PAN Communications prSPEAK

So Jaffe PR has publicly declared an end to public relations for law firms. In fact, they have decided that public relations is no longer relevant to its client base and that instead law firms need to be concerned with public reputation management according to a press release issued this earlier this week. Obviously, their number one agenda item is to promote their agency and its services (completely understandable) but they are doing a major disservice to PR professionals everywhere – not by dismissing the relevancy of public relations but by generating a transparent and self-serving press release with such little substance. Talk about spin! If they take the same approach with their clients’ communications, they really will have some “reputation management” to do!

As public relations professionals, we are challenged every day with leading our clients through the new media landscape. When we talk about managing relationships, we are talking about engaging with critical audiences and, certainly, we are presented with new channels and tools for interaction on an almost daily basis. From Twitter to Facebook to the ever-growing blogosphere, the power of persuasion is in the individual’s hands and reputations are always at stake. Public opinion can turn on a dime and a full fledge crisis can break out and spread to all corners of the earth within a matter of minutes. For these reasons, social media is no longer a niche specialty or “nice to have” add-on to a public relations program. Social media and one-on-one engagement is the face of modern public relations.

Everyone wants to be the first to coin a new phrase or lead the pack with buzz words that usher in the future (e.g. social media release), but please back it up with some substance rather than simple semantics. Public relations or public reputation management – call it what you want. We’re all talking about the same thing here. Jaffe hopes to usher in a “new paradigm” with public reputation at the heart of the new reality. While I agree that there is a new paradigm for public relations in 2010, public relations has always been about reputation management. It is the strategy, tools and tactics that have changed not the end goal.

Senior Account Manager Erica Burns talks to Jason Ouellette, Co-Director, Technology Portfolio

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Mommy blogger community site Momdot.com got exactly what it was after when it announced a P.R. Blackout Challenge to its community of mommy bloggers: more publicity.  Smart.  But it’s a red herring: something done to wave you off the scent; a diversion for reasons other than what’s been stated, and the entity that stands to gain the most from Momdot’s appeal to moms to forego working with PR people for a week, is Momdot itself.

I’m in PR; I’ll get that out right up front so there’s no misunderstanding about which side of this debate interests me more.  But, I also don’t presently represent any companies that have a stake in the audiences mommy bloggers’ attract, so I’m not part of the problem which has led to Momdot’s call it quits on posting reviews, give-aways, recommending something, etc. (unless I’m guilty by industry association).   I’m just fascinated by what does and doesn’t make good PR, and this PR Blackout business makes for good PR.

The Momdot appeal is not misguided; I think it was made with the best of intentions.  But what strikes me is the rationale:

Truthfully, I am waiting for the shit storm of social media suicide to hit. Meaning that women are so incredibly stressed with caring for their families, their friendships, and now their online reputations, blogs, companies and obligations, that they are at the edge, the brink, of a real disaster.

Hyperbole?  I find it hard to believe that successful (successful in any definition that suits your particular situation) women would be “on the edge of disaster” if they continue down some road dictated to them–which is the implication–by obligations they’ve made to people interested in getting in front of their blogs’ audiences.

Where’s the free will?  This sort of leaves you thinking these women aren’t in control of what goes up on their own blogs.  If you read through the comments as to who is and isn’t participating in the self-imposed blackout you’ll see some great, measured responses but also a fair amount of piling-on.  I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t make a special note to say just about all of the comments about PR folks are positive (with the exception of not wanting to talk to us for a week) .  The relationship can’t be so bad, can it?

It’s easy to say no to PR; it happens to us every…day…all…day.  Believe it.  Don’t get the impression there is a ton of pressure on you to do something nice for a company that would like to speak with your audience–it’s YOUR audience.  They read you because when you decided to put your thoughts down on a blog you struck a nerve and created a connection with the person on the other side of your monitor.  That’s your connection, mommy blogger, and you’re the gatekeeper.

