I had the pleasure of presenting to around 200 people at a Fingal Business Network event in the Clarion this week. Very interesting mix of people. The main part of the presentation was about how to use social media to generate addition PR opportunities for companies along the lines of ‘you have issued the release to the media now what can you do’.
I uploaded the presentation to slideshare so you can see the main points below
Ian Guider from Newstalk also did an interview for the business show on the morning of the presentation covering some of the principal points.
Overall it was mainly hints and tips to stimulate a conversation for people networking later on. The slides were designed to look like tweets and thanks to Paul Murgatroyd who tweeted them as I was presenting.
The second part of the presentation was around using social media to enhance your business networking at events. My experience of business networking is that most people drift into old habits of finding people they know when they arrive and hope they bump into people who will matter from a business perspective. Social media allows you to get great insight into people, start a conversation with them and make arrangements to meet. This makes a big difference in that the meeting at the event can be much more focused on deal making or other rapport where face to face is important.
I found it hard enough to find anything online about this so here are the few bits that came out of the session.
Before the Session
Get hold of the attendee list and find people you wish to connect to.
Search Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and if they have a blog.
The website will probably short circuit this for you.
Follow the person if on twitter
If appropriate retweet, favorite posts they have put up – they will see this.
Respond to their posts and start a conversation.
If they have followed you back and you have established a relationship then direct message them to meet up on the night.
LinkedIn will give you even more in-depth information on them which you can check for common areas and possible conversation points.
You can also utilise LinkedIn to get an introduction from a trusted source.
If they have a blog be up to speed on the topic areas and share your insight with a post or perhaps a link from an article on your own blog or blogroll.
Similarly with Facebook
Most of these actions will be visible by the person so make sure you are adding value rather than possible stalking accusations. By taking some of these actions you should know enough about the person and if already in conversation with them, be ready to introduce yourself and get the most out of the encounter.
On the night
If you have a smartphone login to the venue with Foursquare or Facebook and see who else is there
Tweet about the proceedings and use the hashtag #
Monitor twitter activity, start digital conversations with people there then move to real world
After the Event
Continue the conversations online
Input all the business cards into your contact on your computer and synch with your phone
Check to see if they have a social media presence
Perhaps check out their klout score and give them a +K or a follow friday on twitter
Blog and mention companies you met with links to their sites – again only if appropriate
Social media can really help people ‘hunt with intent’ or at least take away some of the awkwardness about initial introductions. In todays world face to face is a luxury so make sure you make the most of the time.
Final tip – make sure any outreach or contact through social media channels is genuine and legitimate and use it to keep the conversation going.
Below is a photo taken before it all kicked off.
Paul Murgatroyd, Oisin Geoghegan (CEO), Fingal CEB and Eoin Kennedy, Knudger.com
I had an issue a while ago trying to view a QR code on a business card I received but an interesting discussion on the For Immediate Release podcast and an invite I received to the adgrad Winner of the RTE copywriting competition (it was awarded yesterday at an event in DIT Aungiers Street) prompted me to look at it again.
QR codes (or quick response codes) are basically an image like a bar code that scanners and QR codes applications on camera phones can interpret. Once you scan it (I used a free QRcodereader on iTunes) you are brought to an online space (website, email address, social media) where you can find out more information.
Most current uses that I can see of QR codes are to make it easier to find web addresses especially ones with long urls but there are load of potential applications. QR codes are already being used by the Irish media on news paper such as the Metro Herald with the DRG group and Social Media.ie did a nice post on some extra uses. Now that smart phones are reaching critical mass and as the creative industries start to deploy them we will see lots more applications. One nice one could be virtual/real treasure hunt where people need to find QR code on a posters that bring them to another location until someone find the prize. Here is an example of one in New York. Either way another nice one for the toolkit.
You need to generate a QR code first but there is useful guide available on QRcodes.ie. Here is one for this blog
(Edit on 17th June). When you start to look for something, you see it everywhere. Nice offer of generating a QR code from Worky that can be used on a business card.
(Edit 28 June) Digital Times ran an interesting piece on the inclusion of QR codes in the Food Lovers Guide to Ireland.
Bought some grapes yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the QR code brought me to a video on recipes and ideas on preparing grapes.
