PR, the changing media landscape and social media
Building on the ‘Stuff/Shit XX say meme’, Hunter PR in the US has created Stuff PR people say…
There are new examples of this meme growing by the minute. The one that kicked it off (at least I think):
Shit Girls say:
Hat tip – Mumbrella for alerting me to this.
Check out the clever video below produced by Carlsberg featuring a cinema full of rough and scary looking bikies.
This type of stunt is not necessarily new, Heineken did something fairly similar not that long ago, which you can see at the bottom of this post.
Though just because it isn’t new doesn’t mean it isn’t successful or effective. For the fraction of the cost it would have taken to create an advertisement, not to mention the spend required to buy media, this clever stunt has generated in excess of 2.7 million views. It only went up a week ago, so this number will likely grow albeit at a slower pace! This number also doesn’t include the additional buzz traditional media and the blogosphere would have created. Check out a small snapshot of the additional buzz on Google.
Regardless of the fact that in retrospect coming up with an idea like this seems simple, I can guarantee it isn’t. Good work Carlsberg – a good fun and effective stunt.
Henieken’s similar stunt, which must be noted has only 900K views:
New business presentations, whether you agree with them or not, are very much a reality for just about every advertising, PR and media agency.
I reckon over the course of my career I have been involved in maybe 60 or more new business pitches and that numbers increases every single week.
Thankfully I have not won every pitch I have been involved in. I say thankfully because I have learnt something valuable from every single loss. So much so in fact that now I am in the fortunate position that I am winning more pitches than I lose.
In preparation for addressing a group of Newcastle University students this week, I developed a presentation focussing on what makes a good new business pitch. You can check it out below, but in case you don’t have the time to read it all below are my top tips.
The most important point:
I have learnt this stuff because I have been privileged enough to work with some of the best in the business when it comes to winning new business. These people include:
I also learnt a tonne reading this book - Stop Bitching and Start Pitching by Marty Kellard and Ian Elliot.
If you have additional suggestions for winning new business, or you disagree with any of my comments I would love to receive your feedback in the comment box.
Does the potential of a PR crisis played out in the modern social media environment keep you up at night? If so, this post and the presentation, created in conjunction with Edelman crisis management expert Grant Smith, at the bottom may provide some guidance.
Last week I was invited to present on the topic of Managing crisis in the digital age at the PR and Communications’ the Future of Social Media Forum.
The event was a three day conference for people in the PR and marketing industries and included presentations from the likes of Gavin Heaton (servant of Chaos), Ian Lyons (who I had never met before), Alexandra Kentman (who I sadly missed) and fellow PR agency staffer Dan Young.
The context:
What do you think? Do you agree? Is there anything you would add to my advice?
Oprah’s announcement last week that she is bringing 300 of her audience to Australia is in my opinion the best marketing Tourism Australia has done since Paul Hogan’s throw another shrimp on the barbie ads of the mid 80s.
The announcement by Oprah generated global media attention last week and will no doubt generate a lot more when the lady herself arrives in Australia.
The Fairfax press over the weekend wrote an insightful article outlining the events leading up to the announcement and some of the numbers involved. I have summarised the facts below:
Milestones:
The numbers:
Included in the article I mention above was this paragraph:
According to Janice Peck, author of The Age of Oprah, advance notice that a book is to get the Oprah seal of approval is enough to persuade most publishers in the United States to increase their print run by 500,000 copies.
Congratulations Tourism Australia, PR success doesn’t come much greater.
This week I had the honour of presenting to PR students at the University of Newcastle (my old university) on the topic of working in a PR agency. Above is the presentation I gave. It was intended to be light-hearted and was pitched assuming minimal knowledge of the agency environment. The simple reason for this is that when I was at uni I had no idea about what a PR agency did or how it all worked.
I often get asked what skills you should have to get a job in PR and how you go about getting a job at an agency. My advice typically covers the following points:
This is just my advice. What other tips should we be giving to students and others looking to start a career in PR?
Image by Greekadman - http://bit.ly/aqw05t
The title of this post was a bit of a link bait exercise, I don’t advocate the use of a #journofail hash tag, but I do think those of us in the PR industry need to end our fear of criticising journalists.
Tiffany Farrington, an Australian PR veteran and someone I respect a lot, recently published a post listing things that PRs dislike about journalists. The post contained a collection of anonymous irks PR people had sent in and was a good read. The post was not a rant, came on the back of a post which asked journalists what they disliked about PRs and was created with the desire of creating harmony amongst the community of PRs and journalists.