If it makes sense for you to take a week and not answer any come-ons from PR people, great. But if, as a result of working with PR you’ve been offering things to your readers that they like and you feel rewarded by doing so, why would you stop?  That doesn’t benefit you – but all this talk about a blackout does benefit Momdot.  Will they take down the PR Contact link at the top of their homepage during the blackout?  I’ll be interested to see.  Momdot also hosts a lot of ads (probably not for free) which presumably pays some bills–will those disappear too?

Update: blogher.com weighs in and does a better job than us of articulating how weird and unnecessary this PR blackout thing is.

Kory Mello and Jon Backus

It’s been several weeks since PAN’s summer interns joined the staff here in Andover, and already they’ve made a big splash in the PR waters. Kory Mello and Jon Backus are both 2009 graduates of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Today, they share with us their experiences so far with PAN and the public relations profession.

How did you first hear about PAN?
Jon: I had the pleasure of taking two classes taught by Phil during my last semester at Syracuse. I loved how he spoke highly of PAN and used real-world examples from the agency in class and decided to take a closer look.

Kory: One of my professors mentioned that there was another professor at the school who runs his own firm in Andover—I was like, ‘Wait a minute, Andover?’ I’m from Dracut; I’m literally right next door. I attended a roundtable of Boston-area PR firms that Phil was hosting and he invited me to submit my resume for the summer internship.

What has been your experience at PAN so far?
Jon: I’m impressed by the variety of things that we’re given and challenged with. I’ve done media lists and competitive reports, but at the same time I’ve also edited video and helped on podcasts

Kory: I’ve also been surprised by the responsibilities and the different things that I get to do. I’ve never worked in an agency before—we read in a textbook about what you’re supposed to do (and what you’re not supposed to do), but to be able to get the hands-on experience here in my first four weeks is fantastic.

What does a typical day for you look like?
Jon: When I get to my desk, I open Outlook and my Google reader. It takes me a little while to go through my RSS feeds for relevant news and coverage, and when there is coverage I make clips right away. Other than that, my day includes activities like preparing competitive reports, building up media lists and helping out in the office reception area. We’re also starting to get into pitching.

Kory: I don’t know about you, but my day starts with coffee. Only then do I take a look at e-mail, Twitter and my RSS feeds. I also help run a portal for Airwide Solutions called Mobile Messaging 2.0, so I spend time reading and filtering through various articles.

What has been your favorite task so far?
Jon: For me, the Mirror Image team heard that I had video editing experience and asked me to help them pull together a video for the client. It was a lot of fun, and along the way I was able to teach them a little about editing as well. 

Kory: I was able to work on the First and Main project. We just had an event where they rebranded a new shopping center in downtown North Andover, where not only was I able to pitch the media, but also get involved in the event planning. Several of my reporters came to the unveiling ceremony and I got to work closely with them answering questions and even helping set up the cameras. I’ve never done anything like that before, but it was cool to be in charge.

Do you have any PR “pet peeves”?
Jon: Two stand out for me. The first is grammar. Obviously, everyone slips up once in a while, but there are simple mistakes that people make over and over. It makes me cringe. The second is when a client pulls out the “no comment” comment. There’s always something that you can say, even if it’s a blanket statement.

Kory: Definitely grammar. For instance, reading a press release or an article and seeing writers use the wrong homonym, misplace an apostrophe or forget a hyphen.

What do you like most about PAN?
Jon: Working at PAN, not many things go unnoticed. If you put work into something, someone is going to say something or appreciate you for it. It’s awesome how appreciative everyone is for everyone else. I also love how I can get along with every single person here.

Kory: The atmosphere here is fun. PAN has so many different things that it does, whether it’s workshops, interviews, the newsletter, brown bags or PAN Pub—there are always new things to help everyone stay on top of the game. It’s a friendly atmosphere, and it goes from the top down, starting with Phil.

What impact would you like to have in the PR industry?
Jon: I’d like to be another person in the PR field that does it right and can take away from the stigma that public relations has. Not everyone has it. I know a lot of reporters that greatly appreciate all the help that PR professionals do for them, but many others buy into this stigma.

