carry oil for squeaky wheels.

Whenever there is an online backlash against a brand or product, one of the first things I hear (or usually read) is a reminder that those voicing concerns aren't a large part, and at times aren't even a significant part, of the overall audience / customer base.

The problem with that line of thinking is, given current technology, those who voice concerns are the groups with the most visibility, and are usually afforded the most credibility.  And that's ignoring the mainstream media's current fascination with anything related to Twitter.

If 4%, or even 0.4% of your customer base is whipping up a frenzy on a social network, it's visible enough to impact a much larger group of customers, or potential customers.

Angry people aren't quiet.  And anybody can be loud, today, if they manage to strike a chord with the right people.

the market for communication is flooded.

[This post is something of a placeholder, transcribing notes I put together for what will hopefully be a somewhat interesting presentation.]

The market for communication is flooded.

Mass is dead or dying, when it comes to building actual relationships. There is no such thing as 'too visible to fail' in an attention economy. There is, however, 'too omnipresent to identify with'.

You might want to consider people.

You are a person, dealing with people. Technology has made it possible (unavoidable) to do a lot of this, ignoring limitations imposed by time or distance. Technology has also added a layer of separation. Meaning and nuance are reduced in comparison to face to face human interaction.

You should take this as a reminder: put as little as possible between yourself, and people you would like to speak, as possible. Things in the way often include: policy, management, NDAs, PR people, fear of transparency, voicemail systems, etc etc etc.

A flooded market means we can be picky. Most of us pick talking to / with a person.

I think there is still a need for communications professionals. But I also think that a trained, informed employee or owner is the best point of contact, not someone who is involved solely as a point of contact. I think it's time to stop pretending that media savvy isn't teachable.

Communications people should be hired for strategy, or input, and for insight. (And then, for connections and THEN in pursuit of coverage.)

The current cycle doesn't reward hype, or launches, or short-term thinking. It rewards community, observation, reaction, and sustained value.

It's not just engagement. It's interaction.

It's communication strategy, more than marketing or PR. Which isn't a chart of impressions, or a clip file, or ROI (Not that these aren't important things). Communication strategy is knowing your community, industry, issues and organization. Knowing what may come. And everyone knowing how to deal with it.

Because (cough, #amazonfail, cough) communication is realtime.

You can't wait until monday morning to let the people who trust you know what's going on. You can't put people, time, or fear between you and your community. You need people on the ground, ready, willing and prepared to act in response to public perception. Which means you need an informed, trained, prepared and updated team. All the time.

A flooded market means that someone else will speak, if you do not.

we are not all the same.

We no longer live in a world where it's okay to ignore the extremes and the outliers.  If you can't provide information in a suitable format, with a suitable level of detail, to the right people, you can't connect with anyone.

My mother is an educator, currently working with children who face difficulties learning.  Last night, we went out to dinner, and had a truly great conversation, dealing with one of the core problems with education; the impossibility of creating a learning situation that isn't too slow for some people, and too fast for others.

This hits close to home, as I was in an accelerated program in grade school and high school, and generally felt that education came in two speeds: so slow it was boring, or completely self directed, as many teachers seemed to assume that kids in an accelerated program didn't require any guidance.

As a result of this, and (I'm sure) an innate tendency, I was a lazy student until I reached the mid-point of high school.  I reflect on these issues regularly, especially when I'm dealing with information delivery, or preparing materials for public consumption.

We're at a point where not only do you need to produce content at every key level of complexity and detail, but also tailored and distributed to the audience and community that is going to interact with it.

This doesn't mean giving the good information to newspapers, and less detailed stuff to new media producers.  It means tailoring the kind of information, and the presentation, to the audience at hand.  You will find people of more or less equal intelligence in any network.  What you won't find is a blurb of text that is equally dynamic on a facebook fan page, as it is coming across in 140 character blasts on twitter.

Tailoring isn't just for direct outreach.  It's for your presence in distinct communities, and distinct modes of communication.  Speaking to people with an understanding their idiom, at their speed, is the only way you can truly connect with them.

Thanks, Mom.

weaponized transparency.

When I think of the future of PR, at least part of what comes to mind deals with every individual in the company being a potential representative for what they do. Information is becoming more personal, and frankly, most interested parties would rather speak to the person responsible for the subject at hand, than speak to the person responsible for speaking to interested parties.

I'm looking forward to seeing a company use transparency as a weapon, both to encourage the best from employees, and to improve image and increase engagement.

Jumping on the bandwagon of the moment, I think the easiest way to do this would be to put the entire company on Twitter. Keep a company directory of accounts (personal or individual business accounts) with people following the rest of their group/department, and the people they are connected to on the ORG chart. The big positions would get followed by everyone, and follow, at the very least, all managers and directors, but preferably the entire company. Projects and divisions would have pre-determined hashtags.

