Jack O'Dwyer vs. PR firms

I read all about the spat between Jack O'Dwyer and PR firms over his ranking of independent PR firms. I want to state up front that I do not, nor have I ever, worked for O'Dwyer or an independent PR firm. The statements in this blog post are strictly opinion.

First, I agree with O'Dwyer's gripe about the subscription fees. Paying $295 for one subscription read by 895 employees seems unfair to O'Dwyer. After all, he is missing out on 894 potential paying subscribers.

However, I took a look at O'Dwyer's newsletter subscription form. There is no language on the subscription form that states the subscription cannot be shared. From this chair it seems O'Dwyer made the subscription rules and now he doesn't want to have to play by them anymore. Further, I think it is absolutely wrong to penalize PR firms - who played by his subscription rules - by removing them from his rankings.

One PR firm pays and gets ranked while another refuses to pay and doesn't get ranked? How is this not payola? I also do not understand O'Dwyer's public rant about the lack of advertising support from organizations, such as the CPRF. I was a trade magazine editor for 10 years. The magazine had loyal advertisers who advertised only with us, those who advertised with us and our competitor and those who advertised strictly with our competitor. So the CPRF chooses not to spend money with O'Dwyer. It's the CPRF's choice, and no amount of complaining by O'Dwyer is going to win my sympathy (not that he wants it) about the lack of support from the CPRF.

O'Dwyer himself posted this statement on his blog: "This is far from just being a matter of money. Waggener Edstrom, with $119 million in revenues in 2008, 843 employees, and No. 2 on our rankings, has only one web/NL sub at $295. It refuses to pony up a nickel more. We just don't fit into their "marketing plan," a marketing executive told us. Several other large ranked firms have the same attitude. So we're booting Wagged and the others off the rankings. They're not "PR" firms. Rather than having any sense of community, they only have a sense of what's in it for them. They don't like independent media that can challenge them. They don’t live up to the term, 'public.'"

Tell me Mr. O'Dwyer, how is your choice to boot them off the rankings not a "what's in it for you" stance?" You also state that O'Dwyer rankings are epidemic on Google. That's wonderful. But I'd be more impressed (not that you care to impress me) if you can demonstrate how a firm's ranking in your directory was directly related to it winning new business.

To conclude I do want to say that I think O'Dwyers' idea of a subscription scale is fair: $2,000 for agencies with $2 million in fees, $3,000 for those with $5-$10 million in fees, and $5,000 for those with $10 million and more (as told by PRNewser). O'Dwyer produces a product which requires materials, time and money. I agree he should be fairly compensated for the product he produces. However, I think it is unfair for O'Dwyer to change the subscription rules mid-game and blackmail firms who refuse to play by the new rules.

You don't buy a car only to get a call from the salesperson a year later saying "Oh, we are increasing the price of your car because you let so many other people use it."

Back to doing what I do best

As you can see from the date of my last blog post, it has been a VERY LONG time since I last posted something to my blog. Without going into a long-winded explanation of details all I will say is that my time was quite filled by completing studies for my MBA and searching for a new job.

At the end of 2008 I became separated from my former employer. Let's just say the job market was as difficult as the news details. At one point I read a story that stated in 2007 before the financial meltdown there was 1.7 workers available for every job opening. By 2009 the number of available job workers had jumped to over six. I completed my MBA studies and graduated in August (with a 3.8 grade average, thank you very much).

This year has gotten off to a much better start for me. I recently became the media relations manager for the Institute for Business & Home Safety (www.disastersafety.org) which
conducts research on how to design and build home and commercial structures to better withstand damage from natural disasters. The position is perfect for me because it fits my skill set very well and it's a great cause with which to be involved.

On my first day I wrote a press release and distributed it the next day. I'm happy to say it picked up a decent amount of news coverage including a radio interview on the leading news radio show in DC. The release also grabbed its fair share of print, too.

One of the reasons the release was so successful in terms of pick up is that I stuck to the basic rules of media relations: a relevant topic + a well-written release + a good headline + appropriate targeting = pick up. I have followed this formula for more than 10 years and it has never let me down. I know it seems simple and practically elementary. But consider this - only one journalist wrote back to me and asked to be removed from my media list - and that was because she recently changed beats.

On the social media front, I posted links to the release on Twitter and Delicious. The Institute's LinkedIn and Facebook presence isn't as strong as it could be but I'm working it. I did join a number of relevant groups through my personal LinkedIn account. Eventually, I will create a LinkedIn and Facebook page for the Institute. I am not a social media "expert" but I'm not novice. I use a simplier is better approach when it comes to using social media for corporate communications.

