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CCP Games’ Eve Online And A Media Relations Win

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EVE Online logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Virtual gaming is nothing I’m familiar about, but how executives of CCP Games tell their story, share messages and a mission statement are. On the eve of Eve Online’s debut of DUST 514, the CCP Games media relations team scored a huge win.

This article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek showcases why and how the company is a phenom in the gaming community. Instead of getting excited about Eve Online, something that’s alien to me, I instead took a look at its similarities with social media. Virtual gamers addicted to Eve, an Icelandic space game, formation of …still in the dark?

This article from BusinessWeek will shed some light on the subject, and it’s a must read.
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You might read it for any of the following factors:

  • Gamers who live life to play games in a virtual world without governments or rules adopt online personalities often stronger than in real life.
  • Spaceships are built and asteroids are mined for minerals to build the ships. In Russia, tycoons hire kids in real life to virtually mine the asteroids for arbitrage and ship building.
  • A counsel of gamers is selected to meet in person every six months in Iceland with CCP Games, the founders of Eve, to discuss how the game should evolve.
  • Serious relationships are formed in the game. When one of the gamers died in the Benghazi attack on the U.S Embassy and shared his last message with the world whilst playing Eve, thousands of people in the Eve community united and flew their ships to the same quadrant and spelled RIP VILE RAT like space candles.
  • The community raised $127,000 for Sean Smith’s family.

Inside Media Relations

In the midst of this 5-page, single-spaced story in BusinessWeek, the public relations factors are also impressive:

  • The co-founders shared the company mission statement, “To make virtual worlds more meaningful than real life,” and proceeded to give the reporter full opportunity to showcase the culture of CCP that knows its success is due to the 500,000 gamers (more than the population of Iceland) who subscribe.
  • The company has hired a real economist to monitor economic activity of Eve, and numerous economic studies by academics have been undertaken about the world of Eve online.
  •  The company feeds its employees (because food is expensive in Iceland) and families of employees come to eat at the company, too.
  •  The interactivity by the company with the elite Eve counsel occurs over three intense days. The gamers have a voice, and they influence how Eve evolves.
  •  Providing access to customers/game players to media for such an in-depth story is highly unusual for most companies; yet, the story is told primarily from the customer/player perspective.

 

Thoughts About Media Relations

Earning a story the likes of this one is practically a once-in-a-lifetime experience. All the factors for national media relations and the stories media love have to be in place.

Factors for National Publicity

1.    A large corporation with global reach
2.    Oodles of fanatical customers (yes, half-million would be good)
3.    A product like an online game that makes grown men stay up all night and vacation in Iceland in the dead of winter in the dark.
4.    A youthful executive team interested in giving back and opening the doors wide to showcase company secrets.
5.    Customers who do nothing but laud the product

To even begin to get to that point once factors are all secure, you need a Message Map. (I haven’t done a plug in awhile, get ready.)





is a service many types of companies need to launch, re-launch, and re-energize.

I applaud the PR team that earned the story in BusinessWeek for CCP Games. I was so inspired when I read it that I had to write about it when I’m not even a gamer and probably never will be.

Social media is enough of a game for me; yet, I see the similarities between virtual gaming and social media engagement. It’s like playing roulette; the wheel never lands on the same place twice.

What do you think about games, social media, and media relations? Got any stories about your wins you can share?


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Storytelling And The Media Relations Pitch Revisited

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storytellingThe December 2012 issue of Vogue is an unlikely source to prompt a blog post about storytelling and media relations, but if you read ahead, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Arwa Damon – the 35-year-old Syrian-American CNN reporter who broke the story about finding the personal diary of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and who has covered every aspect of Iraq and all theaters of war in the Middle East since she was 25 years old – provided a glimpse to public relations practitioners about what makes a story her story.The coolest thing about this example is that Damon had no clue she was acting like a PR professional when she had to pitch her story to superiors and convince them of its importance.  Let me back pedal for you with this quote:

“Arwa Damon’s fearless reporting from the Middle East has made her a star at CNN. What she uncovered in Libya sparked a national furor.

