Introducing the world to ArtStarters.org

I’ve been working the past few weeks with my team on bringing a great new website into the world.  As November slips by, we get ever closer to our ‘Hello, World’ moment on ArtStarters.org.  The past two weeks have seen me trying to make some headway on building interest among people who can help us pull in beta users.

So what have I learned?

1. Remember to ask! – Don’t just send notes introducing people to your project.  Make sure you ASK for what you want.  I was surprised and excited to receive a note back from the Editor in Chief of a fairly major online arts magazine saying that she’d be happy to help us gain some visibility for our project.  Asking works!
2. Pull out all the stops.  If you’re a student, tell them you’re a student!  If you have no money for advertising, tell them what you CAN provide.
3. Don’t limit yourself to the traditional – I sought out Facebook Groups and sent notes to the administrators.  I’ve heard back from a few, which is a few more people than I’d have reached if I hadn’t done so.
4. Plan for a fraction.  If you don’t plan on hearing from everyone you reach out to, then you’re not as likely to fall short of your goal.
5. Just do it.  The old Nike slogan still has legs – we covered this point time and time again in our program and it seems so obvious, but it’s probably the hardest thing.  Even if you don’t feel ready, you have to start sometime.  I’m not saying don’t make any preparations, but don’t drag it out.  Prepare the minimum, then put your feet to the pavement, otherwise you’ll find reasons to continue to wait!

Also, I have to confess, I’m loving Twitter lists and Listorious right now.  I think Twitter lists are much more user friendly than Twitter directories like Twellow or WeFollow (though those are great, as well) and are perfect to get started with a new Twitter account.

That’s all for now, but I’ll certainly update again when ArtStarters.org is live encouraging you all to go sign-up and check it out!

Where is PR headed?

I’ve been really intrigued this week by the discussion of the future of public relations.  I think that the discussions that have unfolded are crucial to making a long-term stand for our industry, since with increasing convergence in media we will obviously witness increasing convergence in communications roles out of necessity.  

There were two posts that sparked me on this the most:

1. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research who had an intriguing idea which helped fuel much of this conversation 
2. Todd Defren of Shift PR (a social media PR firm) who mounted what I thought was in the larger case a spot on counter argument regarding the business principles 

There are some differences I see, however, as someone working on the front-lines.  My points are these:

 

• PR council is expensive – if I’m not wrong, PR is more expensive than customer service by quite a bit, that’s why companies have warehouses of customer service people and offices of PR people (or hire outside firms, which might cost even more)
   
• Basic social media monitoring and response skills are pretty similar to instant message or e-mail based customer service – so why pay PR people to do your customer service when you can have your customer service people do your customer service?
   
• If you’re worried about handling ’special cases,’ monitoring tools are coming to the point where they’re sophisticated enough to raise the alarm for ‘flagged’ influencers you may want to give special care to *
   
• More and more, PR efforts with social media are less like media relations OR like customer service and more like marketing (at least from where I’m sitting)

 

My conclusion, then?  Customer service will wind up with the social media piece of the pie at some point down the road; maybe the PR or social media experts will slide to those departments and customer service procedures will change up a bit.  In the long run, media relations will still exist as a specialty with one hoary old coffee drinking, cigarette smoking ex-journalist working in a paper-filled office alone
.  The rest of the little PR girlies?  They’ll be swallowed up by the marketing department and out working events and pushing samples and test drives (which, funnily enough, is part of the monetizaton and metrics strategy I hear for social media firms).

 

*(though that kind of takes the transparency out of things, doesn’t it?  It would be best to let customer service have enough information and freedom to serve everyone equally, but that’s likely not going to happen with people like Robert Scoble making a fuss as Defren pointed out in the post I reference above)

PR tools in social media

In the last session of my class (Social Media Marketing @ UCLA Extension) we wound up spending some time discussing public relations and social media; how they tie together and what tools you might use.  We focused primarily on the press release as a SEO tool but it’s great to note that in general social media are perfect for public relations efforts, especially efforts of an 0ver-taxed many-hat-wearing marketing/PR/etc professional at a small company.

Thanks to a post by Patrick Evans (“You don’t need a press release wire service“) and another post by Todd Defren (“What wire service should we use?“) there’s a wealth of discussion on wire services.

On the other hand, there are plenty of (free!) social media tools to use in your PR efforts, some for press release distribution, others for making the most of your time and finding connections where your efforts will be most likely to be mutually beneficial to you/your company and the blogger/journalist/etc you’re trying to reach.

1. HARO – Short for HelpAReporterOut.  Created and managed by self-admitted ADHD publicist Peter Shankman, HelpAReporter is a 3x daily e-mail that shares requests from people (generally journalists, but also includes bloggers, public relations people looking for outside sources, etc) who need an interview or expert commentary.  Shankman also posts urgent requests to his Twitter microblog through @skydiver
2. Pitch Engine – This press release distribution service is the next ‘hot thing’ in PR.  Pitch Engine helps you land your press release on web-based news services like Google News where it’s available to the public and not just journalists.  This is key for your search engine optimization efforts, too.  Check out @PitchEngine on Twitter in addition to reviewing the site.
3. Campus Buzz – A press release distribution service that gets your story to the staff members of student-run newspapers across the country.  While most media relations programs only offer the generic ‘editor’ e-mail contact and a faculty advisor contact, Campus Buzz reaches directly to the writers.
4. #JournChat – A weekly Twitter discussion moderated by @PRSarahEvans, it draws together public relations folk and journalists (as well as any other interested parties) for a great discussion and networking.
5. #MicroPR – Another Twitter tool, this was created by Brian Solis as a sort of Twitter-based HARO.  Journalists can publish their queries and PR folk can respond.  To date, it doesn’t seem to be working as intended as most of the requests I’ve seen pushed out have been promotional from other PR types.  Given the initial warm reception, though, I think it’s worth keeping an eye on.

