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General PR Technology PR Web/Tech

How to create a journalist backgrounder in 5 mins with Google

Anyone who has ever spent more than 5 minutes working in the world of PR will almost certainly have had to produce a journalist backgrounder in their time.

This is a document prepared for a client before they meet or are interviewed by a journalist. Although different agencies might tinker at the edges, the basic format has always remained the same – namely:

1. Name, Job title, e-mail, phone number, etc.

2. A brief bio of the journalist eg previous titles worked for, areas of interest, etc.

3. Examples of previous articles – usually the most recent ones, but often, for the sake of completeness, going back over a year or more.

In the past, this has probably ranked as one of the most manual and time consuming tasks undertaken by a PR person (and probably still contributing to the PR industry’s chronic over-servicing issue).

Although the basic contact info would normally be easy to find (though not always), and the bio information would hopefully be reasonably up to date (these days you might consider Wikipedia as a good source of bio info – check these examples for Chris Green at IT Pro and Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC), the bit that could take ages was compiling previous articles. This would normally take the shape of ploughing back through old press clippings, photocopying the relevant ones, compiling a weighty briefing document, and then reading through it all to try and “synopsise” the content for the benefit of the client.

With print content becoming increasingly replicated on the web (and with more original Internet-only material being generated), the time taken for this task can now be drastically reduced with the help of Googe Advanced Search.

For staff journalists, the task couldn’t be easier. Let’s use the example of Cliff Saran at Computer Weekly (no particular reason to single out Cliff – any staff journalist could be used).

Type “cliff saran” site:www.computerweekly.com into Google – back comes all of Cliff’s articles and blog posts. Want to narrow it down? Use advanced search to look back over the last week, month, etc. Want to search for specfic topics or phrases? Simply add them into the search string.

Now, the PR can spend time analysing the content rather than spending most of the time trying to track down the material in the first place. And it doesn’t cost a penny.

But what about freelance journalists who write for a number of different titles? Again, a similar approach can be used – let’s take Danny Bradbury as an example. Type “danny bradbury” into Google. This will bring back a very broad range of results, but the editorial sites are easy to spot. For example, you can see he has written a piece for The Guardian. Typing “danny bradbury” site:www.guardian.co.uk into Google brings back all the articles he has done for the Guardian. Again, you can use advanced search to narrow down over a time period and/or on specific search phrases.

There are some additional benefits to this approach. You can bookmark specific searches for use in future. Even better, why not use a tool such as Diigo to create lists of saved searches that you can share with colleagues (or anyone else you may find relevant). Why not share with clients and allow them to carry out their own reading and analysis of a journalist’s coverage? If agency and client share and compare their findings it should create a far more accurate picture of what a journalist might be interested in.

As soon as I realized that I was able to fall asleep myself Ambien Without a Prescription any outside help, I just stopped taking it.

In short, a journalist backgrounder can be reduced to a series of web links that take no more than five minutes to create. As opposed to a lengthy tome that is time consuming to produce and doesn’t allow for any kind of interactive analysis.

PRs should now be able to focus on value added analysis rather than data collection. It might even go some way to reducing the over-servicing issue – which is no bad thing.

Categories
General PR Technology PR Web/Tech

An open source model for PR?

For a number of years, I ran the UK PR account for MySQL, the ubiquitous open source database (and recently acquired by Sun for $1bn).

In that time, I got to know some very bright people there (not least the inestimable Marten Mickos, MySQL’s CEO), as well as getting first hand insight into an innovative new business model. Back in October 2006, MySQL’s VP of Community Relations Kaj Arno announced the then introduction of MySQL’s Community and Enterprise Editions with a quite telling phrase:

We aim to better serve both categories of MySQL users — those who are willing to spend time to save money, and those who are willing to spend money to save time.”

The parallels with the world of PR are quite similar. The traditional tools that have been employed by many client companies to support their PR efforts are now in many cases free (or at worst, a minimal cost). What is the role of a PR consultancy in a world where many of its traditional services and “black box” solutions are now freely available?

