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Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Hat-tip Todd Andrlik.

Good job (as always), Lee.

Posted by Todd Defren at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the team at Hubspot that brought you the fabulous WebsiteGrader, now you can apply the same principles to your press releases (including your Social Media Releases, ‘natch). 

Press Release Grader is a free tool designed to help PR pros and marketers maximize a press release so it can be found more easily by media, bloggers, customers and prospects.

I’ll admit that at first I was a bit concerned by HubSpot’s approach: forgetting about their genuine good intentions, I worried that many people will use Press Release Grader as an excuse to overweight SEO in their approach to press release development. 

However, while Press Release Grader can help ensure that your document is SEO-friendly, that’s not the service’s sole raison d’etre. 

For example, one of my favorite features is the “Gobbledygook Score” a.k.a. the B.S. Detector.  The Gobbledygook Score is reason enough to put your release through its paces at the site: your press release readers will thank you.

Some of the other good stuff you get at Press Release Grader includes:

• General Statistics — Provides readability levels which help you understand if the release is easy or difficult to read.
• Link Analysis — Analyzes the links in your release and determines if they will help drive more links back to your website.
• Word Cloud — Visually identifies the words most often used in the release.  Analysis is a good indicator for the main topic of the release.

If you want to see someone else’s press release analyzed before you go to all that trouble of cutting & pasting your own release into the system, take a look at this analysis of an older release we put out about HubSpot’s Closed Loop Marketing system.  It was put out on the wires before Press Release Grader was created, but we were happy to see it receive a score of 86/100 (any score over 80/100 is considered Very Good).

Please note that Press Release Grader is in beta.  Your mileage may vary.  However the HubSpot gang are pretty gracious and diligent about customer feedback so they will welcome your input.  

Disclosure: HubSpot is a client.

Posted by Todd Defren at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Most clients are awesome.  Reasonable, friendly, appreciative, and very much aware that they’re walking down a two-way street with their agency.  They understand that they shall reap what they sow.  More access and appreciation tend to equal better results.  They get it.

But even the best clients might need to hear “no” once in a while.

Sometimes the client wants to see their Enterprise IT Security software featured on the TODAY Show.

Sometimes the client isn’t happy with the results to-date, despite the agency’s best-faith efforts, and they ask for another month free-of-charge.

Sometimes – whether through ignorance or arrogance – the client asks for ever-more work assignments that fall outside the contracted scope-of-work.  This is common.

So one of the more frequent counseling assignments I have involve coaching my own staff on the “Art of No.”

“No” isn’t impolite.  “No” can be a favor.  “No” can be the best way to maintain a strong relationship.

No, I’m sorry, your Enterprise IT Security product probably won’t be a good fit on the TODAY Show.  We’ll both have egg on our face if we try that outlet.  How about BNET, the video division of CNET?

No, I’m sorry, we can’t work for free.  We are sorry you are disappointed with the results to-date but there are way too many variables for us to guarantee coverage.  Let’s walk through our challenges, and see if we can figure out a way to be more productive?

No, I’m sorry, we can’t take on those additional assigments without having a chat about budgets and project scope.  All we have to “sell” is knowledge and time.  Whatever knowledge and time you don’t pay for is already allocated to another client, so “mission creep” can’t help but impact our other clients’ worthy efforts. 

I certainly don’t mean this to be a “negative” post.  In fact, more often than not, we take it as a compliment when, for example, a client blithely assumes we can handle additional assignments: it means that they consider us a seamless part of their team!

Most clients are entirely responsible and quite cognizant that they are dealing with an external services organization that competes on expertise and whose profit relies on efficient time management.  But when the scope-of-work starts galloping into the atmosphere, or the expectations are divorced from reality, the occassional and diplomatic “no” is a helpful reminder that we’re engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Posted by Todd Defren at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

It’s a struggle for the PR industry to avoid the bad old habits of yesteryear.  In the old days, we knew that each client had a set group of mainstream media targets in mind; PR proposals and plans focused on WHERE to place stories, and WHEN.  The WHO, WHY and HOW were incidental; to be figured out later. 