Kory: I agree we’ve got a bad rap. And not only do we have a bad rap, but people wonder what we do. It’s awful, not even my family gets it. Changing that image—that’s my goal.

What’s your favorite source for news and information?
Jon: I don’t have a single source. I rely on my Google Reader—it has everything I need to know. In my down time though, my favorite thing to read is the Arts section of the New York Times.

Kory: I don’t know what I’d do without my Google Reader. Everything comes into my RSS feeds. I’m also constantly watching CNN and keeping an eye on Twitter.

This year, the internship program is being led by Senior Associates Susan Forshner and Mike O’Connell, who help manage the interns’ schedules and serve as the buffer between them and the teams requesting their assistance.

According to Forshner, the goals of PAN’s internship program are different this year. In addition to integrating Kory and Jon into the world of PR through various account and administrative work, they will have the opportunity to work closely with other departments at the agency as well.

“It’s going to be a three-pronged approach when it comes to gaining experience this summer. Our goal is to give them a broad experience over all areas—PR, marketing and new business.”

In an effort to attract newer, slightly older crowds MySpace is launching a campaign where users follow an engaged couple and help them plan their wedding. This is supposed to enhance MySpace’s image in hopes of making it a site that’s, “not just for teenagers”.

My feelings are a bit mixed about this idea. Sure, the idea sounds really cool and it is also really timely. With reality TV literally exploding in popularity before our eyes this idea sounds awesome. It’s like interactive reality TV! Also, what girl (which is who they are trying to target) doesn’t love a great wedding show? I am a sucker for ‘Who’s Wedding is it Anyway?” and “Bridezillas” myself. I think the idea of planning someone’s wedding online could be really exciting.

But on the other side, privacy is a huge issue surrounding MySpace. I think the reason why Facebook has gotten a leg up in the social media scene is because it offers a wide range of privacy options as well as a wide range of uses. You can use Facebook for business or for fun. MySpace, to me, seems mostly for fun which is why it attracts a younger crowd.

To attract the slightly older and more mature crowd, I think MySpace should add a professional track to their site. MySpace could become a place where young professionals could digitally network (like on LinkedIn) but still have the option to use MySpace for fun.

However, I am still torn on this issue. What do ya’ll think? Is this a step in the right direction for MySpace or should they take a more professional approach to attracting new users?

Was in a meeting today and the topic of ’social media’ came up, again… It got me thinking about all of the opportunity and work being done by folks in the communications field – but to date, a number of organizations haven’t had the chance to see any of their benefits due to the need for immediate visibility/ROI (see sales).  YES ink is good – YES communities are good, but at the end of the day, people spending money with you and that have a budget being watched closely these days want to see their name in print (do I think that is correct, no – but is it true, in my humble opinion, yes). We in the PR industry know and understand the value of social media tools – but it is getting the client up to speed on its value and need is what takes some time and patience from organizations today.

We as an industry need to understand and realize that there is more of an opportunity out there today and that we have to put our clients in front of it. By finding some balance between traditional and social media tactics, I think you’ll see the most positive results.

As I have been reading in the trades, Twitter and blogs, organizations need to see the value (read into revenue) from social media tools/campaigns in order to accept it fully. Will it come, yes, but for now we need to use our industry smarts and insight to convince them that “if you build it, they will come” – someone already said that right?

WIth the economy still trying to find its way, we in the PR industry are faced with proving our value on a regular basis because a lot of times there are decisions made within our clients organization that even our marketing contacts aren’t aware of. So what we’re doing with a lot of our clients today is the traditional media relations, analysts, messaging, speaking engagements, etc. but we’re also extending our value and services by helping our clients reach the niche communities who end up being – ta da – their real customers, the end users. There are many tools that your company and your PR team can utilize to reach these audiences and market yourself right to them – so don’t get stuck in the traditional need to do A, B, and C public relations program. Open it up a bit and use your agency to open new doors and avenues for you – now is the time to try something new because each day we see more changes and who knows what tomorrow will bring. So talk to your PR team and get their thoughts on what else they can be doing to help further your position or to get that unique spotlight put on the company.

