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Nov 30 2010

Nuclear Intrigue Abounds

November 30, 2010 – 11:50 am

By Mike Mulvihill

Dubya was never one of my favorites, but this week’s Wikileaks exposed that his Axis of Evil label is likely well-earned given what we now know about nuclear collusion between North Korea and Iran.

Per the stories in the New York Times and Financial Times, Iran obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, much more powerful than anything Tehran has admitted is in its arsenal.  Apparently, Iran obtained 19 such missiles from North Korea. The missiles could give Iran the capacity to strike at cities in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow.

Diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks more than suggest that Iran is taking pains to master the technology in an attempt to build a new generation of missiles and hints at far deeper military — and perhaps nuclear — cooperation between North Korea and Iran. The North Korean version of the advanced missile, known as the BM-25, could carry a nuclear warhead. Many experts say that Iran has a ways to go before it can obtain a nuclear warhead, especially one small enough to fit atop a missile, though they believe that it has worked hard to do so.

That brings us to the next element of the intrigue: Iran’s first nuclear power reactor will go online in late January. Per JTA and Iranian state media outlets, the last of 163 fuel rods have been loaded into the Bushehr reactor. In case anyone forgot, Iran is under U.S. and international sanctions because of its nuclear program, which Iran says will be used to produce electricity and which the West believes could be used to produce nuclear weapons.  

Now we have nuclear missile technology and nuclear warhead material development all in play.

The final element of this axis of intrigue comes from the The Daily Beast, which carried a report from the Guardian which suggests several Middle Eastern nations, quaking in their boots over Iran’s nuclear weapons, might be doing something about it. Early Monday morning, motorcycle-riding assailants set off separate bomb attacks against two Iranian nuclear physicists, prompting accusations from Iran’s state-run media that the U.S. and Israel were plotting to destroy the country’s nuclear capabilities. One of the physicists was killed and the other wounded. One of the scientists worked at the Supreme National Defense Academy, run by the Iranian Army and heavily involved in the country’s nuclear efforts. The bombings were similar to an attack against another physicist last January, which also involved a remotely detonated car bomb.

Unfortunately, all this confluence of factors will only arouse fears about nuclear reactors for power generation somehow playing a role in nuclear warfare and nuclear terrorism.  It’s a far stretch in an open society where it is quite easy to tell the difference between the technology for power generation and the technology used to enrich uranium for fissionable warhead material. But that won’t stop alarmists from further derailing the use of low greenhouse emission nuclear power as part of America’s cleaner energy future. Intriguing, but sad.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Nov 24 2010

A Conversation with Ryan Opaz of Catavino: Building Loyalty and Trust Among Your Consumer Base in a Digital Age

November 24, 2010 – 8:56 am

THE BOOZE BIN

By Pia Mara Finkell (@piamara)

Social Media Sandbox Wine is by no means the only industry playing in the social media sandbox (for more on this, read any of the Buzz Bin posts below), but it may very well be the one deserving the ‘Most Improved’ award. Formerly stodgy and proud, over the past few years, wine has followed (and occasionally lead) the social charge, shifting its voice online to the hands of the young(er…think Gen Y and Gen X vs. Boomers).

It makes sense if you think about it. The enjoyment of wine is, at its core, as social as it gets. It’s lovely on its own, but without the trifecta of good conversation, good food and a good bottle, it’s just fermented grape juice offering up a nice buzz (not that I’m judging).

 One vocal advocate for social media in general – and as it relates to the wine industry in particular – is the well-known and respected wine blogger, educator and consultant, Ryan Opaz. Ryan is one of the main voices and co-founders of Catavino, a popular wine blog worth reading if, in his words, “you like Spanish and Portuguese wine, with a healthy dose of wine business sprinkled on top.”

In addition to running the now well-known European Wine Bloggers Conference, Ryan spends his time consulting and speaking internationally on the subject of wine social media. As a keynote speaker at the influential WineFuture conference held in Rioja, Spain, Ryan pointed out:

Ryan OpazThe real truth is that the consumer is tomorrow’s critic. And in the end if they don’t know where Tempranillo comes from it doesn’t matter. They do know whether or not they like the wine. As a group they have an aggregated voice that is powerful and broad. These consumers may never be the educated WINE GEEKS we all wish they were, but they will be the ones to buy your products and share their thoughts with their friends, just like they always have. If you do not listen to them…you lose. If you choose to engage with them…you win.

