POP! PR Jots

Monday Morning QBing: Missoni for Target

2011-09-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

So this weekend, I went to Target to buy some stuff - you know, essentials like orange juice and Pop-Tarts - and pick up some Missoni for Target socks.

Yes, I knew there was a run on the Missoni products, but I figured I was safe with socks ... but nope for both Targets (they're 1 mile away from each other, don't ask).

Credit to Target - they did an amazing job with the pre-launch; they were in men's and women's fashion magazines, there was a great buzz built up for the launch.

PR issues for Target - they were wiped out of products almost immediately, and the website was unable to sustain the traffic. And there are close to 35,000 Missoni for Target products on eBay ... and reports of 44,000 at the beginning so people were just buying to sell, and not buying to wear or use. And that's not even taking into consideration the possibility of products hoarded by employees ... .

Questions that this leads to - is it really just a one-time event, and there are no more Missoni for Target products to be sold? According to the stores, that was it. And the website was totally wiped out too. Why weren't there limits placed at the stores for what people would buy, how many they could buy, and, well, the sizes? It's obvious that people were grabbing and buying, especially with all the XL sizes on eBay. And will other top-tier designers avoid Target because they will wonder if their products will be pushed to eBay almost immediately (likely no, because it's about money paid out).

So the reality is that while the public might be upset and annoyed that they didn't get what they might have wanted (I wanted socks, even though I don't wear shoes), Target made money and the stock did rise. For shareholders, and communications employees, that's key. The crisis with the run on goods to re-sell on eBay and the crashing of the site are just blips.

But it's going to take time to repair some of those relationships ... and yet, at the same time, create more demand for the next big designer (so expect a bigger run for the goods). You would expect the company to address the issues on Facebook - actually, there are a lot of issues it seems like they need to address - but it's just a bit of answers and probably not as much as they could/should be. Of course, with a large company like them, it's hard to address every issue. But the anger and disappointment on the page is quite palpable.

All in all, though, it's a push on whether Target will have any long-term issues. People forget, profits went up, and life goes on.

Fools Rush In ... to new Social Media Sites

2011-07-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Google+: it's the hottest thing in social media since, well, the last hottest thing (is that Empire Avenue or Quora or something else I'm missing?) But like all hot things, you get burnt if you jump in to fast.

Now, we already had the Google+ social media posts - to the point that most of them are just drafting on a hot news item. Are most of them newsworthy or, well, necessary? No. Hell, some of them have just been based on the announcement.

Okay, here's the skinny: Google+ has launched, and a land rush of social media and PR people - and technology pundits - got access. And they're claiming that Facebook or Twitter or the both are dead. And then we see a commotion about brands, and what are brands going to do and when are brands going to get on Google+, blah blah. And that's the thing - while there might be some value for businesses and Google+, thus far it's too early to tell what it might be, although a good explanation of what brands might be able to do is from Forbes.

But let's take a ride back to yesteryear and look at a little site called ... Second Life. Back then, the PR people (and digital, since we weren't calling it social media yet) were pretty hot for SL and getting brands there. Unfortunately, there was little thought put into it and it was a huge hype machine. Now while I did recommend SL for certain projects - for a large furniture chain, I recommended putting one location in SL and be able to buy virtual furniture for your home, as well the real furniture for your real home - it made sense as it fit into the community. Brands jumped in, and got burnt, because they didn't get that SL was (and still is) a community and you can't force your way in. That seems to happen to much of social media, nowadays: no understanding of the community aspects.

With Google+, as Lauren Gray noted on Facebook, are the brands that are jumping onto Google+ those that are ahead of the curve in social media, or ones that want to appear that they are? I think most of us would say latter, especially those of us that have a view of the past.

I like Google+ so far, but haven't delved too deeply into all that it offers. Why? Well, I haven't taken the time to just sit down and dig in. But right now, I'm taking that walk down the hill approach.

If you look at how brands adopted Twitter and Facebook, it was a more natural process, more organically done. The push by SM/PR people onto Google+ is too forced, a bit too hysterical. Too many people are running down the hill.

When you run down the hill - and yes, this is totally a Colors reference - you lose focus and can only get the one. When you walk, take the time to really get a good view of the landscape, you can get them all.

Take the time to actually play around with Google+ and then wait to see what Google does with it - and if it sticks around, or goes out like so much Buzz or crashes into the surface like a Wave.

The Death of Transparency

2011-06-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

Looking back at the 8 years of blogging (and now social media - well, take that back 15 years to Usenet and enthusiast site days), there are a few things that become evident: nothing really changes, but everything changes.

One of the things that's become very obvious recently, though, is the death of transparency. Well, maybe dying or dead is a bit hyperbolic, but transparency is fast becoming a thing of the past as more and more people push their own agenda and conveniently ignore transparency for their own goals. You can see it on Twitter, on Facebook - especially Facebook groups - on Quora, and naturally on blog posts. It's a not-so-hidden agenda that comes out after 2 or 3 tweets, or an "innocent" question in a Facebook group or Quora that leads to a "miraculous" answer that is the person's own company or client.

Transparency used to be a big issue for bloggers. Well, at least for the public relations bloggers. One of the first bigger discussions of it came about because of character blogs. Many people, including Steve Rubel (whom I argued with about the issue) and Robert Scoble (who used to be a Moose) felt that character blogs were bad things. Character blogs weren't fully disclosed, they weren't honest or transparent. This mainly came about because of the launch of the Captain Morgan blog and the "controversy" it created.

(As a side-note, I would have linked to the discussion on Steve's blog ... but he's killed his original blogs. Beyond raising questions on the issues of dead links across the web, does the full deletion of a blog and its archives smack of the dismissal of transparency? Does it fit into my whole view of the death of transparency?)

As the years passed, it seems amusing that this would be an issue. We have characters on Twitter and Facebook and while we know that they are not real, we accept them as the entertainment they are and applaud brands for engaging their audiences - the right audiences - in any way you can reach them. Nobody would attack Jack In the Box as lacking transparency because it's understood that it's a brand talking to its fans, engaging on Facebook or Twitter.

Me? I looked at the situation with meh, and that we (the PR bloggers and other early bloggers) weren't the audience, but it was for college students (of legal drinking age, naturally). And did they care about transparency when it came to a character? Not really, it was just something fun.

I was - and still am - hyper about transparency. Call it the egalitarian in me, or the Libra. Back in the day, too often I would see people tout articles on their blogs as "amazing" or "great insight" and then click through to see ... it was self promotion. My point-of-view then, and now, is that it's not hard to tag a blog post as self-promotion, or even a Tweet with #me or some hashtag. The question on transparency there then and now is if it's a great article because the person is in it, or would be a great article that they would have posted or Tweeted without the quote. My guess is the former ... hence my calls for transparency or honesty.

But this all seems quaint - as transparency disappears. I'm not talking about disclosure - the FTC holy grail - but transparency. Dare I say it, but does transparency not matter anymore? Is it - gasp - dead?! And while I think many people do care about transparency (well for others, not themselves), is it a low priority issue for us as we have, well, real life things to worry about (work, personal, love, etc). Transparency, in the scheme of things, is a small issue many of us don't have the time to process.

The world was much easier when it was just PR people that were concerned with this (it's not ironic that the Morgan blog was done by an ad firm - if memory serves). We could debate the issues in our academic way, and come to an agreement that while transparency is important, we all can do it in our own way (which never really works anyway).

And because we all had the background in PR, the transparency issue wasn't an issue that we took lightly - now we would accuse one another of not being transparent or disclosing things, but it was still pretty much above the board. As an aside, I know someone is going to comment that my view on transparency is in contradiction to my view on whisper campaigns - which isn't true. You don't need to be nontransparent to whisper - in fact, it's better to be upfront that this is for company X.

But yes, that is where public relations has always been above the board: we tend to be transparent with the public and press for our clients. We share news and information, and tell the story. As opposed to other marketing practices.

Lately, though, I am starting to see too many PR and SM people trying to be clever or subtle while fishing for information ... and doing it just to get a client mention or have others do work for them. Not very transparent. Or posting tweets about a client article ... with no disclosure it's about a client. Public relations is losing its center, forgetting it's the storyteller in the marketing mix - but with transparency - and is just becoming bullhorn with no thoughts in social media.

But this is also not surprising. With the flattening of social media - the barrier to entry is pretty much non-existent - we see many practitioners come from a background of anything (real estate, retail, unemployed with no discernible skills), and not really grasp the basics of marketing or public relations. Not fully understand the need for a fully transparent conversation but the view that "engaging" is all it is, no matter what tactics need to be taken. And with that, we get a lack of transparency but hits and mentions coming to the forefront in social media.

The death of transparency is one of the downsides of social media; it happens because no one speaks up anymore about the issues and the need for transparency, and happens because the general public might care, but doesn't have the time to obsess over the issues. But for too many in social media, it's about getting paid and that's it. No thought on transparency or anything else, just the ego.

CSR's Misguided PR Strategy - or Just Say No! to CSR

2011-05-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Have you ever watched Archer? If not, why not - not that that's the point of the post - but you should be watching Archer because it's great social commentary. OK, it's just funny. This past year, Isis (the spy agency in Archer) decided to go green as those "liberals in Congress are giving away money" and it's about leaving money on the table and get freebie tax benefits by going green. So Isis goes green - for a little bit - and installs low-flow toilets and those new bulbs.

You ever get the feeling that most corporations go into the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program with the same thinking? That if this makes us look good to the community, well it's just one of those fun terms that public relations and marketing people bring out when they want to put a happy face on a client or organization. Especially when it's less than a happy, go-lucky place.

CSR is also one of those things that most people roll their eyes at because it's not usually done for the good of the community, but it's done to make it seem like the company cares. We have all worked with companies that claim they want to go green, so let's tie ourselves to Earth Day!! and then, well, donate some small amount or something.

Of course, that's not for all companies or corporations. Some corporations do care about their communities, care more than just about the touchy-feely ... but it does raise the question if CSR is even a real thing, or are we moving into a social good mind-set (corporate philanthropy with social media twist). Of course, add the adjective "social" to anything and you have a killer program...

Looking at it from a PR angle, well, of course there's a great public relations (and, well, social media) aspect to all CSR programs (don't deny it). Should companies be undertaking social good or CSR programs just for the PR sake, or should there be more? And looking at recent articles, going green and all that doesn't mean an increase in sales ... which is why most companies are doing it.

It's questions like that that lead me to reach out the Dr. R. Edward Freeman from Darden School of Business at University of Virginia. Plus, got to geek out with my philosophy side again (business ethics, Kant theories, utilitarianism and all that fun stuff - for me).

Dr. Freeman is the thinker behind stakeholder management - and the man who wrote the book on it. In a one-liner, corporations act in such a way to benefit everyone with a stake in the corporation: the community, workers, shareholders, customers. With stakeholder management, CSR becomes unnecessary.

You note that CSR is different than managing for stakeholders - and that if managing for stakeholders is done well, we can just drop the CSR movement. What exactly do you mean by that?

If we are fulfilling all of our responsibilities to customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and financiers, and creating value for them, what does it mean to ask "are we socially responsible". Oftentimes CSR can serve as an excuse not to fulfill those baseline stakeholder responsibilities, or it serves to apologize for, rather than prevent harmful consequences. Take care of stakeholders and CSR takes care of itself.

While there is a major difference between the two, why does CSR have such a high public relations value? Are companies engaging in CSR for the right reasons, or is it just PR games?

There are many reasons that companies engage in CSR. Some are good reasons and some not. I resist the temptation to comment on all companies, or to reduce a complex issue to a simple motivation.

While managing for stakeholders DOES include employees - and making it a better corporation for them - how does that extend to employees being ambassadors for the brand? What is their duty in managing (or in CSR)?

Surely you want to run your company so that your employees believe in what they are doing, and are willing to say that they believe in it. If that is being an ambassador for the brand, then its a good idea. More generally we need to think about, as my colleague Andrew Wicks has argued, what makes a "responsible stakeholder". After all if companies have responsibilities to stakeholders, don't stakeholders have a responsibility to companies?

Especially this month - Earth Day month - companies all tout their green initiatives, and many feel forced. What would stakeholder theory change that companies wouldn't have to PR and tout their efforts for one month (be it Earth Day or breast cancer month in February)?

Again…this is a matter of taking one's responsibilties seriously…as many companies do. It is the old story about business that only profits and shareholders count, which give rise to questions like this. Businesses create value for their stakeholders. Many companies take that seriously. Its not a matter of "just PR" etc. It's quite real. It's the business model.

Is CSR a real viable business solution that dovetails with stakeholder theory? There are companies that are doing it to just check off a box on a list, but does stakeholder theory make it more viable, make it more aligned to business goals?

Stakeholder theory is about the business. It is also about ethics and responsibility. WE have to learn not to separate these ideas, as the old story does.

With stakeholder theory, it seems like the cost of any program is okay if it brings value to the community or employees, while most CSR has an underlying increase sales premise. How can stakeholder theory improve the bottom line?

Absolutely not…Business is about creating value for financiers, customers, employees, suppliers, and communities. Their interests need to go in the same direction. Stakeholder theory is about finding ways to put these interests together, not break them apart as your question assumes.

__________

Now this doesn't mean that I'm not pro-companies doing good - just wonder if it should be a PR strategy. And as noted above, it's not just about PR but about all aspects of the business. It's why there are businesses and corporations out there that I think understand this - not ones that most people think about, but those that reach out to communities and do it under-the-radar and not looking just for publicity.

While at the Mom 2.0 Summit, one of the sponsors was Let's Play from Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. Here's a great idea - work with a playground organization (Kaboom) that works to place playgrounds in cities for children to have a place to play. Think about that- a large corporation that rallies communities to build playgrounds in their communities. That's more of a social good and investing in stakeholders than a stodgy CSR program. It speaks to actually caring about the communities that are your customers. And while at Mom 2.0, one of the breaks was sponsored by Let's Play, where attendees could go help build a (badly needed) playground in New Orleans.

Or look at the recent social good campaign by Seattle's Best - the Brew-lanthropy Project (yes, cheesy title). What Seattle's Best did was reach out to its drinkers to find local non-profit organizations for a $5000 donation and a coffee makeover (as they note, most non-profits have terrible coffee). So while that part is a little bit of branding, the fact that Seattle's Best reached out to its community on Facebook (and through bloggers - like me - that they met at BlogHer Food and other events) to generate community awareness and community involvement: local efforts to help communities be just a little bit better.

Should more companies move beyond CSR thinking into a stakeholder management thinking? Of course - but movement like that takes time. It could make the world a better place, but more importantly do actual good for a wide range of people.

Hyperbole meets Hypocrisy: Googlegate

2011-05-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

If you're in public relations, you've already heard about Googlegate. Simply put, Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller to conduct a FUD whisper campaign about privacy and security against Google.

It's a joke. No, not that B-M undertook such a campaign (or how badly it was handled) but the hyperbole from the press that borders on Foghorn Leghorn declaring the 'shock, I say shock, of the PR game' that they are intimately involved. The "smear" of the campaign that is just so shocking that it's going to be the downfall of Google, Facebook and journalism (or something) ... when it's just another day at the office.

Or the hypocrisy of public relations executives that are claiming that they would never undertake such a campaign for a client, never have done a FUD or whisper campaign and how bad and evil it is. Right, keep saying that and repeat it to yourself the next time a client asks you to share information (either client or competitor) with the media. Yes, that's a whisper campaign. Or, well, keep lying to yourself so you can claim the moral high ground (for whatever that's worth).

Or the innocence - oh the poor innocence that will be severely beaten out with each campaign - of the students whose souls' will gain a little bit of grey with each call or email to a reporter to give them background. It's called public relations - and it's like knowing how sausage is made: you don't want to, but you guys are now in the sausage business.

You see, this is just a standard operation in public relations; It's even more common in public affairs. It's called spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt to deposition a client. A whisper campaign is just what it sounds like - you call up a few people, meet them in person, and feed them information in that Bourne way you know you always wanted to do.

What's sad/bad here is how badly handled this campaign was by two former journalists - two journalists that should have had the connections to successfully undertake such a campaign and instead were blind emailing bloggers and reporters (really, email!? How quaint) with whom they didn't have deep relationships. The fun irony is how poorly the tech reporter treated PR people - hi kettle, it's pot!!

So here's a primer for anyone that wants to undertake a FUD/whisper campaign:

If you have no relationships - real deep relationships - with reporters, you're fucked and going to fail (see example above)
If you are using email, you're missing that verbal part of whisper. It's called a whisper campaign for a reason ... it's verbal.
Have real information if you're doing a FUD whisper campaign, e.g. "Hey, I heard product X doesn't work from these people, you hearing the same thing?" (Look at how easy that is - AND you just depositioned the competition at the same time you were doing competitive analysis and digging!!)
In this age of social media, well, the rules don't really change: have relationships

Have I ever undertaken a whisper or FUD campaign while working for a client? I am not at liberty to answer that, but anyone that has been in the industry - especially technology - has done a whisper campaign of some sort. Or gone on background to a reporter at some time (and yes, fed information about competitors while on background). And if you're smart, you think of ways to position your company over the competition and feed that information to friendlies.

As for the "ethics discussions" that have sprung up around this - really, we're going to have a discussion about how the sausage is made? There's good PR, there's bad PR and then there's that gray PR. And in the PR world, it's all about gray.

If PR is upset about anything, it should be about how poorly this campaign was done. In reality, the issue isn't the campaign or even the lack of transparency. It is about how badly the campaign was executed.

For another great, balanced take on it, make sure you read Stuart Bruce's post.

My Life as a Mommy Blogger*

2011-05-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a Mommy blogger*. I might not blog about raising a baby or poop or child-rearing issues. I might not blog about life at home, the trials and tribulations about raising a family, but I'm still a Mommy blogger.

(*Not actually a Mom (or a Dad at this time) and don't blog on Mom or Dad issues.)

But I do nurture and help others grow with my blog and working with others. So in that sense, I'm a Mom (or Dad) to others.

Even though I'm not really a Mommy blogger, I am part (and an early member) of Clever Girls Collective and I do attend the conferences that are part of that community, such as Mom 2.0 (first time attendee), BlogHer (8 time attendee) and Evo (first time attendee, when it happens). The plan is still to get to Blogalicious, Blissdom and others. In other words, I attend the conferences that really matter.

But this is about labels. This is why I embrace the Mommy blogger title. Because, well, too often, people knee-jerk and just lump all female bloggers into the "Mommy blogger" category. I experience it all the time when I try to explain to people that I don't do SXSWi but will continue to go to BlogHer ... "why do you go to that, it's only Mommy bloggers?"

It's not. And for those that think that way - ironically, usually the same social media people that sheep herd mentality go to SXSW question why I go to these conferences - well, you just don't get it.

A few weeks ago, I was at Mom 2.0 - and was able to meet up with women that are the top of their game (be it vidcasts or blogging or social media). A conference that had panels that was advanced thinking for an advanced audience, that people attended and participated and asked questions. You had a community (that's what differs at these conferences) that listened and took notes and engaged with the speakers (and the audience) and spoke about the future of media with heavy hitters across the gamut.

But that's the thing people don't get - and the problem with just looking but not seeing. These are not Mommy bloggers. These are women that write on a wide variety of topics. Through the years, I've met female bloggers that write on:

Food
Politics
Law
Fashion
Beauty
Romance / Love
Medicine / Health & Wellness
Money and Finance
Green / Eco blogging
Gender
Technology
Sports
Publishing and Media
And, yes, even parenting

But the joke of social media people only talking to social media ... you're missing the point. Look at any nuclear family, and it's the woman that controls the budget. In a conversation last night, I talked to a friend who is starting her Mommy blog and we talked about household budgets and who really controls it. It's the Mom - not because she has the time, but because she tends to be smarter with purchases.

Big brands, if you want to reach social media people, keep going to SXSWi and missing the point on reaching audiences that are interested in your products and have real audiences and communities.

So for all the Mommy bloggers out there that I have met over the years - and the non-Mommy females that I have met - Happy Mother's Day to you. All my love for you, what you have done with your communities, and all you have helped me with the past years (and bringing me gifts - total call out to Jennui and link love to her - and being my LA mom ... yes, that's you, Erin).

And from my other LA Mom, Kimberley Clayton Blaine, a special Mother's Day gift and love for your Mother (psst, use the M2MTV coupon code at SonyStyle.com on the T99 digital video cameras for her special Mom Day gift).

And to my own Mom, love you lots and thanks for everything. Happy Mother's Day. :)

Has PR Lost the Fire in its Belly?

2011-04-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

Originally, I had this titled "Has PR lost its balls?" or just the more declarative "PR Has No Balls". I'm sure either would be great for clicks, however, it's a serious question.

And one I was speaking to an old friend about in the industry - and the person's response was "I know that I don't push back as much as I used to on executives or media - but it's just not worth the fight."

That's bad, isn't it? No, not condemning my friend as I know what the person means. While not everything should be a battle, too much has become a "meh" situation that just isn't worth fighting.

We've become so tired of the good fight, that we just go with the flow. And, yes, that's a lot of what is happening in public relations nowadays: the real seasoned communications veterans who wear their battle scars with pride are getting tired of the fight, and the new "senior" people - more like junior staff without the experience to do what is needed and right - just going along for the ride.

But a few other things that have passed my screen the past few months have made me think about this topic more and more - as well as conversations I've had with people.

First, let's look at the Tim Johnson / TechCrunch post. No, I will not link to the post. If you're in public relations, the presumption is you know the issue and likely have an opinion - that is wrong. Yes, I'm friends with Tim and writing about this from that perspective, but even if I wasn't his friend, my POV wouldn't change that much.

When did it become wrong to push back on a reporter? Isn't fighting for our client supposed to be what public relations, in particular media relations, all about? While I don't fully condone Tim's tone of voice, I do fully support his doing the right thing for the client (and, yes, this would have been a much better phone conversation than email conversation).

The saddest part of this whole situation? The piled on attacks by junior PR people (or SM people). Those that have been in the industry for less than a handful of years that have been ready to throw Tim under the bus and condemn him as wrong to dare push back on TechCrunch. Or in the case of the SM people, those that have no clue about PR sure feel good lecturing about PR.

Um, okay, are these the people we REALLY want working for our agencies, on our accounts, to push forward our story? Is this what we're teaching the future PR leaders? Don't fight for what is right, but just take it laying down and rollover for any press? So if there's a wrong article, should we just sit there and take it because we don't want to offend anyone?

Second was this post by Frédéric Filoux on "The Communication Paradox" that reminds me of my interview with Jack O'Dwyer back during the Global PR Blog Week in 2004. Sadly, the two posts are almost 180 degrees from each other.

In the interview, Jack noted that: Right now, there are very bad forces affecting public relations. We are supposed to be a bridge for the press to get to CEOs, not a barrier, but the industry has fallen into the trap of blocking access for the press. There is this tremendous force that is trying to convert public relations into advertising, especially at the conglomerates, and that will be the downfall of public relations.

In the post, Frédéric noted that high-tech corporations have terrible communications - "do such poor communication" - and that PR is employed to stonewall and, to quote, "Most hires are expected to be docile; initiative is strongly discouraged by paranoid upper management layers."

Plus, with all the ways to get content, the stonewalling seems to be against the grain of what you would want to do - get the story to as many people as possible; as a side note, what's the most amusing (saddest?) part of this is that the Web 2.0 companies and PR firms that love to smash corporations for having old news rooms, etc are the ones with no newsrooms, no press contact information, no logos or other content for the public. Go look at your favorite Web 2.0 company that doesn't have senior PR people and try to find information - a press release, a press contact, a logo, past coverage. You rarely will be able to find that information.

When did PR forget that our job was to be that bridge to the public, to the media and turn into stonewalling, Heisman posing professionals? When did we forget to push forward, to be the voice of clients and do the right thing?

For fuck's sake, I sure hope that's not the future of public relations, because we might as well just shut it all down.

Now, me, personally think this change in PR - this loss of testes - began in the dotcom era. That's when many agencies stopped being partners to their clients, and became admins. It's when firms became afraid to push back and have the clients do the right thing, because they were afraid of losing the client and the money.

So from partner to admin for the agency world. PR firms went from being valued partners for strategy, tactics and counsel to admins doing the shit work for clients (and surely billing for it) that meant taking orders. We went from valued partners to replaceable admins, not being that distinguishable than others. We went from the ability to manage expectations to just being yes-men without any thought.

All of this reminds me of lessons my first boss taught me (yah, I can write a book on the advice): protect the client. As agency PR people, we're the air cover for the client, protecting and having the client's back. And that means being the fall-guy at times, but that's what the senior people get paid the big bucks for: to give the smart counsel and strategy to the client, and give air-cover with well-thought out answers and more for clients when they are under fire from press or executives. Is it a fun job?

Well, no, but it's our job.

And that is what seems to be missing. In fact, that seems to be discouraged - don't stick your neck out or give counsel that might be contrary to what the client claims or thinks they want (no, do what they want, watch it fail miserably, but bill), even if what they want is not the best for the client. And senior staff pushes people to just give counsel that the client wants to hear, not needs to hear. And don't manage expectations, because that's letting the client down if they aren't great results.

Yes, I'm speaking from experience when I write that paragraph: pushing back on the client, then getting slapped down at the office for doing the right thing in protecting the client. For being told just to do what the client wants, not what's best for the client. And that's not right. And that's what gets us from the adult table to the kiddie table - we lose our seat and standing with the C-suite if we just become yes-men.

And we're seeing this more and more with social media (we can talk five years ago and replicate that conversation with blogs or podcasts): we just do what the client wants without counsel that might discourage the activity but replace it with a more custom-approach for the client's space. The reality is that social media isn't a one-size fits all but client's get caught up in the shiny and it's the agency's job to put on glasses and suss out what's good and bad, getting client's amazing results.

What can public relations do to get its groove back? We need to go back to the past where we are a full partner. If we don't man up, push back and do what's right for the client and, in a way, public relations, we'll be relegated to continued admin work and, yes, we will likely just be the outreach for social media without having a seat at the table to come up with the ideas, the strategies, the smart tactics for our clients and to push forward to integrated communications.

Now, I am not casting a wide brushstroke against all public relations, but it is something that people need to think about for the future. I know teams at various public relations firms that do the right things for the clients, man up and do the right thing by example.

But the rest of us - where's the fight? Where's the pride? Where's doing the right thing for the client? And, well, manning up and standing up for what's right for our clients? Or do we want to be glorified admins?

PR should totally have the BSD mentality, knowing that it's the top dog and top of its game. We've lost that, we've become eunuchs and let social media "gurus" and "experts" walk in with the BSD mentality ... when they have nothing there.

PR in a blogger versus journalist world

2011-03-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Or to be more exact, what is the role of public relations (not publicity) in a world where journalism and blogging continue to butt heads?

It's a conversation I've been having with friends and industry colleagues, and should be front and center for people in the industry.

But no, this is not a PR is dead meme, or blogging is dead meme or any of those memes that crop up every year (heck, just today Journalistics had the "PR doesn't change" version of the dead meme).

This is questioning where PR falls now, through a few recent incidences. When PR blogs, are we bloggers our journalists? And extending that with Jay Rosen's SXSW post - why is there still that division? And with that division, where is PR fitting in - or should we not worry about the division, especially with the rise of community relations, aka social media?

So it comes down to this: when PR professionals blog, are we bloggers or are we journalists? As gatekeepers and bridges and, well, examples for our clients, should we hold ourselves up to a higher level and standard than other bloggers? Should we take that extra step to verify and report?

While I can understand the desire for opinion pieces, even those can and should be based on facts. I should know - it's what I did in the college paper: opinion pieces that were still verified with sources. Picking up a phone (or emailing) isn't that hard.

So as PR bloggers (and yes, I am purposely ignoring social media blogs), do we have an obligation to get the full story, to tell a full story?

Do we have a professional courtesy and obligation to other PR people to get their client's (or clients') side of the story, to present the other side, even if it's just an opinion piece?

If we are supposed to showcase best practices internally and externally for both our junior staff and our clients, we have no choice but to go the extra mile, to take the extra step.

To take it further, as PR bloggers, can we just use the excuse "I'm a blogger" and get away with it? Should there be that line anymore between blogger and journalist? And, well, isn't that line a bit tired and old, and let's be honest, fucking lazy?

