The MoPR Blog

[This post is the first in a series of three for a blog panel comprised of marketing communications practitioners and also includes Frank Strong, Meredith Eaton and Krim Stephenson. All four of us will blog on the same topic on the same day. This first post is on the biggest lesson we learned this year for PR (and marketing).]

Exiting 2009, the public relations industry buzz is all about social media. There are literally thousands of blog posts extolling the virtues of social media use in PR. Some very highly regarded PR pundits are telling us that, because of social media, PR is dead. Still others say that social media is reinventing PR. Those that want to walk the middle line say that social media is causing PR to evolve.

I am amused by the notion that social media is causing PR to evolve, as if the practice of public relations has never previously evolved. PR as a corporate marketing function is older than the Internet, television and radio. As I recently (what’s the right word here) – confessed – to MoPR employees, when I began my career in PR more than 20 years ago, there was no email I could use to send my boss a draft document, and he did not have a mark-up or track changes capability with which to provide me edits. The process was simple: I wrote my draft, when I was satisfied I printed it out, I walked upstairs (we did have elevators back then, but call me old fashioned, I used the stairs anyway) and handed the draft to my boss. My boss then read the draft in my presence, using a red pen to mark his edits – a process he called “bleeding.” After he bled all over my draft, I would go back downstairs to my desk and fashion a rewrite and begin the process all over again.

To think that email and track changes did not play a major role in the evolution of PR is to either not understand what evolution is, or not understand that PR is always evolving. Social media is but one tool, or set of tools, that must be a part of the public relations toolkit. But it isn’t as yet the most important, and I don’t agree that it is the single most important aspect of what has changed in PR over 2009. There are still businesses that can execute a perfect PR program and never use microblogs (Twitter), social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) or even have a blog. If social media were so important, it would be impossible to conduct campaigns without these tools. Yet at the end of 2009 it can still be done.

Consider that social media penetration lags well behind mobile usage around the world. Facebook boasts 350 million “active users” around the world. While that is certainly an impressive number, it’s only about the size of how many people use mobile phones in India. There are still more than 4 billion connected people in the world not using Facebook or other social media.

I am not about to recommend PR without a robust social media component. In fact, my recommendations are quite the opposite, and our agency has invested both time and money in building a suite of proprietary social media tools. Social media is essential, for a variety of reasons. But let’s not over-rotate too far toward a “social media killed PR” belief. Not even close.

When I look back across 2009, I see tremendous changes on the media landscape. We have witnessed more major newsroom layoffs and closures this past year than at any time in my PR career. Some publications ceased producing print editions in favor of going with an online-only approach, while others ceased producing period. Media companies that stayed alive and even thrived in 2009 produced about the same number of articles and pages per edition as they did in 2008, but did so with a much smaller regiment of reporters.

What these changes represented for the PR industry was not a push to embrace social media as, perhaps, an alternative channel to traditional media and blogs, but rather a push to embrace the fundamentals of PR. Cleverness and cute headlines cannot replace the value (or obfuscate the lack thereof) of news being pitched. Reporters that now have double, triple, quadruple or even more the amount of beats to cover as they did last year honed a new skill: find the news in less than five seconds or trash the pitch. If the pitch was good, did it come complete with additional resources? If not, move onto the next pitch (after all, there are scores of pitches in each reporter’s inbox and voicemail, daily).

These changes represented bad news for innovative start-ups that found it harder to break through in 2009. The scarcity of time reporters had to cover all their beats created a litmus test that new companies had a difficult time passing. Without major funding, customer traction, customers willing to talk publicly, other third party references in their corner, new companies stood little chance of earning the game changing coverage they might have attained in previous years. Were there standouts? Certainly. But their numbers are a drop in the bucket as compared to the massive numbers of startups that yearned for important coverage.

Those campaigns executed by MoPR in 2009 that were most successful were those that included the following elements:

• A clear understanding of the audiences that benefit from the news
• News positioned in terms of important contemporary trends impacting these audiences
• Succinct pitches where the news value was obvious to the reporter
• News with additional resource including:
• Citable data related to important trends; bonus points if the data also shows customer take-up of the product or service being pitched
• Relevant graphics and images
• Quotes from customers and industry analysts (plus their contact info)

PR is of course broader than just placing news stories, and there were many lessons we should learn from this past year of tumultuous changes. But those PR practitioners who fail to recognize the fundamental changes that took place within the media landscape, and how those changes impact the practice of PR, risk failure, even if they possess first rate social media skills.

Over the course of 2010 social media will continue to mature. I agree with those that say social media will have a pronounced impact on the evolution of PR (though I disagree that social media is alone at the core of this evolution). Social media does not yet reach everyone it needs to, and in many cases is still a few degrees removed from them. But social media does provide invaluable market research and a means to help hone a company’s product or service story.

In 2009, the biggest lesson learned was the need to get back to basics.

