KEEPING YOUR PR COUNSEL IN THE LOOP IS JUST GOOD BUSINESS

Your PR team can only do its best for you if you keep them in the information loop.

Your top PR executive or outside PR counsel should always be part of your key decision-making team. As part of the “in crowd,” PR can provide early insights on how the public or the media might perceive corporate policies or actions that are under consideration. That will save you PR headaches in the long run.

Use your PR team's unique set of skills wisely. Armed with the right info, they can take on any issue and develop a public information action plan that is strategic, proactive and on-point. They can also craft statements that can ensure your message is communicated in just the way you want it to be.

All too often in the corporate world, PR professionals are informed after decisions are made. They're seen as the mere packagers of messages, the writers of news releases. Or, even worse, they're charged with putting the genie back in the bottle when they hear some corporate news from media sources — and need to react. Then, they're left to scramble, shifting into a crisis mode to develop a credible, defensible position for the company. That's a waste of time and money.

If you want to maintain a good image, keep your PR team close to your decision-making process. They should be your strategic partners.

In the long run, that will make you a stronger, more credible company that's ready to handle any media salvo that may come your way.

FACEBOOK: GENERATING CONVERSATIONS THAT CAN HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

A Facebook page is a great way to reach out and grow your customer base. Launch a Facebook page and you'll probably discover that your product or service has fans you never knew you had.

Here's an example: we launched a Facebook page for a small beach resort on April 20, 2009. As of May 13, 2009, 1,000 people had signed up to be friends of that resort. It was exciting to see people chatting online about how much they loved the resort and posting their plans to return there soon.

With a Facebook page, your happy customers will sell your product for you. It gives them a forum to express their thoughts about your product. And, in the event that they are unhappy with you, it gives you a public forum to respond and show what great customer service you provide.

Facebook is also a great way to alert folks to sales, events and other news. You can even make your Facebook friends feel like insiders by giving them such information first.

So get on board the social networking bandwagon and create your own forum for interacting with customers through a Facebook page. The conversation about you and your product is going on out there whether you know it or not. With a Facebook page, you'll soon learn how people view you and, armed with that knowledge, you can make product and service improvements that can generate even more enthusiasm for what you have to offer.

However, before you jump into the world of Facebook, be aware that a Facebook page is a different animal than your Web site. Unlike a Web site — which doesn't necessarily require daily care — your Facebook page will require daily monitoring and participation on your part. Facebook is only an effective business tool if you interact with your Facebook friends on a regular basis.

You must stay on top of your Facebook conversations. If you don't have the time, hire a professional to manage your page and act as the voice of your company.

WHAT? ME BLOG?

Have you ever considered a blog for your business? It's another way to communicate and interact with customers and potential customers. Think of it as another tool in your public relations toolbox.

What can a blog do for you? The freedom to immediately publish and communicate your messages. No waiting for the presses to churn out your news. No filters on the messages you want to convey.

A blog is a way for you to communicate directly with consumers. A way to jump start a conversation and put real meaning into the word "interactive." A way to help you learn more of what consumers are looking for in products like yours.

But to be successful, a blog must be well-focused, well-written and well-managed. You've got to feed it with regular, fresh content. Optimize it so it attracts automatic search engine indexers (Web crawlers).

Try blogging for your business and get the conversation going!

SOCIAL NETWORKING: WHY YOU NEED IT — EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU DON'T

Lately there's been a lot in the news about tweeting. No, the media isn't excited because spring is right around the corner and the robins are on the way. They're talking about Twitter, the latest social networking platform that's fast becoming all the rage.

If Twitter isn't already one of the tools in your public relations toolbox, then you need to come up to speed fast. In fact, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that “Twitter is the messaging service we didn't know we needed until we had it.”

Deep, huh? Well, like a lot of quips, it speaks volumes.

Shaquille O'Neal tweets about being at the mall – just like a regular guy. And he's using this simple tool to build his fan base.

Ashton and Demi go directly to fans with their news, short-circuiting tabloid reports.

Perez Hilton tweets observations about the Hollywood glitterati. Grows his number of blog followers.

Interesting, but not serious enough for you?

Dell can trace the sale of over $1 million in its electronics to its 2008 Twitter program.