With all these fights between bloggers and journalists, is there really that much of a line anymore? With the disappearance of trade press (especially B2B technology), where do you go besides bloggers who specialize in those verticals? If we uphold those bloggers to a higher degree of veracity, why should PR bloggers get a pass when they are just "blogging" and not being a journalist?

When we approach (or, come on, pitch) bloggers, we hope that they post the story with as much background and news as possible, and if there's a mistake, we go back and tell them and hope for a correction. Nay, we should demand a correction if there isn't one forthcoming.

Shouldn't we demand the same from ourselves? Is there really a line anymore between blogging and journalism, or is that all just the lazy excuse for not doing the homework, possible due diligence or good writing?

The funny (sad?) thing is that this debate of blogger versus journalist still going on out there.

The one panel I would have liked to see at SXSWi was Jay Rosen's on the psychology of the blogger versus journalist fight (also read his pre-SXSW post on the subject).

Both blogging and journalism serve a function, both give the public information and tell stories. But as noted by Rosen, "blogging cannot replace the watchdog journalism that keeps a government accountable to its people." And on the flip side, Rosen notes that bloggers try to keep that "outside the system" cred that allows them to say "I'm just a blogger" - which also means we can be lazy and biased (as bloggers).

As he notes, neither are right. Bloggers can no longer be outside the system as the Internet has flattened everything. And while journalists DO put themselves out on the front lines quite often - a great piece by Simon Dumenco in AdAge encapsulates with a bit of snark - there are also bloggers out there that are on the front lines of war zones, disappearing and dying. The Internet has flattened and equaled many things out, and that includes content.

As for PR people, what does that all mean? For PR bloggers, stop doing the whole "we're allowed to be lazy and bias" because it's bullshit. Man up, and own up. For PR people and outreach, well, the best line is from Animal Farm: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

At times, we need to draw a line in the sand for outreach and community relations. We can't hit everyone; but at the same time, we're that bridge for media and bloggers to our clients and companies, and we can engage and help out there (which is why Facebook, Twitter and other forms of electronic media and communications have become so valuable).

BTW, yes, I do hold PR bloggers up to a higher standard than social media bloggers; PR is based on journalistic values and social media is based on well, who knows sometimes. There's so much less transparency in social media, that that is a whole other blog post.

The Hardest Job is a Job Hunt: the #HAPPO Anniversary

2011-02-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

I've been mentoring college students for about eight years; it was never a planned thing, just my personality. I like to teach. I like to help. I like people - well, most of the time. And I like to give back as I was lucky to have great mentors throughout my career. I'm lucky to have the patience - for the most part - for that type of thing.

And that's part of why I prefer working with students and the newly graduated - often times, they aren't lucky to have a champion. It's also why when someone emails me with 5 or more years of PR/SM experience, I make a few recommendations but am not as giving with my time, because if you are at that point in your career you should have your own networks, own knowledge of recruiters, and have your own mentors.

Now, a handful of the women I've mentored through the years are amazing people. These are PR professionals with social media skills that I would hire in a minute. These are people that I think are the pinacle of the profession, at different levels in their careers, who will be running things in the industry. And I'll be proud of them as if they were my own family, as I do think of them as family.

Through that mentoring, I've become involved with #HAPPO. The concept, the idea of HAPPO is admirable: helping out other PR pros network and get a job. The economy is bad, and we've all been hurt by it. Some of the best PR people I know searched for jobs too long, while some of the worst PR and SM people I know are gainfully employed or have transitioned themselves into "thought leaders".

Unfortunately, at times, the reality of HAPPO is either a "look at how great I am because I'm helping others get jobs" or "K, I tweeted #HAPPO, where's my job?"

So what has happened is a bit of self-interest and a bit of self-entitlement. New graduates and others think that by merely posting #HAPPO!!! (or other hashtags) on a tweet, that the jobs will come to them and they should be hired, because dammit, they ARE social media geniuses because they're the digital generation!!!

That one is a good fallacy, though. The digital generation understands the tools - but that's it. In reality, many are dangerous as they do no get the big picture of how public relations and social media work together. Nor is there an understanding on how to push back on a client, how to protect them from doing something bad and destructive in social media, or a complex and advanced understandig and knowledge of a little something called strategy and tactics.

PR is not an easy profession. We are always top 5 for stressful professions. PR wears you down, as you're under attack from all sides: clients, agency, press/analysts/social media. But it's one of those things that people love: the ability and chance to tell a story, do some good.

But the missing the point of HAPPO - no one is entitled to anything. It's a hard job finding a job, harder than the job itself, so be thankful for those that help you along the way. And don't think that just because you send an email you're owed something. Respect the other person's time, energy. If that part of HAPPO continues to be ignored, the people that are giving of their time will reevaluate where they are putting their efforts. As they should.

HAPPO chat is tonight from 5.00 - 7.00 PM EST / 2.00 - 4.00 PM PST. Just follow the #HAPPO hashtag and start networking, making connections and being a valuable part of a community instead of just being a remora.

The Personalization of Business, via Twitter

2011-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I came across an article about turning your Facebook profile into your resume. My emotions rarely changed from one: abhored.

Abhored because for the past few years, I mentored college students. I've seen some of the stuff that students post on their pages that didn't display the best professional thinking.

So I'd send them a quick note that they might want to untag a picture, or change the profile picture. Or to create separate profiles and limit people to certain photo albums, etc.

And then let them know that despite their desires (and mine), Facebook isn't personal. Although it should be.

My POV is that that is fine, though: there needs to be a separation of personal from professional. That's why you have LinkedIn (professional network) and Facebook (personal network) and Twitter (a smogasboard of everything at once). And it's why I have been actively editing both LinkedIn (people I know and would recommend) and Facebook (people I know IRL or well enough online that I feel safe around them - and why I have 300 people in FB limbo). Twitter is still whomever and whatever, and I follow back those in PR or those whose Tweets interest me.

That's the thing about Twitter - it is one of those platforms that's really neither business nor personal: it's both. People use Twitter for work, but they also use it to find trends, share information, be themselves. It's a new and different paradigm (ok, not a full paradigm but something pretty new and different in the media world) that blurs those lines. It's like the work day - when does it really end nowadays? When do you have your work/life balance? Since most of us like sharing information and enjoy it, is it still work? In PR, it is if it's billable, but shouldn't we be able to clock out at a certain time?

But that's an aside on the interesting aspect of Twitter: it's a new "paradigm" for the personal and professional. The line is blurred, and the tools you use for business are the same you use for personal, and the tools you used for personal are creeping into the professional. Plus each business account has a real person behind it, and the only way business accounts succeed is if there's a personality and real voice behind it.

That's the interesting thing that oneforty has tapped into: people use Twitter for personal and professional reasons, but it's more than just for fun for them. They built guides for other business users; so oneforty has transitioned into more than just a place to find free Twitter apps, but a place to find professional twitter applications, a social media/business expert, and reviews on the oneforty blog (another great outlet for those of us that have social media tools to pitch).

oneforty has taken the personal of Twitter and showcased the business side of it for its users, turning it into a social business hub to share ideas and best practices.

Is that the future of social media? Personal yet professional? The basics are pretty simple: it's made of people (just like Soylent Green). Will we see a blurring of the lines of professional and personal personas, a blurring of the life/work balance? The tools are so ubiquitous, it's likely - but then you just learn to shut down and go do some yoga.

The Future of the Social Media Strategist

2011-01-14T09:39:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Erica Swallow posed a question on Twitter about Jeremiah Owyang's post and slideshow on the future of social media.

Through the way of Twitter, Liz Philips cc'ed me to answer as well. Today, Erica posted her story on Mashable.

While I'm quoted, (italicized below), through Erica's response to my email and other people's encouragement, I figured my "brutal honesty" should be sent out through the post. So with little fanfare, the full response below:

__________

Let's be honest - it's a job that only very large corporations need, and that is being used by marketing and public relations people that washed out at marketing 1.0 or PR 1.0 (hence, the old whispered joke that PR 2.0 needed to come about because those people couldn't do PR 1.0).

The issue is that social media strategists tend not to be strategic or tactical; the large corporations will continue to bring in those higher level strategists as they know that there is a need for that type of skill set (and the people with it are more limited than you would think). The good social media strategist is someone that understands and knows public relations and marketing and can work with marketing and public relations teams, as well as customer service, advertising and, at some levels, business development and align all to one group mind think. A group mind think that has a business value and proposition that extends beyond "hey, he's a nice person" but understands that social media campaigns need to translate to real business value.

The perfect social media is a quarterback, driving a strategy that leads to REAL business value, not popularity chasing with limited to no value. That position - the internal strategist that aligns various business units - will continue to be around, but only necessary at big corporations. The small companies and start-ups have no need for those people now, and will begin to see that there's no need for them in the future.

The social media specialist job, though, is a short-term job. Or, well, it should be (outside large corporations) as these are skills that any public relations or marketing person of any experience should have. Social media is just another term for community outreach, online communities, online engagement and those are skills that have just been repackaged and made sexy by people to get a jump on the competition. It's not that the large corporations don't have people with those skills, but there is a need for the alignment across business segments, having a single voice (or at least thought process).

So my thought is that many of these social media jobs will disappear within the next few years, if not faster. The job details will be spread around various people at companies - PR, marketing, customer service, community managers - and be managed by a person in the marketing or advertising departments at the company. The same would eventually happen at large corporations, albeit a bit slower as the larger the organization, the slower the process.

And while many of these internal people are talented, and will transition back into PR or marketing, a good number of them never had the basic skills and remade themselves into whatever was hot. What happened to all the SEO gurus and shops back in the day? Looks like a lot of them remade themselves into social media gurus and strategy shops. Expect to see those that had no real skills in the beginning to see the writing on the wall and begin remaking themselves for the new thing.

__________

A coda to the post, and some clarification: I think there will always be a need for community managers, as those are important jobs that have been around for quite a while. They have changed over the years with technology, but they are a mainstay with many of the large corporations.

But another kick in the face of the death of social media strategists? Too many of them come from nothing that is even closely related to social media, but have just named themselves that and fooled enough people into supporting them.

Great, come from a retail job at a mall and then remake yourself into a social media marketing specialist. Great, come from nothing at all but remake yourself into a leading social media marketer. The social media world easily follows whatever is said by a few people and anoints these new people as leaders.

Well, it tends not to be true and THAT is what will kill the social media strategist - when companies ask for results and reasoning and "nice" doesn't cut it for senior management. Social media is a part of a business unit, and at the end of the day a business unit needs to deliver tangible results.

#HAPPO and the Job Hunt

2010-12-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

Recruiters are a key part of the PR job hunt. They have connections, prep you for the job interview, get you ready for the interview and get you the introduction. While typically there aren't that many entry-level jobs, there are jobs at all levels and it's good to start building that relationship with recruiters as soon as you get past your first job (one year experience or so).

As one of the main keys in PR and the job hunt is networking - and that's what #HAPPO is for, meeting people. But once you meet people, it's beyond that to find a job.

Hoojobs - short for woohoo! or ballyhoo - is one of those ways.

Hoojobs is a PR and social media centric job board. It's only for PR and social media, so you don't have to weed through other jobs but find what you want in a niche board just for us. While it is owned by Paradigm Staffing, it is NOT just their jobs but open to any company that is looking for PR and social media people.

I spoke to Lindsay Olson - founder of Paradigm and Hoojobs - whom I've known for years as a friend.

All the jobs are related to PR people and what they are looking for in the PR industry. For job seekers, the goal was to keep the site easy-to-use and focused. There's not the re-creation of the resume like on the big job boards, but easy and simple. It's aesthetically pleasing, easy on the eyes and be simple.

You're not required to register or create another profile, the site is advertising free - you just go for the job, upload the resume and do a quick introduction letter, and it goes direct to the employer. And the jobs are only valid for 30-days, so no out-of-date jobs (so jobs either have to be re-uploaded or renewed). So, they are all real jobs (the companies are vetted), and yes, these jobs exist.

For hiring managers, the site is solely being marketed to PR and communications job people so they are qualified leads. It's not like Monster or HotJobs, so it's targeted to communicators and not just everyone and anyone that's looking. Qualified applicants, much more so, than on a big job board.

Hoojobs also integrates social media tools, so the companies (and people looking or friends) are able to let others know about the jobs through social networks. A company can post on Hoojobs and then to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn right from the job posting; people looking might see something that would be a fit for others, and can do the same: share via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. And you can also follow Hoojobs itself on Twitter at @hoojobs.

Also, the site uses real-time search and keywords so people can find what they are looking for, and can sign up for real-time alerts based on those keywords and apply immediately (as jobs do fill up).

Her advice to job seekers, especially through Hoojobs: do a real cover letter. Put something in specific for the job, make a connection for the employer, why you are a good fit for the job. If you cannot make that connection, it's just another blind resume. Remember that you are in PR, and it's your job to make that pitch in that cover letter to get to the next step.

Don't forget the live Tweetchat tonight (December 8) with the #HAPPO hashtag at 6.00 PM PST / 9.00 PM EST, where there will be more helpful information and networking with professionals around the country.

The Numbers Don't Add Up: Popularity Doesn't Equal Influence

2010-12-02T17:54:00.001-08:00

The golden ring in public relations and social media is influence and reach. It's something that has been worked on for eons and why measurement and all that magic (including sentiment - in particular sentiment) occasionally plays front and center in public relations.

This has been the way long before social media came onto the scene (the gentler times of PR). It's why there are those rules of thumb - circulation is one number, readership is 2.5 times circulation (it's the pass-along thought, as well as the word of mouth play-in). It's why analysts are pre-briefed and key reporters are given exclusives, and why news is embargoed: PR is reaching out to the key influencers in media and making sure the analysts that are called know the full story.

It's what PR is about, at the end of the day.

And now it's what social media is about. It's about reaching the right people, but how do you know who those people really are?

That's the hole that Klout is trying to fill. There's a lot of discussion on Klout nowadays - from the lack of transparency by Klouters (despite Klout's very good transparency policy), to the questioning about their numbers (heard very often that the database isn't kept up-to-date so numbers are both too high and too low for some), to some flat out love for the service.

I talked to Klout a few months ago to get a better handle on what they consider Klout and how it overall plays in the influence game - and (personal interest), how does Klout translate into relationships and community for the brands that engage with Klout.

Klout itself is based on engagment, volume of mentions, and retweets, particularly who the people are that are retweeting you. Klout may seem skewed to social media people and geographic location, but as the network grows, it will likely even out and show influence beyond the circle.

Per Klout, the average score is 11. If a person is getting above 20, it says that you are using Twitter (social media?) pretty well, and 30 is really well, while above 50 is a social media "celebrity".

It IS a pretty good system for corporations that want to engage people on Twitter. And we've seen the brands that have used Klout for campaigns - Virgin America, Fox, Covergirl, Starbucks, Disney, Audi - and I'm sure there are others. The brands are getting an easy-to-use system to engage a bunch of "influencers" on Twitter (and Facebook) through Klout. It's a win-win-win for everyone involved ... in a way.

But besides Audi (kudos to Audi for this one), the brands seem to drop any community engagement or building after the Klout engagement. And while it might depend on what each brand is looking for, it seems to be a waste for them to not even follow the Twitter accounts that, well, participate in Klout campaigns. This isn't a failure on Klout's part, but a big lack of understanding that social media isn't Klout alone, and not a drive-by thing. It should be about community building, but the brands aren't engaging. And while Audi followed me post-Klout tweet (well, a few days later), I don't feel that engaged with them.

Taking a step back, I like Klout. I like the idea of Klout, but it's obvious that its clients don't get the bigger idea of building relationships that stem from these engagements (I've never heard from FOX post-Lone Star), nor from Virgin America. Brands - or internal people - are using the tool that Klout has built and do one-off campaigns that are just blips for the brands. Is this because the campaigns are buckshot instead of laser focused? Per Klout, campaigns can be very specific, and they do know what topics people care about ... so Klout campaigns could be germane for the people. When I see people that are getting invited to events that aren't appropriate and make no sense, you have to question what is going on.

There are some issues I have with Klout is that I look at some of the people that have high Klout scores and would never take recommendations from them. As one person pointed out to me, the numbers don't seem to add up at times. While my Klout score is 8 less than his, and 16 lower than a mutual friend of ours, my "true reach" is 2.5 times more than his and five times greater than the other people. It seems a disconnect.

And while I applaud Klout for adding Facebook (and soon LinkedIn) to it's algorithm, is that really the right thing to do? Twitter is a conversation and with a large group of people you may or may not know. Facebook is supposed to be people you really know (I'm slowly culling my friendships on Facebook to real friendships - such as people I have at least met and talk to); while you have a real greater influence on, well, real friends, too many people just add people on Facebook. Is that real influence? And, as for LinkedIn, that number is for people you've actually, well, networked and worked with (in my opinion); how does that go into influence, unless you're speaking about work recommendations.

The issue of looking at Twitter numbers is that you REALLY need to look at Twitter numbers. If it's a 1:1 following, you have to wonder if the person is following every person that follows him or her. What value is that there, when it's not really going to ever be a conversation? Or you have to wonder if that person is a number collector, adding as many people as possible to game the system and then unfollowing them. Does that person have much value as an influencer? Likely not, they are just gaming the systems to get free stuff.

And that's the issue with social media - many of these people that you know in social networks are pseudo-relationships, not people you would take REAL advice from on purchases, especially a large purchase. Too many people in social media - especially gurus - are in the pay me mindset, looking for as much free stuff out there as possible. These are shnorrs that bring no value to any brands, but looking for freebies.

There's a reason that, as a PR person, I go to consumer electronics reporters and bloggers when launching a program, as well as certain bloggers. While the product might have wider appeal, I go to those influencers that I know have the widest reach (such as Walt Mossberg with the mainstream world or Robert Scoble in the online world).

Now, full disclosure, I've played with Klout and got a cool gift bag from FOX for Lone Star (didn't help it from being the first cancelled show of the season), was invited to the Virgin America to Toronto flight (a "free" ticket that would have cost me about $90) and just got invited to go drive an Audi A8 (and those that know me know I hate driving and am one of the few LA people that doesn't own a car). So add that all up about my Klout and targeted campaigns...

Burning Out and Rebooting

2010-10-20T14:46:00.001-07:00

Blogging is hard. Not in an exasperated little kid tone of voice, but it is time and thought consuming. Kudos to those that are able to blog every day, or every other day. I don't know how they do it, but also wonder if they are doing it because they have something to say or think they should have something to say.

Blogger burnout. It's a real thing. I've been doing this blog for the past 7 or 8 years and, well, there's always that period of burn out. It's also part of the reason I'm launching a new blog - well, moving this one - to jspepper.tv. Maybe it'll get the fire lit under me and I'll finish those 8 or so posts I've started, and maybe do more videos (hence, the .tv stuff - plus I'm jspepper on everything and I couldn't get .com).

So what got me thinking about this? Well, Clever Girls Collective. They're working with HP on ROI and the Reboot - and, well, their reboot is a contest on what gets people moving to reboot themselves and their teams, and how HP technology can help with that. You can see all the information here and get the rules here. And, yes, the full disclosure is that they pinged me with their normal emails, someone pinged me separately and they'll compensate me for the post. How's about that for a reboot?

But the reboot is serious. Think about it in a team setting: when the team is worked hard, and coming close to burning out, what do you do as a boss? We used to do team dinners, and got cool gifts, and the client would also send his/her appreciation and we knew we did good work. That helped - a bit, and sometimes a lot (hey, I have shoes from it).

For me, the reboot and preventing burning out comes from a life/work balance. It's my yoga, my working out at Equinox, the various classes. It's the ability to walk away from the computer, go to the gym, and then come back a bit refreshed. That works for the work stuff. For the blogging, it's going to events and meeting like-minded people that share the enthusiasm - or it's talking to friends in the space via email, and getting fired up to do something about it. And then taking that fire and running with it and writing. Yah, that's the part that trips me up - that and the ability to just short form it on Twitter.

So if you're interested in a get-away to Napa Valley for 6, tell HP your reboot story.

The Press Release Isn't Dead. No, Twitter Didn't Kill It.

2010-09-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

End of summer. It's the time to get the children ready for school, for Jewish people to begin their New Year (L'shana Tova) and get ready to fast for Yom Kippur (yay), for the leaves to start changing colors and for the inevitable "public relations is dead" or "the press release is dead" meme to go around the Web.

Inevitably, the argument reminds me of this:

Thankfully, AdAge and Simon Dumenco do not disappoint this year. Dumenco lays out a bunch of arguments showcasing entertainment and celebrities touting this project or that on Twitter.

So from that, Twitter is killing the press release. Because, to quote Simon, "as the celebrity-industrial complex goes, so goes the rest of corporate America." Forget that publicity firms are the last firms to social media, often being beat (by years) by their consumer technology sister firms. Forget that publicity and the entertainment complex aren't comparable to corporations that have to abide by SEC disclosures and other sticky things like that.

But, maybe, just maybe Twitter's limitation to 140 characters is just not enough to disseminate news, even with links to a blog or page that is, well, I guess it'd be a press release huh?

This doesn't mean that the press release is a great piece of public relations history. The press release has many issues - most being that too much that's put out as a release is not newsworthy, and people can't write - but this isn't going to be fixed by a magical social media release or abandoning press releases to Twitter. And while Google bypassed a press release for it's earnings back in April (ignore the long, and well, wrong section on the social media release), Google must have still disseminated the news to go to its Investor site by some type of wire release (or maybe it just went to Reuters) - correction (11.20 am) via @irwebreport: Google just used EDGAR and didn't do a release. Doesn't change my main point, though.

The press release isn't dead. Twitter isn't killing it. It's not going to disappear over night because, well, there are still people that are investors and stakeholders that need to get information. And they're not all on Twitter.

Lessons for Social Media (And Junior Staffers) from Mad Men

2010-09-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

From last night's Mad Men was a quick exchange (well, soliloquy) from Don Draper to Peggy Olson. Quick recap: Peggy was upset she didn't get credit for an idea that lead to this:

It's your job - I give you money, you give me ideas.

But you never say thank you.

That's what the money is for. You are young, you will get your recognition.

And honestly, it is absolutely ridiculous to be two years into your career and counting your ideas.

Everything to you is an opportunity. And you should be thanking me every morning when you wake up, along with Jesus, for giving you another day.

Re-read it. Every day that you have the opportunity to present ideas - be it in public relations or social media - is a day you should be thankful that you have a job, and that you get to present your ideas and be part of a team.

Re-read it. If you're a junior staffer, every day you have the opportunity to work with senior staff and be mentored by them to help your career grow.

Re-read it. Just because you are using social media tools and technology since birth does not mean you "get it" better than senior staffers. In fact, what it likely means is you get it less because you have no real idea or understanding to strategy, tactics and overall objectives and how to integrate social media into an overall public relations or marketing plan.

Re-read it. Yes, PR is a hard industry. Years ago, I read an article that it is one of the most stressful professions out there. But, if it's what you want to do, take your lumps, learn and be happy. Yes, Don should have shared the glory and praised down - but that rarely happens. But he's also someone that has given Peggy huge opportunities, and she's part of a team that is doing her job to make Don and the client look good.

Re-read it. You don't work for yourself, you work for an agency. Your personal branding doesn't mean shit, but your ideas and work do mean the world. The thank you is the paycheck, not your notoriety in social media.

Being an Outlier at #BlogHer10

2010-08-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is my fourth BlogHer. Well, I think it is - I sorta lost count, and I have been to a couple BlogHer Business events as well. But I think it's an experience at my first BlogHer (BlogHer06) that encapsulates what BlogHer is to me, and why I think I do a pretty damned good job at the conference.

And, yes, it's a broken record post but something I feel I need to say each year.

I go to BlogHer not as a PR person (here's a clue on how not to be THAT PR person) but as a person that's interested in the community. I go to learn, meet new people, see old friends, and be the adorably cute Jeremy Pepper that people know and love. While I might be at BlogHer for work, I still go to be part of the community and look at it from a Kantian perspective - I'm not there to use anyone (not to use anyone as a means to an end) but to treat each person as an end unto herself, understanding that each person - no matter how many or few Twitter followers they have, no matter how long they've been blogging or how big their blog audience is - each person is important, has a story to tell, and, well, deserves to be listened to while she talks. Yes, I say she because meh on most of the guys there; we don't hold the power that women do anyway.

So back to BlogHer06. It was held in San Jose, poolside. I didn't go to the first day - couldn't get off work - but shot down on Saturday, and decided that even if it was a female blogging conference, I was going to be me and participate in conversations. It's me - I'm not shy (well, I am so I compensate by being outgoing), and I have an opinion or two and am not afraid to share it with others.

So I sat down in the circles, the break-out sessions, and participated. I tried to be part of the community and while I had no problem arguing with people, I respected their opinion.

And you know what happened (and this wasn't the intent)? One of the companies there asked for my contact information because they liked that I was participating, while their PR guy was uncomfortable and standing around the pool. They liked that I had no problem jumping in, and participating in the community. They saw the real value in social media - and heck, we just called it blogging back then - was and is just participating in a conversation. It's not this bullshit of engage, but it's about being real and having a conversation, finding a common ground in a community.

Because, that's what BlogHer is: it's a huge community. It's not about the conferences - which are a HUGE part of the community - but about their network of blogs and commenters on the site. It's about the new people that come to the conference (and if memory serves, it's more than 60% of the attendees are first time attendees), and balancing what goes on to serve the veterans and the first-timers. It's about one big community - I ain't saying happy, because no community is fully happy because that's impossible with different conflicting personalities - but it is one big community that has a common goal of empowerment, enjoyment, and more.

Now, why is the title of the post about being an "outlier" at BlogHer? Last year, a first-time attendee PR woman didn't like a comment I made during a discussion. She flustered and called me an "outlier" which made me laugh. While I might be a male at BlogHer, I think being a consistent supporter of the organization and event. And, well, I think it was outsider that she meant - I'm happy to be an outlier: I recognized BlogHer for the power it is early on, much earlier than others who at first bashed it and now embrace it.

And unlike other PR people that portray themselves as social media specialists and leaders - I actually attend the conference and have conversations. A real leader knows when to listen, and be part of a community and conversation, and not just have platitudes about how the Mommy blogger is the new influencer. People are influencers to their own circles ... and each one is important.

If you want to see the other posts I've written on BlogHer, you can go here (they also include other posts where I talk about BlogHer).

PR Wins Social Media ... Only to Likely Lose it in 2011

2010-06-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last week, USC released it's latest Communications and Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) report on public relations/communications and the future. For the 6th report, they broke it down somewhat and one of the more interesting (well, blogged about and Tweeted) part is about social media. Shel Holtz wrote a great piece on it - check it out here.

The big release is that "PR/Communication, not marketing, is in control of digital/social media" ... which is nice. The subhed, in an interesting twist, also alludes to why I think PR will lose social media to other practices in marketing - if not marketing itself: many practitioners missing the boat, re: evaluation. (Here's the full press release, if you so desire).

Years ago, I wrote that public relations will lose social media to advertising. I wrote because of sex (yay SEO futzing), but it is because advertising knows that sex sells, and sells it better than public relations. It's not that social media is about sex, but it IS sexy to corporations right now, and advertising has the whole "we've been doing your online advertising for so long, and this is an extension of an online presence ... give us $100K to launch a YouTube channel" and companies will jump.

This is still true. Understand this, and realize it: public relations and communications will lose social media. Likely in 2011.

Why do I believe this?

Public Relations and Communications rarely have a seat at the executive table. PR tends to report into marketing, and marketing reports into the CEO. Many companies have CMOs, but not many have CCOs.
Twitter is moving away from two-way communications into a customer service role (for better or worse). Twitter is the start of the SCRM (social customer relationship management) movement, and with the push for SCRM and CRM, that takes social media out of PR's hands. Even the top social media monitoring tools aren't getting that right yet, and don't have a good plug-in for a CRM tool set.
Advertising and marketing sell better than PR. They get the bigger budgets, clients understand them better than PR. Money goes to what's easily understood, and how many people can really explain PR to their parents, let alone to an executive? And, while PR might be the bigger profit center for the large conglomerates, the divisions still report into various advertising functions.
PR doesn't have measurement down in a standardized format for PR itself, let alone social media. Corporations like tools that evaluate and measure, and advertising makes those numbers up better than PR and more believable. It's the earned versus unearned media, the paid versus unpaid. Corporations understand those sticks, and we don't have them.