QR codes on Dunnes Stores Grapes
(Edit 30 June). Went to the Bloggers International event last night in Portlaoise and spotted another nice use of QR codes. Great event and nice video link ups with the UK. As usual I alway pick up some gems at these type meet up. As part of the event they invited some people to do elevator pitches that they recorded. One of the companies who pitched held up a print out of a QR code for their website. Simple and clever. Will post the video once its available.
(Edit 1 July ) Nice article today by John Kennedy in Silicon Republic and QR codes. Had never really thought about supermarkets using the QR codes to sell the ingredients for meals. You scan a big QR code at store entrance that gives you list of ingredients for a meal, directions on where to find them and video of how to cook them.
(Edit 6th July) these edits could go on for a while. Really interesting use of QR codes by Tesco in South Korea where they printed large print outs of their shelves at train stations where people could scan and order food using the printed codes.
The Sunday Business Post Computers in Business magazine led with QR codes last week citing really good examples from property company Sherry Fitzgerald.
(edit 25th July) Previous focus has been on what people do with their QR codes i.e. simple point to a website or some creative execution of it. Now according to Mashable, “a 30% tolerance in readability” means people can be much more creative in desiging the QR codes themselves.
This is the invite from the DIT students and congrats for being so inventive.
I am surprised that the launch of Microsofts Kinect, the long expected arrival of internet TVs by year end and the never ending expansion of cloud based services has not generated more debate about the potential impact on PR and social media.
In the not too distant future instead of the collection of different remote controls, DVD/VHS players, games consoles and related bits you will eventually have a very large screen with a built in sensor that can pick up and interpret your movements. This will all be connect to a ultra fast broadband connection which pulls down the different services you are looking for from entertainment channels, social media platforms, your photos, home videos and music collection. The lines we draw between different media, storage and internet access will become completely blurred. Instead of thinking PC for internet access, TV for news and programmes, stereo and radio for music we will consume it all through one screen. For alot of people this is already a reality as they access TV via RTE’s iPlayer on their PCs or laptop. We will probably spend more money on sound systems and bigger screens as ultra fast broadband via fibre becomes more of a commodity.
All of this sounds wonderful and not too futuristic but it has seriouly implications for the PR industry.
Picture this. You will be sitting on your sofa, to change a channel, increase the volume you merely waving your hands. You are watching the 9 O’Clock news or PrimeTime and see something about company. You wave your hand another direction and your collection of social media appears along with a virtual key board. As the piece is still running on split screens you visit the company website for more information. You also decide to check out their facebook page and decide that what was reported is worthy of posting a comment or you just check what others are saying. You go to the personal sites of the spokesperson via LinkedIn or another to see how credible they are. You tweet your comments on what is being covered with your own personal networks and make judgement calls on it. If it particularly irked you, you DM friends and organise for a coordinated response to the company. DMs will naturally switch to video chatter where you see the people in your network and the debate leaves a less trackable footprint. Parodies of the crisis/spokespeople performance will appear instantly as people create their own mocking content. The phone number pops up in the company search and you call the organisation to register your view point – all from your couch. Finally you organise a flash mob to appear at the company or outlet to register a protest, video record it and upload to keep the debate going.
A lot of this all happens at the moment. Anyone checking out twitter at the weekend will see lots of comments by people about whats on TV and radio. This ranges from mere obervational to wide ranging debates. At the moment this is a trickle as you need to have a reasonable smart phone, be working on your PC or feel motivated enough to go online. Once people have access to all of these on one ease to navigate screen its set to explode.
Most companies have a reasonable feel for the increased importance of social media and have started down the line of building a social media strategy. This will move it from a nice to do to a must have. Here are some of the changes I can see.
Social media monitoring and responding becomes a 24 hour job.
Debate will be swift and much more far reaching.
After hours online chatter will have matured by the time most people get to the desk the following morning.
Social media tombstones which have not been updated will be highly visible and reflect poorly.
The expectation that there will be a company representative at all times will grow (via social media or phone lines).
Big launches and crisis may need to have experienced teams working on them on a 24/7 basis.
The weight attached to traditional media will continue to be extremely important but debate will take place else where.
Local issues will get even more global exposure and debate.
Messaging will morph and adapt as the temperature of debate rages.
Expectation of an active presence on a broader range of channels.
