Tag Archives: #media relations

July 12, 2012 · 1:20 pm

Do Most CEOs Lack Social Skills?

Do CEOs need charm school, rather than business school?

According to a new study sponsored by Domo and CEO.com, CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are participating in social media channels significantly less than the general public. The study claims that 70% of them have absolutely no presence on social media.

On the major social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the participation of Fortune 500 CEOs was minimal, with only 7.6% on Facebook, 4% on Twitter, and less than 1% on Google+. In comparison, more than 50% of the U.S. population uses Facebook and 34% uses Twitter. No Fortune 500 CEOs are on Pinterest.

LinkedIn is the most popular social media site among Fortune 500 CEOs, with 26% on the network, compared to just 20.15% of the U.S. general public. Of that group, ten Fortune 500 CEOs have more than 500 LinkedIn connections, while 36 CEOs have 1 LinkedIn connection or none.

Six Fortune 500 CEOs (or more likely, their PR departments) contribute to blogs, and only one of the six CEOs, John Mackey of Whole Foods, maintains his own blog.

Given the demographics of Fortune 500 CEOs, none of this news is jaw-dropping. Older, well-established corporate guys (and gals) in the business world’s stratosphere are not wired for social media.

But here are some potential take-aways from the research:

The propensity of C-level executives at companies of all sizes – well below the Fortune 1000 level – to invest time on social media outlets is extremely low. Top decision-makers spend most of their day dealing directly with people within their own sphere of influence. And most C-level execs still are not convinced that social media is anything more than a technology hula-hoop that will eventually run out of steam.

Marketers attempting to reach and influence C-level decision-makers are still best-served by leveraging the channels that are used and respected by that target audience…including traditional business media sources and professional forums; and by seeking to influence the 2^nd and 3^rd tier corporate executives who provide insight and guidance for C-level decision-makers…which may involve selective use of social media tools.

Aspiring CEOs may still be more likely to reach the top of the corporate ladder by joining the right country club, rather than by having 500 connections on LinkedIn.

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May 31, 2012 · 5:21 pm

The Dirty Secret Behind Sir Richard Branson’s Attack on the Suit and Tie

Joseph Stalin Refused to Wear a Tie

For Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson – the English business magnate known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies, his daredevil exploits, his humanitarian deeds, and his estimated net worth of $4.2 billion – nothing is more important than brand image.

Largely because Virgins are always in short supply, Branson serves as the personification of his brand, and works hard to nurture the image of a counter-culture, free-spirited, creative thinker who’s always ready with new solutions to old problems, eager to challenge the status quo. The public’s role is simply to accept the underlying notion that Branson’s companies all embody the same sort of energy and positive thinking that he exhibits, and to ignore the fact that several of his ventures have gone belly-up over the years.

So it’s no great surprise for Branson watchers to see him crank up his PR machine to attack formal business attire – specifically the suit & tie – as the greatest threat to capitalism since Joseph Stalin (who, ironically, was never photographed wearing a business suit.)

Evidence of Branson’s well-managed crusade to disparage the defenseless suit & tie can be seen everywhere. He’s in London snipping off $125 silk ties from people he meets. He’s in Entrepreneur Magazine extolling the virtues of the open collar workplace. He’s on CNN, with his toothy smile, explaining why it’s impossible to be creative while wearing a business suit. Here’s a sampling of the Branson propaganda:

“Suits and ties in an office are just another type of uniform, but in an arena where uniforms no longer serve any useful purpose. At one time they probably showed that the wearer was, at the very least, able to purchase and maintain a fairly expensive piece of fabric. Now, however, in an individualized, interconnected culture, your achievements speak for themselves. The suit and tie is an anachronism.”

If businessmen believed that not wearing a suit & tie would make them more creative, move them up the corporate ladder faster, or get them closer to earning their first billion dollars, they’d all be on the Branson bandwagon. If casual wear was the proven secret to success, they’d all wear pajama bottoms, tank tops and Crocs to work (which happens to be the official uniform of everyone who works from home.)

But suit & tie wearing business professionals all know two important things that Richard Branson is never likely to understand or to acknowledge:

Throwing on a suit and tie at 6 o’clock in the morning requires very little time or effort, and involves zero concern that what you’re wearing will be the butt of jokes at lunchtime, and…
Rumor has it that Virgin Menswear LLC – a new concept in men’s fashion – is currently under development by Sir Richard.

