Silicon Valley Watcher - conversations and observations at the intersection of technology and media

Zachary Seward, writing at Nieman Journalism Lab reports that PR companies are using online ads to try and deal with bad press.

One example is the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, which didn't like a New York Times article about a type of fish called hoki. [An Unlikely Star Among Seafood Causes a Row - NYTimes.com]

The council responded by buying Google Ads linked to keywords: 'new zealand hoki' and 'hoki new york times.'

The ads linked to a page that purports to set the record straight about hoki fishing and includes emails exchanged with Times science editor Laura Chang.

That was itself a feat of public-relations genius: Because the council's hoki page was originally a straightforward description of the fish and its uses, the Times had linked to it in the third paragraph of the article (at right), and 78,000 people clicked though, according to Sarah Crysell, a spokeswoman for the council. Taking advantage of that incoming traffic, the group transformed its hoki page into a rebuttal of the Times story.

I'm sure there will be others using this technique. But it's not as good as my idea for a "Right to Respond" box that could be present next to the actual story.

Companies could pay to respond to a specific story. All publications running a similar story or syndicating that story could also publish the "Right to Respond" button or link and thus its content would be automatically updated across ALL news stories carrying a Right to Respond link.

It would also provide newspaper sites with additional income rather than going to Google and and it would also act as showing the news site is "trusted" and legitimate.

- Companies would pay to use this service, individuals would have free access to make corrections.

- Web site owners/publishers/bloggers, etc would not be forced to provide a Right to Respond link next to their content. But if they did, it would show that they are a respectable and responsible site.

- The New York Times and other large publishers should offer a Right to Respond link next to every story because of their reach and influence and potential to harm reputations. It's the fair thing to do.

- Search engines should offer a right to respond link next to each search result they publish -- even if a right to respond link isn't found on the original web page of a search result.

- There is almost no monetary cost to offering a Right to Respond link, it does not cost a web site owner anything extra in servers or bandwidth.

- Publishers would be paid for offering a Right to Respond service from the fees charged to companies. Each time the page is loaded could earn the publisher a micro-payment, something that could be easily tracked by the Right to Respond widget sitting on the publisher's server.

That payment could be further qualified by the influence of a web site. The New York Times gets more money for running a Right to Respond link than less influential sites-- even if traffic volumes for both are the same.

- Only the content publishers get paid to carry a Right to Respond link and not search engines. It is the originator and not the aggregator that collects the payment.

Would some sites publish nasty things about companies or people simply to collect Right to Respond payments? They could, but constantly publishing critical and negative content would undermine their credibility, their influence, and their traffic.

- Competitors could use the Right to Respond link to publish their side of the story.

Please see:

The Right to Respond Should be a Fundamental Right of the Internet

Last Thursday I was on a panel discussing embargoes. (There will eventually be video of the event.) The moderator was Sam Whitmore, and I was sitting next to Dylan Tweeney from Wired, on my right was Damon Darlin from the New York Times, and Mark Glaser from MediaShift on my far right.

Unfortunately Mike Arrington from TechCrunch couldn't make it, which is a shame because plenty of PR people have told me TechCrunch regularly breaks embargoes and it would have been good to have heard his side of the story.

Dave Needle from InternetNews.com wrote a very good reound-up of what was said: This tech news is not embargoed - InternetNews:The Blog - David Needle

Here is an extract:

While Tweney continues to selectively agree to embargoes (as does InternetNews.com), he said he recently "punished" a PR firm by refusing to communicate with them for six weeks after a competitor was allowed to publish an embargoed story ahead of everyone else. He said the PR firm's excuse was that the vendor, a handset manufacturer, had leaked the news to a blog directly without the PR firm knowing.

The New York Times Darlin said embargoes are generally used as a tool by PR firms to co-opt the media. That said, Darlin said the Times often accept embargoes because they ensure reporters don't miss a story and they have more time to do a thorough job.

That thoroughness is limited. Once you've agreed to an embargo, you can't share that news ahead of time with the analysts and competitors you might otherwise call for comment. Vendors will sometimes provide a list of analysts that have been pre-briefed on their news.

While many took shots at the embargo process and the games PR folk sometimes play, Chris Preimesberger, an editor at eWeek, said embargoes help him get his job done.

"They give me the background information and the time to do the piece right," said Preimesberger, during a follow up Q&A session. He estimates 75 to 80 percent of the stories eWeek does are facilitated by the embargo process, the rest are breaking news.

"I have no problem with the process and don't feel like I'm being manipulated," said Preimesberger.

My proposal that holding a press conference, real or virtual, so that everyone gets the news at the same time seemed to have a fair amount of support as an alternative to embargoes. But overall, I didn't think that we made much progress in creating any new rules around embargoes.

However, I was surprised that there is such a lot of interest in this subject. Embargoes have been around since year dot and we all have our way of working with them, selectively of course. They are not going away, that's certain.

But I think it could and should lead to media outlets rethinking their editorial policy. Do we have to be first with with news? If a dozen other publications also have the news what is our value-add?

There is more to be gained from developing an unique editorial stance than there is from pressing the publish button a few minutes earlier than anyone else..

The panel discussion sparked a few blog posts. Mike Yamamoto, the founding editor of CNET's News.com wrote an interesting post. The absurdity of embargoes

What was especially interesting was his stories about the use of embargoes when he worked in the Washington D.C. bureau of the Los Angeles Times. Government agencies routinely placed embargo notices on their news releases. It's a practice that companies and PR firms have attempted to use too.

For some reason, many companies and government agencies seem to think that simply receiving so-called embargoed material automatically means you have agreed to it--even if you never knew the information existed, let alone had consented to any restrictions, before it landed in your inbox or mailroom unsolicited.

It would be the equivalent of my mass-emailing a contract to sell my house for $10 million, then holding its recipients to the provisions of the "agreement." When they rightly tell me to go pound salt, I would cry foul and claim that they broke the rules.

