The Failing Marketing and PR World

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of blog writing by public relations, marketing, and advertising firms in the city of Indianapolis and abroad. The simple fact that a communications company is not in-tune with the changing landscape of the consumer driven world is troubling… to say the least.

If there are any industries that should be on the forefront of social media and blogging it is the public relations and marketing worlds. YOU are the communications arm for major brands both large and small. YOU are driving them out of business because of your lack of knowledge pertaining to the changing world.

If you do not believe in social media as a valuable device for communication (two-way communication)… I am concerned for your company health and your clients bottom line. You may be riding the fair wave of strictly using traditional marketing and media buys… Don’t get me wrong… it is still extremely valuable to use and implement but only when integrated with new techniques.

But what happens when 6 to 12 months down the road… when you realize that you did not change in the right direction… What happens when you are surpassed by smaller, more agile firms and your market share is ripped away because of one thing..

THEY realized it was important to talk to single consumers instead of a HUGE demographic mix. They realized it was important to communicate instead of blasting messages over the airwaves.

It is important to understand that social media will be new medium of communication. It may be a new concept but in the next year it is going to revolutionize the way we communicate. Are you searching for the truth? Are you watching the trends?

Most are not.

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Authenticity is Life. The Rest is Just Details.

How do you creat great content that is alluring to the general public and your potential clients? The simple answer would be keyword rich content and industry news. Oh yes, keyword rich writing. We all love it.

There is something deeper that tends to push one blog past the other in terms of the public attention deficit disorder: Authenticity.

Authenticity should be one of the driving focusing of your blog, your use of social networking tools, and your business. We are now in a customer centric world where people want to deal with… you guessed it… people.

Staying authentic with your content means you do not sound like the back of a brochure. It means you do not sound like the news anchor on the Fox Business Channel droning away about the pitfalls of capitalism.

It means..What does it mean?

Telling stories.

Creating visual memories of how you have helped clients. Telling the story of starting the business and being honest about the mistakes you made “growing up.” It means giving your personal opinion on activities happening in the market.

I think I speak for everyone when I say… we want to hear from YOU not your industry.

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Expose Yourself. I Dare You.

“The lesson is, we all need to expose ourselves to the winds of change. We need to expose ourselves to our customers, both the ones who are staying with us as well as those that we may lose by sticking to the past.” -Andrew Grove, co-founder of Intel

I have a question for you… What is one of the largest public relations and customer communication problems facing companies?

I can help you out… it is ignorance and the decision to simply not listen. This concept can stem from every corner of a corporation or a small business. The CEO chooses not to listen because they simple do not know or a small business owner decides to ignore the ever changing world of customer communication.

We are experiencing a shift in how customers relate to brands. You can no longer hide behind a massive white paper, public relations firm, or marketing campaign.

The time is now. Expose yourself. Take the dive into the world of online communication. Start a corporate blog. Start a twitter campaign for a product. Get your customer service department trained in the ways of social media.

Can you feel the winds of change blowing through your window? Or did you decide to yank it close…?

Only to experience it being shattered.

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Truth and Two-Way Communication: Using Social Media for PR

By Sarah Ann Noel

As a PR professional, I’ve been called a lot of things.
Truth-stretcher.
Spin doctor.
Media suck-up.
And of course, I shudder at most of these misconceptions, public relations being my livelihood. It demonstrates a valid point, however; public relations leaves a lot to be defined professionally speaking.

While I appreciate the creativity floating around what it is I do, from my standpoint, there is a good definition of public relations: Communicating controlled messages. PR professionals are not just communicators; it’s a different skill set because you must incorporate a strong focus and a missional sixth sense, to varying audiences.

This is why I love social media for PR, in the midst of questions whether it is a PR or a marketing function. Messages are direct—short and sweet. They’re targeted—you know who you’re reaching. They’re intentional—people are seeking the information.

For example, I know that consumers seeking my organization’s services are going to the website first. I try to include the most pertinent information for those consumers, alongside additional sources of information. The messaging on the website is succinct, severely controlled, and offers only the hardest of facts.

But in my organization’s LinkedIn group, the ideas fly. Industry professionals ask questions and answer questions; they promote projects and events; they offer updates on legislation and programs that affect our key players.

Then there’s our organizational blog. Knowing that this serves a predominantly internal communications function, I can include short updates, event notices, and resources for our employee network.

Three very different mediums serving very different purposes, but all achieving that same public relations goal: Communicating controlled messages.

