Subcontracting Carries Perils Too

Many sole practitioners and even small agencies occasionally supplement their ongoing retainer client load by subcontracting with other agencies and consultants. While such a move can help bolster the bottom line, especially in tough economic times, it's also fraught with perils -- and not just for the lead agency.

The attractions of subcontracting, both for the lead agency and their subcontractor(s) are obvious: For the agency, taking on additional talent on a project-by-project basis allows the lead agency to broaden their breadth of experience and to overcome any disadvantage from its small size. Likewise, for the partnering consultant or agency, they also get an experience and increased revenue, even when you take into account the fact that a subcontractor almost always lowers their rate.

There are many cases where individual counselors and/or small firms have worked together for years and have cultivated relationships that are fruitful for both. However, what's not mentioned nearly as often is when the inverse happens, and a subcontractor and/or agency partner is penalized as a result of actions taken by their lead partner.

For example, if a client has any kind of issue with the lead agency/partner that leads to a termination of the account, more times than not the subcontractor/partner is also out the door too. There are times when the partner can resurrect the relationship, but just as often as not, the former client will be angered enough by the actions of the lead agency that resurrecting the relationship becomes impossible.

So while it may seem that only the lead partner has any vetting to do before a new partner relationship starts, in reality the subcontracting partner should do vetting as well. Take note of actions done during the sales process, if you're brought in that early, that are red flags. These are often good indicators of issues that will linger even if the account is won. Also, insist that any partner will listen to your views too because often a subcontracting partner is doing the lion's share of the actual tactical work. Given that, it only makes sense that they be willing to take your views into account.

Both sides of any partnership should address any conflicts and/or crises as soon as possible to avoid them from causing irrevocable harm. Also, make sure that both sides agree on philosophy. I can't say this enough. There are so many consultants and firms out there that believe their philosophy is the only way and that's honestly a tough situation to be in from a partner's perspective. In the end, what should really matter are the results, not how you got there.

A Seat at the Table Has to Be Earned

Much has been said over the years about the importance of companies giving their PR counsel, be they employees or consultants, a "seat at the table," making them integral partners in decisions that go beyond the communications strategy. Whether or not we've earned that consideration is very much an open question.

It's no secret that the opinion of PR firms is generally not that high in the business world. One of the reasons that's the case, in my opinion, is because many things we do reflects too much marketing and not enough business acumen. This is readily apparent from the beginning of the sales cycle since in many cases the moon is promised to win an account, even though that will only lead to problems later.

I was in a meeting recently when an industry colleague, who was discussing a potential PR plan with a company was asked a question that while not related to PR, was something that the respondent should have known based on the knowledge of the prospect and what they viewed was important. The response to the unexpected question was something along the lines of "we'll study up once we get the account."

I was honestly flabbergasted; this goes back to business communication skills 101. There will certainly be cases where every potential answer won't be known before going into a meeting, but sometimes the way someone responds to a situation like that is as important as the answer itself.

Sadly, the most recent experience wasn't my first. Before going out on my own, I was also at a meeting that involved a senior-level practitioner with more than 30 years where virtually the same exchange occurred. Oddly enough, the account was won in both cases, but I submit just as likely an outcome would have been executives walking out the door. Let's hope fewer agencies and PR consultants take that risk in the future and do their homework in advance.

Is Twitter the latest media relations tool?

In creating one of the most simplistic social-media platforms out there, Twitter seems to have succeeded at catching its share of the buzz factor. Now, some PR and marketing bloggers are going as far as to call it the latest and greatest media-relations platform.

For the uninitiated, Twitter allows you to send short, simple messages to friends and colleagues. It allows you to "follow" people you choose and allows anyone else on the platform to choose whether or not they wish to "follow" you or anyone else. Unlike LinkedIn and other social-media platforms, the relationships don't have to be reciprocal; in other words, you can follow people without them giving you their permission.

For the past few weeks, a number of listservs and trade publications, including Ragan have been asking is Twitter going to become the defacto tool in media relations. The theory is that as more journalists join the network, they'll send short updates describing the stories they're working on and that will support a wide range of pitching opportunities for PR pros who subscribe to their feeds.

Some have said Twitter is destined to replace the conversations that used to take place between journalists and PR pros at the local watering hole. That's theoretically possible, but as someone who was on the journalism side for 10 years, I never really saw that many journalists hit watering holes eager to shoot the breeze with a PR rep.