Mr Yamamoto rightly points out:

Because News.com did not agree to embargoes, therefore, their restrictions did not apply to us. It's impossible to "break" a contract you never agreed to.

Lastly, I feel it is up to the PR industry to police this issue. If they are working with a journalist or organization that routinely breaks their word, then they should not disclose embargoed information the next time.

A lot of PR people have jumped into the world of blogging, Facebook and now Twitter, with a lot of enthusiasm and they have been doing it for years and now have very healthy traffic numbers and very large numbers of Twitter followers.

For example, Brian Solis: His blog BrianSolis.com has about 77,000 unique visitors every month and he has a Twitter following of more than 33,000.

Todd Defren from Shift Communications, his pr-squared.com has blog traffic of more than 30,000 unique visitors and he has a Twitter following of over 13,000.

Steve Rubel at Edelman has recently shifted to a Posterous blog but he has more than 56,000 unique visitors and more than 31,000 Twitter followers.

In contrast, journalists and their employers have been slow to make use of the "new media." Few journalists blog and few are on Twitter or Facebook, and generally, most are very timid when it comes to promoting their own stories and building up their Twitter/Facebook followers and friends.

Yet it is this type of active, always-on social media presence that is required these days, as a journalist, to gain attention to your stories. I do it -- not because I like or dislike doing it -- it's simply that's what the current rules of the game are.

But, it's going to be a while before other journalists figure out these rules of self-promotion and become comfortable with self-promotion. (Self-promotion is fine as long as you can walk your walk -- self-promotion is bad only when you are promoting poor content.)

Since PR people are much more comfortable with self-promotion, many have acquired large traffic to their blogs and also amassed large numbers on their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

This brings up an interesting scenario because in the majority of cases, PR people such as Brian Solis, are pitching stories to journalists who have very much smaller pageviews on the stories they write, and far smaller Twitter/Facebook communities to which to distribute their stories, than the PR people.

The PR people could post the stories themselves and pitch them to their already large communities and get a far higher readership!

But, the problem they face is that this would be a "pay per post" type scenario and they would lose credibility very quickly.

Also, having someone else write a story about your client, on a third-party site, where there has been no exchange of money, conveys far higher value to the story.

That's the paradox of PR peoples' large, personal media footprint -- they can't use their own access to large numbers of people to promote their clients.

Tuesday was a very good day. I got to spend time with Sabrina Horn, head of the Horn Group, and Todd Defren, head of Shift Communications.

These are two people that I have a lot of respect for because they've been around the block a few times and they are in the midst of some big changes.

They spend a lot of time in Silicon Valley but they are based out on the East coast, which gives them a broader perspective about many of the things that are happening here.

Also, what is interesting is that we are both on different sides of the same coin. The changes that are disrupting the media industry are similar to the changes disrupting the PR industry.

And these are not pleasant times. It's especially tough when you are responsible for large numbers of staff (which I'm not). These are scary times.

But these are also fascinating times.

While many bemoan the dying of traditional media, we forget to notice that we have more media now, in more formats, than ever before in the short history of our species. What will this lead to?

This is an incredible time to be a witness to what is going on, and even better, to be involved in the dramatic changes in media and PR communications.

The way I see things developing is that our future destinies are converging. Whether we are in journalism or PR, our mission is to help our communities, companies, non-profit organizations, governments, individuals, etc, to help them tell their stories in real and authentic ways. So that the more we know about each other the less strange we will seem to each other.

Why is this important? Because in an increasingly media fragmented world it is easier than ever for people to spend time with others that look and think the same. It is easier than ever to become more segregated and distant from each other.

And the less we know about each other the more opportunities there are for xenophobia and conflict.

As journalists and PR communicators we have a unique opportunity to work to bridge these divides and that means we all benefit.

How we do it I'm not sure but that's the best part -- we all get a chance to figure these things out.

This might seem a bit of a stretch, a post about journalism and PR trends turning into a post about peace and understanding. But what can I say? That's where I see things heading. And that's what gets me out of bed each day.

Over on my ZDNet column IMHO I asked "Has Steve Jobs banned Apple from social media?" because it certainly looks that way.

Some people have said that it is a good thing because Apple doesn't want people talking about its upcoming products and leaking company secrets.

But social media isn't about leaking company secrets at all. It is about showing that you are listening and engaged with your customers. At least, that's what all the social media "experts" will tell you.

Is it possible to ignore social media and still be successful? Clearly, Apple can do it. Can anyone else?

How long can Apple, or any other company, continue to be disengaged in social media? I don't know but we are going to find out.

Is it possible to tempt Apple into social media? Maybe.

In social media you have to be courageous and realize you cannot keep control over your corporate message. But you can communicate your corporate message if you are consistent and persistent.

You say it once, twice, three thousand times. Consistent and persistent otherwise you truly do lose control.

You have to be engaged, show that you are listening. Otherwise you will look arrogant and aloof. And that's too much of a temptation for the hands of fate to slap you back down to earth.

Let's see how far Apple gets with this policy of non-engagement with social media. It will be an interesting case study.

Five weeks ago I wrote: Apple Rant: AppleCare = Shoddy Service - Apple Arrogance?. At the time it quickly attracted a bunch of comments, many of them sharing bad experiences with Apple's AppleCare.

What was interesting was that there was no response from Apple. And five weeks later, that post continues to be discovered and continues to attract comments -- sometimes in large batches as it gets picked up by services such as StumbleUpon.

Yet there is still nothing from Apple, which is surprising because by not leaving a comment, Apple comes across as arrogant, and that it doesn't care that there is a conversation going on about its warranty service.

This is a touchy subject: the ethics of public relations professionals.

It's touchy because PR people are often representing clients, or pushing stories that they don't like, don't believe in, and are just going through the motions. And that doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel clean, but is it unethical?

According to Bulldog Reporter, researchers ran PR professionals through a standardized ethics test for the first time. And the results were excellent. They showed "similarity to other professionals with comparable levels of education such as journalists, nurses and dental students."

