Morgan McLintic on PR and Performance

Choosing the best approach to media embargoes [video]

So what's the best approach to take towards media embargoes? Here are a few thoughts (in 90 seconds).

The embargo dilemma

For major announcements, embargoes are good for media, bloggers, clients and PR teams – when they work. Trouble is too often they don’t, the news leaks, and it’s the good guys who get penalized. It’s a tragedy of the commons. Increasingly, certain publications are sparing themselves the pain and declining embargoes.

And with that goes a mainstay tactic of media relations programs surrounding big announcements. So now what? Well, here’s how it might pan out.

The exclusive, whereby just one publication gets the news before the announcement date, is here to stay. It’s easy to control for all, is collaborative and often strengthens the relationship with the publication involved. We’ll probably see many more of these. On the flip, for those who don’t get the story, it’s less good, so companies will need to choose wisely. For their part, publications will need thicker skins and to build better relationships, so they get the top spot for big news. The best publications should win in that scenario, so it’s a positive cycle.

In a world with fewer embargoes, we’ll see more press conferences. The news will cross the wire/be posted to a blog to enter the public domain and then shortly after the company will brief those interested en masse. The press conference may evolve and needn’t be an in-person event. It could be as basic as a conference call, a WebEx or an in-world event. Registration can be open or limited. Reporters will all have the same information at the same time. This clearly favors online publications which can evolve their stories as more details come to light.

PR teams can of course still pre-pitch the announcement, highlighting the press conference and even arranging one-to-ones in advance – they just won’t be able to give any details. Then on announcement day, they’ll hit the phones and other comms channels to spread the news. In many countries where embargoes are less prevalent, such as the UK, this is already the norm.

It’s a less elegant solution for all involved. Clearly scheduling becomes an issue. Reporters can’t write two stories or attend two press conferences at the same time. We’re likely to get more unforeseen news shadows. There will be more errors as time-to-publish becomes more crucial and there’s less time for fact checking/questions. Likely the news arc will fragment to cover the basic facts first, followed by analysis in a later post or article, once all the details are known and there has been time to digest.

I expect we’ll see more major announcements made later in the week – Fridays anyone? – to get breathing room, and to avoid a conflict with other news. The embargo does a nice job of timeshifting that.

That said, there are many publications which are still happy to stick to embargoes, and outside the tech sector in the vertical press, they are likely to remain a staple. This is good news for emerging brands or companies with complex stories. The rewards of breaking an embargo are lower here, so the deadlines normally hold.

Embargoes are far from dead, but their use must evolve. Different approaches must be taken to key announcements if companies want to include publications which no longer accept embargoes on launch day.

Public Relations Glue Factory >> This Way

[I'm PRWEEK's guest blogger on the Insider this week. This is the second post in a series which is kindly being edited by Rose Gordon, News Editor. I'm cross posting it here, but if you have thoughts, please comment on the original post here. First post is here.]

Consider the following:

• So far this year there were 13,434+ layoffs in US newspapers.

• For most organizations, public relations means media relations. This is the service that accounts for the majority of the time, fees and skills.

• Fewer media = less media relations = lower fees/budgets.

Companies don’t need to spend so much time on media relations if there are fewer media to relate to, but fear not, social media to the rescue! It’s ok if we spend less effort on media relations because we’ll spend more on social media.

Perhaps, but it’s not a given, nor is it an equal because of the following:

• Some companies might not embrace social media

• Many organizations will implement social media in-house with a small team rather than outsource it

• Agencies beyond the PR realm are claiming a valid stake in social media

• It requires different skills that the current PR departments and firms might not have.

This last point is the kicker. Regardless of the speed of transition away from media relations, the skills required for social media are more visual and technical than traditional PR. The tools we use today might not be those we use in five years. Already they are different to five years ago (WordPress, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn etc).

Media relations won’t go away, and those skills are transferable and desirable. Yet, the skills and knowledge we will all need in the future are not the ones we have today. For veterans, this means working out how to translate those talents to a disintermediated world. For newbies, it’s an opportunity to carve out a valuable niche.

We’ve seen the pain of transition in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors as new technologies come along. We’ve witnessed firsthand the impact the social web is having on the media. The Internet changes the economics of every industry it touches. Now it’s happening to you.

It’s terrifying, but also exciting. Good luck.

To blogroll or not?

For the last few years, I've used Blogrolling to manage and update my blogroll. Given blogrolls are somewhat lapsed in their popularity now, I'll admit I've neglected mine. There are many blogs I read which aren't there and several which have since stopped, but I quite like the vintage feel.

That is until now, when I've just discovered that Blogrolling has started doing those damnable ad bars across the top. OK it's a free service so I shouldn't be surprised but it's a stealth introduction. It never used to do that.

Question is, do people use blogrolls any more? In an age of realtime search, and the mass-proliferation of PR and social media blogs, is it worth the attempt?

Meantime, my apologies for those who have been exposed to these ads. I'm leaving the blogroll there until I've decided what to do, but just close the ads if you go see my friends. I'm sure they wouldn't want them across the top of their blogs.