That said, there are some well-known journalists using Twitter as an interaction platform, although as expected the list is tech-heavy. However, if Twitter really does foster trusted relationships, then it could become one of the most valuable tools a PR pro uses. And you sure can't say the price isn't right!

Viral Media Predictions

In a recent post, Richard Laermer, one of the authors of the excellent The Bad Pitch Blog wrote an entry predicting that the Internet and social-platforms in particular will continue to wreak havoc on the PR world, making commonly-used tools and methods obsolete.

Laermer maintains that in this world a written pitch will be considered spam, whereas media outlets and other consumers of information distributed by PR pros will view multimedia pitches as informative and engaging.

The post was essentially a warm-up for Laermer's latest book project, 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, which examines the impact a number of emerging technologies and trends will have on us all and gives some insights into his predictions on which of these trends will go on to be hits and others misses. While I haven't had a chance to read the book, in the interest of full disclosure, it's generally been positively reviewed by those who have. That said, I think one future trend that may be a bit off the mark is the notion that PR, and marketing as a whole, will evolve into something that's dominated by the consumer rather than a company or one of their consultants or agencies. Basically, if someone likes your idea, Laermer believes they'll become an evangelist, much as the way Apple Computer Corp. has always had a core group of evangelists going back to before the company was hot again.

While Apple has certainly had that, something I can attest to having spent many years as a tech reporter and written a few stories that had negative Apple news, I don't think that means most companies can expect to achieve it and/or that most companies will want to market themselves that way. Certainly, some consumer-oriented companies might, but the world is full of successful companies doing all kinds of things that may not be "social-media worthy," but are important -- and profitable -- nonetheless.

So for now, while viral marketing may have some influence on a few campaigns, I'm not sure it's going to be a game changer in the PR world as a whole.

PR 'dean' calls for renewed focus on ethics

Howard Rubenstein, who in many ways is the modern dean of public relations having been a professional practitioner since 1954, made news recently when he called for a renewed, grass-roots effort to help the PR profession restore its lost credibility.

In an op-ed for The Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog, Rubenstein highlights the fact that too many PR professionals thought practicing PR was synonymous with "spinning and inaccuracies." Since it was the very professionals that were in large part responsible for that belief, Rubenstein believes it's incumbent upon them to help lead the charge to change the reputation of PR and rid the industry of shady practices.

One of the catalysts that leads to the problem, Rubenstein notes, is the way many companies respond to a crisis. Rather than taking on a crisis and dealing with it in a straightforward way, he notes that most companies first insist on a string of denials rather than getting at the crux of the problem. It's up to responsible PR pros, he notes, to push clients to be both ethical and accurate. Those who aren't, he maintains, are failing to perform their true jobs as a company's trusted advisor.

Another reason ethics are not often practiced, Rubenstein believes, is that even professionals who receive accreditation from the Public Relations Society of America pay very little attention to the society's code of ethics in their daily practice. A better solution, Rubenstein believes, would have the PRSA offer a certificate on ethics and have something that agencies and their practitioners could promote.

I have no idea whether Rubenstein's call to arms will be answered, but I dare say anybody who is responsible for selling PR services knows what we're up against. In too many cases, there's a notion among the general public -- including the marketing departments and the entrepreneurs that purchase our services -- that PR involves spin rather than the truth. If we can't explain better just what it is that we do, I'm not sure how we can purport to explain what a current or potential client does and why it's worthy of attention.

Social Media Enthusiasts and Their Views on PR

It may seem silly to take issues with social media platforms via a blog, but regular readers of this blog know that I've done that on several occasions when I feel that enthusiasm goes from being a promoter of the new at the expense of the old.

The latest blogger to take issue with public relations and its tactics is Loic Le Meur, a Frenchman who has been involved with a number of Internet startups, including an interactive ad agency, which was later sold to BBDO in 1999.

Le Meur starts off his post by basically saying that PR pros claim to have a "magical sauce" when the precise notion is, in his words BS (to put it nicely). Instead of engaging a PR pro and going the traditional way, Le Meur espouses an updated approach that basically capitalizes on using your social network to the utomost. By doing this correctly, he believes you can do everything yourself better than anyone else could do for you.