And in 2007, Damon pushed to do a segment on a five-year-old Iraqi boy who had been badly burned in a raid. It was a small story, but the piece led to an enormous outpouring of support from viewers. Ultimately, CNN allowed Damon to find the boy medical care in the states and then to follow the story for four years.

Permitting such a level of engagement between a reporter, a subject, and her audience was something of a first for the network, and it made Damon a popular figure, both inside CNN headquarters and out,” Vogue, December 2012.

Think about this for a minute; I’ll ponder with you:

  • A millennial reporter who jets around the world into dangerous settings to do her job finds a 5-year-old injured in wartime.
  • She wants to do this story in the worst way and begs her superiors to make it happen. They acquiesce.
  • The reporter also begs to locate medical care and then reports on happenings for four years!

What would make a producer say yes to a story about an Iraqi toddler when U.S. troops are getting maimed and dying every day? It had to be how she presented the story, her conviction about drawing attention to babies and children as victims of war, and her passion to use her position to affect an outcry of support. Don’t forget this small fact – CNN had never done a story of this nature where the reporters became a seamless part of story for four years (not to mention earning the child free U.S. medical care).

What do you think? Are you tracking with me about how Damon had to put on the hat of a PR professional (although she didn’t know it) and pitch the heck out of that story until her producers said, “OK already!”

The clue for we in PR is this: each time we pitch a reporter, that gatekeeper has to – in turn – pitch it to editors or producers. It’s more challenging than ever for media relations professionals to sell news in one pitch.

Elements of A Successful Pitch

Anyone reading this is likely to be extremely knowledgeable about elements of a solid national or global story, but let’s recap for those who may not be:

  • Mass audience appeal. A story about children and especially 5 year olds is going to tug at all heart strings without language barrier.
  • Medical attention. When someone is injured as a result of war, that’s a natural story hook or news angle.
  • Consumers or victims of war. National stories always require a consumer/people angle. Have you ever pitched national network TV? The consumer angle is an absolute.
  • Call to action. We’re not sure about the call to action in Damon’s story; however, when the article suggests an “enormous outpouring of support from viewers,” we know how much ratings are driven by consumer sentiment and stories like these. While call to action is more of a marketing tactic, media relations professionals need to think about what the outcome of a story should be. How do you want the story to be regarded? Can you push for someone to open a wallet and donate funds to something? That inadvertent influence of earned media becomes so critical at the end of the day.
  • Data/Statistics/Big Data. This story in Vogue didn’t include statistics; however, we are fully aware of the importance of empirical evidence to support a story’s proof points.

Storytelling

I remember after Hurricane Katrina when Anderson Cooper launched a story segment called, “Keeping Them Honest” on CNN. He and his team returned to New Orleans to follow-up on officials’ plans to ensure the re-build was happening as it should. Each time I caught that segment, I said “good for you, Anderson,” as he provided everyone with a bird’s eye vantage about post-crisis Katrina.

While marketers need to be the consummate storytellers, media relations professionals need to craft the story with all the elements and more prior to pitching it anywhere. Put all the elements on the table, and if anything is missing, then hit the drawing board and dog the details. Imagine the tough sell Arwa Damon had to make to her producers to become personally involved in a story they didn’t even want to produce. All you need to do is let her be your inspiration.

This post originally appeared on the Cision Blog December 3, 2012.

By Jayme Soulati

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Streamlining Blogger Outreach With Inkybee

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inkybeeIt’s getting harder and harder for media relations practitioners to earn stories. There is a depletion of journos at print and broadcast outlets, and social media has altered forever the course of media relations.

Where are publicity hungry professionals turning to secure “ink” for their clients?

To Bloggers.

Blogger Outreach

There’s something agencies do called blogger outreach. It’s quite similar to media relations only it’s done with bloggers who may also have a background in public relations. When I get a pitch from a peer blogger, I typically find a way to work the content in to my blog IF it’s relevant.