The directory would be made public, available to people outside the company. And employees would be encouraged to use the system to communicate tasks, difficulties, scheduling, ideas, questions, concepts, irritations, etc. I recently compared Twitter to telepathy - imagine knowing what the guy in the next cube is worried about, without delay. Imagine knowing that your staff is all having the same issue, at different times. Imagine knowing what your organization is thinking.

Moreover, a certain (positive) panoptic effect kicks in. People who know they are being watched police their own behaviour. I can't imagine a company that uses public tweets as a major element of internal communications going Enron. I can't imagine anyone who is aware they are representing themselves, and their company, knowingly acting like an ass.

People suck less when they know they can be held accountable for their actions. This is the real essence of transparency - knowing that you can be, and will be, held accountable for what you do. This is the magic. Accountability makes people think before they act. Accountable people try to be great, at least more often than people who feel invisible.

I haven't yet mentioned the benefit of directed, asynchronous communication in a group of people who interact mostly between tasks. Or the benefit of a clear view of communications as it happens withing a group, that you can go back and observe. Or the value of watching your employee ecosystem, and changing strategy based on the patterns that emerge. Or the opportunity that random ideas emerging from the group represents. Or...

From a PR standpoint, this is the best nightmare ever. This much accountability, on an individual level, means that everyone has to be educated on the responsibility they now bear. Everyone needs to be trained in how to conduct themselves appropriately, within reasonable guidelines. The culture needs to change, to reflect a dedication to this level of transparency.

But companies would become more real. More trusted. When the truth is visible in tiny component parts, when the sub-units of meaning and message are visible to be interacted with and dissected, companies become, perceptually, what they are in reality: collections of people, with a common purpose. Given the amount of work that is done 'humanizing' companies, or emphasizing the role of caring individuals in the process, it's clear this is a priority. Fighting against the anonymity of people is going to be the most important part of the next type of company establishing itself as vital.

Put bluntly, the future has a sign on the door that reads 'No Cogs Allowed', and demands that every individual be unique and valuable, and be treated that way.

This is not the type of business that anyone is used to, or prepared for. But it's the kind of business that would best reflect the changes in society. Each individual being a point of contact, directly engaging with the public, is the way things are going to be. For now, and for a bit longer, we can relegate that role to a specific few. That won't be the case forever. Engaging interested individuals is going to be part of everyone's job description soon enough. PR, and other communications roles, are going to be about education, strategy, and facilitation. Which, if you're doing them right, they already should be.

I could not be more excited about the potential of working for a company where EVERYONE has to think about how their actions will look to the public. Because most of us should already be thinking about that, and too few of us are.

post-scarcity communication.

[My understanding of the relationship between scarcity and conflict has always been fairly straight forward. Conflict occurs when scarcity necessitates competition for a resource. This happens with land, with food, with money, significant others, etc. If there is one of something, and two people want it, conflict ensues. As such, I've always idealized the concept of a post-scarcity reality. While there are a bunch of ideas associated with the concept of the singularity, the hope of living in a post-scarcity society is the one that interests me the most.]

I recently started flirting with the idea that we have reached a post-scarcity state in the western world, in regards to human-to-human communication. (I'm intentionally not getting into advertising messages, here.)

With email, text messaging, twitter, facebook, blogs, phones, voicemail, call waiting, snail mail, email, instant messaging, skype, MMS, and so on, there are so many means of communication, instant or asynchronous, visual or auditory or both, tied to no specific location, that often the only justifications for not contacting someone are forgetfulness, avoidance or time-scarcity, which is more or less ranking other activities above communicating with the person in question.

This becomes clear when asked why you didn't invite someone along, or ask their opinion before making a choice - when pressed, often the only answer is 'I didn't think to' or 'I didn't want to', very rarely can one honestly respond that it was impossible.

Reaching a post-scarcity state in communication has the effect of intensifying conflict in relation to time-scarcity. By making a decision to not contact someone, you are in essence making the decision that other activities outrank communication with that individual.

This means that failing to respond, react, reach out and share concepts, thoughts and ideas is no longer excusable. If something is important, and not addressed, it is because you have chosen other tasks above addressing it, or you have simply chosen not to.

Post-scarcity communication means you aren't allowed to be too busy, or distracted, or out of reach when opportunity or crisis appears.

No one is going to believe "couldn't be reached for comment" unless you have a very unusual situation that can be clearly demonstrated.

Keep that in mind as you go about your business.

information distribution: pr as arg.

Getting back to the concept that started 2009 for the blog, I've been looking at NOTCOT's recent posts related to the promotion for Coraline.

I'm convinced the future of the press kit is creating an experience that appeals to both press and the general community, and then allowing both groups to create a dialogue that further explores the related product or event.

Some people (usually not working in PR) would like to pretend that the mainstream media will stop being essential at some point in the future.  I think the value of our industry, moving forward, is creating opportunities for the community to interact with and influence the mainstream media.  For the public to relate to the story, the public has to relate to the people telling it.  Why not put them on the same team?