He also claims the PR industry holds a number of believes that are patently untrue, including the notion that traditional journalists and media channels hold more influence than social media at large and influential bloggers. Rather than relying on a PR agency to get the word out, he advocates relying on your users and customers to do it for you. In the end, he believes, their fanatical enthusiasm will lead journalists to circle back around and give a company coverage, effectively killing two birds with one stone.

He also advises CEOs and other key executives to be their spokesperson behind their brands. He reasons that the CEO should be the brand, much akin to the way Richard Branson is associated with the Virgin empire.

While there's some validity to the notion that a trusted CEO can be the best person to speak for a company, he completely ignores the fact that messages issued by a company are only one very small part of a communications program. It's not surprising that a serial entrepreneur would view CEOs as the best spokesperson, but he completely ignores the fact that a journalist will see them as a biased source that will only say what they want people to believe. Yes, there are cases where CEOs bluntly and honestly deal with their firm's problems, but even then, they're not the architect of a response in most cases, just the face delivering it. He also ignores the fact that if they're busy serving as the architect of the response, they've diverted their resources from actually dealing with it in the first place; honestly, that's what their customers, clients and investors want them to do.

PR certainly has its problems on occasion, and one of those is the fact that the profession as a whole has done a pretty poor job of educating the public at large in just what the heck it is a PR person does. But equally as disturbing is the fact that there's still this pervasive notion that while you need qualified individuals handling your business' finances and legal needs, PR can be done by almost anyone with the right connections.

Outrage Against Poor Media Relations Practice Continues

When debuted in 2006, the excellent Bad Pitch Blog had the PR community buzzing, as it was the first outlet to aggressively confront poor media relations practices. Unfortunately for the PR industry as a whole, it was only the beginning.

Over the months that followed the blog's debut, it was the subject of articles in many PR trades and was responsible for launching a broader discussion on media relations practices and how they could and should be changed for the better. At the same time, a move grew to "modernize" many media relations tools, including transforming the media release into a new format that would allow the incorporation of multimedia tools and other content and features. The resulting Social Media Release template, which you can read about here is still a work in progress of sorts.

Unfortunately, while the debate over media relations practices and how they should change or adopt is occurring, the reputation of public relations continues to decline in large part because of poor media relations practices. Witness the prspammers wiki, which is basically a collection of e-mail addresses contributed by leading blog authors and other social media enthusiasts containing the names of PR pros from some of the industry's most familiar names.

Problem is, this isn't a good list to be on. The list itself denotes off-target pitches sent to leading bloggers over the past few months, and it reads like a virtual who's who of the biggest firms in the industry, ranging from Atomic and Bite to Shift. The latter is particularly unfortunately because it's Shift that's been one of the main drivers of the social media release.

Ever since the emergence of blogs and other social media platforms, I've become concerned that the industry is too concerned on cashing in on the craze at the expense of strengthening its core competencies. To me, PR as a whole pays too much attention to the development of "new and improved" ways to get its message out and way too little attention to developing messages devoid of hype that clearly communicate what a company is about and why it's worthy of attention.

It's always bugged me that PR is considered a "buzz creating" industry, when I personally believe that if you correctly position a useful product or service, the buzz will come on its own. I also believe this need to always create new and improved tools, while it may be good for the bottom line, is also disproportionately responsible for the industry's high client turnover rate.

Let's hope we start worrying more about the message and less about the medium.

Debates Rage About Usefulness of Twitter

At one time, the phrase social media was synonymous with the blogosphere, since that was the first platform that enabled virtually any Web user the opportunity to easily take a message to the masses.

Since that time, however, there have been a lot of new entrants, including twitter, which is basically a Web-based instant messaging tool that allows any twitter user to follow another, with both having the ability to share updates on what they're doing at the moment.

I started checking out twitter after some technology consultants on a listserv sponsored by a professional organization to which I belong asked others if they were using twitter for business development purposes. At the time, it amazed me that twitter would even be considered something that an attorney or legal marketer would use to reach current and prospective clients, although some in the discussion took up the view that every emerging platform generally has an uphill battle to climb in terms of both adoption and acceptance.