Ability to rapidly create content to match particular platforms will increase from Video – YouTube, Photography, Pix.ie, Facebook etc
Traditional PR outreach will need to be integrated into social media outreach.
Communications, marketing and online teams will need to be synched.
Close community debate will be harder to track especially if video or DM orientated.
Coordinated action will spill over into real life organised action.
Nature and tone of online debate and chatter will change as it moves from early innovators to mass audience.
None of this is massively different from what PR companies are faced with every day but the scale, speed and timing are very different. 9-5 just wont work and ill thought comments will spread much faster and to wider communities. At the moment this is contained due to technological barriers, once these disappear a regular tidal waves will appear. Consider the difference between 20-30 tweets from a few influentials which can network out to a few thousand via retweets versus the 600,000 people who view PrimeTime. How well resourced would an Irish or international company be to that larger figure but also a much broader profile. Some Irish companies I have spoken to can be dismissive of what they view as a small Irish Twitter community while they are consignant of the impact of high profile programmes. Merge the two with sufficent numbers and you enter a whole new arena.
Of course its not all bad and with all this come huge opportunities but the the reality is its not that far away.
PS: Since writing this I stumbled across this interesting report by emarketer on social TV trends amongst different demographics.
I was asked to give some tips for an article in the Sunday Times SME section on how to launch a product to maximum effect. Naturally my contribution was only a small part of the article but I thought some of the other bits I contributed might be of interest. It is fairly much top of mind so not a comprehensive list by any means.
1. Traditional Media – Press release
The first step is to build up a list of the appropriate media that cover your area of expertise or product. This should include the media publications but also the specific journalists that have covered the topic in the past. Searching in the publications website or using the news search function in a search engine will give a good starting point. From this build the email and contact list that you will send the release and other information through to.
The key to getting a story covered in national media is to have a strong interesting story. Think about what your product or story from a reader point of view rather than your own. How does it fit in with other things that are being covered in the media and research a strong hook. This could be anything from a record breaking attempt to a stunt based hook but needs to add to the relevancy of the product.
Take time to script a press release detailing all the key facts and details.
Make sure the essence of the story is clear in the opening paragraph and keep the release short and snappy avoiding cliché, superlatives or hyperbole.
Media moments can be very short with a 5-10 second piece on radio deemed enough to tell your story so brevity is essential especially for broadcast media.
Utilise any interest facts or figures to support why the product is interesting. This will also help journalists who would otherwise have to do this research.
Only use quotes if they add to the strength of the release.
Once you are ready to issue the release you need to decide if its strong enough to send to numerous different publications or to give to one as an exclusive. Currently there are many freelance journalists who supply copy to a range of publications and this might be a better route depending on the interest level in the story. If you have a list of media you are sending the release to, try to include personal notes rather than blind cc (bcc) people on email. Only call the journalist if you have something else valuable to add to the release.
Make sure you are ready to respond to any queries quickly as the media move extremely fast. This includes having someone available to do radio or television interviews. Do all the preparation for this in advance by drawing up all the questions you think you will be asked and jotting down answers to them. Record yourself and get someone else to interview you – ideally using a video recorder.
All media outlets are busy places and journalists time is limited. Unless your product is truly ground breaking or innovative avoid press conferences as you may be faced with a costly empty room. Media will only attend if there is something else or true value that they could only get by attending rather than from the release.
Some things to avoid are contact journalist close to the publication time. Get you story in early and don’t expect a positive response from a Sunday paper journalist on a Friday afternoon or a broadcast news journalist just before an hourly bulletin.
2. Traditional Media – photography
Quite often a photo (with a well worded caption) can tell the story as effectively as a news article. In addition space in newspapers is limited for articles but visually arresting images work if they tell the story in a visually arresting way telling what they product or service will do.
Some hints
Use a professional photographer who will take the photos, caption them and send to the correct people in the media.
Use props to help tell the story.
Avoid use of people in suits only shots.
Use children and models if appropriate.
Think of the backdrop and location – blank office wall is rarely attractive – think outside locations.
Avoid overly branded photos such as logos.
Make sure the photo is of sufficient size/quality for the newspaper.
Famous people or celebrities are always attractive to the media. You might know someone through personal contacts who will help you. Be careful here as the celebrity might become the story rather than you product or service.
