I added my 2 cents to this article by Brendan Cooper the other week. It’s been interesting watching the discussion develop and it’s worth checking out to see the range of arguments for and against.
Simon Collister wrote a good response post which is closer to what i think. He also raises a great point that it’s probably a matter of personal perspective as well.
What’s your perspective?
Just a quick shout out for my friends at Balance as I’ve been working with them this week consulting on a mobile campaign.
Today they’ve announced Balance Live a new experiential and event agency. This adds to their stable of integrated marketing and PR divisions serving clients like Bank of Scotland, Speedo and Converse (you should see how many boxes of shoes are here).
I’ve been really impressed by them so far as social media is seeing more and more convergence between Marketing, Media and PR disciplines and I think this is the right direction for agencies to take.
I’ve always been aware that specialising in social media is not going to be special forever. But now Steve Rubel has spotted that Web 2.0 jobs are already declining and he says it’ll soon go the way of the blacksmith - once a big job area, now, not so much. (Although if all smithies looked like Russell Crowe I’m sure we’d find more use for them). But I’m personally not as freaked by this assertion as the first time I heard Charles Arthur say social media will kill off the PR.
The point where “everyone will be expected to know how to navigate the online landscape if they want to have a thriving career” as Rubel states,is some time off. There’s still a lot of digital education required and people needed to facilitate that learning, luckily for me. (BTW I also think PR will just evolve as comms specialists in the new digital landscape).
He’s right though in that the next generations of workers are naturally going to be more digitally focused. (more…)
It’s easy to take pot-shots at media agencies but this is one of the more sensible lists on how ad agencies should be working and applies to PR too. Some of the stuff I totally agree with, output without a strategy is a biggy, but media agencies always get told they aren’t creative enough and that clients are more willing to take risks - not so in my experience.
Some brands just aren’t ready, and may not have the corporate cultural, to really do something different. This particularly applies in the social media space where not every brand is ready to engage. The most important thing is to fit the strategy to the client’s need. Each campaign should be tailored.
And my top tip for clients? Treat your agency as an extension of your team - work with them in an open, positive and constructive way and they’ll go the extra mile.
As a fan of chocolate and beer I was very happy to go over to Brussels last week to spend more time getting to know the social media monitoring company Attentio and attend the Emakina Academy workshop about Social Media Marketing - PR in the Web 2.0 era.
As one who’s often talking about these trends myself it was nice to see how someone else presents a case for PR utilisation of social media and it encapsulated very powerfully that people are having conversations around your brand right now. The content they create, whether good or bad, stays in search engines forever.
Charles Liebert David Rademaker from Emakina gave a compelling presentation setting out to update the old golden rules of PR (as summarised by Leo Burnett) and created a new set of PR 2.0 rules
Charles Liebert also showed some great examples of the agency’s projects which demonstrated these points and I was really impressed with how they seem to be putting their money where their mouth is - a recent award win was well deserved.
The theme which summarised the day was social media PR is not just about cultivating a brand online but also providing brand guardianship.
Has anyone read the book The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen? I’m thinking about checking it out, would love to hear recommendations.
I’ve recently chatted to friends and family about web applications they’re trying out. It got me thinking – are web brands thinking enough about end users?
Assuming most web brands are aiming for mass consumer take-up I’m not convinced they’re ensuring the market can use, and share, their product.
The Beta process is great in that it enables valuable feedback to refine a product but I think taking it to the next stage of usability is where you create a “killer app”.
There are a host of web applications doing similar things. Becoming the market leader and achieving much desired word-of-mouth buzz is reliant on the user experience.
There’s some great lists developing out there with rules for start-ups. I pulled out the points people made about marketing and PR for start-ups, which usually gets bad-mouthed, and decided to give my take.
The lists I looked at:
Jason Calcanis
Mark Cuban
Andy Fox
1) “Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. Perhaps you can get a PR consultant to work on 2-3 projects a year for $10-15k each and save 75%. More PR firms are wasted half the year while you build up your product anyway”
2) “Blog instead of hiring a PR firm”
3) “NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you”
(Obviously this is what what a good PR or agency will do, like any industry there are people who are great at their jobs and people who aren’t, you have to find a good one)
4) “Crush The Competition: If your startup’s field is crowded or about to explode (read: about to get crowded), make 3-6 month marketing plans, not 3 year marketing plans. Invest a disproportionate amount of resources ($) into that time period. Even if you have three years worth of funding, forget about slow and steady and job security. If you gain enough traction early on any competitor will look like a “me-too” effort by both the public and the business world— even if they were first. Additional funding is given to the startups that make the most progress in the shortest amount of time in relation to their competition, not those that ration their budgets miserly in order to outlive the competition. The company that emerges early on as the <fill in your startup’s business> company will win the race by getting far enough ahead that nobody else can catch up. For startups, perception is reality, the startup making the big strides and taking chances will win every time. Remember that tech magazine Fast Company is called that for a reason”
“Avoid Sponsorships And (Most) “Awareness Marketing”: Any intern or green marketing person will probably want to show you their plan for “branding” “awareness” or “offline” marketing initiatives. After you’ve told them to never, ever show you such a document again ask them a few questions:
Does the guy barfing in the bleachers at a Padres game at Qualcomm Stadium know what Qualcomm Does? No
Do you know what Qualcomm does? No
If Qualcomm made something, remotely related or associated with baseball would it be a good idea to sponsor the stadium? Maybe
Have you in recent times seen a poster, billboard, newspaper, magazine, flier, bench-ad, urinal plasma-tv ad (not sure what those are called) about a website, software or service and had the presence of mind to later check it out while surfing the web? Yes
You little bastard liar :::begin beating this junior team member unmercifully with an item in your office, a keyboard for example::: Jk, don’t do that.
Where is the best place to reach an internet/computer/software user? On their computer? Eureka!”
If you’re a start-up looking at PR I recommend:
