Media Bloodletting Continues

While the layoffs at major print publications may not carry the same economic impact as those on Wall Street that carried high-value bonuses, and by extension high tax revenues, but they nonetheless signal a trend that has to have news enthusiasts concerned.

As I've chronicled before, I'm one of many who made the switch from journalism to public relations. And although I haven't really regretted the decision that much, I always tried to carry forward the principles and tactics I learned during my decade in the field. I've always practiced solid journalistic principles when I put together something written for clients and have worked hard to get clients to avoid jargon that has no meaning. Also, my years in that field gave me a big appreciation for less is more when it comes to describing clients, what they do and what makes them unique. One of the big problems in our field is most people take 100 words to do that when you really should be able to do it in about a dozen.

So it's with sadness that I'm reading a veritable sea of news about layoffs at well-respected publications, ranging from The New York Times and Forbes to the closing of publications like Fortune Small Business. However, the news isn't really catching anyone by surprise. Journalism has always been a relatively low paying field and was always very dependent on advertising. Thus, when times got tough and advertisers fled, it's tough to make cuts because there's not that much fat there. Instead, many publications are finding it necessary to make widespread changes to their structure, or in other cases, to shut down entirely.

And contrary to what most people think, circulation revenue is basically designed just to cover the production costs of a publication; it's never really made much of a contribution to the overall operating costs. Thus, when circulation declines, over time it gets more and more difficult to cover the costs to just produce the publication, much less the content that's in it. While the recession has undoubtedly had a lot to do with the havoc, publishers have never been at the forefront when it comes to embracing technology. Most were initially scared of the Web because they though it was going to kill their business models. Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize that the Web was one of the few things that could save their businesses if they invested time to figure that out.

One example that has always been held up as a success when it comes to the Web is The Wall Street Journal. Their unique mix of content, combined with a reputation for excellent reporting and a high level of readership among the top players in the world of business and finance, means they didn't have to panic when everyone else was going free on the Web. While Rupert Murdoch initially made mentions of making WSJ.com free when the News Corp. purchase of Dow Jones was completed, he later backed off those plans, in part because of the turmoil in the ad market.

Unfortunately, most other outlets weren't as lucky and they had no "backup plan" to rescue their business models. We may not realize the value of what we're losing now, but over the long term, we'll all come to recognize the societal value that news organizations provide. Let's hope that by then someone's figured out a way to make the financials work.

Economic Downturn Ushers in Continual Career Maintenance

By now, unless you've been living under a rock, most readers here know that we're in the midst of the worst economic downturn in some 30 years – at least from an employment standpoint. While much attention is being paid to new signs that point to recovery, it's important that we all take away lessons from this period that will serve us well for years, and perhaps decades to come. Because I frequently get e-mails from college students and other early-career professionals due to writing I do on other venues, I thought I'd give my take on the current environment, as it relates to the PR profession.

Certainly this downturn was very pronounced in the fact that more jobs have been lost in the last two years than any period in the last 30 years. At the same time, many people saw their cost of living increase, which reduced the power of the wages they were earning. However, what many don't think about is the fact that this loss of wage power is actually a trend that's been in motion some time and may necessitate everyone to think differently about work and their careers.

We all know that the days when you work for one employer for most of your career are nonexistent now and have been for quite some time. Even with that commonplace knowledge, however, most people don't think of a career as something that has to be maintained. In other words, you need to set long-term goals and a number of short-term goals designed to get you from “point A” to “point B.” Realize that establishing yourself in your career is a marathon and not a sprint. You'll also likely suffer setbacks, due to the changing nature of the economy and/or your industry, among other reasons. The most important thing to remember in all this is that if you properly maintain your career, you'll be better prepared for these shifts when they happen.

What does that mean exactly? For starters, keep abreast of changes in your industry. For PR pros, that means continually staying on top of not only media trends, but developments in the social media world. The latter is rapidly changing; for example, MySpace was once considered to be the top dog, but has now become mostly an also-ran unless you're an entertainment specialist. Likewise, knowing how to properly integrate various social-media tools into a cohesive campaign is vitally important as well. I continually tell clients to never assume you know how someone will find you. Some days it might be Google, other days it might be LinkedIn. But if you've got all your social-media elements working in tandem, it really doesn't matter. I regularly use Twitter to drive users to published content online, I post news of all new client developments via both Twitter and LinkedIn and make sure that my LinkedIn profile is up-to-date.