3. Think Social Media.
Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and a variety of other social media tools can be used to help promote the message especially after you have taken the time to distil it all down into a press release. In addition they facilitate multimedia content (video, audio) that print media cannot handle.
Post the release on some of the well trafficked news sites such as IrishPressReleases.com.
If you have a twitter profile set up use it to point to the release or some interesting aspect of the launch. Social media is all about conversations with people so do not view it as purely broadcast and aim to try genuinely engage people. If your tweets are interesting enough and you have built up a reasonable following people may retweet your posts which further increases your reach. Facebook allows you the opportunity to also upload photography and video so think beyond the initial launch and plan some additional follow on content.
Make sure the launch is well covered on your website. Put into your news section and if you have a blog section, talk about the launch and related areas and link to the press release. Avoid thinking about the release as wallpaper and pasting in every outlet. Quite often there are very interesting angles that are not in the release itself.
YouTube also offers great potential to help promote the service. Think about it as adding extra value rather than purely promotional. This could be using humour (always difficult) or simple how to video guides.
For the more advanced social media users you could also use live broadcasting services such as UStream. This could be particularly useful if a product demonstration is being given. If it is a web based product you could also try Screen Toaster which allows you to give a walk through the service accompanied by an audio talk through.
Social media is heavily relationship driven and follower/Likes will only be grown over time by sharing more interesting content with people over time and focusing on having conversations. This means not treating the launch as the end point but rather the beginning.
Similar to traditional media relations there may be many blogger, twitters or websites that cover your area of interest. Get to know these people in advance and form relationships with them from telephone contact to posting on their sites, following and answering them on twitter.. Find out their interests and how they wish to be approached (if at all) and find some common ground. Avoid sending unsolicited and untargeted emails.
Final Comment.
Media relations and social media can achieve a lot in terms of profile but they can soak up a lot of time which you need to factor in advance. The launch should be seen as phase one and follow up stories and an editorial calendar of follow on announcements are extremely important. Keep note of who have covered the story in the past and if appropriate contact the journalists after the story. You may also notice them covering related areas of interest and if you have something of value to add contact them for future stories.
I started this post a number of weeks ago. In retrospect it should really have been two separate posts which it will now be but instead of posting it, I let it lie in my drafts folder until I ‘had time’ to think it through properly. Big no no. Missing self set blogging deadlines and waiting for free time to post really kills blogging activity.
Anyway, the deeper I delve into social media the more I see the gaps between traditional PR operations and how people are trying to integrate it into social media.
Social media poses lots of challenges for PR people, some of which I covered in previous posts. One I see increasing in importance is the start stop nature of PR.
Start Stop
In media relations a lot of time is in planning, reporting, researching and writing and outside of dealing reactively with media queries and keeping relationships alive the actual contact and engagement time with media can sometimes be a relatively small part (the reliance on email has made this even worse). Sometimes you can be touch with the same journalists a number of times in a day and then not speak to them for months. This is not really an issue in traditional media. The press machinery moves on and contact with a news, sports or business desks have little or no crossover and not being part of the daily debate and process of pulling newspapers together does have a disproportionate bearing on your standing.
This is somewhat different in the online work. If you have not blogged or tweeted for a while, people do notice and its up there for all to see. Try tracking the last time someone has contacted a newsdesk versus the last time someone has responded to a tweet or posted on boards.ie. This has other implications than the obvious staleness and relevance issues. A lot of PR people see social media as extension of the media process and only update it when they have a press release or other national newsworthy announcements to make. This start stop is relatively acceptable for national media but in social media jumping head long into conversations after months of absence can appear odd or worse rude. Trends, topics, influencers all move at lightning speed online and an absence of a couple of days can make one almost irrelevant.
The obvious answer is that PR people should spend more time online and engage more but social media could suck all the time available as there is a endless source of relevant distractions. However there are some simple things that people can do to overcome the start stop including:
Plan social media activity beyond the traditional PR milestones – dont allow weeks to build up with no input.
Build an extensive editorial calendar of proactive content.
Decide on a daily or other social media routine. Post at a certain time, check for replies at a certain time, response at a certain time. This sets expectations and enforces a schedule.
Create thematic days – one day could be photos from the archive for example.
Set aside time for reading and engaging in other peoples posts, tweets and online conversations.