But Social Media has given the PR industry much more insight into the fundamental aspects of relationship-building.  It flips the model.

Now we know a whole lot more about WHO.  We can interact with reporters on Twitter; see their Flickr or Facebook entries; read their blogs.  We can increasingly get to know them as people.  Thus we should do a better job of understanding what they like and dislike; what motivates them; what bores them; what angers them.

The more you know about the WHO, the more you pay attention to the WHY (as in, WHY would this person be interested?) and the HOW (as in HOW does this person like to be contacted, if at all?).  The WHEN and WHERE now become incidental.  

You can argue that “that’s what PR was supposed to be about all along.”  And you’d be correct.  As it gets easier to do things right, the excuses for taking short-cuts dwindle.

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

While at NewComm Forum last month, I attended Rohit Bhargava’s session on “The Future of Marketing & Advertising.”  During the Q&A I asked Rohit one of those classic, simple questions that tend to elicit surprising answers.

“What keeps you up at night?  What do you fear in this brave new world?”

Rohit’s answer – and I’m paraphrasing – boiled down to, “I’m afraid of what happens when a big corporation peels $1M from their advertising budget and hands it to me for a Social Media campaign.  The types of demands they’ll make regarding ROI for that kind of budget won’t be easily answered.”

With all due respect to Rohit, I don’t share this anxiety.  Forget about PR blacklisting for a second (it’s an insular issue amongst relatively tiny communities) and think about the stupid antics of those advertising agencies that have not figured out that Marketing has become a transparent, 2–way street.  Remember “All I Want for Xmas is a PSP” for example?  The PR industry gaffes have been stoopid, not fraudulent.  I think it’s high time that corporate marketers shaved those ad budgets in favor of grassroots Social Media concepts, where PR is the stronger partner.       

Heck, give me a million dollars – I double-dog-dare you – and we can talk about how we’ll use that money to generate more positive word-of-mouth for your company than any single advertising campaign could ever accomplish. 

With $1 million we can play the biggest game of smallball ever played.

Sure, we’ll cover the waterfront in terms of top-tier blogs, mainstream media and vertical channels. 

We’ll also be sure to appropriately reach-out to the B-Z list bloggers, too.  Thanks to tools like Radian6 we’ll know who’s talking about our client and related industry-level issues, and when & why, and can respond rapidly and transparently.

We’ll empower everyday users, too.  We can create a Flickr group that pays homage to their creativity by identifying images via related tags.  The best of those images might be highlighted on the corporate website.  We can create a YouTube channel where the million-dollar-client can speak forthrightly and in human terms about their news, events and mission and solicit video responses, too.

We’ll be on Twitter, of course, and using tools like Tweetscan and Tweetbeep to monitor conversations 24/7 – again, we’ll be monitoring not just for client references but for associated industry themes.

We’ll train and empower a cadre of client employees to serve as community liaisons.  Think of this as “distributed PR.”  Some of these employee evangelists will be bloggers; most will be on Twitter too; the charismatic folks will be gifted with a Flip camera so they can vlog their thoughts.  These internal advocates will work hand-in-glove with the PR team.

Speaking of video – we’ll create a video production group, complete with mini studio rigged with an HD video camera, audio recording equipment, green screen, etc.  Thus equipped, we’ll produce weekly podcasts and vlogs with our million-dollar-client’s execs and other industry do-gooders.  If appropriate we’ll also create funky videos that might have some viral appeal.  Heck, we could “live-vlog” a major product announcement! 

I’m not generally a fan of creating branded social networks, but you can’t argue with the success of white-label solutions like Ning.  If our million-dollar-client served one or more niches that was prone to fandom, this would become a serious consideration.

SEO would play a role, but I’d be just as intrigued to explore Search Engine Marketing options, too.  How about testing out NewsAds – contextual Google ads based on industry and news-oriented keyword searches?