Looking at these Coraline 'boxes' I imagine sending something similar out, in a slightly different way.  Imagine sending 50 boxes, out of order, to media outlets - and then another 100 or 200 out to individuals who has expressed an interest in the film, whether through subscribing for updates to the website, or participating in a contest for free tickets.

The media outlets with a broad reach would act as a teaser.  They could create interest in the campaign as a whole, and a starting point for those involved.  The packages would clearly need to contain actual information about the product, and further interviews, information, etc, would need to be made available to satisfy the requirements most journalists have, information-wise.  As well, the assumption has to be made that journalists would (and should) break the fourth wall.  That said, the presentation of information informs how it is discussed (the medium is the message, etc).

The story (from a journalistic standpoint) is part of the story (from a narrative standpoint).

Individuals seeded with the similar press packages would interact with news stories on a standard level, but hopefully also as a presentation of information that would help them navigate the wider narrative of the campaign.  Similar things are happening now, mostly using websites and blogs as a means of reaching media while maintaining a narrative.

I guess the dream is a fully integrated promotional strategy that is part of, and an expansion on, the core narrative.  Trailers, commercials, print advertisements, release schedules, public appearances - all of these could be used to further the narrative, as well as to create audience interest.  Media relations strategy could easily be a part of the overall narrative, rather than just the promotional one, and therefore part of the community generated narrative.

Of course, this is all vague, and reads (and is written) more like a plea to consider things differently than a directive.  I'm okay with that, and I hope you are too.

pr as arg.

To me, the future of PR is in the mass narrative.  Not the official company line, or in the image generated by a specific piece of coverage, but in the collage created by every mention a company gets, whether from the New York Times or a rarely read WordPress blog. 

To work with this future, a company needs to do whatever it can to use it’s stance as a source of information and the authority on itself, to influence the attitudes and associations that the community attaches to the brand itself.

I’ve asserted before that I don’t consider myself someone who works in a media role, I consider myself someone who works with narratives.  This isn’t to say I craft narratives like an author, my function is more of a curator – I take facts, elements of a story, and make them available, either publicly or to specific interested parties in the media.  Through this, I exercise a small amount of influence (but not control) over the public perception of a brand.

I don’t write words on a page.  I encourage the development narratives across society, traditionally through media outlets.  (Or at least, I do when things work well.)

My vision for the future of PR is communication strategy modeled after an Alternate Reality Game.

I’ve spoken about ARG’s before, as a method of advertising and building engagement with a brand or product.  However, I think the same concepts can be shifted slightly, and put to use to engage the public, and share information with them, in a way that is mutually beneficial to community and brand.

I’ll add to this in the future, but here are some starting concepts:

Information Seeding:  Giving information to engaged parties instead of just widely read media outlets.  I wouldn’t suggest massive exclusives, but any company that would share information about upcoming offerings through a forum they did not own, and for no reason other than knowing the community there would care, stands a decent chance of building loyalty and interest in the products / services they offer.

Cumulative Narrative:  The whole story comes from learning about the individual elements, rather than an official line published somewhere, that omits defining information.  If people want to learn about what you do, they should be able to look at any element of your business and understand the core values that drive the overall brand.  Be defined by every part of your reality, not just the parts you think of as ‘media friendly’.  (This also suggests that you should have a reality you are comfortable with from every angle, not just the ones you consider ‘media facing’).  More importantly, people who care SHARE information.  The main thing that PR can learn from ARG’s is that a community that informs itself is more efficient, and generates more engagement, than official sources alone can.

Discrete Sub-Narratives:  Create more points of entry, and explore the stories within each story.  There’s no reason to share any information that would damage your business, but why shouldn’t every key feature of what you offer have it’s own point of contact for interested parties?  Off the top of my head, a ‘production blog’ for each key team building part of an interesting whole allows a community a better chance to find something that interests them, and a greater understanding of why they should care.  As mentioned before, each of these elements builds into a greater whole, which, if necessary, can be summarized (think social media optimized press releases).

‘Playing Fair’:  This is more related to any mystery story, but it’s a key point.  Narratives that play fair offer enough information that readers can come to reasonable conclusions.  A narrative that doesn’t play fair comes to a conclusion that no amount of rational speculation would have come to.  Playing fair encourages speculation.  While companies like Apple can generate speculation through secrecy, leaks drive the interest of the crowd.  If you control the flow of your own information, you can create a connection with the community.  And they can make themselves a part of your narrative.

Players Direct the Game:  The best narratives build and change with the ideas the crowd generates.  I’m not suggesting changing your brand at the whim of the crowd, but if people are interested in a specific element of what you do, release more information about it.  If there is a large concentration of interest in a specific geographical area, arrange a small event and spread information around discreetly.