Then today, I was spending some time on MyRagan, a social media platform for communications professionals, and noticed a community member there had penned a blog entry also questioning the value of twitter. Add to that, most of the comments on twitter echoed the view that at this point, most of the "buzz" about twitter consists of stories about its usefulness, or lack thereof, and not much about how anyone's using it in the course of their overall communications strategies.

While that's true, the same could be said about the blogosphere in the beginning and it's certainly evolved to be a useful tool in PR programs, especially when it comes to companies that sell directly to consumers. It will be interesting to follow twitter's evolution and see whether it emerges to become much more than a "new fangled" instant messaging platform or something truly beneficial to business.

Views on Agency Compensation

One of the most hotly-debated issues in public relations has always been compensation; by that I mean what agencies should get paid, not what they should pay their people. This is especially now that we're in an era of push-button publishing and "how to" books purporting to make everyone instant experts in virtually any subject. While the debates rage on, I'd like to suggest they mostly miss the point.

For some time, there have been agencies and consultants touting a pay-for-performance model in public relations. In most cases, this simply means that agencies get paid based on how well they perform for the client. While that sentence may have been simple enough to parse, such a change in strategy is anything but simple and, in my opinion, not as great as it may sound.

In most cases, pay-for-performance models have scales that award the agency a fee based on the circulation of a publication or some similar metric. For the most part, such model changes have been suggested mostly for public relations, since there's always been a perception that it's in the best interest of a business to pay based on media coverage. However, one ad agency chief recently raised some eyebrows for suggesting a new approach that would extend to ad agencies.

In an AdWeek story, Andy Fletcher, chief of the Atlanta ad consulting company Fletcher Martin suggests one of the problems with the conventional agency compensation model is that agencies are rewarded the same for success as failure. Instead, he proposes a two-tier model: the first part of that model would involve clients paying a set fee for a program strategy; the second portion would be based on the results the client receives as a result of the strategy itself. Fletcher proposes that agencies should be willing to risk all their execution-based compensation because, if the client wins big, so does the agency. Again, Fletcher's not specifically mentioning PR in his piece, although such a methodology could theoretically apply there as well.

Fletcher's idea is certainly better than the pay-for-play approach that's traditionally been espoused in PR. The key question, however, would be whether such a model could really be effectively adopted by PR agencies. For example, there are certain scenarios where no agency could succeed, regardless of the quality of the strategy. These could include a flawed product design, poor program implementation, etc. While the agency would still receive a program fee, one would assume that their overall upside would be tilted toward execution rewards. In this case, those rewards would likely be muted by the aforementioned issues.

As someone who's spent a lot of time working with attorneys and other professional service providers, it's always struck me as odd that some PR pros devalue their services in an effort to compete. For example, you'd never see well-known corporate attorneys adopting a "winner take all" strategy when it comes to a piece of complex litigation; and they certainly wouldn't call a business model like that revolutionary.

For better or worse, however, PR has always seemed to do a poorer job of positioning itself than its clients. So if we're going to talk about alternatives, in my opinion, a model based along Fletcher's thinking is at least a step in the right direction.

Company Goes to Bat With Google Over Anonymous Blog Posts

Since it's launch, one of the things most lauded about the blogosphere is not only its ability to give practically anybody the ability to speak their mind on whatever they wish, but if they so desire, the right to do it anonymously. In yet another case pitting existing laws against emerging technologies, that may soon change.

Aircraft company Eclipse Aviation has subpoenaed Google in an effort to secure contact information for several anonymous posters on the Eclipse Critic blog hosted by its Blogger service. The legal action comes as a result of several comments made on the blog that question the features and characteristics of the Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet.

The company says that while it has no desire to shut down the blog, it feels compelled to go after the unnamed authors that it feels have defamed the company and its products.

Of course, it will likely be a while before this issue plays itself out in court. And while I'm not an attorney, it seems to me there are legal precedents at play that could make this issue rather short lived. In the recent past, there have been several cases regarding Internet service providers and the content they transmit; this issue was widely followed when the original Napster was still around and scads of users were swapping music files with one another. Basically, courts ruled that ISPs could not be expected to monitor their networks for unauthorized/illegal conduct transmitted by their customers. While it's true that technology might make it possible for the owners and controllers of content networks to keep an electronic eye out for certain types of content, the practicality of covering every base imaginable is a big question.

From a PR perspective, a question could be raised as to whether Eclipse would have been better served by actually tackling the issues raised in the blog postings rather than trying to silence the conversation.

