It’s clear that we’re bad summertime bloggers. Sorry about that.

Occasionally there have been topics that have crossed my path in the last month and a bit that I thought could be ruminated on in a blog post, but when the spirit struck, it was usually when I was unplugged completely for a week-plus (No phone, no internet, no email, no television … heavenly!) or too swamped with client commitments to dedicate the time required to write it up. As I recently Tweeted, I haven’t blogged in so long that I suffered a brief case of performance anxiety about picking up the virtual pen once again.

I’m over it now.

I’ve been doing significant outreach in the UK for one of our clients and I’m noticing that journalists over there are far more eager to have a phone conversation with me than many of their North American counterparts. At outlets big and small, I’ve been greeted with enthusiasm, courtesy and appreciation for the information I’m providing, rather than being avoiding altogether, relegated to voicemail hell or, at worst, berated or abused because I deigned to call. All this latter negative experience has been all-too-common with some North American journalists I’ve dealt with in my decade plus as a PR practitioner. This has been a lovely experience and has resulted in some tangible and impactful coverage for my client.

Many of these same editors and reporters weren’t at all responsive to my emails, a distinct change from my experience in North America where calls and voicemails predominantly go unanswered and unresponded to, but emails fare far better. It was refreshing to have so many productive phone calls that resulted in good things for my clients.

I’d posit that the phone calls themselves went so well because we pride ourselves on building out a media list of pertinent, relevant and interested media targets so that we know all of the angles and all of the data points that are likely to result in coverage of our client. Or perhaps I just seemed exotic with my North American accent and that’s why they were so nice to me, eh?

Having had such a good string of calls, I was particularly interested about the articles I read this week about the death of the phone call. At least that’s the snazzy spin that’s put on the article, but the content rather suggests a more integrated communications approach - using the multiple channels available to us to best communicate with one another. The latter resonates strongly with my daily experience, while the former is hyperbolic and not at all what’s truly going on.

In my recent UK experience, I had indeed sent emails to the folks I later spoke with on the phone. For some, they’d read my email and highlighted as something to follow up at some nebulous point in the future, while others fully admitted that they hadn’t read it. That they had it in their mail and could call it up as we were speaking was very useful as they were provided with more information than I could succinctly deliver on the phone.

The rumours of the telephone call’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Telephone calls still play an important role in the PR practitioner’s day-to-day practice; I will agree that their ranking in the grand scheme of all of the tools available may have slipped, but make no mistake - there’s nothing quite like speaking to someone to get your point across. Whether it’s through Skype or an old rotary dial or anything in between, don’t count the phone call out just yet.

As an aside, there’s an interesting corollary to this phenomenon in the world of popular music. When I was growing up, there were scads of popular songs that highlighted the importance of the phone call - from Blondie’s “Call Me”, Phil Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number”, and Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309.” The only popular song of late that references the telephone (at least the only one that’s coming to mind at the moment) is Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” with the repeated chorus of “stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore.” Pop music’s just reflecting our shared experience and indicating that the honeymoon’s over when it comes to our love affair with the telephone.

Technorati Tags: Telephone, phone calls, voicemail, email, media relations

There’s a witty little joke that’s been running on Twitter for some time now. I don’t remember when I first saw it, but every so often it pops into my Twitter stream and I click through to the punchline again. The otherwise redoubtable @missrougue, Montreal-based Tara Hunt, hooked me this morning.

The setup line is usually something like, “How to use Twitter for Marketing and PR” and a short link. Clicking on the link brings you to a one-page website that has the word “Don’t” in block black letters in the middle of the screen.

Ha ha.

But I could not more profoundly disagree with the sentiment.

Let me leave aside what I believe is the immense potential Twitter represents to engage with customers, stakeholders and others, what I would think is the very definition of marketing, and let me briefly cover how we at inmedia routinely use Twitter in our technology media relations practice.

1. We follow journalists who cover our clients and their space. Journos have been enthusiastic adopters of Twitter, using it to source ideas and contacts and to spread the word about what they’re working on. This brings us opportunities we can pitch our clients into and helps us understand even better what these reporters are interested in.

