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Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

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Archives for April 2010

Listening?

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I’m curious about this new phenomenon called “listening.”

In the April 5, 2010 Advertising Age, a sub-head of a larger story says “As social media continues to grow, marketers place more emphasis on listening to consumers instead of just asking them questions.”

In the last three years I’ve heard one of my clients tell me they listen to their corporate customers and as a result they provide better client service; really? I’ve stated that blogging makes you listen differently. (I still concur with myself.) Now this headline about marketers who listen versus ask.

Social media has adjusted the balance between marketer and consumer. Where before consumers were preached at by integrated marketers, now they are sending messages in the reverse direction. The balance of power has shifted, and listening is indeed a new phenomenon, although now a different one-way street.

Online buzz provides much of the fodder for companies and organizations to grasp the conversation via monitoring and tracking and, hence, listening. Perhaps social media defines listening as new consumer-driven positive or negative content about brands being created every minute via word-of-mouth marketing with no pattern, no campaign, no budget, and no director in charge.

Perhaps.

Although I understand the point about the need for more listening, shouldn’t this be an innate, basic skill? Isn’t success embroiled in listening?

Strategic listening requires comprehension and action. One can hear, but without full comprehension, there’s no action, and potentially failure. For a story to suggest listening is now being emphasized because consumers are armed with social media tools implies to me we’ve not been listening too well of late.

What’s your opinion about how you listen? Is social media forcing improvement of listening skills, merely pointing out how poor our skills were to begin with, or making listening temporary until another something comes along?

WOOT! Public Relations!

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Thanks to my colleague, , for pointing out this exciting projection by the (BLS) about the growth of public relations in the next decade. (Well, it’s exciting to me.)

According to the BLS in its , there are some impressive statistics about we specialists in public relations, and I’d like to share the most poignant (these are unedited and taken from the book as listed above):

  • Employment of public relations specialists is expected to grow 24 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations.
  • Employment in public relations firms is expected to grow as firms hire contractors to provide public relations services, rather than support more full-time staff when additional work is needed.
  • The need for good public relations in an increasingly competitive and global business environment should spur demand, especially for those with specialized knowledge or international experience.
  • Employees who possess additional language capabilities also are in great demand.
  • The recent emergence of social media in public relations is expected to increase job growth as well. Many public relations firms are expanding their use of these tools, and specialists with such skills are needed.

It’s encouraging to see the public relations profession growing. As an which also contracts for other businesses/agencies, I’ve noticed an expanding interest for public relations practitioners by companies that have never hired one in the past.

Much of what I do with clients is to educate them about public relations. It is a somewhat esoteric practice for those who don’t work in the field. I’m going to do my best in this space to help clarify what public relations services are and how companies should engage a senior practitioner or even a small agency.

If anyone has any questions on that front, please send them along! That will help direct my writing. Happy Monday, All!

Citation: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition, Public Relations Specialists. (See link above, please.)

The Power of Positive

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Yesterday, I verbally connected to a Twitter follower with whom I’ve been exchanging a few tweets and blog comments for several weeks. How he connected with me, however, was to chide my slamming of another’s ignorance suggesting I should focus more on the positive.

At the time, I was unclear what his tweet implied and filed it away to digest further.  When he again suggested something similar, I hit his Web site to track a phone number and dialed.

David Bookout, owner of Effetti, Inc., is a business coach (at least one of the hats he wears is such). Not ever having the privilege of such a thing (business coaching) I listened closely (and if you’ve been listening to me, you’ll recall blogging enhances listening).

David suggested:

  • Energy is wasted when lamenting ignorance. Rather than chide people for not understanding public relations, for example, I ought to focus on the power of positives and communicate how public relations contributes and how I make a difference and deliver value to clients as a public relations practitioner.

Indeed.

  • In addition, David commented about the length of  my blog posts (as I referenced on Twitter “this blog is killing me”) and perhaps I provide a “read more” link to full stories others are writing (sort of like an aggregator of content with a sexy intro, or some such).

Wondering how that would work as I’m really enjoying the writing and quest for topical content?

As I keep this chat with David top of mind, I will be reminded of the power of positive, the opportunity I have to share my passion for public relations and back up my commitment to prove Public Relations Drives Marketing, and to possibly consider shorter blog posts (how’s this for starters?).

Apps Review: Gravatars and RSS

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Sometimes there are just too many widgets, gadgets and gizmos for everyone to clearly understand their value.  I want to hear your suggestions about applications you might wish to learn more about.  I’ve had several people comment about RSS and another ask for info about a gravatar.

Hence, today I’ll start this regular feature spotlighting apps and tools; Gravatars and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) are first up.  I’ll research, test the application and present a simplified snapshot. I’ll also provide my recommendation based on first-time research (or current use of the tool). Please add your list to comments below so we can explore and learn together.

Gravatar

According to WordPress, “a globally recognized avatar, or gravatar, is an icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality such as a forum, chat, website, or other form of online community in which the user can distinguish from other users. Created by Tom Werner, gravatars make it possible for a person to have one avatar across the entire web.”

A visitor to Soulati-‘TUDE! asked how some guests had photos while others suffered the edgy monster avatars I selected to denote people without their own avatar. It had been awhile since I researched how I had done this for other sites yet did not have an avatar on my own site.