Oops – almost forgot – we’ll also want to create an RSS microsite as part of the Social Media Newsroom we’ll create.  This will aggregate all the blog posts about our million-dollar client in one feed.  As described by Marshall Kirkpatrick, “It's like a news dashboard for anyone interested in seeing what's being written about (the client).”

These are just the ideas that spewed out in the initial rush of pondering for our imaginary deep-pocketed client.  For an actual client – one where we’d have a sense of products, customer satisfaction, industry trends, etc. – we would get much more granular and creative.  (Just as Picasso started out as a fine classical artist before delving into Cubism, the Agency team would need to do a deep-dive into the million-dollar-client’s business before breaking out the disco ball of creativity.) 

Ultimately a big goal of any million-dollar program would be to make every stakeholder feel important through monitoring, response, and transparent, frequent outreach. 

Measurement?  Think about benchmarking the BEFORE and measuring the AFTER of: web traffic, sales, online mentions (volume and tone), customer service inbound calls, media buzz, customer satisfaction index, etc.  It’s possible to measure – and would still be worthwhile even if it weren’t.

What Big Ideas would you add to the list?  What else would you measure?

Meanwhile, make your million-dollar check payable to …

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Although some might disagree, I try to keep the self-promotion to a minimum on the blog.  But my marketing vp would kill me if I didn’t mention this:

SHIFT was named “The New Media Agency of the Year” at the SABRE Awards Dinner in New York City this week.

Read the news release about our win – that’s where the self-promotion stuff kicks in.

This win – on top of our “Agency of the Year” victory at the last American Business Awards – feels pretty darned good.  Makes all the hard work and umpteen trips to Logan Airport worthwhile.

Thanks to all the super-duper people at SHIFT!  Way to go, team.

How do we top this??

I already have some ideas.

Posted by Todd Defren at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

The blacklisting of PR agencies by respected media contacts like WIRED’s Chris Anderson and Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani has yet to “wake up” the industry. 

Oh, we wring our hands.  And those of us who bother to listen in the first place react with varying degrees of regret or rancor.  Yet the fact remains that this tug-of-war is almost 100 years old and at the end of the day, we all have a job to do. 

Could we get better at it?  Absolutely.  Will we stop trying to peddle stories on behalf of clients?  No way – nor should we.

I think Rick Calvert at BlogWorldExpo put it best:

“If you are a professional journalist, or editor covering a particular industry or topic then part of your job is fielding PR pitches for products in that industry.

“Think of it like a buyer working for a major department store. Let’s say they buy men’s clothing. That person’s job is to buy things from people they know, and people they don’t know. In fact a good buyer is actively searching for, and appreciatively receiving unsolicited (contact) from people they have never met who are trying to sell them some new line of clothing they have never heard of.  Why?  That new line of clothing just might be the Next Big Thing.

“It is that buyer’s job to diligently review that line and listen to that sales pitch to decide if buying that line would give his company a competitive advantage.  A buyer who only buys from his friends and buys lines he already knows about is lazy and should be fired for not doing his job.

“In Journalism and PR it is the same thing… Will you occasionally get pitched something that is irrelevant to you or that is personally uninteresting to you? Of course. Too bad… Now if the same PR firm keeps sending you irrelevant information it is entirely appropriate to contact them and politely ask them to knock it off…”

Okay, so take it as a given that newsmakers won’t stop making news – and that they’ll want to find efficient ways to get the word out.  Assume further that reporters and bloggers won’t stop writing.  And lastly, swallow your indignation and acknowledge that the 100–year-old PR industry can serve both newsmakers and content-creators by improving.  That leaves this:

“WHAT CAN WE DO to all get along better?”  This was the question I heard from a handful of budding PR pros finishing up their college coursework.  “It seems like PR can’t win for trying,” they told me.  “Are there some simple rules for Media Relations that will help us avoid these challenges?”

Answer: Yes. And, no.  Because everyone gets hit with the craphammer at some point, regardless of good intentions and training and oversight.   