Recently, my colleague Cassandra Bianco (@cassandrabianco), who guest pens the occasional Booze Bin blog post on the mixology world, struck up a conversation with Ryan. Here’s an excerpt from their discussion on social media and the wine industry, with some good advice for small wine and food businesses just hanging up their shingle:

What do you predict the social media and the wine industry landscape will look like in the near future?

Catavino: We see social media becoming more and more accepted as we go forward. In the end, wine has always used social media to sell itself, whether it be a conversation in a bar or a familiar bantering at home. The difference being that now the conversation is online.

Wine is a social beverage, and wineries are finally realizing that social media is not a fad, but instead something that is necessary if you hope to find new markets and consumers. It’s a means to an end, where loyalty and trust is built through the dissemination of information and the quality of conversation.

Which wine industry events do you find to be the most professionally fulfilling?

Social Media Seminar at European Wine Bloggers ConferenceCatavino: We love consumer events that are true “social media” gatherings, where people can meet and enjoy wine the way it was meant to be. Online, however, you’re starting to see some cool events based around Twitter, like the International Grenache day last September. It was a great event that really did a phenomenal job of showing people around the world the many faces of this amazing grape.

What do you consider to be the most satisfying aspect of working in the wine biz?

European Wine Bloggers Conference Catavino: Educating people and sharing experiences. For example, the European Wine Bloggers Conference attracted 200 individuals from 30 different countries who were passionate about studying new wine regions, exciting new grapes, and pressing issues that affect the industry as a whole. I suppose the key attraction for us is how wine helps to lubricate conversations and build relationships.

What advice do you have for wine stores and restaurants that are just setting up shop?

Catavino: Talk to your customers. With Facebook, Twitter and others, this job would not only be easier, but more lucrative. If you have a store or restaurant and are not using social tools to connect with and inform your customer base, you’re losing out on an invaluable set of free tools to increase sales.

 

Thank you to Ryan and Gabriella Opaz for the opportunity to chat with Catavino!

Photos courtesy of Vinus TV, Tim Whyatt and Catavino.net.

 

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Pia Mara Finkell | Posted in PR Industry Trends, Wine, Food & Nutrition | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Nov 23 2010

Lost in Translation: How Inconsistency Can Strengthen Your Brand

November 23, 2010 – 8:00 am

By Emily Valentine @ebvalentine

If you’ve ever worked on a branding project, you know that one of the keys to brand success is maintaining consistency across all communication channels. Your logo should appear in the same color, shape, format and font everywhere it is used, and all your communication materials – from your letterhead and annual report to your Facebook and Twitter pages – should employ the imagery, typography, key messages and tone of voice you’ve developed for your brand.

Most established brands (McDonald’s, Delta Airlines and  Skype, for example) have a set of brand guidelines that document all these rules and help the individuals charged with representing the brand maintain its integrity.

Why the focus on consistency? Because, with enough repetition, your brand’s identity will begin to embed itself in the minds of consumers. However, if you frequently change the look and feel of your brand, those powerful visual and psychological cues will be lost, and your ability to forge an emotional connection with consumers will suffer.

Now, I am a person who likes to play by the rules, but, even for me, this issue of brand consistency begs the unavoidable question: If you want your brand to speak to consumers across a variety of cultures, do the same rules of consistency still apply?

Not exactly. According to Nigel Hollis, executive vice president and chief global analyst at Millward Brown Inc., the combination of product design, positioning and communication strategy that makes a brand successful in one country may have to be adjusted to build a connection with consumers in new markets.

And it’s not just a matter of converting your tagline from English to French or from Spanish to Chinese. As a French major, I learned that effectively translating something from one language to another is never as simple as consulting the dictionary. Accurate translation requires a solid understanding of both languages and both cultures involved. Without this deeper understanding, you’re likely to 1) end up with something like the descriptions on this “Chinglish” menu, and 2) lose the respect of your target audience faster than you can say “Bonjour,” “Nihau” or “Shalom.”

Brands are successful when they win consumers’ hearts as well as their minds, and in order to win someone’s heart, you must approach him or her in a way that is both comfortable and relevant.