The core concept of all this is to learn from the best example we currently have of telling a directed narrative through (and not TO) a large number of interested parties.  I’m going to try to go deeper into this, and expand on each element I mentioned (as well as a few others) in the coming weeks.

8 things from 08: everyone hates PR (but me).

A recurring theme I noticed in 2008 is that everyone hates what I do.

I blogged a lot about PR this year, sometimes thinking about what I could and should do differently, sometimes arguing that it's as valid as ever, and sometimes just feeling like crap as wave after wave of people I respect deemed it irrelevant.

I'm starting to think it's becoming more relevant by the second, but that most practitioners haven't figured out that the scope of what we do is broadening by the minute.  A good media strategy is no longer about carefully massaged press releases, embargoed review products, pre-packaged interviews, and a dependence on traditional media outlets.  Public Relations and Media Relations are quickly becoming the same this, as more and more of the media is generated by the public.

I've come to expect reactions from mainstream media ranging from honest appreciation to outright hostility, with flat out avoidance and mild distaste somewhere in-between.  I've also gotten past the point of taking this personally, and instead look at it as instructive.  This is something to fix, something to work around, not something to blame on things I can't change.

I'm consistently excited by these challenges, and a little terrified by them.  I'd rather be in an industry in a state of flux than one which risks becoming stagnant, however, like anyone else, I wonder if I'll recognise what comes out the other side of the paradigm shift.

I love what I do.  I hate things about how it's done.  But I got a lot more excited about my career in 2008, despite people telling me it's unimportant or destructive.  PR is getting more social, more honest, more strategic, and bigger, in my view of 2009.  From a communication strategy junkie perspective, 2008 was a great year to watch, learn, and plan.

i don't do press, i do narratives.

I've loved narrative for as long as I can remember.  I used to drive my mother crazy because I would read rather than do anything else.  Until I was 22 or so, my only career aspiration was novelist.

Narratives are the most important thing in getting attention, interest, audiences and markets.

I was never the kind of writer who planned everything out.  I developed my characters, a situation, some undefined ideas, and went to it.  Writing was a process of discovery.  I can't do that anymore.

PR isn't just about arranging press coverage.  It's about developing a narrative, and exploring and expanding it through the media.  This is a hell of a lot more complicated, because you need to plan around the unexpected actions of others, the trends that dominate the marketplace, upcoming changes in those trends, the personalities of your stakeholders, the tangents that drive away from the actual narrative, and, of course, the truth (which is essential, immutable and unavoidable).

I'm spending a lot of time crafting, developing, and planning the narratives I manage and create now.  It's very rewarding, in a very similar way to how writing fiction was.  If anything, it feels like a particularly complex version of the same, but rooted in truth and the real world.

Because your brand, your narrative, is no longer up to you in the post-internet world.  All you can do is create the set of concepts, framing, ideas and narrative that best defines your product and goals, while planning around the nearly limitless number of things the newly infinite citizen media can do with it.

It would be terrifying if it wasn't so much fun.

social media still needs the broadcast model.

It all comes from somewhere.  People want buzz in social media, and generally they think the obvious solution is to 'go Viral', as though this is something predictable or simple to replicate.  Social media is supposed to bread the broadcast model, but what we keep forgetting is that social media, in the large scale sense that communications pros and companies want, is based on the broadcast model.

The big blogs are either original works or commentary.  They disseminate to smaller blogs, and to sites like Digg and Reddit, generally the same way Newspapers would disseminate into real world conversations.  Many of the things that become comment peices are linkblogged from larger, more established sources.  Sure, the timing is faster, but it works the same as it always did - sources with the biggest audience generally trickle down into the sources with smaller audiences.

There are major differences and advantages in the results - blog and Digg coverage results in a fast online paper trail, google results, more impressions, etc.  For the reader, trickling down into blogs results in stories being approached from more varied and specific viewpoints.  But, if you want blog coverage, if you want social media relevance, the major ingredient beyond having a topic that is relevant to social media, is targeting and getting covered by the big boys.

This is what amuses me to no end about being told, constantly, that PR is dead, is useless, is irrelevant.  Half the time someone will say this, and within a week, link a story from the New York Times, or Marketing Magazine, or Fast Company, or a youtube clip from MSNBC.  Cognitive dissonance is an odd thing to watch writ large.

Social media has changed the game, certainly.  And approaching large entities online that operate on the broadcast model is not the same as contacting traditional media outlets.  But assuming that things that reach the largest number of people are less important at a time when things are breaking down into smaller, more specific conversations forgets the key element of having a topic.

And topics come from shared experience.

in (further) defense of public relations.