Still, I think we can boil down the essentials, for all PR pros.

My attempt at a simplified PR Credo, in the form of “7 Promises,” is below (and tightly edited in PDF form, offered to you without copyright restrictions).  You can have it sit alongside the Blogger Relations Bookmark:

1. The PR pro promises to read several weeks’ worth of previous blog posts and/or articles to ascertain whether their story would be a good fit for the blog/publication.
2. If the PR pro ascertains that there is NOT a good fit, they will not pitch the blogger/reporter, and promise to push back on unreasonable client or management demands to do so.
3. Before pitching the blogger/reporter, the PR pro promises to double-check their method of outreach.  They will not only check externally-developed media resources like Cision but will also review any guidelines made publicly available by the blogger or publication.
4. The PR pro promises to never send a press release without being able to demonstrate its concrete relevance to the blogger/reporter … and will never, ever send an attachment unless it’s been requested.
5. As much as is possible, the PR pro will participate actively and transparently within the communities of-interest to their clients.  The PR pro acknowledges that a “cold call” (in any form) – while sometimes unavoidable – is considerably less effective than reaching out as a known community member.
6. The PR pro promises that any correspondence – whether the initial contact or follow-up – should contain a message customized to the blogger/reporter’s needs and should offer value.  For example, “just checking to see if you got the press release” is not welcome or appropriate.
7. The PR pro acknowledges that being ignored by the blogger/reporter is not to be considered license for harassment.  It’s more likely the pitch was not of-interest, so any further outreach should be mindful that the story idea has likely been quietly rejected.  If the PR pro must try again, they promise to do so by offering a different, more creative and valuable approach to their original pitch.

Following these 7 Promises of the PR Pro will not make the world a better place.  Following these 7 Promises will not eliminate mistakes and misunderstandings.

But it’s a start.

Posted by Todd Defren at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (1)

A friend in the Twittersphere – with weekend access to the ubiquitous Cision/MediaMap database of media contacts – confirms that Gina Trapani’s personal email address is provided for PR’s use. 

That doesn’t mean that PR is off the hook.  Mistakes and misunderstandings will continue to occur in the PR/Media relationship, and PR pros still have much work to do.  But I can’t help it, I feel a li’l better knowing we might be able to pass the buck on this one.

P.S. to the haters: yea, we sometimes rely on databases to store and track and retrieve contact info.  Barbaric, medieval, outrageous, I know.

UPDATE – the proof (click to view larger size on Flickr):

Picture deleted at Ms. Trapani’s request.  Wish it was as simple to ask her to delete that %$#*&%ing wiki.

Posted by Todd Defren at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (1)

Hi Gina –

I’d email you directly but apparently you’ve blocked my agency’s domain name (along with many esteemed peers).

I have written many times about crummy PR practices, and have acknowledged more than one mistake of our own, over the years. I empathize with your frustration and regret that we added to it.

Sorry if we spammed you. We not only extensively train our folks, but we published a Blogger Relations Bookmark (PDF) that is laminated on each employee’s desk. However, mistakes will happen, if only because we insist on only hiring humans.

But “being human” is no excuse for stupid mistakes; I am not trying to be cheeky. We always strive to improve. If you can dig up the offending email from a shiftcomm.com address, I will publish and critique it on my blog, and will include any of your personal comments as well. We’ll gladly fall on the sword if it’s in service to improving our agency and our profession as a whole.

You’d expect me to say this but for every 999 compliments we get from media and bloggers, it’s a shame that it’s the one crap pitch that gets publicly outed. But that’s a risk built-in to my profession. I suppose that a risk built-in to your own profession is that you have to weed through 999 crap pitches to unearth that one stellar nugget. We each have a job to do, and our own crap to shovel through, eh?

In our case, it’s “spam if we do and damned if we don’t.” In your case, it’s spam if you don’t want it (even if we truly think it may be relevant), but damned if you want a competitor to scoop you on an agency’s one great pitch.