[Here is an excellent article by Andrew Fowler, from Newsvetter, a Portland based PR consultancy. If you'd like to publish a guest post on SVW please contact me tom at foremski.com]

By Andrew Fowler

If there's anybody who has developed a successful model for charging for news content, it's the PR industry.

In 2007, press releases represented a $2.2 billion market, according to Fortune. This figure only covers distribution through companies such as PR Newswire and PR Web. It does not include the cost to write and pitch them to the media which, in my experience, almost always exceeds the cost of distribution.

Most companies have accepted press releases (or social media releases) as the main engine powering their news programs. PR agencies love them because it's the easiest way to generate revenue and there's little resistance on the client side.

But how many of these press releases are actually worth the time and money? Not many.

Companies love to have enthusiastic customers because the passion that comes with enthusiasm sells. Word-of-mouth is the most effective driver of sales bar none.

Companies love enthusiastic customers that have blogs, are active on Facebook, Twitter, etc because they can reach more people. But how do you get enthusiastic customers?

Large corporations are supposed to be interested in what is said about them. That's why there are no end of marketing experts out there talking about social media and that corporations risk having their brand destroyed by negative conversations, that they need to respond quickly and decisively.

But is this true?

Take Apple, it doesn't appear to pay attention to social media or much to any media in general. Yet it is a successful company.

Whenever there is criticism of Apple in the mediasphere I rarely see an Apple response. By mediasphere I mean the entire media landscape from traditional media through to social media, Twitter, etc.

Is it because of the "fanboys" that will froth at any mention of Apple criticism that Apple doesn't need to do respond? Or is it best to just ignore negative publicity?

About 30,000 people (and counting) have read my Apple rant so far, and this is an influencer community of readers, it's not your average eyeball. On ZDNet there have been 90 comments about my story. Yet not a peep from Apple.

All it would take would be for Apple to leave a comment, something like: "We're sorry, we try to do our best but unfortunately we can't cover your repair but we have an excellent record, etc, etc." At least it shows Apple cares about AppleCare. But no, nothing.

Is this a sign of arrogance? Is this a sign of "I've-got-$24-billion-in-the-bank-and-I'm-adding-$1-billion-a-quarter-in-your-face-arrogance? It certainly looks that way.

Similarly, I had a bad experience with Wells Fargo and wrote about it. Within minutes people were leaving their bad stories about Wells Fargo. I wrote more about Wells Fargo, trying to see if there would be a response. Nothing.

It seems every few weeks people find my posts and leave new bad experiences to tell. Still nothing from Wells Fargo. All it would take would be a simple comment, "sorry about that Tom, but there's nothing we could do, that's our policy."
But no response comes across as arrogant. Especially when you see headlines such as: Wells Fargo profit beats Wall Street estimates. "Wells Fargo said its earnings after payment of preferred dividends came to $2.58 billion."

So, is it best just to ignore any criticisms? It sure seems that way - which is bad news for all the social media marketing gurus if that's the case.

- - -

Apple Rant: AppleCare = Shoddy Service - Apple Arrogance?

RantWatch: Shoddy AppleCare - arrogant Apple

Case Study In Online Brand Management: Wells Fargo Continues to Ignore The Conversation...

Wells Fargo Case Study: From Crisis Meeting To Conversation

Case Study: Wells Fargo's Effective Brand Management . . . Not!

RantWatch: Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

This is a great time to be in PR. That's what Jason Mandell from Launchsquad said in a recent guest post on SVW, and that's also the view of Emilio Robles, over at Ogilvy blog Tech PR Nibbles.

I agree. I also think it's a great time to be in media. But PR hasn't yet had to deal with the gut wrenching changes that media has had to deal with as business models change. My friends in PR tell me they can see the changes therefore they will be able to deal with it all and prosper.

I'm not so sure. Changes are underway in PR and they are not pretty. For example, the opportunities offered by social media are not well recognized by clients. There is a perception that social media is free yet it's more expensive than traditional PR.

I like to remind people that disruptive technologies disrupt. We are dealing with disruptive media (PR) technologies. If you are in the path of a disruptive technology you will likely slam into that train-wreck up ahead -- even if you can see it. That's why I just nod when people tell me that they can what's ahead and can change fast enough that it won't be a problem.

Social Media Metrics = PR ROI = More $$

[Guest Post from Jason Mandell (@jmandell on Twitter) from LaunchSquad, which PR Week named Boutique PR Agency of 2009. Please send your guest post to Tom(at)Foremski.com]

By Jason Mandell

One idea that you allude to in your post, but do not outright say, is that this might be the best time ever to be in the PR industry.

Modern communications revolves around good stories that lead to interesting conversations that ultimately drive positive outcomes.

And no marketing discipline sits closer to a company's "story," and has the ability to engage with consumers both directly and through the media, better than public relations. PR people tend to understand "story" more deeply than any other marketing discipline, and as a result we have an advantage in figuring out how to inspire and engage in a credible way with people. The changes going on right now fit right into the sweet spot of skills that PR folks have been required to have.

The bigger question is not if PR will survive, it's how long it will take for the industry to evolve and what its next form will look like when the dust settles. One thing is for sure, it will look very different than today, and we're doubling down that PR will be a driving force within the greater sphere of marketing in helping companies compete and succeed. It's already clear from what many companies are doing that there's a lot of PR firms that understand this well and have embraced this exciting new landscape in very profound ways.

The PR firm of the future in our view is based on the following key elements:

The growing influence of the real-time web, where people read more from their real-time streams on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc, than visiting a variety of sites to see what's new, brings new challenges for PR.

The challenge comes from being able to represent a client within the real-time web on a near daily basis.

For example, a company might employ a PR firm to gain media exposure. Suppose that over the course of a month the PR firm manage to get a bunch of stories about their client placed in prominent publications, say a large local newspaper, a large business magazine, a mention in a national newspaper, and a few trade publications. Plus a few blogs.

That's a pretty good result according to the metrics of most PR engagements. But is that enough?