The Long Version:

Newsmedia, and Journalism, isn't the paragon of ethics it pretends to be. This massive concentration of power is in the hands of business interests, like anything else. Journalists are influential, intelligent, and often have an agenda, whether based on personal opinions or editorial mandate. A careful twisting of an off the cuff statement has the potential to do massive damage to a reputation and business, without necessarily crossing the boundaries of libel or slander. PR has an image problem. PR has a lot of catching up to do with developing media, and the changing way people get information. PR will be necessary as long as there is a concentration of influence among media outlets that may be biased, because individuals will always try to protect their personal interests, including their image.

The Short Version:

Everyone thinks the world would be better without Lawyers, too, until they actually consider what the law would look like without individual representatives.

fake follow = fail feed.

Reading PSFK today I saw a post about Fake Follow, a feature on FriendFeed that makes me supremely uneasy.

What amuses me, is that this is getting positive feedback so soon after the 'PR is evil' meme showed up.

Social media is supposed to run on a principle of honesty, I'm so often told. We're supposed to connect on a personal level, even if it's mediated. Sharing, caring, etc. Fake Follow is more or less designed to create the impression of a connection, without the upkeep that a true connection would require.

This is sad, because the amount of effort necessary to maintain a single connection online is comparably negligible, when you take a look at relationships that exist in meatspace.

Social media is about relationships. If you get angry when outsiders step in, and either attempt to game the system, or to interfere without an understanding of how those relationships work, you should be fairly disgusted with the idea of something like Fake Follow. If you want the connection, you should be willing to listen to what that person has to say. Transparency, in things like this, is only reasonable.

Otherwise, you're campaigning for the fake web. You're asking for the least desirable, most charicatured aspects of the media industry to take precedence over the concepts behind social networking.

This may be the reason FriendFeed, which I hear so much about, has such minimal penetration in comparison with the hype. The people this would appeal to most are the people who are the notable pundits who love FriendFeed so much - the people who aren't actually participating in social media anymore.

passive promotion; or, i want hyperdunks.

[This is very much an example of blogging as talking out an idea.  Sorry if it meanders.]

I love creative advertising.  A great idea, something original well executed, ceases to become advertising to me - it becomes content.  Great content is watched, shared, etc.  But such a small portion of advertising reaches this level.

Which brings me to passive promotions.  Product placement, gift lounges, product seeding, etc.  Letting the presence and value of a thing speak for itself.  Product placement is valuable, but most often I find I think of it in terms of 'ways to keep television afloat despite rampant bittorrent downloads'.  This is a failing on my part.

If advertising is about creating awareness and interest, on-the-street visibility is priceless.  my question is why poorly done, low budget traditional advertising isn't almost always replaced by careful seeding.  Gifting lounges have been brought to consumer level in other countries already, letting random people from the street visit and test products, in hopes of creating word of mouth and interest.  While this isn't suitable for everything, it's suitable for something.

While lots of people will attack advertising because it represents a point of view, and offers something to be countered, the only arguments against free product are based on the quality, ethics, and environmental effects of what is offered, other than knee-jerk hate from the Adbusters crowd who sees an enemy behind any commercial offering.

This wouldn't be worth anything to many companies.  But, Nike consistently has the best advertising in the world, from a creativity, ingenuity, and beauty standpoint.  And I didn't want a pair of Hyperdunks until I saw the Chinese and American Olympic basketball teams squaring off in them.

Passive promotion is the simplest response to the army of people who like to pretend they aren't affected by marketing.  All it takes is a product that speaks for it self, and a well planned means of introduction.

pr, journalism, blogs, and going off on a tangent.

Email made it too easy.

As soon as you could build a list of contacts, reach each one of them seemingly individually, and fire everything at them instantaneously, building a tight, targeted, well maintained list fell off most PR firms radar - and, depressingly, with good reason.  If you can send out a loosely targeted blast, and then follow up with a series of tightly, carefully targeted pitches, it's possible to get more results for a minimally greater amount of work.

But it involves a lot of risk, because PR is a reputation and relationship business.  Now, though irritated, traditional media journalists have learned to tolerate this.  While reporting may be a vocation, a calling, and an integral part of identity, in the end it's a job, done to secure the means of live a comfortable life.

Blogs are different.  The majority of them don't result in rich writers, and the ones that are centered on a personality/brand rather than a brand, and then hired personalities, are as much identity as work.  If you email a blogger, there's a good chance it's at the address his friends email him at.  If you ignore his published history, you aren't ignoring the last 6 weeks of his work, you're ignoring the last 6 weeks of his ideas, conclusions, and concepts.  Blogs are more personal.  At least, based on my experience blogging and my interactions with journalists.

The long and short is, blogging is comparatively new, influential, and generally not willing to conform to the rules of the game as it is played.  There is both more (in a personal sense) and less (in a financial sense) on the line.  What amuses me is, the journalists who will get high and mighty about the importance of their industry in a proper democracy are usually half as uptight about freedoms and independence as bloggers who cover the same information.  And, those same journalists are twice as uptight about standards, sourcing, and credibility of the reportage.