In my view, the answer lies in MySQL’s open source model, transferred to the PR world. Those who are prepared to spend time learning how to use these free (or near free) tools – and share their experience – will benefit from a greatly reduced financial cost. Rather than hoard knowledge, there will evolve an open community of PR practitioners – both agency and client side – prepared to share their experience.

However, there is clearly going to be a demand from client businesses to create solutions more quickly – and they will be prepared to pay for this expertise. PR consultancies will thus move to a paid-for support and

Far fetched? Gentle reader, I welcome your feedback.

Categories
Current Affairs General PR People

Do the public think PRs are liars?

Roy Greenslade at The Guardian has picked up on a new survey that looks at public attitudes to PR:

According to a study by Ciao Surveys, 60.3% of people in Britain believe that PR officers often lie, while only 3.3% are convinced of the opposite. Additionally, only 17.9% of the respondents think public relations have a positive effect on society, against 26.5% who disagree.

Despite these findings, the survey shows that nearly a third of Britons believe the PR industry is a necessary one at 32.7%, as opposed to only 21.1% who believe it to be unnecessary.

Respondents evidently showed a good understanding of the industry because, when asked about their impression of a PR officer’s main job function, they stated it is strongly related to: media relations (49.6%), event planning (18.2%), advertising (9.5%) and word of mouth marketing (7.9%).

According to Ciao, 55.1% of respondents seem to be aware of the symbiotic relationship between the PR industry and the media, as they declared that the two are biased by each other.

Some people recognise that the media are the main vehicles for the PR industry’s messages, with 13.8% believing that up to half of the content in daily newspapers is initiated by public relations, and a sizeable group think up to 80% of the content in consumer magazines is PR-related.

I’m curious to know how the word “lie” is being defined in this context. Do they mean outright untruths or lying by omission? If PRs were uttering outright porkers to the extent the public appears to believe from this survey, I think we’d know about it. I suspect it is more an unspoken distrust of PRs (apparent) attempt to influence by careful selection (and omission) of facts.Recently, I got a problem to fall asleep, I was spinning for a few hours, Ambien Without a Prescription but sleep did not come. I think there is a qualitative difference between simply wanting to put your best case forward and deliberately trying to bamboozle your audience – the latter, surely, an ultimately doomed strategy – the truth will always out.

Categories
General PR

PR is evil. Discuss.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rPQCPwdwHQ]

Categories
General PR Technology PR

How to create a (free) powerful media monitoring and measurement system with Google Reader, RSS, Google Alerts and Blist

Media monitoring is a staple part of PR life. You monitor target media to find out what things are being said about your organisation or client (good, neutral, bad) and you track whether your key messages are getting picked up (or not).

Clearly there can be a lot more to it than this – but generally speaking, this is what most PRs are doing when carrying out media monitoring.

Traditionally, this has been a time consuming and expensive business. You wait for a pile of press clippings to come in, someone has to read, analyse and collate the information – and then distribute in a format that makes sense to people. Often, by the time the analysis is complete, the information is out of date and useless for the purpose of taking action.

As we all know, things are different now – certainly online. And by combining a few free Google tools, any company can create a quite powerful media monitoring system. Here’s how.

First – set up some Google Alerts. These automatically track coverage related to key words or phrases you specify. So you may want to track your own company name, competitors, plus key messages of your own and rivals. Most people using this probably have these alerts e-mailed to them. Even if you set up specfic filters, this can lead to a lot of email to read – and in a format that is hard to analyse or search. Which is why it is very handy that you can choose to receive these alerts as an RSS feed.

Second – use Google Reader to receive these alerts. Getting the alerts via this method has a number of benefits. You don’t get your inbox clogged up with lots of emails (which will happen if you have popular key words or request frequent updates). You can organise the alerts into folders to allow easier reading and analysis. But perhaps the best part is the ease with which you search on saved alerts. So for example if you wanted to see which key messages have been picked up in a particular category, just search. Voila. And you can use other Google Reader facilities to email key coverage to relevant people, share, or “star” for special attention. You may even want to export specific coverage into a database such as Blist where can rank coverage and analyse – as well as share with relevant people.

