adam about Eve’s review of the apple!) Companies have never been in total control of their brand or the WOM chatter.

Today, various tools and technology on the Internet give consumers more influence than ever before. Despite that, the ultimate influence of a company’s brand and the perception of its products and services is in the hands of the company.

The company starts all “conversations” via its marketing and other customer contact activities. We’re all just reacting to those contact points. And, we’re having a level of control or influence as to the positive, neutral or negative tone of the chatter — as we’ve always had.

But, ultimately, the company has the most control and influence because it initiated the chatter — via good or bad products, customer service, etc., — or it chose to heed the feedback of its marketplace.

Just like all good companies have done, and will continue to do.

– Mike

especially social media.

Today, the Center for Media Research has a must-read report: “Emotional Business Bonding on Social Networks,” based on research from Communispace:

“New research from Communispace, supporting the hypothesis that people are looking to fulfill six essential social needs online, and drawing on the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, concludes that businesses that help facilitate those needs are more likely to create deeper emotional bonds than usually exist between companies and customers.”

The key point that, while consumers don’t necessarily want a relationship with companies, they do want their needs met. You market by meeting needs. And, in the online world, you need to meet personal, social needs to be successful.

You don’t “hook” people. It’s much more subtle. I don’t mean deceptive tactics, but play into human nature.

This is an approach I bring up every so often via Twitter (in reply to Chris Brogan) or here, and definitely in my work when possible. Here are some pointers and thoughts on how to:

• In social media marketing, keep in mind we’re typically dealing with every-day people; not people at work, like reporters. Even if you are dealing with professional or industry bloggers and in other social media, you need to meet their needs.
• Effective working in social media requires the same long-term commitment and effort as in face-to-face dealings with people.
• Be humble, admit when you’re wrong, and be open to criticisms (call it “market research” if it helps).
• Contribute to the social media you’re involved in when it doesn’t have anything to do with your employer or client. In addition to sharing knowledge and helping others, it can lower barriers to how people view you when you’re not always bringing up employer/client-related stuff. After all, you are there to better the community, right?

Ultimately, when you’re in public relations (or other professional communicators role), you’re involved in social media to market a company, product, service or cause. Just make sure that you don’t forget that your audience’s needs need to be met first, before they will consider your needs.

– Mike

In writing this post, you’ll notice that I (too) often linked back to my own posts. I try not to do that (too) often, but it’s often easier to make my points. In this process of reviewing past posts, it struck me how similar Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, referenced in the Communispace story, is to Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

Though it’s a never-ending battle, I try to make things simple.
That’s why part of me finds this transparency issue — a fancy way of saying honesty — puzzling.

Yes, in public relations, you represent your employer’s/client’s side of an issue or news story. You may not write or talk about every angle, but you do not mislead or lie. You tell one side of a story. Just as you would hear anyone talking about an event he/she witnessed.

If you’re doing your job correctly, you put yourself in the mindset of a news reporter to write a news release as a journalist would. Or, close to it. As noted, you may not include all angles, but you’d better be able to honestly, accurately and fairly answer any question that comes afterward.

It’s pretty simple.

In general, don’t you always expect honesty? If you always doubt what someone tells you, how awful that would be!

But, apparently, that’s how people perceive PR professionals.

Why else would transparency — or the lack thereof — be such a perpetual issue. We must all be afraid of showing the imperfections we all have. And, PR folks are kings and queens of hiding imperfections!

• [New York Times columnist David Pogue] said blogs can do wonders for companies who are looking to make a personal impact with an audience. “Material that is not cleansed by any PR person,” he said. “That is something to think about.” (Source: http://www.crn.com/it-channel/204600878)
• “Microsoft and global PR agency Burson-Marsteller are in hot water over a tactic that flies in the face of what we know about the nature of business and transparency in the era of social computing….The world is transparent, and many eyes are focused on the lens peering into the business world. Deceit will be exposed. There is no benefit in trying to get away with something like this, which only hurts the public relations profession, including those who would never engage in such practices.” (Source: http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/weblog/will_we_never_learn/)
• Anshe Chung, owner and developer of virtual real estate on the Dreamland Continent (in SecondLife) issued a news release last year “indicating that she *will* enforce the ballot initiative voted for by the residents of Dreamland — an intitiative that called for the banning of dishonest PR and marketing.” (Source: http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/anshe_to_honor_.html)

I supposed when you are being paid to be the voice of a company or individual, people are naturally skeptic of what you communicate. However, that’s only part of the reason. The other reason is weakness. The lack of self control and standing up to what’s right.

