45: The social media skeptic

Jennifer Mattern calls herself the “social media Grinch.” But that doesn’t mean she’s down on social media. On the contrary, her NakedPR blog is one of the more popular online journals in the PR world. It’s just that Jenn thinks the focus on social media can distract PR people from their real work, which is to influence the organizations that shape opinion and achieve business results for their clients. In this interview, she outlines her cautionary advice about social media and stresses the fundamentals that PR people still need to employ. She also discusses the value of press releases (they do have value, you know) and how to use the impressive list of free press release distribution sites that she’s assembled.

Download the podcast (18:28)

Four great trade show tips

Evan Schuman (TPRWS 39)  of StorefrontBacktalk.com has spent a lot of time at trade shows lately and he sent us these four tips for getting the most out of media contacts. We like them all, but we think #3 and #4 are particularly good!

Evan writes:

1. Most interviews today are done on the phone and some even via E-mail. The art of how to get the most out of an in-person demo and ESPECIALLY a tradeshow demo (where you have the space luxury of your booth or your demo suite). Demos and interactive capabilities should be top choices. Backups can be truly relaxed conversations about trends. This is NOT where you want to whip out the slides and do a 30-minute overview.
2. Lose the tunnel vision when setting up meetings. Those “want to meet at Big Tradeshow next week?” calls are huge opportunities for stories and coverage and I have seen tons lost due to tunnel vision. They ask and focus on “are you going to be attending X and Y?” with a backup of “Do you have time to meet at the show?” If the answer to either question is “no,” the call ends. What a waste of a contact with a reporter!
3.  Walk the aisles and go into rival booths. Crazy, you say? Not at all. How many times have execs tried to say why their product is so much better than the competition? At a tradeshow, you can make that case 1000 percent more effectively. Start in your booth and show how a particular task is done and how easy and effective it is. Then walk one minute down the aisle to your rival’s booth and have the reporter try to do the same thing with them? Of course, this only if your product is truly better in some way, but if it is, it’s an amazingly powerful tactic that can only be done at a tradeshow.
4. The commissary-like lunch. Last year, there was a vendor COO who did one of the most impressive PR tactics I’ve ever seen. We went down to the ultra-crowded lunch place at the Javits and grabbed sandwiches and looked for a table with space. He was trying to make the point that IT people cared about XXXXX a lot more than they did about YYYYY, which was a huge change. His eyes then lit and he told me to select any table. When we sat down, he knew that there would be at least one IT manager (and probably a lot more than one) sitting there. He brought the topic up and asked the table about it and they agreed with him. Given that I chose the table, there’s no way this could have been pre-arranged. It was a remarkably powerful way to make his point. And, yes, it could only have been done at a tradeshow.

42: Steve Boriss and the future of news

Our guest this week is Steve Boriss, who is an assistant professor at Washington University and the creator of The Future of News blog. Paul and David find themselves in alignment over many of the points, including how old media will have to evolve, how reporters will become content experts, and the role for PR in this new world order. Boriss also has some comments on what he teaches his undergrad journalism students.Paul does his own blog called Newspaper Death Watch where he talks about things such as How the Coming Newspaper Collapse Will Reinvent Journalism.You can download and listen to the episode here.

41: Putting search and recommendation engines in perspective

This week’s show was prompted by this amazing list of the best Internet marketing blog posts of 2007 by Tamar Weinberg.

With so much focus on search engine performance and user recommendations these days, PR pros may be tempted to spend all their time learning how to game the various traffic drivers that are sprouting up all over the Internet.  Sure, it’s always nice to get a traffic boost from Digg or StumbleUpon, but the value of that traffic may not be worth the effort.  The fundamental skills of PR — creating compelling content, building relationships and delivering on a message — are still critical in the Age of Search. This week, David and Paul try to put the recommendation engine craze in perspective.

Download the podcast here (13:04).

40: A look ahead

This being the final Tech PR War Stories podcast for 2007, David and Paul thought they’d stretch out a little and ruminate on what’s ahead for 2008. Here, in no particular order, are their predictions. It’s going to be another wild year for tech PR, but one in which savvy PR pros can elevate their status with employers and clients:

• The end of beats at technology publications. Reporters will become more generalized and contract experts will contribute more of the specialized coverage;
• Fragmentation in coverage of technology; it will come from a variety of sources;
• Google will buy Second Life and Skype. Paul sees big opportunities for the search giant to leverage those core technologies into franchise businesses;
• PR pros will have to do a better job at creating meaningful relationships with press. They’ll also have to reach out to unexpected places for coverage;
• Increasing concerns about privacy in social networks. Facebook’s Beacon was just the tip of the iceberg;
• The Wall Street Journal will become a free service. Rupert Murdoch has already made it clear that he wants to take the paper in this direction and that will have big implications for tech coverage as the Journal asserts itself as a major online news force;
• The rise of social search, addressing some of the inherent limitations of search. Mahalo and WikiaSearch are early proofs of concept of an evolution of the search utility;
• Vendors will increasingly become publishers and will need help from PR people to create useful and interesting content.