Now, do I think this is right? Do I think that marketing and advertising should be in charge of social media? Not at all. Look at any case study of an advertising or marketing person doing social media, and you'll notice the one-way, heavy handed marketing speak that doesn't resonate with the public. PR has been doing communications since it began: media relations, community relations, investor relations, analyst relations. We wear these different hats and are able to speak and listen and hear different communities and respond accordingly.

Advertising and marketing, though, see the landscape changing and see where the money is going ... and are faster land grabbers than PR. They get the budget, they'll get social media. It's about money, and PR doesn't do it as well as others.

In all honesty, I hope I'm wrong. I hope that PR holds on, gets measurement and evaluation down, and has a good case of why social media should be in the PR realm. Yes, it's about ownership, as we should own the two-way conversations and the dialogue.

Only time will tell, though. But, at least our ace in the hole is that we have schools and professors embracing social media and teaching it to the next generation of PR practitioners (such as UGA, Auburn, Pepperdine and others).

When PR People Go Wild

2010-05-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Our job as public relations professionals is to be both the Heismann player and the bridge builder; we are supposed to protect the company/client from any fallout and make sure that the right message gets out. At the same time, we are supposed to help reporters, bloggers (now), and the public get information and get access to our executives (when appropriate). But the main thing is that PR people are conduits of information.

It's a nice tricky road we're on - one that has become more convoluted and difficult as media disappears and social media has risen (partially because social media does not get the dance and is not as professional to PR) - and too many PR departments default to the Heismann and try to impede stories. Partially because that is our job.

But here's a great example of a PR person that just goes on the offensive to try to quash a story that, well, the public has a right to know: a hospital misusing its gift funds.

Watch the clip and watch the PR person just be a jerk. The reporter is right - the PR person is being "crazy," and well one or two steps away from assault. Well, actually, he grabs the camera woman - so it can be classified as assault. And then tries to deflect blame and say that the media is at fault.

That's what the job of the media is - to tell the stories that we, as PR people, sometimes don't want told. But that's our job as PR people - to have answers and deal with uncomfortable situations, or just have non-answers that work well enough that people forget what they are asking. Apparently some of us do that better than others, changing the conversation and smiling the whole time. The fact is that a good PR person wouldn't have continued to touch the reporter (in a way that really was disruptive and antagonistic), but would have tried to stop the filming and postponed. What the video says to me? The PR person was a bit miffed that Dan Noyes is doing his job and dug up a good story. Petty revenge never works well.

The lesson? The 60 Minute tactic works for reporters. The gotcha moment is something that a good PR person is prepared for, and has answers - or non-answers - ready at the hip. And don't be antagonistic (unless you have the charm to get away with it) because when you get into a pissing match with the media, the media will usually win, especially if it's right.

/via PRNewser

Helping Others (Well, Students) for HAPPO

2010-04-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I somehow got roped into the universe known as Auburn University. My first exposure to Southern women (I love them dearly, now), the pure freakish hyperactivity of SEC football, a motto that has nothing to do with the mascot (War Eagle, but it's a Tiger? What?) and PR students.

See, I did philosophy in school and worked in both student government and wrote for the college newspaper. That's how my track into PR started. Plus, well, my friend Kyle who told me I'd be good at PR (he also told me to start blogging - so, it's pretty much all his fault).

It all started, naturally, with one student saying she didn't like me. And that made me laugh, because she didn't like what I wrote on my blog. But from that moment, I got to meet Robert French (a man that's done more for PR and social media than 99.99 percent of the social media gurus that tend to give nothing back). And from him, I've mentored AU students, become good friends with a bunch of them and helped them out when I could with job leads and introductions.

I don't get them jobs - they do that themselves - but I make introductions that may help them out. And that's key - and interesting, as when I reached out to a few students, one of them was dismissive that she didn't need help. A nicely stereotypical generational response and attitude that will not work well for her in the real world.

And it comes down to this: we can all use mentors. I still talk to mine (like I noted in my first HAPPO post) and if it's not for the future practitioners, all this talk of PR or PR 2.0 (pshaw) or whatever is for nothing. If we don't give back and help the future generation grow, there won't be a future generation of PR.

And it also means giving them realistic advice - not bad advice like telling them to stick with a firm for 3-5 years because it makes the firm and its founder look better - but letting them know the good and bad of PR, what to expect and to be realistic on salary and titles. It ain't all roses, but if you like what you do, you're better off than most people.

So this time around, it's cut and dry. I'm highlighting people that I interact with on Twitter, and may or may not have been recommended to me by the various professors I speak with IRL and on Twitter. They are all vouched for, they're all looking for work, and I'd hire any of them in a minute. Because I've yet to be let down by one of the AU students, or the UGA students, or others I've mentored throughout the years (favorite little Spartans and all).

Plus, well, I am trying to build my ARMY OF EVIL PR STUDENTS ... one day, I'll figure out what to do with them.

NB: the students had the choice of answering questions, writing a few paragraphs or doing a video - and we got all those covered.

Amanda Pinto (@amandalpinto)

Your college and when do you graduate?

Auburn University- August 9, 2010

What type of public relations do you want to go into?

I would love to go into media relations, publicity or event planning but I am not limited to these.

What city you want to live in?

New York City

What would your dream first job be like?

My dream first job would be in NYC where I am in a company or firm that allows for creativity and offers guidance to entry level employees. My dream job would allow me to be an active participant in meetings, planning and allocation of PR campaigns. I have so many ideas and I'm ready to use them!

What you like about public relations and social media?

I love that public relations is always changing. It makes your day to day work exciting by learning about new technologies and new ideas. I love social media because it is immediate. A message can get to thousands of people withing a matter of minutes and it blows my mind! I find it fascinating.

Extra-curricular activities that relate to PR or SM

I was the Assistant Director of PR for The University Program Council for two years, the Vice President Education for my sorority, a Camp War Eagle Parent Counselor and I am a site administrator on the Auburn University social network Auburn Family. See my website for my details on these positions.

An interesting tidbit about yourself and/or biographical background?

I was raised in a town outside of Atlanta and have always had a desire to move to New York City. Now is my time and I'm ready to move there. Check out my video about the PR campaign I started called #GetAmandaToNYC!

Debbie Ebalobo (@debalobo)

Miranda Ayim (@MJAyim)

My name is Miranda Ayim and I am a recent graduate of Pepperdine University ('10). I have just finished four years of Division 1 women's basketball, and I would like to pursue a career in professional basketball.

My goal is to play in the WNBA or overseas for a few years. While this may not seem to contribute to my field of study, it is, I believe, an appropriate road to take to reach my ultimate goal of practicing public relations in the sports or entertainment industry. My existing knowledge of the sports community will hopefully give me an advantage in pursuing this goal. I would love to work with the NBA or NFL.

As of now, I do not have a specific position or "dream job" that I aspire to. Rather, I am looking for experience in various positions in the athletic world to gain a better idea of what might be a good fit for me.

I also mentioned my interest in the entertainment industry, the music industry in particular. This is another passion of mine, and a place where I hope to end up working in the future. Since sports is generally grouped under the umbrella term of "entertainment," alongside music, movies and television, there is plenty of opportunity for overlapping job experiences.

I appreciate and am well acquainted with the popular social media sites and mediums, but I am especially excited about the face-to-face dynamic of some PR jobs. I enjoy Facebook and Twitter as much as the next college student, and I also have my own blog called C2C: College to Career; however, I love interacting with people on a more personal level. As a Canadian citizen who loves her hometown but has lived in California for the past four years, I would enjoy staying in the LA area to start my career (quite appropriate for working in sports/entertainment PR) but am also open to living on the east coast.

Tara Allstun (@tallstun)

My name is Tara Allstun, and I am graduating from Pepperdine University in 2 days with a double major in psychology and public relations. When it comes to the type of PR that I want to go into, I can't say that there is one specific area I am interested in. Event planning has struck my interest, as well as corporate public relations, or even specializing in viral marketing. My lifelong goal is to become an expert in something, I just don't know what that something is yet.

I am very open as to where I end up living, but I would like to end up around the midwest or west coast. My dream first job will introduce me to a mentor and hone my writing skills, as I understand that writing is a vital part of PR. Furthermore, while I have had an internship specific to PR in the past, I like learning about the "real world" of PR, as it is sometimes different from the theoretical discussions that we have in classes. Work environment is really important to me, and I want to find an office where I am comfortable and feel like an asset to the company.

In terms of what I like about PR, I really enjoy the social media aspect, including figuring out effective and creative ways to use this newer medium to a client's advantage. I also enjoy the writing aspect of public relations, as writing has always been one of my strong points. When it comes to social media, I have a Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook account, which I use regularly, and like to do my own research to see how companies I follow use these mediums. I recently started a blog, though its main focus has not yet been decided. I'm in the process of researching how to effectively use blogs, and I hope that running my own personal blog will help me to implement corporate blogs in future job experiences.

There is really too much about me to put in a short post, but I'm a redhead, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. It's always been hard for me to blend in with the crowd because of my carrot-top, but I love it. Even when I was born, my hair was so vibrant that the nurses at the hospital had to move me to the front of the nursery because everyone in the maternity ward kept asking to get a closer look at "that redheaded baby."

Marcella Lentini (@mlentini)

My name is Marcella Lentini and I'm a soon-to-be public relations graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Ideally I would love to stay in the beautiful Pacific Northwest or northern California as I transition out of college life this Spring, but with hardly any obligations to hold me back I'm open to a new adventure outside of this region. By embracing public relations as my field of interest, I've given myself the gift of a career that could take me anywhere in the world. The need for public relations isn't confined to any one area, city, state or country and this is one of the many reasons I love it. The ability to use my knowledge and ability to communicate in a way that will help inform and enlighten people is what it's all about for me.

I'm a total foodie and find myself thinking about the smells, tastes and textures of food every day of my life. Nutrition and a balanced lifestyle is my foundation and my dream job would be to use my public relations skills for an agency or an organization that will benefit from my passion for health and wellness!

Pauline France (@pauline_france)

Rachel Friedman (@RachelPR)

My mantra in life is "I can do anything I can Google." I am Rachel Friedman, a driven, innovative and sharp job candidate interested in PR career opportunities in the LA/OC area, especially the technology and digital media industry. I graduate in May from Pepperdine University with a Master of Science in Communication specializing in PR, persuasion, and mass media. My PR and marketing experience lays in the grass roots, non-profit, beauty, publishing, hospitality, and tech industries. I excel at project management, communication research and strategy, and creative problem-solving.

Pepperdine recently nominated me as an honoree for Who's Who Among American Universities primarily for my work to enhance our public relations program. I re-established a failed PRSSA chapter on campus and I am founder and director of ExPRess PR of Malibu, a student-run PR firm that offers pro-bono work for local non-profit organizations. At the PRSSA national conference this year, the National president honored me with the National Leadership Award for the success of our chapter and firm.

A project I am most proud of is coordinating the Hunger Cleanup, a volunteer community outreach event that resulted in record-breaking fundraising, over 80 volunteers who donated a day to 5 local community improvement projects, hundreds of pounds of food for local food bank, great media coverage, and the mayor's official declaration of annual Hunger Cleanup Day henceforth.

Thanks for getting to know a bit about me and please contact me if you know any PR job opportunities in the LA/OC area that you think would suit me!

Allison Brill, (@abrill)

I am a well-rounded, experienced soon-to-be college graduate. During the past four years, I have worked in fund-raising, event planning, journalism and new media. Through these experiences, I have can offer employers a varied skill set, mold to client's varied needs.

I am passionate about social media! Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and location-based applications offer real-time case studies of successful PR and the social community has served as another classroom. With today's immediacy of information sharing, social media skills are ESSENTIAL for success in the communications industry and I am confident in my understanding of the social media environment. Plus, I love the way social media truly forces brands and organizations to be accountable to their publics.

I give back. In addition to a rigorous academic schedule and internship experience, I am also highly involved in my community as a member of the largest campus philanthropy in Georgia (UGA HEROs) and a highly selective leadership program (Leadership UGA). I am also involved in UGA's chapter of PRSSA, serving on the 2009 UGAConnect Social Media and Public Relations Conference planning committee and PRWorkout 2010's Social Media Panel. Grady College and UGA offers students a wide range of opportunites to get involved and I am lucky to have taken part!

When approaching the job search, I hope to find a forward-thinking company that encourages innovation and creativity while focusing on integrated, strategic communications. Right now, I am researching opportunities with digital agencies around the country; I am pretty much open to any city! You're only young and unattached once, right?

* * *

Now a coda: it's really easy as PR professional to do this for one day. It's really easy to turn your blog over to 10 or 15 or however many "special" students ... and then do nothing at all. Yes, we know all professionals are busy - we're ALL busy. But doing nothing the rest of the time is just hypocritical. Turning over your blog is easy to do; helping others is the hard thing to do.

It's About Why, Not How

2010-04-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

Watching the BlogWell discussions, I started having discussions with Tom Biro, Kevin Dugan, Anna Lingeris and Amybeth Hale discussed various points on social media. One of the points brought up is that social media should be about the why, not the how - and that there needs to be more strategy and tactics.

That made me think back to when I met Anna at BlogHer Food last year - Anna Lingeris - and fell in love with her because: she's loud and not afraid to shout out what we're all thinking (it's gotta be the Greek side); she works for Hershey's and Scharffen Berger; she likes college football; and, well, come on, she's a cute blonde. Plus, now I get to tease her as she is one of the sharper minds that sees how social media and public relations co-exist and what can be done for companies.

At BlogHer Food, though, I was talking to the head of Smucker's and telling him about my childhood memories of Smucker's Goober's PB&J in the jar (best invention ever). That as a little kid, that's what my Mom bought, and we'd end up eating it out of the jar. And, that we still do take a spoon and eat out of the jar. I think he was sorta grossed out by that, but he said that that's a great story.

So Anna handing out chocolate at BlogWell made me think about that: when we lived in Michigan, my Dad would sometimes come home with the really big bar of Hershey's with almonds. It was a special treat for us (makes us sound like some poor Depression family, huh?) mainly because we weren't a big sweets family (okay, some of us like sweets so there weren't much in the house). So for me, childhood relates to food, such as Goober's, Hershey's and the occasional mud pie from Baskin and Robins. Those are happy memories.

While social media is all fun and good, does it generate anything beyond discussions? Are there memories built from social media that will take people back to another time? Or is it more for adults to talk amongst themselves, share anecdotal stories and other things like that, but not much? Social media does create friendships - I have met many great women at BlogHer and consider a bunch of them friends - and know they think the same, but those relationships are definitely cemented from real world interactions, beyond the social mediasphere.

We all know the how in social media. It's this tool and that tool and this network and that network. But there is still the why - why are companies going to get involved in social media? Why is tool A or tool B the right tool for the job, and what do they hope to get out of it? What is the ROI / end goal for the company, and "being part of the discussion" is really not enough ... or have none of none of us learned that lesson from Nestle, who wanted to be part of the discussion - twice - and both times run into the bully platform of social media? (No, I'm not on the condemn Nestle bandwagon, but pointing out that being part of social media is not enough without a full commitment - and that is really not enough of a good reason to be involved in social media).

The issue for corporations right now is you have a ton of social media speakers - many who have no public relations or marketing backgrounds, but have (for some odd reason) been labeled social media and community geniuses - that come in full guns blazing about how to do social media. That is worthless, and does not help companies. Ask them why, and see if they can talk about any past successes - real successes that point to an agreed upon ROI and results - and then judge if what they are talking about would work for your business. And if that includes a Chatroulette, well it better be one helluva great idea.

And, at the end of the day, real world experiences are still going to trump online experiences. So factor that into your social media plans ... or really, your public relations plans.

I Don't Do SXSWi

2010-03-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

The past week, I've had a ton of people assume I'm going to SXSWi. Note that I'm using i, not SXSW - for people that haven't a clue, the conference has been around as film and music for about 20 years. And, sadly, that seems to be a ton of the SM people going.

Now, the usual joke is assume makes an ass out of you and me. Well, it's more an ass out of you, as I cannot justify going to SXSWi and you thinking that I am going because I am in public relations and social media and "have to go" is just bad logic all around.

I am a big believer in conferences. I am a big believer in exhibitions and tradeshows. There are many business cases - business cases - to go to these events and exhibit and have conversations.

There's a reason I go to BlogHer every year: I go to the panels, I've represented clients and sponsored, I see a true business reason that extends beyond meeting other social media people. I get to engage with real people that are not social media gurus, but blog on what they love. There's more value there than someone whose audience is just other marketing or PR or social media people and wanna-be's.

I just don't see that for SXSWi for the majority of the people going to the event. For the past few years, I keep hearing the same thing about SXSWi:

It's spring break for social media
It's a week long party
It's one night after the other of bars and alcohol
It's great networking
I go every year, and make my agency pay for it no matter what because it's a great party (this said to me by a former boss when I asked what the value is there - notice nothing about actual work, though).

I rarely hear "it's a great event for my company/agency to reach the right people for product A, B or C". It's always about the drinking.

The fact is that social media consultants and gurus are (thankfully) killing social media because of this thinking. This past CES, I ran into enough social media people at CES and asked what client they were there representing.

Too often the response was "I'm here for the parties."

Um, fuck you. CES is not a party event (yes, the companies hold parties to reach the retailers to sell product), but it's a tradeshow where people work. And work hard and a lot of hours. CES is a semi-serious event (it used to be more serious before the booth babes and the mainstreaming of the event ... which will likely kill it, like it killed COMDEX and, to a point, E3) that involves consumer electronics companies trying to show off its wares to purchasers, as well as press. Social media? Yes, it's a TOOL to reach audiences, but not a party thing. If you're at CES to party, seriously, don't come next year.

The best advice I ever got on trade shows and conferences was from a former boss: don't drink - and if you drink, don't drink excessively. You are there for work, and you are representing both your client and the agency. Um, I don't get the sense that any of the SXSWi social media attendees understand that simple mantra.

This year, I see a ton of PR students (I now follow more than 400+ students) tweeting out at SXSWi. This is a very bad precedent, as this is what they will think social media entails. No, it's just a part of public relations, and one tool, and while relationships and face-to-face communications are important, drunken idiocy is best left at spring break.

But back to SXSWi. There are a ton of friends of mine that are attending this year, as they have in the past, that I would love to see. But, I had no business reason to be there.

You see how that works: no business reason. Pretty simple.

I did look at the event, and reached out to a few people about sponsoring parties or similar events because they are consumer electronic products or accessories that make sense for SXSWi as giveaways.

But I understand - better than PR firms and PR people that think throwing parties and buying drinks is social media, and that this is how they get to be the top social media people in PR - that it is about relationships and dialogue. Throwing a party is the shit that publicists do, stunt PR that has short-term value and very little ROI if it's not done right. And throwing a party to throw a party to attract SM people is not doing it right. It's not moving the needle or engaging people if you don't move beyond the same audience. It's noise and it's wasting your client's and agency's money. That should go on the Social Media RFP - does your agency think that it's about parties? If so, run like hell because they didn't talk about engaging and conversations, just throw a party and people will talk about you! (Um, no, they likely won't - or won't long-term).

And, if I was in the music or film business as a publicist, I'd be all over the event. And Austin City Limits. But, I'm not.

But take a step back and think of this: can you justify missing Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday to your boss or client? And, well, the rest of the week is a wash also if you're hungover.

And, as a sage executive said to me about CES: there's going to be a bad day of reckoning for social media. Corporations are going to ask for ROI, and going to party is not ROI.

If social media cannot get out of that mind-set - and it won't - then it will eat itself and become subsumed into another marketing discipline. Where it belongs anyway.

I don't do SXSWi. I just can't justify it. And most businesses - once they get over the shiny social media blindness - won't be able to justify partying for partying's sake either.

#HAPPO and the Reality of Job Searching

2010-02-19T13:18:00.001-08:00

#HAPPO - or help a PR pro out - has been going on today. I am on the list as a national resource, because I volunteered to be part of the event. Part of it is I am a big believer in giving back to the industry I care about, and work in.

I think what is being done is very important - helping out the community find jobs, and help point them in the right direction. But that is not enough - as it is only half the battle. I will help those I know with opportunities, but that means putting down my name as a reference, and that is my personal name on the line for people. I do that for friends, colleagues I believe in, and friend's of friends whose word I trust.

Throughout my career, almost all my jobs have come through referrals or recommendations from past interactions. That is how the world works, and you have to allow your work to speak for you, not your social media presence. Your social media presence, while important (especially for new college graduates) as it shows your understanding of how social media works, is not an end-all, be-all. It's interesting that the really big names in social media are not involved in #HAPPO, isn't it? It's likely because they don't care about anything but themselves, using social media as a tool in self promotion, and only self promotion. Well, you can probably scratch the likely.

So here's my advice on finding a job, and where to look, and what you need to do. And it's targeted to college students, as that is the next generation that we need to think about (and whom I work with the most, it seems).

You are only as good as your network. Go to mixers and events, and meet people. Go to the IABC or PRSA events - if you are not a member, they do have open events - and meet professionals. Go to social media events to learn, and meet people. Get out of the chair, though, and network. And network on Twitter with good conversations and astute points. It's how I met Sarah Lilly, and other students in the past, and how I know that they actually care about the industry. Sarah reached out to me, asked me questions, showed an interest that wasn't fake, sucking up, or flattery. It was sincere, and I'll keep an eye out for her when she graduates and refer her to people. If she chooses.

Join LinkedIn, and connect with people you have worked with in the past, and know your personal job history and work ethic. Not people you met in the industry, but people you know and worked with (agency or client, does not matter).

Find mentors, and choose them wisely. For the past 7 or 8 years (hey, I lose track of time), I have been mentoring college students, mainly through Robert French at Auburn, and now through Karen Russell at University of Georgia. I have also mentored students at Michigan State University, Pepperdine, Alabama and others.

By mentoring, I mean I am there to answer questions, help them out with situations, give advice and more. I'm basing those answers on 15 years of public relations experience, and about the same amount of time in social media or online PR or influencer relations (pretty much all the same). Those years give me insight and advice that is time tested.

Seeing people with less than one year in public relations and social media touting themselves as mentors is both scary and laughable. You should run away from those people, run away as fast as possible, as they bring you nothing but pain and trouble. Those people with no real experience that are mentoring are not mentoring to help you, but to make themselves feel important. No one that green has any business mentoring students, but should be listening and seeking out their own mentors. Instead, they're creating little social media ego monsters.

Why do I mentor? Because I like the industry I am in, I have had great mentors in the past that I still speak to on a regular basis, and I feel it is my duty to do the same. I still am in contact with most of my old interns, and mentored students ... because that's what you do if you really do care. And I learn from them as well, seeing how they are using technology, how they view certain things in social media, and how things are being discarded.

Now, what can you do on your own to find a job? There are plenty of job boards and places you should look, and professors you should keep in contact with on a regular basis. Join KITList and Young PR Pros, as both have PR opportunities.

Keep in contact with people you have worked with in the past, those you went to school with, and realize that finding a job is the hardest job you will ever have. One of the UGA students I've mentored, Erin Burry, gave up unemployment for Lent and is waking up at 6.00 AM every day to start her job search: that's dedication, and it will pay off for her as it shows the right drive and work ethic to get a job and do well. And, yes, I've referred people to her as well.

It's not enough to sit back, though, and expect these jobs to come through #HAPPO on Twitter. You have to have the drive to go out and meet, network, and more. The job market is not the best I've seen - especially for more seasoned professionals, it flat out sucks because of low-balling - but there are opportunities out there. Stay calm, stay cool and collected, and hope for the best.

But, those of us with jobs need to remember to pay it forward as it is a two-way street. #HAPPO will be successful only if PR pro's really help each other out. Otherwise, it will be like too many things in social media: too fleeting, people and companies taking part of it to feel good about themselves, but actually do nothing. Just because it was today, does not mean you should not continue to network and mentor others.

As this post was very focused on PR students, and graduates, here's a takeaway for senior PR people: the recession has impacted everyone, including those with college degrees and a number of years of experience. All this advice (still) applies as well: network, network, network. Look into freelancing to keep on top of trends, media, and more. Brush up on social media, such as Twitter, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Facebook and other forms.

The days of looking for a job in the newspaper are dead, and the online job board is suffering as well. You find any quality on HotJobs, Monster or Craigslist anymore, or is it through personal networks, and in a way, the LinkedIn job boards?

And, if you are employed remember this: you cannot afford the luxury of sitting back and being dickish to those people looking for work right now, as most of them are unemployed through no fault of their own, but due to the economy and mismanagement. None of us can rest on our laurels, because those are fleeting and all of us can be in the same boat at one time or another.

Plus, if you are a corporation or PR firm, think of this: I know that it's easier to hire those people that are employed, as they are "sexier" to you. The unemployed PR executives are likely just as qualified, if not more so. I look at people I know that are working and scratch my head as they are just good at politics, and not PR. And I look at those that are not employed that are great in PR, but just might be too blunt (like me) or choose not to play politics.

Remember, it's just today that is #HAPPO but it's networking for forever. Good luck in the job hunting, we've all be there.

Meh or Shmay, 2010 is Just Another Year

2009-12-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

I don't blog much. It's partially because I have other priorities that come first: work, life, friends, gym. The blog is not an extension of my persona, but a place I can write about the industry.

I don't blog much as I've moved my thoughts onto Twitter, where I can push off one-liners that can still be thought provoking and start conversations.

I don't blog as much as I'm waiting on the move of my blog to jspepper.tv (which I'm thinking of just calling @jspepper) and will incorporate the oft-ignored Pitch Blog and twitter but will not be called the uninspirational, not new and not groundbreaking lifestreaming. Lifestreaming isn't new, and if you want a great example that's been around for years, go look at News @ Cisco.

And I don't blog as much because PR/SM blogging has become Barney - I love you, you love me. And that's just shit because PR and social media should be about calling out the bullshit, pointing out the inconsistencies, demanding case studies or examples that move beyond personal experience - I don't care what you can do for yourself on Twitter, oh social media expert. Show me what you've done for others - because personal means very little in the corporate world. Yes you might have your fanboys, but see how many stick around when you go corporate.

Through this concept of community, PR (and now SM) has become cheerleaders for one another. No one (well, no one that is respected) is pointing that these emperors have no clothes, and I'm tired of doing it. Tired and don't have the energy to take it on myself. I get the backchannel comments that "damn, you're right" - get out of the shadows and speak up, and help save PR and social media from becoming a punchline of a joke.

There's plenty I have to write, and most of it is pricking the balloon and upsetting the apple cart. Let's be honest here, and realize that:

PR 2.0 is a sham and nothing new. Well, actually it's a scam and by my count, we're on PR 8.0. But the thing is that those that subscribe to the PR 2.0 notion ignore, well, the real users are are too caught up in the social media bloggers and realm. Hey, guess what, most likely those aren't your users and your ignoring mainstream press and telling a good story.
The social media release is a joke. If you go look at most SMRs on sites such as PitchEngine, the problem is not press release versus SMR, it's just that the content sucks. Not all items are news, and putting it into an SMR isn't going to magically make it news. How about focus, and better writing? How about less market speak and more storytelling? You get what you pay for, and most of that is free. And let's not forget that wire noise IS a viable PR strategy.
There are tons of examples of unethical practices in public relations, but no one (including me) are pointing them out. Why not?
Social media is just one tool in the PR toolbox. Not sure how many times I can say that, but I will continue to say it. And while it is a nice buzzword, it is not going to change the world and not going to change corporations unless they really want to change and listen to customers and engage. You can give lip service, but it's just that. And, you know what junior staffers? It's best left NOT to you, but to senior PR people that understand those little things like strategy, tactics, and have a long view of the clients, the space and the industry. So thank you very little and now STFU and learn from those in the industry longer than one year.

Yes, these are all posts - and more - that I have started in 2009, and should finish for 2010. But, I'm trying to have a balance, and like that I do yoga and workout and am healthier than I ever was before. And that wasn't from a new year's resolution, that was just a decision I made one day.

