Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Chris Abraham, Jeremy Pepper, PR Back Talk, PR Blogs, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, PR Pitching, PR Tactics

by Jonathan Trenn

I just read to intriguing posts on PR.  One is by Michael Arrington on, of course, TechCrunch.    It would be a great piece except that I disagree with his key point.

Then, as Chris pointed out, The PR Roadblock On the Road to Blissful Blogging.  Jeremy Pepper wrote something really special with Can I Get a Big Cup of STFU Please?

I figured I’d add my two cents here, somewhat separate from the above, but nevertheless related to them.

Why PR is a mess?  Because we’ve - in the haste to make money and keep on top of things - have made it that way.  I’m talking PR firms.  PR firms usually hire a slew of young people.  Often, mostly women these days.  They’re enthusiastic.  They’re inexpensive.  They’re green.  That doesn’t mean that they lack talent.  It means they lack experience, contacts, and, at times knowledge.

But that happens in a lot of professions.

The firm will get a client from a pitch.  The CEO of the client or whomever is/are the key person/people at the client firm don’t really understand PR.  They see it as fluff.  They see young women in these positions and see it as if these people are marketing administrators.  But they want press coverage and think that most publications have people sitting around in rooms waiting around faxed press releases or emails or phone calls and their product/service is so great that the editor will stop the presses to do story.

The client may be in a niche field and the PR firm may be generalists.

To get maximum exposure, the PR firm may end up doing a blast fax/email after also using PRNewswire or BusinessWire.  Then the relatively young people follow up.  They don’t have those relationships yet so they may screw up.

Editors and producers and reporters often will get bombarded.  Now it’s bloggers.  But they should realize that it comes with the territory.  For the most part.  I still read blogs that complain - completely legitimately - that they’ll get hit on for everything.

But part of the problem is that the need for PR may outweigh the number of people who understand certain niches, have the contacts, and are available.  So the need for PR then gets spread to these firms that rely on younger people.

So it can be a mess.  But that doens’t mean it’s always wrong.  What agencies need to do is take their new hires and cultivate them.  Give them some extra cash to meet and grab some grub with reporters.  Don’t just teach them your procedures, teach them how to be professionals.  They represent your company.

A note about Abraham Harrison

Oddly, for a virtual company, there’s little disconnect.  Maybe it’s because we’re social media based.  Dealing with bloggers is like suggesting.  Each attempt is not a life and death situation.  Please, please, please cover my client dear editor.  Doesn’t happen.  That’s hard for a virtual  company to pull off.   And AH has.

1 Comment » Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Jeremy Pepper, Lowe New York, Lowe Worldwide, POP! PR Jots, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, PR Pitching, PR Tactics, Public Relations, Public Relations Bloggers, Public Relations Blogs, Public Relations Industry, pr

Jeremy Pepper just wrote a blog post entitled Can I can get a big cup of STFU please? that you should read.  The long story short is that  social media is just one part of public relations and that everything really hinges on relationships and connections:

The fact is that social media is ONE part of public relations. A SMALL part, if you are a good PR person or firm. The other parts are traditional media (while it might be shrinking, it still reaches that middle part of the country), analyst relations, events, and more.

PR is about relationships. It’s about relationships so much that Lowe’s went to Abraham Harrison for it’s recent project because of its relationships with people at Lowe and because of their relationships with bloggers. See - it’s about relationships.

It’s also about writing, about talking, about conveying a story. But, without those relationships, there’s nothing there. And, unfortunately, with the industry’s reliance on technology - let’s email, let’s launch a blog, let’s get Twitter, let’s do this and that … well, you’re failing in PR.

PS: thanks for the shout out, Mr. Jeremy Pepper. Oh, and thank you Lowe for giving us a go.

No Comments » Posted on August 13th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertising, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, Public Relations, Social Meda, Social Media PR

CMOs and marketing managers have to wake up.  As do ad execs, PR honchos, and social media heavyweights.  That’s because if we don’t, we’re not serving our clients well.

Advertising is a form of marketing.  Public relations is a form of marketing.  Social media in most contexts is a form of marketing.

