Morgan McLintic on PR and Performance

Creating a monitoring system with free tools [video]

You can set up an alert system to monitor blogs, comments, Twitter, the Web, video and tags for free. Here's how in two minutes. More details here.

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.

PR is dead. Long live PR.

[I'm PRWEEK's guest blogger on the Insider this week. This is the third 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 and the second is here.]

Despite the reputation and changing skillset, there’s never been a better time to be in PR, and here’s why:

• Our consumption of news has not diminished. It has increased. We just get it in different ways and from new places.

• PR builds relationships. In an age where markets are conversations, and against growing frustration with interruption advertising, PR can step into the light.

• PR is about sharpening messages and creating content. If content is king and marketing queen, then PR is the crown.

There is a window of opportunity for PR to take the marketing lead.

If social media channels provide the inflection point, there will be competition - creative, credible, motivated competition. The social web isn’t just disrupting PR. Other elements – advertising, direct marketing – are also feeling the pain. Each has its own take and brings specific skills to the party. Skills we must integrate and adopt.

But how? The first step is recognizing the need for change. The second is knowing the destination. It’s distant still, but PR’s role might comprise:

• Communications strategy and messaging – knowing what to say and where to say it (and why)

• Content creation and optimization – capturing those messages in compelling stories, videos, applications, and experiences

• Channel integration – selecting the right channels and harmonizing them

• Global coordination – doing this on an international stage

• Crisis communications – responsive when events go badly or misinformation spreads.

• Evaluation/measurement – are we doing the right things in the right way at the right time with the right results?

This involves many skills and disciplines from global strategy to tactical implementation. It embraces traditional media, analyst and IR but integrates social media, advertising, direct marketing, word-of-mouth, events, and SEO. It’s technical. It’s creative. It’s the written word and the virtual world. All of it aligned, and all creating and building relationships with the public. I call that PR.

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.

Why is the reputation of the PR industry so bad?

[I'm PRWEEK's guest blogger on the Insider this week. This is the first 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.]

The PR sector has been reputedly dead, dying, or making a mess of it for at least the last decade. We’ve all read the ‘PR people don’t get it’ tirades. Many of them are valid. It’s a perennial story, but why?

I meet a lot of PR executives who are passionate and smart. So why does the industry keep coming in for a hammering? Below I explore some of the reasons in an unscientific manner, but tell me if any of these ring true.

1. Barriers to entry - There is nothing to stop Joe Schmoe from becoming a PR consultant: no mandatory professional qualification; no registration; no entrance exam. There are more barriers to becoming a real estate agent. This means there is a gravitational pull toward mediocrity.

2. Inexperienced buyers in an inefficient market – Ordinarily, market forces should drive out the underperformers. But PR is a service which people buy infrequently, so the selection criteria can be wrong and weaker players engaged. The timeframes involved mean some firms could jump from one client to the next, underperforming but staying in business.

3. It isn’t as bad as it sometimes seems – While the industry is far from blameless in these issues, a PR error tends to be high profile - an ill-considered email, a backfiring stunt, a poorly chosen sound bite, even typos and word selection come into criticism.

4. The industry bodies do not effectively regulate – For example, the PRSA’s accreditations are not obligatory; there are no sanctions, despite the good intentions.

None of these causes are so fundamental that we can’t overcome them. What do you think are the best solutions?

WSJ's new embargo policy

PaidContent is reporting that the Wall Street Journal will not accept embargoes unless they are exclusives or unless the story is considered big enough.

Previously the WSJ typically did not want to be briefed until 48 hours prior and has been good at holding to embargo times. It seems they have now become frustrated at playing by the rules only to have the embargo break early. The WSJ refreshes much of its content at 12.00am ET (which is when most embargoes are set to as a result). If the embargo broke, they often got scooped. We've seen wires and well respected publications break embargoes (some 'by accident').

The issue here is that the traffic goes to the publication which goes first so there is an incentive to break the embargo and burn the relationship with the agency and company/companies involved. As competition for traffic (and ad revenue) intensifies, this makes embargoes more fragile. I talk more about the use of embargoes here.

The challenge for PR teams will be in understanding what makes a story 'big enough'. And also what constitutes an exclusive. The WSJ already gets its fair share of sector exclusives but I imagine the competitive sphere is starting to broaden and will vary with each story.

[via Brian Solis who has more thoughts on the impact on PR programs here.]