That's the key. You don't need a special day to change yourself. You can do it any day. And, what that really means for me is to point out the issues and help make PR or social media better. If you want to be that expert - or have changed yourself to be that expert - and cannot take criticism, then maybe you aren't that change agent that you think you are. If you have a thin skin, and cannot take criticism, then get out. Seriously, get out because criticism is what makes you better, and the whining that a thick skin makes you hard is an excuse because you cannot take criticism and don't want to improve. That includes me - bring it on, if it's constructive. If it's ad hominem, I'll defend and reciprocate.

That's my 2010 message: you don't need a special day to decide to improve or be better or make something better. But have a great New Year's, and hope your 2010 is what you make it and want it to be.

BTW, if you want a different point-of-view, check out Doug Haslam's very nice post on 2010. Great post, great ideas and comments, even if I don't agree 100 percent. ;)

Using Bloggers as Means, Not Ends Unto Themselves

2009-11-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

I work in public relations. I have never called myself a social media guru, or anything of that sort, because I have never believed that social media needed to be something special or different. It's a tool in the toolbox and those that are presenting themselves as social media gurus or experts are tools as well - ones that need to be locked into a toolbox and ignored.

Good social media is integrated into a marketing, public relations or communications campaign (yes, I ignore advertising as that is paid media, and I include marketing because of the border skirmishes between PR and marketing). It's nothing new, I've written (and spoken) about it before. And while I believe that internal social media people are important for corporations, they should be there quarterbacking and driving strategy, not just doing social media. Large picture.

The smart public relations campaign is going to integrate a community - whether it is an online community, or a neighborhood event. My favorite examples are from a few years ago, but they stuck in my mind: Breyer's ice cream held neighborhood ice cream socials, where the company would have full sundae bars in a neighborhood for everyone to enjoy the ice cream on a hot Phoenix summer day. Great community outreach, smart and a way to bring a neighborhood closer together. For Cold Stone Creamery's opening in Times Square, the big hit for the PR firm was Daily Candy. While I love Daily Candy, wouldn't the smarter hit be to the large companies in the Times Square area with a discount (like, oh, large media companies), create a huge buzz and then get lines ... that would bring out the local television stations? I'm just saying that it goes beyond just media to reach the community.

The Los Angeles Times article - Blogging moms wooed by food firms - hits upon that. The Mom and foodie (but mostly Mom) community has grown to be quite strong and powerful. It is a key demographic, the chief operating officer of the home with the full purchasing power who is also influential with other mothers, friends and family.

From a blogger perspective, Liz Gumbinner wrote an amazing post. I'm writing this post from a PR and blogger perspective. And from a PR perspective, the article shows corporations are reaching out to Mom bloggers ... but with no real strategies, just the usual junket mentality: invite people with influence and wine and dine them, and they'll write about you. And, according to the article, that's pretty much true.

The other thing that I'm getting from the article? Yes, the economy sucks. And, we're going to do whatever it takes to get ours. But that doesn't really work, does it? No, not asking to give the milk away for free, so no one buys the cow ... but demanding payment for everything is not going to work either.

But the pay-me mentality has a few issues, well a few truths that bloggers might not want to acknowledge:

Not everyone can write
Not everything is monetizable
Your audience is your audience, not a commodity to be sold and bought
And, there's only one Dooce (in other word's, you ain't gonna be the next Dooce)

The issue here is that this is old thinking, from marketing and public relations. It's the "let's do a junket!" mentality that doesn't work for long-term relationships, but is good for a short-term bump. It's the junket applied to a newish form of content and media. And, while it might work for some blogs (in particular, consumer electronics), it really does not work well with other verticals.

But both bloggers and public relations/social media people need to take responsibility for what is happening here. Is this getting worse, because of the economy? Is the media taking these opportunities to attack bloggers as unethical, and showcase their ethics? Or, is there bigger things at play, such as the FTC that PR and blogging continues to ignore. As I recently noted,

... the FTC will have wider repercussions than people realize, and will stifle much of the social media outreach done by marketing firms - think giveaways, etc - and will lead to tax implications from the IRS that have not been touched upon so far.

Just reading the article, those of us that follow Mom blogs and Twitter will easily remember the attacks on the Nestle bloggers - until the end of the day, Nestle left those bloggers out to dry and let them take the blunt of all the attacks.

That is not building a good, working relationship but leaving your partner out to take all the heat. A good relationship would have seen the corporation - or, at the least, the PR firm - offering air cover for the invited bloggers and taking the heat. While those Nestle attendee's seemed to be fine with the attacks (well, to survive), there was no reason for that to happen. They were just trotted out to Pasadena for a one-time gig, with no long-term strategy. One time dog-and-pony show, that ended fairly for everyone.

The old doesn't work. Well, it does work if it's done right (long-term thinking, strategy, relationship-based) but the old thinking doesn't work in today's world. The old thinking is also just lazy thinking, where you get junkets, short-term planning and not taking responsibility. And, unfortunately, I hear many PR firms recommending bringing Moms and other bloggers out to corporate HQ ... but with no thought of why beyond bringing them out there. Is there a reason, a long-term thought to the junket? Are you putting together a focus group/Mom board? If that is the reason, that can be the basis of a good relationship.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not infallible. But PR firms need to change their thinking - and marketing needs to stop looking at social media as earned media that is easily manipulated - and get back to building relationships. That means going to events for in-person relationship building, creating long-term thinking and strategy for campaigns that are not one-off stunts or events, and relationships based on mutual respect that bring value to both parties.

Is PR up to the task? If this article is indicative, not at all. But bloggers also need to not be so easily bought and sold - there's no value if you put out for everyone. There needs to be a middle ground found, but I don't have the easy answer.

And, yes, I misquoted Kant's Categorical Imperative (second maxim) for the post's title.

2010 Predictions in Social Media

2009-10-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today, Jennifer Leggio posted a group of people's 2010 social media predictions. She graciously emailed me and asked for my input ... but I was at a loss of what to say (shocker, I know). The PR lesson here is to always jump on requests for information, but at the same time to know what you want to say. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, as I have a lot to say on the subject.

This was hard for me because for the past few years, I have thought that social media was going to disappear and just become part of marketing and communications, that the firms and companies would have finally caught up to us early adopters. Yes, I'm putting myself as an early adopter with a small group of public relations professionals that do not get the recognition they should get for being early: Tom Murphy, Phil Gomes, Mike Manuel, Constantin Basturea and more. If you want to know who you should really be listening to, look at the people that are not talking that much (some of these people do not update much), but are in the trenches.

And, the fact is that social media should not be a separate discipline anymore, nor should it ever have been. Public relations likes to relive its bad decisions over and over again. Back in the dotcom era, PR firms had "online news" teams versus "print teams" ... and it soon crossed over. My main WSJ reporter worked for WSJ Online, but wrote for the paper as well ... when she wrote for the paper, should I have handed off the relationship or stopped talking to her? No, that'd idiocy. So why is social media separate? Isn't it just part of the whole P in public relations? Yah, you don't need a book to know this, it is basic PR skills that we've forgotten.

As for the prediction, I've been wrong so far, but will go with that prediction for 2010, with an asterisk. I think that social media will finally be subsumed by one of the disciplines (public relations, interactive marketing, marketing - one of them) but will still be splintered across the board. Most of the social media mavens and gurus, though, will be finally sniffed out as empty suits, and that will hurt the industry more than most things - for a while, at least.

Social media shouldn't be a special job that is relegated to 25 year olds as they do not have the gravitas or years of experience to understand the deeper issues. No, not an ageist issue, but in public relations there are issues that arise that you need the years of experience to give good, deep thinking, strategic counsel that comes from years of experience ... not being on freaking Facebook or Twitter. It takes the understanding of the whole ecosystem, how social media is affecting public relations, marketing, communications and customer service. It takes the long-term view - not the short-term that is so popular in social media - and understanding what you do today is going to have repercussions in the future.

As for another prediction: the FTC will have wider repercussions than people realize, and will stifle much of the social media outreach done by marketing firms - think giveaways, etc - and will lead to tax implications from the IRS that have not been touched upon so far.

That is something that we - as marketers, public relations, social media, whatever the hell you want to call the discipline - are going to need to really think about. It's about the bigger story, and what might be happening because what the government is doing today. That is what we need to be doing, that is what we need to be thinking about ... and it might not be best held in the hands of people that can only think about social media.

My Suck Up Post to Jeremiah Owyang

2009-08-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

I expect to see a lot of these posts today - some as suck-ups, some as true congratulatory posts, some just to jump on a meme. It was announced today that Jeremiah (and a couple others) have joined his old colleague, Charlene Li, at Altimeter Group after leaving Forrester.

I have known Jeremiah since he organized the Lunch 2.0 at Hitachi (I still have the T-shirt and vandalized my old office with the sticker) and probably before then. I have been lucky enough to get to know him prior to Hitachi, and was happy for him when he made the jump.

I've read his blog off and on for the past few years, when headlines have caught my eye and there's things that I know I can learn from his insight.

And, I've watched him be attacked as a fanboy of social media and Web 2.0 by people that don't know him - but can easily throw rocks.

That's the thing - Jeremiah really doesn't talk much about his past experience, and he does love social media and Web 2.0 technologies (maybe, sometimes too much). But that exuberance is real, not just some fake excitement that many people have about the technology and space because it furthers their career. Jeremiah lives in this stuff, and enjoys it.

If you know me, though, you know my stance on social media experts - it's easy to talk the talk, but being in the trenches and actually using it is QUITE different. And that is the background that he doesn't talk about. He has fought the fight that those of us that do do the work have fought, and continue to fight. He's been in the trenches at a company culture not know for pushing the envelope, but keeping pretty steady.

The man has his battle scars - I am sure - from his work in social media at Hitachi Data Systems. That is what makes his a real warrior and someone to listen to in this space: he has fought the good fight, he's lost some battles, he gets attacked by others, but he takes it all and keeps soldiering on.

Let me be one of many to congratulate both Charlene and Jeremiah. Great addition to the team, and good luck on what is likely going to be a great journey - and I'm lucky enough to call him a friend (and his wife, who cracks me up with her eye-rolls at me).

Passing the Buck and Ethics

2009-08-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you've ever met me, and heard me talk about my first boss, you'll hear me wax poetically about how great a boss he is. I think I might have written about his rules before, but it's always good to rehash The Tiger's rules. He told me these one day when I was in his office, and I always remember them (with his explanations).

1. Blame up, praise down: what he meant is that he gets paid the big bucks (and I was a lowly AAE), and the buck stops with him. He would take the blame, and he would let the client know that we got the hits.

2. If I work late, you work late: No, not the scene from Scrooged but he just meant that if he left the office before me, he'd check in to see what I was working on and what could be taken off his plate. And vice versa - I would check in on him. Mainly, it came down to helping with time management, and being cognizant of what coworkers were working on that day.

3. Take responsibility and own up: While blame up was the end result - meaning he'd take the yelling from the client for a mess up - he wanted you to take responsibility with him if you made the mistake. Own up, and man up.

4. The client comes first: the client is paying your paycheck, so you look out for them. You go over the billing and invoices, and do the line item and make sure they are being fairly billed.

I try to work with the people I work with - in particular, the junior staff - with these thoughts in mine. The Tiger was one of the best bosses I had (yes, there were some bad things), but these rules have stuck with me since I worked for him. And, me and a coworker always tell him we'd work for him in a NY minute.

This seems like an era ago - not because it was 12 years ago, but because these sentiments seem to be lost at major firms nowadays. Time and time again during PR bitch sessions, I hear about senior staff throwing junior staff under the bus, or junior staff working insane hours, or interns wondering if what they're doing is actually public relations, or some bastardization - and can they say no.

So an incident this weekend with a marketing firm - Reverb Communications - brings all of this to the forefront. Thus far, the company has not fully responded to the allegations that they're astroturfing the iTunes Application Store, according to MobileCrunch. And, hey they put marketing first, so I refuse to call them public relations.

The two second version: Reverb is having its interns post comments on its clients iPhone applications to garner more downloads.

The question - and how it fits into the four golden rules - is at what point do the interns push back? Can interns push back at a job (forget the bad economy) and take a stance for what they believe is true and right? Don't the senior staff have an ethical obligation to be teaching their interns the right way to do things, the ethical way to behave in social media? (Yes, that's the rules tie-in).

I know that many public relations firms do go to their interns for brainstorming sessions, in particular for social media ideas. Hey, they're all on Facebook, so they MUST get it!!

But, well, being an intern you also tend to fashion your answers to best reflect what you think the agency wants; you want the job, you make sure your answers are right. Unless, well, you're headstrong like me.

The fact is the interns at Reverb probably should have pushed back - but it is quite easy for me to Monday Morning quarterback as someone whose internship is eons ago. Remember when you're an intern, and you don't push back because you (a) don't know better or (b) really want that job when you graduate from college. And who wouldn't want a job at Reverb? It's a hot shop for iPhone app makers, in the middle of the cool Apple environment. It's pretty much as close as working for an Apple agency as you can get.

So I asked two former interns, current and recent college students on their opinions. One went on the record, the other asked to go off the record. The off the record, of course, is the more damning and more telling.

From Monica Fineis, a Michigan State Alumna: This is sad. Third-party credibility is out the window. I don't think that anyone who represents a product should be allowed to review it, even with full disclosure. Do your advertising, do your promotions, but please don't mess with the reviews! If the reviews say your app sucks--change it! What happened to being advocates for the public? At my first internship, I might not have known better. We take transparency and honesty very seriously here (at my current firm) and theoretically if I was asked to do something like this now I would say no.

From College Student Doe, a current student: 1st incident - we were trying to promote a viral video and it was sent through the company listserv and to drive up views, employees were asked to continue watching etc. I know that this seems like a small thing but it made me feel uncomfortable because it would translate to impressions to the client and if alot of views were from employees, it seems wrong. I didn't push back because I didn't know if it was common practice done by everyone and I was just the loser intern who was behind the times. I wanted to learn; I thought I was learning. It's like looking up to adults because they were grown up and you weren't. I was an intern, these people have been working for years. What should I have said? Who would have listened? Profit is the answer, not ethics.

Nicely depressing, huh?

That is the issue in a nutshell: as senior practitioners, we have a responsibility to be as ethical as possible. But does that conflict with results for clients? As we see with Reverb, it's always inevitable that someone is going to expose your dastardly ways, and then the potential bad press may hurt business (that is a debatable point). And in this economy, we need to provide results all the time, or risk losing a client.

As an intern, you have to stop and ask if you feel comfortable doing what you are about to do. Do you feel comfortable posting reviews under a fake name? Do you feel comfortable with the directions you are being given, or fully understand what you are being asked to do? And, most importantly, do you have a good supervisor and advocate at the firm, whom you can speak to and ask for direction and help? If that supervisor and/or advocate tells you to just go along, at least you know that agency is not the right one for your long-term career path.

And, the reality is that these questions are not just ones you will grapple with as an intern, but ones you will confront throughout your career. It is a serious issue for public relations and marketing firms, and not one that is going to be solved by pointing to good PR people but by having real answers, real solutions for these situations and pushing forward for ethics in public relations ... or at least transparency.

Talib Kweli is Better at Twitter Then You ... and the new Facebook Pages with Twitter!

2009-08-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

Talib Kweli - for those that don’t know, a groundbreaking rapper from Brooklyn – is on Twitter. As are many other rappers and DJ’s. Twitter has become the new MySpace, to the point that Twitter (plus Ning) is the big threat to MySpace, not to Facebook (that’s another post – but something to think about).

On August 5, on his Twitter account Kweli gave his top ten ways to use Twitter (or Twitter no nos!, as he put it). I have cut and pasted his full list of top ten ways to Twitter from his account (apologies to Kweli, but it was too good not to post for more people to see), and include the original time stamps.

and number 1- never overtweet. (i just broke that rule, I'm out!) 4:26 PM Aug 5th

2. I will never say something on twitter I can't say to your face. Thats for the e goons 4:25 PM Aug 5th

3. I will never jump into your convo without visiting your profile to say what has been said, this makes you seem slow 4:24 PM Aug 5th

4. I will never ask you to follow me. I'd rather direct you to my site or ask u to follow someone I admire. No messiah complex here 4:23 PM Aug 5th

5. Never repeat what someone wrote without the RT (retweet) 4:22 PM Aug 5th

6. Never send a tweet to someone who is in the same room as you. 4:21 PM Aug 5th

7. Never have someone else tweet for you. Thats missing the point 4:21 PM Aug 5th

8. don't be the twitter police. If I don't like what you say I'll ignore you. 4:20 PM Aug 5th

9. twitter personal business esp. emotional stuff. twitter is not your personal diary and you invite confusion into your life this way 4:19 PM Aug 5th

10 twitter no nos! 10. Twitter other people's business. Should go without saying. 4:18 PM Aug 5th

Despite all the advice from social media / Twitter gurus, here is a man that is doing his own promotion for his CDs, and giving real world advice from real world experience, in a B2C way. This advice is much easier to listen to than that from “experts” who use Twitter to just self promote without real world experience.

The interesting news today – which prompted me to finish this post – was Facebook announcing that you can now push your Facebook Pages updates to your corporate Twitter account.

This is good news for corporations, celebrities and others with Facebook Pages. While you are able to populate your personal Facebook page with your Twitter updates because of the Twitter application and they are tied together with the status updates, corporate Facebook Pages had nothing (or, well, I couldn’t figure out how to do it).

Now, I agree with Om Malik and Fred Vogelstein that Facebook is about Google and data, and by incorporating Twitter into Facebook Pages, Facebook is able to “see” what corporations want to integrate into Twitter - as well as what members are fans, how they interact, etc. and how that can be used for marketing and ads.

So while some companies have already integrated marketing campaigns from Twitter to Facebook (e.g. send out a contest on Twitter, tell people to go comment on your corporate Facebook Page and become a fan), this makes it easier for the internal marketing / public relations / communications person to keep a consistent message. If the internal person or agency wants to send out a message to both its fans on Facebook, as well as its Twitter followers, it does not have to worry about going to both platforms but can send the message out on Facebook.

What does this mean at the end of the day for public relations? It means easier management of two of the hotter social media platforms – which means time savings for the executives. All in all, that’s not a bad thing.

YAWN: WSJ’s "New" Embargo Rules

2009-08-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

The big PR news for today was that the Wall Street Journal is no longer going to be honoring or accepting embargoed news, according to Paid Content. They want exclusives, and not to be one of many publications and sites that is pre-briefed under embargo.

Um, so what? No, I mean I understand why some people are up in arms about this, but let’s be honest. In my experience, WSJ would agree to a verbal embargo, but if something happened, they would run the story. For the most part, that has been fine for PR people. It was and is a relationship, one built on trust and an understanding of the PR and journalism dance.

But let’s get back to reality here – it’s the Wall Street Journal. It’s the paper of record, the big kahuna. It’s the paper that is one of the few national publications – USA Today, NY Times and WSJ – and one of the few (if not the only) outlets that people pay for online. It’s a paper that wants – no, needs – exclusives, and it likely tired of being scooped by blogs that neither understand the embargo dance, nor care to partake in that dance.

Why would the WSJ continue to be one of 20+ outlets being briefed? That is the buckshot approach for some public relations executives and firms. But, well, that has never worked and that is not an embargo situation, but scattershot PR.

And in this new digital age, the embargo is dead. News moves too quickly nowadays to rely just on an embargo. Yes, you can call up a reporter prior to the announcement and say “dude, got some big news tomorrow, no I won’t tell you, but don’t be that guy and pass and then be pissed you missed the story.” Of course, too many PR people have no idea what is REAL embargoed news, and what’s just news that is not embargo worthy. I tend to get more of the former, a bit of the latter. Hint: a new social media newsroom is not embargo worthy.

The new reality is that print publications run news online (and have for the past 10 years). They will run a more in-depth article in the print version, or write up a bigger story if there is an exclusive or if they have more information that makes for a deeper, more analytical story. Just look at the Wall Street Journal today – two stories on Whole Foods: one on the blog, and an in-depth article in the paper. Interestingly enough, the article has more comments online than the blog post.

That’s all under the WSJ umbrella. As Ali pointed out on Paid Content, both AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro (who writes for the paper and the Digits blog) both covered the new Yahoo! home page, but Kara had the fuller article. When you are in a race not only with other outlets, but a part of your own – and sorry for anyone that goes up against Kara “Woman of a Million Scoops” Swisher, as her Rolodex rocks and she’ll get the online video interview as well.

The problem is that most PR people don’t get this. They don’t understand the value of an embargo that you go to one or two trusted outlets/reporters, and then you go out big post-breaking news. They don’t understand that there have never been any real hard and fast rules on embargoes, but are by the seat of your pants. And, they don’t understand how media has really changed.

This isn’t a “media is dead” idea. This isn’t a “print is dead” perspective. This isn’t “social media” or “Web 2.0” thinking. Many of those ideas are just meme attractors, and have no real value, especially in public relations. The WSJ is still the WSJ and the NYT is still the NYT and they have the top writers and thinkers out there (as do many newspapers with national presence).

This is about how embargoes no longer work in a world where media consumption has changed, and where people are consuming media on a 24/7 platform, and the news cycle is now immediate. People find out things first online; the fast reporters and bloggers get news up immediately, and then people read print (or read print articles online) for the more in-depth analysis, the executive interview and some exclusivity for that one or two outlets. The embargo has outlived its usefulness, but relationships have not been replaced, and the pre-brief is still in existence. It is about the way you do PR in a 24/7 news cycle. And, how you can out-maneuver others in a 24/7 news cycle.

Because, at the end of the day, media is media, reporters will still talk on background and the story will get out there.

Don't be THAT PR person at BlogHer (Or Any Event)

2009-07-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

It is BlogHer (the conference) time once again. A time to be part of a huge event – 1500 + attendees this year of female bloggers talking about what they write about, learning from each other, and being part of the bigger BlogHer community.

Well, let's be honest – it's likely 1200+ attendees and 300+ public relations people. And that's not counting the BlogHer attendees that are being sponsored to attend, and who will likely be pushing products or services while also attending.

As I have noted before on this blog, I am a big, big supporter of BlogHer and its community. This will be the fourth year that I am attending – second time for BlogHer Business – and I have built great relationships across the board because I listen, I engage and I don't push or pitch. Heck, I'm like a BlogHer male mascot, welcomed to attend because I go to learn, and can turn it off and not just be a pitch machine.

As I was speaking about this post tonight to a few of my friends that are here already, they noted that I am welcomed by the Mommy blogging community because of my involvement and attendance, and also noted that I am not here to pitch, but have become a part of the community by listening, discussing, and being myself. That at the end of the day, I understand about relationships and when is the appropriate time to pitch. And, when I do have something appropriate, I reach out to them and let them know.

Kids and Media BOF
Originally uploaded by hyku.

Follow these rules, and have a better BlogHer experience. These observations and opinions are based on my attending multiple BlogHer conferences, as well as the IMs and email conversations I have with Mommy bloggers and others.

1. BlogHer is not just about mommy bloggers. It's a huge group of various bloggers and social media people who write on topics that include motherhood, cooking, scrapbooking, politics, car repair and service, consumer electronics, and more. To characterize BlogHer as just Mommy blogging is to ignore the people and their full spectrum of interests. If you just want to consider them Mommy bloggers, you're missing the bigger picture.

2. Turn it off and listen. Yes, we're always supposed to be on - but turn it off, and be a person instead of a pitch machine. We're in public relations, and we are supposed to be experts in coversations. Public relations is supposed to be the leaders in social media because we understand that it is more than just pushing messaging. Public relations is more than just messaging points, but actual dialogue with key stakeholders. If you cannot understand this, you certainly should not be pitching bloggers nor attending events. For example, a top parenting site asked me why an intern and an Assistant Account Executive at a large firm would pitch a widget and not listen to the feedback: if the client wants a widget on their site, buy ad space. Nor did they really want to engage in any discussion beyond the script that they were handed. The parenting blogger felt that the firm neither understood nor respected their work.

3. Don't lie and don't name drop. Don't say “oh, your blog is the top in my Google Reader!” It's insulting because it rings hollow. Same thing is when you're at BlogHer, listen and have conversations, but no need to say “Oh, I read you and you and you.” Because you know what, while that's great, you're missing “her and her and her” that are likely just as interesting and worthy of reading.

4. It's give and take. It's not about you, but your clients. Yes, you are at BlogHer for your agency and your clients, but learn the soft-sell and pitch. It's a give and take relationship, where you are at an event to learn and network. You can (and should) follow-up with people post-BlogHer. Talk, have conversations, and follow-up later. The attendee's have paid good money to come to Chicago. Let them hang out with their friends, make new friends and have a good time. Meet them, have conversations that aren't pitches, find common interests and just be a person. And follow-up with them after the conference on your pitches and clients when it is more appropriate to discuss the clients' products, in a more relaxed setting.

5. There are panels and sessions. Go to them and listen and learn. That means not talking, which is hard for a lot of PR people, but actually learning from others and finding out what they want. Like that picture of me at the second BlogHer, where I participated, listened and learned: the things I wanted out of BlogHer.

There are other issues at play right now – such as the FTC investigation into blogs and paid-for-posts. These are extremely important issues and certain Mommy bloggers seem to be at the forefront of these discussions. But the reality is that the market will shake out – as it always does – and these sites will be less important because people will not trust them. If anyone asks to be paid for reviews or to look at your product, you just look at it as a non-starter and walk away. I know that BlogHer has looked into these issues as well, and is doing its part to keep its community on the up-and-up.

But as PR people, if you cannot turn it off, do not go to BlogHer. Yes, that seems a little harsh, but the reality is that you are not going to listen or engage, but just be that PR person. You know, THAT PR person. So, stay home – and stay out of the way for people that want to have a conversation and learn from bloggers, and build relationships. Which, as the media is flattening, is the most important thing: real relationships that are built on trust, honesty and mutual respect.

Mmm, that's a good cup of Nite Owl Coffee

2009-03-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

If you have been following the launch of Watchmen – from the advertising campaigns and posters, to The New Frontiersman and more, heck just read the in-depth look by Chris Thilk on all their movie marketing madness – the one thing that really was interesting to me was the coffee tie-in to the movie.

If you’ve read the graphic novel – and, well, the people who saw it opening weekend likely have read it – you will remember the scene where Dan serves Sally a cup of coffee after they rescued people from the burning building. I think the line was that he was still civilized.

And, when you first saw the coffee online – I don’t remember where I saw the link – but I do remember thinking it was another part of the film’s viral campaign, and that it wasn’t real.

But, well, the coffee IS real. The company – Organic Coffee Company – is real. How it all came into reality, well, that’s sorta unreal but still real.

Clay Enos – a photographer in his day job – is a founding member of OCC, which he views more as more of a coffee cartel than a company. Enos started the company a few months back, after assignment in Oaxaca, Mexico and being inspired by the people who make specialty coffee and their dedication and dependence on the farmers.

So, simply, he decided to become an importer and develop organic, relationship coffee with the belief that if you want good coffee, you don’t ignore the growers, but have a deep relationship with them that is based on trust and value.

And, being a photographer, he uses his own photographs to give the company and its coffees their own distinctive identity. And, since he started this out as a labor of love to honor world coffee, the majority of the profits are donated. When I spoke to Clay, he noted that the company is something that helps him express other principles, and a nice outlet for his photographs.

Talking to Enos, it's evident that he loves coffee and the idea of helping out others. His view of OCC is that it is a cooperative spirit, and that there be a sharing of the wealth. And, well, that coffee is a lovely social elixir – coffee is a lovely way to engage people. It’s the coffee way of life.

So, how did this all tie-in to Watchmen?

Well, Enos went to Ithaca College with Debbie Snyder – the wife of the director, and one of the producers of the movie. And, the photographer part of his life, well, Enos did all the photo shoots in the movie, behind the scenes, the one-sheets and the movie posters (all as work for hire).

As he noted, this was an overwhelming venture, was his first feature film. It was curious, excited, and as a portrait artist, you can’t do any better than a movie with five decades of costumes, hair, makeup – it was just ripe for portraits.