In fact, social media often becomes a form of advertising and it often becomes a form of PR at the same time.  That’s because it helps formulate marketing messages.   It strengthens and enhances a brand.  It builds relationships with customers.  Much about social media is new, but much about it’s foundation is in traditional marketing concepts…word of mouth, customer service, sampling, display advertising.

I’m finding though, that just as ad agencies and PR firms often don’t talk to one another, neither do they seem to want to talk to the new kids on the block.  Social media agencies. This is not so much from my direct experience here at Abraham Harrison (although I’m sure it happens), but from my observation from industry trends from my experience in trying to bring in work for A&H.  The ad agency that doesn’t know jack about social media that also doesn’t know who the hell what PR firm their client is using for the major rebranding effort that both are undertaking.  The PR agency that refuses to take the effort to reach across the table to to the ad agency in order to integrate social media capabilities that they either say they have or farm out for.

This is bullshit.

Who’s to blame?  For the most part, I’d say the clients.  Followed by the perceived lead agency of an entire marketing effort.

Both sides should realize that they need to work together to create consistent messages.  Both sides need to play a role in each others strategy sessions.  And they need to bring in social media…as oppose to keep them at bay.

But I blame the company marketing decision makers the most.  It’s their responsibility to, at the very least, INTRODUCE the players.  And knock heads if there is resistance.  But all too often they don’t.  They don’t seem to understand that its vital.  And when they don’t, the key players will often resist involvement with one another.  Hunker down.  Don’t work together.  Sort of like a business merger between two rivals.  Or two law enforcement departments that won’t reveal their findings from investigations.  Turf war crap.

I see a ton of missed marketing/promotional/branding opportunities because one side doesn’t know what the other is doing.  I see problems taking longer to solve - if they get solved at all - because working together is not a priority.  I see great ideas go by the wayside because the concept couldn’t be extended across marketing firms.

It’s stupid, it’s unprofessional, and it hurts all of us.

CMOs and marketing managers need to bring their marketing vendors - and remember, marketing types always positions themselves as “partners” - together.  So we will really be partners.

Otherwise, we’ll all be failures.

No Comments » Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: A-List Bloggers, Abraham Harrison LLC, Authenticity, Blog Strategy, Blog Training, Blog of Personality, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogging, Brand Ambassador, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Buzz Marketing, Conversation Marketing, Corporate Blogging, Marketing, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Hubris, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Blogs, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, New PR, New Public Relations, Online Branding, Online Communities, Online Conversation, Online Marketing, Online Messaging, Online PR, Online Virtual Communities, PR Blogging, PR Blogs, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, Personal Brand, Pitching Bloggers, Pitching New Media, Pitching Social Media, Public Relations, Public Relations Bloggers, Public Relations Blogs, Public Relations Industry, Publicity Blog, Reputation Management, Traditional PR, Web 2.0

For the past two months I’ve been in a mental funk when it comes to blogging. Maybe it’s because I got caught up a bit too much following the political primary season and felt that I’d end up focusing too much on politics.

But now I have Brian Solis, Loic Le Meur, and Robert Scoble to thank for getting me back into the game.

Perhaps the one I should thank the most is Loic because I found much of what he wrote in response to Brian’s TechCrunch article to be misdirected toward his own experiences.

It started with Brian’s May 25 article in TechCrunch “PR Secrets for Startups”. Now that headline itself is a bit silly as it sounds as if it’s a headline used in an overhyped industry rag, but the meat of the artilce is pretty much straightforward. He doesn’t lay out secrets at all, just sound advice. And while I don’t agree with the fine line depicted between PR 1.0 and PR 2.0, but there is no question that all of strategic marketing communications is undergoing a transformation and that the internet - and social media in particular - are playing key roles in that.

In the article, Brian outlines a series of points that serve a great guideline for most younger startups. Loic tells us that Brian has many valid point in his post and that Brian knows what he’s talking about and that he really likes Brian and then he proceeds to write that what Brian is saying is bullshit.

Well, I like Loic and think he has many valid points and he knows what he’s talking about, but what Loic is saying is bullshit. Loic’s advice is correct for a finite amount of CEOs and a finite amount of startups from a finite amount of industries. It’s solid advice in certain circumstances.

