INK PUBLIC RELATIONS

We’re doing a rain dance right now for the PR gods to smile on us as we submit our RFP response on a piece of business we’d REALLY like to get. Why do we want it? Well, yes, the obvious does apply, but even more than growth being good, we’ve essentially been training for this particular piece of business our entire professional lives. And as we go through the process of answering the RFP questions, I find that I’m thinking two things – 1) we’re really good. And 2) they’d be silly not to pick us. Let’s hope they agree. (If so, I’ll report back with the name of “they”- and my apologies for calling them silly – towards the end of August.) Fingers crossed!

I saw this article by @suzannechoney and my mouth dropped open – how wildly inappropriate! But after the initial freak out, I thought to myself “Why would I be okay reading this in a newspaper and not on Twitter?” It’s news either way. Twitter – in my head up until this point – has been a place for sharing links to news stories, not where the story itself is written. Yes, there have been books written 100% from tweets and yes, of course, reporters and writers use it every day to share their thoughts. But “I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner’s execution.” That’s 100% news happening at that moment. Self-publishing at its core. Hardcore.

Long-time INK client Mike Foley of Bluetooth fame was a guest on Larry King Live last night.

I’m not sure who was more nervous of the two of us, but if it was him, he sure didn’t show it. In the last Fresh INK post, Kari mentioned Wilson Rothman as an excellent interviewee, doing all of the things we recommend to our clients re sound bites, staying on message, etc. Well this time, the shining example is our client – and we are so impressed and proud (though we certainly don’t claim his success, minus all of the practice he’s had over the years through the interviews we’ve set up for him ).

What did he do right? He smiled (engaging), he spoke in real language (sometimes hard for a tech guy – again, engaging), he spoke to what he knows and deferred topics on which he’s not an expert to someone else (staying on message), he shared information that was of interest to the audience, of interest to the reporter, and in his best interest (staying on message), and lastly he had a pretty memorable sound bite (Bluetooth headsets transmit 1/1000th of the power of a cell phone – go figure!). He was also extremely quick on his feet on this live show, which is hard for even the most seasoned spokespeople to do and he did it well.

Kudos to you Mike! You know me, I don’t mind giving the critiques when needed, but this time – not a critique to be had in the house. Check it out:

MICHAEL FOLEY, BLUETOOTH SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP: Sure, these are two examples of wireless headsets that you wear in your ear to take phone calls. So then your phone can remain in your pocket, in your purse, in your briefcase, and then you don’t have to hold it to your head. Many new cars now have Bluetooth built in as well, where it uses your speakers for basically a hands-free kit in the car. Of course, everyone is not going to go out and buy a new car, so you can get aftermarket Bluetooth speaker phones as well to use in the car. These you can clip these on the dash right above your head. You can make the call and not, again, have to hold the mobile phone to your head while you’re driving. Of course, while you’re driving, that’s the law in many states and many countries around the world as well.

KING: What are your thoughts on the study released tomorrow?

FOLEY: I found it very interesting listening to the experts, and thought it was very confusing. I don’t think they really know right now. And the other thing I didn’t hear any of them talk about all of these were phones from 15 years ago, 10 years ago because they’re 10- year studies. Think of what your phone was like 10 years ago, Larry.

KING: I think I still have the same one.

FOLEY: You’re the exception. Most people in America in a ten-year period would go through four to ten cell phones. And they transmitted with a lot more power back then than they do now. Like everything, the technology changes over time. And how you fit that into the study is very interesting.

KING: What’s the difference in the power transmission between a cell phone and Bluetooth?

FOLEY: A bluetooth headset or speaker phone uses approximately one one thousandth of the power.

KING: One one thousandth?

FOLEY: Exactly. It does depends on your mobile phone and Bluetooth headset. But, give or take, that’s roughly the amount.

KING: I believe Dr. Ottis Brawley is still there. Are you there, Dr. Brawley?

BRAWLEY: Yes, I am.

KING: What do you think of the Bluetooth?