All the PRSA Code of Ethics and other well-intentioned, but teeth-lacking attempts to enforce ethical behavior simply stink if people — PR pros — have no self-control.

One of the positive aspects of social media is how — eventually — the truth will come out if someone is being deceptive or dishonest.

I firmly believe that knowing right from wrong is a basic, inherent human instinct.

We simply must follow our instincts.

–Mike

I don’t have a big problem with services like PayPerPost (mostly because it encourages its bloggers to disclose a PPP post). And, really, if a blogger does paid reviews, it’s part of living in a free market society. For the most part, blogging doesn’t pay (much), and if you can make a buck or three, I can understand the enticement.

But, it’s . . . just . . . not . . . right.

David Binkowski often enough writes about PayPerPost and his opinions are pretty clear.

Sara of Suburban Oblivion, while not giving her opinion, recently asked her readers about paid reviews. (She and others do product reviews, but I saw no indication if they’re paid or not.) It seemed that most of the commenters have no problem with paid reviews.

If you’re being paid to review and blog about a product, there always will be a veil of bias hanging over the post.

I don’t think I’m being utopian by stating that blog posts are viewed as being honest. Forthright. Upfront. 
Trusted. Blogs are a powerful online, word-of-mouth, connecting resource. And, being paid to give an opinion hints at being biased. Not entirely honest.

Like advertising, I suppose services like PPP have their place. But, they do not — they cannot — have the same value as an honest, transparent product review.

As a public relations/marketing communications professional, I will not ask a blogger for a published review. I figure that, if a person blogs, he or she is naturally opinionated and will (postiviely or negatively) blog about the product, if he or she wants to.

The only thing I will ask for is for feedback — privately. That is one of the greatest values: objective subjective feedback.

Granted, however, I do tend to expect, or hope bloggers to blog about the product (because, as I stated, they’re opinionated). So, while not asking for a post, I have stated that, if a blogger does, then we’d try to work out a system where any of his or her readers who order a product and reference the blog, receives a small discount.

One of the greatest assets of social media is in how it connects. But, because that connection is done behind computer screens and keyboards — where you can easily be anonymous — what you type is who you are. Your reputation, your credibility is on the line whenever you blog.

If you’re being paid to review a product, your greatest asset – your credibility – suffers. And, no amount of payment will rebuild what’s been lost.

– Mike

Social media, I think more than anything else, is shining a bright light on public relations.

And, that’s a good thing. Because, rarely does anything good in business happen in the dark (figuratively speaking, of course). So,  goes the argument, if you’ve got nothing to hide, then you won’t mind answering a few questions for us.

Ultimately, good public relations is about achieveing good business results — whether that’s promoting a product, educating the market or pointing out a company’s true good aspects.

It seems like advertising doesn’t have any issues regarding if it’s honest or not. That’s because we know it’s advertising and, of course, it’s slanted. But, public relations — media relations, social media, and other activities to influence people — is generally more tactful. Traditionally, more “behind the scenes.” More indirect in reaching consumers.

And, it’s more personal. (That’s why it’s public relations.) And, because PR pros are being paid to represent a company, there’s an assumed slant. Like in advertising. But, because it’s often personal (not mass-marketed like ads), PR pros are held to a higher standard. We should be.

There should be an expectation of honesty. Beyond the shadow of doubt.  Honesty SHOULD BE THE NORM. Because much of public relations is one-on-one. It’s about relationships.