See what the other panelists are saying on their blogs about this topic:

• Frank Strong: Blog Panel Part I: Biggest Lesson of 2009
• Meredith Eaton: Blog Panel – Part 1: 2009’s Biggest PR Lessons Learned
• Krim Stephenson: Blog Panel: The Biggest Lesson of 2009

The next post will focus on how the biggest lessons we’ve learned in 2009 (this post) will shape 2010 and beyond. Stay tuned!

#Vanish

“I’m driving East out of San Francisco on I-80, fleeing my life under the cover of dusk. Having come to the interstate by a circuitous route, full of quick turns and double backs, I’m reasonably sure that no one is following me.” So begins “Wired” magazine’s fascinating article, “Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened,” an article by writer Evan Ratliff.

Ratliff details how difficult it is for a person to disappear off the grid, as he tried to do for a “Wired” magazine experiment/contest in which readers were offered a $5000 bounty to find the writer during a month long period in which he worked very hard not to be found. How hard is it for a person to completely disappear during the age of social communication, picture phones and GPS? Find out in this very compelling article which reads more like a classic whodunit than a technology exposé.

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

For extra detail, read the now defunct Twitter stream from the account Ratliff created during this adventure: http://twitter.com/evan_ratliff.

Beware Social Media Snake Oil

As you are probably aware, BusinessWeek has become part of the Bloomberg family, leading to many changes to their newsroom. We at MoPR were sad to learn that one of our favorite tech writers, Stephen Baker, was leaving. His last story was filed today, separating the hype from the potential among the onslaught of new social media tools, trends and advice. Per his M.O., Baker, gives us an insightful examinations of the facts, mini case studies and even a good measure of intrigue. Baker cites an exchange between a “little-known” social media player and one of its “towering chieftains,” Chris Brogan. Brogan is quoted saying of social media marketing and the ability to measure its results, “Is it an exacting marketing science? Not at all.” To what, exactly, was Brogan referring? You’ll have to read the article to find out.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm

A Painful Social Media Foray for Seattle Journalists

It was stunning news here in the Pacific Northwest: four police officers murdered in a Tacoma, Wash.-area coffee shop. When news this big breaks, local media rush to cover it. Who would have thought that a tragic event such as this could form the foundation for an excellent case study in the use of social media. “TechNewsWorld” writer Renay San Miguel walks us through the role social media played in getting up-to-the-minute and accurate news out to the public.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/68805.html

In Case You Missed It: Black Friday

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the name given to the first “official” in-store shopping day of the Holiday season. Black Friday, unlike other “Black” days, does not signify a crash or some terrible cataclism. Probably named by retail salespeople who must work extra early, extra late and extra hard, Black Friday is the day when hoards of people rush into stores to take advantage of seasonal offers, sales and specials. But as Jonathan Spalter (of Mobile Future) writes in “The Huffington Post,” Black Friday was also a mobile milestone.

As Spalter notes, shoppers armed with smartphones (and some phones that are not so smart) were searching, paying and even receiving coupons. PayPal noted mobile online payments surged 650 percent, and mobile searches grew to 200,000 this year from 5,000 on the same day in 2008. Is Spalter correct, will 2009 be regarded the “tipping point for the mobile web”? Read his article and see if you agree.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-spalter/black-fridays-mobile-mile_b_377309.html

As always, we invite you to share your comments.

Happy 5th anniversary Broadband Gear Report (www.broadbandgear.net)! Five years ago many (yours truly included) weren’t convinced the market could support another publication, but the BGR folks were savvy enough to focus their editorial and have managed to live, thrive and survive. As the name suggests, BGR reports on the needs of cable operators and the products that equipment vendors have created to address these needs.

And the operators definitely need the help. Since time immemorial operators have had a ‘best of breed’ mentality when it comes to building their networks. Rather than source all their equipment from a single vendor, operators prefer to buy products from multiple vendors so they can use the best VOD server, the best stat mux, etc. Sounds simple, but identifying the particular QAM, or optical node that best meets their specific requirements can be very time consuming. Fortunately BGR is here to help.

In particular, BGR’s annual Diamond Technology Reviews give operators an informed and unbiased review of the best products on the market. The rotating roster of judges includes CTOs, engineering veeps, network architects, plant managers – a cross section of wonks responsible for everything from identifying equipment needs, ‘tire kicking’ new products in the lab and the installation, configuration and maintenance of equipment. Good luck coming up with a better, more balanced collection of judges.

Do I sound like a fan? I should, because I definitely am. It’s a crowded, noisy market place out there with vendors making loud claims about their products … and behind closed doors bashing the competition. Getting thoughtful and insightful assessments that are non-partisan is tremendously valuable.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to note that my clients (RGB Networks and Mixed Signals) have traditionally done very well in the Diamond Technology Reviews. In the 2009 reviews RGB’s Broadcast Network Processor got a stellar 4.5 Diamonds (out of a possible 5) and Mixed Signals’ Sentry achieved an impressive 4 Diamonds – much higher than any of Sentry’s competitors.

So again, congrats on your fifth anniversary Broadband Gear Report, you’re earned it.