Socializing 101—Making Connections with 140 Characters or Less

One thing that I have learned throughout my career is the power of social media. The informal, conversational atmosphere of social media platforms somehow brings people’s guards down and creates a community atmosphere. Twitter, in particular, has become one of my most valuable PR tools. When you’re trying to get you client’s news noticed in a sea of other PR people, you have to stand out. It’s really that simple.

This is where learning the art of 140 characters or less comes in. Here are my suggestions for making connections with key press and analysts to ensure that next time your email doesn’t land in the trash:

• Do your research: Make sure that you are following all of the relevant press and analysts for your client’s industry. Many times you can find out what they cover based on their bio and the type of content that they tweet. I would also suggest seeing who these people follow. It’s a good way to discover new relevant press, analysts and publications that you may not have found otherwise.

• Engage & interact: This may feel a bit uncomfortable because you don’t know many of these people yet, but as I mentioned, Twitter is a very informal community and you can get away with things that you normally wouldn’t in the real world. For instance, retweet stories, reports or any other content that they may post that you find interesting or relevant to what your client does. If you find a good story, share it on your Twitter and tag the reporter that wrote it in a complimentary tweet. Everyone loves compliments. Even by strangers on the Internet. Reply to a tweet or join in on a discussion that you find of particular interest. While you typically wouldn’t interject into a conversation that didn’t involve you in real life, it’s perfectly acceptable and welcomed in the Twittersphere.

• Get personal: Many times press and analysts use their Twitter accounts to share both personal and professional news and updates. Don’t be afraid to retweet something that you find funny or strike up a conversation about something that you both enjoy whether it be hobbies, television shows, music or anything else. Remember, the point is to stand out and what stands out more than bonding over a love of spinning or Game of Thrones (just an example).

• Call to action: Sometimes you will have an immediate need for your Twitter interactions like pitching a story idea or getting time on their calendar to schedule a briefing at a conference. In these times, it’s important that you bring your interactions full circle. Establishing these relationships won’t benefit your client if you don’t seal the deal. Most of the time, conversation will start on Twitter and then migrate to email where the details and logistics are hashed out. In other cases, you may find that there is not an immediate action to take. Perhaps it turns out that the reporter wasn’t relevant or you were simply relationship building. That is fine. It’s important to continue to nurture and maintain these relationships as you would a real-world friendship. Nobody likes the friend that only texts when summer rolls around because you have a beach house, right? The more you continue to invest in these connections, the more likely you are to get a response when you do have a client that would be of interest.

So you’ll see, in PR there is true value in cultivating professional relationships on a platform that is instant, conversational and effective. If you consistently implement these tips into your PR practices, not only will your emails see a lot less trash and a lot more replies, but you’ll undoubtedly see you Twitter popularity skyrocket. Double win.

52 Tips for Strong PR – A 2014 Users Guide Tip 7: Don’t be a flak

If there was ever a four letter word in PR, it’s flak. It’s used by media and execs, in the movies and on TV as a joke and as a slur -- and is 100 percent the wrong image for our industry and for any PR professional. The idea that PR is run by brainless individuals that just do the bidding of some executive is a stereotype we can’t afford.

So let’s put that aside for a minute and talk about what a PR person should be and what our industry should represent. PR is the steward of the company message and the chief protector of the company’s brand and image. PR helps the company appreciate how it is understood, the difference between its brand identity and brand knowledge, and how everything from trends to competitive threats to company evolution will impact the market. We are the calm in the storm when a crisis hits, and the first line of defense when things go wrong. We help the CEO articulate his message, the CFO provide context to the street and the CTO turn technology jargon into comprehendible English.

We are planners. We help a company understand how to shape its message through media engagement, speaking opportunities, contributed articles, awards and social media. We focus on the bigger messaging framework to ensure the company talks about itself as a whole, instead of focusing on the individual pieces. We make sure analysts understand where the company is going, why it has picked this direction and how this journey will benefit customers, investors, partners and employees. We ensure that our company spokespeople are prepped before an interview so that they know what the reporter is writing about, details about their interview style and insight into their knowledge of the market, company and technology. We also make sure that the reporter has what they need to be successful – providing access to customers, partners, experts, information and ideas that help tell a bigger story than any one press release might indicate.

We do all of this before we ever pick up the phone and call a reporter. In truth, for a good PR person, 90% of our job is done before the media are approached. So why do reporters love to feed the stereotype that PR people are flaks? There are probably dozens of reasons that would require a couch and a degree different than mine, but I think the main reason is some PR people often set themselves up as simply the messenger.   

A key value a good PR person brings to their clients or company is to serve both the internal needs as well as the needs of the reporter. To do that effectively, you have to earn the trust of both groups and then work to build upon that trust and maintain it. You have to really understand what your company or client is trying to do and why their approach has merit in the marketplace. You have to understand how a product will impact a customer or market and how it differs from a competitor.

