Dear Friends,
Among other interesting activities, I moderate comments on a health blog. While the blog is popular and, on any given day, we may receive 10-15 comments, in this very special time of the year, we are averaging more like a comment a minute.
While, in the main, no one objects to the blog's new found popularity, I might point out that most of these contributions seem to be unintelligible. Often, these are thinly disguised as actual comments to posts -- "Specifically where there is married life with no romance, you will have romance with no married life"-- is one I noted as particularly irrelevant on a blog devoted to preventing teen drug abuse and addiction. Although one must also admire the daring of those discount pharmaceuticals attempting to peddle generic prescription drugs on a blog warning of the dangers of addiction!
Attention all spammers: I appreciate most those messages that demonstrate are outright selling as opposed to layering a thin veneer of commentary over an otherwise blatant spam. Nike's, Christian LaBoutain, Burberry, NFL jackets and Uggs are among the most popular, judging by the entries to-date. But social bookmarking and link building are also appreciative, though lesser known as brands.
But for those really inventive resellers, you cannot beat the creativity of wrapping a clearly fictitious article about the Israeli prime minister resigning and the PLO representative's reaction around the charade of selling pens and sunglasses:
Israeli Defense Ecclesiastic [montblancpensonlinesale]
Ehud Barak announced his acclimatization Monday, saying he
inclination quit civil affairs in January to lavish more time with his
family.
His resigning mont blanc
comes at a warmly delicate time for Israel, which is observing a
tenuous cease-fire with the hostile Palestinian unit Hamas after an
eight-day tiff that killed more than 160 people — the mind-blowing
majority of them Palestinians in Gaza.
Barak, who is married and the shepherd of three children, [montblancpensonlinesale]
said Monday at a word talk in Tel Aviv that he will proceed as defense
assist for the next three months, as elections are apposite in January.
He said he won’t debate the elections.
Hanan Ashrawi, a fellow of the Palestine Unshackling Consortium’s executive body, weighed in on the announcement.
“I contemplate this signals identification [lunettesdesoleilraybans]
of the futility of the military overtures in the adoption of fury as
means of dealing with the Palestinians,” she said. “If it is for
intimate reasons, we cannot opine, but if it’s recognition that his
complete tear was based on the military proposition to public existence,
then this demonstrates the recognition of the futility of militarism
and violence.”
Some Israeli factional commentators had speculated ahead of the
commercial that Barak was planning to quit the government of Prime
Churchman Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new center-left party.
A bid for Ehud Barak's shepharding a peace process in the Sinai, perhaps?
For all of the above, helpful links to the products abound, and in many languages: Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, English, and variations given fractured sellers helpers from Eastern Europe, not to mention the ever-present Spambots that must rely on Google algorithms and half-baked translations for their creative message management.
And the festive holiday season has just begun!
Question to the blogosphere: how are you managing this season's Spamalot? Surely there are better ways to see that actual questions and comments are addressed without succumbing to brand-name Season's Greetings!
And question to brands and their resellers: do you think your messages of cheerful consumption or comments wrapped around irrelevant stories are the most effective way of reaching consumers? Or is it just cheap and easy and you're thinking, "Couldn't hurt to cover all bases?"
I am curious to know...
Sincerely,
Robin Stevens Payes, Principal
Creating and Implementing Marketing Strategies
Health Communications and Social Marketing
WordsWork Communications LLC
Showing posts with label social marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social marketing. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2012
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Top 10 Rules for the "New" Media Relations
With all the focus on journalists gazing at their navels while lamenting the decline-and-fall of print (and even broadcast) journalism as we know it, I have yet to see my colleagues on the other side of the pitch expound on how those of us trying to place news stories in the media are supposed to do our jobs.
As reporters get laid off, their beats are increasingly outsourced to freelancers or bloggers, mostly ex-reporters, but some upstarts who claim to know how to write. These people are not listed in any reputable media directory where one could check their bona fides (alas, no Vocus or Bacons identities available), although some have Web sites or clips that are posted from previous writing gigs. They are not identifiable in any systematic way. They represent only themselves, and often are impervious to the standard restraints or ethical concerns that journalists working for mainstream media have had as guideposts in the past. It is the Wild, Wild West.
Glamour, Ladies Home Journal, Washington Post Health...these are but a smattering of the many MSM whose writers no longer appear on the official masthead. More disturbing, television news, formerly the gold standard of story placement for flacks seeking credible...and creditable...placement for news, are increasingly hiring stringers or independent producers for research, story development and production when bureaus, both in the U.S. and overseas, fold.