I’m a proud Gen-Xer and semi-reformed slacker.  As such, It’s kinda fun to watch (and sometimes mediate) the debate over the role of Millennials in the office.  Where my group was pestered to get off our collective asses and be productive, Millennials are constantly looking for productive jobs to do.  There are exceptions but in general the phenomenon is well documented.  Compared to my X peers, the Millennial contrast is very stark.

The fundamental difference between the two groups (if measured at the same point in time–mid to late 20s) is we were prone to wasting time, Millennials complain there isn’t enough of it.  While I don’t regret for a moment most of my behavior, objectively I’d have to say I admire many of the Millennial traits.  In our defense, however,  I’d offer the lack of instant-and always-on tools we’re used to working and playing with now.  “In my day,” if you needed to write a report in college about the Pyramids you went to the library and opened an encyclopedia.  Now it’s a click and print function.  I guess that’s the modern analog to the “I used to walk to school uphill in the snow–both ways.”

I bring this up (and date myself) to eventually make a point: I don’t see the Millennials apting to and applying social media tools for work, even though they’re perhaps the best versed in the technology.  Again, there are notable exceptions but for the most part Millennials don’t translate their familiarity with these tools into a competitive differentiator in the office.  Not the way they should be, anyway. It’s a curious problem so I asked Megan Maquire Twitter: megan_maquire), who IS one of the notable exceptions why this was the case.   She’ tweeted back:

@xylem Why don’t Millennials see mrkg potential of social media? Probably b/c most don’t see a use for it beyond fun. I’ll blog a better ans soon

Looking forward to her post!

Update:  Megan came back at me with a well thought out and written piece here. She gets support in the comments, too.  I agree with her; dividing the workplace by generations doesn’t do anyone any good, but the original observation is probably being played out in workplaces all over by managers like me.

We’re entering into an economic period the Y’s haven’t seen before (or were shielded from because they were in school for the last one).  The next four or six quarters are going to be deadly serious times for many businesses.  People with the most marketable skills are going to survive while others who don’t pick themselves up or don’t quite get the seriousness of the situation are going to be left behind.  Now’s the time for Y’s to put their recreational skills to use, both for their employers and/or themselves.  You’re all invited to pitch in!  We’ll use our experience to get through this next rough patch; you show us what’s new and we’ll blend the two.

Thanks Megan!

I dialed into a WebEx (I still hate WebEx–how they’ve been around this long and still not figured out how to make logging into one of their presentations dead simple is just….*tisk*) on Tuesday to hear John Battelle talk about “Conversational Marketing.” Mr. Battelle’s a guy I respect and have been following for a number of years; first for my job, but now because he makes sense in a space filled with a lot who dont.

The moderated Q&A-type session covered a lot of ground and I wish I had the ability to take really detailed notes, but I didn’t. It was in the middle of the day–what can you do? I was struck at one point in the discussion by a seemingly obvious point John made which I’m sure many of us miss: if the now famous “markets are conversations” mantra is true, then companies participating in those marketplaces need to have good conversationalists (not a direct quote, but close enough). Makes sense, right?

The most obvious examples of this include (and were cited by John) Robert Scoble, when he was still with Microsoft and Jeremy Zawodny, of Yahoo! Both of these guys became their respective company’s conversationalist with the public. And both of them took this responsibility very seriously. They gained the market’s ‘trust’ by being fair and transparent. If (and frequently when) someone commented about MSFT doing something particularly odious, Scoble would either agree or not, depending on how he saw it, rather than defending MSFT out of hand without researching whether or not the commentor had a point. And if Scoble didn’t know the answer, he’d go find out and report back.

So good conversationalists have good listening skills, too. It’s fair to say if a company is going to be a healthy participant in a marketplace, it needs skilled conversationalists who are equally skilled at listening, as well as commenting.