CEO as PR firm?

Jason Calacanis has posted some helpful tips for CEOs of startups about how to maximize PR. Oddly he feels these negate the need for a PR firm. Most of them involve dedicated networking, building personal relationships and, of course, having a newsworthy company to start with.

Many CEOs may struggle to find the time to do this themselves, even if they have the acumen and desire. The CEO-as-brand type of leader is probably in the minority. They make the PR team's job much easier, but most are too humble, team-oriented or focused on building their business to execute this approach themselves, despite the benefits.

If a CEO has an understanding of the media, can describe their company clearly and without hyperbole, and has the time to prioritize this on a consistent basis, then it will certainly be a good asset for any PR program. I wouldn't suggest it be the sole approach, and any effort should be in line with a broader strategy in terms of message, outreach and follow-up. Every team needs to work in concert, even if that team involves the company CEO.

On a related note, I tire a little of the PR (and PR firm) is dead / broken / irrelevant meme. I know it gets a lot of comments (since we read the sites) and wider debate (since PR folk tend to blog), but it's a bit dated. Yes, the low barriers to entry to PR and lack of professional license mean the quality of some practitioners is lacking and they spam reporters and bloggers. But issuing press releases is not the totality of PR. PR does not stand for press release (though i've heard it innumerable times). And not all PR firms are the same.

My recommendation for startups looking to appoint a PR firm is simply to look at the commercial track record of that firm over the last 3-5 years. If they are doing well compared to their peers and growing consistently, then you can deduce they are delivering value. You may feel they are the 'best of a bad bunch', and well, I'm humble enough to admit we've all got room for improvement. But so have the accountancy and law firms I've worked with.

I don't take the criticism personally, and perhaps shouldn't give it airtime, but I'd hate for people to take advice not to appoint professional counsel at face value. If you think PR is bad now handled by firms who do it day in and day out, wait until you see those who go solo. I wouldn't fancy defending myself in the court of the media (see the fates of Arthur Andersen, WMD, Michael Jackson et al), when the firm's reputation is at stake.

agency, PR, PR, Public relations

PR is dead (again)

PR died again today. At best it's broken and at worst irrelevant.

So do tech firms need public relations?
Surely the best technology will rise to the top and gain the attention of key bloggers and the press. Well, yes cream does float (and so does sh*t), but the vast majority of technology is by definition somewhere in the middle. It competes in a crowded space, with narrowly defensible differentiators. Under those conditions, the firm which proactively promotes itself should out-execute its peers.

It's not a strategy to hope that your mousetrap is so good that people will beat a path to your door. Let's hope for that, but let's plan for the opposite. History is littered with better tech which was out-marketed - Palm wasn't a patch on Psion for instance.

So yes, firms do need PR.

Do you need a PR firm though?
You don't need to hire a PR firm, just as you don't need attorneys, accountants, brokers, recruitment firms, lease agents, ad firms, or web design shops. To a greater or lesser degree of success, you can do all these yourself. But it will cost you time and your mistakes will cost you money.

No doubt reporters would much rather talk directly to the CEO of a company than a PR representative. Quite apart from the flattery, they get right to the source of the vision, strategy and planning, which they can directly quote. But the fact is that the CEO needs to do what only he or she alone can do. And while there are times that PR is the most urgent priority, that's not always the case and the CEO must focus elsewhere.

It's best to have some dedicated PR resource. There are many reasons to keep that resource in-house for certain types of firms and at certain stages. And many to outsource to a specialist agency for others. Most firms have a hybrid which works well.

Is PR broken?
Yes - but it has been broken for a long time. My friend Dennis Howlett taught me many of the things which PR firms do wrong in the mid-nineties: not reading the publication; not understanding the reporter's beat; not having a firm grasp of the technology; not having a good story; not following up etc. These things have nothing to do with blogging or new technology.

Fact is, and I'll whisper this, some PR people just aren't that good. And, I'm afraid even good ones make mistakes (yes horrific huh?). And, others frankly are just busy sometimes.

Sure, the technical changes in communications can compound those mistakes and make them more public. And yes, we're all learning how to use each new channel, and write new forms of more and best practice. But there are still low barriers to entry for PR, so there are still poor practitioners out there.

There are also poor reporters and bloggers who fail to understand technologies, miss deadlines, break agreed embargoes, keep review kit, steal ideas, change post timestamps etc. There are low barriers to entry here too - it's just part of the game and in a fair world the best ones survive, and the worst close during a recession. Winter kills a lot of bugs.

Does the debate help?
No-one likes criticism and we can all do better. Some PR folk are thin-skinned and self-important, so get their knickers in a bunch about it. I personally don't think that blogging the problems is the best approach, but if all you have is a hammer, it's the easiest one. And perhaps it's better to say something rather than be silent. I can empathize with the frustrations.