I know. There is more to media monitoring and measurement than this. And it only covers online (imagine if Factiva provided RSS alerts on keyword searches – then you could cover both on and offline).

I decided to go to https://drbocklet.com/ambien-online/, look for some remedy for calming, the consultant advised Buy Ambien.

But for many organisations (especially SMEs), here is a way to have something in place that won’t cost a penny – other than the time to set it up. And something is better than nothing.

Categories
digital pr General PR tech pr Technology PR Uncategorized Web/Tech

How to start a PR company with Google and a credit card

In 1977, Mark Perry ran a punk fanzine called Sniffin Glue – a defining image from the mag was a hand drawn diagram of finger positions on a guitar for E, A and B7, with the caption: “Here’s three chords. Now form a band.” (Perry himself denies it ever appeared in the publication – but for better or worse, the myth has taken precedence over the reality).

In a similar vein, there is nothing much to stop anyone starting a PR company today – with little more than Internet access and a credit card.

Here’s the FAQ:
1. Do I need an office?

No. If you need to meet people, go to them. If you really feel the need for a business address, then there are plenty of virtual office solutions that won’t break the bank in the early days. Or simply hire meeting rooms as and when you need them.

2. What about a phone?

Use Skype and a mobile (pay as you go if you are on a tight budget)

3. Do I need to own my own computer?

This will probably be your single biggest investment – even so, for PR needs, you could pick up a perfectly serviceable laptop for a few hundred pounds. If you were feeling really bootstrapped, you could get away with simply finding a comfortable internet cafe and paying for your internet access as you go.

4. Do I need my own software?

No. In short, Google is your friend. Using Google Docs gives you free access to a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software.

5. What about a database?

Again, who needs to pay for stuff these days? Try Blist.

6. How do I go about promoting myself?

Build a website. There are plenty of free tools around to do that. Again, you could try Google. Or why not just have a blog as your primary website? And don’t forget LinkedIn.

7. Aren’t there specific services such as PR Newswire, Vocus, etc that no self respecting PR firm should be without?

Not anymore. Name any service that costs a lot of money and you can usually find a lower cost or free alternative. Use Sourcewire for press release distribution. Use Getting Ink Requests to find out about editorial opportunities. Use Google Alerts via RSS to Google Reader and Google Blog Search for monitoring.

8. Don’t I need some kind of fancy intranet?

No. Google Sites will do the trick (some people don’t think it’s much cop, but the point is, it’s free – and at that price, it’s good enough.

9. What about setting up a limited company, VAT, banking, accounting?

Setting up a limited company is quick and straightforward these days – do it yourself, or use a third party. You can apply for the flat rate VAT scheme which removes a lot of the headache. Banking, again, do it online – a number of the banks are offering 2 years free banking now. Accounting – for returns purposes, if you feel confident, do it yourself – or at worst you can get accounting done for a small business at relatively cheap rates these days.

10. I don’t actually know that much about PR – how do I learn?

Well, if journalists are to be believed, the professionals aren’t that good themselves – so you haven’t got much to lose. Even so, there is plenty of good free advice to be found on best practice – try following it and you might even surprise yourself at the results.

Of course, I exaggerate for effect. There are clearly many other factors to consider, However, I believe the general principle is true – namely, that the barriers to entry and potential ongoing running costs of a PR business these days have never been lower. The main constraints are time, energy and imagination. As well as delivering true value added services that clients are prepared to pay for.

Will the spirit of “three chords, now form a band” be reborn in today’s PR environment? Let’s see.

Categories
digital pr General PR Media People tech pr Technology PR Web/Tech

Measuring the ROI of a blog post (or the Law of Unexpected Consequence)

The reaction to my post yesterday about Can Journalists Write Great Marketing Content has been interesting.

It is by no means my most widely read post (my snippet on Mike Magee’s last hurrah for PR gets that honour – though that one clearly benefited from a Stumbleupon recommendation). It has however generated comments from the likes of David Meerman Scott, Sally Whittle and Ian Betteridge. And as my blog posts get automatically posted to the Marcom Professional social network site, others have picked up on it there.