Not surprisingly, Coke seems to have made as much headway as any global company in “translating” its brand across a variety of cultures. The company has done much more than just translating the text on its website from English to French, Japanese, German, etc.– it has built a separate website for each country that expresses the Coca Cola brand in terms relative to each unique culture. (Check out Coke Japan, Coke Sweden and Coke Russia for a few examples.)

If you compare the Coca Cola USA home page to the Coca Cola France home page, you’ll see that the two not only look different, they also act different.

The French version takes a more energetic, colorful approach while the American version evokes calm and simplicity. The former also features slightly different product messaging (Coca Cola light in place of Diet Coke) and highlights different brand engagement elements, such as co-promotions with Xbox 360 and mobile telecom provider Orange.

By partnering with a brand that has already staked a claim in the hearts of Frenchies–Orange – Coke is giving itself a leg up in becoming more approachable and meaningful to its target audience in France. The brand has taken a similar approach to reach Hispanic consumers in the U.S. Reinaldo Padua, assistant vice president of Hispanic marketing for Coca Cola North America,  told Marketing News they have been able to increase sales among Hispanic immigrants by bundling beverages with popular food products like tortillas.

If you think about it, all brands – even local ones – live at the intersection of two different cultures: one of those buying the brand and that of the group responsible for its marketing.  We marketers would do ourselves a favor by approaching brand strategy as an exercise in cross-cultural communication. Those of us who cultivate an understanding of our target audience’s needs, values and cultural norms will be better prepared to facilitate a connection between brand and consumer, and to prevent our brand promise from getting lost in translation.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Emily Valentine | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)
Nov 19 2010

PR 101 for Bloggers

November 19, 2010 – 11:00 am

Over the years I’ve heard many horror stories from writers and editors about the terrible pitches they received, from silly booboos like not leaving a name or phone number in a voice message to neglecting to include product samples in the editorial kit to real blunders, those “what were they thinking?” episodes, like shipping ice cream over night without confirming if intended recipient was home to receive it or a tire company inviting a food writer to NASCAR. Yikes!

These days the blogosphere is littered with the same complaints – only there are thousands and thousands more bloggers then there were ever print journalists. As a result there are endless posts and videos about how publicists should work with bloggers. The key premise hasn’t changed; it’s still all about understanding your audience and their readers and building relationships, but in today’s world we can’t be expected to build relationships with vast numbers of bloggers in a given field. So what’s a PR whiz to do?

Having talked to many bloggers at different events and surveyed the many posts on “how to pitch to bloggers”, it dawned on me that’s only half the equation; many bloggers simply don’t know how to work with publicists!

So for all of you avid bloggers out there, who did not learn how to dance with PR peeps while working in the traditional print media here are a few tips…

Act Professionally. This may seem obvious to many however many bloggers don’t seem to be understand that publicists have a job to do, they get paid to represent and promote a company or brand, so while you may sit at your kitchen table in your slippers, we’re at our desks in an office.

Please tell us about yourself! In order not to send you crap you don’t want public relations pros need to learn about who you are, so consider your ‘About Me’ tab as your online business card and have all your contact info upfront. Moreover, even though the web is not geographically defined, meet-ups and events are, so it’s a good idea to state your location too!

Know thyself. Defining one’s voice is necessary for any writer to be successful and this applies equally to bloggers too. Having a clear voice and consistent style will not only attract more readers to your blog but it will also make you stand out from the crowd. If publicists can get a handle on who you are they are more likely to want to build a relationship with you.

State your interests. Extend your ‘About Me’ to read like a short bio. Describe your interests; do you review products? Run sweepstakes? Host meet-ups? Do you have young or teenage children, or both? It’s most helpful to know your preferences and even your shipping recommendations so you don’t get stuff you don’t want.

Think like a marketer. Traditional journalists got paid by their media outlet to write, this is not true for bloggers, and so many are looking for ways to monetize their blog. In turn, companies are increasing paying for the services of bloggers to act as brand advocates. You are more likely to be offered lucrative sponsorship or partnership opportunity if you clearly show your value to publicists. It’s important to share your reader statistics and traffic to your blog (e.g. average monthly visitors and unique viewers), and show that your reach goes beyond your blog via your RSS feeds, e-communiqués, Twitter and/or Facebook pages.