Why PR firms will win the social media race

The worlds of public relations and advertising are starting to collide. As ad spend increasingly goes online, advertising firms are starting to pitch for social media campaigns. Equally, public relations firms, faced with a decline in the traditional realm of media relations are turning to social media channels to reach their clients’ audiences. As a result, it’s increasingly common to find ad firms, competing directly with PR firms for the same piece of business.

Competition of course is a good thing. And many ad firms were early into digital communications and have made the transition from megaphone to conversation. Those are the ones which will do well. An ad firm already has a number of distinct advantages over PR – they have long thought in terms of campaigns, whereas sadly PR often succumbs to the tactical; they have planning departments who are strong at analyzing the audience; they are used to big budgets which helps with big thinking; they have strong visuals which lend themselves well to the web; and they are often ‘in at the right level’ at the client, where PR’s interface can be lower down.

However, fundamentally public relations firms are better positioned to implement social media programs for the simple fact they understand conversations. PR has always been about relationships with audiences, and so disintermediation to build those relationships directly with a brand’s community poses no paradigm shift. It’s just a natural extension of the core skills of a communicator – simply via new channels.

If you see the Social Web as a conversational and editorial medium rather than a broadcast and advertorial vector then it becomes clear that a PR firm is well placed to guide that program. However, PR firms must make rapid advances in terms of their planning, their visual presentation; their technical skills; and their ‘big picture’ integration. Ad firms have often taken the lead across the promotional mix, but that is now changing.

In fact, the lines between an ad firm and a PR firm are becoming increasingly blurred. Take SEO for instance. Part of that is Search Engine Marketing (or Search Engine Advertising) ie the buying of keywords. That’s ad spend but is integral to a PR program given the amount of content PR produces. Or take Facebook app promotion – that might include some targeted ad spend but be implemented as part of the social media campaign by PR. In fact, the more integrated the campaign, the more indistinguishable the roles, and broader the skillset required.

Since communication is fundamental to the Social Web, PR firms have less far to come than their advertising brethren. But the journey will change us both, and neither can get there without the other, so it will be an exciting ride.

Should we use media embargoes?

An embargo is a mutual agreement between a reporter and a company to withhold the announcement of news until a specific date and time. A useful mechanism, they've been over-used for the wrong purposes and are now falling into some disrepute.

Until I came to the US, I'd never used an embargo. On the day of the news announcement, you'd simply pitch the story to your primary contacts, hoping they'd be available, have time to cover the news and that interview schedules would work out. And this works fine for the vast majority of news announcements today, and is standard in many countries.

The embargo became useful when you wanted to be able to talk to people in advance. This would mean you could speak to more reporters/bloggers and get more news the day of. In turn, the reporters would be able to schedule the interviews better, write a more researched piece and know they'd be first with the news. It was a win-win.

And so, the use of embargoes escalated. For instance, it was a way for print reporters to break news at the same time as blogs - 9.00pm PT being a classic time since that's the time the WSJ refreshes its online content. For PR teams, it meant that you got more coverage through sheer weight of numbers - more time to pitch and hold interviews.

But the system started to break down. The quality of embargoed news started to dilute - an announcement which didn't have much value might get a bit more pop if it was embargoed. And some media outlets broke embargoes to get a jump on their competitors. The temptation is always there for PR departments to embargo weak news and for media outlets to leak strong stories.

This is a recipe for frustration all round. If an embargo is broken, everyone who held to the deadline is rightly annoyed, and some vent that towards the PR firm and client, not to mention the offending outlet. Breaking an embargo is a lose-lose since it's not a given that the breaker gets the links and traffic, and it means the relationship with the agency and company is then damaged. For larger firms, this could be a bigger repercussion than the potential upside of the leak.

Embargoes have also been mishandled with PR representatives sending the embargoed news without getting agreement that the reporter will hold to it beforehand. Some publications have guidelines about how far in advance they can receive such news, and other flatly refuse to honor them, which is fine.

All this said, I do think embargoes can work and are appropriate in certain circumstances:

- if the news is significant and far reaching ie there are lots of potential people who would be interested
- if the announcement is complex ie it needs demonstrating and explaining
- if there are commercial reasons why details can't be shared gradually over time beforehand eg competitive pressure
- if the goal is to get a lot of coverage and the company has the resources to do so

The challenge then becomes who to include and how many outlets to involve. There is a natural tendency to increase the list from the perspective of inclusion (so as not to miss vital people out and end up damaging relationships). Against this, the more included, the greater the risk of the embargo breaking. It's a difficult process to manage, but if done properly (and with some luck) embargoes can be beneficial all round.

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