Take the most recent release for example. It's posted on the Institute's web site, and I tweeted links to the release on Twitter, and I posted the link with tags on Delicious. I did the same thing with a Podcast of our CEO. The video is posted on our web site and I tweeted the link to the video and posted it with tags on Delicious.

Next on my plate is monitoring news about the Institute. For now I use Google Alerts and we have a monitoring tool as part of our Vocus media database subscription. Both seem to do pretty well. I just registered with HootSuite to monitor mentions of the Institute in the social media realm. This is a new venture for me and I welcome comments and suggestions about how to effectively monitor my organization in the social media space.

Well, that's all the catching up I can do for now. I just got another news release request dropped on my desk, and I was just informed I am going to take over editing of our member newsletter. All great stuff. Although at this rate the time between my blogs posts may be even bigger than last time. Let's hope not.

Media corrections and citizen journalists

A former colleague of mine posted an article on Facebook about NY Times reporter Alessandra Stanley getting her facts wrong about Walter Cronkite. Hey, mistakes happen (although Stanley apparently got it wrong twice).

What really caught my attention was this reply "when newspapers like the NYTs and others all fold into the abyss of the blogosphere and citizen journalism, will we miss these quaint mistakes?" What piqued my attention was the use of the phrases "citizen journalism" and "quaint mistakes." Journalists are human - they make mistakes and a correction is issued. As a former journalist I made every effort to fact check my work before it hit the press. Still, I had a correction or two in my day.

However, who is checking the work of citizen journalists? Are we to assume a citizen journalist won't make a mistake? Take as an example the report of the death of MMA fighter Kim Leopoldo. Blogs, newspapers and even TMZ reported that he had died of a heart attack at age 41. Turns out Leopoldo is alive and kicking (pardon the pun) as he came out of hiding from trying to kick a drug habit.

I am not discounting the value of citizen journalism or bloggers. But like reporters they are human beings and can make mistakes. The difference is citizen journalists do not have an editor looking over their shoulder making sure the reporter's facts are straight. Reporters are trained to be skeptical and question everything.

As I said, mistakes get made and corrections get issued. It happens. When a reporter gets a lead on a story he/she verifies the facts and gathers quotes and information. Do citizen journalists perform the same due diligence? Or do they take the story and run with it as is without checking the facts which leads to the "quaint mistakes?"

Let's say a citizen journalist walks out his/her house one day and sees a neighbor - a prominent city politican - wobbling out of the passenger side of a car appearing inhebriated with a puffy face. The citizen journalist runs inside and posts a story about the politican out on an all night bender where he got into a fight. Did the citizen journalist every think to ask the neighbor why he/she is stumbling out of the car and his face is so puffy? Could it be simply that the neighbor just came back from having wisdom teeth pulled at the dentist? Too late - the story is out there. Will the citizen journalist retract or issue a correction? Will the citizen journalist even bother trying to find out the truth?

I know I am taking a hard stance against citizen journalism but I am not anti-citizen journalist - honestly. But if reporters, with all of their resources and training can make "quaint mistakes" we would be foolish to expect citizen journalists to be mistake-proof.

The importance of a good corporate media room

I just finished reading "PR 2.0 - New Media, New Tools, New Audiences" written by Deirdre Breakenridge. It was a great read. One section of the book covered the importance of building and maintaining a good media room on a corporate web site. As a former journalist I can attest to the usefulness of a good corporate media room.

In the early 90s when I got my start as an assistant editor at a trade magazine, I remember receiving folders of press kits by US mail stuffed with releases and slides. Trade shows were particularly tough. My media badge was like a magnet and attracted immediate attention from company reps. My briefcase quickly became stuffed with bulky press kits of information. Those days (thankfully) are long gone. Late in 1999 I was in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. I was in the press room and a company rep came up to me and handed me a CD. He told me the company's complete press kit was on the CD as well as information about the new products his firm was introducing at the show. What a relief I thought. My back and shoulders were grateful for the streamlined, lighter communication medium, and my art director was grateful for easy and quick access to photos and graphics stored on the CD.

While CDs were a marked improvement over the paper press kits, they did require a bit more work in accessing the information. You had to open the CD, find what you were looking for and download it to the computer. Further, if you lost the CD or it was damaged you couldn't get a new one faxed over as you could with a paper press release.

