Devaluing PR

June 1st, 2009

Be warned this post contains a PR-based rant, not a new one, but a valid one, and one that has been raised by many others in the past. Well now it’s my turn, and I’m afraid it comes from recent experience.

So what is the problem? And how does it devalue PR? Well it’s very difficult to be more literal about devaluing PR than actually offering the service at a massively discounted price for the sole purpose of taking a client from another agency, or for the purpose of having the client on your roster in an attempt to win additional business.

This is far from a new issue, it’s been a problem for at least the last 11 years that I’ve been in PR and I suspect it goes back much further. I’ve seen it happen before, and I’ve known agencies that have done it, but let me make it clear; I think it is wrong on so many levels.

Why? Well, without wishing to repeat myself, IT DEVALUES PR. How can you say a service is worth X one day and the next it’s worth next to nothing? It also demotivates teams and makes them feel worthless. I’ve been on such a team in the past and don’t underestimate the effect this can have, there’s nothing worse than working hard to service a client that has zero respect for your agency/team and knows that when things pick up they’re off. It’s also disrespectful to our peers. Sure, in the bad old days we were all supposed to hate each other, while secretly trying to see if we might get paid more by moving to a rival agency, but haven’t we moved past that, at least to some degree? I really thought so.

So, when a client came to me recently and said; “Look, there’s no easy way of saying this, and it’s nothing to do with you guys or the campaign, but I’ve been made an offer I can’t refuse and I’m under pressure to take it. You know how it is in the current climate,” it was difficult to take.

Obviously I asked the client to tell me about it so that I could at least understand the situation and see if there was something that could be done. Then the bolt from the blue, the other agencies’ ridiculous deal smacks you in the face.

To cut a long story short, that’s it, end of discussion. Alright there may have been a few more discussions, I’m not making it that easy, but fundamentally that’s it.

So where does that leave us? Well, as far as I know the agency might actually be decent, I don’t know as I haven’t had any experience of them, and I’m sure they have their reasons, but I don’t think I would agree with them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not doing this to ‘out’ the agency or the client, I’m not going to mention either, and I’m not doing this because I’m bitter. I’m doing this because it’s so short sighted and damaging to us all.

Can this even be a viable new business tactic? I’m struggling to see the pay off. I think we’re all agreed that PR, as an industry, needs to wake up to a whole host of challenges, and the last thing we need is to be destroyed from the inside. Have we really been demoted to scrabbling around fighting each other for an ever decreasing pool of clients?

Isn’t it time we stepped up and took responsibility for our actions and stopped shooting ourselves in the foot when the going gets tough? Sure, you can say it’s just business, or it’s the client’s choice and I’d agree, at least in terms of it being the client’s choice. But how can it be ‘just business’, when my point is there’s no ‘business’ to be had if you’re going to quote crazy prices. What do we think will happen when the agency eventually wants to put the fee up, try justifying that.

Posted in Blog, Digital communications, Digital media, Liberate Media news, PR | 3 Comments »

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Five on Friday - five fabulous web 2.0 tools of the week (29-05-09)

May 29th, 2009

Hello all

Your regular ‘Five on Friday’ host isn’t here today, so I’ll be your captain for the week, steering a path through the sea of web 2.0 tools.

To kick us off, we have a recommendation from a reader:

1. Twiogle - It’s a great search engine that indexes Google and Twitter, easy to use, simple and it also has nice video, book, blog, and image functionality. Top job!

2. Yasni - In at number two, and another recommendation from our loyal readers, Yasni is a people-based search engine,  with more than 10 million visitors worldwide each month. Imagine Google meets Friends Reunited.

3. Tweepler - We’re going back to Twitter for number 3, and specifically organising your Twitter feed. Tweepler is a processing tool that allows you to classify your new Twitter followers in one of two ‘buckets’. ‘Follow’, meaning you wish to follow them back and ‘Ignore’ meaning you don’t want to follow them and can archive them out of the way, reducing Twitter noise.

4. FileTwt - This is a useful application allowing Twitter users to upload a file and tweet about it automatically. It also allows users to send file links as direct messages for sharing private files.

5. Trackle -  Finally, with all of our web profiles and accounts, we need a tool to keep track, and this is it. Trackle tracks all of your personalised information on the web and then indexes it by category. The service is built using algorithms that provide a layer of intelligence meaning timely results with notification via web, email or SMS.

Posted in Blog, Content, Digital media, Industry events, Journalism, Liberate Media news, PR | No Comments »

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Five on Friday - five fabulous web 2.0 tools and sites of the week (15-05-09)

May 15th, 2009

Here is this week’s bundle of 5 top web 2.0 tools and sites of the week.