BRAWLEY: I think that for people who are concerned about cell phones concerning brain tumors, using a Bluetooth or a wired device is a very reasonable thing to do. I don’t want people to be panicked and not use their cell phones over all of this, or be confused. If you’re concerned, use a wireless device or a Bluetooth.

KING: Isn’t you safer? Wouldn’t you be safer using a Bluetooth?

FOLEY: It sounds like it. I’ll leave that up to the medical experts. But if you can use something that uses one one thousandth of the power, and it really doesn’t change your use patterns — just put this on and take the call like you normally do — why not do that. It seems prudent to me.

KING: Quickie, where did it get its name?

FOLEY: Bluetooth was a Danish king around the 900s. And he united the Scandinavian countries. The original concept with Bluetooth was it was a technology that would unite the mobile phone and personal computer. And Bluetooth was originally created by people in those countries at Eriksson and Nokia. So that was the code name and it stuck. It’s been the name for over a decade now.

KING: You can buy these anywhere?

FOLEY: Sure. Any electronic store, you mobile phone provider store, they all have headsets, car kits. Of course, as I mentioned, most new cars come with it now.

KING: One one thousandth?

FOLEY: Yes.

KING: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Dr. Brawley. Thanks to all of our panel. We’re going to do a lot more on this.

Have you seen the billboards that say: “Does Advertising Work? Just Did!” These have always gotten under my skin because no, it did not just work – unless the action the advertiser wanted me to take was to read. Seeing as how selling a product or service vs. getting the customer to read is what keeps companies in business (unless you’re Sylvan, and even then learning to read is a service they sell) then no, these billboards are not advertising in action.

What’s that got to do with PR? Well, often times a win for us is when we get a story in a magazine because presumably the client’s audiences will read the article and form an opinion, become more aware, take a specified action, etc. But without measurement, we too are these very same billboards…all we’ve accomplished, unless we’re measuring a change in awareness or an action taken as a result of the article, is getting the audience to read (again, presumably).

So what’s a girl to do? Don’t practice PR in a vacuum. Work with clients to ensure a feedback loop is in place – big story hit, client tells us web traffic spiked. New product launched, client tells us sales went through the roof and customers are citing the Wall Street Journal story as one way they learned about the product. Tying results to our actions is paramount to success in our business. Hey clients – help us out – we want to be more than annoying billboards.

I liked this post today from the Bad Pitch Blog re other ways to get your news across besides a press release. At INK, we firmly believe there ARE other alternatives – and sometimes it’s instead of, whereas others it’s in combination with. Either way, the point made at the end of the post conjures up a recurring theme, here on this blog, at INK and in the realm of PR – it’s QUALITY that matters. Go ahead, announce your new product via sky writer, spray paint it on a wall or silk screen it on a t-shirt. At the end of the day though, if it’s not good stuff, it’s just not. No lipsticks on pigs – can’t dress up what’s not able – this is my haiku. (HAHA, I think I’ll stick to press releases! But I told @laermer I’d give it a shot, so there you go.)

In preparation for a client meeting recently, I ran across this article on PR measurement on Metrics Man’s blog. He details five things to forget and five things to learn about PR measurement in 2010. A few things resonated with me on this topic:

What to forget: The PR industry has tried for SO LONG to measure PR in terms of numbers (ad value equivalency, number of hits, number of interviews…) – hell, we still do this at INK primarily because it’s the language our clients speak. But does it really work? Metrics Man says forgeddaboudit. It doesn’t tell you anything. So what if your coverage increased significantly year over year? Did anyone read it? Did anyone ACT on it?

Ah, action – that’s one of the things to remember in 2010. What PR is all about is moving an audience from (Metrics Man here again) exposure to engagement to influence to ACTION. If we’re just measuring exposure – which is what the quantity measurements are all about – then we’re not saying much about the value that PR is bringing to our clients’ business. Now, say we only get one interview – but it’s an interview with the Wall Street Journal and has the potential to influence legislation that affects the industry the client plays in…let’s ask the client what he would prefer – more interviews or the RIGHT interview? I hope we can guess which one he prefers.