One thing to do behind-the-scenes, etc – but the portraiture work is totally different, an art book of portraits. With any luck, it will hold up past the movie tie-ins, as an example of great portraiture.

As he was doing the photographs, he thought of ways to tie-in coffee (as he notes, coffee is on his brain now). As he read the graphic novel, he noted that when they save the folks from the tenement fire, they then have coffee. Wouldn’t it be fun, to make that real? To do a Nite Owl coffee? And, well, Enos was in the position where he could make it happen and raise money for charity, and satisfy the fans - really, to let people have some of the best coffee they will ever have.

Thus far, the sales have been interesting because people are having trouble believing it’s real – it’s high-quality coffee that is not just for fans. Enos doesn’t care if it’s Nite Owl or one of the other coffees, it’s about the quality and how coffee is part of life.

Each coffee tells its own story, you’re drinking a place and people’s lives. It's fodder for conversation, and you can tell a story with the people. An equivalent of wine stories.

The Nite Owl and OCC coffees are about creativity, and having some fun. It's to inspire people to do the same, instead of looking down – the artistic mode, make better photographs instead of dismissing the idea that they couldn’t do well.

As for the coffee? Well, I got my can delivered - and it's some of the best smelling coffee I've ever smelled. It's rich, heady and you can tell it's going to be one helluva cup of coffee. So, as a fan boy, it's exciting. As a coffee lover, it should be great.

Mommy taught me not to lie

2009-01-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Reading Dan Lyons' piece on the Apple / Media dance - and, let's be honest, it is a great one to watch as a PR person - one thing stuck out for me: The larger takeaway is what this episode says about how the media covers Apple. It's one thing for PR flacks to tell lies. That is, after all, what they get paid to do. But it's another thing for the media to join in on the action. (Emphasis mine, of course).

The article was dead-on. There are a few corporations that get an easy pass, and have a hardcore public relations machine. Apple is one of those, and as a fanboy of Apple (and, well, a person that likes to watch and practice good PR), it is amazing to watch the way they handle press and get out the message. Apple is one of the few (the only?) companies that could probably find a hardcore Apple blogger, tie him up, beat him to a pulp, tar and feather him ... and get defended by other bloggers. It's just that Apple mystique.

But, well, it's not the job of PR to lie. We're a bridge builder, a way for reporters (and, well, social media 'reporters') to get access to the corporation, and get information out to the public. We're not supposed to be the impediment for news, the gatekeeper, but the way to help people get the stories they want. Does this mean to answer every media request, and give out products for review willy-nilly? Of course not - you use your intellect on this stuff. Come on people.

But, no, it's not about lying. What is acceptable?

Pulling the Heisman - that's fine.
Omitting facts - not lying, but, well, omission of details - that's fine.
Blatant lying - well, that's just not. Some PR people can get away with it - when you are at a hot company, you have some leeway with the press. But, well, the press doesn't forget these things. And, it will eventually catch up.

The thing is that I understand where Lyons is coming from with his piece. This is the second time he's called out PR for lying - blatantly - to him, and it really should not be acceptable. That's not how PR works, it's not how PR should work, and it's too often an occurrence.

Hell, just step outside of PR to the publicity / entertainment side of things. How often do you see a report that a publicist said "oh, no, they're not getting a divorce" ... a week before they file for divorce. Paging Liz Rosenberg and Madonna. Hell, paging ANY large entertainment publicity shop.

But, this is the problem with public relations: lying sacks of shit, as Lyons calls them, make all of us who don't engage in this type of subterfuge look awful. The blame is also with reporters, however, who have been duped by "sources familiar" to do their bidding. Journalism, as a means to report the news to the masses, has become sensationalistic and unreliable (and, at times, just lazy), and why the public has become less and less trusting of the media. It's less media and journalism in mainstream press, and more editorializing and sensationalism.

But, the reality is with the shrinking and spreading of media - the traditional is getting smaller, while the new is growing bigger (and, well, more niche and like vertical media, but no one wants to admit that about blogs) - the lies are becoming too obvious, and getting caught too easily. It's the job of public relations to relay information, or truthfully sometimes to keep information private. But if you're getting calls from a reporter on such information ... it's already leaked and out there. And, well, damage control does not mean lie and obfuscate, but rather deflect or respond.

All in all ... pretty simple rules from kindergarten, with less naïveté.

In Defence of Lois Whitman

2008-12-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

Someone has to do this, and someone has to say what this really is - it's not just an attack on one PR person, but it's an attack on the PR industry as a whole.

I am not here to condemn Lois, but rather defend. Nor am I here to condone her actions, but rather speak to the PR industry about such actions - as well, as speak to others as a PR practitioner.

So, today she is being held up as everything wrong with the PR industry, because of her actions regarding CES. Yes, her actions and her own defence (or lack thereof) come up lacking - Phonescoop would not care about the clients her employee was pitching, and the laziness of just blasting the whole media list has its own consequences (for example, see Chris Anderson's blacklist) - but it is still a common PR practice, especially during trade show season. And, it is because we are under the gun to get X meetings at the trade show.

I, myself, have received three emails from one PR person asking why I have not responded to the first email ... maybe because I am busy and not attending CES as media/blogger this year?

And, yes, Lois and her PR firm has the distinct honor of being called out by The Bad Pitch Blog; I know Kevin, and I know that it takes many offenses to be publicly called out.

But, I'm here to defend Lois - not necessarily because I think she deserves to be defended, but because PR people are missing the bigger issue. It's another typical attack on PR, and not necessarily warranted. While she is quite a character, and seems to not notice how the game has changed, but added New Media to the firm's name in 2001 (hey, she was an early adopter!) to keep abreast of the latest buzz word game.

In today's world, though, public relations is becoming more and more relevant. With the media shrinking, freelancers becoming more and more prevelant, and, well, online media (or new media or social media) become fragmented where you need VERY targeted outreach to reach the right audiences, well, the PR executive and firm is the perfect choice. And, that includes all the social media / networking brouhaha. Who is better off talking to people than public relations? The classic generalist is trained to work with the media, the public and to engage in discussions, not just one-way messaging.

As for the start of this recent PR is dead meme, but let's put a face to it (with Lois) - it started with the embargoes are dead meme, which is just as dumb, if not dumber. The embargo is based on a working relationship, and when a PR person or firm gets burnt by a reporter or site, you stop working with them (giving them the pre-briefs), and shoot them the news at the same time.

And, really, 90 percent of the embargoes for start-ups are worthless. It's not embargo worthy news, they aren't public companies. You don't send off a release under embargo without getting a verbal or written "yes" that they will honor the embargo. That, again, goes to laziness.

In the era of new media, social media or whatever, though, the embargo might be on its last legs. However, for a public company, it does not. You want to pre-brief reporters on upcoming news, but that pesky SEC stuff gets in the way. So, you do under embargo - usually backed up by an attorney.

During the dot-com era, News.com was infamous for having the fast trigger finger. During the Web 2.0 bubble (or whatever you want to call the recent past), it was Mashable that was whispered about as fast posters. So, if you are a smart PR person that values your relationships, you don't pre-brief or embargo them - you give them the news the same time you send it out on the wire. If you don't get the hit, you don't get it.

And, yes, even I have been burnt by the verbal embargo. Back in the day, I pre-briefed two outlets: WSJ (my choice and person) and AP (the partner's choice and person). AP went early, and burned my relationship with the WSJ reporter and killed the better story (told from my POV, rather than the partners). It happens to everyone, but the good PR person learns from it and redoes the strategy for the next news cycle. Or just briefs.

But, back to Lois. While the PR bloggers love a good dog pile to attack another PR person when they come under fire - and in these economic times, it's a bigger blood sport than usual - with this highly visible and somewhat personal attack on a PR firm, it's an attack on all of us. It's another shot in the PR gut that we're dead.

And, well, we're not.

We're more important in a recession than ever before. But, if your PR firm or PR person has time to post in the middle of the day, you really should question what they are doing for you. Or if it is themselves they are thinking of first. PR needs to be client first, PR person second. Not the other way around.

And that also is hurting the PR industry.

Twitteriocy

2008-09-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

Twitter idiocy. Or Twitteriocy (I'm coining a term- run with it). It's what we are beginning to see on Twitter, and it is an easy thing to combat. Now, while Twitter right now is the hot thing for corporations, and we have begun seeing more and more and more companies getting accounts, well, it is becoming obvious that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

So, I am laying down my simple rules for not being a Twitter idiot. Because, well, no one likes an idiot.

Now, this all came about at Blogworld Expo. Once again, it was a great event and Rick Calvert did a great job. But, as the wonderfully charming Gwen Bell noted - with such the concentration on Twitter this year, next year should be Twitter World Expo.

Zappos had a party at Prive - the CEO of Zappos follows me on Twitter, and vice-versa - and I ended up at the bar with the CEO/CHO, Luke, of Fitfuel. I noticed the sticker of his Twitter name on his head (yes, he had it stuck on his head), so I asked him why he (and, well, most of his team at Fitfuel) was following me on Twitter. It's a simple question, right? I wonder why a lot of people follow me on Twitter as I tend to either talk about 80's music, rap lyrics, rap videos, my personal rules of PR and Twitter (okay, that might be why) and other random shit on my mind. Usually in threaded conversations, so they are discussions with others.

His response was that I must have followed first (not to sound cocky, but with 3000+ followers and following 1325, I rarely proactively add anyone). After that, it was just quiet.

Until he went back to his team and started talking about the stupid conversation he had at the bar about Twitter. I have dog ears, by the way, if you wonder.

See, isn't that nice? Nothing makes me feel better than being characterized as stupid. Now, the simple and easy answers could have been: we follow you because you're an influencer (ego feeding works with most people, just not me); we follow you because you are part of the Twit2Fit (thanks Jason Falls, Equinox and my Yoga person there, Maura Barclay, for keeping me healthy!) hashtag group (true, and, well, might be the reason, but who knows now and I don't care); we follow you because you have a lot of smart things to say about PR and Twitter (okay, more ego gratification, but hey, that would work because it means they know who I am). Shit, make up some reason why you are following a person.

So, with this in mind - and with me having set up a Twitter account for my day job - here are the rules that I have come up for Twitter.

1. Don't have your PR firm set up and be your Twitter account. That seems pretty simple, doesn't it? But, well, I heard a story at BlogWorld Expo of a PR firm charging $7000 for a week of Twittering, and have heard other stories of astronomical figures on setting up and monitoring the Twitterverse. How is aPR firm supposed to respond if they have to go back to the client and get the okay first? Um, social media and quick time conversations like Twitter do not work that way.

2. Don't follow everyone willy nilly. First, it makes no sense - if you follow someone, well, it does not matter unless they follow you back. Otherwise, you're a corporate shill that is just talking to nobody. You're talking to no one and it's obvious that you just are doing it to do it. And, well, if that's what you want, that's great. I have a lot of the Zappos people follow me ... but I so rarely wear shoes and they don't sell Havaianas yet (come on guys, get on the stick). But, I like the company, and don't follow all of them back. But, hey, they must like me enough to follow. My strategy? If someone follows the corporate account first, I follow back. If they Tweet about the company more than once, I follow. If they are a blog that I read that is in the corporate space (or a journalistic space), I follow to see what they are working on. Simple and easy.

3. Get Tweetdeck. At first, I was not a fan ... but if you are in-house and doing Twitter for work, there is no greater tool. Not only do you get the stream, the replies and direct messages, but it keeps your global searches right there to reply. And, well, if you are doing a corporate Twitter account, scan for your name and other terms that refer to what your company does, and what its products serve. Seriously, it rocks. And, those that know me know that I'm stingy with the likes.

4. Be engaged. Be personable. Be responsive. There's nothing worse than sending someone a direct message on Twitter ... and hearing nothing back. You followed ME first, and yet you are unable to respond to a question? And, well, that's just a direct message. If you are sent an @reply, and do not respond, do you REALLY want to be in the conversation, or you just glomming onto the next thing? If it's glomming, well, you are not ready.

5. Be a person. The other day, I noted that I do not like corporate Twitter accounts with no name, but said in my more usual way. Seriously, this is supposed to be a conversation, and you want me to talk to someone with no name? No reference? No bio? Um, no thank you. No, really, go away.

6. Twitter is not for everyone. For another, longer post ... social media is not for all corporations or entities. There are those that social media will NEVER be the right fit because of policies or legalities. Despite the mantra of the social media "experts", social media is not a right fit for all companies. It's a simple rule. In that, Twitter is not right for all groups - but that does not mean they should not be monitoring Twitter. You don't even need to download Tweetdeck ... you can use Filtrbox for Twitter searches (an added bonus to what is being said out there on blogs, and such).

I also spelled out rules for me following others yesterday. Just click on these links and you'll see.

If you are a corporation, though, what exactly are you trying to accomplish on Twitter? That should be the first question. For me, it was to monitor and participate and answer questions. It was cut and dry, and from engaging, I have been able to turn what were active detractors to active enthusiasts - by acknowledging, responding and helping. Simple as pecan pie.

Slave to Technology

2008-09-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

If you read my blog, you notice a trend: I often talk about what public relations needs to do, and how it needs to change. Sometimes it's a broken record, but it serves a purpose.

Now, I can be like a social media expert (something, btw, I never call myself because boy, is that a career-limiting path) and just talk about social media tools with no real world experiences or examples. Talking tools for tools sake makes you, well, a tool. Don't tell your audience about the new social media tools that have launched, because in a year or two, most of them are likely to be ignored or dead pooled. Or, in five years, we'll all talk about how quaint it was that we would recommend this or that to clients ... with no real ROI on the tools.

At the end of the day, social media and public relations is getting so caught up in the tools, that it is forgetting that it is just technology. The PR people and the firms are too dependent on technology and the tools - and these tools expand beyond social media. It includes email and instant messaging and using the computer all the damn time and never leaving the office. The tools that that PR people use almost exclusively in media relations are email and IM, and unfortunately ignore that phone looking thing on their desk.

That's a problem. A big problem.

During the big brouhaha on PR is dead, Frank Shaw built upon my post and said some of the things I meant to say.

It is not just about the relationships, but building the right relationships within the right verticals, and doing your research prior. And, yes, that takes time and involves sitting in front of the computer.

But, well, my computer monitor died - the notebook still works (I can hear it!) but the screen is dark. No clue why, and just need to go to the "doctor" to get it checked out. But it was a good reminder that we are too caught up in technology. We have so fallen in love with technology, that we can't do anything without it.

So, once upon a time, I was working at a PR firm. I was asked to help out on a media tour, and while I didn't know the client well, I knew the story enough to send out a quick round of email pitches (which another person had claimed to do). The difference? I actually called the reporters, and booked the media tour via phone.

Yes, I do good phone. I was able to get on the phone, quickly encapsulate the pitch into 30-seconds for a reporter, and get the meeting. I booked the tour in two days.

So, instead of just talking about tools and pontificating, here's my advice to PR firms with junior staff. Or, to any PR person that wants to have better media relations skills.

Put away your keyboard. No, seriously, have the keyboard taken away. Emails can be answered at a later time, and if it really is an emergency, the client will call you and your coworker will walk over to your office. But, in PR, very rarely is anything in PR an emergency (such, well, that will be a life and death situation). Put away the keyboard, and only use the phone.
Call up a reporter and offer to meet for coffee or lunch. No, it's not to pitch them, but to find out what stories they want to write about, and to learn more about them. It's this real world networking thingie. I know - a total mind fuck!
Pick up the damned phone. Deals aren't closed via email. Pitches aren't closed via email. Media tours are not booked or finalized via email. It's done by phone. It's simple - the strong use the phone, the weak stick to email. Pick up the phone and talk to reporters and analysts.

While technology has its place in public relations, we have been over-relying on the tools for so long that the basics of public relations - the relationships and the connectivity with face-to-face meetings and the ability to do good phone - have been lost. It's the few that can do it, and do it well.

We have become slaves to technology - and it has only become worse with the social media tools. Break the chains and get back to basics.

Can I can get a big cup of STFU please?

2008-08-13T14:44:00.001-07:00

How many times can you beat a dead horse? Apparently, every quarter if that horse is the PR is dead meme.

Well, this time it's more a slow build kicking of the horse: the recent meme started with the launch of Cuil, and Robert Scoble not being pre-briefed. There, he decided that he's done with the PR game.

Robert fed the fire with his recent post highlighting a company that he found through word of mouth - albeit a company that is not a mass consumer product, and likely will do okay with little PR.

It bubbled up in other posts - from Steve Rubel (who seems to forget that he's in PR and collects a pay-check at the world's largest independent PR firm), from TechCrunch, from Mashable. All people that have and continue to profit from PR people and PR firm relationships, with scoops and sneak previews. Here's the usual TechMeme crowd putting their voices into the one-way conversation.

A more balanced POV came from ReadWriteWeb - the pro's and con's of what is happening in PR.

So, here's my .02 - there's nothing new here. There's nothing new being said, just the same things every year (or is it every quarter now?).

I have written in the past that we need to train and educate. It's simple, and yet the firms aren't fully embracing it.

And, Ryost made the most pointed comment on Twitter to my first eye-roll on the situation: PR will become more valuable as newsrooms continue to shrink.

The fact is that social media is ONE part of public relations. A SMALL part, if you are a good PR person or firm. The other parts are traditional media (while it might be shrinking, it still reaches that middle part of the country), analyst relations, events, and more.

PR is about relationships. It's about relationships so much that Lowe's went to Abraham Harrison for it's recent project because of its relationships with people at Lowe and because of their relationships with bloggers. See - it's about relationships.

It's also about writing, about talking, about conveying a story. But, without those relationships, there's nothing there. And, unfortunately, with the industry's reliance on technology - let's email, let's launch a blog, let's get Twitter, let's do this and that ... well, you're failing in PR.

As my friend Andy Abramson (and, full disclosure, my firm) notes, it's BAM now: Bloggers, Analysts, Media. You need to have the right mix for the right story, and it's never one size fits all. Go and try to do local PR and see how far the social media only strategy works.

Social media is just a tool in the PR mix. And, it's just a good tool in the mix for certain clients and brands. For technology and consumer technology, it's great. For consumer goods, it's great. But, it's NOT the only thing. The PR bloggers - on some level - have become so enamored with the tools, that they are unable to take a step back but have become lost in their reflection like Narcissus.

But with the current posts - just concentrating on technology only - even the companies with no PR are not going to survive. You need to be able to tell a story, have trained executives that know what and what not to say in public, you need to have a plan.

The thing is - it's not just PR people that need to educate. It's bloggers and social media people. There are certain social norms that are kept in the norm, but seem to be ignored and broken in social media.

Now, I'm not talking about the embargo fiasco with Jeff Pulver; the PR person there should have not sent out a mass email, should have sent individualized outreach, and just asked the simple "do you do embargoes" without all the news.

I'm talking about being invited to press conferences or events. That invitation means that you are getting special insight - and by blogging guesses on what it is, just to be ahead of the curve - provides no real value to the readership, but is just guessing and hurts the press conference because the PR firm is inundated with people that want to be included in the press conference.

There goes that exclusivity and news hook.

So, here's my simple rules for public relations professionals.

1. Develop relationships. If you are a PR person - at any level - and cannot call up a reporter (not email, but pick up the damn phone) and set up a lunch to talk ... the you are not providing value. From the AAE to the SVP, you need to have relationships. If push comes to shove on a client deadline, everyone should pick up the phone and pitch and land a meeting. If the SVP is so detached from the media and client, what value is there?

2. Read. Not just blogs, but media. Traditional, social, new - be on a steady diet of media, so you think beyond today's news and come up with trend pieces and stories.

3. Think beyond today. It's not a race, it's a marathon. It's the long term strategies that work, not the panic. A good PR person never sweats, never panics but is calm.

4. For the PR bloggers that are calling for PR to be dead - if you believe that the industry needs to change, go to your local college and teach a session or two. Mentor students that email you - if memory serves, I have responded to and helped every college student that has written to me (War Eagle, my favorite PITAs) - both in the US and internationally. Instead of bitching about the state of PR, go do something.

I'm not prone to think PR is dead or dying. I do believe there are issues, but also talk to junior staff, help out when I get bad pitches (hey, I get them a lot and respond back to them), and try to help out for the most part. Instead of just talk, walk a little.

Taking Stock - Can Social Media Do What It Claims?

2008-07-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

July 5th was the five year anniversary of my blog. I started thinking about the bigger issues, and wrote this post on July 8th - and waited until I could get more information (see sidenote on bottom).

Ten-plus years ago, I started my career in public relations. One of the first campaigns I worked on was the Cure Breast Cancer stamp - working with a friend that was on the campaign, to get it launched and to get people to buy it.

That's a nice high for PR: doing some good work that changes people's lives.

I look at what I have done in social media, and it is not the same. And, while people are glomming onto social media, there seems to be very little being done in the circular nature of the social media consultants.

You don't hear/read about campaigns that are helping change the world. You don't hear/read about campaigns that are being done with the large agencies or consultants that are trying to help make the world a better place.

You read social media people talking about social media ... and that seems to be it. It's the self-fulfilling prophecy of Valleywag's 250. And, I have written about this before, and nothing much changes.

There are groups of social media people that fall outside this realm. There are networks that are more community than others.

I have spoken at and asked for help and advice from various social media fundraisers, such as TechSoup and NetSquared, and spoke to a few of these people at Blogworld Expo.

So, this is my challenge to the social media consultants and the power of social media. Prove to me that it works.

Here is one situation - help raise funds for Lisa Gift-Kelly at Clusterfook.

It's a deserving person, who has cancer and is trying to make sure that things stay afloat and is able to afford treatment, as well as make sure her family will be okay and not fall under the weight of health care costs.

Here's my question and request: show that social media can change the world. Right now, it's just talk.

Robert Scoble - rally your readers and community to give just $5 to one or the other. Heavy is the crown for someone in your position, but times like this call for a rallying of troops. And, it fits into your recent post that tech blogging has failed ... maybe because it's too insular?

Steve Rubel - you often talk about community, but then use the card that you did not ask for a leadership position. You started a skin cancer blog, but inexplicably let it die. Here's an opportunity to do something for someone with cancer, and to show leadership in social media and PR.

Social Media Club - you now have 44 board members of social media experts and consultants. Have them get the word out, have them work with the larger community of readership and help make the world a better place one person at a time.

Chris Brogan - you are one of the nicer people I know, and always do the good thing. Get your massive network to help out. It's not about blog tips, but it's about affecting change.

Jason Calacanis - while you might have retired your blog, you still have your Calacanis army on Twitter and your new newsletter. Rally your readers and followers. Plus, well, you are a mensch.

Now, there are tons of other people that I can think of to add to this list, but just using these four (plus SMC) as an example, and because of their position in social media. There are a ton of other people that write about social media non-stop, who have written books (Rohit Bhargava, Joel Postman, Geoff Livingston, Shel Israel, Brian Solis, Chris Heuer, amongst others) and would be good candidates to help spread the word and raise money.

Is that all that social media is? Is it to just sell stuff? Is it just a self-fulfilling circle that links to itself over and over? Or is there a higher value to social media, where we can make people's life better and really rally people to help others.

And, while there are organizations, groups and people that are doing good online, the vast majority of social media / blog noise comes from the consultants. Prove me right - that social media can do more than just be about social media talking about itself, but help change people's lives and change one part of the world. Social media consultants have a vested interest to do this, to show the world an example of social media doing good.

Go donate on the side through the SmartyPig Widget, or send people to Lisa's donation page.

When I wrote the post, my hope was to see if social media can do for Lisa what it claims the buzz can do for people.

As a sidenote: On a recent post, Lisa questioned if I was still helping her out, among other things. I have and had been researching alternative funding beyond Paypal, and doing traditional offline PR with face-to-face conversations with a myriad of people. As for the outreach that I am doing in my off-hours, in public relations you need to be ready and prepared for all and every question. I should have kept her up-to-date, and am now emailing her weekly. I apologize that I was not as proactive as she would have liked in the ten days between our correspondence and posts (which she has since taken down).

Do We Need to Embrace the Fan, and Other LA Conference Thoughts

2008-06-16T15:12:00.001-07:00

Recently, I attended OnHollywood. It sucked. Really, nothing else to say about the conference than that. From sneaking a look into the conference center, no one was really paying attention - or attending - the sessions. From watching the demonstration stations, people just stopped doing demos and looked bored. They had an open bar sponsored by Men7.tv (no, not a gay porn channel - and yes, I thought that too), and the event was best characterized by someone else that was down from San Francisco: SF is about networking, LA is about cliques.

A few months back, I attended Forrester's Marketing Conference in Century City.

We were sitting in Century City - a city I used to work in - and Harley Manning, the VP of research, pointed out that the reason that the Forum is being held in LA is that this city is a marketing city. Just look at the name of the streets - Avenue of the Stars - and this city embodies marketing (mostly of itself and entertainment).

Marketing's new imperative for success is engagement. You see it in the change of how brick and mortar stores are set up, such as the family setting of Jordan's furniture and all the bells and whistles. Or look at how Nike set up a community to engage it's customers - running tips from pros, a full community based on running.

I think he's wrong - yes, LA is a city of marketing but it is not an engagement city, but one of dreams and schemes. The city is built on falsehoods, on dreams, and never has had a foot in reality. It's fakery - the people and the industry - and it sells dreams. Sells them so well that it's not hit as hard during recessions (people will always use entertainment to escape).

Also at the Forrester Conference, Brian Haven talked engagement and understanding your customers.

It's a hot topic - and most marketing publications are covering it. But it is also risked becoming a buzzword. No, it is a buzzword ... and one that seems to be built on more what we want than what customers may want, or what corporations might want.

As an example, Haven talked about the launch of the Cincinnati Ikea - a hardcore fan of Ikea that was lobbying to bring Ikea to Cincinnati. She is passionate, she is an advocate, and she brings people to the brand. There was a connection to her with the brand - but the brand did not give back in that relationship ... to the point that legal came in and asked for a disclaimer and then asked for her to give up her blog domain bc of the Google juice was getting better than Ikea's.

Um, is Ikea wrong, though? Ikea has a responsibility to its shareholders, to its customers, to its brand to be ... on brand. This woman, to be blunt, was not on brand. No, I am not naive to think that everyone in Ikea is from Sweden ... but I do want the people to look a certain way, and the woman did not fit that mold. She looked Midwest, for lack of a better or tactful way to say it.

And, why do brands have to embrace its fans ALL the time? Let's not forget that fan comes from the word fanatic. And, well, fanatics are scary and can be detrimental to your brand.

According to Haven, Ikea should have engaged the Cincinnati Ikea fanatic, given her scoops on the store, outfitted her with new technology. They should have reached out and embraced her ... but that's wrong. Did they want to embrace the fanatic that took to camping out at their store prior to opening? Do they want to be associated with a woman that made up puppets and Saint Ikea, and other things she did? Or does the brand have a responsibility to stay on brand, and protect the brand?

Back to OnHollywood, the most interesting discussion I had was with Taz Arnold from SA-RA. We were talking rappers, Jay Dilla, Lupe Fiasco, Wale, and how the music industry is changing. If you think about it, the rap game has always had its own distribution system that was different than the rest of the industry - there was (and still is) the underground mix tape market, where people find new voices and sounds ... and might buy them. You still can catch people in different cities selling their CDs on the corner. When I was in LA for the last E3, I bought a CD at Roscoe's. Wasn't too bad.

"What's the deal with this rap stuff? Since Napster, the sales been crashing - and since Napster the game has been flooded by has-beens and never-wll-be ringtone rappers." Wale, The Mixtape About Nothing

Arnold and I were talking about the merchandising of rap, and how that is where the game is going. You have x million people buying a single - it's not about getting them to buy the ring tone next, but what about the clothing line? What about clothing lines or other merchandise? It's what Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco have expanded into, as well as the Neptunes/N.E.R.D and the Billionaire Boys Club. You have an audience ... you work with them to keep them in love with the brand, this time a rapper.

I love that one of the three interesting and smart conversations I had at OnHollywood was with a rap producer. He had a better grasp on the market than most of the so-called social media experts I know, and a lot more interesting thing to say than quite a few of the people speaking at the conference.