Just What IS PR 2.0 Anyway?

It seems every time you look at a PR trade publication or an industry forum on a platform such as LinkedIn, you see someone asking about PR 2.0 and its importance on the profession. Maybe it's just me, but I think we should pull the plug on all the "upgrade" talk.

Although there's no universal definition, when most people speak of PR 2.0, they're playing off the Web 2.0 phenomenon that signifies the emergence of a number of Web-based platforms, such as blogs and wikis, that are truly interactive and foster two-way communications.

All these things can be wonderful additions to a PR program, especially for clients offering a consumer-oriented product or service and/or trying to reach a technically-inclined audience. These platforms foster a community-oriented communication that can, when used correctly, help clients gain additional validation via third-party influencers.

That said, all these things are just tools; they're appropriate for some campaigns and not appropriate for others. Even with the new tools, the time-tested and proven methods for conducting a successful PR campaign haven't changed and shouldn't be tossed out in favor of blanketing any new platform with a message about a client.

All too often, tools like these are seen by the industry as a chance to pad program budgets with extra fees and services that may or may not benefit the client. And at the end of the day, everything we do should be judged based on how well it benefits the client, not on whether it increases the agency's bottom line. For if we as an industry consistently do things that benefit the client, even if it's not always using the latest whiz-bang technology, the bottom line will almost certainly increase.

The Transformation of Content and Its Impact on PR

Practically since the beginning of the commercial Internet, there's been this back-and-forth tug regarding business models that have dominated the conventional business world and predictions over how much of that would translate to the Internet.

In the mid to late 1990s, the notion was that advertising would step in and solve everything, which explains in large measure why most business plans of Internet content sites based most of their revenue models around the ability to attract ads. Of course, the go-go 90s that played host to a ton of predictions about how the conventional world and its business models would be overturned got a big dose of reality in 2000 when the markets started cooling to the ideas.

While many thought that the fall out from the "dot-com boom" would usher in a new round of sanity and more fact-based analyses of the Internet's impact on the business world, sometimes it seems all that happened was just a thinning of the crop. Even now, with all the predictions of a dire economy that lay ahead, you still have people who bank on the Internet and related content platforms with rose-colored glasses that aren't giving them the full view of the picture.

For instance, many PR firms are treating the blogosphere as a vast, new media platform that will upend the conventional world as we know it. They're advising clients to pile a ton of money in new media initiatives, convinced beyond belief that it will pay off. Obviously, as a keeper of a blog, I'm not against the concept of blogs by any means, but I think we do have to radically realign our notions of what they are and the role they'll play.

One of the things I've never understood about the blogosphere is why we're promoting something so heavily that essentially just leads to a decentralized audience. By that I mean, having hundreds of platforms for content may be wonderful to those who want to read it, but when it comes to monetizing a platform like that and building revenue models around it, the challenge will be immense, since the audience will be so decentralized.

One one hand, blog enthusiasts could legitimately say the low barriers to entry from a cost perspective make that point largely moot; they'd be right if the goal was to simply establish a content beachhead, but when it comes to making money, you need some mass audience. Essentially, the more content platforms we have, the more the overall value of content is dilluted until we achieve some sort of mass.

In a recent editorial, Wired editor Chris Anderson predicts that free is the future of business. In promoting a system he calls "freenomics" -- a play on the widely read book Freakonomics, Anderson says decisions like that of The New York Times to take down their subscription wall and make all its content free serve as an example of things to come. Outside the content area, he also points to cases like the British rock band Radiohead, which freed itself from conventional record-label marketing to offer its latest album directly to the consumer and whatever price (s)he is willing to pay.

He goes on to point out how there are many versions of the "free" model, and most involve at least some sort of payment for a portion of a site or a value-oriented addition to a service. And in many ways, he's right about the fact that Google, Craigslist and others have shown the free model can work. However, it also has a number of big hurdles and we'd do well to examine them before creating Dot Com Bust II.

Will Social Networking Kill High-Margin PR Services?

As anyone in PR knows there are a variety of tools available that aim to greatly streamline specific tasks, especially those connected to media relations. And while they perform that function well, they're also very expensive and a budget stretch to many in the profession. Well, it now appears that these expensive "walled gardens" may soon be shaken up by social media platforms.