Then companies began to use the power of their respective web sites to store information for journalists. Some companies do a better job than other of creating and maintaing their media room. During a meeting with a prominent healthcare writer in NJ, he lamented how healthcare companies tend to be less proficient at creating a useful media room.

The key to any good media room is the information it contains. Sounds simple I know. But a good media room provides more than just current press releases. Here, from a journalist's perspective are some tips and advice on building and maintaining a good media room.

1. Make it easy to find. Don't bury it in your site. Have a clearly marked link to your press room on your home page.

2. Keep the information well organized. Provide easy-to-find links on the media room to releases, photos/graphics, contact information, etc.

3. On the press release page, list the releases in date order and present the entire headline as a link. That way the journalist can find the release he/she wants, click on it and see the entire release. Also, give the journalist a "printer-friendly" version link or the option to save the release as a Word document directly to his/her computer. Make the page searchable by keywords and keyword phrases. It would also be nice to have a search function by where a journalist can type in a word or phrase and have all the releases which contain them appear in the results.

4. Organize graphics by date posted. As with releases, make this page searchable, too, and provide a cutline.

5. Provide detailed and current contact information. This is an important one. An 800 number of generic email address won't do. List direct phone numbers for PR/media relations personnel and direct email addresses.

6. Another useful part of any good media room is a page of experts from your organization. Be sure to detail their particular expertise and on what topics/issues they can comment. You can choose to provide direct contact information to the experts or list the contact information for the company's PR/media relations staff. Which leads me to point 7.

7. Lastly, keep the information current. Post releases and graphics immediately after their are released. Add or delete key media personnel and their contact information. This is critical. Journalists do not have time to hunt down the appropriate person for assistance. If they cannot find you quickly then you cannot be part of the conversation.

A good media room not only helps journalists but it plays a vital role in protecting your brand. It ensures that journalists have easy access to the most current information and news from your company, and it gives journalists a way to contact you when they need you. And helping journalists is what good media relations is all about.

Social Media and Mainstream Media - The New Communication Paradigm - Part II

In my last post I promised to talk about the rules of using social media in corporate communications/PR. So in sticking to my promise, here we go. Bear in mind this is my view, and I welcome your comments on what I have to say.

Old-school corporate communications/PR is a one-lane highway leading to the media. In an earlier post (The Art of Effective Pitching: Relevance & Relationship) I detailed the best communication practices to the media so I won't be covering that here.

The new PR model is a two-lane highway - one lane for the media and one lane for direct-to-consumer (i.e., social media) communication. The rules for using social media as a corporate communication vehicle are different from those used with the media.

The first step in using social media for corporate communications/PR is to identify your target audience. Perhaps your target is consumers who buy your products. Next, you must gain credibility with your target audience. To gain credibility with your target audience you must first become part of that audience. Join the relevant target groups on social media sites like StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Facebook, to name a few. Be completely transparent - make sure the group members know who you are. Read posts from group members, and where applicable contribute to the conversation with something RELEVANT. Don't under any circumstances enter the conversation by promoting your product.

Let's say, for example, you represent a company that builds recreational vehicles (RVs). So you join the RV Enthusiasts group on LinkedIn. A group member posts a question to other members about how to improve gas mileage. Instead of pounding the group over the head with your client's newest RV, you would be better served to educate the group. Respond with generic tips and advice about how to improve gas mileage in an RV. Even better, get an engineer from your client to write up a list. Include a link to a page on your client's Web site (or another source) which lists other tips about how to increase gas mileage. Make absolutely sure not to link to a product page. You promised the reader tips on saving gas so make sure you deliver on that promise. This gives you credibility as a relevant source of information, and it drives traffic to your clients' Web site. Building credibility is important because it positions you as a relevant resource of information - not just a product pusher.

I know I am using the word relevant a lot. But people join social media groups because the group is relevant to their life. Cat lovers, motorcycle riders, woodworkers - whatever your interest there is a social media group of people sharing content. So going back to my RV example, let's say one of the group members from the RV Enthusiasts group forwards your tips (with the link to your clients' site) to a friend who posts it on his blog about RVs. With the push of one forward button your tips/advice could reach hundreds, if not thousands, of readers depending on the blog. And if the blog ranks high in search engines your content, complete with the link to your clients' Web site, could wind up reaching millions. Welcome to viral marketing.