1. Scoopler is a real-time search engine taking feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and more.  The most relevant and timely results are found at the top of the page.

2. Spezify is a very visual search engine, all the results are laid out like a mood board. I really liked the way this was set out all though the page was quite slow to scroll, it’s still in early beta.

3. OpenZine lets you create your very own free web magazine with text, pictures & video, in reality you create a blog that groups your posts with a magazine style cover. One of the best features about OpenZine is the create a cover process.

4. Flackr aggregates all the latest breaking news from a number of different sources on Twitter into a neat dashboard. If you are interested in one particular story you can click on that story and then view additional updates linked to that piece.

5. Clixpy is a usability tool that tracks how people interact with your site. Try the Clixpy demo to get an idea of how it works, this tool could be great for webmasters to optimise their website landing pages.

Posted in Blog, Digital media, Emerging technology, PR, Trends and research, Useful resources | No Comments »

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How to SEO your Press Release

May 14th, 2009

Today we have a guest blogger posting on behalf of Liberate Media - his name is Ian Howie, Account Director, at 1upSearch, which was one of the first ever UK companies to become a Google Website Optimizer (GWO) Authorised Consultant, making it one of an elite group of Website Optimizer specialists.

How to SEO your Press Release

An essential part of your PR strategy should be optimising your press release for Google.

Optimising for Google will also help you to build awareness on Yahoo and other smaller search engines.

Instead of just dropping copy in your release and hoping it will be picked up by the Search Engines, simply follow my five tips to make sure that your online press release works harder for you.

1. Optimise for your Audience not the Search Engines…

This may sound counterintuitive - but optimising a Press Release is all about writing copy that is going to appeal to your audience. Simply stuffing your Press Release full of words that are popular will stop your Press Release from making sense to both your audience and to Google.

I’d suggest using Keyword Tools (see my next point) to find the right Keywords - and then using them in your Headline and at least two or three times in the body copy and again in your About section.

2. Use Keyword Research

So, for my example, I have a Press Release about a new service from Pressitt.

You can use these free Keyword Tools from Google and Wordtracker to help you workout which keywords to put in and in which order.

Let’s have a look at the Google Keyword Tool:

You can either enter the Keywords you want to research into the top box or you can enter a URL from your website if you want to research a subject area.

The second half of the screen shows the actual Keywords being searched in Google, the competition on Google Adwords and an indication of Search Volume (how many Searches per month).

Now, rather than peppering the Press Release with all the phrases, I’m going to combine them into one:

Social Media News Release Service

Covering the Keywords:

Social Media News Release

News Release Service

By doing this, the release will optimise better since (a) it includes both phrases, and (b) it describes more of what the service actually is.

Here is the Optimised text applied to the Press Release:

Social Media News Release Service in Public Beta - From Pressitt

Xx April 2009

Social Media News Release Service - Pressitt - today launches in public beta, following a successful month of private beta testing.

….

Wendy McAuliffe, director of Liberate Media and Pressitt, says: “The private beta phase has been incredibly successful, and we’re delighted to be coming out of it after just one month of testing. The Social Media News Release Service has been a hot topic within the global PR industry for a while, and we’re pleased to see that businesses and brands of all sizes are eager to trial this up-to-date press release format. Early user feedback has been constructive and encouraging, and we’re making service updates as quickly as possible to ensure we’re continually innovating and responding to the needs of our users.”

….

About Pressitt

Pressitt is a Social Media News Release Service, provided by digital PR and social media consultancy Liberate Media and web development company Best Served Cold.

Pressitt allows you to create your own social media news release (SMNR) - also known as a social media press release (SMPR) or social media release (SMR) and publish it to an online community of journalists, the blogosphere and the general public.

…

The full release is just over 3,500 words - however we repeat the optimised terms only 7 times. The context of where you put your Keywords is very important - in the headline (which carries the most weight) and the first line. And is then repeated again within the body and the about section.

3. Use Wordle

To see how a Search Engine would see the words within your release, you can use a clever little site called: Wordle.net. You can cut and paste your copy into it. If I put in my Social Media News Release text, I get this visualisation:

Ideally, the Keywords that you want to be indexed should show up in the largest text in the Visualisation.

4. Embed links

Put links into your copy that link to the relevant parts of your website, you can also link to client/partner websites. These links will help people reading your Press Release to find out more about you and also tell the Search Engines which of your clients’ pages are related to this Press Release, e.g.:

Social Media News Release service Pressitt today launches in public beta, following a successful month of private beta testing.