Most importantly – be programmatic and stick to it.
People naturally go through peaks and troughs of activity but when you leave a community for too long you loose: relevance with others in the network, touch of what is really happening, links and connections with others. I am always amazed by how quickly online communities innovate and change. One thing for certain is that being an expert in a platform now does not mean you will be any better than an enthusiastic beginner in a few months time. The secret lies in managing the time input and building it as a central part of PR programmes.
Brian Marin from Marin Software (not related believe it or not) began this session with an overview of the drop in levels of public trust from the Edelman Trust Barometer, where 83% of Irish people reported that they trusted brands less, before giving some examples of companies who have experienced bad karma online. The are some really strong examples of where the negative online activity can really impact on brands. Some of the ones he touched are worth reading and included:
Some of these are fully set up sites dedicated sites that have a damaging effect on the search engine traffic but the examples shown went beyond this to include facebook profiles that also mirrored above including
Starbucks Sucks (interestingly there are a number in this category)
The main point coming from this was that a lot of negative commentary is taking place and that most companies are blissfully unaware of it. Stage one being the obvious to establish resonable methodologies and automate the process of monitoring. Some good aids here are Brandwatch, BrandsEye and Yasni (for people searching). These can tell you a lot about trends but as Brian Marin pointed out you also need to watch downstream traffic using tools such as hitwise. He pointed to an example where HSBC were seeing lots of traffic to their site from Facebook (positive you would think) but when they tracked it back, it led to complaints by students about the bank.
All of this caught everyone interest but the pencils really started to scribble down notes when he covered actions you could take – some very ill advised – some reasonable. Most of the other sessions contained some element about the perils of trying to be more clever than the search engines so best to stick within the rules.
So what can you do if you are the recipient of negative online coverage especially when this pops up in search engine rankings before or after you company listing.
Google Tattling. Basically looking for link buying by the site and telling Google in the hope they will take action against the site.
Google Bowling. Not recommended but spamming the site with lots of links in the hope Google will act against them.
Denial of Service. Again not recomended but overunning the site with so many requests that it become unaccessable.
Creating land pages or microsites. Good in principle but the time and effort it takes to drive these up the search engine rankings (and out rank the negative commentary) makes it questionable about how useful they are.
Insulation. Get some credited third party endorsement or positive coverage of your company or the story. Basically floating the good stories to the top.
All of these are fairly dramatic efforts but the real ways to protect your brand comes back to a lot of the basics in PR including:
Participate in the discussion.
Communicate positively – early ideally and point to actions taken to address the problem.
Engage with the community. You will get a fairer hearing if you are part of the community.
Treat the cause. Get to the fundamental root of the problem. Sounds obvious but many people still prefer to try cover up.
Build trust and attract advocates. Nothing more powerful that other people coming to your rescue or balancing a debate rather than you defending the brand along. General Motors got a reasonable amount of flack in social media (as you would expect with some many cars and owners) but decided to let the debate continue. They were pleasantly suprised to see that members of the community came to their rescue with postive experiences.
These strategies are very positive news for the PR industry as the core skill set of communication is engrained in everything we do. Again the Edelman Barometer but a 91% figure was reported in response to being asked how important “communicates frequently and honestly on the state of its business” was to the overall reputation of a company.
Brians summary was also useful but in brief:
Insulate search results
Monitor your brand online
Act fast and dont hide
Communicate frequently and honestly
Build trust and adovates
And finally dont over do it. Make sure its natural.
Rob Shine from Cybercom had some additional gems to share.
The advent of Universal Search where other third party content is pulled high in search engine rankings, such as YouTube videos, is something people have seen but have not really thought about the implications. The Taco Bell video of rats running through the restaurant at night was followed by a huge online and traditional media coverage including footage of the reaturant opening up the next day. The Ryanair snoozing air hostess BBC coverage on YouTube also ranked high in Google. Interestingly enough the anti blogger stance by Ryanair, which for most would have been a near disaster, actually resulted in higher bookings to the site (higher visits to the site was expected). This sparked a debate about no PR being bad PR.