Be true to yourself. Recognize that you cannot be everything to everyone. Even if tempted by an all-expense paid trip with luxury hotel stay to learn about a new line of cooking equipment; if you don’t cook and have indicated this to your readers, then don’t accept the offer no matter how attractive it may seem. Just because a publicist has made a mistake, does not mean you have to too! You’re not doing yourself any favors in the long run as that sponsor will not work with you again and you run the risk of degrading your integrity with your readers.

Traditional publicity tactics don’t always apply; yes most PR peeps get that! It’s a new and changing world and publicists just like bloggers are on a learning curve but if we learn together – both publicists and bloggers will benefit.

 

By Brona Cosgrave (@bronacos)

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Brona | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (7)
Nov 18 2010

Facebook Is Good Medicine for Caregivers

November 18, 2010 – 7:00 am

By Jenn Riggle

Photo courtesy of David Boyle

Baby Boomers are doing more than just catching up with high school friends and looking at photos of their grandbabies on Facebook.

New research shows they’re turning to Facebook as a way to deal with the daily stress of caring for elderly parents or family members who are critically ill. According to a report from multi-generational consulting firm Age Lessons and ComScore, Boomer caregivers use social media for 150 minutes per month and view 70 percent more pages than the average Internet user. And the majority of them are going to Facebook.

At first this seemed a little surprising. There are so many great online caregiver communities where people can vent their frustrations, learn from others and find additional resources. There are sites for people who are raising children with autism or taking care of elderly parents, as well as people caring for loved ones who’ve had a stroke, are living with Alzheimer’s disease or are battling cancer.

And while these are all great resources, it’s important that caregivers reach out to their family and friends, which is why so many are turning to Facebook.

Women have always been thought of as healthcare’s gatekeepers. So it’s not surprising that two-thirds (66 percent) of caregivers are women. However, a large percentage (42 percent) of caregiving responsibility is falling on the shoulders of Baby Boomers. Nearly one-quarter (24 percent) are between the ages of 45-54 and 18 percent are 55-64. With so many Boomer caregivers, 73 percent of caregivers work either fulltime or part-time.

However, juggling jobs, family and the additional responsibility of caring for chronically ill family members can take a toll on women’s health. Not only does it mean they have to take time off from work, but lack of sleep and exercise, combined with poor eating habits, can contribute to caregivers developing heart disease, high blood pressure and depression. In addition, caregivers often miss their own doctor’s appointments and mammograms because they’re too busy balancing schedules.

The good news is that social media can help women with the daily stress of caregiving. A recent article in Psychology Today cited a new study that found that people with strong relationships have a 50 percent lower risk of mortality than those who are isolated and without social support.

Social networks have become an important part of our daily lives. Nearly 50 percent of online Boomers regularly update their profile on Facebook and other social networks as a way to connect with friends, family and co-workers. So when someone in their family becomes ill, they already have a support network in place.

Social media can be more than a marketing tool – it may actually be good medicine for caregivers.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Healthcare | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Nov 17 2010

Social Media Meets Social Commerce as Wine Enters the Flash Sale Fray

November 17, 2010 – 10:04 am

THE BOOZE BIN

By Pia Mara Finkell (@piamara)

Photo courtesy of The Recessionista

With the wildfire rise of online private sales, infiltrating everything from fashion to travel to restaurants, it was only a matter of time before wine lovers had sites to call their own. The newest invitation-only site to join the digital, flash- fray, Lot18 is brought to you by Philip James (founder of Snooth.com), start-up veteran Kevin Fortuna and a boat-load of funding from FirstMark Capital, a NYC-based venture capital firm.

Described as “a membership by invitation website for wine and epicurean products from coveted producers at attractive discounts,” Lot18 offers a range of heavily discounted, premium, small-production, and limited-run wines shipped directly from the winery for free with a purchase of six bottles or more. The site also includes an educational aspect with detailed winery/wine descriptions and reviews from their editorial team. Since you need an invitation to join, a few online sites received a limited number of exclusive invitations, including Luxist.com and The Next Web.

Another awesome wine e-commerce concept, Deals From the Vines is actually a  “social commerce experiment” bringing the flash sale concept to the Facebook closed group platform. Launched last month by Peter Alig and Paul Mabray of the digital wine marketing firm VinTank, DFTV gives any winery the opportunity to offer deals to members of this invite-only, closed community of consumers without paying any fees whatsoever. Alig spoke with Tom Wark of Fermentation, the daily wine blog in an interesting interview on why they chose Facebook for their flash sale concept.