It hits us in unexpected ways. Like the "investigative" story plumbing decades-old date about a government agency sourced for a local Examiner newspaper in a major metropolitan area that gets "broken" by the Examiner reporter during a news interview with an anchor on the CBS News affiliate - without bothering to ask the agency for comment. Or the documentary aired on a national cable network produced by a company in Australia using a producer in San Francisco...who doesn't have a travel budget to interview sources outside Northern California. Or the pitch to the newspaper editor for a lifestyles section that folds without notice while the entire editorial staff just disappears.
Today's Wild West scenario is not so different, perhaps, from the yellow journalism at the turn of the last century, with the exception that, today, any Tom, Dick or Harriet can open a Twitter account and post "news", so that the proliferation of people calling themselves reporters is exponential. And it's not always obvious who's good, who's not, and who's just looking for his/her 30 seconds of fame.
Why does it matter? "Free media", the art of placing stories in outlets to promote ideas, products, ideas or services, is still an important arrow in the arsenal of the public relations professional. In fact, seeing the company's name or product in print is often what clients, or companies, mean when they talk about PR.
So, it's not business as usual. What to do?
Today, with shrinking news staff in even the biggest media, the more you can do to help a reporter find you, get the story and pitch it to their editors, the better chance you have of getting your story picked up.
Here's a new Top 10 for enhancing media placement:
1. Build your reputation online and off. Become a trusted news source by being reliable, never feeding bogus stories, and meeting deadlines.
2. Register (and tweet) on HARO (Help a Reporter Out), Be A Source, TV Newser, etc.
3. Follow reporters on Twitter - they sometimes follow back or respond to replies to their tweets.
4. Blog about things that have things to do with your company or clients, and sometimes things that don't but about professional concerns or events to spread the good word.
5. Network like hell: events proliferate but there are also bars and restaurants where reporters like to hang. Organizations like MediaBistro have sprung up with the goal of training pink-slipped journalists to do something else in the writing field. Maybe even compete for your next job.
6. Email journalists & formers to see where they land and keep in touch.
7. Get LinkedIn, Facebook, and put your best opinions out there in the ether...
8. Worry about getting good content, repackaging for various media and keeping your contact info up-to-date.
9. Know who you're talking to - and who they're reporting for. They are not always writing only for their primary news outlet. Even the venerable NYTimes employs hacks scribbling for other media. Check out Times Public Editor's recent mea culpa at http://bit.ly/19KYIa
10. Don't rely on news releases, or at least not traditional news releases to sell your story. Social releases embed links, videos, photos, bios and other resources.
In decades past, PR people were best who were invisible, persuading, cajoling and spinning behind the scenes, then pretending our clients magically appeared on the pages of the Wall Street Journal by their own merit.
Today, we are visible producers in our own right. In the new world, re-purposing content, packaging and placement our tools in trade. "Hits", Friends and Followers now become our measure of success.
No one quite knows how to master this new art form yet because the media are evolving, the old news placement ways aren't solving, the doors are revolving.
So by experimentation and practice, we can emerge from this electronic free-for-all as the new news and in it. In a good way, of course.
Talk to me on Twitter @dcoffbeatartist
As reporters get laid off, their beats are increasingly outsourced to freelancers or bloggers, mostly ex-reporters, but some upstarts who claim to know how to write. These people are not listed in any reputable media directory where one could check their bona fides (alas, no Vocus or Bacons identities available), although some have Web sites or clips that are posted from previous writing gigs. They are not identifiable in any systematic way. They represent only themselves, and often are impervious to the standard restraints or ethical concerns that journalists working for mainstream media have had as guideposts in the past. It is the Wild, Wild West.
Glamour, Ladies Home Journal, Washington Post Health...these are but a smattering of the many MSM whose writers no longer appear on the official masthead. More disturbing, television news, formerly the gold standard of story placement for flacks seeking credible...and creditable...placement for news, are increasingly hiring stringers or independent producers for research, story development and production when bureaus, both in the U.S. and overseas, fold.
It hits us in unexpected ways. Like the "investigative" story plumbing decades-old date about a government agency sourced for a local Examiner newspaper in a major metropolitan area that gets "broken" by the Examiner reporter during a news interview with an anchor on the CBS News affiliate - without bothering to ask the agency for comment. Or the documentary aired on a national cable network produced by a company in Australia using a producer in San Francisco...who doesn't have a travel budget to interview sources outside Northern California. Or the pitch to the newspaper editor for a lifestyles section that folds without notice while the entire editorial staff just disappears.
