--It's been a busy month for the PR industry as well as me personally. Stanton Communications, my employer, launched a new Web site.
--The Council of Public Relations Firms launched its new publication The Firm Voice, along with a great new tutorial for young PR pros called PR Quick Start.
--Brendan Hodgson of H&K gave a great perspective on Web 2.0 tools and their role within a broader communications strategy. As I've said before on this blog, sometimes it's easy to get wrapped up in the novetly of the tool without really identifying how this tactic may fit within the overall communications plan and how that plan aligns with the objectives of the organization.
--National Small Business Week is coming up on April 21-25 here in D.C. Check out the event web site for details on event in DC and NY.
--I interviewed the Director of Sales at iDirect - a fascinating satellite company that's working to bring the Internet to remote corners of the world.
Many of my friends who earned bachelors degrees within the past few years have taken the leap into graduate school. As you can guess, many of these students were pre-med or pre-law as undergraduate students and so the transition into graduate school is a logical next step.
Though, for others, especially in the financial services industry, going back to school is an employer-sponsored perk.Recent accounting and business majors who landed jobs at global accounting / financial firms are encouraged to earn MBAs in an effort to further their career – many have some or all of their tuition reimbursed by their employer.
Marketing majors, too, with their subject-area safely inside the walls of most major business schools, seem gravitate toward MBA programs.It seems only natural that students with four years of marketing and business coursework seek out an MBA, especially if a marketing agency offers to help foot the bill.
When it comes to PR firms, it seems tuition reimbursement isn’t really a common benefit.This might be because no one is really demanding it. In fact, from what I can tell in working with communications professionals across a wide spectrum of industries, having an MBA, or any graduate degree, is hardly a requirement for growth. There seems to be a sentiment within our industry that the economic and accounting oriented curriculum doesn’t really applyfor your run-of-the-mill Director of Communications position.
Now, as social media blurs the line between PR and Marketing, there’s a real turf war over who is best positioned to counsel clients in this space. Doesn’t it make sense, then, that Public Relations professionals, who so often preach the alignment of communications strategy to the overall objectives of the business, posses the requisite business skills?
The Council of Public Relations firms weighed in last December.You can read the full article here.
Any thoughts on this?From MBAs, younger PR pros, or those currently in grad school?
Entry-level employees are painfully familiar with the skyrocketing costs of tuition. The average graduate leaving the university with debt is not a new phenomena. This is breaking news according to the New York Times: "College Costs Rising Rapidly"
In other news, San Fransisco hosted the 4th annual Web 2.0 Summit last week. Lots of applications for PR pros.
Stephen Davies has a great post on Do and Don't for Digital Natives at the request of Paull Young.
Speaking of Digital Natives, I'm planning on attending a conference of the same name hosted by the Council of Public Relations firms in New York on November 8th. It looks like there will be a great collection of speakers.
I'm most excited about hearing former Clinton pollster, Burson CEO, and Soccer Mom identifier, Mark Penn. I've just finished his new book, MicroTrends. It's a great look at a variety of nascent and important demographics in our country. I've been offered the chance to toss out a question or two to moderator, Jeffrey Rayport, on behalf of young PR pros. Here's Rayport on the upcoming conference:
If you could ask Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News or Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online , or Jon Iwata, SVP Communications, IBM, or Mark Penn, a question as a young public relations profession, what would it be? Seriously. I have a blank notepad and my RSS feeds open. I need some inspiration...
Last week I attended the second in a series of discussions jointly hosted by the Council of PR Firms and Google. There was a lot of great information, but I first wanted to post what I thought was one of the most relevant presentations. It was called "5 Ways PR Can Participate in Youtube". This was just a tip of the iceberg but I wanted to share it since so many of us are being asked to develop campaigns that feature an online video component. I consider these videos launching pads and plan to explore other elements of the campaigns: paid advertising, search engine optimization, media relations, etc.
(The last two are Youtube Channels and not singular videos)
1) RESPOND to conversation about your brand. Example: Jet Blue. Jet Blue was assaulted in the press for long delays at the airport. Customers stuck for hours filmed the ordeal and posted on YouTube.
The CEO came out with a Passenger Bill of Rights and posted his response using the same channel. By the time the major news outlets were covering the customer outrage, the CEO response was already a part of the story.
2)START a new conversation within a community. Example Nike Zoom Challenge. Nike laced up NBA player Steve Nash in Nike shoes and taped him running a popular end line-to-foul line sprinting drill. Nike then asked viewers to try to beat Nash's time.
3) PUBLICIZE your brand or event. Example: Neiman Marcus 100th Anniversary.
4) CONNECT your brand to a cause. Example Bono & Red.