On the defenive tactic side Pay per Click advertising supported by good content can help to push down negative mentions or at least point to your side of the debate. One of the earlier presentations by Anthony Quigley pointed out that although many people ignore the ads on the side the paid for sponsored ads at the top of organic searches are frequently percieved as organic listings. This involves buying the negative keywords that people are using to find the story and then using google adwords to link to some positive aspect such as a balancing statement on the story.
Influecing the blogging community was another tactic mentioned but can take a long time and is uncontrollable.
Two other tactics were also covered including
1. Push down the critical site by having more positive pages rank above it. This covers optimised YouTube videos, optimised press releases, blog posts, social profiles etc and is well within the remit of PR companies.
2. De-legitimise the link in the eyes of the search engine.
You can always complain to Google through the editors of its Open Directory DMOZ. To be effective the critical site needs to be out of compliance with the DMOZ rules and can theorically decrease the importance of the site. However any action, if any, can be many months in actually taking place.
Rob finished up by highlighting the importance of establishing positive online PR as part of the marketing mix rather than waiting for negative commentary. He pointed to their work with blogger Guy Kawasaki who they brought over to the store house to show him how to pour the perfect pint. His subsequent blog posts on it resulted in 100,000 additional readers and an approximate 5% lift in visitors to the Guinness Store House site. He also spoke about an joint initiative with Irish photo sharing site Pix.ie. They realised the potential of tapping into the power of the thousands of amateur photos that are taken at the store everyday by creating a photo gallery on the site. In promoting this they did some blogger outreach where they targeted a group of influential photo bloggers and after a tour of the facility got 70 blog posts that helped generate an additional 400,000 extra readers of the site. Some of the photos that he showed were of an extremely high calibre and would have been difficult to achieve with a professionally contracted photo session.
Some of his summary tips were useful including:
Importance of establishling a framework to identify issues and influencers
Establishing proactive and reactive social media engagement teams
Monitoring and moderation of key review and comparison sites over a period of time is critical to getting an initial feel of how the brand is percieved over time – rather than one post or thread.
She open up with some more online reputation horror stories such as Motrin negative experience with a minor revolt in the blogosphere and social media sites over an ad they ran. Some users found the language and tone offensive (that interestingly was launched over a weekend) and resulted in a back peddling by the company.
She also pointed to an issue that blogger Emily Tully had with a mobile provider where the debate raged on IGO People. Interestingly the competing providers had a presence on the site and gained judos by interacting on the issue. It also made its way into main stream papers.
Krishna heavily endorsed using communications specialist to help decide the tone and nature of engagement when dealing with online reputation issues. One of the really obviously things that is overlooked by companies mentioned was the - Online Reputation Management Plan. We prepare these plans for clients for events in the real world but they are still very new for dealing with crisis and reputation issues in the online world especially with social media.
Krishna also pointed out the obvious step of making sure you own the url for high profile CEOs or management. She pointed to an example with Fast Company whose the CEO Shel Israel was parodied on a website in his own name following a volley of criticism over a inteview he did. This tactic also covers buying the domainname’sucks’.com address as this is a popular one for people who have an axe to grind with a company.
Another good practical measure, especially as brands are on the fence in relation to engaging with social media, was to at least claim ownership of the name. While not exactly cybersquatting there are many examples of multiple unofficial versions of sites/profile/brands on Facebook and Twitter. Apparently an Exxon Mobil Twitter account that was being lauded for being proactive was not officially part of the company.
In terms of engagement she also recommended getting in early rather than late and not necessarily staying until the bitter end.
Once again listening to the online conversation, understanding the medium and building relationship are key and should be done before a disaster strikes.
Overall some great learning and some new tricks. If PR people ever needed a reason to get to grips with adwords then this is a really strong one.
The launch of a new press release distribution service called PR Zone is likely to open up the debate about public relations companies using online distribution services once again.
PR Zone Front Page
The PR industry has been slow enough to embrace these type services and Searh Engine Optimisation of press releases is ignored by a lot of traditional PR companies. The service is not new (although it does contain some innovations) and is broadly a welcome development. However the service uses a pay of play model where you register full company details and then buy credits to utilise the different levels of service they deliver.