One of the world's only profit-making airlines, Jet Blue, uses Twitter to inform and communicate with its customers.

Overstock.com is building its legion of bargain-hunting buyers with little tweets about its latest deals.

Lots of smart businesses are using Twitter to driver traffic to their Web sites.

Got your attention now?

Twitter is the newest part of a social networking landscape that includes blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, My Space, etc. It's a micro-blog. Just 140 little characters that can pack a wallop. Think about how candidate Obama and his election team used Twitter to reach out to tens of thousands of people and build his base. That effort cost way less than expensive campaign commercials on TV. And it got results.

More and more, blogging and micro-blogging isn't just for kids or bored people obsessed with telling the world about their lives. It's a brave new world of “social media” that can be a useful business tool. You should embrace that world and make it part of your PR efforts.

Okay, you don't buy into the hype that social media is the end all and be all. I'm with you there. Like anything else, the early adopters are frenzied with enthusiasm. There are social media “gurus” so enveloped in the online world that they'd have you believe that people won't be getting their news any other way in the very near future. You can spend thousands going to seminars to hear social media evangelists – and they hope you do. After all, they're running a business too.

But if you're in the trenches of business every day, you know that we're in a transitional time for marketing. Publicists who only use the old tools of PR are heading the way of the dinosaurs. Ok, social media platforms aren't going to replace PR staples like press releases and good-old fashioned relationship-building with the main-stream media right now. But tools like blogs and Twitter are growing in importance as legitimate business communications channels.

Sure, it's troubling that news channeled through social media is often reported by folks who aren't trained like journalists. They have no boundaries, no ethical parameters, and no fact-checking rules. Their world is kind of like the wild, wild west. But, you can't deny that social media deserve a place in the PR toolbox. It's all about impact and influence.

So, put aside your prejudices and embrace social media as another communications channel. Only this channel talks back. And you have to listen. That provides a golden opportunity to interact directly with your current and future customers. It can also connect you to important media who are online and increasingly using social media to pick up tips and story ideas.

Social media fosters emotional connection – and that's the essence of relationships. It's people to people. One on one. Community. And, in the end, no matter what PR techniques or channels you use, your ability to educate and influence is directly connected to relationships and building a community of interest in your business and products.

If you haven't figured out how to network effectively online, then you need to do it soon. If you don't have the time or skill to do it yourself, then hire a PR firm that has the smarts and experience to help you. Build a following on Twitter, get a Facebook page, become LinkedIn, launch a blog, connect with bloggers interested in what you’re selling.

Oh, please. Stop thinking you already have a great online marketing program because you've got a Web site.

It’s not just about a Web site any more.

THE LITTLE RESORT THAT COULD: A SUCCESS STORY

This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Okay. This is a true story, but changing the name of the client has nothing to do with innocence. We just don't think it's fair to share a client's name and budget with the world.

So while the results and statistics in this story are true, I'm just going to call our client the Little Resort That Could.

The Little Resort is not the kind of place that can afford to pay for a lot of advertising to tell the world it's there. But its managers believe in the power of PR. They looked at their budgets, squeezed them tight, and came up with as much as they could to fund PR.

Here's where perspective comes in. The Little Resort viewed their PR budget as a stretch, a very large investment for them. By PR campaign standards, it was very small. But we knew that something bigger and more important was happening here. The Little Resort was showing our team a vote of confidence and literally giving us their all.

The budget was in the $30,000 range. Spread over an entire year. Including expenses. Time to make every penny count.

Decisions, decisions. We could have come up with a big idea, dazzled the client and used the funds all at once. But would that give the Little Resort the most bang for its buck? We didn't think so.

We needed a better idea. Why not spread the funds over a year and generate a steady stream of publicity? And so it began.

Day in, day out, we encouraged media to report news about the Little Resort. We ran a tight and targeted media relations operation. Slow and steady wins the race, we told ourselves. Oh yeah. Pictures with captions helped too.

Big papers like The Washington Post, as well as small regional newspapers, bloggers and big online news sources responded to our message. Impressive awards followed. More and more people started booking vacations at the Little Resort.

Month after month, the results poured in. After a year, we counted them up: coverage 122 times in 45 different media. News about The Little Resort appeared 11 times every single month. Now that's frequency!