With the growth of the real-time web, those news articles become less valuable and have much shorter shelf lives. If a news article is posted at 9 am then it is already fish-wrap by noon -- it is unlikely to be seen by the lunchtime crowd in their real-time streams. And it will be difficult to get those publications to write about a client company again very soon unless there are very good reasons.

So what is the media strategy for the real-time web? How can a PR firm maintain a client's name in the public eye on a near daily basis?

Some in the PR community have decent sized audiences on their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, they could publish to those communities. But those aren't target audiences, and they wouldn't take kindly to constant posts about clients.

PR professionals could ghost-write blogs, Tweets, and Facebook updates, but there are two problems here.

1) How do you develop a large enough real-time audience for your client? You have to build it up over time with quality content in a consistent manner.

2) How do you produce quality content consistently? You have to be genuine, and you have to "keep it real" otherwise it smells fishy and it looks like spam -- doubly unappetizing.

In the online world we know that passion communicates well. Fake passion communicates even better -- you can spot a fake a mile away.

I have some answers . . .(I'll share mine if you'll share yours :)

[It's a pleasure to host a guest post by Lou Hoffman, who runs The Hoffman Agency in Silicon Valley.]

By Lou Hoffman

Silicon Valley Watcher has evolved into a provocative voice on the PR industry.

Even if I don’t agree with some opinions – “Media industry is going to hell in a handbasket - Where is PR industry's handbasket?” missed the mark – it’s healthy to have someone care enough about this business besides PR Week to offer up commentary.

Regarding SVW’s latest salvo on the PR industry, “The New Rules in PR – The Old Model is Dead” dare I say it offers a blend of wisdom and common sense.

For several years I've warned the PR agencies that fundamental changes have occurred in their world just as they have in the media world.

I said it all reminded me of the cartoon character Wily E. Coyote, who is chasing the Road Runner. Everything is fine until he looks down and sees he has run out of road and there is nothing between him and the distant canyon floor.

For the past few years the PR agency world didn't know it had run out of road because it was able to charge for its traditional PR activities and also to charge extra for its "social media" expertise too. Times were great, money was pouring in, and everyone was hiring.

Now the road has run out in traditional PR for many, and the canyon floor is a long way down. These days, I can't tell you how many people from large PR agencies have been telling me "the old model is dead."

Here are a few notes from my conversations:

There are a lot of PR practitioners and social media monitoring companies spending a lot of time warning corporations that they need to monitor the online world for negative conversations about their brands.

Last week I addressed the current fashion and passion for the real-time web: The Real-Time Web - Blink And You Missed It - SiliconValleyWatcher

I made a point that there might not be much value in the monitoring of real-time online conversations about brands because if those conversations take place in real-time, they are done and dusted by the time a corporation decides to become involved. I asked how many people review their real-time streams of content on Facebook or Twitter? Which means if something nasty was said the likelihood is that very few people saw it -- only those that happened to be looking at their streams at that particular time would have seen it.

Yesterday, Mark Cuban published an interesting post on Blog Maverick in a similar vein, questioning the damage from negative online comments or posts about a person, or a company. He asked: Who Cares What People Write ?

He gave excellent advice:

When you see things written about a person, place or thing you care about, whether its positive or negative, take a very deep breath before thinking that the story means anything to anyone but you.

As a journalist I always believed that others often over-reacted to “bad” press. After all, it quickly became yesterday’s fishwrap and last week's fading memory.

Yet I've seen very large corporations getting their underwear in a twist because someone somewhere said something "bad" about their CEO or their products. Without assessing much of anything about the source.

In March 2005, I published: If a Blogger blogs in the Blogosphere . . . does anybody blog it? It addressed similar themes and predicted that there would be even fewer people paying attention to bloggers in the future.

Building a personal blogging brand and cultivating a key readership within such an increasingly noisy media landscape will become increasingly difficult for individuals. We will see consolidation as blogs become group blogs and then become fully-fledged online news magazines.

Four years on, there seems to be ever more people with a vested interest in trying to scare corporations about how unattended online conversations about their brands can blow up into PR disasters. It's true, they can, but it's rare, and as Mark Cuban points out, usually only if it came from an online media personality.

Clearly, there are conversations that have to be monitored and dealt with: either by ignoring or responding. But there seems to be few people within corporations with the ability to distinguish between appropriate action and reaction.

[On my recent trip to Portland I caught up with Kathleen Mazzocco from Clear PR. I mentioned one of my old posts (April, 2006) that every company is a media company. Every company has to learn how to publish using the new (two-way) media technologies, to reach their customers, their employees, partners, local communities, etc. And one role of PR is to help companies become media companies and help them tell their stories. Here is more on this theme.]

By Kathleen Mazzocco, Clear PR

I wanted to continue the conversation we'd started regarding the future of PR. It may seem passe at this point to talk about the need for companies to give up the old PR model and innovate on communications. But the reality is that many, perhaps the majority, of companies still want PR budgets focused to land them big stories in leading print publications. But this is a short term game that doesn't even yield the same results as it once did.

Let me continue by recreating a conversation I've had lately with clients:

"It's time. No more quibbling, no more dawdling. In this age of crumbling paradigms, it is time for you to think about how to become a media company.

Here's why: your favorite print media brands are under siege and quite a few will succumb. We have reached the proverbial tipping point in terms of Internet over print as a source of news. For the first time in a Pew Research survey, more people say they rely mostly on the Internet for news than cite newspapers (35%).

The latest recession has merely accelerated a trend that was already well underway and cannot be reversed even after the economy bounces back. Think of the changes this way: your college age children will never read a print newspaper or magazine. The fact is, information consumption habits have permanently changed: news is consumed in small bites 24/7 from a variety of sites and not always as text.   

Instead of media brands, it is now brand-agnostic Google that mediates access to information.