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March 16, 2012 · 10:59 am

Avoid the Carnival Barker Approach to Publicity

Publicity Must Be More Than Noise

Companies of all sizes believe that more publicity is always better, as a means to raise brand awareness and drive business results. But there are several reasons why this noisy carnival barker publicity is a losing game. For starters:

There are too many distractions within traditional print, broadcast and digital media channels to ensure that target audiences will notice your company’s brand exposure, remember seeing it, or be influenced by the coverage;
Many types of media exposure have very little marketing value. For example, having your CEO quoted in a story that also includes quotes from competitors will do little to distinguish your company’s brand, or to make the phones ring;
Publicity (also called “earned media”) is a beast that must be fed consistently. This effort requires that a company either engage an outside PR agency or employ dedicated staff members who are skilled at pitching stories and nurturing press coverage.

So, if media placement is both an inefficient and costly marketing tactic, then why do large, sophisticated companies continue to use it? Big companies use PR because they can afford to. They have the financial and human resources not only to be consistent in its application, but also to be sloppy in requiring a reasonable return on investment.

Conversely, because resources are limited, small and medium-sized companies cannot play the same publicity game; to survive, they must demand that PR tactics be cost-effective and accountable. Unfortunately, SMBs across all industries that attempt to go toe-to-toe with deep pocketed competitors by emulating their “more publicity is better” approach are often disappointed with the results of PR over time. Although they may succeed in generating some media exposure over a 6-month or one-year period, many companies eventually drop the tactic altogether. Other than a pile of press clippings or some online content for their website’s “In the News” section, business owners are hard-pressed to draw a connection between their publicity campaign and tangible business results, such as lead generation or increased revenue.

If the bad news for SMBs is that they lack the financial resources to maintain a consistent brand presence using publicity, then the good news is that “more publicity is better” is a losing game that no company should play, regardless of the size of its balance sheet.

Companies seeking to leverage publicity to drive business results in a cost-effective manner need to play a very different game, using the following rules:

Generate credibility tools, not placements. The underlying marketing value of publicity lies in the inherent 3^rd party validation provided by the media sources that create exposure for your brand. Your goal is to generate media exposure that will yield a credibility tool for your business; telling clients, prospects and referral sources that you are a “safe choice.” Your media exposure must shine a light on your company’s value proposition (addressing why people should buy your products or services) in order for that publicity to serve as an effective credibility tool. More bluntly, if your publicity doesn’t make your firm’s sales collateral more believable, it’s a wasted effort.

Seek only high-value exposure. Contrary to conventional wisdom, less publicity can be better…if it is high-value media exposure. No publicity has the right to exist without a specific business purpose, and not all publicity is created equal. High-value exposure puts an exclusive spotlight on your company’s intellectual capital, underlying values or narrative, and typically allows you to control all or most of the content. On that basis, certain types of publicity – such as an exclusive company profile written by a “friendly” journalist; one-on-one interviews on relevant topics; bylined articles, blog posts or OpEd pieces that you’ve authored – are far more valuable than simply being mentioned or quoted in a news or feature story.

Plan media solicitations last. Under pressure to produce media exposure of any kind, PR firms or corporate publicists sometimes generate a placement first, and then attempt to figure out a way to leverage (or “merchandise”) that publicity. Too often, publicity with or without merchandising potential is simply hung on a company’s website like a hunting trophy. As a marketing-savvy company, you must work backwards…by first defining what specific behavior or opinion you’re attempting to influence, and then by determining how you’ll apply media exposure to accomplish that goal. Only at that point, are you prepared to solicit specific media placements that have a purpose, editorial focus and the potential to drive a measurable business outcome.

Build an internal merchandising system. If you’re creating effective credibility tools using publicity, it’s essential that you establish an internal discipline to ensure that your current and prospective investors, referral sources and other key audiences receive those tools on at least a quarterly basis. Many RIAs fail to understand that the ROI of publicity is based, in large measure, on the depth and reliability of their firm’s CRM system. To maintain top-of-mind awareness with your target audiences, and to benefit from the media’s 3^rd party endorsement of your business, you must take steps (in a manner that’s not overly self-serving) to see that whatever publicity you generate is directly applied to remind people of who you are and why they should do business with you.

Slice and dice for additional ROI. In this digital age, there are opportunities to gain additional mileage from the publicity you generate, in terms of search engine marketing (SEM) potential, and exposure to audiences that may not be covered by your CRM system. These efforts should supplement, rather than serve as an alternative for, your internal merchandising discipline. For example, if you’ve scored a bylined article in an industry trade publication, initiate a discussion on the article’s topic within appropriate LinkedIn user groups, and attach a link to the published piece. If you use Twitter to promote the article’s link, extract a provocative observation or quote from your piece, rather than tweeting: “Read my article that was published in Widget Manufacturing News.” If you’ve been interviewed on CNN or the local news, post that video on YouTube, and be sure to include a written commentary that gives your video additional context and marketing value.