I hope you’ll re-think your blanket condemnation of the thousands of employees who work at those firms listed in your wiki. Thanks to outcries like yours, the PR profession is becoming ever-more cognizant of the need for change, and it truly is changing.

Of course, every industry will have its ignoramuses so feel free to blacklist individuals but, again, please consider giving the many thoughtful, helpful PR pros at those blacklisted firms a second chance.

Thanks.

P.S. – If this note does not sway you, I hope Brian’s note will.

Posted by Todd Defren at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (2)

Been doing a fair amount of reading and pondering about the future of SHIFT, and of PR in general. 

We’ve come to think of our agency as a “tween.”  No longer a scrappy start-up, and increasingly finding ourselves punching above our weight-class in newbiz pitches.  It’s exciting to be pitching for FORTUNE 1000 business, even if it means the competition is far more fierce.  We wrestle with how to best present our credentials.

Meanwhile, the PR industry is catching-on to this whole Social Media thang: although too many agencies still view Social Media as a “checkbox” rather than a sea-change, my arguments to this effect sometimes fall on deaf ears, especially when talking to less savvy prospects. 

Lastly, a friend gave me a copy of the Arthur W. Page Society report on “The Authentic Enterprise.” There were no big surprises in the study, but, it did a good job of summarizing our industry’s challenges and opportunities.  For example, this quote jumped out at me:

“What happens when analysts and media – once necessary aggregators if a business wanted to reach mass audiences – lose their unique ability to reach those audiences or to legitimize the company’s message?”

This future is coming and will crush PR agencies unprepared to meet the advancing wave of change.

And yet, change is scary.  Even for a bleeding-edger like me.  Some of the preparation we must undergo lies far outside our comfort zone.  Here are 5 random thoughts on The Future of Public Relations…

Agencies must become comfortable with the personal branding of individual employees.  Agency employees will increasingly need to step out of the shadows, to serve as transparent client advocates in a community relations role.  Many clients will handle this on their own with internal resources, but even in those cases we can expect Agency personnel to supplement the effort – and in the process, become well-known to various online community segments.  This is a far cry from our historical role behind-the-scenes.  It also is scary from a talent retention standpoint.

Agencies must do a far better job of training staff.  The days of paying lip-service to Training are over.  With the sunlight shining on every pitch and community interaction, woe betide the agency who lets greenhorns loose behind the keyboard.

Agencies must explain to clients – with crystal clarity – that mistakes will happen.  No one likes to admit to fallibility, especially in a newbiz situation, but the reality is that mistakes will be outed.  More to the point, you can do everything right but, because the Agency now often deals with (unpredictable) edge users, even their best moves risk being unfairly skewered by the community.  The burden is on the Agency to plan in advance for such contingencies.  No one likes surprises and, everyone appreciates an Action Plan that can be turned to in a crisis.

Agencies must help clients move from Reactive to Proactive to Interactive.  This was another interesting note from the Page Society report.  For years it’s been enough to offer “Rapid Reaction.”  Nowadays, Agencies can differentiate by developing proactive community outreach models that minimize the impact of inevitable flare-ups.  But, what’s next?  Outside our comfort zone, but within our reach: collaborating with all stakeholders (executives and employees, customers, online and offline communities) on an on-going basis to help guide corporate strategy.  To help companies “conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it.”

Agencies must reconsider their core value.  While I think that the PR industry can legitimitely evolve to include aspects of Community Relations (a.k.a. Social Media Relations) under its banner, there are other ways to think about value.  This is particularly pertinent for the hundreds of small to mid-size shops that can’t afford to compete on all fronts as they had when “Media Relations” was the universal specialty.  Maybe it’s time to specialize?  Is the Agency keenly tuned in to a specific vertical market (e.g., healthcare) or demographic (e.g., baby-boomers)?  Start staking your claims.

These are mostly high-level musings – and there are more to consider, of course.  What are your thoughts?  Will you help me prepare for the future?  With such high level concerns in place, my challenge will be to think about the strategies and tactics to address them for both our clients and agency.  You’ll hear about these adventures (and misadventures) here at PR-Squared, ‘natch.