I realize I wrote bitterly yesterday about the quarterly crucifixion of PR at the hands of the social media punditerati, and I don't really think I was wrong.

But if I'm going to expect new media publishers and creators to accept that there is a lot of good in my industry despite failings, I'm also going to have to ask PR to recognize that expecting anyone they interact with to behave the same, despite the differences in mandate, delivery, drives and accountability, is insane.

The right message, in the right way, to the right person.  Sounds so damn easy, but it's also more or less the only question in communication theory, asked a thousand different ways.

in defense of public relations.

In what is a fairly common occurrence, the blogosphere hates PR this week.

This is going to come off defensive, as PR is what I do for a living, but I feel like two things need to be brought to light.

My mother is a teacher, and her and I have a fairly regular argument regarding the children she works with.  She consistently argues that the internet has ruined research skills in the generation of kids she currently works with.  I argue that the failure isn’t based on the internet, it’s a failure to teach children research skills that relate to the research tools that are relevant to them.

This came to mind when I was reading about the Cuil fiasco, and chuckled when people blamed overzealous PR, etc, for the fact the bloggers, print media, and television collectively went crazy over an experience that is more or less completely underwhelming.

If the situation has changed, and you’re having trouble delivering results, blaming someone else isn’t the solution to the problem.  If you work in a journalistic capacity, you are supposed to be the gatekeepers.  If you can’t fulfill that role, you probably shouldn’t be blaming someone for providing information that led you in the wrong direction.  Update your skill set, so you can judge what is worth covering, and how to cover it.

That said, there’s no excuse for PR reps that out and out lie.  No one, especially not the clients, is helped by that.

The other thing I’ve noticed, despite everyone complaining about PR, is that traditional media journalists complain about PR the way I complain about taxes.  I hate paying them, but I recognize they serve an important purpose.  That said, I get irritated when my taxes are wasted, or used against my own beliefs.

More often than not, it seems like bloggers complain about PR the way a 15 year old complains about curfew - they have something resembling the point, but they irritatingly ignore every positive aspect, and would rather throw the entire industry out with the bath-water than learn to work with the practitioners who get it, and the aspects which are positive.

PR has an image problem.  A serious one.  That’s something I look forward to working against.  Pretending PR has become irrelevant, however, because there is an ever larger number of unofficial information sources to parse, makes no sense whatsoever.

Signal is noise, because anyone with an opinion can publish.  Crafting valid, relevant signals, as getting them in front of the right people, is what I do.  Done well, that’s inarguably valuable.  But only done well, and with an understanding of how the game is changing.

nike+ human race.

Nike’s Human Race is probably the best promotion I’ve heard of this year.  This is fairly unsurprising, considering it’s directly tied to Nike+, a joint product of Nike and Apple, the two greatest media machines in the corporate world.

The premise is dead simple.  You’ve got an army of people, running all over the world, using the Nike+ product to track their progress, training against themselves day after day.  You use the product, and the behaviour they’ve integrated into their daily lives, and you make it a marathon, run individually, tracked over the software.  A global event that has no costs tied directly to the physical event.  Just aggregating the data that’s already being tracked and stored, creating a central side for participants to visit, and donating some of the massive advertising budget to publicize the event.

I personally have only heard about it through local radio, but I don’t see why it would need to be a huge media blitz, considering the only participants are those who already use the Nike+ system, and are therefore accessible through that channel.

This is what the internet is for: taking people from different areas, with different experiences, and reminding them that they are indeed connected.  Attaching that feeling of connectedness with your product, which the consumer has already connected to a physical pursuit, and achievements related to that pursuit, furthers the long, impressive history of Nike crafting itself as something people want to be associated with for competitive, social, and quality reasons.

That, and really, a global crowd-sourced marathon called the Human Race is more or less guaranteed to get my attention.

starbucks, personalization, and brand as signal.

Starbucks is, to put it lightly, in a wee bit of trouble.

What they have on their side, is a rabid customer base, who sees the brand as a reflection of their own taste and sophistication.  Lots of people who love starbucks would argue with me about this, but I’d bet the majority of them take some form of pride in being able to order their quad long non-fat venti no-foam caramel macchiato.

Starbucks should draw attention to this type of customer, and this specific skill, in it’s promotions.

A simple idea:

Run a contest inviting customers to submit their own drink modifications, combinations, etc.  The things you can do when you actually know the Starbucks menu and ordering process are pretty interesting.  Let people enter a drink of choice, or if you really want to go overboard, create a Facebook application that makes the ‘signature drink’ a badge on their profile.

Get some big wigs at Starbucks headquarters, or some high profile Starbucks fanatics (there are a lot of them out there) to test out 10 selections, and pick a winner.  Prizes are fairly easy, maybe a trip for 2 to Seattle, your signature drink added to the menu at the Pike Place location for the duration of your trip, and your chosen ‘home’ Starbucks location for a year.