Changing the way you think about and apply publicity – primarily by abandoning the notion that the discipline requires a carnival barker’s approach to capturing marketplace interest – will allow your company to gain a powerful marketing capability. If publicity is designed and managed in a strategic manner, your small business can compete effectively against companies of any size.

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February 16, 2012 · 11:03 am

No-Cost, Cornball Marketing Can Drive B2B Top-of-Mind Awareness

LtoR: Heather Fuller, Andrew Crisp, Percy, Gary Thompson, Mickie Kennedy. Missing: Nimmi, the acrobatic dog.

eReleases competes with dozens of electronic news distribution services, all seeking to charge companies and PR agencies hefty fees to put their press releases in front of journalists, in hopes of capturing the media’s attention and coverage.

After some polite online badgering by eReleases, Highlander Consulting gave that upstart firm a shot last week; tasking them to distribute a press release for one of its clients, CAP Index Inc. – a leading provider of crime forecasting data and risk analytics. eReleases’ results were as good as, or better than, any of its larger, better-known competitors.

But what impressed us more than the quality of their service, was the no-cost, cornball guerilla (included in photo) marketing tactic that eReleases applied to thank us for our business.

A whacky whiteboard “eReleases Welcomes…” photo, personalized by name, sent by editorial director Heather Fuller, was embedded with this note:

“We just wanted to take the opportunity to personally welcome you as a valued eReleases customer and let you know we’re not just a website in some guy’s basement. 🙂

If you ever have any questions or concerns, pick up the phone and call us. All of our editors pick up the phone. No pushy salesperson or operator standing between you and us.”

So….what service provider will Highlander think of FIRST the next time we need to distribute a press release online?

Marketing Lesson: Cheap, clever and memorable can beat costly and sophisticated when it comes to driving top-of-mind awareness with targeted B2B audiences.

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February 6, 2012 · 10:43 am

BMW’s Storm Cooper: A Mini-Coup Rather than a PR Blunder?

Stormy Weather for BMW?

For a fee, Germany allows people or companies to sponsor the names of weather fronts. So last month, to promote the “wind and weatherproof” capabilities of its Mini Cooper line, BMW’s marketing agency purchased naming rights to a high pressure system that originated in Siberia.

But the Cooper storm turned out to be far more than weather forecasters and BMW expected. As the storm made its way through Eastern Europe, its sustained sub-zero temperatures were attributed to the deaths of more than 250 people.

PR industry pundits and critics have been quick to jump on BMW for its decision to associate its brand with what has turned out to be one of Europe’s most deadly winter storms on record. A headline in the Wall Street Journal announced: “Weather Deal Backfires for BMW’s Mini.”

But did it really?

Although BMW quickly and properly issued a statement saying that it regretted the weather front’s severity, and distancing itself from the deadly consequences of weather, the car company’s $400 investment in Storm Cooper may have been a PR bonanza rather than a black eye.

The Wall Street Journal’s position notwithstanding, few people are likely to blame BMW for the storm’s impact, or to associate the Mini Cooper brand with the casualties. However, if top-of-mind awareness is a beneficial marketing objective for a car company, then the exponentially greater, world-wide storm-related coverage for BMW’s Mini Cooper marque certainly won’t hurt showroom traffic or the company’s balance sheet.

In this case, the old saw, “All publicity is good publicity” may well be true. I’m confident that BMW’s marketing agency considers this a solid win, rather than a blunder.

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December 23, 2011 · 5:01 pm

3 Reasons to Avoid One-off Press Quotes

Your Media Strategy: Steak or Sizzle?