I am scrapping just the tip of the social media iceberg. If I learned anything from listening to webinars on social media and reading The New Rules of Marketing & PR (David Meerman Scott), I learned that content is king. Identify your target audience, engage the audience with authenticity (don't forget to be transparent) and relevant content.

Social media has changed the corporate communications/PR landscape. Make no mistake, the media is still a critical audience for you and/or your clients' messages. But you must incorporate social media into your PR efforts to reach and forge a relationship with your target audience.

Social Media and Mainstream Media - The New Communication Paradigm

Okay, so maybe social media isn't a "new" communication paradigm. But for me it is. I admit as little as four months ago I was a firm believer of old-school PR. I viewed the media as the sole distribution network for press releases and information. Under the old school, corporations distribute their news releases to the media in hope of gaining coverage.

The rules of corporate communication have changed, though, and I have become a convert of social media. The Internet and social media have changed the way information is distributed, consumed and shared.

Reading the book The New Rules of Marketing & PR has been an eye-opening experience for me. It has, without a doubt, played the largest role in helping me understand that old-school PR is an incomplete communication practice. Yes, the media is still important. Companies still value coverage in the print and broadcast media.

But I want to focus on my earlier statement – “incomplete communication practice.” The mainstream media is no longer the only game in town. Blogs and social media networks offers the opportunity for a virtually infinite level of “buzz” about their respective news. I would go as far to state that blogs and social media networks are equally as important as mainstream media outlets.

In my view, social media is about building influence among a targeted audience. In other words, deliver content that is relevant to the audience's needs and you'll quickly gain a long list of followers. I Tweet daily media industry updates on my Twitter page (http://twitter.com/jsalking) and in just a couple of weeks the number of people who follow my Tweets has grown from five to 25. I'm giving them relevant content they want.

Over the past three months I embarked on a crash course of social media learning. I've listened to webinars, read books and articles on the Web from social media experts. It's clear that old-school PR is, well, old-school. Effective corporate communications today requires a tag team approach using mainstream and social media, and each have a different set of rules, and I'll talk more about those rules in my next post.

Media Companies Aren't Fighting for the Future

A colleague of mine shared an article from Adage.com today titled "
Media Companies Cull 30,000 in Fight for Their Future." I believe the first part of the headline. Most of my recent Tweets have been about newly announced cuts in newsrooms across the country.

According to the article, "the media industries have shed more than 30,000 jobs in 2008, according to an Ad Age analysis of Department of Labor employment statistics and news reports. That's about 3.5% of the total media work force of 858,000. Since the bubble-inflated high-water mark in 2000, media has lost more than 200,000 jobs."

But I am not convinced media companies are "fighting for their future." Look, I understand the economy is awful, and company marketing budgets for advertising are shrinking. Fewer ad dollars means less revenue and less revenue means cuts. I get it.

Companies are watching every marketing penny, and determining where they can get the best bang for their marcom buck. So why are media companies responding by lowering the quality of their product? That's right - I said lowering the quality of their product.

Cutting newsroom staff leaves survivors charged with the impossible task of covering more beats in the same amount of time. Reporters must now divide their time among two, three even four beats - something has to give. While chasing down a story on one beat, another story is breaking on another beat and the reporter has to make a decision - which story do I chase? Either way, news coverage for one of the beats is going to suffer. News coverage begins to slip and readers start to notice. Maybe a few cancel their subscriptions or stop buying the paper at the newstand. Another hit to the bottom line.

The media industry is a lot like the airline industry, if you ask me. In response to high fuel prices, airlines started charging for luggage or booking your flight over the phone. They stopped serving beverages and those tiny little bags of peanuts or pretzels. In short, airlines have diminished the product and wonder why as a group, the seven largest airlines posted a 10.8 percent slide in traffic from a year earlier, according to an article posted on today's Chicagotribune.com.

What I am driving at is this. If media companies really are fighting for their future, they need to re-invest in their product. I'm not saying they need to maintain an overstaffed newsroom. But what I am saying is they need to devote enough resources so they can produce a high-quality product that attracts readers. People read newspapers and magazines because they want to know what's going on in the world - locally, nationally and internationally. Start giving readers less and they'll look elsewhere to get it.

So here we are in a viscious cycle. Ad revenue is down so media companies respond by laying off in the newsroom. News quality slips, readers go elsewhere and companies stop advertising in a declining product. In a few months it happens all over again. Are there any media companies out there who are truly willing to fight for the future of their product?