Here are some key excerpts showing how DFTV works and why VinTank wants to merge social media with social commerce:

“Our members benefit from the extraordinary offers, and the wineries and etailers themselves raise awareness of their brands while adding valuable customers to their databases.”

“The Facebook Closed Group feature hides the deals from Google and www.wine-searcher.com, helping maintain brand integrity. The Facebook group also allows a representative of the winery to engage directly with the group in a conversational method.”

“Flash sales sites who intentionally or unintentionally market themselves as dumping grounds for wine will contribute to this negative perception. DFTV redefines the whole premise of flash sales and makes it about “we believe in our wine so much, we have reduced the price to get it into your mouth because we know you’ll love it enough to buy it again.”  DFTV is about reconnecting wine companies directly through SOCIAL COMMERCE with consumers.”

Generating brand awareness on a limited-budget is a challenge for any small business. For wine lovers, new sites, like Lot18 and Deals from the Vines, conducting their flash sales with integrity offer a great service to lesser-known, small wineries looking to attract and engage new customers in the online arena.

Photos courtesy of The Recessionista and Vin65

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Pia Mara Finkell | Posted in Digital Marketing, The Booze Bin, Wine, Food & Nutrition | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (9)
Nov 16 2010

What’s the Most PR Can Do?

November 16, 2010 – 12:15 am

by Michael Whitlow

After a few decades in the business, I have seen the profession of PR change pretty dramatically.  “Make your work your play and your play your work,” Phil Jackson is reported to have said, and the advice still makes sense to me in the context of our business. It can be very gratifying and mostly not life and death.  In our business, we’re also allowed to make our work our cause and our cause our work. Even for those of us who operate somewhere between these two approaches in our daily work, there is still much, much more PR can do than used to be the case.

So, what’s the most PR can do? 

PR pros are no longer just the corporate guard dogs and placement specialists of my youth — the best never were. What’s really interesting these days is that the common practice in our business has changed, and with the immense number of new tools available, each of us has newfound ability to contribute mightily and across a wide swath of society. .

In recent research from Vocus, Meeting Change: PR Planning in 2010, the company asked PR professionals what they were doing with their time this year. The results, while not surprising amid the escalating trill of social media, did cause me to think about the benefits of our expanding universe. Deidre Breckenridge posted about this earlier this year, and my bet is that the pace of change has overtaken this data and that PR professionals are finding their primary roles shifting even further in two important areas. All of the old standards showed up, but social media communications and content management were cited by more than 20% of respondents as being high on the list of roles.

The new tools have made us far more likely to be content developers and managers than merely influencers of others’ content, and because we are being challenged to develop extensive engagement with our audiences, we are becoming primary sources in some cases. This may be happening because we are still seeking some measure of control –  R2Integrated highlights the levels of control in a piece on the subject – but it’s also true that for all of our messaging, we’re getting more genuine. So, as they say, content is king.  Edelman hires the former head of BBC News, and I’m thinking we are now officially headed down the content trail in good fashion. Our own work on The Buzz Bin covers a wide array of subjects, from energy to healthcare, with a team who gets to see business and other organizations from a perspective not enjoyed by most journalists.

The other element leading us toward an answer to the question “What’s the most PR can do?” is measurement. At CRT/tanaka we got an opportunity to visit with Katie Paine to talk about measurement via web conference the other day.  Her take on “measuring what matters” is right on target, and the movement of the public relations profession from measuring outputs to measuring outcomes also has accelerated recently.  The long list of measurement possibilities these days is heartening, but carries with it a caution. Turns out that trying too hard to engage your audience can also be a negative — something recently measured by Cone. More than half of users, their research says, will stop following a company if it acts irresponsibly toward its consumers (58%), over-communicates with them (58%) or provides irrelevant content (53%).

One of the oldest definitions of PR is “doing good and getting credit for it.” It’s not a good thing that public relations, a discipline that ought to thrive on whatcanbe, as we like to say at CRT/tanaka, is so often associated with the  question of “what’s the least we can do?” Companies, NGOs and even religious institutions are being subjected to many more measures than they typically would take on themselves. The collective ability to call “BS” to the content we are producing and the experience we are offering has never been higher. Our customers and other stakeholders want more from us.