Media guru Michael Wolf recently stated that 80% of newspapers will disappear in 18 months. That is one (expert) opinion, but you don't have to be a seer to know that most newspapers won't survive, at least in their present print form, and that many magazines will disappear, shrink or decline in relevance as audiences shift, fragment. The pressure on editors and reporters to remain relevant, competitive and simply hold on to their jobs is intensifying. The news hole is very small, with simply less paper available for stories and fewer, more overworked reporters left to write them. (There is a certain tech reporter who, after recent layoffs at his paper, was assigned a second beat: dining. Is that demoralizing or what.) If your story does make it to the New York Times or Business Week, chances are it will be shorter than you think it deserves to be, or not even in print but in one of the newspaper's blogs.

It is becoming very difficult for traditional PR to predict which stories will get picked up in print, even among very good ones. As a way of illustrating the current situation, here's what I heard from two different reporters when I pitched what I knew to be great stories last week:

The problem with social media is that if you try to manipulate it for marketing purposes it can blow up in your face and bite you in the butt (mashup metaphor #32).

Take a look at the Procter and Gamble experiment to sell "Tide" t-shirts. Brian Morrissey, Digital Editor at Adweek describes what happened:

This is what was going on last night at the P&G Digital Hack Night, when P&G got a bunch of agency types, media execs and others to troop to Cincy to perform for it. The idea: use social media to get people to buy Tide t-shirts –- some of the proceeds going to Feed America -- with an emphasis on "use." It was cooked up as a marketing exercise for the CPG giant’s army of brand managers to see the true power of social media.

@bmorrissey: The feel-good social marketing bribe

P&G asked people to use a hashtag on Twitter so that they could follow how this campaign developed and then develop marketing methods for using Twitter and other social media to promote hundreds of everyday products.

How did it go? More than 2,000 shirts were sold at $20 each by about 150 "media and marketing people."

Mr Morrissey reports: "This was a marketing exercise, nothing more, yet I wonder if it’s going in the wrong direction."

A lot of people agree. Nick, commenter on @bmorrissey wrote:

150 determined salespeople sold 2000 shirts in four hours? That's 13 each. I've seen better results from bake sales.

Further, I can only imagine most T-shirt buyers will feel suckered pretty quickly, knowing their interest and $20 was converted into a case study for the social media minds they diligently pander to.

But the bigger issue, for me, is the education issue. Clients still don't understand the fundamentals of digital. I hear it time and time again from frustrated companies. It's great P&G wants to help employees understand. But, as a learning exercise, you put 40 invitees into crisis mode to sell T-shirts for four hours? Is frenzied Tweeting the behavior you want to impress on clients as how you work for them?

At least everyone gets to post self-congratulatory blog entries about it.

Foremski's Take:

This is the conundrum facing PR and marketing people on social media. There are lots of PR and marketing gurus on social media. They do very well and they have lots of friends and followers. And they do well because they give out a lot of value. They give out lots of tips and links to information that helps others do their job.

But what happens if you try to convert that audience into an army of followers who are retweeting and blogging commercial messages on the behalf of paying clients? It's like the hackers that create botnets of thousands of infected PCs and then use them to broadcast millions of spam messages. Can you create a human botnet army? Or a Twitnet army?

No you can't, it won't work. And so here we have the conundrum of social media. Yes, you can rapidly gain a large number of "friends" and build a large Twitter following. But if you try to to sell access to that network to commercial enterprises you will run into trouble.

These days many PR firms advise their clients to hire them to build a large Facebook friends or Twitter following. This is not good advice, imho.

Corporations might have the status of an individual person in US law, such as freedom of speech, but in a social media context they will be seen as being in it for themselves with little to share except coupons and discount codes. That's value enough but it's not much more than is already available.

There is clearly value in creating a personal brand in social media but you can only do it by providing lots of value, and do it consistently. You cannot buy a personal brand. So what is the future for commercial brands in social media? What is the future for corporations wanting to buy a social presence?

For example, on Facebook, Seagate asked me to be its friend, to join its fan page etc. It might work if it was Hugo Boss but I'm pretty sure I don't want a social relationship with my hard drive. And I'm pretty sure other people feel the same way.

Commercial brands have to tread carefully in the social media space because missteps get magnified tremendously. I wonder how much the P&G experiment has left a sour, soapy taste in the mouths of many people.

(Hat tip to Gumshoo) Here is a Gumshoo 'toon.'

Silicon Valley companies of all sizes are cutting staff and things are getting worse and this is trend is also hitting the PR community. It almost seems as if everyone has suddenly become a "consultant" at the same time.

In some cases, the "consultants" have been rehired by the companies they used to work for, at a higher hourly rate but with fewer hours per week.

Not everyone is happy with this prospect but it has some benefits. "I was pissed off about it at first, but now I'm coming around to it. It makes it possible for me to make more money and work fewer hours if I can get additional clients," said a former manager at a local PR company.

The PR industry in Silicon Valley appears to be converting to "consultants" en masse. The benefits to PR firms are that they save on payroll and other costs. However, the risk is that PR firms could lose their remaining clients to an army of very competent PR consultants offering services at sharply lower costs compared with PR firms and their higher costs of doing business.

The bad economy is not the only issue affecting the PR industry, there is another trend at work, one that is not a cyclical business cycle.

"No PR firm will be able to justify a monthly retainer of $30,000 just to do media relations and put out a few press releases. The old way of doing PR just doesn't cut it anymore. Even when the economy comes back, the old way of doing PR won't," said a senior person at a large West Coast PR firm.

Foremski's Take:

For the past several years I've been warning the PR industry that they days of old school PR are numbered, that there has been a fundamental change in the industry. The same technologies and trends that have disrupted the media industry will disrupt the PR industry.

But this fundamental change in the industry was hidden in large part by a good economy -- clients were willing to pay for the old school PR such as the $30K a month retainers, and also pay extra for the new rules PR based on the new media services and technologies available through social media and a plethora of communications channels.

Many people in the PR industry disagreed with me and said that PR companies will be able to transition to the new models without much trouble because they can see the change and would be able to incorporate it into their business model.