I am embarrassed to say it’s been several long months since I’ve contributed to our blog. What holds me back – besides lots of great work, the holidays and a new baby? (Excuses, excuses!) The biggest thing that holds me back is the audience – what if what I have to say is of interest to part of my audience, while perhaps not of interest or even offensive to another? This dilemma freezes my fingers over the keyboard, and then, instead of figuring out a solution, I just give up.

Well, no more. We cannot, as a client service and PR counsel organization, recommend to our clients that they take the time to put their thoughts “out there” when we don’t do the same. Just as I hope to teach my daughters by example (vs. the “do as I say, not as I do” approach my parents took with me ), I feel compelled to do the same with my clients when it comes to social media. So…I’m back!

A common issue arose from the topic covered in yesterday’s post (re Nuventix in Scientific American) – what is the value of print vs. online coverage? Many of our long-standing tech clients still strongly believe that print is where it’s at and while I too have caught myself being a bit “old school” on certain topics, this is not one of them. While print stories make for good wall-mounted displays, online coverage is out there working for you, connecting the dots between PR and its impact on your business. Four reasons why online is king:

1) Online usually gets more eyeballs. In the case of SciAm, over 3x’s as many (2M unique monthly website visitors compared to 607K monthly print subscribers)

2) Online supports a company’s SEO objectives. Yesterday, when the Nuventix SciAm story hit, the company realized its 5th highest website traffic day ever.

3) Online can be “pushed” to more eyeballs than just the base website’s visitors via social media tools. The initial Tweet that went out from @sciam on this story reached 42,229 people, according to TweetReach – and that’s just one tool, one avenue.

4) Online has longevity. Last month’s print issue will be recycled when the new one arrives – online stories live on in databases much longer.

You tell me – still jonesin’ for that framed art for your office wall or are you more interested in marketing that contributes to the bottom line?

Very thorough, and interesting, story out today on our client Nuventix in Scientific American. Nuventix takes a unique approach to cooling down hot LEDs – a required part of the process if we all want to go green and be more efficient in our home (and commercial) lighting schemes. SynJets are essentially synthetic jets, using the same air moving process that jet airliners do to keep us in the air, only these move the air to cool hot LEDs.

From a PR perspective, this story represents the full process of what we as PR folk go through to secure coverage of our clients. Here’s how it worked:

Initially, I was reading up on Scientific American as a good fit for such a story and noticed that writer David Biello had written a story on LEDs with one line referencing the heat problem (but not a solution). I shot David a note re the missing piece of his story being Nuventix’ approach – the SynJet, and further checked him out on Twitter (interesting guy, covering quite a few topics close to my heart including clean energy (or our lack thereof!)). David and I maintained a conversation via email from April until August when he returned from paternity leave (congrats again David!). When he was back in the office, he passed on the Nuventix information to Larry Greenemeier who just so happened to be working on a synthetic jet story. Larry and I had recently worked together on a story for a different client and I must say it was a joy to work with him again – he knows his stuff. Interview happened, customer reference was secured, demo and images sent out, facts verified and ta-dah! Here we are today with a story that’s interesting to Larry’s readers and shines a light on the very cool, and unique, technology of our client.

These are the days that we do see the fruits of our labor – my favorite days for sure.

In the last couple of days, I’ve heard a few examples of “PR” that have just left me here with my mouth hanging open:

- “PR specialists” sending scripts to bloggers saying “Please post about my client – oh and here’s a script for you to use to make it easier on you.”

- “PR specialists” direct messaging reporters via Twitter and INSISTING that they tweet about their client, even going so far as to say “I retweeted your story, now you tweet mine.”

- “PR specialists” STILL sending mass emails to large groups of reporters in the bcc line (STILL? COME ON PEOPLE!).

There is nothing special about these specialists. None of them work here, nor will they ever. Perhaps I’m naive, but I honestly cannot believe these kinds of things take place. I used to say that PR isn’t brain surgery, but perhaps I was selling myself – and my team – short. We believe in the personal touch, in knowing what reporters write and are interested in, in pitching only those which make sense, and in respecting what they do – and in kind, ensuring they respect what we do. It’s really just the golden rule – would I want to receive a demand to do something for someone, especially someone I didn’t even know? Um, excuse my French, but HELL NO.