I loved the post and left a comment stating:
Thanks Tiff, refreshing to see the PRs’ side of this story told.
Whilst we may not work for the same side, our industries are undeniably intertwined. Over the years I have learnt lots about what to do and what not to do by paying attention to journalists in their articles, blog posts and presentations about how PRs should interact with them.
I hope journalists can benefit in a similar way from this post.
Frustratingly however, this was the only comment from someone in the PR industry on the post. Based on her high profile I assume Tiff’s blog is well visited, the blog was linked to from Mumbrella driving even more traffic, there were journalists that commented on it, so surely PRs were also reading it. Why then had none of my colleagues felt compelled to comment? My only assumption is that PR people are so concerned about the implications of criticising a journalist that it kept them silent.
The non willingness of my colleagues to speak up is not healthy in my mind. As I stated in my comment on Tiffany’s blog, whilst we have different drivers and objectives in our roles, the PR and journalism industries across many sectors (note I am not saying all) are undeniably intertwined. If those of us on the PR side are too scared to provide constructive criticism on how our industries can work better together then we rightly deserve to be treated in a subservient manner by journalists and continue to be frustrated by their actions.
I am not suggesting that en mass PRs should start airing their gripes with their journalist contacts, but when we experience mistakes, or poor practice (and this does happen), these should be addressed in a constructive manner. If we don’t, we risk a gap forming between our industries and a growing frustration on both sides.
In this spirit, my advice to journalists is to keep the mistakes us PR people make in perspective. PR agencies on the whole are filled with really smart, passionate and hard working people. PRs, like you, often work long hours in stressful environments with many demands. Sometimes this results in mistakes that frustrate you. Rather than launching into a tirade on Twitter, or elsewhere, when this happens, why not contact the person in question, or one of their colleagues you have a relationship with. Outline why their actions are causing you frustration and how they can avoid doing that again. I know you’re busy, we all are, but you might be surprised at how this small investment saves wasted time down the track and may even help you better achieve your objectives.
Of course I realise that in many cases what I am advocating above is the norm and there are countless examples of good relationships built on mutual respect between the PR and journalism industries. I am simply writing this post in the hope that we can increase these types of relationships and decrease the negatives ones.
I’d love to hear from PRs or journalists on reactions to this post.
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If like me you have heard the term Web 3.0 and the semantic web, but aren’t really sure what it means then watch the video I have embedded below. It is around 15 minutes, but is well worth the time investment. If you can’t spare the time I have attempted a summary below it.
The mini doco is by Kate Ray, a NYU Psychology and Journalism major student. It is incredibly interesting and got me thinking about the impact of Web 3.0 on the PR industry.
As I note below, the impact and potential of the semantic web is difficult for even the experts in the field to get their head around, so this post is a fairly large act of hubris by me, but hopefully it is a conversation starter. I would love to hear your thoughts as well, even if they are to tell me I don’t have a clue.
Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.
My summation/major take outs:
Watching this I tried to think about the impact web 3.0 will have on the PR industry.
You could argue the above points are where PR is headed now whilst we are still getting to grips with Web 2.0. Irrespective, I would love your thoughts on how you think the semantic web will impact PR. Do you agree? Am I way off the mark? What other impacts will Web 3.0 have on how organisations do PR?
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UK PR Week, in conjunction with Diffusion PR, last month released a report on the integration of digital into the PR mix, titled PRWeek/Diffusion Digital Integration Report: The Digital Divide. I missed the report when it came out, but have now reviewed and think the findings are worth sharing.
Having worked in both the UK and Australia I believe the markets are fairly similar in the way organisations approach PR and marketing. Of course the budgets here in Australia are much smaller, but generally the way PR is done in the UK and here is similar, so the report and its findings I believe are also relevant for Australia.
Report methodology:
According to PR Week:
a landmark PRWeek survey of 128 clients, drawn from across in-house comms, marketing and digital departments, reveals exactly how organisations are grappling with the challenge of integrating social media into their existing operations.
Key report findings:
To what extent have you embraced social media and digital PR?
To what extent have you embraced social media and digital PR?
Findings - more than 60% of those surveyed stated that social media and digital PR is being used either as an element of most campaigns or a core part of comms strategy. However, roughly 40% use it on an ad hoc basis or not at all.