What do you think? Post your comments below and please continue to offer suggestions and sources for future Tech PR War Stories podcasts.

Download the podcast here (19:00).

39: Pitches, deadlines, and trade shows

This week our guest is Evan Schuman, who is the retail editor for eWeek and author of the blog www.storefrontbacktalk.com on retail technologies.

Evan has worked for Ziff and CMP for more than 20 years in various capacities, both for print and online media. He talks to David and Paul about how PR pitch him for expert interviews and things that he likes and doesn’t like about these pitches and how PR can make them more successful. He also talks about the meaning of deadlines in the online world and how hard it is to track down spokespeople during trade shows, among other pet peeves.

Download the podcast here (14:16).

38: Boo hiss

Paul was attacked in the blogosphere last week, and it got him thinking about dealing with negativity online. The risk of blogger attacks is one of the biggest reasons companies avoid social media, but Paul and David argue that fears are overblown. Sure, you need a thick skin to invite customer feedback. But companies with good products and happy customers aren’t likely to be hurt by one bad seed. And companies with poor products and angry customers should research their situation thoroughly before wading into the blogosphere.

Negativity can be an important indicator of future trouble, so it pays to monitor customer conversations. Also, the speed at which a story spreads these days can catch businesses flat-footed if they don’t react quickly. A recent story involving AT&T and the California wildfires demonstrates this; the story was “dugg” more than 2,100 times in the six hours before AT&T issued an apology. The good news is that fast action and a willingness to admit mistakes can quickly quell negative publicity.

 Listen to the podcast (9:32)

31: Scott Kirsner talks shop

This week, Paul and Dave are joined by Scott Kirsner, a Boston Globe columnist, freelance writer, blogger and conference organizer. As a writer who’s had significant experience in both mainstream and new media, Scott understands the power of each to shape opinion in different ways.Scott sees greater convergence happening between newspapers and citizen journalists, but believes newspapers still have to come up the learning curve in understanding the unique characteristics of Internet content. PR people are skilled at pitching him as a print reporter, he says, but pitches tuned to his blog are almost non-existent. For every 250 print pitches, there’s one blog pitch. This is an opportunity missed. PR still doesn’t give bloggers the attention they merit.

Marketers can adopt new media to understand and engage with their markets better, Scott believes. Start by reading Cluetrain Manifesto. Then stop talking at your customers and start asking them for comments and feedback. You can leverage inexpensive tools like online video to tell people about innovative work your company is doing or to showcase interesting people. Scott’s book, The Future of Web Video, can help you there.

Get the podcast here. (16:51)

23: BL Ochman on social media campaigns and PR

This week, Paul and David’s guest is BL Ochmnan, author of the popular What’s Next Blog and the creative force behind such popular social media campaigns as EthicsCrisis.com and ClutterControlFreak.com. BL tells how her blog has been a huge driver of business and why she thinks blogs are here for the long term. She also discusses how she maintains her privacy in a world that’s increasingly open. BL also has some choice words for some of the seamier tactics she has encountered in the public relations profession.

Download and listen to the podcast here (15:10)

18: When CEOs blog

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey was praised for entering the blogosphere two years ago but the buzz turned bad when it was revealed recently that Mackey had written anonymously about his company on Internet stock message boards. PR pros should take note, argue Paul and David. It’s great when the CEO blogs, but the very hint of deception can turn the community against you and end up doing more harm than good.

It turns out both our hosts have been spending time on Facebook lately and they really like it. Paul says Facebook is what LinkedIn should have been: a professional networking site with personality. David likes all the new applications that members can share. But they hesitate to call Facebook the winner in professional social networking. The market is too chaotic right now to predict who will come out on top. That’s no excuse not to dive into a social network and learn the style and lingo, the advise PR pros. Just do it!

In Cheers & Jeers, David roasts Sunrocket, a VOIP provider that went out of business but didn’t bother to turn off its website, where you can still sign up for its non-existent service. Paul toasts Harry Potter, whose Internet success may keep the book series alive even after its author has stopped writing.

Download the podcast here. (15:06)