I think there’s another benefit to social media in PR too, one that maybe goes unnoticed—there’s exceptional opportunity for increased two-way communication. In this industry, if you’re not on top of what the public is saying, you’re not doing your job well. And if you’re in PR and your social media outlets haven’t told you what the public is thinking, you’re not using your online tools well.

I mean, where did my disgruntled Sprint-customer-of-a-husband finally get his customer service questions answered? Twitter! After months of frustration, he stumbled across a Sprint manager on Twitter, made his concerns known, and the problem was resolved in a number of days. Social media outlets open the gateways to conversations, often times between a basic consumer and a decision-making member of any given organization. It creates a two-way communication stream essential to customer service (and public relations!) success.

Good public relations offers controlled messages, but it also puts power in the hands of the people by providing the information and opportunities that they need. Social media gives any PR professional the means to do exactly that. That’s not being a truth-stretcher; sheesh, I’m a truth-giver.

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Get Off Your Butt and Break the Rules

When did rules ever apply to the art of running a business?

Let me preface this post by saying that I do not mean moral, ethical, or legal rules. There are rules that each person has set aside for themselves whether spiritual or from the laws of the land. I am talking about business rules.

They are the rules predestined and applied by business owners, scholars, and business minds throughout the centuries. Rules on innovation and marketing that if applied correctly will help you run a business but…

Times are trying and individuals/companies are scraping to stay ahead of the competition and make a little bit of cash on the side. I am reading the book First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman and it had me thinking about the rules we apply to business marketing and thought-leadership.

I am sure you are thinking of typical rules that you apply on a daily basis in your business. What are they? Where did they come from? Why don’t you just break them?

My favorite example is from the minds that brought us Quicken and Quickbooks: Intuit. In the early days the founders were struggling to produce demand for their product. Distributors would not pick them up because, frankly, they were the 47th or so product on the market. They decided to take every cent of their $100,000 in the bank and invest it in marketing directly to the consumer and not the distributor.

We are not talking about 10% of their budget or a small portion of the revenue… they bet everything on this ONE idea. The rest is history. They broke the rules and changed the mold of how sass products were sold and distributed.

What is keeping you from breaking the rules? What is keeping you from adopting a social media strategy that could revolutionize the way you communicate? What is keeping you from starting a blog or starting a Facebook group?

Is it fear? Is it understanding? Is it resources?

To this I say, break all the rules. Live out your business and revolutionize the way you reach your customers. Empower your company to defeat fear and rise above the rest.

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Week With Whuffie and Negative Feedback

Continuing our dive into the world of Whuffie we are going to talk about the concept of negative feedback.

Many companies fail to adopt a social media strategy for their business because of a fear of negative feedback. I have been preaching continuously about ridding yourself and your company of that fear… because it is going to happen anyway. It is a vital part to marketing in the social media realm: reputation management.

In the book it talks about how to combat negative feedback in order to increase your social capital (or whuffie):

“The way you respond to negative feedback is as important for building whuffie as your response to positive feedback. In face, an open and nonconfrontational response to negative feeback can be even more beneficial for building whuffie than multiple responses to positive feedback. In every critic there is an opportunity to create a strong advocate for your company.” (pg. 89)

The one sentence to take away from the above excerpt (and I am going to repeat it again) is this: In every critic there is an opportunity to create a strong advocate for your company.

It is extremely important to remember that more often than not a critic is just looking for a response. They are wanting to understand reason for a specific action that brought along their negativity. Respond in kind and remember to be conscious of thier motives.

Never take negative feedback personally. Learn from your mistakes and become a better and stronger company for the future.

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10 Steps To Turning Customers into Evangelists Using Social Media

Yesterday we talked about the value of turning customers into evangelists when using social media. I wanted to give you a few pointers on how to accomplish the task.

25 Steps to Turning Customers into Evangelists Using Social Media

1. First. Make sure you prepare yourself for the focused effort of turning happy customers to loyal promoters and evangelists. Prepare your mind. Maybe yoga?

2. You have an email list right? Use your email list to make sure you are connected to your customers on the social sites you use frequently.

Importing and Exporting Contacts Using:

Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, and Plaxo.

3. After you have imported your contacts into the social media sites of your choosing… make sure you add and contact them through the sites.

4. Once you have connected to most of your customers start communicating on a daily basis with them. We are not talking about sending sales information or product information but asking about their day… etc.

5. Create a list of your high level and value customers. It helps to have a list in place to set some goals toward customer evangelists. Start out with 5 people or companies.

6. Set up Twitter Searches for your valued client’s industries or services. For example, if you have an accountant as a valued client make sure you setup a Twitter search feed for accountant or tax advice. When someone ask for advice make sure you reccomend your client.