I also had a comment from Joe Pulizzi at Junta42 in the US – I’ve never had any dealings with Joe before, so I took a look at his website – and what do you know, there is some good content there. Indeed, he has a useful e-book on content marketing – which he is happy for people to freely share and distribute – so in the spirit of co-operation, here it is. Get Content, Get Customers – Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett

However, the really interesting feedback to yesterday’s post was in relation to a new business lead. We’d been recommended to someone and arranged to talk to them today. A few days earlier, I’d suggested checking out our website and my blog to get an idea of our approach and ethos. Speaking to our prospect this morning, they remarked how interesting this particular post had been – it also encouraged them to look at David Meerman Scott’s site and gave them a pile of ideas as to how they might approach PR and marketing.

Now at this stage, I’ve no idea if we will win this business or not. But even if we don’t, I’m sure that this person will recommend us to others.

So what has all this got to do with measuring the ROI of a blog post?

First, I hear from a lot of people who are very cautious and sceptical about the value of blogging and its ilk. They want to know what kind of return you will get for investing time and energy in this activity.

The point is, when I wrote this post, I could never have predicted the response it would get (and this is only in the space of 24 hours). My reward for spending, at most, 15 mins reading some RSS feeds and writing the subsequent post could be worth £000s of business. Even if this particular lead goes nowhere, it has helped to enhance our word of mouth reputation a little further. And brought to my attention useful info I probably would never have come across in any other way (and by definition, it brings it to the attention of my readers as well). So a kind of Law of Unexpected Consequence is at play here.

I don’t want to go too overboard about one blog post – but if someone asks you about blog ROI, ask them how they would best maximise 15 mins of their valuable marketing time. And then point them point here.

Categories
digital pr General PR Media Technology PR Web/Tech

Can journalists write great marketing content?

David Meerman Scott clearly thinks so. In his latest post, he says:

“At every speech I give, I suggest one of the best ways to create great Web content is for companies to hire a journalist, either full or part time, to create it. Journalists (print or broadcast) are great at understanding an audience and developing information that buyers want to consume.” (My emphasis).

On a similar subject, Roy Greenslade at The Guardian points to former Sunday Telegraph editor Sarah Sands in her Independent on Sunday column:

“Once I stopped being a newspaper editor, I began to notice a discrepancy between the sorts of things journalists were interested in and what their readers liked. Journalists like crime and politics and sex. Readers care about gardening and, as it turns out, singing. The BBC series The Choir … has been one of the best things on television. There has been little fuss about it in the press, but at the school gates and in the garden centre it is very big news.”

Last year I was discussing an editorial promotion with one of the big financial trade mags – the ad sales guy was giving me the full sales pitch about reader demographics – I asked the editor for the rationale behind the editorial feature our client was being asked to support ie what rational basis did he have for choosing the subject matter. He cheerfully admitted it was “a gut feel” and he didn’t really know much about his readers at all. You could hear the ad guy audibly wince as we decided that perhaps this wasn’t something that we’d recommend our client spending thousands on – given the lack of hard evidence.

In summary, I don’t think journalists are automatically great at understanding audiences (and neither are PR and marketing people for that matter). I’ve often found that when journalists write PR or marketing copy they often produce something they think the customer wants ie full of the jargon and buzzwords they get subjected to themselves. Or when magazines try to do their own PR, it often falls into the traditional cliche they normally deride PRs for.

Truly understanding an audience is a lot harder than most people think – whether you are a journalist or a marketeer. However, proper investment in this area – backing it up with hard analysis and genuine listening – can reap rewards for hacks and flacks alike.

Categories
digital pr General PR tech pr Technology PR Web/Tech

“Embrace digital till it hurts”: Chime Communications CEO

Well, almost. The latest Daryl Willcox digital PR video is now up – and according to Chime Communications CEO Chris Satterthwaite PR agencies should “embrace the digital world so firmly that sometimes some of your clients say you’re almost excluding everything else”.

Couldn’t agree more.

