AdverClast

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Web 2.0 Killed The PR Star

Posted on | November 15, 2008 |

The first act ever played on MTV, “Video Killed The Radio Star” ushered in the music video age. Driven by the powerful images, musicians of all stripes began developing videos. One or more music videos were soon required for any album release. But, as we know, video didn’t kill the radio star in 1981. Albeit with a smaller audience, radio persists today. Further, adaptable radio stars became multimedia mavens.

So, it was with a sense of deja vu that we began hearing that three social media acolytes (Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis) had declared PR dead at the hand of social media. In truth, they were expressing frustration with aspects of the PR industry. PR practitioners, sensitive to issues of influence, may have overreacted. In doing so, they reinforced the bloggers’ primary complaint: that PR folks don’t read their work.

Why do the words of a few bloggers matter? At the very least, these Web 2.0 luminaries are sizable web publishers relied upon by thousands of readers to divine and interpret important trends. But, it’s more than that. They have “Twinfluence“. Unlike web publishers of old, through the immediacy of and interplay between media like Twitter, FriendFeed and their blogs, these authors create their own echo chambers. The result, if one of these Web 2.0 oracles say you’re dead… perception can become reality.

“We Can’t Rewind - We’ve Gone To Far”
Before agreeing that PR is doomed, let’s dig a bit deeper. First, looking at actual comments and frustrations. Then, looking at some of the potential solutions.

  • Jason Calacanis produced a lengthy piece for Silicon Alley Insider entitled: How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company. Filled with practical advice for entrepreneurs, some of it was pointed:”You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR… Journalists and bloggers are very busy and PR people are, by and large, considered an inefficiency in the system by them.”
  • Robert Scoble, with 39,000 Twitter followers, Tweeted about his concerns:”I don’t mind being contacted by PR. I hate it when I get contacted after they already leaked the news. That’s bad PR”… ”Based on my email pitches most firms don’t read my blog, much less use Twitter search or search FriendFeed”
  • Michael Arrington authored the post The PR Roadblock On The Road To Blissful Blogging. Targeting an audience of entrepreneurs he said:”They’re [PR Co's] trying to apply the same rules they used when the number of journalists covering their companies was a manageable, chummy lot. Today there’s a whole spectrum of people writing about startups in big media publications, large and small blogs, Twitter, Friendfeed and everything in between. Most PR folks don’t read blogs and certainly don’t understand them.“

“Pictures Came And Broke Your Heart”
On Wednesday 12-Nov, PR agency The Horn Group in San Francisco hosted a panel called: “Is Social Media Killing PR?”. Moderated by Media Survey’s Sam Whitmore, the panel included Kara Swisher of AllThinsD.com, Susan Etlinger of The Horn Group, and Jeremiah Oywang, of Forrester Research.

Kara Swisher set the tone in her opening remarks suggesting that current tech market hype could be compared to that of the late .com era when rags like The Industry Standard were filled with inane and largely worthless PR posts. The “Econolypse“, she reasoned, would rationalize this hype along with many startups behind it. The keys to both publisher and PR agency sustainability were the same, focus on: 1. Company news that is genuinly important, 2. Innovative, powerful products, and 3. Industry figures and thought leaders.

“Re-Written by Machine on New Technology”
So, what are some specific strategies a PR firm can undertake to both ensure they don’t disappear with the startups and take advantage of Web 2.0 to scale. Two come to mind:

  • Differentiation. Often called Innovation Strategy, it is a broad market strategy in which scale players innovate building unique value for which they charge a premium price. This is Edelman’s strategy. One of the largest agencies, it is leveraging its global footprint to provide multi-national clients a global perspective on social media. It’s recent “All Social Media is Local” webcast highlighted its offer: No social media strategy is universal - Companies need a universal PR company to ensure consistency, but a local guide to ensure effectiveness in each market.
  • Focus. Often called Niche Strategy, focus resources on one or two segments. Competitive advantage lies in effectiveness, not efficiency. So, build a knowlege base enabling your company to uniquely understand and serve these niches. Rudder Finn, when faced with competition from Edelman focused on specific East - West market-pairs. I employed them while working in London. They were effective not because they were huge, but because they had a strong process. They thoroughly researched influential outlets and the journalists who wrote for them. Then, they waited, surveying the market for topics that would provide a favorable entre. When a topic hit, their New York-based rapid-response team would draft position papers that made meaningful connections between my company, its products and those trends. I received the drafts early morning in London, adding my perspective. The resulting position piece was pitched beginning early in New York’s morning. With a phone tree in place, I, or other members of my team, were immediately available for comment and were often “on air” within 24 hours of the initial news.