2. We actively pitch reporters through Twitter. Along with email and the telephone, Twitter has become a useful tool to reach out and touch a reporter. With a mere 140 characters at our disposal, you’ve got to believe we need to get the story down pat! And we do. Some reporters welcome this approach, and we embrace the channel where they do; others would prefer we not do so, and we respect their choice. Our front-line media relations practitioners can now count several instances of successful story pitches that were at least initiated, if not fully consummated, through Twitter.

3. We monitor Twitter for mentions of our clients, their competitors and their issues. While most of those mentions do not emanate from journalistic sources, tracking them helps our clients understand who is talking about them and what’s being said. If our clients are active on Twitter, they can engage across this channel. And even if they’re not, Twitter can be an early warning of an emerging event that could bode well or ill. Twitter has become just one more default source in our integrated monitoring efforts for clients.

4. We tweet major announcements by our clients. We count interested journalists, a broad range of technology executives, industry watchers and other influencers among our own lists of followers. So tweeting our clients’ news releases is just one more channel we can deploy on behalf of our dissemination efforts for our clients.

5. And, last but not least, we tweet major hits we get for our clients. I could tell you we do this for much the same reason as item number 4, and I would not be lying. Tweeting major stories attracts attention to them and so expands their reach and improves their impact. But to be thoroughly honest, we also do it to toot our own horns a bit. We like being able to announce that we just got coverage for a client on CNN, or in the New York Times or CIO or some other big-name outlet.

So I’m utterly persuaded, all joking aside, that Twitter is an effective new tool in the media relations tool box, one we’re happy to use extensively.

Technorati Tags: missrogue, Twitter, PR, marketing, public relations, media relations

I’ll admit it. I fell for a couple of doozies this morning when reading my morning email.

The first one really had me. I subscribe to HARO, Help a Reporter Out, which is a free service where PR professionals are sent pitching opportunities from reporters. I scan these email reports several times daily to see if there’s anything suitable for my clients. This one caught my eye and infuriated me no end:

Summary: Why don’t PR people listen?

Name: April Phules (Business Magazine)

Category: General

Email: query-7cc@helpareporter.com

Media Outlet: Business Magazine

Deadline: 07:00 PM EST - 1 April

Query: I’m doing a story about PR people, and why they have a much lower ability to listen or follow directions than regular people. Is this something they’re born with, or something they learn once getting into PR? All answers welcome.

Okay, so the reporter’s name should have tipped me off, but I haven’t had my coffee yet so I’m a little slow.

Still fuming from reading that outrageous query, I clicked over to another newsletter from parenting site Babble, which suggested 10 ways to raise a genius. Putting little stock in such things, but curious nonetheless, I clicked through. Needless to say by the time I got to #4 I knew that something was up.

PRNewser tipped its hat to some of the best corporate April Fool’s jokes here.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Technorati Tags: April Fool’s Day, Babble, HARO, Help A Reporter Out

It’s been a while since we pointed to other blogs that address public relations issues, so here’s a round-up of some recent posts of note:

Next Communications, in honour of the blogger’s 34th birthday, recently posted 34 Unforgettable Posts for PR People

Journalistics writes about building a better online newsroom whether you’re a big player or a small business.

While it seems that most of the marketplace easily forgets, PR Pros are People, Too, reminds Todd Defren in his post about clients thanking PR pros for doing exceptional work. I was lucky enough to work for a classy outfit called Six Degrees Records, a widely respected world music label for whom I did Canadian publicity  many moons ago. After a very successful album launch and a ton of press, the label sent me, quite unexpectedly, a big flower arrangement and a card of thanks. To this day, just the thought of that small gesture makes me smile.

Here’s an article on how the publicity machine keeps on chugging for those who seemingly will say anything to keep their name in the media. Apparently being a blowhard can be a quite lucrative profession. As I Tweeted yesterday, if we stop giving Ann Coulter an audience, she’ll just go away. There is such a thing as bad publicity - the kind that continues to give a forum to people who don’t deserve our attention (see also: Kate Gosselin).