I’ll start out with Loic’s major point:

Get a community and focus on your friends is the way to go.

Good grief.

It’s not that this is directly wrong, it’s that it’s ridiculous in that it’s a practically impossible to accomplish task to achieve in the amount of time needed to boost a start up. In fact, formulating one’s own community can be as difficult as successfully launching a start up in the first place. Establishing a community can take years - Loic himself talks of how it took him eight years - and there’s no guarantee that the community will stick.

Most prominent blogger don’t have communities. They may think they do, but they don’t. They have readers instead. Most companies don’t have communities. They have customers. Most products and services don’t have communities. They have users. Cultivating a community is similar to cultivating a loyal customer base…only more difficult. It takes time, it takes energy, it takes a special touch. More often than not, it’s an elusive accomplishment.

It’s not as if one can go down to the local K-Mart and buy a community - as if it comes in a box - one that’s on sale this week only for the low price of $79.95 - twenty dollars of the regular price of $99.95.
Where can I get one?
No, there’s no Easy Button to press in getting a community. As commenter Jeremy Toeman points out “Loic, I think your assessment is fairly biased to your personal experience. The truth is most companies and individuals aren’t nearly as well connected as you are, and to just dismiss PR by saying “just go build a community” is frankly, naive.” Which is soon followed by Vinh, “Where can i get a community? Is it expensive? What happens if I need audience now?” Bingo.

Loic himself proves the difficulty in establishing a community by writing “I took me 8 years since I started blogging in 2003 to have a community and it is no marketing.” First of all, he’s so exhausted from establishing that community that he’s added wrong. It’s either 5 years since 2003 or 8 years since 2000. Whether it’s 5 or 8 (and I believe it’s 8), that’s way to long of a time period for a CEO to wait to effectively kick in as he or she is launching a startup.

Allen Stern has two great comments regarding Loic’s claim…

First, he points out that it takes more than a desire to have a community to actually accomplish the huge task of establishing a community. “Loic - it’s important to remember that not everyone has the “instant-on” connections you do today. While I agree with what you are suggesting about a community completely - not everyone has “instant-on” that you do.” He follow this with a clear statement of total sense. “This is why I suggest you work on building your network while you build your startup. Don’t expect to finish your product and have a network ready to launch it for you.” Words of wisdom.

The reality is that the essence of community building is something that’s often elusive. One needs talent, time, luck, and a topic or series or topics that engender an interaction amongst readers. That’s rare indeed. Loic has been able to establish this over several years through hard work, a warm and colorul personality, and an effective writing style. He also benefits from the fact that he’s launched a company that, at its core, is at the heart of social media.

Community is one of the most dangerously overused terms in social media. It’s often bandied about by people who treat the subject matter as if communities already exist or are readily available. And this then underplays the importance - and the essence of community.

Next, I’ll look to take on the Brian vs. Loic debate point by point.

1 Comment » Posted on June 17th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Activating Bloggers, Blog Messaging, Blog Strategy, Blogger Activation, Blogger Code of Conduct, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Gifts, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Blogger Service, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Promotion, Brand Reputation, Branding, Chris Abraham, Circumadvertising, Direct Email, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Email Outreach, Gift Giving, Gifting Bloggers, Give Swag, New Marketing, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, Norman Birnbach, Online Advertising, Online Advocacy, Online Brand Promotion, Online Branding, Online Communications, Online Community Outreach, Online Engagement, Online Entertainment, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online PR, Online Pitch, Online Public Relations, PR Back Talk, PR Blogging, PR Blogs, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, PR Pitching, Pitching Bloggers, Pitching New Media, Pitching Social Media, Pushing Swag

This morning, Norman Birnbach wrote an article wherein he suggests that I emphasize giving swag:

One of his tips is to “Give swag” — a point that Chris Abraham emphasized in a recent interview. The reason is that blogging is often a second career and there are few perks so swag can make a difference to get bloggers to respond.

He is not wrong, but I think I need to clarify my definition of “gift-giving.” I don’t emphasize giving away swag, necessarily — what I do emphasize is gifting — and giving ’til it hurts, “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception.”

Read more…

2 Comments » Posted on June 16th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

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