Some other good points which came up during the WebEx:

Conversational Marketing should embrace PR, but PR has to get used to the fact that once in a while it has to step out of the way once the conversation starts. I liked this–PR folks should be facilitators, not hurdles to good conversations. Be more proactive, not reactive. If there’s a crisis (and the term crisis can mean anything negative) then embrace that situation as an opportunity to engage and rectify. John had a good anecdote at the ready to explain: he was giving this presentation from a hotel room in NY. He didn’t mention the name of the hotel but he said he’d had a bad experience when he first checked in. He called down to the front desk to get it resolved and the hotel did very little to help. His point of contact was also rude.

John said he’d now give the hotel a D grade. But, if the hotel had done something proactive to help John’s situation, then comped him a night *or* sent up something to say they were sorry for the inconvenience, that would have changed John’s perception of the hotel’s brand. Handled proactively, John would have divorced the experience from the brand itself and still left with a positive brand perception.

PR should look for people who are out there being vocal about their brand experiences. If negative, look for the opportunities to make them right. If positive, do what’s necessary to keep those positive vibes flowing. These market conversations are happening all around and positive engagements will create many more brand embassadores than any amount of advertising could ever buy. That last part’s my add, by the way. John didn’t go down the advertising road.

Measurement – This is still a gray area. The positive thing about online marketing is that it’s easy to tell when traffic spikes to a site created specifically for a particular initiative, or counting the number of inbound links (“gestures,” or indications of people’s attention online), but a universal standard of conversational marketing measurement is still needed. The old models of “reach” and “frequency” are still relevant, but they’re being rationalized and scrutinized harder than before. This is particularly true in the search advertising space, where advertisers are starting to demand more transparency from ad networks.

On sites like Myspace and Facebook – they’re tremendous potential vehicles for marketers, but still “a mess.” But a good mess; marketers have opportunities here but finding them is an ongoing puzzle.

Those are the salient points. None of the above are direct quotes unless I stuck “” around them. John, if you read this and I’ve missed something or gone off course stick in a comment and I’ll get it changed asap.

Next one of these John does is worth an hour of your time.

I would have liked to have live-blogged this “radio talk show-style” interview with David Weinberger our good friend Francois Gossieaux, president of Corante and founder of new marketing agency MarketHum held for a bunch of Facebook Marketing 2.0 groupies yesterday at 1:00, but I dialed into the call with just time enough to open Word for note-taking.

Those who attended got a treat–David Weinberger, of the Cluetrain crowd, and Berkman Center and Everything Is Miscellaneous fame, fielded questions about marketing, new and social media, pr and even politics (with his “typical, New England Jewish” slant–Democrat) He likes Obama and Edwards but thinks Hillary will take the nomination. More on that below.

I’m not the best transcriber, meaning I’m sure I didn’t catch all the questions and answers word for word. I was also interrupted during the Q&A by some work stuff (imagine!) So if you notice anything wildly out of place please note it in the comments section and I’ll do what I can to correct.

Francois: What about blogging in heavily-regulated industries (i.e., Pharma)?

David W: Customers are smart about metadata—we can tell the difference between marketing fluff on a site and real data; we’re pretty good at figuring out what to trust absolutely and what’s marketing.

It’s important for companies to be explicit about the info they’re giving out; for instance, “this stuff ‘here’ you can count on, its facts, ingredients, etc.—sue us if we get it wrong.” Compared against that the marketing content is apparent. Now go back and look at marketing in general and ask yourself if customers trust the word of other customers rather than what you say about your own business.

Customers have learned not to trust companies the way they trust other customers. Marketing needs to adjust to this reality by taking on an authentic tone (the marketing stuff is starting to really sound phony because people are increasingly listening to other—authentic—people. So, the marketing stuff is now starting to sound PHONY because it’s not authentic, even if it happens to be right.

Francois: Are there other lessons Everything is Miscelaneous can teach us?