If the Little Resort had bought ads to get that exposure in those particular media, it would have cost them more than half a million bucks.

There was much joy at the Little Resort. The general manager liked the return on his investment in PR. The marketing director was thrilled with the exposure. The accounting department head nodded solemly and muttered words of appreciation for our thrifty ways. The owner applauded his staff for finding a cost-effective way to get the phone ringing and build business at the Little Resort That Could.

Best of all, the Little Resort rewarded its PR firm by extending its contract for another year.

Illustration Credit: Download-Free-Pictures.com

THE TORTOISE OR THE HARE: WHICH WILL YOU BE?

Publicity creates “buzz.” It informs people about your product and gets them talking about it.

It's easy to generate publicity if you can come up with a great idea (see IMAX dinosaurs below) — and get it funded. Make a big enough splash in the old sensory pool and people will start buzzing all over the place.

But the impact of a big splash is fleeting. A big splash occupies a single point in time. After its initial impact, it kind of floats away like the rings you see when a pebble is thrown in a pool.

People forget. They move on. But, you have to keep the buzz going.

In an ideal PR world, you launch with a big splash and sustain interest with a program of frequent news reminders about your product. But maybe your budget is small.

What can you do?

Consider the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Hare runs fast and, man, he's cool! But the slow and steady tortoise wins the race.

Most publicity work isn't about the big splashes. It's just plain grunt work. Nibbling around the edges of the news cycle, looking for a way in. But when you are proactive and you get your message reported repeatedly, you CAN make an impression. People become aware of your product and they talk about it.

You create buzz with frequency.

“But,” you ask, “can't I just do that with advertising?”

Well, yes. But not as effectively. Because it's all about the old subconscious.

View an ad and the wheels start turning deep down in the gray matter. You know you're being sold. Even if you're naïve, you're no dummy. An ad's an attempt to sell you something. Your brain gets the message loud and clear. Skepticism creeps in.

But your mind processes editorial differently – especially when it's in one of the softer news arenas like travel or product publicity. Your guard is down. You read an article and your subconscious is much more receptive to what it's learning: “Hey, this is interesting! Intriguing. Nobody's pushing me to buy. This resort might be worth trying. Picture looks cool.”

When a news source spotlights your product, that reporting is perceived as a kind of recommendation to give that product a try. It's subliminal and it's what's called the “third party endorsement.” It's invaluable.

It's also way more powerful than an advertisement.

When your news appears over and over again in media aimed at your target audience, that frequency has an impact. People get your message and the buzz not only begins, it's sustained.

Don't have the budget to make a big splash and follow it up with a strategic publicity program? If you have to choose, put your hard-earned bucks into a sustained program and pursue frequent editorial coverage.

In the Aesop's fable, the hare bolts far ahead of the tortoise in the race. But then he stops to nap. Similarly, a big splash project will get you a lot of publicity— but its impact may fade within days.

With a sustained PR program, you may not have the flair of the hare; but, like the tortoise, you can win the race.


Illustration Credit: Tortoise & The Hare by Milo Winter

WHAT A WASTE: PURSUIT OF NEWS COVERAGE WITHOUT A NEWS HOOK

You know how you feel when you're pressured to do something you don't want to do? Now think about the media. They feel that pressure every day.

You've got a story and you think the media should want to report it. Why? Because you think it's important news.

Not good enough. Unless you're the President of the good old USA, you've got some splainin' to do before you get your story covered.

Before you make that media call, spend some quality time thinking about why your story is newsworthy. What's your news hook? Why is your news of interest to others? What reader-friendly angle could the writer use? Think strategically — you may only get one chance to make your pitch.

Today, the news business is tougher than ever. Many media are short-staffed and stretched to the limit. So here are some tips:

Don’t call the media unless you have real news to report.

Don’t call the media to complain that they don’t ever call you or that a story contained news about your competition but not you.

Don’t call the media and ask them to publicize your sale — they’ll send you to the advertising department to buy an ad.

Do call the media when you have genuine news to report.

Do call the media after you have given serious thought to why your news would be of interest to the media and their public.

Do thank a writer for positive coverage when you get it.