Today's Wild West scenario is not so different, perhaps, from the yellow journalism at the turn of the last century, with the exception that, today, any Tom, Dick or Harriet can open a Twitter account and post "news", so that the proliferation of people calling themselves reporters is exponential. And it's not always obvious who's good, who's not, and who's just looking for his/her 30 seconds of fame.
Why does it matter? "Free media", the art of placing stories in outlets to promote ideas, products, ideas or services, is still an important arrow in the arsenal of the public relations professional. In fact, seeing the company's name or product in print is often what clients, or companies, mean when they talk about PR.
So, it's not business as usual. What to do?
Today, with shrinking news staff in even the biggest media, the more you can do to help a reporter find you, get the story and pitch it to their editors, the better chance you have of getting your story picked up.
Here's a new Top 10 for enhancing media placement:
1. Build your reputation online and off. Become a trusted news source by being reliable, never feeding bogus stories, and meeting deadlines.
2. Register (and tweet) on HARO (Help a Reporter Out), Be A Source, TV Newser, etc.
3. Follow reporters on Twitter - they sometimes follow back or respond to replies to their tweets.
4. Blog about things that have things to do with your company or clients, and sometimes things that don't but about professional concerns or events to spread the good word.
5. Network like hell: events proliferate but there are also bars and restaurants where reporters like to hang. Organizations like MediaBistro have sprung up with the goal of training pink-slipped journalists to do something else in the writing field. Maybe even compete for your next job.
6. Email journalists & formers to see where they land and keep in touch.
7. Get LinkedIn, Facebook, and put your best opinions out there in the ether...
8. Worry about getting good content, repackaging for various media and keeping your contact info up-to-date.
9. Know who you're talking to - and who they're reporting for. They are not always writing only for their primary news outlet. Even the venerable NYTimes employs hacks scribbling for other media. Check out Times Public Editor's recent mea culpa at http://bit.ly/19KYIa
10. Don't rely on news releases, or at least not traditional news releases to sell your story. Social releases embed links, videos, photos, bios and other resources.
In decades past, PR people were best who were invisible, persuading, cajoling and spinning behind the scenes, then pretending our clients magically appeared on the pages of the Wall Street Journal by their own merit.
Today, we are visible producers in our own right. In the new world, re-purposing content, packaging and placement our tools in trade. "Hits", Friends and Followers now become our measure of success.
No one quite knows how to master this new art form yet because the media are evolving, the old news placement ways aren't solving, the doors are revolving.
So by experimentation and practice, we can emerge from this electronic free-for-all as the new news and in it. In a good way, of course.
Talk to me on Twitter @dcoffbeatartist
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Packaging News
- What constitutes news these days?
- Are reporters the only gatekeepers through an ever-increasing number of outlets beyond the mainstream media (MSM)?
- Have the diminishing numbers of professional reporters in MSM newsrooms overburdened trying to cover today's news without even getting to think about long-term projects meant that important information is not getting out?
- How do reporters want their news packaged these days? With html releases that link to relevant info, expert sources, and statistics that make news-gathering easier, or does that diminish the source's credibilty?
- Do consolidations in the news industry mean that Reporter X, who is covering a story for News Organization Y, is increasingly being tapped through uneasy partnerships and alliances between news organizations, to repackage and post their stories in various formats for News Organizations A, B, and C, in addition?
- Should news flacks and other PR practitioners be spending more time blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and social networking to get their stories directly to the audiences whom they most want to reach instead of spending so much time on media relations that seems to be offering diminished returns?
- Are reporters the only gatekeepers through an ever-increasing number of outlets beyond the mainstream media (MSM)?
- Have the diminishing numbers of professional reporters in MSM newsrooms overburdened trying to cover today's news without even getting to think about long-term projects meant that important information is not getting out?
- How do reporters want their news packaged these days? With html releases that link to relevant info, expert sources, and statistics that make news-gathering easier, or does that diminish the source's credibilty?
- Do consolidations in the news industry mean that Reporter X, who is covering a story for News Organization Y, is increasingly being tapped through uneasy partnerships and alliances between news organizations, to repackage and post their stories in various formats for News Organizations A, B, and C, in addition?
- Should news flacks and other PR practitioners be spending more time blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and social networking to get their stories directly to the audiences whom they most want to reach instead of spending so much time on media relations that seems to be offering diminished returns?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Parties with Purpose - TM
In this new era of downsizing and diminished returns, is there still space to use events to market? Not the familiar trade show or that newly emerging budget-saver, the Webinar, but live meet-ups where the purpose is delivering, or reinforcing a vital message or expanding the message to a wider audience.