Also, I had no clue who Arnold was when I was speaking with him ... and then I see his cool "Hood" "Love" rings in the Estelle/Kanye "American Boy" video. And then him. Hmmm, typical me.

Writing this on the plane home from BlogPotomac reminded me of the ethics panel. Social media experts are SO caught up in their only little world - their own circle - that they cannot think of what might be accepted practices in other communities. Just because "we" don't like character blogs, does not mean they do not have their place (and, sorry, some of them are much better than other corporate blogs with real people, or the top social media bloggers). Just because we beat our chests about transparency and disclosure does not mean that campaigns are not being done with fake comments or fake stories by marketing and advertising firms. Social media purists got their panties in a twist about LonelyGirl15 not being real ... but the audience did not care. And, Hollywood points to Blair Witch Project as a great online campaign ... but if you remember, it was presented as a true story. Sacrilege in social media ... but did people care, or would people care nowadays? Shit, I got that stupid video of the office worker going insane 10 times one day ... and I looked at it and said fake (the rows were too narrow for wheelchairs, so ADA would have been all over their ass).

It is different in LA, and while the city seems to be behind in social media ... does that mean the industry here is wrong, or is it that the purist techniques from the digerati have no place down here, that it's a different market and different mentality? I watched the taping of Valley Girl/The Jesse Draper Show and thought "this would never play in SF" ... but maybe that isn't their audience (heck, talking transparency, the co-host "Coco" is not even her real name). I watched them taping, and realized I'm not their audience. The hostess did seem nice, and shy. When she walked by me, she gave a shy smile and little wave and because she was so tall, she seemed to be to be slouching. Embrace the height.

One perk in LA so far? The nice folks at SAS did handwriting analysis at the Forrester Marketing Conference. I'm a rockstar.

The Art of Strategy. Or How I Like to Say No, and People Hate Me for That.

2008-06-12T21:47:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow morning - or today, depending on when you read this - is BlogPotomac. It's an unconference, so more on the conversation and less on the one sided-lecture.

It's even a Powerpoint free. And while at Communitelligence's Executing Employing Social Media Conference, I noted that I'm not big fan of the verbose PPT presentation (I spoke on crisis in social media and influencing the influencers - btw, there is no such thing), I did prepare a one page slide for BlogPotomac.

All it had was one word big: Why?

This fits in to the pre-conference interview I did with Debbie Weil, and the recent question from Joe Ciarallo from PR Newswer. And, well, for people that really read my blog, sorta fits into what I have been saying for the past five years.

Any social media strategy should start out with that one question: Why? Think of yourself as a five-year old child and continually ask questions. Ask why.

Why does this make sense? Why are we doing this? Why is this the right strategy?

Social media strategy is that easy. No, I'm serious - and even though it won't play well in large agency life (btw, the days of real counsel and strategy and client push-back seem to be dead) - it is always the first question. And second question.

If the answer is "well, everyone else has a blog" - you're launching a strategy for the wrong reason.

If the answer lives in it's own world and is not connected to the overall public relations and/or marketing strategy, it's the wrong answer and disconnected from what is really needed.

Social media is not a separate strategy. It should not be a separate strategy, but an overall part of the public relations strategy. Social media is COMPLEMENTARY to the overall public relations strategy.

Here's a perfect example of charlatan social media experts giving out shitty advice: my Mom is a realtor, and social media is becoming hot there (and, since realtors tend to be luddites and late to things, Facebook should be over soon). Some asshat gave a presentation in Phoenix and told all the realtors to join LinkedIn and Facebook.

Why? Well, it really never trickled down what he was trying to explain (or, more to the point, he's like every other social media "expert" that spouts out buzz words and talks a lot ... but does not walk the walk and had no real point). The point he was trying to make is to network and grow ... but are you really going to search for a new realtor or look for a home on Facebook? Or are you going to throw a sheep at them? Yes, I got nothing but love for LinkedIn ... but in real estate, face-to-face networking needs to be the first step.

But, seriously, I hear the same things spouted off by the so-called experts that speak a lot ... but that's just it, they speak a lot.

If your agency or consultant spouts out to start a blog, bitch slap him/her. And hard. And many times. If your agency or consultant just says "engage" but has nothing beyond that, lay down the pimp hand. Repeatedly. If your agency's or consultant's sage advice for you during a crisis is to start a blog and start engaging (a true story that lead to a large stupid agency losing a large portion of the business of a client in finance), it's obvious that the agency or consultant has no idea what they are doing.

I blame the disappearance of the PR generalist and the rise of the specialist. It's the death of PR, and is getting worse with the silo-ing of talent. When I started PR, we had to be able to write, pitch, cold-call, do media AND analyst relations ... or we were pretty much told our career would go down one path of a specialist - with a sneer.

Don't call me a social media specialist or expert. I'm a mutha-fucking generalist.

But, hey, watch BlogPotomac here tomorrow - here on my blog!! You can watch me say no and ask why, see what I'm wearing, and talk about the Tao of Why in social media.

Online Video provided by Ustream

PR Pitching and Blacklists

2008-05-10T01:51:00.001-07:00

In all this tempest in a teapot over Gina Trapani's Wiki - PR people are ignoring a few basic facts: it was her personal email address; it's intrusive; PR is still not training; junior staff is not being supervised ... the list can go on and on.

I think I've pitched LifeHacker once in my career - and pretty sure I used the tips@lifehacker.com email address. Eh, I can't remember, but odds are I did ... because I'm sure that list is still being used, and the old firm isn't on the Wiki.

Bondage Teapot
Originally uploaded by publicenergy.

But, you know, one of the problems with PR is that we rely too much on technology. We are not dialing phones like we used to, so are missing out on the development of real face-to-face conversations and relationships.

So, I'm going old school. I've hired a former FBI agent. He used to be deep undercover in the mafia, and went by Johnny. He's digging up records for me - all legally, of course, with no pre-texting - for cell phone numbers. None of this wimpy work phone crap, though: I'm going hardcore and getting personal mobile phone numbers.

Because, when I call, I want to be able to reach the person immediately. No voicemail (like reporters return calls, snort). Just direct connects.

If this does not work, there is always showing up at the homes. That's the next step - popping over for breakfast or dinner (no pork, please, I'm Jewish). We'll get those meetings, and we'll get that coverage ... because I'm going that extra mile.

That's just how I roll.

Train or Perish

2008-03-19T13:26:00.001-07:00

Training seems not to be taking place in agency life, or for that matter, in corporations. Or, well, PR and communications cannot just move past pushing the message and learning to work. It goes back to when are we ever going to learn?

This past week, Johnson & Johnson pinged a few of the momosphere bloggers to invite them to a camp, and then sent out one of their PR firms, RF Binder, to make more of a mess (although, I am not sure of the order of the mess and who was responsible for what). I thank Erin Kotecki Vest for pointing me to the first post, and for letting me see the whole thing blow up from the start.

You used to be able to see the pitch letter here: one word of advice, if you cannot get a blogger's email address, move on or do it less obviously. Or, just be a good sleuth because you usually can find a working email address (she has since taken down the PR pitches).

I killed Jeremy Pepper
Originally uploaded by tmd.

I am not going to break it down and write what I think of the situation. Susan Getgood did a great job breaking it down, and you can get the full story from Stefania of CityMama / Kimchi Mamas (one point - no one ever reaches out to her as an Asian mom, but only via CityMama).

But, this just goes back to my old post - this is about community relations, not pitching media. That means getting to actually know the community, getting to be a part of it, reading blog posts - and meeting the people. It doesn't mean using the community, and I still laugh at some of the people I have run into at BlogHer over the past years that did not participate, but just walked around. Or when they did participate, did it in such a heavy-handed way, it was embarrassing for PR people that were there to learn, talk and participate.

So, instead, I'm going to bullet out my thoughts and backchannel chatter I hear about PR and marketing firms, and how they think they are working in social media and why they just don't get it. And, I am only naming names on personal experiences, not hearsay.

The office will not send us to events like BlogHer because they do not want to spend the money on building relationships, they just want us to pitch
The firm tells its junior staff to create Wikipedia profiles and change their clients entries to more complimentary entries, and delete bad information
The office's social media expert tells junior staff that it is okay to comment anonymously / fake names on blogs to steer the conversation - and encourages it
The firm's social media expert is respected by no one in the office, but seen as an empty suit
The firm will not send people to events because they are not billable to clients, and not worth the investment
Junior staffer in office decides he/she is a social media expert because they are on MySpace or Facebook
Join Twitter and just start adding people! Oh, don't participate in the conversation
Just spam people (thanks ContosDunne - I've only called you three times to be taken off your blog list, as well as email and you "verify" that I am off ... just to get pitched again a few months later)
Mass email bloggers, because it's no different than press outreach and you just have to cast a wide net
Social media is a waste, and all that matters are interactive ads

I am sure there are more examples out there, but this is what I could think of sitting down and not getting overly-frustrated

A while back, I used to write about the Clueless Train. It was great, because I would find some great photos ... but it looks like the train has left the station, and PR people don't care. This is sad, and will leave us in the dust because we won't just look at the landscape and realize that it's back to public relations.

As a note, this is why the Edelman Digital Bootcamp at UGA was so important - it was training the next generation of PR people to think differently and to embrace more than just the usual suspects. This is why SMU, Auburn and UGA seem to be a step ahead, and I cannot speak more highly of the students I have worked with there (and help them when I can): they care about PR, they get it is changing, and they try to embrace the new with the old.

And, while they may be a PITA, they should be listened to by senior staff, because they will have some good ideas.

As an aside, I am going to be speaking at BlogPotomac, and hope to hit on some of these details. It is events like these, though, that are good for both learning and meeting people. If you are in DC, please come by.

Technorati Tags: public relations, PR, communications, marcom, marketing , training, education

And say, children - what does it all mean?

2008-03-10T15:49:00.001-07:00

It's always interesting to read about SXSW , go to mixers/events in San Francisco, and listen to the people talk.

And, then go outside and walk around the City, and look at the graffiti that's creeping into my neighborhood, and see the homeless people on the streets.

This came to me last week, when I was walking to Supernova Mixer, and listening to Jeremiah Owyang speak on social networks. As usual, Jeremiah had a great presentation and interesting points.

And, he engaged the audience and had them interact on what people think the future is going to bring, and had good discourse and disagreement: is the Valley too male and old to think of what the kids are doing? How big is mobile going to be? What are the future aspects of social networks going to be? Is it air, as his colleague, Charlene Li says?

And, for us in technology and social media ... this is relatively important stuff. But, it also shows that the digital divide is probably worse in the Valley/Bay Area than other parts of the country when someone in the session says "No one shops at Walmart".

No, just no one you know ... and you should expand your social universe to find out what real people are doing, or what they are like. An elitist position like that is the big difference between success and failure, IMO.

As we are entering a slow-down in the economy (or correction, or whatever you want to call it), it's a good idea to take a step back and see what the real world is doing, and how it is doing, and how will what we are talking about have a real impact on the real world. And, by the real world, I mean every day people that DO shop at Walmart. Or, the people that are worried about money to the point that they are sharing a meal when they go out to dinner, as I saw last week (and this was a middle-class looking older couple). Yes, I like to go to the mall and watch people - it's my own way to focus group, and see what people are doing / thinking / reacting. Plus, the fact that the mall isn't that busy says a lot also.

Now, we can all have fun in our world discussing the Sarah Lacy / Mark Zuckerberg interview at SXSW ... but it just doesn't matter.

Now, we can all have fun in our world discussing what is going on on Twitter, or what the latest app you gotta have is on TechCrunch, and what is launching and why it might be better than X or Y ... but it just doesn't matter.

What does matter? Well, to the general public, the fact that the Young and the Restless just celebrated its 1000th week win ... that is big news. And, well, as a PR person, I'd love to get a win like that and get a client's product on the show (product placement rocks).

What does matter? The work that people and groups like Beth Kanter, Britt Bravo, TechSoup / Netsquared, Geeks Doing Good, BlogHer (among a lot others) are doing - this is work that might have a larger affect on our world, and is admirable. Heck, even Facebook is pushing people to give blood because of the crisis in the US right now.

What does matter? Well, opening our eyes and seeing what is going on in the world, and not so much in our own bubble. And, no, I'm not talking about the presidential race (because, well, that sure is spun and not real), but the neighborhood or the city you live in.

And why should this matter? If we continue to live in our social media worlds, we might be leading in some technology way, but we are also in danger of missing what is happening in the rest of the world - the real world - that might have more of an affect on our products, our clients, our jobs than we want to admit.

Go outside and watch how real people interact with one another, not just how geeks/techies interact. Learn about how what we do in social media can and should have an impact on the digital divide, and if we are making the world a better place.

Technorati Tags: public relations, PR, marketing, marketing communications, communications, SXSW08, Sarah Lacy, Facebook, Economy, Philanthropy

Working Nostalgia in PR - and Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T00:03:00.000-08:00

I don't write about product launches much anymore - well, never anymore - but this was just too good to pass up, especially since today is Valentine's Day. M&M's had come out with Green M&M's for Valentine's Day.

I didn't see any PR on the launch, and had to search for the press release (look, they did an SMR - and it didn't seem to do anything for them!) - but I did come across a POP set-up at Walgreen's, where I clicked the photo in this piece.

Despite the seemingly lack of PR on this (and, I watch enough TV, read one print and at least 2 online papers a day, that I am sure I would have caught something), the product did bring out old memories from when I was in the 5th grade.

And, being sick this week, I dreamt of the school (being sick brings out old memories and dreams for me).

In the fifth grade, my best friend (Ezra Bookstein) and I decided to go along with the urban legend of Green M&Ms, and start a horny collection of candy. Did we believe in the aphrodisiac properties of the M&Ms? Not sure, but come on, we were stupid kids. So, we had a lucite box, and we started filling it with green M&Ms, and then expanded it to other green candy, such as gummi bears and Now & Laters.

This went on for a few months, and the girls took notice of it, so decided to start their own corollary, the hot collection. Same idea, but since they were hot, it was all in red. I am pretty sure that Selma Beitner (aka Selma Blair) came up with the idea.

So, pretty much two groups of students at a school with a lot of time on their hands, disposable income for candy, and sweet tooths. I also learned about Greek history that year (thanks Mrs. Levy!) and how to write well (thanks Mrs. Levy!) and about orchids (thanks Mrs. Levy!) and about my namesake (thanks Mrs. Berris). Yes, I went to a small school.

Seeing the green M&Ms, though, brought back these memories - and it's a smart move to tap into nostalgia for products. It's why Transformers worked well as a movie, why there's talk about other 70's and 80's properties being made as movies ... or being re-released for my generation's own children. And, yes, I bought a few packs.

The three things I wanted to say about this post: first, the SMR doesn't work, or this would have had more coverage. A better written release, smart outreach, better PR would have done more. Second, yes, I went to school with Selma Blair, but haven't spoken to her in about 20 years. Third, hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Greg Brady gets Community

2008-02-11T16:39:00.001-08:00

I last wrote on online community, and how too often, the social media "gurus" just look to one community, and do not move beyond that community. I can name a couple examples this week alone, of product launches and video conferencing that just applies to the circle ... and barely moves beyond it.

Part of what I wrote about, though, was the communities that I was involved with. And, well, that left out a lot of communities that I have done SOME work with, but would not consider myself a hardcore member. But, that does not mean that they aren't out there, and I am trying to talk to them for my blog.

And, Jonathan Trenn touched upon this recently, as well - that the community is insular, and lacks diversity. And, just look around, and you will notice that he's not wrong.

So, in preparation for my community post, I was approached by MyLifeBrand. They ping me often on their latest communities and updates, and I usually flag them for future use, or to use in my pitch blog. So, when they reached out to me about Barry Williams taking his community to MyLifeBrand, I took the opportunity to speak to him. Come on, it's Greg Brady!

No, I didn't ask him about the sexual escapades on The Brady Bunch (although we did talk about the passing of the Al the Butcher). But, here's an actor (not what we expect to be on the cutting edge of social media) that is older (and, for some people, older than 25 is old in social media) but who probably gets it more than a lot of the companies and social media gurus out there. Or, he's been trained really, really, really well.

I think he gets it, IMHO.

Barry Williams from the Brady Bunch
Originally uploaded by grilled cheese.

So, below are the notes from the conversation:

The whole point of the community is that is the anchor for The Greg Brady Project (hence forth GPB) - and we went with MyLifeBrand because they seemed to have the kind of social networking technology that we were looking for. At GPB, you can go into the community, and aggregate all your social network sites that you are involved (MySpace, LinkedIn) and pull them into the community. It lets you import your friends, message friends, all within the community we are creating at the GPB.

One central point, though, is making the site a way to be a centralized social network. We brought in other tools that we like, such as MyBlogLog and Flickr, and put them into the community to help assemble the Greg Brady Project as a fan community portal with a blog, a blog that's written by me [Barry Williams] and co-authors and guest authors.

The co-authors are a big part of the fan base, and by sharing the platform of the GBP, we are giving the fans a voice within their own community. It's an actual conversation with my fans, and an authenticate conversation. We also have guest authors, who are usually other celebrities that come to share and give their perspectives on celebrity, working with me (or being my friend) through the years, and other fun anecdotes.

The whole idea of the GPB was that I was looking for a place to meet the fans. I had a Web site for 8 years, but it was a one-way street and I was looking to create and maintain and foster relationships, so I transitioned the site into a blog and a community. Now, it's more real-time than a static Web site.

And, now all kinds of interesting things have happened by creating the community to speak with fans, and also business partners and communities. It's a big world to explore with community, and it's a way for me to have a current voice that allows me to be real with the fans, share what I am doing and grow the community. And, I wanted to make sure that it was no another Brady Bunch fan site (but still Brady friendly). It's not for the minutiae of Brady fans, but a personal and current journey. This is an active site, where I am part of the community and active in the upkeep.

In the 42 years I have been in the business, I have met interesting and great people, I have great memories. And, people have asked me about those over the years.

I did not design GPB to be self-serving, but to give back and be part of the community. We did research, and we discussed how we were going to create the community. It took some time (about 9 months) to think through the layers, visit other sites, and found that the celebrity blogosphere ... well, there were a lot of elements lacking.

For example with a lot of other celebrity / Hollywood blogs, you don't typically have regular contributors. It's not usually interactive. We came to the idea of co-authors through an essay contest to the community. We were looking for enthusiastic people, and we found some great ones for the community.

The one thing that I have run into is that this is a time demand, and I knew that it would require a partnership with my fans. That's how I look at GPB - it's a powerful tool for social networking, and it's about caring about the relationships, and keeping and growing those relationships. Social media helps that, and it is always evolving.

The generation that really is on top of this is the younger crowd, the late teens and 20-somethings. And that fan-base is pretty large for Greg Brady, and I would not have had a way to reach them without these tools. This is about conversations with me and the fans. I bring in other celebrities for first-person experiences. And, with the MyLifeBrand partnership, the unique platform has allowed me to do more with the community, and gave me channels of interactivity with the fans.

This is what I loved about the interview: The one thing that I have run into is that this is a time demand, and I knew that it would require a partnership with my fans. That's how I look at The Greg Brady Project - it's a powerful tool for social networking, and it's about caring about the relationships, and keeping and growing those relationships.

Think about that - so many social media gurus and experts don't even get that it's about the community and the conversation, and yet here we have a 70's child star that gets it. He understands that it's about conversations, that it's about the community, he understands that it's about engagement and keeping them interested enough to coming back.

Why can't more corporations get that?

The Question of Community

2008-01-30T01:53:00.001-08:00

Back in October, I wrote a piece on PR losing to advertising for social media. A lot of people brought up a lot of good points (including that there doesn't need to be a fight).

A friend - Kevin A. Barry - noted that the most important part was "this is not PR anymore, but it's community relations." And, well, how true that is and has been.

And, I have been thinking about that for a while - actually going back to TechCrunch 40. This is a long-term, mulled over blog post, thinking about the events and activities that I attend in the Social Media, Web 2.0 world ... and what is the real value of these events?

Part of the issue is that social media is pretty much a misnomer. Many of the people that jump in as gurus or experts or consultants are Bay Area myopic, and think nearly 100 percent of Web 2.0 communities or Social Media communities ... and that ignores the real communities that do matter. And, that also ignores the past communities (Yahoo! Groups, Deja nee Google Groups, AOL - things that are still highly used, but just aren't "cool" enough now). The joke of it all is that if I look at my past career, I have been doing social media outreach for the past ten years ... it was just via message boards and enthusiast Websites.

The interesting twist is that the article in Fast Company calls out the Tipping Point as a false idea when it comes to influencers. I'm not judging if Watts is right or wrong, but the interesting thing is that it is all community based. People do not like to move out of their safety and comfort zone, and try out new communities. But, as PR people, we need to move beyond one into all communities. And be smart about it.

But, forget people - this is a total mindfuck for companies. From start-ups to large corporations, everyone wants to wrap their arms around social media ... but they do not want to spend the time it really does take to do community relations. And, yes, this is community relations, finding the communities that CARE about what your company or product does, and convey that you care just as much about their community and that's why you are approaching them.

Think about that - you have to humanize a corporation; corporations seemed to be able to at least convey some emotion at one point. There were connections that people felt for companies and products, and consumer loyalty. And, it went both ways.

That's the point: Social media is about more than just one community, the social media community: it's about all the verticals and other communities that likely matter more to your client or business.

So below are paragraphs on various communities I have been involved with - and insight and opinions on them. It's about relationships, not just media lists. Something too many people forget, or just don't get.

Photo Industry
I'm going old skool here, but this is how I got my start in PR: Kodak and then Ofoto. And, how did I help build communities for both? Enthusiast Websites. Working with the people that started DP Review or Imaging Resource or Creative Pro or Steve's Digicams. These were the original blogs that covered digital photography, and I was able to build relationships with them for my clients and myself ... to where I still talk to a few of them not because they are contacts, but because I think of them as friends (take notes - it's not just about pitching). I also worked in the Usenet groups, letting them know they could contact me about the latest KPro camera. How? I would join, read and announce occasionally. Not SPAM, just a quick note. See a pattern on how little things change over the years?

SecondLife
Yes, the online community that loves to be mocked by bloggers ... and one that I believe has taken a massive hit because marketing and PR people jumped into a community without looking or learning or experiencing the community. But, now that the marketing firms have left, it is back to the wonderful community that it was to begin with. There are still many active communities in there - the two that come to mind for me are the non-profits, corporations doing education (such as Cisco or IBM) or medical communities for support and education. It's a vibrant community, albeit not as big as it might have appeared with firms jumping in without looking. But, then again, would any business plop down in a community without research? No, but that's cool and Kosher in SL and other online communities?

Web 2.0
Yep, I'm lumping in all of Web 2.0 into one community, as a lot of it is a cult of personality or a cult of blogs. Look at the various blogs that cover the Web 2.0 space, and the followers that they have. At The Crunchies, you had a full Herbst Theater, and then people crashing the after party to the point that it was shut down for a little bit. Or, look at the past TechCrunch parties, and the cult of personality that surrounds Michael Arrington. Yes, he wields power with that blog, and does have influence.

If you have been to any of the Mashable parties, including OpenMashable in San Francisco, you see that the events have been drawing anything from 75 people to about 300 people in San Francisco. And, it's a pretty well read blog.

Plus, you have Read/Write/Web and CenterNetworks and B5 Media and GigaOm. All of these blogs and networks are well read, and have their loyal readers and all break stories. At the end of the day, they can all be under the umbrella of Web 2.0 communities, though. All of them started out in different ways - I still cannot break myself of the habit of thinking of GigaOm as a telco blog - but they have all expanded to cover a wider audience.

My favorite part of the community is Techmeme, though. Despite the recent snark on the algorithm, Techmeme is the cornerstone of the Web 2.0 community and what is being said and written and talked about at the events. While people might not want to admit it, Techmeme does run the news of the community.

Enterprise Irregulars
I include the Enterprise Irregulars (they all have individual blogs, and this is supposed to aggregate those blogs) because I love the geekiness of the enterprise, and I see Twitters and blog posts that seem to ignore this community, and to the point, just not get this community. If you are an enterprise technology, you read this group's group blog ... and you learn. And the best part is that this community is one such that if you do not know them, and do not have their respect, the knives can come out. Shit, I am friends with some of them, and they will still bring out the knives for me if I do not bring the goods. Outreach is only good if the client can deliver, and if they cannot, is it worth your personal reputation?

Public Relations
Okay, I include this because it is such a growing community - a lot of GOOD young PR bloggers that care about PR coming up through the ranks, but unfortunately a growing group of charlatans that are wrapping themselves up in social media with no experience, no skills and no right to counsel clients.

I digress. Through traditional PR and now through blogging, the community has grown and connections have grown, and for me, friendships started and cemented. Plus, meeting people I would have never met and learning of new and smart programs.

I would have never gone to Omaha if not for my blog, nor would I have met Jennifer Windrum at SRA. She reached out to me about something that is for a community that most of the social media people don't think about: everyday people, or in this case, American Idol fans. She showed me what they did tonight on American Idol, and how they are reaching people in that community about the pride of Omaha and their client.

Or, meeting Jason Falls in person, and having him talk to me about a true Twitter project that was better done than anything else I have read or heard about - but reaching an audience that most people don't think about, but is strong as hell: NASCAR and Baja 1000 enthusiasts.

I credit the kids at Auburn - the good kids I wrote of prior - and their instructor, Robert French, for really pushing smart ideas forward, and knowing that it goes beyond blogging.

Social Media
Read Chris Brogan. Read Jeff Pulver (also read him for VoIP). Read Jeremiah Owyang. Read Eric Rice. Read Teresa Valdez Klein. Read Liz Strauss. These people talk (and beyond talking, actually do - a rarity in social media bloggers) about social media and grasp what is going on. Do I agree with everything they write? Of course not, but they are good primers and understand community, and for the most part, do seem to express and talk about more than just one community. But beware the people that wrap themselves up in the flag of community evangelist - quiz them to see if they can talk beyond just Web 2.0.

Health
I wrote about the Health blog community before, and just want to reiterate that it has a different community, one that deserves and needs respect that goes beyond traditional social media outreach. A perfect example of its personal nature is the column that Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine wrote in Newsweek.

BlogHer
I have written about BlogHer a few times - three, to be exact. And each time what I am trying to convey is that there is no other community like BlogHer.

In Chicago, there were 800+ people that came for the national conference, and another 550 attended in SecondLife. Think about that - 1350 people women (give or take a handful of men) that came together to share ideas and thoughts and views. And, no, the did not all agree with each other, and there were a few good arguments there about race and blogging.

Within the BlogHer community, though, I have been lucky enough to go to three events and meet and convene with MommyBlogger, Foodie Bloggers, Business Bloggers, Social Activism bloggers, Crafters, Political bloggers and more. But, the thing is that it is one big community with a wide variety of interests and thoughts.

Twitter
Twitter is a microcosm until itself. It has such a wide variety of users - and more outside the circle - that it can be overwhelming to read people's views in 140 characters or less. It is a community - one that actually mirrors the other communities that exist in social media, but one that is harder to communicate with from a brand stand point. How do you get people to friend your corporate Twitter account, unless you are really being part of the conversation and talking/responding? It is a hard balancing act. At least there are ways to search on Twitter now, so you can catch conversations and respond.

BlogWorldExpo
Though this was the first year of BlogWorldExpo, the group that Rick Calvert brought together outshined the no-shows and other missteps. IMHO, he should drop the usual suspects because they are just saying the same thing, and keep going with what the show brought that no other show has thus far in social media: the Godbloggers, the Milbloggers and the Political bloggers.

I have never met groups of bloggers that are more committed to what they are writing, more enthusiastic nor more passionate than these three groups. These communities showed what can be done with blogging when it's done from the heart, and rival BlogHer for a great show. Hopefully, this was just the first year of the event.

In respect to space, I did not write about all communities - Digg, Videoblogging, Environmental, Facebook, MySpace, Gossip Blogs, VoIP, etc. - that are just as active and have loyal fan bases. And have their problems and personalities.

And, there are other communities that I am learning more about, such as TechSoup/NetSquared, and the communities that LaughingSquid intersects.

That's the point, though: if you are doing outreach, it is about becoming a part of the community, working with the community, respecting the community. And, the communities are verticals, and are everywhere ... you just have to look and move beyond the insular circle.