“You Are The Radio Star”
Some tactics work regardless of your strategy. Jeremiah Owyang, who both participated in the panel and then authored a thoughtful blog post on the topic, suggested (with heavy paraphrasing) that public relations companies: 1. Build social media capabilities mating the skills of agency social media early adopters and seasoned PR executives. 2. Employ social media monitoring tools to discern patterns presenting filtered, valuable insights to clients. 3. Develop a specialty, becoming part of the community served; build influence. 4. Provide consultative value not just in corporate communications but all along the value chain including product marketing, product management and product support. 5. Shine their own shingles, using social tools to tell their story and get their clients to tell their story.

Powerful advice. To unpack it, think about McDonald’s. In a downturn their global sales are up 8% YOY. They just raised their dividend 33%. How? McDonald’s knows that if 1% of their product is delivered with poor quality, they may as well close their doors. So, they’ve built processes and infrastructure to ensure quality results. If they can make a Big Mac look and taste the same in Prague, New York and Shanghai, a PR agency can deliver consistently well-crafted messages to targeted publishers.

  • Research. Per Calacanis’ advice to PRentrepreneurs: “You can cut to the front of the line by spending just 30 minutes researching the journalist you’re pitching. Before meeting with a journalist it’s your job… to read their last five stories in full. It helps if you take notes on these stories, read the comments under them and look for reactions to the story around the web. This should take no more than five or ten minutes per story. You should also look at their LinkedIn account and do a Google search to see where else they have worked.”
  • Centralize. PR firms operate at the nexus between advertiser and publisher. Misinformed pitches subvert long term profits, both theirs and their clients. To ensure each pitch reflects all corporate learnings, centralize publisher data. Start a wiki or use SalesForce.com. Maintain a profile and contact history of all the publishers you interact with.
  • Empower. You’ve got a relationship manager for your client. Who’s the “go to guy” for Scoble? The one person who either pitches him directly or anoints the pitchman. The one who knows how many times, for what reason and how you’ve reached out to Scoble in the last week, month, year. The one responsible for reading Scoble’s blog posts, tweets, friendfeed, etc. The one responsible for commenting, responding, engaging Scoble across media. Finally, the one who is responsible if Scoble communications don’t convert.
  • Engage. Owyang said it best: Build social media capabilities mating the skills of agency social media early adopters and seasoned PR executives. Then develop a specialty, becoming part of the community. So, how do you start?
    • 100 Blogs. Every employee should blog and have a Twitter, FriendFeed, and BackType account. First, because they will “know of what they speak”. Second, some will build their own influence. Five years hence, the leading public relations agencies will be influencing messages through their own 100+ vibrant employee blogs. Who’s the best example? Steve Rubel of Edelman.
    • Man the pulpit. Federated Media is the best example. They’re not just a blog aggregator, but a community organizer. Their events act as a focal point for discussions around social media. While John Battelle is careful in those settings to draw out discussions, he uses the attention, particularly through his blog, for direct PR appeals.
    • Counter. Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign proved the value of managing the cycle. His team hunkered over fax machines each night reviewing headlines from around the country. The candidate, or his surrogate, delivered highly targeted responses the next morning. What took a small army of local foot soldiers can now be done by a combination of Google News Search, TwitterSpy and BackType. Not to mention integrative tools like Perspctv or Federated Media’s Conversational Marketing Toolkit.
    • Go Direct. Federated Media is an early practitioner of this tactic. Their WePC.com site, built in partnership with Intel and ASUS is a crowd-sourced effort to design PC’s. While its launch was dependent, to some extent, on John Battelle’s bully pulpit and advertising on Federated’s blog confederation, it’s also just a good idea that enabled their client to go direct-to-consumer. Look to MyStarbucksIdea and Microsoft’s viral I’m a PC campaign for other examples.
  • Integrate. If your client wants to go direct to a blogger, by all means help him/her! Just make sure he/she is playing the part. PR campaigns are better than the sum of their parts. Campfire, of Blair Witch fame, structured an innovative campaign for True Blood, a new HBO series. The on/offline campaign included vampire “taste makers” (no pun), a viral contest, spoof in-store blood refreshment, etc. If the producer had wanted to meet directly with the NY Times TV critic, they’d have made him take bottles of True Blood with.
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Category: Blogs, Campfire, Crowd Source, Edelman, Federated Media, FriendFeed, Generic, Public Relations, Twitter
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