This is the question we are mulling over - does the market space exist today for using a live event to communicate, illustrate, persuade or even start a conversation for organizations with a strong social message? Think about the Change.gov model, where the Obama transition team invites citizens to hold local parties to debate policy issues and then share them with those in positions to effect real change - be it at the local, national or international level. Consensus cannot be formed solely in an electronic medium, though the debate can be waged, in part, online.
Is there a place for us humans, social beings, to gather, to celebrate, to debate, to learn and share - to create a meaningful DIALOGUE - in today's environment of reduced resources, modest means and lowered expectations?
More to come on this topic...
This is the question we are mulling over - does the market space exist today for using a live event to communicate, illustrate, persuade or even start a conversation for organizations with a strong social message? Think about the Change.gov model, where the Obama transition team invites citizens to hold local parties to debate policy issues and then share them with those in positions to effect real change - be it at the local, national or international level. Consensus cannot be formed solely in an electronic medium, though the debate can be waged, in part, online.
Is there a place for us humans, social beings, to gather, to celebrate, to debate, to learn and share - to create a meaningful DIALOGUE - in today's environment of reduced resources, modest means and lowered expectations?
More to come on this topic...
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Communicating results.
Where's the ROI?
As principal of WordsWork Communications, I am frequently asked by prospective clients to justify the expense for marketing. After all, can't everyone write a press release (no, but this is a subject for another time). It is right, though, that clients expect some return-on-investment for hiring our firm. With so many channels, both new and traditional, and so much clutter for people's attention in the marketplace, what value does WordsWork, or any firm for that matter, bring to the table?
I am grappling with the new rules of delivering on a promise to clients. The burden of proof falls on us practitioners now, more than ever, to substantiate the effectiveness of the marketing, communications and public relations we create for clients has been an integral component of what we deliver. Only natural, you might guess, if you were looking for a consulting firm to create your identity, to deliver sales, get you on The Today Show or to bring in donors, but after all, there are so many other factors involved in the dynamic of your success, particularly in the current economic cycle, that no one in this business can guarantee such outcomes.
In the emerging world of traditional and social marketing, how do we deliver? When you can't control all that is said - the good, the bad and the ugly - via blogging, online posts, company Intranets and all the derivatives is it still true that even bad press is a good thing?
What about the brand? Does style, consistency, medium and message still matter?
Talking about clients today in a way that yields the desired results is no longer about control of the message, or relationships with gatekeepers. WE are the gatekeepers, as is everyone else with a computer and an interest - or a vendetta.
How do other people in the marketing/promotion/advertising/brand-building business answer the question: in the current Web 2.0, how do we get our clients the results they are looking for?
Looking for how clients are choose the firms that deliver - and how fellow practitioners are proving to their clients that they do, in fact, deliver.
As principal of WordsWork Communications, I am frequently asked by prospective clients to justify the expense for marketing. After all, can't everyone write a press release (no, but this is a subject for another time). It is right, though, that clients expect some return-on-investment for hiring our firm. With so many channels, both new and traditional, and so much clutter for people's attention in the marketplace, what value does WordsWork, or any firm for that matter, bring to the table?
I am grappling with the new rules of delivering on a promise to clients. The burden of proof falls on us practitioners now, more than ever, to substantiate the effectiveness of the marketing, communications and public relations we create for clients has been an integral component of what we deliver. Only natural, you might guess, if you were looking for a consulting firm to create your identity, to deliver sales, get you on The Today Show or to bring in donors, but after all, there are so many other factors involved in the dynamic of your success, particularly in the current economic cycle, that no one in this business can guarantee such outcomes.
In the emerging world of traditional and social marketing, how do we deliver? When you can't control all that is said - the good, the bad and the ugly - via blogging, online posts, company Intranets and all the derivatives is it still true that even bad press is a good thing?
What about the brand? Does style, consistency, medium and message still matter?
Talking about clients today in a way that yields the desired results is no longer about control of the message, or relationships with gatekeepers. WE are the gatekeepers, as is everyone else with a computer and an interest - or a vendetta.
How do other people in the marketing/promotion/advertising/brand-building business answer the question: in the current Web 2.0, how do we get our clients the results they are looking for?
Looking for how clients are choose the firms that deliver - and how fellow practitioners are proving to their clients that they do, in fact, deliver.
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