For reasons often directly related to justification of a PR firm’s monthly retainer, many corporate websites are littered with press clippings featuring one-off quotes from its executives. Although this popular genre of “Hey look at me, my name is in the news!” visibility can feed corporate egos, the exposure seldom moves the needle, in terms of tangible business outcomes. Here’s why:

The likelihood of target audiences seeing your quote is close to zero. Given the increasing volume of on- and off-line media noise, and because most people are surface readers, getting people to notice a quote buried in the fifth paragraph of a story is akin to getting on camera while sitting in the bleachers at the Super Bowl. More importantly, even if your quote does get noticed, it’s even more unlikely that readers will either remember it or act on it. In most reporting, quotes from sources simply support a premise the reporter is making; they’re not intended to make the sources look smart.
The marketing value of your media quote is absolutely zero. In media coverage that includes quoted sources, typically more than one source is featured, and those other sources often will be competitors. Having a competitor or two quoted in your media coverage will either kill or greatly reduce its merchandising value; meaning the piece cannot be leveraged as a sales tool. To address this issue, some companies extract or isolate their executives’ quotes to remove references to competitors, but this practice of “selective transparency” does not reflect well on the organization’s integrity.
Promoting one-off media quotes can devalue your company’s brand. Here’s an acid test: Do well-known, much quoted companies – McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, SpencerStuart, for example – feature one-off media quotes on their websites? Or (God forbid), do they write press releases announcing that one of their executives was quoted in the media? A quick way to label your company as “bush league” is to base its media strategy around building and promoting an inventory of media exposure consisting of one-off quotes.

If your company is seeking to leverage media exposure to gain 3^rd party endorsements, and to establish bona fide thought leadership, one-off media quotes offer a highly inefficient way to accomplish those goals. More effective media placement strategies involve company profiles, interviews, bylined articles and OpEd pieces…the type of exposure that shines an exclusive and relevant light on a company’s intellectual capital, and that can be converted into powerful sales and marketing tools.

The challenge in pursuing a media strategy based on steak rather than sizzle is that the underlying content requires focus, thought and effort, and that the coverage is much more difficult to attain. Companies and their outside agencies must decide whether their media strategy will be based on short-term ego gratification, or on long-term, meaningful brand exposure. At many companies, that conversation never takes place.

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December 2, 2011 · 6:22 pm

PR Lesson from a Twitter Flap

Emma Sullivan

@emmakate988

Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot

When Shawnee Mission High School student Emma Sullivan jokingly tweeted her friend on November 21^st, expressing her opinion of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s education policy, she had no reason to suspect that her 87-character message would ignite a firestorm of national debate; generate media exposure from nearly every major news source; increase her Twitter followers to nearly 16,000 from 61; or make her the poster child de jour for the First Amendment.

It wasn’t Emma’s tweet that caused the high-profile controversy. The flap was created by a staffer in Governor Brownback’s office who was compelled to contact the leader of Emma’s “Youth in Government” program, who notified Emma’s high school principal, who demanded an apology from Emma, who responded by notifying the media that her God-given American right to tweet was threatened. Stop the presses: we’ve got ourselves a sexy story that’s ready for prime time.

At this point, Governor Brownback and the Shawnee Mission School District had a big decision to make: either hold your ground, or back off a controversy that the media was likely to milk for days, and would position the governor and educators as free speech bullies and social media terrorists.

Contrary to decision-making you might expect from politicians and bureaucrats, both parties immediately backed down. The governor issued an apology, and the school district publicly stated its support of free speech and said Emma was not required to apologize. Smart move.

The PR lesson from this tweet heard round the world is that an apology is often the most effective way to limit damage to one’s reputation or brand. It takes guts to admit an error, but if it’s done correctly, you can build goodwill that offsets the mistake. For some guidelines on how to apologize correctly, check out Ken Makovsky’s blog post on John Kador’s book, “Effective Apology.”

Emma Sullivan might want to put Kador’s book on her Christmas wish list. She has yet to learn basic diplomacy skills from her Youth in Government program. To date, Emma has refused to apologize for her salty tweet.

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September 28, 2011 · 7:19 am

Thought Leadership For Sale: Surviving in a Pay-to-Play World

Pay-to-Play Is a PR Business Reality

Most PR practitioners quickly learn that the Chinese Wall protecting editorial integrity from the influence of paid advertising can be, like the Pirate’s Code, “more of a guideline than an actual rule.” For better or worse, at a great number of well-known and respected media sources, advertising can purchase anything from regular coverage of meaningless news items, to top billing in an industry roundup, or even an outright puff piece.

Despite denials and indignation from journalists, money does talk at many print, electronic and online media sources; often in direct relation to the financial health and business prospects of its corporate owners. These quid pro quo arrangements are never in writing, and typically communicated over a lunch with a publisher or sales rep who, with a smile or a wink, assures the client or agency that, “I have no influence over editorial…but I’ll see what I can do.”

Trade and professional associations are not burdened with an obligation of intellectual honesty akin to that of the Fourth Estate. But it’s safe to assume association membership expects that guest speakers and “experts” featured on the agenda of their organization’s annual conference will be selected on the basis of experience, insight and presentation skill. A small number of these groups do restrict vendors from agenda participation, but at most industry conferences, any outside 3^rd party can purchase a prominent place on the program agenda…and many of those presentations are poorly disguised sales pitches.

