The biter gets bit

You can guarantee that just when you start feeling particularly clever about something it'll turn round and bite you where you sit down. It just happened to me.

I've written a couple of posts recently about the need to change and adapt to the new conditions in PR and journalism. Of course, I was talking about everyone else's need to change. Me? I was fine with all the paradigm shifting going on.

Then a potential client with a brilliant product tripped me up. He asked me if I was willing to be paid by results. Well, I didn't quite fall off my chair. I had just started the "oh no, this is PR we can't guarantee anything, it is very hard to measure you know..." speech, when I began to feel a set of teeth in my back end. The biter was getting bit.

I've talked about payments by results and had just a touch of schadenfreude when ad agencies have been 'persuaded' by procurement departments of large companies. I've never really thought about how it might work in practice, though.

But I'm going to now. Not because I'm desperate for the work, but because the thought of payment by results appeals to me in this case. It fits the client and the industry and it fits the times.

I've already started scribbling and come up with a few models, but if you've got any more ideas I'd love to hear them...

PR self-help in a recession

2007 was a fantastic year for PR and communication companies generally, but fear of coming recession or evening just a cooling of the economic climate in general has meant the businesses who employed them have already started cutting budgets or delaying spending. These budget restrictions often mean that these businesses suddenly find themselves without the qualified help they were used to.

So, faced with the same demands for awareness and results, how should businesses handle DIY PR?

• Make sure you know who you're talking to and why. When your time is limited it is better to spend time with the journalists and others who can really help you. Don't waste time on national dailies if you have a niche product.
• Don't disappear off the map. If the thought of a long drawn-out approval process for a press release is just too enervating, try ringing up journalists and giving them tips instead. Or just drop them an email with links they might find interesting - also about industry issues.
• Be focused. Revisit you company's business objectives and make sure that your communication objectives match them - especially in the short term.

The subject of objectivity

Objectivity and its implications for ethics in the PR and journalism communities is an issue at the moment and has been neatly covered by Peter Brill at Net.Mentor.

Ethics seems to be one of the new battlegrounds in the media industry. While PR and journalism have always had a love hate relationship, it seems to me that things have been worsened by the advent of social media. It was easier when you were defined by which side of the publishing fence you were on, although as Peter describes there has always been that grey area in trade/business to business publications.

But now, PR professionals and journalists are meant to be all things to all men and also have to compete with all men when it comes to breaking news, spreading news and having an opinion about. It's difficult to feel sure about yourself when the basis for your existence starts dissolving. The results?

• Established media pour scorn on bloggers and social media sites for their lack of professional rigour and pandering to the lowest common denominator
• Bloggers ridicule PR people for treating them like a 'channel' and publish their names to shame them
• Bloggers condescendingly refer to the 'msm' (mainstream media)
• Traditional PR people ridicule those who are experimenting with and even developed social media tools
for drinking too much 'Kool-Aid'.
• 'New' PR people can't quite seem to work out whether they are in PR, marketing or advertising and are trying to grab as much territory as possible to make sure they don't get overrun by the departments with the big budgets.

All in all it could be pretty depressing - I for one have a foot in all these camps and I know others as well. After years of knowing what to do and how to do it, its hard to be confronted every other week with a new idea you have to take a position on. But, you know what? I think it is pretty exciting. We are on a moving escalator and no amount of whinging or complaining or disagreeing is going to stop the escalator. (Although sometimes it is difficult to see whether it's going up or down).

I'm not depressed because I try and look for the wood and not the trees. I have a sneaking sympathy for all sides. So until things change again I'll carry a newspaper because it is still the ultimate format for readability and portability, I'll keep a tag on my industries through trade mags and the growing number of web sites that complement them, I'll post on forums, receive messages on email subscription lists, follow my friends on Facebook, keep tabs on my professional life through LinkedIn, read opinions on blogs fed to my RSS reader and use Twitter and Jaiku because I might need to know about them in the future.

Despite their differences, most people in these various camps, despite what their detractors say and what they say about others, are not looking for what's best, but what works. That can only be positive.

PR exists in Denmark - it's official

Finally, proof that public relations does actually exist in Denmark. This morning I got a letter from Danmarks Statistik, the body that categorizes companies and economic activity, informing me that public relations and communications now have a category of their own. For the past five years I've been classified under "Other company advisors".

Does this mean that PR is finally beginning to make an impact in Denmark as an independent profession rather than referring to the press releases the marketing department sends out? I hope so.

Technology makes way for people

I've just heaved a huge sigh of relief. No, not because it's Friday, but because Geoff Livingston over at the Now is Gone blog has posted a story that restores my faith in PR. It is about how social media and traditional PR sit together quite nicely thank you and that effective use of the old and the new depends on your relationship with people.

It has been a depressing couple of weeks to be in PR. The mainstream press in the US and high profile bloggers have highlighted various stories that (justly) raise concerns about the tactics used by PR people and online marketers. It reached the stage this week that I was almost afraid to pick up the phone and speak to journalists because I was afraid of what the reaction might be.