My view – this result was not surprising for me based on the work I do with my clients. However, I would argue it is those organisations that have integrated social media and digital PR as a core component of their work that are getting the best results. Like any marketing discipline, social media digital PR works best when it is a continuous program, not something that is turned on and off.
With which external agencies do you work on social media?
With which external agencies do you work on social media?
Findings - 43% do not use an agency, 39% use a PR agency, 29% a digital agency whilst only 8% use a dedicated social media agency.
My view – I was surprised to see such a high number of practitioners responding that responsibility for social media was managed solely inhouse. Not that I am suggesting those inhouse are not suited to social media, quite the contrary in many respects. To me this highlights an unwillingness by client organisations to adequately invest in external social media expertise.
In the traditional space even the best in-house marketing practitioners utilise the support of agencies to deliver their results, why should it be different for social media? Assuming the agency gets it, I think in-house marketing people should be investing a good portion of their budget to extend activities in the social media space (disclaimer – I lead a team of digital PR people at a PR agency).
Where does ownership of social media sit within your organisation?
Who owns social media in your organisation?
Findings – 36% marketing team, 34% PR and comms team, 17% cross departmental responsibility, 7% yet to be decided, 3% dedicated social media team, 2% IT department
My view – social media is about engaging in a two way conversation with an organisation’s customers and public. Whilst there are multiple departments that talk to an organisation’s target market, there has traditionally only been one that has engaged in a two way dialogue – the communications department. As such, it is my belief that the communications department/PR team is best placed to develop strategy and lead direction for social media.
What do you see as the key barriers preventing social media adoption in your organisation?
What do you see as the key barriers to social media adoption within your organisation?
Findings – 45% inability to demonstrate clear ROI, 40% lack of digital knowledge and understanding, 38% lack of resources and budgets
My view – it is not surprising to me that the top two barriers are a lack of clear ROI and a lack of digital knowledge. When people don’t understand something they typically won’t find a value in it. Fix the lack of education and the clear ROI barrier will be lowered, as will the barrier of budget and lack of resources.
How satisfied are you with your current lead agency’s social media and digital PR abilities?
How satisfied are you with your lead PR agency's social media capabilities?
Findings – 19% very satisfied, 32% moderately satisfied, 15% very or moderately dissatisfied, 34% unsure.
My view – these results should be concerning for PR agencies. To me it highlights the fact that there are some, but too few PR practitioners with digital PR skills. Everyone involved in PR should be educating themselves in digital PR and agencies should be investing to ensure everyone has a basic understanding.
I have posted below some more graphics from the report.
What do you think about the report’s findings, are they surprising? Do you agree with my opinions? I would love to hear from you in the comment box.
Presentation at the bottom of this post.
Yesterday I was invited to speak at Frocomm’s 3rd Annual New Media Summit hosted in Sydney. The event was attended by around 150 mainly PR professionals from across a range of industries in Australia and featured other speakers including, David Quilty of Telstra, Paul Borrud of Facebook and industry colleagues of mine Brian Geisen of Ogilvy PR and Dan Young Burson Marsteller. See the full list of speakers here.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see all the presentations due to work commitments that kept me in the office, but those I did were very interesting, particularly David Quilty’s presentation on how Tesltra the telecom giant is embracing social media practices right across the organisation.
During the day two panel session, which I sat on with Brian Geisen, David Quilty and Monty Hamilton from UBank, questions followed the general themes of justifying social media to the boss, understanding and qualifying measurement through to how social media can be integrated into the general PR and marketing mix.
Having worked in this industry for a little while now it was refreshing to see, based on the questions being asked, that there is now a general realisation within organisations that social media isn’t a fad and that it represents a fundamental shift in the way we need to conduct business. The audience was keen to learn how they can start embracing and undertaking more social work and it was evident whenever practical advice was being provided that frantic notes were being scribbled.
In addition to the panel session, I also presented a half hour session on building communities in Facebook, which I have posted below (For those reading in a reader, or via email check it out here). I created this presentation in an attempt to provide a platform for PR people to justify a presence in Facebook for their organisation and also to act as a roadmap of sorts for building out a Facebook campaign. I hope it fulfils these objectives.
I would love any and all feedback on this presentation. How do you think it could be improved? Have I left any important components out that you think need to be added?
Finally, thanks to Glen Frost for the opportunity to speak at the conference.
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