This sale of “thought leadership”– market visibility with inherent credibility – is neither a recent development nor a crime that deserves a congressional investigation. Pay-to-play is a fact of business life, and to deal with this reality, PR and marketing professionals can either:

Use the market advantage that deep-pocketed companies have over their (limited budget) client or employer as a convenient rationalization for their inability to generate (unpaid) thought leadership; or they can
Stop whining, get creative, and lacking economic resources, promote bona fide content and foster personal relationships as currency to generate thought leadership.

With the media, succeeding in a pay-to-play world means two things. First, it means creating content that’s timely, tailored for the recipient and never delivered in a press release. Secondly, it means building good will with key journalists by consistently providing them with relevant information and ideas, regardless of whether it relates to your company or client, without any expectation of immediate return.

With public platforms, succeeding in a pay-to-play world mostly means advance planning. It can begin by attending the prior year’s event to get a sense of the organization’s membership, priorities and culture, and to meet the group’s leadership. Conference agenda development can start 9 or more months in advance of the event, so it’s important to be on line early with a topic likely to resonate with members. It also helps if your proposal features a dues-paying member of the sponsoring organization.

In both cases, succeeding in a pay-to-play world means managing internal expectations. From the outset, your CEO or client needs to understand that you’re running against the wind, and in exchange for that effort, you must be given permission to fail.

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Tagged as #conference planning, #content management, #media placement, #media relations, #PR, #press release, #public speaking, #publicity, Chinese Wall, editorial integrity, journalism, journalists, pay-to-play, public relations, trade associations

August 31, 2011 · 11:27 am

Death by Content: How Press Release Abuse Killed Public Relations

Self-serving Press Release Content Has Killed PR

The origins of the press release are unclear, but in the not too distant past, this communication tool was called a “News Release.” And its sole purpose was to provide the press with information likely to be of interest to the public; containing what journalists still call “news value.”

Prior to popularization of fax machines in the 1980s, news releases were delivered by human messengers to major wire services such as AP, UPI and Dow Jones, which in turn communicated that news to their subscribing media outlets over a broadtape machine – much like a financial ticker tape, but using a much wider roll of paper. For non-daily news sources such as magazines, news releases were often sent through the US Mail. Regardless of how they were delivered, news releases served an important role in mass communication.

But the news release has lost its franchise as a communication tool, for two reasons:

Thanks to technology, news releases became an anachronism. Online news portals and email killed the underlying functionality of paper releases as a news dissemination tool. The internet delivered news faster, and this was a good thing.
Thanks to the PR profession, news releases (aptly re-named press releases) became platforms to deliver content with little or no news value, and largely of no practical value or interest to the press. Flacks began using the press release as a marketing and propaganda tool, and this was a bad thing.

Over the past two decades, the sustained volume of press release abuse by PR practitioners – driven in large measure by CEOs (and clients) who fail to understand that journalists are not ad hoc members of their company’s Communications Department – has greatly diminished the stature of the public relations profession in the eyes of journalists, and has also reduced the ability of PR pros to leverage the media as a valuable means of securing objective, third-party exposure and validation for their company, product or cause.

As the number of journalists who post “Do not send press releases or pitch story ideas to me” on their Cision or Vocus profiles increases every year, the PR profession will eventually lose one of its most fundamental roles: to discover or create content that has bona fide news value, and to properly package and present that information to media sources.

If journalists find no practical need for flacks, organizations will likely follow their lead. For public companies, dissemination of financial results and material events will be handled by their legal department. Because press releases are now considered sales collateral by their target audiences, “media relations” for all companies will be managed by the marketing department. Public Relations, as a profession and a function, will simply cease to exist.

Twitter, blogs and other social media-based “pull” tools may eventually replace the press release. But unlike social media, press releases have been pushed at journalists, filling their inboxes, wasting their time, and reinforcing the media’s perception of PR as a self-serving and often ignorant generator of meaningless noise.

It may be too late to repair the self-inflicted damage done to the PR profession by years of press release abuse. Morphing from a Public Relations professional into a Social Media professional may buy some additional career tenure for young communications practitioners, and hopefully they’ll learn from the lessons of PR’s suicide: that whether it’s tweeted, posted or contained in a press release, news and information lacking intrinsic value will always reflect poorly on its source. And over time, it will make you irrelevant.