This wouldn’t cost much, but considering the amount of press it could generate based on 1) the number of people addicted to Starbucks in some capacity or another, and 2) the celebrity connection Starbucks has developed, it seems like a solid investment with a probable high return.

The key points here are recognizing the potential for personalization in the brand, and recognizing the need for each location to serve as an anchor point for its customers.  I fully admit that’s why I was at Starbucks last night, and will probably be there tonight.

social media relations (practice)

Social Media Relations is, first and foremost, not about you, or your brand, or what you have decided is cool, or what you offer. It’s about learning from, and fostering relationships with, communities that already have an interest in your product. It’s about connecting with communities that already have an interest in what you do, and using that interest to build a kind of partnership.

SMR reps in online communities would exist as a resource. They would offer ‘insider’ information to the interested, clear up misconceptions, and generally only speak when spoken to. They offer support when acceptable, but do not attempt to take control.

Most important, they observe, learn, and explain. Observe how each community works. Learn what they think. Explain to brands and corporations what the people they should be focusing on think, want, and how they interact with the product in question. This is mutually beneficial, and gives a utility to a role that would otherwise be too easily subverted into an attempt at control.

This isn’t about sponsorship. It’s an idea based around the idea that adding value to a community is worth more than owning the community. It’s about allowing the people who are most engaged, who matter most, to interact with an offshoot of a brand they care for. This means providing information, and content, that they can interact with and remix. I’m not talking about crowd sourcing – this isn’t an attempt to farm out content creation to generate authenticity. The only benefit that the brand should want out of this is a happy, engaged community, and the opportunity to understand the core consumer base.

Not owning or sponsoring these communities is key, because the second money enters the equation, brands start to silence criticism and dissent. That only has two outcomes; either the community is destroyed, or the brand throws away opportunities to learn and innovate. Dealing positively with criticism is proof that you ACTUALLY value your consumers, instead of just valuing the free PR, and the brand evangelism. It’s essential that it isn’t your garden, or the temptation to wall it off will be overwhelming.

Bounce ideas of your community. Run concept sketches by them. Don’t give them decision-making power (that feels, and is, gimmicky), but use the resource they provide to make better decisions yourself. Link them from the official site, but only if they want that.

This isn’t about preaching to the converted. It’s about welcoming them into the fold without trying to change them. It’s about elevating the status of the converted in terms of the brand / consumer relationship.

And it should be happening on every platform that has an engaged community that cares about what you offer. Because you shouldn’t care about anything more than understanding who you are dealing with, and who you are creating for.

This post is a continuation of Social Media Relations (Rationale)

social media relations (rationale)

I’ve mentioned recently that public relations is an industry in flux. PR is in large part based on the dominance of the current media paradigm, and the core strategies are nearly completely top-down in focus. We (the royal we) don’t have a standard for approaching social media, and online communities. It shows.

While systems like the Facebook beacon are interesting, they are also inherently invasive, and create notable discomfort within a community. This is because, at core, we don’t have a model for participation in these communities. Instead, we have systems for exploitation, and colonization.

The average participant in an online community, whether it be a message board, virtual world, chat room or social network, is able to spot the difference between a participant and an interloper. The problem is, media still have it in their head that influence is created by brute force. This is one of the first mistakes I discussed on this blog – signal as noise – the way everyone with a message thinks getting louder is the key to being heard.

Social media is built on participation by equals, and the promise of meritocracy. The standard plan thus far has been to use real-world money and influence to buy a position that a user would have to earn, or could not attain, in a virtual world. Our problem is that we either take too much of a role in these communities, and attempt to shape them, or take too little of a role, for fear of causing a revolt. There has to be a middle ground, building on the tradition of information facilitation, and building relationships.

I’ve described public relations as getting someone you trust to tell you something we’d like you to hear. This is traditionally done by building media interest, and piggybacking on that inherent trust – a newspaper has built in credibility, and built in trust – to ensure that the information you receive has been vetted by professionals. The issue is that people are increasingly aware that professionals are not all that difficult to influence.

The difference between what I see, and what I’m suggesting is the separation between colonization and diplomacy. Take second life for an example – IBM, American Apparel, etc. talked to Linden, built custom store fronts that offered little to no utility, and basically received the online version of anti-gentrification response. This was inarguably an invasion – regardless of brand messages or reputation, this was the real world saying ‘You’ve created a new market, we don’t understand it, but we want it.’

The opposite approach, in my mind, is the Second Life Sketches that Warren Ellis writes for Reuters. This was something that isn’t about Ellis, or Reuters. It was about SL, and examining what made it special, and what made it worthwhile. It creates, I’d argue, a positive relationship between SL and Reuters. It’s not a one sided attempt to capitalize on what people do in world, everyone benefits.