Posted by Todd Defren at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

I was talking to a really smart recruit a couple of weeks ago. 

Today was her first day, and we’re excited to have her, since she was already so well known to us via her Twitter presence.  In her honor I’m relaying something she said during the interview process that stuck with me:

“Everyone holds the predecessor in higher regard than the modern equivalent.  The book has more gravitas than the newspaper; the newspaper has more gravitas than the blog; the blog post has more gravitas than the tweet.”

Given how gosh-darned busy we all are, it’s no surprise that each cycle of evolution represents a condensed approach to content (though I shudder to think what will proceed from 140–character tweets). 

“Gravitas” comes not only from history, but from the thoughtfulness and effort required to create and consume the content.

Welcome aboard, Sandy.

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Like Morgan McLintic’s recent (excellent) post about “Timesheets,” this post may be a bit too much “inside baseball” for most readers – but hey, this is a PR blog after all.

I recently overheard a junior staffer complain that “Briefing docs are boring.” 

Briefing documents are what we use to inform a client executive about their media appointments: the who/what/where/why stuff, including basic info on the publication, background on the writer, the pitch we used to secure their interest, personal details, etc.  (For a juicy tale about these “secret dossiers,” check out this year-old kerfuffle.) 

It’s true that it can be boring to create a briefing sheet.  It’s tedious.  But I urge our staff to put themselves in the shoes of a busy client executive:

She’s harried – too many meetings, too many emails, too many deadlines, too many distractions.

She’s anxious – what if the article reflects poorly on the company or her?  what’s the reporter’s agenda?

This exec is about to support and defend her company’s precious reputation in the marketplace.  She needs to be well-armed!

Enter the humble, boring Briefing Document.  It’s often the client executive’s only way to gird for the meeting.  Our careful preparation of this document – and the client’s willingness to make the time to read it in advance – can all too often lead to the success (or failure) of a media briefing. 

There are a fair number of boring things to do at a PR firm – even one as “cool” as our shop.  In addition to Briefing Docs, we need fresh & relevant databases … we need to monitor mainstream and new media for issues and client mentions … we need to attend umpteen meetings … we need to prepare umpteen reports about those umpteen meetings, and about our workaday milestones.  It can be a snooze. 

But each of those “boring” tasks need to be assigned and viewed in a larger context.

• The “boring” Briefing Document can make or break a client’s reputation.
• The “boring” database can head-off a poorly-targeted outreach effort (and the ensuing storm of complaints).
• The “boring” monitoring of the blogosphere can help us identify and respond to potential memes, which are crucial to protecting our clients’ interests.
• The “boring” meetings offer a chance to learn and interact with smart, successful, interesting people – and to learn from the process of seeing senior managers interact with clients and media.
• The “boring” reports are critical to ensuring that our value is accurately communicated to our client contacts (and their CEOs and Boards of Directors).

Ironically, people say, “Think Big Picture” when they want to coax you to forget about the details.  But the more you think about The Big Picture, the more you realize:  Everything’s Important.

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Rather than boring nameplates, everyone at SHIFT is given a cheesey caricature to show off their mad skillz outside the office. 

Some folks are pictured as lumberjacks.  Some are pictured laden down with shopping bags.

Me?  In my spare time, I’m a superhero.  Didn’t you know?

Turns out I didn’t care for the caption that our caricaturist left in my li’l “thought bubble” so I turned it into a “thought experiment.” 

The wall outside my office door is bedecked with Post-It Notes – literally a “comments field” – which the staff use to mock me mercilessly.

“What is Todd thinking?”

Apparently, I drink wine coolers, poop on people’s heads, and steal from my fellow in-house bloggers.  Ingrates!

There are a few empty Post-Its left.  Let’s have a quickie contest.  What do YOU think I’m thinking?  Winners have the dubious honor of having their comments immortalized outside my office door.

Posted by Todd Defren at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)