On the positive side, public relations people helped New Orleans post-Katrina via Evacuteer and in so many other ways. The word about the devastation in Haiti is being shared by people in our profession. The oil spill in the Gulf showed both the good, “what’s the most” and the bad, “what’s the least” sides of us.  Every day, we’re helping clients and our own organizations engage with purpose, earning respect and trust and building long-term relationships.  We not only have the tools at our disposal to do the job, but we have the ability to take the pulses of our audiences like never before. And, for the most part, our audiences are reminding us of our own calling.

Here are two quick hits on how content and measurement are affecting the public relations professions these days:

Try the internal communications dashboard here, and ask yourself the question: “Should annual employee surveys be a thing of the past?” With all that we can deploy in the way of ongoing measures and continual feedback that feeds continual improvement, an approach like the one here for Acme may be one answer to “what’s the most PR can do?” Being able to help management stay tuned in to the “most important resource” in organizations is a high calling.

Take a look at Erick Schonfeld’s post on where you best bets for engagement might be. Are you upgrading the usefulness of your measurement by tracking Social Reach or metrics like it? It’s not enough to have your audiences sharing links. Are you also tracking how many times people act on that and click back to your post or website?

The question of the day on The Buzz Bin is this: “What’s the most PR can do?”

I’d love to collect your favorite ideas of whatcanbe for PR.  Where do we next take our abilities to support strategy? Any new ways to measure marketing communications effectiveness? What are some of your thoughts about content development and its limitations? Are there ways that we even can make government more responsive? Can your cause be more effectively addressed with better PR.  Thanks for offering your thoughts.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Comments (1)
Nov 15 2010

Five things PR and Marketing Should Break Free From in 2011

November 15, 2010 – 2:25 pm

By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)

Last Monday, I had the opportunity to talk social media trends and what’s next with Chief Marketing Officers in the healthcare space at the Innovator’s Studio in Chicago. As part of the discussion, we were asked to break into two groups and identify a few traditional PR tactics that the CMO’s in the room would commit to get rid of in 2011. Let me just say the experience was very eye-opening. I strongly recommend this exercise with your PR team at the end of each fiscal year to sit as a group and identify where you can cut expenses and re-invest that money/resources into other more efficient ways of doing things. So here’s a list of five things that a group of highly experienced, smart healthcare marketing leaders decided to move away from in 2011 that might get YOU thinking:

1. YELLOW PAGES: Are you kidding me? I mean, I was surprised that big organizations still spend millions of dollars every year in advertising in the Yellow Pages (physical directory) that goes straight to the dumpster! Seriously, when was the last time you reached out to that bulky thing to find a business or a service? There is a reason why Google is so successful. Why not spend the Yellow Pages budget into SEO for your website? Chris Silver Smith, SEO expert and contributor on one of my favorite blogs, Search Engine Land discusses why Yellow Pages is becoming an obsolete concept. Must read. If you are still doing Yellow Page advertising in 2011, I really would love to hear from you and understand the ROI behind that. All about hard metrics at the end of the day.

2.       PRESS RELEASES: This debate continues in the PR world, and those who continue to churn out press releases every week openly admit that they do so to appease their C-Suite. So let’s do the math quickly, depending on the purpose of the press release, the whole process involves several hours of research, writing and my favorite part: the APPROVAL PROCESS. Then we drop it blindly on a distribution system without any SEO, multi-media content, anchor text and hope that the Wall Street Journal and New York Times is going to call you asking for an interview. I am sorry if that’s what you are doing right now, you belong to the dark ages of PR. First let’s start by renaming it a News Release. With citizen journalism, blogs and Twitter breaking news these days, company announcements need to be geared toward all audiences versus just the “press.” Maybe its time to cut down on the weekly churn and focus on multi-media content for your company announcements that actually get read, blogged about and tweeted. Start by exploring Pitch Engine. CRT/tanaka clients have seen good results with Pitch Engine releases.