I disagreed with that view because of the disruptive nature of media/communications technologies now available. And the chief characteristic of a disruptive technology is that it disrupts. Even if you can clearly see the changes in your industry you won't be able to change fast enough. For example, newspapers see the changes in their industry but can't change fast enough. Same was true for computer companies reacting to the PC. The same is now true for the PR industry.

I always said that the PR industry will only change when it feels the pain of the loss of its old way of making money. No pain no change. These days there is a lot of pain.

- - -

Please see:

October 2007 Wily E Coyote: Traditional PR is Running on Thin Air

March 2006  Microsoft's ROI on Robert Scoble - the disruption of PR by blogging

January 2006 Disruption in mainstream media but where is the disruption in the mainstream PR industry?

Last night I was having drinks with a friend and a lady sitting next to us at the bar joined in once she heard we were talking about Facebook, Twitter, and public relations.

She said she had been in PR for 15 years and was preparing a course to teach MBA students about the importance of PR for business strategies. And she gave some examples of advising clients about social media, Facebook and Twitter.

I asked her if she is on Facebook or Twitter. She said, "No, not personally." But, she said she knew "all about Facebook and Twitter."

I said that you can't advise clients about how they should best use social media such as Facebook or Twitter if you aren't involved in Facebook or Twitter.

She strongly disagreed.

There seemed no sense in continuing that discussion because her position is nonsense.

- You cannot know much about social media by reading about social media.

- If you don't blog, or aren't involved in blogging through reading and commenting, you cannot know about blogging.

- If you don't use Facebook you can't know what is acceptable behavior on Facebook.

- If you don't use Twitter you cannot know what is possible with Twitter.

You cannot get it unless you are in it.

- - -

Please see:

The "Experiential Gap" . . .

PRWatch: PR Firms That Don't Blog Yet Offer New/Social Media Practices

PR Firms That Blog

Kevin Cheng writes:

As a member of the public relations community in the Bay Area, I love keeping tabs on what some of my favorite PR Firms are doing. Nowadays, a company’s website only tells half the story, rather its online footprint tells me everything I need to know. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – the works – are all part of an agency’s branding, messaging and reputation. And from what I’ve seen, Bay Area PR agencies are some of the best at utilizing the online realm to spread their news effectively.

I was delighted to learn that my agency, Eastwick Communications, along with Hoffman Agency, LaunchSquad, Peppercom, Xenophon Strategies and Weber Shandwick have all booked time on the same day to give back to the community. How? As participants in the Council of Public Relations Firms event for non-profits,“Thriving and Surviving in Uncertain Times: Digital Marketing Techniques for Non-Profits.”

From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Thursday, February 26 at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco digital communication experts from leading PR Firms in the Bay Area will join Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell and Founder of Altimeter Group, Susan Tenby of TechSoup Global and Stacy Bond of AudioLuxe on a panel to share best practices, case studies and techniques for leveraging digital channels to help spread an organization’s message.

It’s not often you get six of the area’s top agencies, let alone coveted social media evangelists and non-profit veterans, in the same room together to share digital communication strategies. With high-level speakers, collaborative content and open Q & A, this unique and cost-effective educational opportunity will cover everything attendees need to know about digital marketing techniques.

The full agenda can be seen here

Click here to register

Monday evening I caught up with Sabrina Horn, head of the Horn Group, one of my favorite PR mavens. Ms Horn runs one of oldest and feistiest Silicon Valley/New York boutique PR firms and in 17 years in the business she has survived the many ups and downs of the local and global economy.

Obviously, we talked about the financial crisis and how it might affect the PR industry. Ms Horn's response was typical: "If we are heading into a recession, bring it on. We've been here before and we know what to do."

Earlier in the day she addressed the San Francisco office and talked about the potential effects of the financial crisis. "I think its important to let my people know that we know how to handle these types of situations."

She finished the meeting with three four-letter words: Sell like hell!

Ms Horn lives in New York and her agency spans both coasts, with about 45 people and $10m in revenues. Over the past few years she has diversified the company into web development and graphic design--services that help her clients.And now social media is a key driving force for the company.

"Eventually social media will replace a lot of traditional PR but there will still be room for both," says Ms. Horn. And companies need to understand the best combination for their business. She says some clients want to rush into "social media" without considering what it means and the commitment that has to be made.

Every company is a media company . . .

I've often spoken about how every company is now a media company and needs to master the new media technologies at our disposal, such as RSS, blogging, Twitter, social media, etc. But being a media company requires a commitment, it is not a "campaign" that runs for a few months and finishes--it is a long term commitment and not everyone understands this aspect and what that means.

I love to remind people that these are fascinating times for professional communicators, whether they are media professionals or PR professionals because there is so much change going on. There are still so many questions about the best use of the new media technologies. What are the best formats, the best practices? And we all get to figure out how this all works, we all have a hand in helping to create the future.

It is this aspect of the PR business that excites Ms Horn. "I'm fed up with the animosity that you see between some journalists and the PR industry. If they think we don't do anything of value I challenge them to spend two days in our shoes, sitting in on our meetings and seeing what we do."

No one has taken up Ms. Horn's challenge. I said I would do it, I'd love to know more abut how things are done in the PR world.

I look at the PR industry as a partner to what I do. I would not be able to do my job if it wasn't for people in the PR industry paying attention to what I'm writing and offering top CEOs, and pitching interesting stories. My problem is not the many bad pitches, which seem to anger younger journalists, it is all the great pitches that I don't have time to get around to.

Horn Group is one of the PR companies that I'll be watching as one of the thought leaders in a rapidly changing industry--with or without a recession.

- - -

Please see:

Horn Group Weblog

Sabrina Horn: Horn Group Weblog: A Nickel for Your Thoughts

. . . There is this undertone in a lot of blogs that what PR folks do in this role is largely intelligence-free. It is true that if I had a nickel for every time in my 17 years at Horn Group I interviewed a starry-eyed professional who pronounced they “like working with people” I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere. But I’m not. Here’s the deal: to all those nay-sayers, those folks who are dare-i-say-it, too complacent and comfortable, all those jaded Doubting-Thomases, THOSE DAYS ARE GONE. Call it a call to arms, or an all hands on deck to our colleagues in PR. We need to embrace the changes seeping through our walls. The reality is, many of us have been leading the charge for some time now.