Tip of the hat to Media Monitoring News for directing me to some of these posts (even though the links in its newsletter weren’t working properly…)

Technorati Tags: Public relations, high tech PR, B2B, blogging

This past week, the news was filled with stories about people behaving badly and reminders that electronic communications leave a digital paper trail a mile long.

Personally, I feel so badly for Sandra Bullock being humiliated as she was by her philandering jerk of a spouse, having recently pronounced in front of the world and Barbara Walters how he “has her back.” Well, he had someone else’s front, it seems. And she was happy to spill all her beans and text messages to the highest bidder.

Tiger Woods, whose shoddy attempts at reconciliation with his audience through the media have been ripped apart by PR experts, has just hired a renowned sports crisis communications expert to help him crawl out from under the recent release of his disgusting text messages to a porn star with whom he had dalliances.

The trustworthiness of tattoo covered strippers and porn stars really took a hit this week…

The chair of the Toronto Transit Commission, having already dropped out of that city’s mayoral race because of his affair, has now been discovered to have charged the city of Toronto for a cab ride he took to meet his mistress. Torontonians, already demanding his resignation as head of the beleaguered TTC, are now even more riled up.

While these particular individuals behaving badly have made many egregious personal decisions, it’s astounding to think that it never occurred to them that their text messages and receipts wouldn’t come back to haunt them. In this digital era, almost everything we do is recorded, logged and accessible to refer back to, especially emails, texts, blog posts, Tweets… More than once, this has been advantageous to me when a client or a reporter claims, “I never said that” or, “I never approved that” and I have the email to refer back to. (Thank heavens I’m an electronic packrat!) This can, as we’ve seen this week, work against you if you’ve got something to hide or if you’re trying to cheat the system in some way.

First, don’t be a jerk. Straighten up and fly right; if your moral compass is way off (personally or professionally) you’re bound to get caught sooner or later. Recognize the immeasurable damage that will be done to your brand, your professional standing, your employer and employees, and others if you make terrible decisions and get caught red-handed. Is it worth it? Really?

Second, don’t put anything in writing you wouldn’t stand behind later on. There have been plenty of misguided, poorly conceived reactionary news releases or statements made by executives that have haunted them for years. Don’t be that guy or gal.

Technorati Tags: Crisis communications, media relations, cheating, paper trail

A quick browse through my Google reader shows that it’s that time again. No, not the holidays. It’s time to gaze into the marketing crystal ball and make bold predictions about where marketing dollars will be spent in the upcoming year, what communications trends will appear and how we as marketers can best lever this knowledge.

I don’t pretend to be extraordinarily prescient when it comes to these things, so I’m going to put down my own crystal ball and instead point to a few posts on other blogs that might illuminate the near future for marketers.

A LinkedIn question about New Years resolutions for CEOs has garnered 5 responses so far. What are your clients’ resolutions for 2010 and where do your services fit into those plans?

According to this post, it’s going to be all about social media and email next year.

Will portable identities take off like this post predicts? Will B2B companies further expand usage of social media and take advantage of this brand portability?

And finally, this post predicts all of the above will take place in 2010.

Do you have any predictions for the year ahead?

Technorati Tags: social media, email, marketing, 2010, predictions

While we’ve previously shared on this blog what we feel are best practices when it comes to the use of embargoes and, after seeing a PR misstep, recommended that it would have been an effective tactic, the debate continues on whether embargoes are still an effective tool for PR practitioners or will even be honoured by an increasingly user-generated media for whom the old newsroom rules do not apply. A group of folks from both sides of the debate gathered yesterday to discuss the pros and cons. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: embargoes

The non-adventure of balloon boy last week got me thinking about the pitfalls, and potentially pointless expenditure of time and resources, of resorting to gimmickry to get media attention in the context of a marketing and promotional campaign.

And while companies that attempt to woo the media with whatever manner of promotional material is at their disposal are clearly not in the same category as someone who perpetrates a hoax as a publicity stunt, such an effort must nonetheless be held up to the harshest scrutiny to ensure value for money.