Disclaimer: You do not have to always monitor the Twitter search but it is good to have around. I know we all have about 5 mins of free time a day.

7. If the client has an event or seminar coming up in the area make sure you share that link with the multitudes of your followers online.

Share it as an RT in Twitter

Share it on your Facebook Wall

Share it as a status update on LinkedIN

8. Recommend your client on LinkedIN. Why recommend on LinkedIN? It is simple. If you want recommended by a client on LinkedIN it is always better to recommend first. Do it and see the benefits.

9. Share an exciting story about your client’s business to your contacts. It is important to share the quality information even if it does not relate you your business.

10. Ask for the recommendation. It never hurts to ask. Encourage your best clients and friends to tell YOUR story across the masses.

Remember it is important to give before you receive. If you help your clients become thought leadership in their industries or grow their business using the Internet they WILL become your evangelists.

Top 5 Reasons B2B PR Practitioners Should Embrace Social Media

Today’s guest post is by Paige Holden of BlissPR. Bliss PR specializes in creating and promoting thought leadership, using a variety of public relations and marketing communications techniques. They help their clients develop points of view, predictions, trend commentary and insights, positioning them as experts in the media and category leaders in their markets.

Top 5 Reasons B2B PR Practitioners Should Embrace Social Media

If you’ve seen any B2B public relations professionals recently, you may want to give them a gift certificate to a spa treatment or at least a pat on the back.  They’re feeling more than a little shell shocked.

I was, too.  Social Media is just beginning to hit B2B PR and our industry is scrambling to find our footing and help our clients. But it’s time to stop stalling and start learning.  Here’s why:

Traditional media is dying. It’s not a secret that traditional media is either dying or going online. This presents a slew of new challenges for public relations practitioners who rely on the media to help communicate clients’ messages. In our firm, we don’t throw splashy events or launch exciting new products. We clarify and refine complex stories for niche audiences. With business publications folding, our small universe is getting smaller and, unless we find new ways to communicate, we won’t be sustainable.

Know the news before it breaks. News breaks faster online than anywhere else. When the plane crashed in the Hudson River, the story was discussed ad nauseum on Twitter before it even hit television. Monitoring breaking news for my experts is a huge part of my job. I find that Twitter, and other networks, keeps me ahead of the media time curve.

Networking online is more efficient. PR is an industry fueled by networking, but who has time to go to out every night? Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs, there is no excuse to be a stranger. Every day I touch base with peers, thought leaders and the media which helps me not only develop stronger relationships, but also become a smarter professional.

Social media belongs in the PR bucket. Public relations professionals have an opportunity to learn it, embrace it and start building services around it before another industry steals it. There has been some debate over which “bucket” social media should fall into, but I adamantly believe public relations should own it. Sure, the implementation is different, and it does get “techy” at times, but social media is first and foremost a communications vehicle. The principles inherent in using social media – creativity, transparency and responsiveness – are the same philosophies that we use in PR every day.

“Tribes” have replaced traditional audiences: As Seth Godin explains in his new book, the online community is actually composed of millions of smaller groups of “tribes” – people who are passionately devoted to their own interests. Whether it’s shoes, personal finance or accounting law, there is a group of people waiting to be found and activated. Understanding how to serve these new communities must be part of every PR professional’s “tool kit.”

Counseling nervous clients. Clients see social media as a PR tool, so they will ask you about it.  Because clients are likely nervous about social media, it’s important to “get” it before you sell it. Unfortunately, market demand for social media has incented people into selling it as a service before they are ready, which is not only dishonest, but it can also yield poor results that will send clients packing. Surely let your clients know that social media is all about testing and learning, but you shouldn’t be mastering the basics on their dime.

What do you think…what’s holding you back from using social media tools? Or do you have some “getting started” lessons you can share with us?

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6 Posts Every PR Professional Should Read

There has been a lot of talk in the public relations world about social media and for good reason. I thought I would put together a list of the top 6 blog posts I feel every PR professional should read.

1. Public Relations Activities that Affect SEO
By Lee Odden of the Online Marketing Blog

2. Social Media is the Responsibility of Public Relations
by Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer

3. Social Media is Transforming Public Relations
by PodTech

4. Is Social Media Killing PR?
by Kara Swisher at All Things Digital

5. PR and Social Media Evolution Continues
by the BuzzBin

6. A Social Public Relations Survey
by Jennifer Leggio at ZDNet

That is your PR and Social Media reading for Monday. Take a look and digest ALL OF IT. Cheers!