Geoff's post underlines how good PR - and good business generally, I would add - is about good hands-on, craftmanship. Know your tools, know your materials and know your customer. It is slightly ironic that high technology is taking us back in this way. But for me that is waht web 2.0 is about - the machinery getting out of the way of the people.

By the way, I did pick up the phone and call plenty of journalists this week - and they were without exception kind, courteous and willing to talk about what they needed for their publications.

Old-fashioned PR with a web spice

Heather Yaxley has a great post on her blog about why Social Media isn't the be all and end all of PR.
I have to admit to moment of euphoria where my enthusiasm with the social media release tends to overshadow everything.
Today was a good counterpoint to that. Today was a good solid - traditional - grind of a day building up a media list of relevant journalists for a new client. Where I have bought in lists in the past for some clients, this time it is all handbuilt and checked with phone calls to the editors to check if they are interested - before the release goes out.
Although I haven't been able to get through to everyone and have reverted to emailing some of the really busy ones, it has been a good learning experience in an industry that I don't know well enough yet. Chatting to editors, if you can get their attention, is a rewarding experience and best done before the "are you going to use it?" phone call - which incidentally I hate (along with all other PR practitioners I should imagine).
While this part of the job hasn't changed for years, I did it by cross-referencing database info with internet searches, and logging the time and contacts with two different web-based applications. Which brought it home to me how social media really is important but still just one tool in the toolbox.

Bad PR or lazy journalists?

This has not been the week to be in PR. Chris Andersen, author of the Long Tail and editor of Wired, unleashed a tidal wave of complaints and counter reaction by publishing a list of emails belonging to PR people who didn't pitch him in the right way. The post created 300 comments, some agreeing, some disagreeing.

While I agree with Chris in much of what he says, PR bashing is too easy to do for journalists.
I spent 10 years as a trade journalist, before emails really took off, so I can count myself lucky in that. My best friend during that time was a rubbish bin and a red pen. The rubbish bin speaks for itself. Crap press releases weren't invented with emails - they have always been with us. And it is still just as easy to get rid of them.

The red pen was to improve the press releases that were sent. When I was training as a journalist there were two golden rules: never put a release in unaltered, and never print it without ringing up for further information. As far as I can see that doesn't happen anymore.
It isn't the job of the PR person to write the story. The PR person should alert the journalist to the story and then help them get the facts and then get out of the way.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in the past three years a journalist has followed up a press release with a call for an extra quote or an angle more specific to their industry. Many have become lazy. They choose the obvious stories and ignore those that need time or thought. That's not good for journalism or PR.

Carlsberg's disappointing global ambition

Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, is looking for a new chief executive to replace Nils Smedegaard Andersen. The company has gone through a huge amount of change over the past seven- eight years, moving from being a national producer with a few international outposts to being a truly global corporation with common policies and practices. So what is the profile of the new CEO? He needs to be Danish, according to the chairman of the Carlsberg Foundation.
The reason is that Carlsberg is more integrated in Danish society than any other and any CEO needs to find his way around ministries, government and the arts, says the chairman Povl Krogsgaard-Larsen to daily business paper Børsen.
What staggering narrowness of vision! Close to 90% of Carlsberg's turnover is generated outside Denmark, how about finding someone who can manage that?
Krogsgaard-Larsen's comment raises two points about globalisation in Denmark:

• Globalisation is something that goes on 'out there'
• It implies that Danes are natural global leaders that nip out and solve the world's problems in an afternoon after doing the really complicated stuff at home.

Both of course are nonsense. While I suspect Carlsberg knows better, the Carlsberg Foundation (which owns 51% of the company) ought to be ashamed of such a comment

Tips for great international PR

International PR has a reputation for being complicated, time-consuming and expensive. With so many countries and thousands of newspapers, magazines and web sites to target, costs can quickly get out of hand. But the key is to focus on getting the most out of each market – not to cover them all equally. Here’s a few tips to help you get started.

1. Start by looking at your business objectives and how you can achieve them. This is particularly important with international PR – by focusing only on what’s relevant to your needs, you can cut a long list of potential journalists in half.
2. Be choosy. Only target the top two or three publications in each business segment. PR is about building awareness, but some publications are more highly regarded than others. Stick to the ones that matter.
3. Go to the publication’s web site and get hold of its editorial features list. A features list tells you when a magazine will write about a particular topic, use it to plan your communications.
4. Build a list of key publications – and use it. Make a point of contacting the relevant journalists on a regular basis. You don’t have to send a press release. Often, a short email ‘tip-off’ is enough, or just give them a call.
5. If you have a news story that is relevant to several different markets, buy a mailing list or have it distributed on a wire service such as PR Newswire. This way your story will be used on Google News, MSN, Yahoo and others. It also means that if someone searches for your company there’s a greater chance they’ll find you.
6. Use your web site actively. Upload your latest news and make sure it can be found by search engines through the smart use of keywords or by making an RSS feed. You can even ‘blog’ your news and let specific blog search services know when your blog is updated.
7. Become an expert on your own national market or region. That way, journalists will want to contact you for information!