. . . Are we doing PR? Yes, and no. Its just that PR has changed and taken on a much broader role as a communications discipline. In fact, with some clients, there are times when the last thing we actually talk about is PR. Now its more about how we can help our clients be “social”. But that’s the new PR of today, and the Communications business of the future. To discuss the many aspects of this topic further, we’re co-hosting a panel discussion with Girls in Tech, date TBD. I also invite you to take Dee Anna’s challenge and come spend a couple days with us. It's inspiring, it's awesome, and if we don’t surprise and delight, I’ll give you a nickel.

Tuesday I met with the San Francisco office of Shift Communications. There was about 50 of us tightly packed into a conference room on the ninth floor of a downtown office building. (Special shout out to Julie Crabill and Kevin Cheng.)

I do a lot of these lunch sessions during which I talk about my experience as a journalist and how media and PR are changing, and continuing to change. I learn a lot from these sessions and I notice how similar the questions are, whether it is from Microsoft's internal communications teams or from large and small PR agencies.

Afterwards I got a rare chance to sit and catch up with Todd Defren, one of the owners of Shift. Todd has been blogging for about as long as I have, more than 4 years (Social Media and Public Relations Consulting – PR Squared). It's always interesting to speak the same language with other bloggers.

Here are a few snippets from our conversation.

- We think of ourselves more as a talent agency than as a PR firm. We put our people through a lot more training and education than we used to do because just one slip up can reflect badly on the entire agency. For example, look at Chris Anderson's list of PR companies that were on his blacklist, Shift was on that because of a slip up by one person out of 110.

- Clients increasingly want coverage by all the bloggers in their sector because they don't know who the most influential bloggers are. It's not enough just to focus on the top 50.

- We are being asked to do a lot more media creation, take a flip video to events, to interview people, etc.

- Social media is the tip of the spear in terms of new business.

- I worry about the changing media landscape and what will happen. The larger media companies will survive in one way or another but I'm not sure about the others.

- --

Please see SVW:

Public Relations is Such a Sensitive Profession . . .

PR is such sensitive profession. Anytime anyone criticizes any aspect of the practice of public relations the industry pays lots of attention along with a lot of mea culpa. If journalists did the same we'd never get any work done.

Jennifer Leggio over at ZDNet has a good account of the latest PR bashing incident: Bloggers vs. PR - the broken record continues to skip

-

How to suck up to Chris Anderson in 1000 words or more . . .

Bad PR pitches will continue because:

- many PR firms use juniors to scatter-shoot generic pitches hoping someone will bite.

- the fragmentation of media means there isn't enough time to customize each pitch for each journalist/blogger.

- many PR firms have very small numbers of people with the domain expertise in what their clients do.

Maybe I should publish a white-list of PR people who are doing a great job, pitching excellent story ideas, offering exclusives, arranging interviews with their top CEOs, and generally looking out for me and my product.

-

Chris Anderson Sparks Blacklist Debate - We'll Get You A T-Shirt And A Coffee Mug

If you aren't on Chris Anderson's blacklist we can get you on it. For just $75 we will send a press release in your name that has absolutely nothing to do with "Wired" magazine. It is guaranteed to land you at the top of his list or your money back.

Plus, you get a T-Shirt: "I'm on the Wired list how about you?" on the back is your name and several hundred others (only available in black).

And you get a coffee mug with "Chris is steamed" (copyright: Heddi Cundle).

-

Chris Anderson's PR Blacklist Backlash - The Long Tail of Bad PR

I'm a huge fan of Mr Anderson, he turned around a sickly magazine and made it into a powerhouse. No question about it, he turned Wired from tired to inspired.

Bad time of the month?

I know the pressures of a monthly magazine, you are going to press, and there are a million details to pay attention to...it is not the best time of the month to deal with useless emails, however... I discussed Mr Anderson's reaction with many people, some PR people, but especially with many veteran journalists. We all receive bad pitches, that's part of our job. We ignore or delete, and then we move on with our day. Not for Mr Anderson, things became personal:

There is no getting off this list. If you're on it and have something appropriate to say to me, use a different email address.

This coming Monday I'll be in Seattle talking to nearly 400 internal Microsoft PR people about the changes in media and how these changes affect the practice of public relations.

On Tuesday I'll be back in San Francisco doing the same with the PR practitioners at Shift Communications, one of my favorite PR firms.

Let me know if you'd like me to come in and chat with your internal corporate PR teams or with your agency teams. It is typically a lunchtime talk and I do one or two per month depending on my availability. I'm happy to share what I come across during this historic change in our respective industries -- and I learn a lot too, from these interactions.

PR is such sensitive profession. Anytime anyone criticizes any aspect of the practice of public relations the industry pays lots of attention along with a lot of mea culpa. If journalists did the same we'd never get any work done.

Jennifer Leggio over at ZDNet has a good account of the latest PR bashing incident: Bloggers vs. PR - the broken record continues to skip | Feeds | ZDNet.com

It seems to me that the PR industry takes on criticism in two ways:

1 - it agrees with the criticism and pledges to do better accompanied by donning of hair shirts and self-flailing blog posts that go on and on for pages.

2 - It dismisses the criticism as massively ill informed and the ravings of an idiot..

It is usually 90 per cent number 1.

Whenever I come across such behavior in a friend I know that something is up, that there is a self-esteem issue at work, maybe, and that there must be something deeper going on. . .

The deeper stuff is that things have changed in the PR industry, and they've changed forever. Yet sometimes things look the same as before. And that can be a confusing time.

Some of my friends in the PR industry get upset with me for saying that things have changed. But my saying that things have changed didn't cause it, I'm just saying what I see.