Of course, one of the most well-known social media network is LinkedIn. In addition to being a networking platform, LinkedIn's Answers functions allows people to post questions not only to their networks, but to the LinkedIn community at large. Currently, there are 15 separate categories spanning a number of industries and a separate category where members can share tips on using LinkedIn itself.

Lately, I've seen several situations where journalists, especially freelancers, are turning to LinkedIn to solicit story ideas that they can take under consideration for conversion into pitches to editors at publications for which they write. Given LinkedIn's large community that encompasses representatives of most every profession around, it makes sense to tap the group for both ideas and sources.

Another new entrant comes from PR and practitioner and new-media evangelist Peter Shankman titled If I Can Help a Reporter Out. It basically functions as an e-mail list, allowing reporters to send queries seeking sources to PR practitioners who subscribe to Shankman's list. Subscribers receive about 3 e-mail dispatches daily with details on stories reporters are working on and they can in turn suggest sources for the reporters to include in their story.

Shankman's idea, while it may not seem revolutionary, does have the potential to turn shake up things at very profitable units of major conglomerates like PRNewswire, whose ProfNet service currently dominates the landscape. While an unquestionably useful service, ProfNet's pricing is out of the reach of many small practitioners. Although there are other services around, such as Expert Click, there's yet to be a service that has gained enough traffic to be a serious competitor.

In his introduction to the service posted on the site, Shankman acknowledges that "...Help a Reporter..." will only prove useful if it can gain enough participation from both the source and PR community. In the interest of competition, I hope it's successful.

Has Technology Lived Up to Its Promise in the Workplace

Businesses and workers alike generally laud technology improvements, both using examples such as e-mail and the Blackberry in pointing out how technology has allowed businesses to operate more efficiently. However, when the issue is more closely examined, it's really not that clear cut.

According to a new survey issued by The Radicati Group, e-mail volume has increased a whopping 55 percent since 2004, with the average corporate e-mail user receiving 126 messages daily. The report goes on to say that if growth in e-mail volume continues at its current pace, workers will spend almost half their days managing messages by 2009.

While most bloggers who picked on this study stuck to the main issue, I thought I'd expand it a bit to examine the basic premise of technology and its promise of bringing efficiency to a variety of processes. There are countless examples of promises that were issued when new technologies emerged that haven't really lived up to reality. For example, I can remember businesses using videoconferencing over ISDN connections as early as 1993 and even then, equipment providers were touting how they would replace meetings and make business travel much less frequent. And of course, e-mail was supposed to cut down on the need for meetings, allow problems to be solved faster, etc.

Before going any further, I want to emphasize that I'm not saying these things haven't occurred in some cases, but it's fair to say they haven't occurred across the business world at large. In theory, if technology were making our lives more efficient, shouldn't we be able to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time, either getting more done in a standard workday or having a shorter workday?

Obviously, at least in the U.S., neither has happened; and rather than blame the technology, I suggest the reason these radical changes haven't happened is we've failed to adjust our attitudes, the way we think about work and the way we think about what we should get done in a formal work setting. Simply put, unless you change what a worker does during their day, the presence of technology won't necessarily enable you to get more done.

To bring this back to the PR world, I suggest we haven't done enough to change the PR business model through technology in a way that makes it possible for the ever-growing number of small and mid-size businesses with limited marketing budgets to engage a PR counselor. For example, a company with a limited budget could be presented with an account option that includes limited meetings, phone calls and other time-consuming (e.g. expensive) options for one that features mostly electronic client communication. That would enable the PR counselor to spend more of the company's billable time on actual program initiatives, greatly increasing the productivity that can be expected from limited budgets.

When thinking about technology and its impact on the business world, we'd do well to develop a plan that will allow the technology to reach its full potential and that focus should include just as much on the workday structure and the way we think about work as what the technology promises to do.

Pew Study Illustrates Difficulty in Determining Social Media Impact

Proponents of social media have generally highlighted its biggest advantage as being the potential to "upend" the media landscape by shifting the power from a few large, established players to a more decentralized environment that delivers a broader perspective, free of biases. However, a new study by the Pew Center paints a much more complicated picture.