The facts will tell you that PR is not dead or even dying. The industry is growing at double digits and firms are continuing to hire new staff to handle the new clients which approach them. The power of the media is increasing, so firms need resources as both a sword and shield to compensate. There are some seismic changes going through the PR industry as there are in media and advertising. But those changes are not happening as fast as we all might think (or like). It was only in the last year that more than half US households got broadband for instance!

As the blog networks move closer to journalistic norms and look to replace the traditional media, they are learning how to cooperate with the public relations departments of the companies they want to write about. And vice versa -witness the embargo debate for instance. These are industries with a symbiotic relationship. For the most part it's a collaborative and fruitful one, but of course there are pent-up frustrations on both sides. To an extent these periodic outbursts are cathartic, so let's hope it makes us all improve our game.

PR, Public relations, media

Blog stress

Just wanted to reassure all those of you who have read today's New York Times piece, that my prolific blogging is in no way impacting my health. Running a PR firm's a killer though.

Technorati Tags: blogging, NYT, stress

Farewell Navigator, Hello Flock

RIP Netscape Navigator - AOL today finally stops maintenance and support for the browser many of us used in the 90s. I liked Navigator though in later years it became hopelessly bloated on the Mac platform. Its demise is the stuff of anti-competitive history.

From the ashes of NetScape, both Firefox and now Flock were born. Flock is a social media browser, so as well as all the basic web browsing you'd expect, it also connects to FB, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. There's also blog integration (from whence this post), social bookmarking with del.icio.us and an in-built RSS reader. Or you can easily subscribe to your fave online or offline reader from the navbar.

At first, Flock is rather confusing since it has a persistent window on the left hand side with people in your networks or web clippings, as well as streaming pictures across the top, in addition to tabbed browsing and your toolbar favorites. That's a lot of information to take in, but after some acclimatization it becomes more understandable.

I always find with new apps which you rely on so much, such as email or browser, any change can take some getting used to. Now that I have it configured, I quite like Flock. Sure, there isn't the full suite of Extensions you're used to on Firefox and no-one has yet volunteered a single new Theme, but it's clean, fast and has some great features which might suit the social media maven.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Flock, Netscape, Firefox

Connecting Twitter and Facebook

Facebook's Status and Twitter serve largely the same purpose - short updates on what you are doing. Updating both individually is duplication, meaning often people prefer either/or.

But you can get them to mirror one another.* [See update below - choose just one of these].

Feeding Facebook's Status with all your Twitter updates is relatively easy. Twitter has a Facebook Application which now allows the integration of the two. Simply add the Application, the hit the 'Want Twitter to update your Facebook status?' option at the top of the page and allow the Application access to Facebook. Usefully it prepends 'twittering:' to your tweets to solve Facebook's additonal 'is' in the status.

Feeding Twitter with your Facebook Status is more convoluted since Twitter doesn't offer a reciprocal arrangement directly (that I can find). But it does have APIs - enter TwitterFeed. TwitterFeed will allow you to import any RSS content into Twitter - like your blog for instance. Or your Facebook Status. Finding the RSS feed for your FB Status is a little tricky. Here's how - go to your Profile, hit See All on your Mini-Feed, choose Status Stories in the right hand sidebar and on the bottom right, you'll see 'Subscribe to these stories: My Status'. This is the RSS feed for your Facebook Status. Thanks to Jeff Sandquist at MS for this tip.

Now you need to log into TwitterFeed which requires an OpenID login. You may already have one if you have a Yahoo or Wordpress account. If not, it's relatively simple and free via IDProxy. Once in TwitterFeed, you can add in your Facebook Status feed. TwitterFeed only updates every hour, or every 30 minutes if you change the options, so this is not real-time. But it should mirror the two to an extent.

One thing which is interesting is which social network will end up as the ultimate publisher. Like others, I've used Tumblr as the aggregator of my Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us and blog feeds on Morganutiae. This works as long as those are all separate RSS streams. Now they are starting to merge themselves, you get repetition at the top level on Tumblr. More importantly, which will become the departure site of choice. If you can get Facebook and Twitter to mirror one another - when it comes to status updates, it doesn't matter so much.

*UPDATE - Getting both Twitter and Facebook Status to mirror one another actually turns out not work since they both end up self-replicating the same content in an endless echo chamber. Both of these systems work, but it should be unidirectional only. So it's best to just choose the input interface you prefer and get that to propagate to the other.

Morganutiae

You can now find all my updates to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Del.icio.us and PodBean on my Tumblelog - Morganutiae. If you're unfamiliar with Tumblr it takes feeds from a number of social media sites and general RSS feeds and aggregates them in a lightweight, sparsely formatted blog.

I've called mine Morganutiae because there's probably more detail there than anyone might need but it was quick to set up and I really like Tumblr's clean interface. It's interesting to see the aggregated digital output for each day. Sometimes it's just the odd tweet or FB update. Others, like today, there's video, blog posts, tweets and even a very short podcast. For those with enough time on their hands, the feed is here. Those who are yet to set up their own blog and who don't need much customization might consider Tumblr as their platform.

Technorati Tags: Morgan McLintic