It is similar to when I became a journalist "blogger" 4 years ago. My friends at the Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, SF Chronicle, Forbes, Fortune, Reuters, AP, etc would sometimes shoot me cold looks as if, as a "blogger," I was responsible for making their lives a misery, because they now have work longer hours, and live under the threat of job cuts, and they can't go home at 5pm every day, anymore.

The trends in media have nothing to do with me, I'm swept up in the dynamics of this industry the same way as everyone else--I'm trying to deal with the disruption.

What I understood four years ago was: the business model for media had changed forever and it wouldn't return to the old ways, and that is the future for PR too.

The same forces that are dramatically changing, and remaking the media industry, will do the same for the PR industry. Yet that change isn't very visible yet, it is masked. This is because PR is making money with traditional services plus making money selling "new media/social media" services, these are boom times for PR. Change only happens when it hurts to do things the old way, that's why the media industry is changing.

It sometimes seems as if the PR industry is Wiley Coyote chasing the Roadrunner--all is well as long as no one looks down and notices the road has gone, and there is nothing there but gravity and a distant canyon floor.

- - -

Please see:

Chris Anderson's PR Blacklist Backlash - The Long Tail of Bad PR

Raining on the PR industry's parade...

Last week the SEC said it will release new guidelines concerning its fair disclosure rules, which seek to ensure that material information by public companies is widely distributed as soon as is released. The SEC said that a company's web site could be an adequate way to distribute information. That means that companies might not require the services of news release distributors such as BusinessWire or PRNewswire.

SEC Likely to Change Fair Disclosure Rules - No Need for Press Releases Through Wire Services?

Some commentators have said that this move will kill the press release and that the "social media" release will now come into its own. But such speculation has nothing to do with the SEC moves, which are focused primarily on distribution channels rather than the format of content, which just needs to be "readable.".

Also, the large newswire services will still have a role in distribution except that companies will now likely have a set of options that allow them to meet the SEC FD rules and avoid potential fines or legal actions.

I discussed this issue in the following podcast with Chris Heuer, Brian Solis and Shel Holtz:

For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report

The New Media Release Podcast, episode can be downloaded here, heard directly from this page, or subscribed to via the NMRCast feed. Also, the Apple iTunes subscription is now available here or by searching for NMRCast at the Apple iTunes store under “podcasts.” If you subscribe to the FIR “everything” feed, however, this podcast will not be included.

Content summary:The usual suspects: Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, and Brian Solis. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced it will unveil new Reg FD rules that allow the use of blogs and web pages in some circumstances to satisfy regulations for fair disclosure. The group discusses the impact on wire services and the social media news release.

Associated Press is trying to gain control over how others use its content. And it can, because "fair use" has no legal precedent, at least so far.

Does "fair use" protect five words as AP offers or does it cover as much as anyone wants to quote?

Because AP has raised this issue and it has taken legal steps towards defining this issue, we might very soon get a legal precedent on how much content can be quoted by others without violating copyright.

This could become a Pandora's box and one that should have been kept closed.

Consider this: A company releases a news release but it retains the copyright. You can only use the content if you have the approval of the copyright owner.

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It is interesting to see more PR firms launching their own blogs. This is good because I've always said that PR firms cannot claim to know anything about new/social media if they aren't using it themselves.

One way to check out if a PR firm understands blogging, etc, is to see if they have a blog of their own. Many don't, or if they do, they post very infrequently, and usually after meetings abut what they will blog about. Yet nearly every PR firm offers a new/social media practice to clients and claims that they understand this medium. This is BS imho.

To separate those that say they know all about blogging, but don't do it, I'm going to take a regular look at PR firms and their blogs or lack of them. Also, I'll be looking to see who blogs in those firms, are they junior or senior?

Here is a new blog from the Technology Practice Group at Ogilvy PR: Tech PR Nibbles. Even though Luca and his team, have been blogging a long time it is not to late to start. Seriously. Don't wait. Because if you are not in it you don't know it. And that's the truth, ask any blogger.

Luca Penati wrote the latest post: » Social Media or Socialized Media?

For the past couple of years I haven’t been in a client meeting or industry event where “social media” isn’t mentioned. Forget “mention”: it has been at the core of the discussion. But in all these conversations, what hasn’t been covered is how traditional media, in particular tech press, is evolving, changing, adapting; and what this means for “traditional” tech PR professionals.

Send me examples of PR blogs in the comments section or via email.

Horn Group is one of my favorite PR agencies because of the high calibre of people that work there. Sabrina Horn, the founder, is one of the savviest PR mavens in the industry, and it is always a pleasure catching up with her as she shuttles between here and New York.

Horn Group has been building up its business by offering web site services of all kinds. It is helping its clients succeed online and offline.

Today is Horn Group's 17th Anniversary. Congratulations and here's to the next 17!

- - -

Here is a quick look at the latest results of Edelman's annual Trust Barometer. It surveys 3,100 "opinion-elites" in 18 countries (400 Americans.)

American's trust in mainstream media jumps an astonishing 36 per cent to 45 per cent from 33 percent in the prior year.

And business magazines came out on top – with 60% of the American respondents are most likely to turn to business magazines as a source of information about a company or business – vs. just 11% for blogs.

Generation gap defined...

Younger Americans (25 to 34 year olds) were "significantly" more likely to consider the following sources of information to be credible, compared with older Americans: Wikipedia, communications issued by companies, company Web sites, TV talk shows, blogs, social networking sites, and video-sharing sites

Fewer Americans under 35 (50%) are getting information about companies from newspapers than in any other country surveyed.

I'll have the full study very soon with more details...

Edelman is the world's largest private public relations company. Here is CEO Richard Edelman with some more findings:

Here is Richard Edelman's blog 6AM:

...as we seem to be heading toward recession, the goal for business should be to maintain their license to operate. This depends on banking trust capital by running a good business, taking on large societal issues in the context of profit making opportunities and presenting the business case in a transparent and convincing manner.

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