Gini Dietrich went on a rant yesterday right here on Spin Sucks about how she hates PR people and provided seven tips on how to pitch bloggers better. She’s a PR pro (and I am, too), so that means she gets to say she hates her peers.

What Hugh Anderson of Forth Metrics in the U.K. has been doing is writing a few e-books and great blog posts about blogger relations/outreach. He and his team have made it a topic of choice; so much so that they made a huge announcement late last week about a new platform for blogger outreach two years in the making.

Inkybee

I jumped on the beta of Inkybee to see what his fuss was about, and I stuck around. You know a beta is great when you keep jumping from one section of the platform to the next to poke holes and try to break it. There wasn’t much broken, but I still had questions, so Hugh and I Skyped on Friday so I could get in his head a bit more.

Here’s the gist:

Inkybee is for PR pros doing blogger outreach. You enter in key words and wait for InkyBee to churn the blogs that include your key words in the category you’re seeking. I put in social media just to see if my peer group popped up; more than 1900 blogs were returned via a ranking algorithm to my email box. It wasn’t right away, but I was very impressed with the list.

When you open the home page, you’ll find great tutorials on how to navigate and use the site. The best personal touch is that InkyBee uses personalized sticky notes throughout navigation to share instruction. There are also links to both of the Inkybee blogger outreach ebooks; one of them I already downloaded, and it’s full of testimonials from the field’s leaders – one of them Ms. Dietrich herself.

The lists are awesome and really push you quickly into the task of identifying bloggers with keywords you want in your outreach and even those you’d like to look at for guest posting and business development.

When setting up a campaign, you can track and measure; this step I’ll reserve until I have an active campaign to test.

As with anything just entering beta, there are kinks to work out; I’d say, though, that Inkybee already looks polished, clean and impressive. I encourage each of you to take up the call and sign on to the free beta right now.

Anyone who has tested a product, service or online tool knows it can only get better with real-time feedback. Won’t you please lend yours?

 

 

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Did Anyone Media Train Lance Armstrong?

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Cover of The Power of Body Language

During the station (there were two of them), I was particularly interested in body language, facial expressions, and an earnest apology with sincerity.

What we got was a stone “who” only on occasion succeeded in being sincere. Only once did he tear up and that was when he was speaking about the regret he had for his eldest son. Not once did he look into the camera and speak one to one with any viewer; in particular those he most bullied and abused.

When media relations specialists work with spokespeople, we do what’s called media training.
Everyone is familiar with the word “handler” in political and celebrity circles. That’s the pro who manages the media and turns away reporters getting too close for comfort. That’s also the publicist who has the frontline backdoor role to be on top of current events with a snappy response.

It’s obvious Lance Armstrong didn’t have a handler (they probably couldn’t lie like he did) nor did he have any formal media training.

Here’s what the pros say about Lance Armstrong’s performance (from ):

Lance Armstrong’s Marketability

  • , Sports business reporter, ESPN: “Lance Armstrong doesn’t have any future marketability; it’s over. It was his inspiring story of a cancer survivor triumphing in races that made him marketable. If the wins are not legit, then neither is he.”

Lance Armstrong’s Body Language

  • Tonya Reiman, author, “The Power of Body Language:” This is the first time I ever heard the term “fig-leafed” – he nervously covered his groin with his hands. He was also wringing his hands, crossed his legs, tucked his hands between his legs, touched his face, bit his lip, took deep breaths, and swallowed hard. Tonya says these are all signs of a man under serious pressure and his face showed “so much arrogance and not enough real remorse” which is what viewers wanted to see.

Lance Armstrong and PR

  • Mike Paul is a crisis PR expert quoted in Advertising Age. He believes Lance only partially told the truth. In not so many words, Mike believes Armstrong failed his first crisis-PR move (when “scandal-plagued athletes often do confessional interviews where they come clean and throw themselves at the mercy of the court of public opinion.”)