When we decide to work with new clients, I always tell them that they are not going to like everything I say to them. They might fire us for that, but one of the things they are paying our firm for is our opinion. If they decide to do something we think will have negative repercussions, we provide alternative options and tell them what we think might happen if they continue down that path. We’ll do everything we can to keep what we might think will happen from happening, but we don’t back down if our experience, insight and expertise are telling us something different. 

I’m not worried about ruffling feathers, soothing egos or simply cashing a check. I’m concerned with how the company presents itself and how it is perceived. My focus from a program development and strategy perspective is on the long game: how little pieces here and bigger pieces there will help form a complete picture of the company, its prospects and relative market value. Reporters come and go, beats change, executives move on, but your reputation follows you wherever you go. So…don’t be a flak.

52 Tips for Strong PR – A 2014 Users Guide Tip 6: Be Social Online and Off

Social networking is everywhere. You can use it to book a reservation, review a restaurant, ogle at a friend’s vacation photos, find out who’s writing about what, interact with an old friend and make new ones. There are”Follow Fridays”, “must reads”, “likes”, “check-ins” and dozens of other ways to interact on today’s social networks. Online social networks have become so pervasive that social networking has overtaken porn as the No. 1 activity on the web, according to a recent story in Fast Company.

But do social networks really enable you to form real connections? There was a great story last week by Casey Johnston of ArsTechnica titled “How we ruin social networks, Facebook specifically.” In the story, Casey writes, “But the ability to keep tabs on someone without having to be proactive about it—no writing an e-mail, making a phone call, etc.—became the unique selling factor of Facebook….Facebook became a rich opportunity for ‘convert[ing] latent ties into weak ties,’ connections that are valuable because they are with people who are sufficiently distant socially to bring in new information and opportunities.”

“Weak ties” is the key phrase here. Can you really create a connection with someone when the only contact is online? I’ve “favorited” and “retweeted” hundreds of stories by editors on Twitter but that doesn’t mean I’ve engaged with anyone. I’ve “liked” posts on Facebook and have accumulated over 750 connections on LinkedIn, but does that mean anything? Maybe.

I think one of the traps PR people can fall into today is relying too heavily on online social media and ignore the social networks they can create offline. This can be as simple as jumping on a call a few minutes early to chat with a reporter or calling them for no other reason but to check in. It can be coffee or cocktails at a conference or breakfast at a trade show. It could be simply helping connect them with someone for a story they have to write to meet a deadline. And I mean a story that doesn’t include your company or client.

Trade shows and conferences are great ways to extend your social network in real life. We manage the press room at ITEXPO, one of the business technology industry’s top conferences on IP communications. Our job there is to make sure the media attending gets the most they can out of the show. During the few days the reporters are with us, they are slammed with sessions, briefings, keynotes and conversations. To give them some respite, we take them out one night for drinks and dinner, with no agenda but to give them a break from the craziness. When the telecom show SUPERCOMM still existed, we partnered with the great folks at Engage PR to host “No Pitch Nights” at Chicago White Sox and Cubs games. At these events, the only pitch was on the field. The connections we make during these events are anything but weak because they were built on real conversations and understandings, of mutual respect and discovering the things we had in common.

The tip here is to make sure you’re forming connections online and off so that your relationships are multi-dimensional and meaningful.  Whether you’re comparing trade rumors for a favorite sports team, swapping stories on business travel nightmares or sharing what your kids are up to these days, it’s all about creating real connections. When you are able to cultivate these types of relationships, it will help you cut through the inbox clutter and secure a conversation for your company or client. When the story runs, then you can share it on social media and see how many “likes” you get from all the people you really don’t know.

2012 – Fast Forward to the End

A friend of mine, Neil Rock (www.neilrockgroup.com) is a fantastic motivational speaker whose primary message is based on the simple principal that you have to visualize your goals, write them down and then physically post them somewhere visible so they can remind you every day of what you hope to accomplish.

As we start the 2012 planning process, it’s important to remember what the goal is for the year and put programs in place that make it accomplishable. The goal can be operational (demonstrate the value of a professional services organization), geographical (show relevance of products in new markets), financial (articulate revenue growth, vertical market relevance and/or channel development), leadership (ensure the market understands how the company is impacting the industry), or any one of a dozen other legitimate goals that a company, and its marketing department, might develop.

Many times, these goals are set within a company, shared internally and never spoken of again until December rolls around and executives want to see how the company performed against these goals.  It’s easy to get caught up in the next news release, trade show, conference or webinar and forget that all of these items should be vehicles to help your company achieve one or more of its objectives. 

For PR, the goals could be as simple as cultivating 10 new “champions” within the press and analyst community. To us, a champion is a press or analyst that follows the company regularly and understands what it’s trying to achieve and, at some level, believes your company will be able to achieve these goals. They understand how all the pieces of your company fit together and how each part plays a role in your company’s ability to win. These are reporters and analysts that don’t just write about your company when you have announcements, but also include you in stories they create about market trends and they view your company as an influencer in the industry.

Let’s take a look at that goal and break down how it can be achieved.

·         Identify 15 press/analysts that you’d like to convert from passive to active followers of your company.