The study says that despite social media's potential to create a more diverse media culture, the reality is that even when it comes to new media, most consumers typically turn to the ventures of the established media companies that have dominated the media world for decades, if not longer. The research shows that blogs and other social media outlets are attracting a smaller than expected audience and that rather than creating a culture devoid of elitism, all that's happened is the elites now come from a broader class consisting of more than just individuals with media backgrounds. In other words, the barons still rule, just not the media barons of old.

The biggest trend, according to the study, is that news today is thought of not so much as a product, but as a service. Consumers are changing their preferences when it comes to consuming news by opting for everything from traditional, full-form news stories to 40-character briefs sent via e-mail.

As far back as 2006, I was saying that we've been in a "blog bubble" of sorts that is causing us to avoid fully examining the potential impact of social media and keeping us from using it in the right way. Unfortunately this latest study seems to say loud and clear that while social media has value, PR pros and others advocating its use would be well advised to give it a more thorough examination than has been done in the past. Frankly, we owe it to our clients and to the reputation of our industry as a whole.

Edelman's Take on PR's Validity

Richard Edelman, CEO of the nation's largest independent PR firm, had a great take on the impact the current economic downturn will have on PR that I urge everyone to read.

He believes that PR will be better equipped to weather the downturn than during the tech bubble of the 90s, when some tech-focused PR firms suffered dramatically, but says the industry could do a better job of promoting its own value proposition. Edelman goes on to list several key contributions PR makes to a business and its bottom line, including getting multiple stakeholders involved in a company's success -- not just consumers and serving as a unique accelerator for a company and its brand. That aspect stems from the fact that PR involves a communications approach that leads consumers of a company's PR message to become active participants that help companies shape their products and services.

Finally, Edelman argues that PR offers a credibility advantage because information is thoroughly vetted and examined by the media, bloggers and independent third-parties.

I agree with all the above and also with the fact that it's the industry's job to communicate these advantages through the selling process. Anyone who's in PR and has ever talked to someone who's never before met anyone else from the industry knows how little the average person understands exactly what we do. In a sense, that disconnect is causing us to miss out on a great opportunity, since at least a portion of these people might be potential PR consumers if they better understood the industry.

Does Recession-Proof PR Exist?

In a recent op-ed for The Bulldog Reporter, GolinHarris CEO Al Golin takes a turn at the microphone in the debate over the impact the current economic downturn will have on public relations.

In the article, Golin maintains that much has changed in the PR landscape in recent years. As a result of what he terms PR's "coming of age," Golin says businesses understand much more about what PR firms do for them and how important they are to their success. He goes on to say that PR can now make a good case about its necessity and has gone beyond merely an industry specializing in getting clients ink to one that includes firms that are valued business partners.

As proof of the change, Golin sites the growth of his own firm, which he maintains had a banner year last year. While I don't think Golin would have a reason to overstate his firm's state, that stat was impossible to verify since GolinHarris is part of the Interpublic Group, which doesn't readily make available stats on its various subsidiaries.

Overall, I think articles such as this perfectly illustrate the wide disconnect between large and small firms. Large firms, as is the case with large companies in many other industries, often enjoy many benefits by virtue of their size. Chief among them is the fact that large businesses often patronize businesses of their same size; so Golin Harris has a number of large, publicly-held clients as companies. I suspect an examination of smaller, independently-held firms would yield a much different picture since competition is even more fierce at that level.

If there are any owners/managers of mid-size or small independent shops, I'd love to hear your comments on this issue. Is Golin's enthusiasm overstated?

How to Effectively “Sell” PR

(Note: This article was originally published on TalentZoo.com Feb. 17, 2008)

Even the most talented public relations professionals need one key ingredient before they can work their magic: A company willing to trust the PR pro with their program. Getting to this crucial point isn't always easy, and the way PR has traditionally been sold has a lot to do with it.

The business pitch process itself is relatively simple: Find a client that's a good fit for a consultant or an agency's experience and background and convince them you're the one for the job. While that seems simple enough, like many things, the devil's in the details. While it's understandable that an agency or consultant may want to pull out all the stops to get new business, in many cases, the way it's done now is all too often the problem.

Often, a new business pitch consists of an agency or consultant wowing a prospective client with PowerPoint presentations and telling them all the great outlets they're sure to appear in if they just select their firm. They talk about the placements they've achieved for clients and how they can do that for darn near anybody on the planet – including, of course, the company they're pitching.