How To Prepare For Media Interviews

Regardless of whether you’re a “scandal-plagued athlete” or a bona fide Wall Street executive, there are stones to turn over and it’s reporters’ jobs to find them (except in the case of the scandal!). Preparing for an interview with the Wall Street Journal is akin to Lance Armstrong preparing for an interview with Oprah. It takes hours and hours of pre-interview preparation prior to sitting in front of an investigative reporter or someone with the skills the likes of Oprah Winfrey.

Here are several media training tips:
1. This tool is golden when it comes to putting a story on one page.
2. Hire a media trainer who consults with a media relations professional. You need someone from the outside who isn’t close to the situation to come in and drill. In the case of Lance Armstrong, he should’ve been preparing and practicing just like it was a presidential debate.
3. Write a Q&A document with every single possible question that could be raised. Answer these questions using a message map. In the case of Lance Armstrong, however, there was more than a decade of lies to address and rectify in advance of the Oprah interview.
4. Rehearse, but be careful how rehearsed answers become. Lance was too stone-faced; however, no amount of preparation was going to allow him to break down in front of an international audience. He failed to earn respect from anyone; he succeeded in being labeled a consummate liar.
5. Review reporters’ history of interviews and writings. This is a job for any good media relations professional. It’s called writing a brief. It allows spokespeople to reference previous stories, break the ice, and also be prepared for the type of style and to expect a barrage or line of questioning.

Here’s the nutshell…no one in this era of visible online identity should ever assume anything is private. Prepare for an interview as if you’re Lance Armstrong being interviewed by Oprah.

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PR Strategy For Business: The Company Launch

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News crew setting up to report on the floods (Photo credit: max_wedge)

Economics and economies are contributing to the start-up and along with the great idea to launch a company comes the need for solid public relations counsel to strategize about the best way to distribute news.

Gone are the days when launching the company was straightforward. What we used to do was develop a media list, write a press release and get it approved, and then start pitching media one by one with phone calls, followed by executive interviews, and stories that appeared in media outlets.

I’m not going to say that was easy, but it certainly pales in comparison to what we do today (she said with excitement!).

Blending Traditional With Digital

Launching a company today requires in-depth strategy and a healthy regard for the social media sphere.

When a start-up is launching a company website at the same time it’s trying to establish a brand and reputation, there are elements to activate that enable a one-two punch in logical sequence.

A website with language by copywriters and marketers needs to launch with the appropriate optimization and back-end analytics tools.

Meanwhile, a should be orchestrated from which a few news releases and fact sheets are created.

The media list is trickier these days. Media outlets have fewer reporters on staff and also fewer print editions. Many publications are strictly online which means the lead time for publishing the news (especially if it’s hard news with a time element) is zilch. If an editor likes a story, he can clear a blank web page and run it! Funny, but true; you get the idea of the immediacy of the news cycle.

What that means is the PR team has to button up and think about every news angle, its impact on the company, how it should be communicated, and when. Please read this sentence twice; it is that important for your business’s success.

Factors To Consider

  • Should the news go on the wire, just online or both?
  • Should social media channels post the news same day and repeat it or wait?
  • Which social media channel should be regarded as primary for corporate news; how about consumer news?
  • Should bloggers be pitched? How about important journalists? Should you pitch them online via Twitter or traditionally via phone and email?
  • Do you want to field requests for interviews that are inbound or do you want to be aggressive and pitch and earn the hits?
  • Is your spokesperson trained using the message map? Is there a Q&A developed so spokespeople are prepared and not blindsided?
  • Has the PR team created a media brief of reporters who call requesting an interview?
  • When should a blog post news of a launch? Before or after a news release?

And, there is so much more.

The primary takeaway is not to confuse you, Ms. or Mr. Business; it’s to encourage you to hire a qualified public relations strategist with media relations expertise. Have no fear…

 

 

 

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