This is a route that Prangle tied some time ago but with limited uptake from PR companies. Prangle came from the journalist side of the house and tried to establish the service as a one stop shop for the media industry where the different publication houses would allocate a resource to monitor the feeds supplied by the PR industry. The theory being that PR and other companies would go through the service rather than send their content to their contacts in the media. The stumbling blocks were the cost involved (a fee was charged to use the service) and a perception that the relationships that PR companies spend years fostering with the media, would in essence be cut out of the equation. It also relied heavily on the media commiting to using the service consistently and most media are still happier to receive stories from established contacts. On a technical side the service was robust and future proofed in that it allowed uploading of different type media from high res photos to video. As a supplemntary service it was useful but the cost of using it meant the PR industry did not buy into it wholesale.
Not all entrants went the paid for model and Irish Press Releases uses a model similar to the other international sites where you can up load a story, with the site displaying all the recent stories. Some vetting of stories is done to ensure a certain level of quality control. Overall its a good service and I imagine it will charge at a future date for add on facilities such as loading of extra multimedia and possibly other syndication services similar to PR Zone.
Irish Press Releases Homepage
We have used some of the free international SEO press release submission sites and have also used paid for syndication services such as Business Wire – especially for international releases where we would not have strong relationships overseas media.
The PR industry would appear to feel threatened by these services espcially the paid for ones where they feel they could be cut out of the process and budgets are tight. The reality is that having a service does not replace the genuine value that a communications company brings in terms of constructing a good robust story. Up to half the effort can be invested in getting the messaging and scripting right. These services are a good supplement to what a PR company does and does not replace them. They are especially good at increasing the digital footprint, even more so if a company does not have a media section on their site.
Innovation in the PR industry is always welcome and for some companies these services are the best way for them to go, especially if they are good at telling their story and have limited budgets. I dont believe they are a threat but rather offer a lot of synergy.
The big question is if the PR industry is willing to pay for them and see their value. Time will tell.
Net Imperative ran an interesting story about the blocks to and attitudes towards social media. The basis of the story was research was called out by Sapient Interactive. Lack of understanding was predictably one of the main blockers to implementing campaigns but the good news is
“50% of the respondents feel that 2009 will be the year of social networking for marketers.”
Only a small number (9%) felt that social networking is over rated. Interestingly Twitter ranks equal with blogs on areas the marketers reported as areas they are looking at. I imagine Twitter would not have ranked so highly last year.
“Outside of social networking campaigns, the most leveraged social media by marketers is media sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr (62%), followed closely by micro-blogs such as Twitter (59.8%) and corporate/campaign blogs (59%).”
The Marketing Institute of Ireland was similar in terms of more budget going online in a survey done with AMAS. Not surprisingly 64% reported using email campaigns with social media coming in fairly low at 20%. Of most interest is the 28% who reported using Online PR but that could be due to the definition.
I am certainly seeing more interest on the ground in terms of marketing departments becoming more interested in social media and online campaigns. There appears to be a greater acceptance of testing these platforms and integrating them with other campaigns.
Its clear there is still a distance to go in terms of greater appreciation but hopefully the good case studies coming from Facebook and Twitter will encourage more to embrace and integrate social media.
Whether 2009 is the year for social media or not….we will just have to wait and see.
Net imperative ran an interesting event this week in Guinness Storehouse. It was a pretty full house, wide range of understanding amongst the attendees, had a good line up and strangely enough was free. Perhaps Piaras was right about the future being free. As most of the speakers were sponsors it is probably safe to assume that they will be offering or looking to expand their services in Ireland. Normally these type events are direct sales pitches but the balance was pretty good at this one.
Some interesting insights:
Christopher Bennett, Blyk gave some great insights into the youth market being knowledge driven, collaborative, socially fragmented, multichannelling and microconsuming. These digital natives want innovation and are digitally aware, confident and looking for value. In building his story toward the Blyk offering he outlined some of the mobile stats with
3.3 billion mobile hand sets globally
Twice the number of TVs
Three times the number of PCs
and over 78,000 sold during the time of his presentation
Mobile phone usage was also a bit different than you would expect with the most popuar use of phones of the 16-24 age group reporting
Calls
Text messaging (no surprises here)
Alarm clock (not me with blipping mails)
Finally use of it as torch
Blyk provide sim cards and free calls in return for customers agreeing to receive up to 6 messages a day. The service is invite only (similar to gmail early days) and they only target the 16-24 audience as its a traditionally hard group to reach (an hence very attractive to advertisers). The real beauty of their service is that they get very detailed information about the users which means they can generate highly relevant ads. This covers demographic detail, interest etc but also the handset details (so they can customise photos/videos etc). So much so that the average response rate is 25% with 75% achieved for highly targeted campaigns. Their firm belief is that with such a focus on the interest areas that advertising is percieved as a valuable service and not intrusive. This blended in with his discussion on the power of marketing to one.
