Catching Flack

Steve Rubel has a great post on his uber-popular Micro Persuasion blog about “Trends that Will Define the Future.” They came out of an Edelman/PRWeek summit earlier this year on the changing media landscape.

You can download a PDF of the full report from the summit here.

Rubel’s trends are:

• The Attention Crash
• Social Network Become “Like Air”
• Google: The Reputation Engine

I’d have to steal most of Rubel’s post to explain these predictions, so you’ll just have to click over to his blog to check them out. You won’t be sorry.

Very interesting interview on NPR’s On The Media with Julio Ojeda Zapata of the St. Paul Pioneer Press about how he uses Twitter in his job. You can read the transcript or listen here.

Zapata says he uses Twitter to find sources for stories, sort of like putting out a query to hundreds of people. He told NPR’s Bob Garfield:

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Garfield: Give me an example of a story that you were able to flesh out with the help of contacts made via Twitter.

Zapata: Well, one story that comes to mind was about people that sort of can’t leave their work at the office. They go on vacation, they take their laptops and they continue working. Twitter users tend to be kind of workaholic techie, social media, Internet addict types.

So this was tailor made for that kind of an audience. So I put it out there and, you know, literally within minutes was getting responses from people who, in fact, happened to be on vacation with their laptops and saw my Tweet and responded. So I thought that was kind of funny.

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Just in time for your end-of-summer, get-back-to-work reading list: an excellent new eBook on strategic communications planning by Dave Fleet, a Senior Consultant for PR agency Thornley Fallis Communications in Toronto.

The book is clear, concise and easy-to-read. It will have a permanent place on my bookshelf or virtual bookshelf (what does one do with eBooks? Put them on an eShelf?)

Here’s a screen capture of the first page of the table of contents to give you an idea of what’s in it:

Barack Obama has a media strongman, according to a story this week in the Wall Street Journal. His name is Robert Gibbs, and his job is to wrangle the media into doing and saying what the Obama campaign wants them to say.

Here’s a snippet from the Journal story:

As the Obama campaign enters a crucial phase, beset by tightened polling numbers and the prospect of a tough race for the next two months, Mr. Gibbs has emerged as Sen. Obama’s advocate-in-chief with the media, and therefore the voters.

The 37-year-old is in charge of shaping his message, responding to the 24/7 news cycle, schmoozing with the press and fighting back when he disagrees with its reporting — which has won him the label of “the enforcer.”

Mr. Gibbs, who says he tries “to attract more flies with honey than vinegar” most of the time, confirms, “I work the referees a little bit if they’re unfair or inaccurate. The other side is working on them, too….I’m a protector of the image.”

Here’s another Joe Franklin line that he can claim for sure: “Get the plug in early.” Meaning, when you’re interviewing someone, don’t wait until the end to mention the reason they are on your show — mention the book, or the new TV show, or whatever, at the start.

What does this have to do with PR? A lot. Say you are the MC of a luncheon, and there are people to thank. Should you wait until the end, when everyone is anxious to leave, or should you get your thanks in right at the start, when everyone’s attention is fresh?

There are lots of applications of this one.

Another example: soundbites. You should always get your main point, or your product, in at the beginning, rather than the end. For instance:

Bad: “People need a good Bluetooth headset that they can rely on, which is why we invented the ZXR 2700 wireless headset.”

Good: “The ZXR 2700 is the kind of Bluetooth wireless headset people can rely on.”

Don’t thank me for this bit of wisdom — thank Joe.

Public relations is a game of creating and sustaining perceptions. And in life, one of the most important attributes a person can have is “sincerity.” Coming across as genuine, real, caring: “I feel your pain.”

But let’s face it, who can do that every day? Unless you’re the Buddha, it’s a grind!

That’s why one of my favorite saying is this:

“The key to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Go ahead, have a good laugh. Now, wipe that grin off your face and think about it for a minute. Do people really care if you’re being sincere or faking it? If you nail it, how can they tell the difference?

I first heard the quote uttered by legendary New York talk show host Joe Franklin in an interview on the very first “This American Life,” who claimed that he had coined it. In getting ready to do this blog post, I found a reference to a French dramatist, Jean Giraudoux, who is said to have been the originator.

In any case, it’s a great line, and one that resonates for PR.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton had big PR opportunities last night at the Democratic convention, and let’s face it, both could have screwed them up. But in my estimation, they both did the best job they could have done.

First, Hillary: at this point in the election process, her job was to not only fully admit defeat, but to do everything she could to demonstrate that she fully supported Obama for president. No ifs, no buts, no leaving the door open for 2012.

To me, that meant not only a) making the speech she made on Tuesday and b) releasing her delegates, but also c) making it an uncontested nomination. I thought she could have done it in her speech by asking her delegates not to vote for her, but she did it an even better and more convincing way, by making the call for acclamation herself in the midst of the roll call.

The PR point here is that to be credible in the future, when she will surely have other political opportunities (Senate majority leader, Supreme Court nominee, candidate in 2012, etc.), she needed to come across as 100% humble this week. Grade: A+

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In a perfect world, you wouldn’t need PR people. You could write up your news yourself, send it out, and the world would take due notice of it.

This being an imperfect world, you’re still usually going to be better off working with PR pros who can help you navigate the highways and byways of generating publicity rather than trying to do it yourself. Unless you are a natural publicity machine, you are going to find that doing your own PR will be incredibly time-consuming and not very successful.

In fact, trying to do your own PR might be a good way to get an appreciation of what PR people do and how hard it can be sometimes.

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PRWeek is running a competition among 32 PR blogs to determine the “best PR blog.” As you can imagine, the 32 blogs that got included have been tripping over themselves to promote their selection.

Apparently, the self-promotion has gone a little too far: PRWeek Editor-in-Chief Keith O’Brien sent out a “knock-it-off” email to the bloggers remaining the in competition, saying,

PR people on the Internets have expressed concern about this completely fun competition–that people are spending way too much energy demanding every man, woman, and child vote for their blog… Can we sort of agree that for the rest of the competition, we are not going to go crazy on the self-promotion?

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PR pros and executives constantly wring their hands in frustration trying to get media coverage. But at the same time, they often overlook the simplest and most effective way to get in the media: cooperating with journalists when they ask for your help.

Blogger Ewan McLeod has a post on Mobile Industry Review reporting that a) he likes working with PR people and getting their pitches, b) he often calls them asking for news and c) in about four out of five cases, he’s told ’sorry, we don’t have any news today.’

What?!?!?!

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