Categories
Business Performance Management General PR

Why PR companies act like 3rd rate direct marketing agencies

Danny Bradbury has been having a problem getting PR companies to use his designated press release e-mail address. In many instances – and in spite of repeated polite requests – some PR firms continue to send press releases to the wrong e-mail address. As Danny says: “Some of these companies are well-intentioned, I’m sure. Judging from the silence, and the continued spray-and-pray press releases blasting to my old address, others simply don’t seem to give a damn.”

He also has had something of an epiphany: “What was interesting for me was the confirmation of something I already suspected — that many companies don’t have central press release distribution lists. They either seem to manage them on a client-by-client basis, or each executive has their own distribution list. This leads to a situation in which getting e-mail addresses changed with PR companies is like turning a supertanker around. It happens very slowly.”

I’d argue there are more fundamental underlying issues of which this problem is actually a symptom rather than the cause. Consider the following:

Q: Who starts PR companies?

A: People who previously worked for other PR companies.

Q: How are PR companies structured?

A: Most often, in pretty much the same way the founders’ previous agencies were structured.

In short, in spite of tinkering at the edges, the basic structure of PR agencies has remained fundamentally unchanged for decades. Here’s the typical PR agency growth pattern. A couple of people working at an existing agency go off to start their own business. Their motivation is usually a mix of feeling undervalued by their current employers and a belief that they could “do things better.” They proceed to start the new business, win some clients and then hire a few people. In spite of their original desire to do things differently, they end up using the one model they are used to – ie the one they got away from in the first place.

In practical terms, this means you end up with different account teams who are incentivised on the basis of the fees their group brings. The company may espouse a philosophy of openness and sharing – but in reality, unless senior management invests in ensuring the right values are understood and adhered to – it tends to encourage information hoarding. So account exec A finds out that journalist X has changed e-mail addresses or wants to be contacted in a certain way. Although he/she should update a centralised database, they keep it to themselves because they think it gives them some kind of advantage over other account groups.

This is clearly dysfunctional behaviour. So why does it continue to happen? There are a number of reasons:

– senior management are happy so long as they hit their revenue targets. So they ignore this dysfunctional behaviour. They will only bother about it when it appears to have a seriously detrimental impact on revenues.

– one of the curious paradoxes of PR companies working in the technology sector is that while they pump out information on behalf of their clients regarding best IT practice, etc, the number of agencies with a robust and properly documented data management strategy is rare.

– the odd journalist like Danny or Chris Anderson might complain about the situation, but until there is a radical revolt by hacks on a wide scale, there is no real motivation to do much about it.

In the end, many PR companies seem to treat press releases and media relations as a form of direct marketing – and do it in such a way that even a 3rd rate direct marketing agency would be embarrassed by. Bog standard things like opt-in, unsubscribe, data protection standards, etc seem to be resolutely ignored by many.

How long can this behaviour last?

As Danny says: “Add to this that most releases seem to be irrelevant to an awful lot of people, and it seems to me that press release distribution, which I suspect is a fundamental revenue generating proposition for many PR agencies, is becoming an increasingly pointless and irritating way of communicating with many journalists. I just wonder how long it will take the PR agencies’ clients to realise it.”

The only thing I’d disagree with here is that press release distribution itself is profitable – it isn’t the distribution that PR companies make money on, but the actual writing of the releases. In order to justify the fees they charge, the easiest thing in the book for an agency to recommend (or to agree with a client to do) is write a press release.

It has to be a key explanation for the volume of irrelevant releases that get sent to journalists.

And it is worth repeating from an earlier post: “leading business journalist Peter Bartram noted that in 2006, a sample of 89 UK tech and business journalists received on average more than 19,100 press releases a week. Put another way, 993,200 per year. According to Bartram, “the vast bulk of these releases, say the journalists concerned, are either irrelevant to their interests or contain no discernible story.”

You can get a feel for the kind of press release hitting journalist in-boxes by looking at Daryl Willcox’s Sourcewire or Response Source. For example, would you put out a press release to “pay tribute” to someone holding down the same job for 5 years? You might if you were the Prime Minister – but a call centre manager?

As Danny says, how long before PR agency clients start to realise what is going on – there is a world of opportunity for those PR firms who are genuinely taking a different approach.