 3.       NEWSLETTERS: Every month, we spend a gazillion hours mailing or e-mailing the company newsletter that’s filled with content about ourselves. We all know readers are more interested in WIIIFM (What Is In It For Me?). Instead generate content that highlights industry hot topics, best practices, use cases that help your customer/employee get better at what they do.  Further e-newsletters are fading due to low click through rates and corporate blogs are taking over as good alternatives. All that time spent on a company newsletter can very well be spent on a blog that generates fresh content and keeps you on top of search rankings and if you do it right, start generating leads for your business. Debbie Weil, well known B2B social media expert shares some very useful tips on how to integrate your e-newsletter with blog efforts in this post.

 4.       BROCHURES: Okay I get it that some of you might need that fancy brochure to leave behind after a sales meeting or at a trade show, but honestly, do we really need to kill that many trees every year on print materials that get tossed once you leave the room? How about creating digital content that’s more engaging? I still like flash drives or a piece of personal technology that eases some stress in my work life. If the whole point is to get noticed, then why not provide something that matters to your audience and in the process of doing so, ensure they remember your brand name. Hey if healthcare marketers can move away from printed collateral in 2011, anyone can! Right?

 5.       MEETINGS WITHOUT SPECIFIC GAME PLAN: Some 25 million meetings take place in corporate America and according to Peter Economy, 50 percent of business meetings are a complete waste of time. I couldn’t agree more when the groups at Innovator’s Studio agreed that they need to think before scheduling a meeting and then to run that meeting most efficiently. Giga Om’s Imran Ali did a really nice story on how to run meetings effectively — Google style. http://gigaom.com/collaboration/work-hacks-how-to-run-meetings-google-style/. I think its beneficial to highlight an excerpt of the Giga Om story below:

Google’s Marissa Mayer was recently interviewed by Business Week. In the interview, she described her own methodology for dealing with the 70+ meetings she needs to attend each week.

Mayer’s six key principles for running productive meetings are:

  1. Set a firm agenda. Mayer believes agendas provide focus and help participants find routes toward achieving a particular goal.
  2. Assign a note taker. Mayer’s meetings tend to use multiple displays to project presentation slides, a live transcript of the meeting and a ticking stopwatch! Each element provide focus, and crucially a record, enabling non-attendees to stay informed.
  3. Carve out micro-meetings. Mayer routinely divides larger meetings into smaller 5-10 minute blocks to highlight particular subject areas. This enables agendas to remain flexible, but disciplined, and also allows wide-ranging discussions to occur.
  4. Hold office hours. Each day, for 90 minutes at 4 p.m., Mayer holds court with colleagues in her own office. Co-workers can choose a slot on a first-come-first-serve basis. Incredibly, she’s able to get through up to fifteen meetings in these periods.
  5. Discourage politics, use data. To avoid showing favoritism and to minimize office politics, Mayer insists all decisions are driven by performance-based metrics and analytics. (This approach has caused some controversies, as related by former design director Douglas Bowman.)
  6. Stick to the clock. The “ticking clock” mentioned earlier might sound draconian, but is apparently a source of levity at meetings, exerting a subtle motivation, but also underlining a precious commodity in a busy organization.

Thank YOU Innovator’s Studio especially Karen Corrigan and Carla Bryant for facilitating this discussion last week. Nothing ever gets translated into action if we first don’t accept and verbalize the areas of improvement.  Your workshop helped us just do that.

So if you had to pick just one of the five goodbye items above, which one would you say goodbye to in 2011?

 

 

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)
Nov 11 2010

People Are Talking In Press Releases, But Is Anyone Listening?

November 11, 2010 – 7:25 am

By Jenn Riggle

Photo found at CallCenterHelper.com

Press releases are an important way for organizations to share information with key audiences, but too often, executive quotes are throwaways.

You know the ones I mean – executives saying “how excited they are about a partnership” or “how pleased they are to be selected for a project.”

Who cares?

The idea behind including an executive quote in a press release is to provide additional information or give reporters a quote for their stories, in case they don’t have time to schedule interviews. But too often, the quotes are just a lot of hot air and puffery and weaken the credibility of the news release because it reminds the reader that the release is not about sharing news, but about creating buzz.

Here some things you can do to make your quotes more memorable:

Don’t blow hot air. Make sure your quotes actually “say something.” If the press release is about news, than the quote is where you can express your opinions. Go back to your key messages and find statements that help put your news into context.

What does this news mean to the company, community or industry? Does your announcement mean more jobs for the region or will it change the way that people find information on the Internet? This is your chance to frame your announcement and tell them why it’s important. Don’t be shy, say it.