Think less media relations, and think more public and community relations.

Technorati Tags: communications, public relations, marcom, marketing, blogher, blogworldexpo, community, community relations, PR, advertising

Time to Start Pitching a Recession?

2008-01-28T01:42:00.001-08:00

An interesting article in the New York Times today - Is It a Recession? Marketers Seem to Think So - highlights how that the marketing industry is ramping up spending, even if this might be a recession (and, well, we cannot say we are in a recession yet, according to statistics).

According to the article:

The willingness of Madison Avenue to act as if a recession is under way may seem confusing, because advertisers usually reduce their spending during downturns. Over all, ad outlays have fallen in previous recessions — 6.5 percent in 2001 compared with 2000 and 1.2 percent in 1991 compared with 1990.

However, many marketers spend the same — or even more — during hard times as they do during booms, on thetheory that they must make sure to be remembered by any consumers who are still shopping.

Now, it does not seem to be that way for PR - we are the misunderstood stepchild that seems to get cut - but it does bring up a good point: the media loves a story, so how are you tying up your client into a recession pitch or story? We know from the dotcom bust, that the age of social media really was born (all those out of work geeks, and they had to have some outlet). Will that be true this (potential) slow down? Will there be an increase in social media content because people have more time because they are out of work? If that is true, will there be an increase of blogs taking advertising (look at how Scoble is now taking ads - welcome to the world of professional content, Robert, and being part of a real media property) - and will these people spurn public relations and pull the "Eddie, what have you done for me lately (3:00 minutes in)" line and ask for compensation?

Yes, I think more people will turn to social media. I think blogs, mostly, and most likely part of large networks such as BlogHer and niches that are of greater interest to the individual, and less vanity. It will be part of a differentiator (but not as much of one) for the new job. And, yes, there will be more advertising as online ads are cheap ... and it will hurt those of us that do blog relations.

But, anyway, back to the post at hand: what are you doing for a recession pitch? The media loves the story right now, and while PR tends to tie itself to any meme out there with a tenuous link, there are opportunities here. It is about being smart, though, and having a real tie to a story. A friend of mine has a company that has a great story that can tie into the recession ... and that was my advice to him. He has two stories that can fit into the potential economics, from both sides of his service: the people that will make up the service, and the people that will use his service. The stories are quite different - how to make money, and how to save money - but they can tie into the economy.

So, what is your story?

Truth versus Blogosphere Truth

2008-01-16T18:28:00.001-08:00

The Internets can always be amusing, or interesting or just plain frustrating. It really just depends on what side of the fence you are, on any given subjects.

Today, I was reading some of my Twitter stream when a few came across about Ford Motor Company and Cafe Press, and a calendar. Okay, not exactly ground breaking, blogworthy news, but some people already jumped on a bandwagon so I had to check it out. Full disclosure: I was born in Detroit, and we had a Mustang, and I've bought stuff on Cafe Press.

This reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks back with a well-respected reporter: there's truth, and then there's blogosphere truth. And, rarely do they meet. (Hey, look at my great graph illustrating it).

What do I mean? What happens usually in the blogosphere is that something is glommed onto as truth, and that might not be the full truth or even the half truth. But, with the blogosphere, things can spiral out of control quickly, and then the blogosphere truth will be so far away from the truth that it's laughable ... but it's not because the blogosphere truth will be held up as authoritative because of how Google works.

Here are four simple examples: Kryptonite Locks, FedEx Furniture, Staples and Ford. Each of these have been wrong information that has continued to spread out there, and for some reason, PR people like to bring some of these up as examples of why social media is so important.

I'm going to start with Kryptonite, and a full mea culpa. I jumped on the bandwagon as well, and I was wrong. The back story is that you could break open the old Kryptonite lock with a Bic pen, yada yada (good information when you wanted to get free candy, btw). The blogosphere truth was that Kryptonite ignored the blogosphere, and did its crisis communications wrong. The truth is that Kryptonite did do the right type of outreach for a crisis - they followed the rules of the game - but the game had changed. It went from billiards to soccer, or some random sports analogy. Kryptonite was reaching out to its core audience of bike message boards, and getting the message out there to the core audience.

But, well, that doesn't make for a good case study for PR people to push forward their own agendas on getting clients to bring out the wallet for more social media ... and the fact that PR people are still using this as a case study means it's time to move on and find a more relevant and truthful example.
FedEx Furniture was a great little example of how one kid can take a bunch of boxes for free (yah, sending out that many FedExes while he couldn't afford furniture is SOOOOO true) but no one wanted to dig. As PR people - come on, we're PR people before PR bloggers, it was not hard to call up FedEx and ask them questions (like, I admit, I shoulda done with Kryptonite). Hey, wait, there WAS a blogger that called FedEx and got their side of the story ... me. The truth was that there was more of a story here than the blogosphere wanted to know, or tell. But, not to place the blame just on the blogosphere ... mainstream media ate up the story as well, with no real digging or due diligence.
Boing Boing rushes out a post that claims that Staples charges for virus scanning. A PR blogger jumps on the story, and then realizes that he is just one of the fools that wrote up the story ... without getting the full story. But, hey, he gets to commend Staples for being on top of the blogosphere ... but doesn't see that blogging on blog truth instead of the real truth is just the bigger part of the problem.
So, today's Ford story. In the world of blogs, it is not okay to protect your brand, I guess. Or content (just ask Lane Hartwell). You can read the rehash of the story on the above link, but it's only a one-sided story, until the company itself comments on the post (which does say they are monitoring the conversation). But, as a PR blogger, once again, don't we have a higher sense of truthiness (or, heck, professional courtesy) to verify information before we hit publish? Call up the PR person? Send an email? I dunno - worked for me with FedEx.

The problem with PR blogging and blogging is that often, there is very little grey in the world. Bloggers rush out to push publish without getting the whole story, and that just brings half the truth (or blog truth) to the forefront. As PR professionals, none of us would want this done to our clients, but we rush to judgment for that bump in traffic, to be first. And, well, first is not always best.

Rushing to publish just makes a blogger part of the lemmings that fall for the bait of other bloggers. And to perpetrate the blogosphere truth, rather than the truth.

The irony, of course, is that we all counsel clients, and one of the things I would note when there was a fire drill is that the blogosphere tends to be self-correcting. And, often, it is, and that's a great thing.

But in some cases, the blogosphere truth becomes the gospel, and no amount of praying to anyone is going to help change that.

Blogworld: PR Do's and Don't's

2007-11-08T14:52:00.001-08:00

Lead by Sue Bohle - a few friends on the panel, including Brian Solis and John Earnhardt of Cisco. Eastman Kodak, SAP, PRWeb and BlogAds were also part of the panel.

::Don't like the format - it's about open media, new media so have it free flowing. The beginning started with a 'hold your questions' type admonition, which is not the way it shoulda been.::

PR people do need to reach out to the bloggers in their space - a unanimous decision - because bloggers are looking for various and different stories than traditional journalists. And, some can be more interested and be more passionate about the subject rather than the trade journalist.

If a blogger follows journalistic standards, then you can deal with them the same way. But, it's about knowing the people, the relationships. Treat them with respect - it's a golden rule.

There are distinctions on bloggers - from professionals to semi-pros to amateurs. And, it's a difference in outreach also. There's IM versus email versus Facebook walls versus Twitter versus commenting on blogs (I view that as comment SPAM, though).

About sharing the stories, the good, bad and the indifferent. Cross-pollinating the stories, to the point of online and offline engagement.

Should there be a new PR person, or can the traditional PR people learn. Do there need to be specialized teams, or can the traditional teams need to be trained.

PR is everyone at the company's responsibility - if you are an employee, you are in PR for the company whenever you are engaged in the public. There is a team for media relations, but we all have responsibilities in the public perception of the company.

Rachel Luxemburg also wrote on the panel.

Blog World Expo: Blogging Ethics

2007-11-08T11:45:00.001-08:00

Amy Gahran ran her panel at the Blog World Expo on Ethics - with a cool group of people, including friends Lynne Johnson of Fast Company and Toby Bloomberg.

Here's Amy's description of the panel and panelists.

My thoughts and notes ...

Honesty and transparency - is it ever okay to mislead or deceive my omission? Compensation and influence - how does that affect what you say or don't say....

Do people change the way they review, to continue to have access to junkets such as TV previews or book reviews ....

Bloggers do not necessarily get the respect that journalists get, but does this taint / color how they write to get that legitimacy? Small town newspapers, smaller media publications, also have the same problem, though. It's a question of credibility - my credibility.

Astroturfing - it does happen on blogs and social media, but what can be done, and how do you expose it. Should it be exposed, and what is the responsibility of the blogger being spun or the corporation doing astroturf.

To acknowledge an error on the post is to be ethical. To just change the issue, you're lacking transparency and not being smart about it.

::I called out the bullshit that there needs to be an organization, but that blogging wants to be both professional and still amateur - it wants its cake and to eat it too. There is Media Bloggers Association that is trying to get an insurance policy together, to protect bloggers::

Don't be lazy - it's a good aspect of ethics for life, no matter what you are doing.

Is anyone who they really say there are online, though. There are times that people have pseudonyms, but is that unethical? There's a line that you have to protect yourself (career, etc) - but what is that line. Do you hide behind a pseudonym to be a prick and attack - then it's not ethical. To protect and save yourself (job), then it appears fine.

Does character blogging fall into unethical? If it's disclosed, does it violate the sense of ethics in blogging?

But, what is transparency and does there need to be a blogging code of ethics, a la Tim O'Reilly. Can you really set a standard and code for a bunch of divergent people, especially when the majority of bloggers are likely small bloggers and not into the whole scheme of things like a lot of the more seasoned or professional bloggers.

::For PR, this is an important issue - PR seems like it could and would violate the basic rules of ethics to get what is needed to be done for the clients (this is the PR people that are not involved in social media, nor understand it). It seems like the astroturf / fake blog would be the first thought in the brainstorm::

Payperpost (and in some ways, Federated Media) come up in a way that marketers are paying bloggers for chats and posts. If it's not disclosed, is it unethical. There are all kinds of compensations that are meaningful, such as gifts, junkets. Is it relationship building, though? There are hospitality suites ... and that's part of it. Even link exchange, in a way, can be considered a way of bribery. Heck, we even got a wine offer for friendship from Christopher Calicott as an example of how it is just about relationships, but it can be misconstrued.

::Ethics is a tricky issue. At the U, it was always fun in the ethics classes because there really is no right answer. If you are a utilitarian, you do organ harvest from your own kid for the greatest good (if you're saving the great minds of the world). But, that seems unethical. There are all these stories and issues::

Tris Hussey also wrote up the panel here. And, Amy Sample Ward is going to post also.

It's a Shame

2007-10-30T16:48:00.001-07:00

Seriously, is PR going to learn?

I posted a long post - some called it a rant, others didn't like it, but I view it as a wake-up call because I do care about my profession. It's about passion, and I rather have passion than become so beaten down to have no passion about anything.

So, I get to wake up today and read a long list of email addresses from Chris Anderson, he of Wired and The Long Tail. Chris had his own Howard Beale moment - he's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore - and I don't blame him. I receive the same bad pitches all the time - and from some of the same PR firms. Is Chris right in calling out the firms and people - I think he is. There's enough education that people should know better, and we all have media databases. It's laziness versus strategic.

Here's a fun little hint for PR people pitching me: I write on PR. That's about it. I rarely care about P2P music networks, or sunglasses, or social networks. I do care about how they are changing PR, and what is being done that is so different. But, rarely the products themselves.

Now, Anderson's post comes after Marshall Kirkpatrick tried to school PR people on the good, the bad and the ugly. Even in the comments, though, people missed the point on PR and transparency and tried to hide. It's not right - sorry for getting on my high horse.

The fact is that education is missing. Now, there are professors and classes that are trying to get it right. Look at Auburn and Robert French. Look at UGA with Karen Russell and Kaye Sweetser. I spent time today with Kaye's undergrads, answering questions. Why? Because it's about education and helping the next generation of students. I love my little Tigers that I have had the benefit of working with at Auburn, and have worked and helped out a bunch of other college students. Do I get anything out of this - yes, I keep my finger on the pulse of campuses, so I can put together college campaigns, but I also get to balance out some karma (the second if probably more important for me). And, yes, there is value for my company as the students learn about what I am doing, and give me feedback that is very helpful for me and the company.

And, well, it's about relationships. I take these seriously, and I got burnt once because I was promised information that was not delivered. The "lead the horse to water" mindset in PR is not going to work anymore. You cannot burn your relationships because a client does not deliver in a media briefing - it hurts the client, and ruins the relationship. And, at the end of the day, that's what is left for a PR person: good, working relationships. These people don't have those anymore with Chris Anderson.

So, here's my thought - here's my education presentation. I have been updating it and fine-tuning it for the past three years, since I began presenting to companies:

| View | Upload your own

For another take, from a beloved blogger, read Ryan Block's take on it. He suffers a lot - I'm sure - but he still knows that it's a two-way street for bloggers and reporters and PR people.

Other takes from the PR blogosphere:

PR will lose Social Media to Advertising Because of Sex

2007-10-25T09:53:00.001-07:00

Okay, not necessarily sex - but advertising does know how to make mundane things sexy.

And, at times, social media can be mundane. And, advertising (and marketing) understands how to sex-up the mundane.

So, after putting together this post, mulling it over in my mind since, I've come to some conclusions. Since Widgetcon - where although I was pretty much ready to vomit at how I viewed the advertising and marketing firms treat the community (as, well, commodity) - I did see that advertising (and marketing) would win the fight for social media.

Let me lay out the argument.

First, I am looking at this as someone that just came from a large firm in a multinational conglomerate that owns advertising and marketing firms. I'm also a poor sap that bought the stock when I first worked there under the employee stock purchase plan (hey, it was a good idea then!).

The reality is that the holding companies do not care who gets the cash. It's money in pocket and bottom line, and if advertising can get bigger bucks for campaigns, it's better to go to advertising.

I've heard quotes of $X millions for a YouTube campaign. That's just for a professional shoot, etc - because, you know, it's all professional and slick on YouTube. But, the clients eat up those numbers because they expect that from advertising, and, well, advertising knows how to sell itself. Unlike PR. Oh, and that cost includes nothing on outreach - it's just production. Take a minute and think of all the bad campaigns that advertising has done in social media ... but dayum, it's slick!!

And, well, look at the past. The Web sites should have been a PR vehicle - it's communications - but we lost it to marketing. Why? Because Web sites became a vehicle for selling - only. Messaging and communications rate, at best, a distance second (after)thought.

How many corporate sites make sense, and tell the story of the company? Barely any. Why? It's because PR ignored the power of the Web early on. Now, all that marketing / advertising has to chime in with is that they already execute on the Web with the corporate site ... and they will win that sales war (and still have crappy execution, as a whole).

In social media, advertising has that Midas touch, except it turns almost everything to shit. Plus that seat at the C-suite table helps them out ... while we're stuck in the lobby, pacing like hired help.

What can PR do to win - because at the end of the day, we need to win or social media will be ruined (and we'll be blamed).

Here's my bullet-pointed plan to save PR, have a statue put up for me in New York, and be remembered like Howard Rubenstein as a mensch.

Education programs - too many large firms have no real education programs, and have AAEs up to SAEs emailing social media all willy-nilly.

If you are a large or mid-sized PR firm, and you have no education program, you are a sham and joke. There's no nice way to put it, sorry. You simply suck as a firm and are doing a disservice both to the firm and your clients. End-of-story.
And, education needs to be quarterly, required for everyone, and done consistently. There is no real reason to have a specialized team in social media, because they will be cut out and likely have neither the knowledge or understanding of products and clients across the network. Education for all, so all get social media, and social media can then be smartly integrated into campaigns.
If you are a mid-sized, small or boutique firm, and you are looking for help in an education program, I can help (do it myself in Chicago) or recommend PR and social media practitioners throughout the country, including David Parmet, Heath Row, Constantin Basturea in NYC, Marshall Kirkpatrick in Portland, Teresa Valdez Klein in Seattle, Shel Holtz in the Bay Area. And there are others in the EU like Neville Hobson, Stuart Bruce, Allan Jenkins. And, go read Jeremiah Owyang's blog - and, yes, for a most part these people are independent PR practitioners or social media specialists, so there's no hard-sell. Heck, if you're in-house PR, bring someone in that won't sell, but will talk.

It's a community - have the teams understand that this is not PR anymore, but it's community relations.

The best analogy is an article about a local bar in Chicago ... think of social networks and communities as a local bar. Would you walk in there, no intro and no relationships, and start spouting off like Cliff Claven? Um, no - you'd be beaten severely ... like we see all the time when PR people are exposed ... thanks Marshall Kirkpatrick.
Hats off to Edelman and it's recent campaign from BlogHer for Kraft Cheese. The email I got noted I met them at BlogHer, and is working on being part of a community in a fun way. At BlogHer, Edelman had 10+ people networking, meeting, engaging ... unlike another male PR person that sucked up but did not discuss (no, that wasn't me - I gots chops at BlogHer for actually participating). Compare that to a flat advertising campaign on BlogHer - one that lacks creativity - and you will see a lack of understanding of community and engaging community.
The flip-side is that there are some that position themselves as community specialists ... but have nothing to back it up, nor can go beyond one community. If I'm at BlogHer, and I see these people not mingling and speaking to others at the event ... those are not community-minded people, but rather people that will talk a lot ... and only do what matters for their own personal goals.

It's about PR - sorry, social media is part of the PR mix, but a new look at it. If you are being lead by an interactive group, best of luck. You're being led by a team that does not understand the principles of public relations, or, well, client relationships.

In an agency-setting for social media, your clients are both the internal teams and the clients themselves, and it is about messaging.
If you cannot push back - and, well, interactive teams seem just to be able to build a Web page or two - then you are doing a disservice to the client and the agency.
Then again, interactive should be ordered around by a PR / social media team to build what needs to be built: Facebook apps, widgets, a micro-site ... whatever is needed for the real campaign work.

REAL social media teams need to be in the pitch - not a bullshit page or two in a presentation, but a seat at the table during the pitch and AFTER the pitch.

None of this "there's no money" when programs are sold in, and then the money is kept for one team only.
No half-assed sell-ins to clients, since the pitch teams just know buzz words and do not understand it.

Do not force the staff into blogging (or Twittering or Facebooking or MySpacing, or SecondLifing...)

I too often see junior staff jump into blogging not for the purity of it (thanks Jeremiah for calling me a purist at Forrester Consumer Forum) but because they see dollar signs and promotions. Those are just Clavens - they are going to be sniffed out as fakers and posers, and not really part of the community.
I often meet senior staff that go into blogging because they think they need to be there ... but have no real interest in being part of the conversation, but were told by higher-ups that they needed to "get it."
On the flip side, if there are not a few people that are engaged, you stil are a bunch of posers. No, you cannot force people to be involved, but they have to want to be involved. I do this stuff because I like to blog, I like technology - heck, I wrote a post about it already.
Don't allow junior staff to be know-it-alls. I've seen it a few times already in the blogosphere, and clients will sniff them out as detrimental to the account when their "counsel" falls flat. Sorry, but you need the PR experience to fully get the social media implications that follow.

Social media is not media relations - it is about PR (where the P is public).

If you have a specialized online media team ... they are treating it like media relations. It's not. It's community relations (yes, I am repeating myself, but it's an important distinction).
It's about community. To paraphrase James Carville, it's the community, stoopid.

Listen. Like Talib Kweli says - listen, for some reason no one listens anymore. For some reason, PR has forgotten how to listen. If we listen, we'll learn our clients want from us, and we'll learn from both junior and senior staff.

Large agencies are still standing, and there are people in most of them that get social media as a new skill set. It is not a replacement to other skills - but a complementary skill that is needed. Unfortunately, there are skills that are just as ignored in PR right now ... such as the simple ability of phone pitching, or writing, or providing counsel and handling a crisis. These are all skills that a good PR person should have, and include social media in there now (as the line is becoming blurred with traditional media and influence). It's why I never wanted to be characterized as a blog specialist: I'm a PR generalist that has a wide array of different skill-sets.

The reality is that it does not matter if PR, advertising and social media are all marketing communications - what matters is who is going to get control of social media, and make it right for clients and the agencies. In my view, it should be public relations because social media is very public and socially oriented. You cannot just pop in there and try to be part of the community, to never return again.

If you want to know which agencies are doing it well, well, there are a lot of them. MWW, Voce, Edelman, MS&L and others ... and there are agencies that are talking about getting it, but it's a talk and no real walk.

Will social media stay with PR, or is it going to be another marketing communications discipline? I do not know - I just know that there are some things that social media needs to have for it to be transparent, honest and community-oriented. If PR jumped the gun a little earlier, there wouldn't be these specialized social media practices popping up, and we would have the advantage on advertising and marketing.

Funnily enough, I thought I was being vague in this post - someone told me as subtle as a freakin' Mack Truck. Yes, the post is about my sentence at Weber Shandwick and Screengrab.

Reputation - Both Corporate and Personal

2007-10-22T11:33:00.001-07:00

It has been an interesting week - a few blog posts out there attacking others, a nice article on online reputation that was syndicated from the Seattle Times, and a phone call via Facebook asking me about ... defending your reputation because of blogs.

Let's start at the attacks - famously on TechCrunch some guy named Ronald is using Justin.tv's software to lifecast his ... well, so-called life. That's fine. I've worn the hat, I've done the Jeremy.tv shtick with Justin's hat ... and while I would not do it fulltime, I can appreciate the performance art aspect of it, and think Justin's done a great job with the shtick.

Jeremy Pepper.tv
Originally uploaded by b_d_solis.

Ronald, though, got into a little (forced) tiff at the movie theater. He wanted to wear his cap and lifecast from the movies ... and boy, wouldn't the MPAA love that. He tried to explain what lifecasting is - and, since I've seen Justin explain it, I do know that it's sometimes a trick to people. When Bryanna politely told Ronald no ... he called her a bitch.

Fine. I look at it as typical Detroit self-esteem issues (I know, I was born in that former city). It's his right to call her a bitch and be unhappy with her treatment of him and his art ... but what was the purpose of using Bryanna's full name? To Google Juice her so that the first thing that comes up is someone calling her a fucking bitch? Um, great.

And, well, it shows a lack of honesty and respect to the "practice" of lifecasting. Anyone that blogs knows that if you have a big enough audience, and use a not "internet famous" person's name ... you will own that name on Google. It just shows a lack of respect or humanity ... but what about Bryanna now? Her name is fully linked to that video, and unless she begins blogging or uses a system like ReputationDefender ... her name will forever be attached to that While Ronald is going to apologize to her (hey, it's another chance to do a video!), is that going to show up in Google as well? There is a certain bit of responsibility social media has ... and instances like this show a lack of understanding of the esprit de corps of social media. Game over because a simple lack of respect or humanity has not hurt someone else's online reputation.

Now, here's a flip side. You're a young, brash blogger and you're taking on the world! You're young, you're hip ... you're the cat's meow. And, all these social media PR people - quite a few that have earned their stripes because of projects that they have done, and clients they have worked on - well, they're old farts that can never understand social media like the young buck you are because you're that MySpace / Facebook generation.

No, serious. Read about it on David Parmet's blog - and love well, the attitude.

And, that's fine. I love a little bit of 'tude as much as the next person. But, when you are representing a wire service - oh, like Marketwire - does it really behoove you (or the company) to insult and alienate a large group of PR practitioners? You know, I am in the market for a wire service right now, and I have my choices of PR Newswire, Businesswire and PR Web ... but Marketwire is not on that list.

Yes, here's an example of one person's action resulting in potentially hurting the employer; we can write this off as the impetuousness of youth. We can also point to a fun PC Magazine example ... and write that off as a naked emperor incident. Either way, though, the action of employees hurts the corporate parent. Those are just two quickie examples, but the bloggers can (and likely will) steal Google Juice that should be going to the original source. What can corporations do to protect themselves? Well, simple social media and blogging policies should help ... but not necessarily do enough. Employees can co-opt a corporations identity and brand, and make it their own. And, while that might sound nice in a social media aspect, we should rather have our brands co-opted by our customers, not the employees.

But, at the end of the day - it is about your own reputation. What do you do if you are a high-level employee at a corporation, and when you leave, the message trolls come out and come attacking? Soon, those results are the top results for your name.

Or, on another, more basic level - it does not even have to be leaving a job or starting a new job - schools are so wired, and people are so networked through networks like Facebook and MySpace, Facebook is searchable via Google (unless you opted-out, which I did) that your reputation is formed both through your own content and what others think of you ... and knowing human nature, that's not necessarily a good thing.

Photo by Brian Solis

Technorati Tags: PR, public relations, communications, online reputation, marketwire, wire services, marketing, marketing communications, marcom, reputation

The myopia of the Valley

2007-10-13T11:35:00.001-07:00

Robert Scoble just rips apart the NewTeeVee conference as missing the boat. And, while he might have a few points on his list of 40 ... he forgets the audience, those that are going to come to the conference.

Is the audience for this conference the more advanced veterans, or is it for the new audiences (and, well, corporations) that are trying to figure out (still) what to do in all this new media, including the NewTeeVee world?

The post, in essence, was written for the Valley bloggers and vidcasters, but not the rest of the country. This past week was the Forrest Consumer Forum in Chicago - almost every new media person should have been there (including PR firms and advertising firms) and see what is understood and what is not understood by companies that are trying to get social and new media. If you want a better take, check out the Forrester Blog for the conference, Jeremiah Owyang' blog, what the blogosphere said, or even my posts - it showcases what is and is not clicking out there, and how companies are and are not getting it, but still trying.

We can sometimes forget that when we are in the Valley (or, well, why I am in Chicago right now, and looking beyond the Valley community to others).

For me, the NewTeeVee conference schedule looks great. When I was at a firm, I'd recommend it to clients that are trying to get a handle on what is going on out there, as well as clients that tangentially touch upon online video.

But, before we rush off to commend a company like Kyte.tv - a UGC channel that speaks very little to me, as I primarily love my television programming. And, before the Valley goes nuts over that one ... read your own Twitters on Heroes or Battlestar Gallactica or any other hot show right now. We can all pretend to be too cool for old media ... but are still there for certain instances of appointment television.

And, that's what we need to remember in the Bay - those cheesy flyover states have a lot of power and a lot of pull. And, they are the hardcore communities we are trying to reach and get to use our stuff.

Forrester Forum: Ze Frank kicks Philip Kaplan while Jeremy Allaire watches and Shar VonBoskirk panics

2007-10-12T10:20:00.001-07:00

A panel on the changing face of media, albeit a lot of old sounding theories and practices. But, you have to love Ze Frank for his show, Philip Kaplan for shaking up the industry with Fucked Company and potentially with Spottt, and Jeremy Allaire pushing the video against the grain of YouTube and for professionalism with Brightcove.

Kaplan: there are no more networks anymore, we are all our own networks. It is causing a problem with the large brands - such as MTV - because content is available

Ze Frank: Media is anything you can advertise against or put a brand against. Anything is media. The challenge is that there is a fragmentation that is causing confusion. There are conversations, media online is a conversational tool with more capital.

Allaire: The behavior of media is as valuable as media itself. It is about how to monetize media, or just the metadata. It can sometimes be more valuable than just the content itself.

Ze Frank: There are boundaries in where companies can operate. There is so much media out there, and there are boundaries that they can work within the community. Media is the relationship, it is social capital.

Kaplan: Your customer is your competitor - you have to be ready to recognized that the customer is going to put out her own views, that might conflict with the companies messages.

Kaplan: People don't complain about ads in magazines, in their Vogues. If you have a cool ad, put it in people's faces - they'll like cool things.

Allaire: Advertising and marketing has been so slow to move into interactive, social media forms. A pharmaceutical company had put together a video from various patients on what the drug had done for them. For the patient, it can be valuable and see the interaction.

Ze Frank: Simplicity is the key - the direct relation to your brand and product, that is the best starting point. There is the flash, but it is about simple interaction with your product. There is a lot of value of having the data, experiencing the data.

Kaplan: You have to throw everything at the wall, if you are a media company, and just try everything and anything. You cannot risk sitting back, because the media is going to be developed - by the customers and consumers and audiences.