David W: two things change for marketers: 1) the customer is in control. The control goes beyond exchange of ideas and reviews; customers are starting to take control of organizational issues. Customers can now “organize their own stores with metadata”

2) Finding the complexity in what looks simple. Marketing has always been about simplifying the message. You’re engaged in a process of simplification. BUT, blogging and being transparent is about tackling the complex. Marketers have to get more “stomach” for being complex, meaning interesting. Simple is becoming the new ‘insulting’ to customers.

Francois, taking questions from audience: – How do we make things more simple with so many angles attached to each subject, especially in B-2-B environments? AND, marketers have always been on the side of being in control of the message; how do we as marketers give up control?

David W: Simplicity vs. Complexity – there’s always a dialectic. If you teach, you know sometimes you want to make things simple because people get confused. Other times you have to show the complexity. At certain times in business you want to be very simple—find the statement that sums up what is your product (especially in tech). It has to be simple. Once you do that you can organize the complexity to some degree. There’s hypnotizing simplicity—which is bad because that’s saying the same thing over and over again. And then there’s clarifying simplicity—which makes understanding easier so you can then layer levels of complexity on top of that simplicity.

David W: On control: marketing takes as a measure of success the level to which it controls the message, which is the wrong way to go about it.

Francois G: On Simplicty: Simple messages – “what’s it going to do for me?” is where we need to focus.

Francois G: What would happen if marketing did not exist? Should marketing go away, or become a part of every company function to some degree or another?

David W: it’s healthy and worth enabling the exchange of ideas an information. Marketers cannot control the message…there are still elements of communications that marketers can control and need to run with, but messaging and product messaging isn’t going to be it anymore.

Audience Question: (GalxoSmithKline) – Converting people who don’t know they want something is called “the intent economy,” which consists of people who want something but have to find you first. What does tagging have to do with the intent economy? – we haven’t figured out how to use tagging yet; should crossing the intention economy include tagging? How does tagging tie into this economy?

David W: The intention economy, and why tags matter, is marketing. The conversations that are happening with or without you and the reasons why people find you are because of these conversations. More often than not people don’t know you exist, so they can’t find you. So, if I want to find you, I need to stumble across you. The framework that enables you to find me is not on your site. Tagging certainly helps by finding people’s recommendations and what they think of your products and that makes it easier for others to find you.

For example: if you’re a car company and you changed your messaging to “we’re the safe car.” But a lot of people might not care about that so much—they’re looking for other attributes. You need to make your site accessible to people with multiple interests. You can’t anticipate what the people want, so you architect your site to help the intention economy along.

This is something that’s happening to brands – branders used to try and control the brand; now its all about reputation—your users bestow this ‘reputation’ upon you and it’s become more important to protect reputation, vs. your brand.

Audience Question: What advice do you have for those of us “stuck in the middle,” where the company says it wants to get involved in conversations, but still can’t let go of control. So they get into these conversations while trying to retain control and really make a mess. How do you convince the company to stop this?

DW: A company would be foolish not to listen and take advantage of the information the web FIRST—in many respects the customers are the market research. But be careful, as soon as you convince a company to listen, they will want to jump in because they’ll want to respond to stupid posts and message boards. It’s the marketers JOB to HOLD THEM BACK at first. knee jerk responses will be bad.

Francois: “The Shut Up Revolution.”

Audience Question: Can you give us your view on the Democratic primary. Who is going to win and why is their message working?

David W: From my point of view, the three majors: I like Obama and Edwards..and I’m doing volunteer work for Edwards. But I think that Hillary is going to win, but I don’t like her communication style; it’s old-world, alienating, foreign and annoying. It’s a space alien from the planet broadcast – her communications style is a serious negative for her, although she’s probably going to win.

Francois G: A lot of companies are looking for help, and there are a lot of pr agencies that don’t get it. For people who are looking for help, where do they turn?

David W: I wish there was a list to point to. You want to find people who have something good to say. I don’t have a magic way of predicting this; if they don’t know how to use email, there’s a problem.

For those of you who want a more complete account, Francois will have (I believe) a recording of the event up soon!