These tools can provide a strong, free base for someone who needs to do minimal PR outreach for their small business and are great tools to work into the PR mix for companies that give their PR efforts more resources.

**Update**

@dana_willhoit keeps an extensive list of free press release resources here.  It’s definitely worth checking out.

**Update2**

Another resource for a longer list of free press release resources from Blogging Secret here.

Aaand curtain…

This week was the Los Angeles Auto Show.  It was quite the year for it (if you weren’t aware of the auto industry situation, pick up a major newspaper from this week, you’ll soon understand).

And this was a big week for me because of the level of involvement my team and I had in our client’s plans and on-site coordination.  Each of us took responsibility for some part of the show and all pitched in to lend a hand throughout the last two weeks.  After many 12 hour days, the week is done, the messages are out and we’ve learned a few things.

My tips for you on dealing with events:

1. Breathe – For real!  The best way to NOT let a situation overwhelm you is to take a moment, breathe and then reflect on possibilities.  Was it fun finding a program vehicle with two flat tires?  Not so much.  Did it get fixed in the timeliest possible manner and with good team effort?  Indeed it did.
2. Don’t be clique-y – Events are an especially good time to build stronger relationships with your media and your clients.  Even if you don’t have a story to tell, taking the time to share a lunch or a joke is well worth the effort.  You can talk to your friends and co-workers any other day; use this to your best advantage to connect with someone you DON’T get to see regularly.
3. Your first word is your last impression – Ever tell a client something was free and then try to ask for money anyway?  Right.  Lesson learned.  Even if someone makes a generous offer, make sure you present it with an eye toward fore-thought and set aside a slush fund for surprises or small tokens of appreciation for the gift giver.
4. Appreciate your team – Ever not gotten along with someone on your team and then they come through in the clutch?  It happens to the best of us.  Events are a great chance to become closer and gain respect for people you may have had contentious relationships with in the past.

The best part of something is the end; it’s a feeling I carry from years of amateur theatre where the curtain call was the highlight of the evening.  I think tomorrow’s Friday staff meeting will be much the same with a big bow from everyone and a few lessons learned and friends made.

The Best PR…

I’ve had a busy few weeks, figuring out my new class, going to a prospective student day to look at going back to school more formally and ramping up for a busy season at the office.  This has all served to remind me of something I think most communicators know but often forget to acknowledge – customer service rules the day.

Put another way – The best PR is a great experience.

Have I told everyone I know about how friendly the faculty at the student visit day were?  You bet.   Have I noticed the way that I treat my media partners a little bit more?  Mmhmm.  Did I realize that it’s important to focus more on what you’re being told than on what you’re saying?  Yes, indeedy.

So please, consider this a brief reminder: every moment you communicate to someone else, it is a customer service experience.  You may perceive that you’re equals, but it’s not true.  Even when you’re chatting with a friend (while your roles may change from provider to receiver) someone is always supplying SOMETHING, whether it’s a friendly ear or a full-on monetary transaction.  So remember, satisfaction is the best public relations.

Dangerous Ideas

A guest post on PRNewser from Friday by Peter Himler (Flatiron Communications, The Flack blogger) shared the question asked at this year’s Council of PR Firms “Critical Issues Forum”: “What is the most dangerous idea in PR today?”

I think it’s a good question and one that shouldn’t only be addressed by the principal’s at major firms.  (Really!  I mean are the principal’s the first people to see trends?  Probably not.  I’m just sayin’…)

Reading the post, I see that many argued that social media was the most dangerous idea.  To me, however, mentioning social media brings to mind questions of “What can social media do for me?” instead of “How can we tie this all together?”

I think the most dangerous idea in PR right now is integration.  Tie your PR to your advertising, make the POP displays relevant, engage people!  Too much of PR is focused on the uni-directional communication.  Social media is fine, but it’s just another channel if you don’t integrate, listen and activate.

It’s dangerous because

1) It makes us more effective with our audience; they can actually recall a single message (crazy!)

2) It might mean that PR people can’t JUST be PR people.  We may have to *gasp* work with marketing!

Thoughts?  Am I missing the boat on the next truly “dangerous” idea?

Welcome to my Memory…

Welcome to my brain!  I don’t know if you heard this story some time ago on NPR, but it was all about a type of memory called “Transactive Memory.”  According to Wikipedia -

Transactive memory is the process whereby people remember things in relationships and groups. Each person doesn’t need to remember everything the group needs to know, after all, if each person merely stores in memory information about who is likely to have a particular item in the future. (…)how larger groups and organizations come to develop a “group mind,” a memory system that is more complex and potentially more effective than that of any of the individuals that comprise it.

It turns out that we also remember less as individuals because of all of our tech tools, according to a study done by Prof. Ian Robertson of Trinity College Dublin.  (Read the Telegraph story here.)

So basically, what you’re reading is my attempt to remember, and also share, the wisdom I’ve gained (and hopefully will continue to gain) through my career.  Some things will seem inane, others will be pointed arguments on a certain topic, and on and on.  I hope to have a few friends contribute, too, and enrich us all.

Have fun, and please share!  My PR brain is never big enough.