Developed by digital PR and social media consultancy Liberate Media and web development firm Best Served Cold,  Pressitt has already been trailed by an impressive list of high-profile and challenger brands and organisations. These include Johnson’s online parenting community BabyCentre, the Government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, online music provider Napster, digital creative agency Collective, digital entertainment and internet solutions firm iBAHN, digital engagement agency Kerb and LED lamp producer Greengage Lighting.

5, Clear Online Path Back

Name, email address and phone number are now not only ways you can be found online you can also add links to an online version of your Release, as well as your homepage URL, Twitter address, Linked In Group and your blog.

Press contacts:

Wendy McAuliffe

Director

Liberate Media / Pressitt

Tel: 07900 886791

Email: wendy@liberatemedia.com

Online:

Web: www.pressitt.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Pressitt

Blog: http://pressitt.com/blog

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pressitt-Social-Media-News-Release-SMNR/77338107702?v=wall

So here are the results: the press release is third in the Google Results ranking, after being posted on Pressitt’s sister site Liberate Media:

And ranking at number one and two on Yahoo UK:

This post was written by Ian Howie Account Director at 1upSearch

Twitter: ihowie

Web: www.1upsearch.co.uk

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ianhowie

Posted in Blog, PR, Trends and research, Useful resources | 5 Comments »

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#PRdebate: Can PR step up to the digital challenge?

April 22nd, 2009

I attended the NMK - What happens to online PR debate last night, and it was a very interesting and worthwhile session. Big thanks to Ian Delaney and Jenny Tyler at NMK for organising.

The session was structured as an Oxford-style debate on the issue of ‘has the PR industry lost its capability to lead clients in a New Media Landscape?’, with Roger Warner of Content and Motion and Antony Mayfield from iCrossing in the ‘yes’ camp, and Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar and James Warren of Weber Shandwick in the ‘no’ camp.  Mike Nutley, editor-in-chief at NMA chaired the discussion.

I should also point out that a great many of the agencies that ‘get’ online PR and social media were there too. However, there was a real lack of client-side attendance, which meant there was a heavy bias towards the PR angle and argument, which was always going to win the debate in such a crowd. Please read Roger Warner’s write up for a different and more digitally-focused point of view.

As you can tell by the panel, it was a meeting of strong opinions, but i was surprised not so much by the differences discussed on the night, but more by the similarities. Obviously, the two sides had differing opinions on many of the issues, but overall I felt the vision for the future of online PR, digital communications, call it what you will, were similar. Let me make it clear that both sides made a good argument for digital or PR to lead clients in a New Media Landscape, but what i took from it was that it will in fact be a mixture of skills coming from both sides that will win out, something that i totally agree with.

For exampIe, I agree with the ‘yes’ debaters that you need specific skill sets in an online environment, and that not all PRs have this, but I also agree with the ‘no’ side that the art of communications, not the way in which we reach our audience, is the key factor.

From a personal point of view, i also found it difficult to choose a side. I come from a traditional PR background, but what we’ve been trying to do with Liberate Media over the last three years is very far from traditional. We are part of a newer breed of PR agencies that are trying to break free from the shackles of traditional agencies in terms of our set up, approach and skill sets. So from that point I agree traditional agencies cannot lead unless they bite the bullet and evolve. But from a communications stand point, i also believe this blend of skills, be it PR, digital or journalism will be the future not either - or.

This part of the debate was also flavoured with the point that PR has become media relations in many cases, and this is why digital must lead as media relations alone is not relevant. This has been an issue, but taking the PR panel members as an example, it’s certainly not true in their cases, and i would argue to a greater degree that more of an emphasis has been put on strategy and communications development in the leading PR agencies over recent years to move away from this problem. And at the top, i don’t think this is a major issue.

So, where does that leave me? Well, if by ‘the PR industry’ you mean traditional agencies or ‘the dinosaurs that run PR who don’t get the significance of digital’, as James Warren put it, then i agree PR has already lost. But if we’re talking about the growing band of smart new agencies and the intelligent approach of the larger  agencies of which a few were represented last night, then no. These sorts of comms professionals know they still have a lot to learn, but they are building digital skill sets by hiring in experienced individuals or looking beyond the boundaries of what would traditionally be PR. Yes, the social media specific agencies and digital agencies have a lead in understanding the environment, but they also need to skill up in terms of comms strategy and delivery. Something that they have also been doing over the last few years.

Who will win? Well, it’s simple really, the winners will be the agencies that get this blend of skills right, be they digital or PR in original orientation.

The debate continues on Twitter: #PRDebate

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, Digital media, PR, Social media | 2 Comments »

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