Here’s how you do this:

  • Head to a Web site accessible at this link Gravatar.
  • Create an account featuring the primary email address you use when commenting. Upload a photo or logo; whatever you’d like your gravatar to be (your globally recognized avatar).
  • When you comment on blogs, forums, chats, Disqus, etc. and you enter your primary email, your gravatar automatically uploads.
  • I went back to my account and added a new email address along with another gravatar. I uploaded a fresh photo and my logo, too. It’s now in use when I make comments on Soulati-‘TUDE!

Difficulty

Simple; any non-IT person can do this. Best news yet…no need to edit images in a photo editor. Gravatar.com uploads a full-size image and allows you to accept the cropped image.

Recommendation

Yes! I do recommend gravatars, especially if you are active in social media and blogging. Having a self-selected gravatar differentiates your brand and boosts awareness.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, has been around awhile. It allows people to subscribe to content generated by bloggers and podcasters. It provides publishers (in this case bloggers) the ability to syndicate content throughout the Internet.

At the upper right-hand corner of this blog, there is a “subscribe”/RSS feed button. When you click this, it asks whether you’d like Soulati-‘TUDE! to be delivered by email or in a reader. Then it asks you to choose your reader (the channel by which your content will be captured and delivered to you.)

I receive Soulati-‘TUDE! by email each early afternoon, and I subscribe to the blog in my Google Reader. This way, I see what everyone else sees as a way of quality control.

What to do:

1. Set up a Google G-mail account. There are so many reasons to have G-mail, and it doesn’t hurt to indulge in one more address for tinkering.

2. On the Google tool bar, hit the “more” tab and find “Reader.” Set up a Google Reader account and explore the many blogs you can now subscribe to.  As a Web-based aggregator released in 2005, Google Reader is one of the best tools to have. When you subscribe to blogs, Google Reader captures all the content and saves it for you to read whenever you wish. It’s also easy to unsubscribe, too.

3. While on the road, you can log in to your G-mail account using any browser (preferably Chrome or Firefox) and read all the blog posts captured in your reader. When you’ve read each, “mark all as read” and the table of contents will show zero new posts. If you’d like to make a comment, link to the blog title and you’ll navigate to that blog to post comments.

Difficulty

Setting up a reader is simple for anyone. The tip is not to overload the reader with more than 15 blogs at one time. You’ll quickly know whether a blog is worth keeping up with, and you can refresh topics in queue any time by way of a topical search to pinpoint new content.

Recommendation

There’s no way I can manage to read all the content I do without a reader. I absolutely recommend Google Reader (because I’ve been using it awhile). Regardless of whose you use, I encourage you to register so you can easily subscribe to Soulati-‘TUDE! and not miss a future post!

Dow Jones and the Media Relations Ad Pitch

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On April 2, 2010, a display ad in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye; the words “perfect pitch” stood out in the headline, and that being my language, I paid closer attention. The advertisement headline “Engage journalists and bloggers with the perfect pitch” declared that Dow Jones Media Relations ManagerTM was the right tool for media relations professionals to “connect with writers who are receptive to their pitch.”

The half-page below-the-fold advertisement to media relations practitioners was the first I’ve seen in a national daily. I read the ad several times because it struck me how odd it was for Dow Jones to waste ad spend targeting me and corporate “flacks” aka publicists. I was intrigued enough to tear out the ad and save it for my later response during which:

  • I attempted to hit the download url for a complimentary e-book called “Monitor and Engage.” There was a typo in the url. The last word “today” was in bold and appeared to be part of the link to access the book; however, it was part of the ad.
  • The download link url included “PRSA” and everyone knows the Public Relations Society of America is our profession’s venerable certifications and standards group.  My initial thought was “Oh, PRSA is collaborating with Dow Jones to offer this new media relations tool.” Oddly, the url re-directed to a Dow Jones url with NO PRSA mention. After Googling the product, there’s still no mention of PRSA on the Web page. Apparently, it may be a hidden affiliation?
  • I downloaded the e-book expecting to learn more about Dow Jones Media Relations Manager. I didn’t really need a dozen pages of tight, cluttered, repetitive information I already knew to ease me into the sale.
  • After hitting the e-book link, I remained confused. The e-book title was “How to Win Friends and Influence Audiences in the Age of Conversation,” although the words Monitor and Engage did match. The ad’s sales pitch told me I could “pinpoint influential writers and keep your executives singing the right tune.” Somewhere along the way, the creative team responsible for the ad lost site of the copywriting for the book. Seems like another disconnect to me.
  • After skimming the e-book, the product is mentioned with nice charts, but what I failed to see is any marketing collateral (e.g. how much does the dang thing cost already?).

Other Thoughts

I’m surprised I learned about the existence of this media relations tool via advertising; although, my take-action-on-the-first-viewing response should be an exciting statistic, eh?

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal; these guys know my reader profile. Why wouldn’t they pitch me direct via e-marketing?

Dow Jones, you’ve got a boatload of marketing dollars in your budget. If you’re pitching PR people why don’t you treat us like influencers and sell the product like IT people do? Give some bloggers a beta and have them tweet and blog the heck out of it? (Or, perhaps you’ve already done that and I missed it. Or, perhaps we smaller fry can’t afford your product anyway.)

For my first time being pitched by a Dow Jones print ad in a Dow Jones sister publication for a media relations tool I probably need and would like to consider buying…I think a C- is in order. Let’s hope the product performs way better than the grade.