5) CREATE a Single Home for all online video content. Example, United States Navy
A few weeks ago I attended an event in New York called “Beyond PR 2.0” hosted by Google and The Council of PR firms. I’ve included a brief report below and have included the links to online content discussed during the presentation. If you have a moment, I encourage you to visit the links as your read through the report; it’ll help put the discussion into context. The event was nearly 5 hours of panel discussions and lectures – needless to say, I’ve had to condense my notes.
Peanut Butter Recall
The event kicked off with a welcome from two employees from Google, Kevin Kills and Jen Bradburn. They both stressed the importance of utilizing Web 2.0 search and tracking tools. We’ve all preached the value of subscribing to RSS feeds to our clients, but the Google team shed light on this idea in a new way, specifically within the field of crisis communications.
The recent recall of Peter Pan peanut butter served as a great example. As the story broke, consumers flocked to search engines looking for more information. Almost instantaneously, companies looking to capitalize on the mass panic began targeting relevant keywords. As a result, users entering in “peanut butter lawsuit” in Google’s search engine found not only the results they were looking for, but also a variety of sponsored links from lawyers offering representation for those sickened by the product.
This example surely falls more into the category of advertising than public relations, but it’s an important tactic to understand. It stresses the importance that public relations pros utilize search engines not only as a means to monitor breaking news, but also to communicate with consumers directly. The Google team encouraged public relations practitioners to target press releases, CEO statements, interviews clips, etc, directly to consumers by linking those company materials to key search terms. If lawyers are able to instantaneously connect with people reading about tainted peanut butter, then so too should the very brand in question. For more on how, technically, companies are achieving this check out Jen’s recent post here.
The peanut butter case above and a number of the other case studies presented all seemed to flirt with advertising. I think as we continue to sharpen these web 2.0 skills, much of what’s considered advertising will begin to blur with line with public relations since most user generated platforms are free.
Dove Evolution
Later in the lecture, we discussed the Dove Evolution campaign as another example of how the line between advertising and pr has begun to blur, especially as organizations utilize user generated platforms to share their story. First, if you haven't yet seen the video, it's fascinating...
Is it public relations, or is it advertising? Whatever you call it, the panelists used this example to stress the importance of research as a means to better understand audiences and how a video on a user generated site can be taken “on the road” and placed in a variety of more traditional channels such as TV and print.
What does all this mean for us? The future of all public relations campaigns will utilize new channels to tell compelling stories. Video, webcasts, podcasts – these aren’t simply items on a media monitoring report, but rather opportunities.
The Jet Blue crisis served as the example of how video is changing public relations. We watched two videos. The first was created by a Jet Blue passenger as he and friends waited nearly two days to leave JFK....
The second is from David Neeleman, CEO, responding to angry customers.
We then had a lengthy discussion on the merits of using youtube video as a means to commute directly with customers. After much feedback from PR pros in the audience we finally concluded that online video can be one useful channel within a broader outreach campaign, but if done poorly, a company video on youtube can backfire.
Wrap Up
Ultimately, the message from all panelists was that the value of collaboration and transparency is even higher when working with the new online media . As the panelist opened up to questions from audience we seemed to get back to the basis: use blogging search engines and RSS feeds to listen to what’s being said about your brand; when you post content online do so for the benefit of the audience, not the organization; create compelling and honest content, not PR speak.
More Links
Finally, I’ve included a list of useful links to explore. As you can imagine, the majority of the tools discussed were Google products. Description copy from Google:
Hot Trends, you can see a snapshot of what's on the public's collective mind by viewing the fastest-rising searches for different points of time. You can see a list of today’s top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. You can also select a recent date in history to see what the top rising searches were and what the search activity looked like over the course of that day.
Website Optimizer, Google's free multivariate testing application, helps online marketers increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction by continually testing different combinations of site content (text and images).
Rather than sitting in a room and arguing over what will work better, you can save time and eliminate the guesswork by simply letting your visitors tell you what works best. We'll guide you through the process of designing and implementing your first experiment. Start optimizing your most important web pages and see detailed reports within hours.
Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that a webmaster can optimize their AdWords advertisement and marketing campaigns through the use of GA's analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website and their geographical position.
I'm planning on attending this event in New York on Tuesday. It's hosted by the Google and the Council on Public Relations. Here's the summary:
"The Council of Public Relations Firms invites you to a special summit, being held on June 12th in collaboration with Google, entitled: Beyond PR 2.0. Some of the topics will include using search effectively for your clients; case studies for online crisis management and consumer product launches, and measuring online campaigns.
In addition to Google and Council member presenters, Jon Iwata (IBM), Jim Nail (Cymfony) and Matthew Creamer (Advertising Age) will be providing their expert opinions."