Chris did not outline plans for Ireland but his description of market places they are interested in has an uncanny resemblance to Ireland. I imagine there will be lots of recession hit student ready to sell their personal details for free calls.
Adam Parker from RealWire discussed the changes that are taking place in the PR/media market place with a move from the paper based media to publishers such as Total Telecom, Hoovers to the growth of blogs (micro blogs, social media) and now UGC (User Generated Content). His main points being that the new media is instant, far reaching and enduring and hence can be more powerful that traditional print media.
So why would PR companies use his service or rather go online – the usual reasons
Ability to influence search rankings
Online conversations taking place anyway
Controlled brand message syndication
He pointed to some online review sites, that no one in audience had heard of, with high Alexa rankings as a examples of opportunities that are being missed with a focus on traditional media.
On a positive note he reported that up to 70% of UK PR companies either do not report having a online PR service or blog or both. This would correspond to Damien Mulleys blog on same in the Irish market.
Adman finished on a final note that in addition to the expected online virtues people online are active and looking for something while off line they are passive.
Claira Jackson from Sony Music entertainment gave some good examples of how the music industry has changed as digital has grown. Companies like Sony now offer much more value add for brand wishing to engage in music as control over the charts and music distribution has slipped away. Collaborations with Intel and jamiroquai (access to JK, competitions), Xbox (Xbox live and video releases), Last Minute (access to celebrities and travel habits with 10 minute mini videos), Coke and iTunes. Their insight team also carried out research and were able to give detailed pen pictures of AC DC fan. They may not control the distribution as once before but certainly control access to musicans and official use of music by brands. This supports the arguement by Andrew Keen that the actual music sales are the minority of the financial earnings for artists.
This presentation and the insights from Chris Bennett were of particular interest for Johnny Beirne from Download Music.ie who is offering a text based music download payment and fulfilment service. Interesting company to watch and offer lots of opportunities for the PR industry who wish to leverage the independent artists in Ireland.
It will be interesting to see the follow up from the session. I have already notices additional people following me on twitter from the event and some more LinkedIn follow on invites from the presenters.
Last nights PR and Blogger meet up in Edelmans offices passed off with any physical harm to any of the attendees. Billed as collision course the atmosphere was pretty friendly and more curious than frictional. Overall some interesting points:
- most bloggers post on their own time and approaching them in a insolicited fashion is akin to stopping a random punter on the street and sticking a press release in their face.
- most bloggers are open to approaches that show you undertand their blog, what you are offering is relevant, is fairly informal and covering anything from attending events, angles on stories, reviews of new stuff, interesting videos. The approach by BTs to the Young Scientist and giving free tickets was pointed out as positive.
- Bloggers are constantly in touch with each other and will frequently IM each other when they get approaches from PR companies especially if offering exclusives.
- No bloggers reported making money from their blogs and are fuel/energised by passion for the topic.
- Blogger relations takes more time and the PR industry has a struggle to convince clients to allocate resources so it does not end up being a bloggers email address getting added to a media distribution list.
- Journalists who are also bloggers view mails and to their media email account very differently to their blogger email account.
- Twitter offers great potential for monitoring (ORM), possible relevant story seeding and early heads up on industry developments.
- Bloggers like to have previews of up and coming stuff so they can debate it before it hits main stream media.
- Bloggers spend vast amounts of time in preparing their posts and take personal pride in them. Poor blogs will just not get read.
- There is a general nervousness in approaching blogger as mistakes can become highly personal and visible.
- Links to stories/press releases/photos plus personal commentary are more welcome than cut and paste press releases.
- PR community doing a poor job with clients in convincing them of the merits of PR and blogger relations in general.
- PR people should blog more so that they can understand the medium and utilise the Irish press release service.
Overall is was a positive event and these type face to face encounters help to over the suspicion and mistrust between the two groups.
Interesting to see how the next one goes which is planned for February.