As a business journalist, I saw all manner of swag cross my desk: gift baskets, trinkets of varying practicality, cute stuffed animals dressed in First World War flight gear, even a quality pair of boxing gloves to illustrate a certain cellular provider’s “light weight” and ”heavy weight” service plans. Not to mention the VIP invites to rock concerts and hockey games. And this humble inventory pales before some of the antics undertaken by organizations with a true flair for showmanship, a la Sir Richard Branson.

But at the end of the day, did any of this sway my judgment as a journalist? Did a fluffy desk pet, or even a private box at a hockey game, ever compel me to pick up a story that I otherwise would not have? Nope.

What mattered most to me were the merits of the story articulated on the piece of paper or in the CD-ROM buried beneath the “gift” at the bottom of the box. Save the gadget or the toy for a trade show or Toy Mountain. Just tell me your story and articulate why it is of value and relevance to my readership. Therein lies the difference between a marketing effort to build awareness of your brand, and a PR effort to put yourself on the radar of the media that have the potential to move your market.

When it comes to garnering the kind of media attention that will support your business development objectives, it is the value of the story you bring, not the slick way that it is packaged, that will get the attention of the editors and beat journalists with whom you need to engage. Buttering the substance of your message with a  little style or constructive goofiness can be fun. And, I will admit, sometimes it can help make you stand out from the crowd with media that are suffering from attention deficit disorder. But such efforts must be backed up with something of value, especially if they are draining precious time and resources from a tight PR and marketing budget.

At a time when many organizations have made the questionable decision to scale back their marketing and PR efforts to conserve cash, it is vital to deploy the resources you have as effectively as possible to maintain profile in the market. Unless that cute company mascot is in fact your top customer with a compelling story to tell, it should not be the media’s introduction to your business.

Technorati Tags: balloon boy, publicity stunt, promotional material, promotional products, public relations, media relations, Richard Branson

Let me preface this by saying that I love Garth Brooks. I think that truly, beyond being a spectacular entertainer, he’s an exceptional human being, devoted father and just seems like an all around wonderful person. I’m very excited that he’s announced his un-retirement and wish him every success in all his future endeavors. I saw him in concert and sat way in the back, but it was one of the best live shows I have ever seen - and I’ve seen hundreds, if not more than 1,000 shows - and he rocked the socks off every single person in that stadium.

Yet, whomever is counseling him on PR tactics dropped the ball in a big way earlier this week when he announced his coming out of retirement. One would hope that, given there were years to plan an announcement such as this, the fact that the news media is instantaneous and voracious wouldn’t slip by whomever planned his announcement. An announcement of this nature, from the most successful solo artist of all time, the man who’s sold more records than anyone - including Elvis, the Beatles, and Celine Dion - since they started tracking record sales with Soundscan, was bound to attract unparalleled attention. And they flubbed it.

My understanding is that he did a news conference in the morning, at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to announce that he’s coming out of retirement. What he didn’t announce was any plans to do, well, anything specific. (Aside: he did, however, talk about neighbouring rights for performers, copyright issues, how downloading is killing the industry and that musicians need to rise up and regain ownership of their works–all issues near and dear to me. Swoon.)

Having watched some of the news conference, I understand that Garth wanted to announce it to those particular reporters in that particular room first, as they’ve always supported him and he wanted them to be the first to know the big news.

The media world jumped on the story and immediately it was all over the news, web sites, etc. Some of the coverage was sarcastic, saying “Garth Brooks comes out of retirement to do nothing.”

Herein lies the problem.

Later that same day, Garth announced from Las Vegas that he’s signed on for a bunch of shows at a casino, a la Celine Dion. Great! Amazing! However, half the news media is reporting that you’ve come out of retirement but got no plans. Big problem.

In my humble opinion, this two-tiered approach to his announcement was a huge PR misstep. It could have been avoided by employing one simple tactic: embargo.

You want to give the scoop to those journalists first? Fine, great. How very thoughtful. But make sure that the footage and coverage doesn’t get out until after you’ve done the second press conference, announcing your comeback shows. Otherwise, you’re in the position we’re in now, trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The Internet is littered with articles with snarky headlines, and clumsily added “updates” that say, “oh, I guess he is doing something after all …”

A visit to his official web site confirms that it hasn’t been updated in more than a year. There’s absolutely no mention of this new stage in his career, nor of the upcoming shows, ticket information, etc.