Now no one in their right mind would go into a business pitch with a demeanor resembling the comic Steven Wright and/or an attitude that didn't reflect competence and confidence; but the key thing to remember is going overboard is no better. During the “dot-com boom,” we were all treated to stories about how company x was going to have the next best thing that was sure to shake the competitive landscape of its field. And when most companies are looking for a PR pro, they feel just as confident about their product or service and think it's just a matter of time before the high-level ink will come rolling in.

When an agency or consultant typically hears a prospective client talk like this, they often give encouraging feedback and/or do their best to echo what the client said. However, at this juncture, what we should really be thinking is not so much giving the client back what they want to hear, but giving them honest feedback that reflects the experience that comes from managing good PR campaigns. To get a better idea of what I mean, think about law firms. I do a lot of work with law firms large and small, and I feel that PR should do more to model itself around the legal profession and other portions of the professional services world. By that I mean, even the best lawyer in the country will never promise an outcome they're not sure can be delivered. In addition to the fact that doing so would run afoul of a myriad of ethics rules, they also realize all too well that even if someone's the greatest at what (s)he does, sometimes they'll lose for reasons completely out of their control.

While it may be tough to say even to ourselves, even the best PR campaign will fail sometimes, even if the client has a good idea. After all, the proverbial road is littered with many sound ideas, services and products that just never took off. A good PR agency will bridge the gap between what they can and can't do in terms of the end result by explaining what works and doesn't work, as illustrated through campaigns that are similar to what the prospective client needs. You can tell a lot about whether a company will be a good client by how they react to your objective advice; if they don't take it, odds are they're going to want to pin everything that doesn't go right in a PR campaign directly on you, even if the reason something didn't work as expected was completely out of your control. That doesn't mean I would say you should never take business from a company whose executives act in this manner; my point is merely that it will prepare you for what could lie ahead and allow you time to think about managing the issue. If you follow the path of giving a prospective client objective advice and they come aboard with your firm, you're already going to be on much more solid ground than if you'd promised anything and everything under the moon just to get them in. And to be fair, you really can't blame the client in this instance, as nobody forced the PR pro to say something they didn't want to say.

In all likelihood, taking this path will go far toward earning you that “seat at the table” that so many PR pros covet. To be successful, you'll need an advocate inside the company that communicates your successes and embraces your ideas and is willing to go to bat for you and those ideas to key executives. You'll also likely find that the client will respect your abilities more if you give them objective advice, even if it confronts their conventional wisdom at the time.

The best reward that this approach will likely bring is both a happy client and a long-term client. As I've written about extensively on my blog and in other forums, if every professional service firm had to replace their clients as often as PR firms do, they'd be thinking something had gone horribly wrong. Yet, for some crazy reason, we in PR just accept it as a fact of life. What makes this doubly crazy to me is that if you asked PR pros whether they'd rather be engaging in selling or strategic PR, most would choose the latter. Given that, why not do all you can to maximize client retention and, thus, reduce the need to constantly sell? I'm convinced taking a better approach to sales will not only benefit the practice of an individual practitioner or an agency's, but also be a great thing for the profession as a whole.

Afzali Commentary Featured in O'Dwyer's PR Newsletter

As many of you know, one of the themes I've consistently taken on is the pervasive antagonism that many PR professionals have for journalists. The reasons it exists are many, but the bottom line is regardless of the reason, it does no one in the profession any good, especially the agency and their client.

Jack O'Dwyer, who publishes a well-respected newsletter on the industry, recently interviewed me on the subject and ran an article its January 4 issue. For those who are interested, the article may be found here

I invite your reactions to both my comments and to the issue at large.

An update from Astoria Communications

In a nod to the obvious, it's been a while since there was any post of relevance on this blog. Given that, I thought I'd post a short note to explain.

In addition to a nice uptick in business for my practice, I've also been contributing a lot of written pieces to several publications of note, including O'Dwyer's PR Newsletter, as well as a variety of career-related PR columns to outlets such as TalentZoo and, very soon, TheLadders. All this has left me with little time to update the blog.

However, I will be posting some of those writings here and hope that they will be relevant to those in the profession. Obviously, those who are newer to PR will probably find the career-related columns of particular interest. To any who may read this, thanks for checking in and stay tuned. 2008 will bring many more contributions.