Unfortunately, there are enough PR pros that are either lazy and don’t do their job thoroughly (as Chris Anderson rightly pointed out) or they are dishonest. I’m sure that being paid to represent a company is a factor in why some suppposed PR pros are lazy or not honest. But, it shouldn’t. In the long-run — particularly dealing in social media — honesty prevails.

Because, as a PR pro, your reputation and your word is your career.

For me, I’m glad there are tools like wikiscanner. It’s only a “nightmare” if you’re being dishonest. While I strongly disagree that PR firms should be banned from editing entries just because they’re PR firms, I have no problem being upfront about my work on Wikipedia or about someone else reviewing any work I’ve done.

I look  forward to the day when PR pros have a better reputation.

- Mike

I guess it depends.

Earlier this week, MarketingVox reported that BrandWeek reported that mobile and banner ads were the least trusted sources of media. Here’s a rundown:

• Newspaper ads: 63% of media consumers surveyed said they trusted newspapers ads.
• TV ads: 56%
• Search ads: 34%
• Banner ads: 26%
• Mobile ads: 18%
• Sites focusing on one brand, built by brand marketers: 60%. (Also called microsites. See my previous post.)

Contrast those trust percentages for ads with blogs:

Consumer-created blogs were trusted by 61 percent of global respondents, a figure that shot up to 66 percent for US-only respondents. That, combined with the 78 percent who trust word-of-mouth recommendations, suggests people put far more stock in the opinions of other “real” people.

So, for advertising, is it a person’s level of comfort and familiarity with the medium that impacts trust? Why are newspaper ads more trusted than banner ads?

And, funny how, even if a person is familiar with a company — say via advertising and other marketing efforts — he/she will trust a stranger — that is, a blogger — more so.

The survey reinforces the notion that bloggers are viewed as everyday people, given the benefit of the doubt, and trusted. Not some cold-hearted, profit-greedy corporation.

And, for ALL bloggers — even marketer types — we must not take that trust for granted and fake blog or fail to ensure transparency in our work.

Otherwise, we’ll get rightfully blasted, and whittle away a huge trust factor — which can be so valuable to our companies and clients when we do develop trusted relationships with bloggers. And, need them.

– Mike

As we get wrapped up in our work, setting — and meeting/exceeding — goals (hits, placements, coverage, etc.), it’s easy to loose sight of what we are really doing. We can get too wrapped up in numbers.

Driving traffic to Websites.

Getting online and offline “hits” for product or company coverage.

Click through rates.

Unless you are making a “pitch” in face to face, it’s easy to become separated from your audience sitting in front of a computer or even on the telephone phone. Just type, click and distribute.

A post by CityMamma/Stefania Pomponi Butler about a BlogHer session reminded me of the importance of knowing who we are dealing with in our work: People.

“In the “State of the Momosphere” session on day 1 of Blogher07, I listened as not one, but two PR guys stood up to tell us mothers how proud they were of their strategy to ‘hook’ moms into trying their products by pretending to read our blogs (so we’ll trust them) before offering up whatever it is that they’d like us to blog for free.”

Two things stand out as being VERY WRONG in the above.

First, in media relations (as in sales), if you’re really good at what you do, you don’t “hook” people to publish your story (or buy your product). You match needs/wants with what your product/service/company can offer. Generally, bloggers and traditional media have a need for good content to maintain and grow readership. If you can show how your ________ can legitimately help them, then you have a great chance for getting a hit. (And, there are other reasons to have bloggers and media review your______ than just coverage.)

Secondly, and most importantly, the comment by the supposed PR pros gave little credit to the bloggers they dealt with. They’re not bloggers. They are people. Assumingly, smart people. People with their own personality, expectations, objectives in blogging. They are individual human beings. Not just bloggers or possible hits.

If good marketing is anything, it’s about how to connect with people. And, social media is so much more because it can be so personal; so one-on-one — even if you are just sitting in front of a computer.

So, the better we can keep in mind that we are dealing with people — with individuals — the better our results will be.

– Mike
Point to Ponder: For another great perspective on that each individual is worthy of being treated as a human — not just another face or a number — see a post from September and follow the link to a column by Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael Miller.