Sound like a real person: Too often, press release quotes are formal and chock-full of marketing speak that no one would ever say. It’s better to take a little extra time to make quotes sound natural. And don’t be afraid to use contractions, since they help quotes sound less stilted.

Stay away from jargon and buzzwords: We’re all guilty of using some of these words, but if you string them together, they lose all sense of meaning. For example, many companies pronounce themselves an industry “leader” without providing any supporting evidence. And instead of using the word “solution,” try explaining that your product solves a common problem. Put them together and you end up with something like “Industry leading technology company introduces end-to-end business solution.” Huh? Here’s a great list of the most overused buzzwords and marketing speak used in press releases.

It’s okay to be in touch with your feelings, but don’t talk about it: We know your company is excited about something or you wouldn’t be issuing a press release. However, how leaders feel doesn’t make news unless they drop the f-bomb during an earnings call or throw a chair in a fit of anger — and no corporate PR Department would issue a press release to announce this. Instead, it’s better to go back to your key messages or explain why this announcement is newsworthy.

Longer isn’t always better: Although research shows that people who write longer SAT essays score higher, the same isn’t true for quotes used in press releases. Consider using indirect quotes as a lead-in to a shorter quote.

Press releases aren’t dead – but a poorly written press release is a waste of time for both the company and the reader. What strategies are you using to give your release some life?

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Healthcare, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)
Nov 9 2010

My Kingdom for an Energy Policy

November 9, 2010 – 10:09 am

Photo Credit:  demetriusking.com

So where does America’s national energy policy stand after the mid-term elections?  There are lots of companies, investors and individual’s waiting to makes bets on the answer to that question.

Overall, our energy policy is a mess.  Scattered, shattered and in need of some bi-partisan rework.  A guest post from Exxon Mobil’s Ken Cohen last week in the Huffington Post, noted that in the U.S. and around the world, we’re facing a serious energy challenge: meeting rising energy needs while also reducing emissions from energy use. That will require a solid energy policy framework that can move public/private investments and legislation forward – regardless of the political complexion of the House or Senate. Energy investments are large, take a long time to come to fruition and simply can’t be subject to ever changing political winds.  Cohen outlined some broad areas:

  • Support all economic energy sources to meet growing demand: With global demand for energy projected to be about 30 percent greater in 2030 than it is today, America can’t afford to rule out any economically viable energy sources. We must continue to support production of oil, natural gas and coal, which collectively meet about 80 percent of the world’s energy needs. We also must support the development of alternative energy sources when and where they hold economic potential.
  •  Promote fair, stable and predictable tax and regulatory policies: Investments in energy resources are measured in decades, not years. The success of these long-term projects depends on consistency in our tax and regulatory structures.

 A GreenBeat blog post by Michael Meehan, a cleantech entrepreneur and executive in Silicon Valley, reinforced that there is a growing lack of certainty in U.S. regulation that is bad for cleantech. He says, though counter-intuitive, when it looked like Obama’s U.S. climate bill was all but dead, the cleantech industry actually saw increased traction: more deals, and more investment.  “One side of the climate debate wants climate regulation, the other doesn’t, but both sides want one thing: certainty. With the question around energy and climate policy left open-ended, companies may delay in committing budgets, investors may delay placements, and innovation will stagnate in Silicon Valley.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, after acknowledging a “shellacking,” President Obama acknowledged he is going to have to back off some on Environmental Protection Agency regulation on greenhouse gas and the cap-and-trade approach to energy policy.  Obama twice brought up the nation’s reserves of natural gas and mentioned a revived nuclear power industry as an avenue of enhancing energy independence. 

He gave dismal prospects for comprehensive energy legislation at least until 2012. Actually, 2012 would seem awfully optimistic. Any climate bill will be DOA because it is either too liberal for the House or too conservative for the Senate. The crux of the issues is how to address reducing greenhouse gases WITHOUT hurting the economy, yet encourage the use of cleaner fuels and the development of cleaner energy technologies to create entire new industries and create jobs in this country.

Perhaps with 60 fewer Democrats in office, our legislators and policy makers can find some common ground for an energy policy that provides the clarity and stability required for sound business decisions that support a common goal – affordable energy with less environmental impact.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (1)