Also, even relatively new professionals need to start thinking about making a name for yourselves. We all know that, in this day and age, a prospective employer will conduct an extensive Web search to see what you've done online – including anything that you've written. Given that, you need to actively manage your information to ensure that a selection of it is available online for employers or prospective clients to easily peruse. Do simple things like including URLs to your online profiles in your e-mail signature. This approach takes all the guess work out of knowing how people will find you online, as that strategy will work as well for people coming in from a search engine as it will going to your Web site or a social-networking site profile directly.

Finally, once you've established a high level of comfort with the basic tactics of the PR business, look to begin specializing in a few industries. The most important thing to remember about career maintenance is you don't want to be like everyone else. Instead, you want to become known for a few things that remain marketable throughout your career. These may change over time, and we'll all have to freshen up on things, but it's a big help if you've become known as a “go to” person within a few industries.

To increase your reputation within an industry, carefully select one or two industry associations to join and become active in them. Personally, I make sure at least one of these are outside the PR/marketing world. I've got nothing against my fellow PR and marketing pros, but in my opinion, networking extensively outside those industries pays bigger dividends, since everyone in the room's not a competitor and you're raising your reputation within an industry from which you hope to draw clients.

Finally, even for those of you who aren't solo practitioners, practice and refine your “elevator pitch.” These days, it's vitally important for people to be able to give a cohesive 30-second answer when someone asks “What do you do?” It's especially important for people in public relations, because very few people know what the heck we do. You never know who you're going to meet or where, so being able to give a clear, concise answer to this question could pay big dividends down the road.

Companies Excited About Social Media's Promise, Wary of Its Perils

Businesses of all sizes and types are excited about the potential that social media poses for their businesses. However, at the same time, a recent survey indicates they're entering into the area with a bit of trepidation at the same time.

The survey, conducted by Minneapolis-based brand consultancy Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, found that 40 percent of businesses surveyed are holding back on implementing a social-media plan because of security and confidentiality concerns. Other top issues that were impacting the implementation of social-media efforts included employee productivity and a general lack of understanding regarding social media.

Those who have begun to embrace social media still have a lot of work to do from a planning perspective, according to the survey. In fact, only one third have established any social-media policy and a mere 10 percent have conducted any kind of social-media training.

I've written in this space and elsewhere that social media won't necessarily be the elixir that every company hopes. However, it's a very cost effective way to maintain and increase brand awareness and keep current and prospective clients and customers engaged with your brand. But before companies can capitalize on its business potential, they first need to take steps within their organizations to establish policies and procedures that will guide and govern its use.

Failing to do so not only raises the potential that a company will miss a big opportunity when it comes to social media, but it also exposes that company to many potential liabilities, legal and otherwise. Now that we're entering the fourth quarter of the year and many people have their eyes on 2010 hoping for a sustained economic turnaround, the time to begin planning for the future -- social media and otherwise -- is now.

PR Firm, Former Client Embroiled in Spat

Unfortunately, in public relations and other professional-service environments, the client/advisor relationship doesn't always go smoothly. Most often, this results in a calm parting of ways, but occasionally things can get bitter and sometimes even go public. With the widespread proliferation of social media, going public is happening quicker than ever.

The battle started on Aug. 20 when Rafat Ali, the leader of ContentNext Media, a company that operates several Web sites providing news about the world of digital media, announced on The Business Insider that he was firing his agency, Brainerd Communications following a pitch the agency sent out with the aim of getting him interviewed as a source on the future of music startups.

A high-level Brainerd official took issue with the coverage on the site, which the agency called a "mischaracterization." Brainerd was thought to be referring to a characterization issued by Ali himself -- and not The Business Insider -- which referred to them as "morons."

Obviously it's impossible for anyone but the two parties who signed the contractual agreement governing Brainerd's representation to be able to say much with certainty about what was promised, how the relationship was supposed to work and other key elements that go into making a PR firm's counsel worthwhile.

However, the typical firestorm that each of these complaints unleashes across the Web damages not only the firm itself but the industry as a whole, pointing again to the need for a cohesive industry voice to respond. Yes, Brainerd probably should have let the issue go and allowed the public at large to decide who was right in the spat, but the fact that there were many posting comments following the issue questioning the value of PR show the industry has a lot of work to do in terms of explaining what PR is and its value.

In all honesty, the reason there's so much anger when these relationships go south is because an impossible situation was set up from the beginning. This could be because there wasn't a good personality fit between the PR firm and its client, because the client expected more than was in any way realistic and the firm didn't temper those expectations or a whole host of other reasons.