Ze Frank: Brands are the big winners, and provide the context.

*****

It's interesting - I look at what I wrote above, and what I listened to (and read from Chris Thilk on the Forrester Blog) and wonder if corporate America can move forward with social media. While the panelists do understand community, and being part of the community (in particular, Ze Frank with his show and Philip Kaplan with the group schadenfreude of Fucked Company from the dot-com era), I am not sure if that translates into how brands can get into social media.

To me, that is the key. How can brands work with communities, and work in such a way that it is working with them as people, not as a means to an end (yes, that philosophy background). Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang (whom is doing great at Forrester, and invited me as media) noted that I am a purist when it comes to social media, that I want it to be pure. I like the communities I belong to - and I belong to a wide array of them, and really believe in treating them as people, as communities.

And, that's where many companies (and, well, PR firms) fail miserably. They want to message and advertise and brand and market - and not listen to the conversation. They just want to talk, and not listen, and not be creative and try to really be part of the conversation.

As you can tell, I'm telling part of the story here, and personalizing it. I believe in communities, in working in communities, and took the job at The Point to work in an environment where I can be part of these communities - be creative and smart and not using, but participating - which is where corporations and firms tend to fail. No creativity, no discussion or desire to be part of the dialogue, just messaging and old ideas (which do work, but do not work that well in social media).

Media is changing - as is the business of media, including PR and advertising and marketing. The smart people are there, and they understand that it is community-related and participation-oriented, and not just bad messaging in a one-way format.

Forrester Forum: MTV and I are not BFFs

2007-10-12T08:09:00.001-07:00

The way that MTV looks at its audience is that they are BFFs, and with the understanding of that, that tastes change and that BFFs do have fall-outs. They recognize that not everyone is going to enjoy the shows, but they do want to have that relationship with their audiences.

While teens are "beyond televisions" as the single medium in their life. It's an important part of their life, and MTV has adapted to be more than just a channel. On the service, it is the bands that is the message for MTV. And, it is about integrating advertising messages in a new way, in a different way. It's a way for the advertisers to connect with their audience - it becomes a part of the show.

So, listening to MTV, all I can think is ... wait. This is just exploitive in a way marketing to people that are not mature enough to differentiate between content and advertising. It's taking advantage of kids that are not mentally mature enough to understand what they are seeing (because, let's be honest - the MTV audience is tweens, not teens.) It's a total lack of transparency, lack of caring of the community - and that is what the audience will eventually sniff out. Or, the fact that MTV is all about exploitation (Real World, Road Rules, The Hills, Super Sweet Sixteen ... and on and on and on.)

Forrester Forum: Corporate Image in the Age of Social Technologies with Richard Edelman

2007-10-11T10:27:00.001-07:00

Every company is a media company now - so sayeth Richard Edelman during his presentation.

Now, full disclosure, I used to work for a competitor, but also interviewed both Richard and the head of the US, Pam Talbot and have a view on the firm (it's below).

His presentation is on how PR is changing, and how we need to change with it. For those basic rules, he points out:

Transparency
Dialogue
Honesty
Immediacy
Depth of content
Updating as you learn
Journalistic level of accuracy

Okay, it has been an interesting speech. While I don't agree with all the hires for the ME2Revolution, Edelman (the man and the firm) has pushed the boundary much, much more than any other agency out there. During my round of interviews with both PR firms and start-ups, I was often asked which agencies get it, and I would say three firms immediately: Edelman, MWW and MS&L. While Edelman gets a lot of the press out there (it's the good stuff you don't hear about, just the Walmart crap), the people at MS&L and MWW have done great stuff.

And, well, when you do good work, it's in the background. You should not know about the campaigns (despite claims of transparency and full disclosure, a good campaign is integrated and smooth, and about getting information out to the right audiences).

The job of PR is to not control, but to help move the conversation (old news, wrote about it in the past via Jack O'Dwyer that we need to be the bridge for media, and not pulling the Heisman).

Embrace the issues, adopt to the new reality - it's about coming together and trust.

Forrester Forum: Social Networking and UGC in Today's Media Environment

2007-10-11T08:13:00.001-07:00

From the Playboy perspective with Christie Hefner - that true brands represent attitude and a point of view, that can be moved from one product to another. It can play in different spaces.

It is about evolving and expanding the brand, as the media landscape has continued to change. Embrace and leverage new opportunities. How do you expand a brand that has gone into television, online, mobile - what is the next step for Playboy that will continue to expand and transform the publication.

Online is the democratization of content - the diminishing of authority has been the result, though.

It is becoming more dynamic, more interactive. The original fear was that online was going to devolve where people did not interact in the meat world anymore. For Playboy, though, it has been the opposite where they extend the brand online and in the real world with the sponsorships of events. It is about creating an experience around the brand with Playboy destinations - going for high tech and high touch, to continue to interact with customers.

Pick the places that seem obvious, safe and smart for the public to take possession of the brand. One such place is Playboy Island in Second Life - showcases what people want to do, what games to play, what apparel they want: it's a microcosm of a focus group, but in real-time and live.

A breakdown of the silos, a breakdown of the walls to become permeable to think of the experience of the brands, experience to marketers and experience to consumers. We will learn from our consumers, and user generated content is just going to strengthen the brand. It's a local / global mind-set, where you extend the brand into various technologies around the world, depending on how they are used worldwide.

Realization that PlayboyU was not a success, so listening to the community and embracing what they want in the community, as well as share with them the Playboy knowledge and understanding. It's a give and take with a discriminating demographic.

Forrester Conference: The Customers are Revolting

2007-10-11T07:32:00.001-07:00

And, from History of the World Part I ... of course they are, they're ugly. (Rim Shot).

For corporations, the fear is that the consumers/customers are talking and not listening, but pushing their own agenda.

Corporations do believe that they are speaking to consumers - feedback forms, etc - but without realizing that they are just engaged in one-way dialogue, and not really listening to the customers.

Example one is CBS and Jericho: CBS was listening - at the beginning - to the fans. They had a CBS-based message board, and were working to augment and support the community. But, then the show was pulled off the air for the NCAA tourney, and then rescheduled against American Idol ... which killed the show.

Then came the nuts campaign - and CBS saw the real groundswell at work. CBS took the revolt, and turned into reform. It was no longer arm's length, but embracing the fans. The reformatted the home page, offering Widgets and a Wiki, and a production blog for behind-the-scene's view for the hardcore fans. It took a revolt and turned it into reform.

But, who are these people in the groundswell? It's not about technology, but how people participate. It's the ladder of participation - and it's not a full characterization because it is not static (the ladder) and people can cross various points of the ladder (you can blog on one topic, but just a reader on other topics).

Creators - they create blogs
Critics - posting on forums, comment on blogs, but not necessarily bloggers
Collectors - use RSS feeds, picking on Digg and tagging on Delicious, the list makers
Joiners - social networkers
Spectators - read blogs, listen podcasts, read forums
Inactives - aren't there yet, but might be there tomorrow - they are poised, and 2/3 have broadband and 50 percent are technology optimists

This is applicable to any group of consumers, and understand the participation of your customers and consumers.

So, how did one company turn the revolt into a reform? Targeted the Alpha Mom ($55K+ income, 1 child under 18, etc.)

Gave Mom's blogs and podcasts
Have wikis to share best practices
Social network to connect the Alpha Moms

Looked at the data first, though - POST (People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology). So engage the critics with reviews and ratings, serve spectators with social content, enable list making for the collectors and use profiles to give compelling context for discussions, not just connections.

Embrace the customer to turn back the revolt - turn revolt into reform. Share the power, and have the strength to tap into the revolutionary power.

Photos to be uploaded later. :)

Well, a video - it ain't a post, but it is something

2007-10-10T15:50:00.001-07:00

And, a little bit of love to J Dilla and Stones Throw. RIP Jay Dee.

Update: Okay, J Dilla was too loud. In a nutshell, I left Weber Shandwick, I took a job at The Point, and I will be doing my longer post about leaning against windmills (or what it's like being on a Quixotic mission for a year and a half).

Hammer in the Mix - TechCrunch 40's Second Day

2007-09-18T12:14:00.001-07:00

Okay, today is the day that MC Hammer is going to be at TechCrunch40. I missed seeing him yesterday, but going to hound him for a photo today. Just because I can. And, I did.

On more of the community, today it is interesting because I have not heard community being trotted out as much. Maybe people are reading me, or more likely they heard too many times people calling out community when it did not make sense. It's okay to have a Website that is not in search for a community, but rather a service for business. And, that's fine: let's not forget that B2B is a viable business model.

Xobni: they are excited to be here. Discover email's social networks, view full conversations, organize people/conversations and export into an address book (phone numbers, etc). An Outlook (or other email) add-in that highlights other connections, other emails, other networks (such as social). They went for humor, and it sorta fell flat.

Orgoo: Access and organize all your conversations in one place (email and IM). For those real old skool people, it's Yodlee version 2.0 (the original Yodlee that aggregated all your emails onto one page). Also integrates chat and file sharing and video chat. Also has a widget for other pages, like blog or MySpace.

App2You: From what I can gather, it's like APIs for the masses, where anyone can develop a Web app. I think. That's one thing I'm noticing here: the presentations are not crisp and sharp.

Mint: It's Yodlee 3.0 (the second version of Yodlee). Aggregates your financial information, but so you can classify and track your personal transactions (checking, credit, debit, other bills). The site also finds you the best services, etc, for credit cards and other bills.

Kerpoof: Change the ways children interact with computers. To be a top destination site for children, where fun and learning are the same thing. Children can write a story, make a picture, or make a movie. Interesting idea, not sure it goes far enough, but one of the ones I like the most here because it's not the same old thing that is only adult-oriented. Broderbund for the 21st Century, as coined by Kawasaki. Nice old school reference.

Spottt: LinkExchange for blogs, and new media. Brought to you by Philip Kaplan, and part of Adbrite, and has the original LinkExchange (Tony Hsieh) on board as an advisor. Makes sense, as many bloggers continue to try to increase traffic, but want links that make sense. But, at the same time, not sure how active it might be as established bloggers don't care about exchanging links as much as when they started out.

Clickable: Manage and create search ad campaigns, over various networks. Wait, there's more than just Google AdSense?!!

GotStatus: Server side Google analytics. Totally over my head, but it's systems management market that Gartner has as continually growing at a brisk rate.

Pubmatic: Tons of ad networks, tons of publishers - it's a mess for publishers out there, so the company helps auction off advertising to various ad networks. Simplify the process of ad network purchasing, for best prices over the various networks.

ZocDoc: How to find a good doctor and make an appointment, like OpenTable for doctors. User generated content and feedback, so Yelp-esque there with peer reviews. Of course, the reviews I found for a dermatologist on Yelp were filled with Marina kids that had no idea what it costs to go to the doctor, nor what insurance covered. So, it might be audience-specific to get good reviews.

Extreme Reality: Mouse-free computing using your hands through the air. So, 3D interfacing with the computer. Reminds me of that bad Dilbert cartoon that mocks the virtual reality keyboards.

Broadclip: Unfunny people should not try to be funny during presentations. Gimme the straight skinny, not puff and pompery. There was no presenter, just a VHS recording, in a monotone ... could be cool, but it should have been an in-person presentation. Apparently, Tivo for Internet radio.

mEgo: Profile aggregator, instead of multiple profiles and post anywhere on line. Similar to Canter's People Aggregator, but better looking founders, interface and avatar-based where it's placed as a widget on various sites. Future features inclde non-avatar based professional version, and mobile-versions. Also will have to contend with 6A's work on identity portability, when it gets off the ground.

Wixi: Media aggregator for your media on various sites and networks. Or the media you want, all on one page. Is this like Dabble - well, with pictures and audio as well?

BeFunky: Turn videos and images into cartoons. We had that at Ofoto with PictureIQ seven years ago (I had a few cute photos that way, including my dead dog Spencer and living dog Perry).

Flowplay: An avatar-based gaming network that involves clubbing, games, tokens for virtual goods (yep, I like the virtual goods angle). Teen oriented, with shopping, meet-ups and games. Somewhat like Kaneva.

Metaplace: Alpha today, open beta in the Spring. Avatar is like AOL from 1994. Put data in, never comes out - and virtual worlds don't work like the Web does. Metaplace takes virtual worlds and makes it easy on an easy-to-use site. Being funded by Susan Wu, whom I respect a lot, so going to watch Metaplace. Virtual worlds for anyone, play anything, from anywhere.

WooMe: Online speed dating (just saw SpeedDate in the Demo Pit) that connects people on similar interests. Niklas Zennstrom is in the demo - is he an investor? Seems like it could be done easily with Skype, and I actually wrote up a case study about a couple that met on a dating site, then started calling on Skype (and if there was video at the time, would have spoken via video).

Zivity: Wanna-be Suicide Girls, but I know some of the people behind Suicide Girls, and I would bet on them everyday of the week, and twice on Friday. They get community, and I didn't get that sense that they did here ... it was more about money and throwing it away to people. And, just serendipity that Sean Bonner Twittered this at the beginning of their demo.

Kaltura: The winner of the 40th spot at the TechCrunch40 event. Second was Tanglr, and third was DanceJam. YouTube meets Wiki is their 30-second pitch - a collaborative way to create content together.

So, from a PR perspective, was the conference a success for the companies here? Well, yesterday it was on the top of TechMeme for a while, and that is the bump that the community gives (per my post yesterday). And, that is a great way to launch - but once again, that is not enough for any company to launch nowadays. You need a continued PR program (something that Web 2.0 companies fail to recognize) and think beyond just the 30- or 60-day cycle.

In the next few days, I'll write my post on the Demo Pit - those companies did not get as much play, and there were quite a few of them that should have been on stage rather than some of the companies that I saw these past two days.

New photos from second day are here.

Tags: TechCrunch40, TC40, TechCrunch, SanFrancisco, PalaceHotel

The Community of TechCrunch (and the TechCrunch40)

2007-09-17T17:07:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting here today at the TechCrunch40, listening to various companies pitch their wares to the people and press that are attending (I'm here as invited press, so will give overview of the companies and what I thought).

I have been thinking about community lately - and how community is involved in PR (and how we have lost our way in community). And the real interesting thing for me here at the TC40 is the community of TechCrunch. We all know that if your client / company is on TechCrunch (the site), you get an immediate bump of 100K+ members / views of the site. You potentially get those people to sign up for your beta preview, or to try out your service (it's a number game). So, the TechCrunch community (CrunchNotes, MobileCrunch, Crunchgear - and all its readers) is an early adopter community - or one of a lot of MBA students - that is looking for the next cool thing.

But, well, is that community enough? Thinking back to two sites that had a big push on TechCrunch - Riya and IILWY - do you really hear much about either? As a PR person for a start-up, or Web 2.0 company, you really do need to court TechCrunch for that bump, but it is not a long term community. These are not necessarily the people that are going to continue to use your site, but are the first (albeit big) push into community. Look at Riya - they never really moved into the photo community (one I know quite well from Kodak and Ofoto) and that could have kept the company, well, relevant.

The point here, though, is to look at the TC40 companies, and to see what they are doing for the various communities and how they are doing their pitches.

Powerset: an interesting idea - real search via real words - but going up against a powerhouse in Google. Is there an opportunity for a non-niche / non-vertical search engine (there's a reason I'm bullish on TheFind, SimplyHired, etc - they fill a need that is not fully met) - but not sure about

Cognitive Code: pretty cool AI application that responds to voice commands, and talks back to the human. Think HAL, but not sure if it's going to kill people. (Just a joke). The demo ran through working with the AI application on the desktop, but talked about CES announcements. Om Malik picked them as a survivor on their own.

CastTV: search for video across the Intenet, up-to-date of the latest videos. Like I noted prior, I like vertical search, and this one aggregates various video sites per term. A supplementing of metadata goes into the search and program. Om thinks they are an acquisition target.

Faroo: P2P search engine. From what I could gather, it's search powered by a P2P network (like Skype? like the UFO project?) and decentralizes the Internet. I think.

Viewdle: Another video search engine - "it's in the cut" - that is based on video-on-demand. No more tagging, etc. It's automatically done with the searching and recognition. So, it's facial recognition in video, that can aggregate other videos that the person appears in. Om thinks they are an acquisition target.

Cubic Telecom: Roaming for mobile phones, but gets rid of the mobile roaming costs via Max Roam that charges only the local rates for international calls, no matter where you are. Cool idea, but can see the carriers killing it. It's minute stealing, as noted by Om - and an outside chance that they are going to be around.

Yap: Speech-recognition for the cell phone, that does involve an aspect for vocal search. So, think of text messaging that can be done via speech to the phone - so convert to text your speech (like for Twitter or to friends). Prety cool idea but not sure the viability, or how it can be done with other speech recongition companies.

Ceedo: Mobile virtualization. See all your images, etc from a PC-based program (like Picasa). Or, make edits from your phone on PC-based applications, a full browsing environment on your mobile phone. You can use PC's as a terminal for your usage, via your mobile phone. First thought is that unless you're on an iPhone, isn't the screen too small to really do anything?

Loudtalks: Walkie Talkie for cell phones. It's a wanna-be Skype. I think. Or, an IM program that is voice / talking. Ryan Block noted that it can just be a plug-in, or maybe as a widget on web pages as push-to-talk.

Trutap: Targeting teens - I love when middle-aged white men target teens (okay, sounds creepy) - in an all-in-one social network that extends all carrier networks, so all your friends are in one community. Mobile-based, only - but with a Web-based aggregating of the information, logs, etc. A sorta Facebook Mobile competitor, with more instant chat capabilities. Om notes them as most likely to be acquired.

Storyblender: Videos together - how to create videos with a bunch of other people. Comes from the creators of Cyworld, so, there is some street cred (and a US-client for disclosure). It's online video collaboration, where you can add text, information, etc.

Tripit: The goal is to make travel "dead simple" and make the itinerary simple and easy - without all the pages to print. It's not about booking, but managing your travel information. You email your confirmations to the site, and it aggregates all your information for one travel itinerary - and then does weather, directions, etc for the user. It's a personal travel assistant online.

Flock: Um, why are they are here? I thought it was a start-up only conference, and Flock can't be considered an unknown startup. I stopped listening, because it continues to be half-vapor. Ohhh, they are finally in a 1.0 version.

Musicshake: It's about user generated media, in an easy way that belies any musical skills. You can add different sounds, vocals, guitars, etc to create your own music, as well as record your own voice for vocals. And, you can sell the music if someone finds it on one of the sites, as shared revenue.

8020Publishing: The rebirth of the published magazine, and modern publishing is the best of Web and the best of print to come together. They are the founders of JPG Magazine. Launching the new Everywhere magazine, a group travel magazine.

AOL (special preso): Share multimedia memories in a new way with Bluestring. The way I read it is as online scrapbooking, with the AOL twist. I have a special place in my heart for AOL, so I think I'll give it a benefit bc they are an amazing community that gets the short shrift online.

Cake Financial: The power of the community to invest. What are your friends investing in, and should you. Also aggregates all your investment information onto one page (if you have multiple accounts at various brokerage houses). Business school guys will go nuts for this, the average consumer would likely not want to get involved in opening their own kimono.

Docstoc: Finding the documents you need quickly and easily. For free. The examples given were sample business plans, presentations, etc. Most likely user: college students looking for papers. Think of it as the online file cabinet from the fraternity house.

Teach The People: Peer to peer collaborative education. Running a learning community that shares in the advertising revenue generated, or charge people for classes. Interesting way to do things - the collaborative nature of education where people share their knowledge (or them smarts) with others.

CrowdSpirit: Crowd sourcing from France, but for products rather than just Websites. It's all about consumer electronics rather than just Web 2.0 / Websites. Interesting take on crowdsourcing, but going up against the large manufacturers and new economies.

Ponoko: Make your own products, toys, jewelry, etc and have them delivered to your house. You upload the images, etc and you get the final product. So you create it, we build it for you. You can also sell your idea / designs to other people, so they can order the product.

The interesting thing to note from the first day at the event is that many of the companies emphasized the community aspects of their sites. Community has become a comfodified buzzword (like they were all told to emphasize their community aspect), and not sure if they really understood what the community should be. Yes, these companies today are going to get a bump at the conference in users, but at the same time, can they keep that interest for the long-term beyond the bump....

Oh, you can check out the rest of the Flickr photos here.

Tags: TechCrunch40, TC40, TechCrunch, SanFrancisco, PalaceHotel, PR, publicrelations, marketing communications, marcom, communications, marketing, community, community relations

Streams of consciousness at BlogHer

2007-08-01T11:42:00.001-07:00

For BlogHer this year, I am just going to keep open one blog post on quotes and comments that resonate with me. When I, um, remember to type them out and not just listen (hence, the post not as long as it could be).

Why? Well, it is easier than live blogging each session, and streams of consciousness are just fun.

And, well, BlogHer is such a community event, there are tons of posts on the BlogHer site itself and via the BlogHer07 tag.

The Life Stages of Community:

Companies need to let go a little and allow consumers to talk about what is wrong and good with the products.

There are sites that are over-moderated. But there are also sites that are silent death moderated - and just don't post comments that are off target.

Forced moderation for legal reasons - is it worth while to note why I have to moderate in a post, but it is about transparency.

Being able to give up, and let go, and allow the community to grow. It may not be what you expected in the beginning, but it can turn into a wonderful thing. You have to know when it's time to let go.

When you give people the power to build with you, you also give them the power to destroy. That's the curse of what can happen with a social community.

The State of the Momosphere

Went from feeling like I had no friends out there, from having hundreds of friends through blogs and blogging.

I orgasm while walking on my treadmill.

The difference between blogging and the real world is that there is a casual intimacy that people develop on blogs, where you share information you wouldn't necessarily share with your neighbor.

The event has made it possible to meet the people that we have read, to experience the person and to get excited meeting the people, and finding new blogs.

There is the problem with the community continuing to grow, and yet still feel like a close-knit community. The momosphere is going to split, but it is natural that there will be further divisions. There is always discussion, and how we all feel.

It's hard not to take something personal in the blogosphere - we are writing about ourselves, and it IS personal.

With outreach to bloggers, why such the concentration on white bloggers, with ignoring the minority blogs - the Asian blogs, the African-American blogs? We do laundry, we use products.

We are empowered when we write about our children, and we empower those that don't have voices - such as special needs children - when we write about the issues.

Keynote Breakfast: What Humans Do with Artificial Intelligence

Is the blogosphere still navel-gazing, or has it moved on? It is permeating beyond what it was three years ago, it is much larger way for expression.

The Art of Foodblogging

The culinary profession is not very technology oriented - we know that there's this Internet thing, but we are not using it much. Blogging has gotten me a different audience that shares my views and love for minutiae in cooking.

The surprising thing about my blog is that I have people reaching out to me for authentic Indian food to cook for their adopted children; it's touching, and it makes me tear up thinking how the power of blogging has touched other people.

Only you control your blog, only you control the content. And with that comes responsibility. Guard yourself, guard your blog, guard you readers.

I have found my blog posts and photos used on a corporate site, used as marketing. You have to be vigilant on what you write, and where it may end up.

Have a review policy for PR people - what you do, what you will look at, what you will receive. [Jasmine of Cardamom Addict has a great Blogger 101 guideline here.]

We have power - we have way more power than we think we do. We have power. If you chose to use it to close a restaurant, or slam or uplift somebody, we have that power. There are too many restaurant/food bloggers that are just snarky and cruel for no other reason to be snarky, and hurt the restaurant.

Don't ask for reciprocal links - these are my recommendations, and I put trust in those blogroll.

The Art of Crafts

Organically, more and more people find something similar to what they see online. One post will have more connections, and other people will want to follow and try the same. It's about making things, and tips.

You charge for your talent, not the costs of the goods. For crafts, it is about the talent and work you put into the product, not just the materials.

Stick googly-eyes on everything.

There are no fail-safes to keep your designs from being copied, but you have to be vigilant to make sure that your stuff is safe. Creative Commons is one way to go, for some protection.

The money for the cupcakes go to my rabbit's allowance.

It's your passion, not size, that matters

The benefits and upside of staying small -what is the value that you get from just one blogger reading, so what is it that knowing that someone can read this, that is enriching.

Do people write for their children - do you tell it all, full disclosure on what your family is really like. Or do you tell the most loving positive side of your kids?

You can get addicted to the Sitemeter / traffic stats, and it can alter your voice. If you see one topic gets traffic, you start to write about one topic. It's more about writing for passion.

Train of thought - shit, I'm pregnant. Wait, oh, I remember.

At the end of the day, it's okay just to sit back and look at what you have done.

Don't undervalue inspiring other people.

Tags: BlogHer07, Public Relations, PR, Communications, Marketing Communications, Marketing

Being an early adopter

2007-07-11T19:10:00.001-07:00

Blogger: July 2, 2003 (previous blog - May 5, 2002)
MySpace: ~~December 2005 (I think)~~ September 2004 (thanks Rachel!)
Facebook: May 2006
LinkedIn: July 2004
SecondLife: December 2005
Dogster: June 2004
Twitter: December 2006

A friend was giving me grief later today about my concentration on community (bc of this post) and calling me a commie (which is funny). He then said he knows I care about monetization, but that you cannot have monetization without community - one goes along with the other, and if you ignore community there is not going to be any monetization.

But, I explained to him what the deal is to me.

I have been blogging for four years - my anniversary was July 2, but I did not feel the need to make a big deal about it. I started blogging because a friend recommended it to me (for work); prior to that, I started blogging because I thought it was something cool to try out - and I realized that while friends always thought I had an interesting life and good stories, I found it boring.

But, I didn't start blogging originally for work, or because I thought it would make me famous - like other PR bloggers - but because it interested me.

Yes, I am a secret geek. Always have been.

I joined MySpace because a friend of mine recommended it to me, because she knows I like music and that I would find it interesting. I have - and keep it sorta active, with at least communicating and adding more friends when I find them there.

I joined Facebook because I was already playing around in the community about five months prior, checking it out with a friend's account and seeing what it was about, and formulating thoughts about it. Back then, I did not think much - and I still think there are problems - but the new applications are great, and I think the site has a lot of great potential to be bigger and bigger.

I joined LinkedIn because I thought it was a cool idea, and I was always open to new opportunities that I could find through the network. It helped a friend come damn close to a dream job, so it could work for me.

I joined SecondLife because Eric Rice was having a New Year's party, and he always talked it up to me. So, I had to check it out. I didn't check it out because I thought it was a great community to corrupt or use for PR. I joined because I thought it was something cool to use, and something cool to see, and something that could be fun if I wanted to geek out.

I joined Twitter prior to SXSW, because I read that it was Odeo's new service, and I liked Odeo enough - and love Blogger - to test it out and see what it was about.

You see a pattern? I join these sites out of an interest in them. Not because I am looking at it from a PR view point, but because I like to learn and see what is new out there, and to see what new communities are being formed. Hell, I was early to Orkut and Friendster as well, and see what did and did not work there. There are sites that I join to test out and try, and I forget that I am a member there.

But, this is about walking the walk, and being part of communities. There are tons of bloggers out there - and that's another thing, where I read blogs and watch podcasts to see what is being said, and out of interest - that like to talk about community, but unless it has to do with him/her, they could care less. And, that's what makes bad PR counsel: selfishness, and lack of caring or understanding of communities. And, that is what bothered me at the conference today - it needs to be about the community. You can't just expect people to come anymore, but you need to go where they are and want to be part of that community.

And, you know, the public is starting to see through that - that some bloggers don't really care about community, just themselves and their rankings, and that they are trying to use communities for their own personal and professional goals. You know why I go to BlogHer? Because it's a great event and great people and a wonderful community. And, it's that type of community that we are all looking at, and need to be involved with. You cannot rely on just pitching bloggers and hope for the best. You have to be part of the community - all communities - or you're going to fail.

Remember that the next time you are trying to force something over one community, or pitch bloggers. Think about it in their shoes, what that community might want, and then you will be more successful.

Tags: community, blogher, myspace, facebook, twitter, linkedin, blogger, second life, orkut, friendster, eric rice, public relations, PR, marketing, marcom, communications, advertising, marketing communications, dogster