Diplomacy is about envoys, understanding, and (despite modern real world happenings) shouldn’t involve strong-arming anyone. Brand or Personality envoys should be clearly identified, at be at a level that doesn’t give them special benefit over regular participants in an online community. This is the one thing Facebook has done beautifully with Fan Pages – an opt in system that offers brands a place to connect that is separate, and less full featured, than a personal profile. Brands are not part of the Community. The Community is paramount.

If brands want inroads into a community, I’d suggest they approach from this angle. Have people tasked to work in online communities, clearly labeled as representatives of the brand, and clearly identified as real people. No special treatment, no arguing, no misinformation. Just offer facts, links to useful information, and when suitable, special offers, benefits, etc.

Sponsorship is all well and good, and creates positive associations. But I’d imagine better ones come together when influencers are left to their own devices, and representatives come in when they can offer something useful. (Swag, information, access to that which is normally not available)

The most important advice I can offer is that, in an online community, it’s never about the brands involved, never about the sponsor, never about the platform. It’s about the community. If you can’t provide value to that community, you are an interloper. Your actions will be deemed disruptive, and the community will associate that action with the people and things you represent.

This post is continued in Social Media Relations (Practice)

public relations and the future.

A month and a half ago, someone asked me what I do on this website. I gave him an answer that was accurate, but felt insufficient. Something to the tune of 'I blog about media and strategy, focusing on the stuff that interests me - trends, change, etc', but less articulate.

At this point in my life, PR is what I do. I love parts of it - the writing, discovering a good angle, building relationships and creating strategy. There are parts of it I don't love - the reputation the industry has in some circles, and the grind aspect to some of it. But the only thing that worries me about Public Relations is that it doesn't seem to have much of a plan for the future, and I don't want to end up in another music industry.

PR is heavily reliant on old media. TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio. Each and every one of these is in the midst of some kind of decline, weather in earnings, in relevance, or in audience. And most of them have less than no plan for what comes next. TV is still scrambling to understand that it doesn't matter how or where people watch you shows, just that they get watched (advertising strategy should be shaped by viewing patterns, not the other way around). Newspapers are ignoring the one advantage they have (respect for their status) and are hacking away at journalists and fact checkers, and trying to emulate blogging in an attempt to stay relevant. Magazines still have validity, but haven't really defined a new space for themselves - they've just avoided the need to panic quite as totally thus far. Radio is more important as a means of connecting an iPod to a car stereo than it is as a medium. Internet radio is well on it's way to being killed, and that's coming from someone who's hopeful.

All of this means, more or less, that PR needs a redefined role. It isn't just about industry attention or media coverage, but those have been the major doorways to public attention and ubiquity for a long time.

The short version of my point? Most PR firms don't have a solid strategy for social media. This isn't shocking, it's been shown time and again that most advertising firms, and most marketing firms don't either. The difference is, PR is ABOUT social media, in a very inherent way. An advertiser wants you to see things, and develop an interest in them. PR wants your friend to want you to care about the thing they care about at the moment. It's different routes to the same place - PR has the benefit of trust (whether warranted or not) in media outlets.

Old media outlets are losing ground to individuals and new media very quickly.

The core of what I do on brokengent is look at this approaching problem, although I definitely didn't think of it that way when I started. I had no aspirations of being in PR at the time, but I happily stumbled into it. If PR has a future, it's in learning how to deal with social media, as a facilitator, but not as an irritant.

Bloggers hate PR intrusion, usually. I can see why, as much as I dislike the fact. Part of it comes to the same reason people hate Marketers and Ad People. Sometimes we have to represent something that isn't (at least on the surface) what people want. It's easy to generate interest and buzz for something that is desired. At those points, PR is one of the best businesses in the world, because all you do is explain, discuss, and nurture. If someone cares, you give them more information to care about, more context. I love this, PR as a form of cultural curation. It only works with trust.

It's more complicated than I'm making it seem. Sometimes the wrong person is spoken to about the wrong product, and efforts come across as selfish and lazy. Sometimes efforts are selfish and lazy, based more on a desire to get to as many as fast as possible, rather than helping to build relationships. But personal experience tells me that individuals, especially online, don't really trust the PR person, for any longer than it takes to get the new toy or experience before the regular public.

The problem comes when the pressure from up top, as found in old media orgs, no longer keeps an uneasy truce between both sides. The problem is that not being trusted as a starting point is instant fail in social media in online communities.

I recently updated my little 'about' blurb with the following: 'everyone has a voice, so you need strategy that can anticipate any number of contradictory stakeholders, while maintaining a consistent message and meaning across media.'

PR, as an industry, needs to learn how to be a valuable member in online communities, consistently. We need to serve both clients, and the population. We need to do it in a way consistent with the meaning and values of each community. Anyone who can't or won't do both is going to have a hard time in the coming years, and this applies to Advertising and Marketing as well. PR, more than related industries, is reliant on the current media iteration. And we need to start planning for when it shifts.

So, this is what we do here. Hope that clears things up.