While many in the PR industry probably regard the "dot-com boom" as a shining moment, at least in terms of industry revenue, it was also a time when lots of agencies took companies with business models that would never work and that had no real innovation to speak of and tried to turn that situation into something newsworthy through some form of "spin." Fact is, most any reputable journalist decides in under a minute whether something is worthy and most of the companies that were brief stars in that era didn't qualify. Had they qualified, they would have gone on to be unparalleled successes and obviously that didn't happen.

In closing, it's important to keep in mind that there will always be unhappy clients, even when an undisputably good job is done. Focusing on clients that are a fit and explaining in realistic terms what can be expected is the best anecdote to keep this kind of venomous situation at bay.

Twitter, Facebook Attacks Show Vulnerabilities of Platform Reliance

Online and printed media outlets, as well as blogs and other social networks, were abuzz last week with news over the apparent cyber-hijacking of Twitter as part of what a blogger claims was an act of orchestrated retaliation.

While the details of the specific attacks have been well chronicled by numerous other outlets, what wasn't written about extensively was how these attacks illustrate perfectly the need to consider not only the demographics and audience that you can reach via social media, but also the technology ramifications of any campaign you launch.

With the increasing reliance on social networks, the Web has made a migration of sorts away from a collection of properties based on uniform standards ratified by international bodies to a few, select properties that, when taken offline by technical issues or some other circumstance, can cause widespread disruption. That's not to say that using Twitter or Facebook for social-media campaigns is a bad thing; however, just as you want your important computer files residing in several places including one site that's remotely managed, you want your social media presence to be planned similarly as well to avoid widespread disruption in the event of outages.

The best way to get around these attacks is to rely on platforms that you exclusively control, but are remotely maintained. Examples can include everything from Web sites to blogs. While one of your hosts may go down at any one time, if you host the different elements of your overall Web presence at different locales/services, the odds of a widespread disruption are lower.

Even if another widespread attack doesn't occur in the future, it will likely pay dividends in the event an Internet backbone provider has a widespread disruption or something similar happens. We sometimes forget that for all the redundancies that were built into the Internet, occasionally all it takes is for an errant backhoe operator to take down a big chunk of the Internet, as has happened in the past.

Just as you plan for conventional disasters at the office, planning for them in your online activity can avoid costly and time-consuming disruptions

WSJ Story Finds Twitter Brings Few Benefits to Financial Pros

According to a new story in The Wall Street Journal examining the impact that Twitter has had on financial advisors who've tried to use the service to build their business, the micro-blogging platform has yet to deliver any major results.

The story is just the latest in a series of articles questioning Twitter's value, its overall strategy and whether it will ever actually be able to deliver the goods when it comes to business development. And it's important to note that while the story mentions that Twitter isn't responsible for bringing the advisors who use it scads of new revenue or clients, it is having tangible benefits for many.

One advisor mentioned in the story, who focuses on individuals with particular interests and successes in charitable giving, has found Twitter to be a valuable way to form relationships with influential figures in the field, such as the heads of well-known foundations.

Another advisor has effectively used Twitter to form relationships with women entrepreneurs, a nice parallel to her goal of developing a financial practice specifically targeted to providing advice to women.

This story is yet another reason that I advise clients that while building their business through Twitter is probably something that would take a long time and might yield relatively few results, Twitter shows great promise when it comes to continually engaging with clients. The main reasons clients leave firms with whom they do business is because they feel the firm doesn't take the relationship seriously enough and is not communicative enough. This is one area where Twitter gives individuals a very easy way to continually work on this thorny issue.

Twitter Increasingly Used to Promote Contests

Much has been made about Twitter and the various uses for the service, ranging from sending out droll updates to friends to businesses using the microblogging service to get a better handle on customer-service issues. Now, a new trend is emerging on the platform, which could play into efforts to develop a business model.

As reported in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, the "buzz-generating" value of Twitter is increasingly being pared with the proven benefits of contests to increase brand awareness. As an example, Moonfruit, a London-based Web-design firm, added 47,000 followers and increased its Web site traffic by 1300 percent by using Twitter to promote a 10th-anniversary contest. The contest used "tweets" as its entry method, with entrants only required to place the #Moonfruit "hashtag" somewhere in the tweet.

As a result of the campaign, Moonfruit says its paying customers have increased by 20 percent and the number of trial users has grown more than three fold. One important thing companies using Twitter to promote contests have found is that while they're great at initially luring people as followers, companies must make a concerted and continual effort to keep them engaged or traffic will fall off precipitously once the promotional period has ended.