·         Create a matrix of their recent coverage to understand what they cover specifically and how they treat information about your type of products and/or services within their coverage.

·         Invite them for a deep dive or “lunch and learn” where they get access to company executives (CEO, CTO, COO) that normally aren’t part of your briefing team.

·         Create pitches that are relevant to what they are writing about, not just their beat.

·         When pitching or briefing, reference recent articles to show that you’re paying attention to their work.

·         Create a six month story arch that gives them unique access into how your company thinks and how it plans to win in the marketplace, and then update them as you achieve these metrics.

·         Offer to become a technical resource on issues they are covering, even if this potentially means interviews conducted don’t result in immediate coverage.

·         Check in with them regularly to ask what they are working on and make suggestions about topics they haven’t covered yet that apply to their beat.

When identifying the 15 prospects, you’ll need to understand which companies they are currently covering and if they have any existing biases or favorites among your competitors. If they do, go ahead and include them, but realize this is a harder objective to achieve but often much more rewarding.

At the end of 2012, review how this program went and make adjustments with certain press/analysts that you weren’t able to cultivate. If some just aren’t interested, then pick others that you can begin to work with during the following six months.

It’s important to remember that at the core of any press or analyst relationship is trust. That they trust you to give them honest, relevant information and that you’re willing to help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Break that trust and you can lose these relationships forever.

No matter what category your 2012 goals lie in, developing a step-by-step plan to actually achieve them is critical. Successful PR programs require constant attention – once you’ve visualized where you want to be, remember to actively revisit and evolve the track you’ve put in place to get there and you’ll be closing a successful 2012 before you know it.

2012 – The Year of Relevance

We’ve survived. The world continues to turn, businesses still exist and despite what some folks would like us to believe, the sun will come up tomorrow. So given that we’ll have a tomorrow to look forward to, I thought a look ahead to 2012 would be relevant.

But to look ahead, we have to examine what led us, and our companies to survive and in some instances thrive, is a very difficult market environment. From my perspective, that key ingredient was relevance.  Companies that did well managed to make whatever service or product they developed relevant to their target market. They tapped into the underlying value that their target customer had and made sure these folks understood how the product/service addressed that value.

This isn’t as easy as it seems.  Most companies tend to gaze toward their own navel when trying to express their products/services value and relevance. They try to communicate what they have done and expect the market to understand why these achievements or innovations are relevant. That’s a huge leap to expect the market to make, especially in a market that is highly competitive and you are dealing with a target audience that is attention challenged.

Think about the communications programs you are working on right now. Take a hard look at the way you are talking about the products/services your company is delivering. Is your material full of acronyms or buzz words that highlight how important you think the product/service is?  Does the content you’ve written in your releases and other material focus on the great things your company has products/developed instead of the problem it solves or opportunity it addresses? Finally, look at your material and count the number of times you tie the great things your company has done with a customer need or specific market trend that makes this product/service relevant. 

My personal view is that the benefit/trend to speed/feed ratio to should be at a minimum 2 to 1. If you can do this, think about how much easier it will be for reporters/customers/partners/prospects/investors to understand why your company, not just the product or service, is relevant. The easier you make it for them to understand, the more likely you are to motivate them to action.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog that talked about the finite attention span of target audiences. With this in mind, as we plan for 2012, companies that don’t adopt a culture of relevance in their communications programs will face a dwindling prospect for mind share and attention. The tough lesson learned in the down markets is that if information is not easy to consume and apply the benefit to someone’s personal or professional life, it is ignored. Ignored equals irrelevance and that is not a viable option in 2012.

Look Right, Look Left, Look Right Again

When you were a kid, your Mom always told you to “look right, look left, look right again” before crossing the street.

That’s pretty good advice that can easily be applied to a company’s PR and marketing programs. Too often, companies rush out (across the metaphorical street) and embrace the latest online programs because they don’t want to look like they aren’t “with it.” Social networking is a good example.

Not every company in the world needs a Facebook fan page…..or a Twitter account….or YouTube channel. None of these programs will make you successful on their own and certainly none of them are silver bullets that will enable you to leap frog your competitors. First, you have to look to make sure you’re customers are actively engaged at a professional level, and that they want to connect with you on any given platform.

The truth is, I’ve seen hundreds of companies launch social networking programs only to realize they don’t have the content required to make it meaningful or can’t attract an audience that cares.

The sad part is some corporate execs, in their rush to be relevant, don’t apply the same business diligence to PR and marketing programs as they do to other aspects of their business. So to take it back to the basics (just like Mama taught):

Social networking, Twitter, etc should only be part of your marketing programs if:

• LOOK RIGHT - A significant part of your target market(s) are willing to engage
• LOOK LEFT - The format provides a opportunity to demonstrate leadership, shape opinions or participate in debate; and
• LOOK RIGHT AGAIN - It’s integrated into, and not separate from, other marketing and PR programs.

So before you fall prey to the social networking charlatans or run headfirst into time-consuming and irrelevant programs, take a hard look at your customer base on see if they would prefer a social network that is online or in person.