I’m a bit flummoxed, truthfully, at how clumsily this whole thing has been handled. Because he’s been retired, perhaps he’s without management at the moment, or lacks a full-time publicist to counsel him on how best to manage something of this magnitude … That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. But still, surely there is some communications professional that’s responsible for this debacle. I’m certain that Garth is an eminently reasonable man who would face a pile of sarcastic press clippings and shrug them off, but frankly, whoever was in charge of this announcement really screwed up.

What can we learn from this episode? Careful planning is required when making important announcements. Don’t rush it, don’t go off half-cocked, make sure that you’re providing your targets with the information that they need, when they need it. Remember that the media is instantaneous - there’s no lag, no lead time on breaking stories. As soon as it’s out of your mouth, it’s in the media, the public record, and there’s no taking it back or qualifying it. It’s a lot harder to refine a message once it’s out there.

The tickets for Garth’s comeback are sure to set records in terms of how quickly the shows sell out, and rightly so. Let’s hope that he uses some of the proceeds of the concerts to get proper communications counsel on staff.

Technorati Tags: Garth Brooks, retirement, press conference, neighbouring rights, #PRFail

I sent out a news release last week for NetCentric Technologies, an Ottawa company launching a new product, their PDF Accessibility Wizard, an MS Office add-in that makes documents accessible to people with disabilities.

I spent spent considerable time developing the right media list, one that contained many niche and specialty publications, so I knew the targets I’d be going after were appropriate and likely to be interested in this new product. Now, NetCentric’s PAW is not page one news and certainly will not be covered by the mainstream media. However, it offers real value, especially to the government technology crowd who are mandated by law to make their documents accessible, and a product brief or technology spotlight, customer case study or product review in a specialty pub catering to this audience would serve the company very well.

Launch day rolled around, the release was sent out, and I began to follow up with the highest value of the media targets to whom we sent the release. Phone calls, emails, Tweets, whatever channel our targets were using, I attempted to make contact. As sometimes happens, it was really (and I mean REALLY) difficult to make contact. For whatever reason, it was really challenging to get hold of people. In a moment of despair, I jokingly Tweeted that perhaps people don’t answer their phones anymore…!

It was time to pull out the big guns. If I was going to get some worthwhile traction for my client, I was going to have to resort to the time-honored, secret weapon that we PR consultants absolutely know will result in coverage.

Much like magicians who condemn one of their own for revealing trade secrets, I’m sure my colleagues in the PR business are going to be terribly chagrined if I expose the secret to success in PR. It’s something we’ve held dear for all of our years in the business, the surefire way to get a response from media targets.

Are you ready? Here goes…

It’s persistence. Tenacity. KEEPING AT IT.

I know, it’s not terribly exciting, but that’s the secret to success. Hard work. Though as my favourite teacher always used to say, “work smart, not hard.” So, rather, it’s smart work … with a little elbow grease thrown in.

There is no magic bullet in PR, it’s just a lot of work, putting the right resources in front of the right targets, in whatever format makes the most sense. Where the worst of our industry all too often falls down is where the rubber hits the road. The release is sent, if it doesn’t click immediately, that’s the end of it. “We sent it out, the rest is up to the media.” Wrong.

If it didn’t click immediately, why not? Perhaps, as in this case, the publications being targeting are part-time propositions, or the person who typically writes about such things is on holiday, or is focused on a deadline, or myriad other good reasons. Use common sense, obviously; don’t fill the inboxes of editors and reporters with umpteen emails and voicemails from you. Rather, be persistent without being annoying.

I’ve had some really high-value conversations in the last eight hours, ones that not only secured my client coverage that will no doubt move their market, but also that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t kept at it. Because of the research we do at the outset of a campaign, I knew that I had the right information for the right targets; it was just a matter of time before it all came together.

Technorati Tags: tenacity, PR secrets, NetCentric Technologies