Pay-for-play PR is bad - always

Gary Bivings has a comment about 'pay for play'.

... it seems that PR types and marketers are paying bloggers to write favoarble stories about client products. There's a story(not yet online) in the November issues of Smart Money called "Bloggers" by Anne Kadet highlighting this new (perhaps not, alas) and sordid trend. There's even a company called PayPerPost.com that as its name implies pays blogger for posts. Seems about as reputable as paying individuals and companies to fradulently click on search engine ads. (Yes, this is a real problem.)

If you have to pay for it, you are not doing it right. You will be found out, your client/organisation's reputation will suffer and the blogger in on the deal will be ignored by the 'real' people in the conversation.

Capozzi and Taffe say 'get with it'

Toni Muzi Falconi reports from the ICCO Global Conference in Delhi.

Lou Capozzi, chairman of the Publicis PR Group, and Paul Taffe, chairman of Hill& Knowlton, challenged PR firms to step up to the opportunities created by what Lou called “The New Conversation Age.” The panelists documented the changes and outlined the skills needed in this emerging new environment — skills possessed by PR practitioners more than any other discipline.

Read on to find out more... these guys are looking to the future of PR

Engagement practices

Toni, as always sees the gold without panning for it.

Here he picks up one sentence that is important to PR practice from Jean Valin.

As community consultation and stakeholder engagement practices continue to grow… I believe negotiating, conflict and dispute resolution skills are going to be as important… if not more important… than media relations and crisis communications skills. This is only one sentence from Jean Valin’s recent remarks at Puerto Rico’s recent Annual Conference (see recent post). Here attached you may find the full text Puerto Rico Speech Power of PR Sep 06.doc of his important speech. Jean Valin, Canadian, is past Chair of the Global Alliance.

The X factor for PR

The X in AJAX stands for XML, a way of wrapping up information to send it from computer to computer that is infinitely more flexible and powerful than old HTML ever was.


This is why the PR industry needs XPRL and to understand why it is so important, visit this BBC page.

Oh lets look at the platforms

Platforms for delivering content through a range of channels for communication range from PC's to cell phones but the iPod and its cousins are really cool.

Just look at these...... drool and then get ready for Chrismas.

Reality and YouTube

I take this from Always On because it makes sense.

YouTube accounts for over 47 percent of visits to video websites. Add Google’s 11 percent share of hits to their own brand video service and we see the company is now in control of the lion’s share of global online video. This audience will only increase as broadband becomes the norm, as online video matures and as mobile devices develop the ability to act as seamless extensions of the Internet.

Time to both cosy up to Google/YouTube and to explore ways for creating more online video content.

Never were cameramen and editors more in demand for the PR industry than now.

The great thing is that there is a role for vox pop content and very polished content on the same channe - interesting to see which way the PR industry goes.

Online up - off line down advertising screams into the network

Stuart Bruce was up early today to spot today's Financial Times report of sharp growth in online marketing. The survey of marketing spend on the internet and direct mail both up - mainstream advertising down.

I am not convinced about online advertising. Some good - some bad.

The a bigger slice on social media interaction would make a huge difference.

The Telegraph in a new era today

Today The Daily Telegraph completes its move from Canary Wharf to London SW1.

The new newsroom, new approach, new services, new philosophy... and new editor combine to create news for a digital era.

New editor Lewis (37 - to be ageist - I can't resist) will see a depressing picture in most sectors of the newspaper market but he has a vision of a multi-platform future in which the print journalists provide the content for far more outlets than simply the paper. In this brave new world, they will be delivering podcasts, vodcasts and blogs, as well as their newspaper stories, and contributing to updated editorial online at the various "touchpoints" - key publication moments - during the day.

This heralds a new era for those who woyld help such hapless hacks by providing content in the form it is needed and presented for purpose (newsprint, podcasts, vodcasts and blogs etc).

Of course it would help a lot if the preparation of the PR outputs was tagged using XPRL, then re-purposing can be automated.

No doubts the Old Men of the PR industry will get round to it when they have finished their toast and Coopers.

Blog for Reuters

Mark Snelling in a compelling blog from Lebanon for the British Red Cross and wrote about his impressions.

It Starts:

Day 1 The last time I saw rubble like this was the Java earthquake in Indonesia. The same twisted metal, the same pulverised concrete. But this is not a natural disaster. It is the work of men and machines, just one more community devoured by the omnivorous appetites of armed conflict.


Here the Reuters Alertnet Foundation is giving a voice, not to mention its network reach, to individuals and organisations (in the case the Red Cross).

It is a relationship that has some considerable benefits for both parties.

Where the Red Cross goes, so too can others.

An interesting PR opportunity.

Scientists use blogs

Two scientists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London are blogging their way across western Australia as they search for meteorites, and it’s a good read.
Museum meteorite curator Caroline Smith and meteorite researcher Gretchen Benedix arrived in Australia on September 26, and arming themselves with supplies set out on October 11 into the Nullarbor Desert, where they expect to find plenty of meteorites. They're keeping an online diary on the NHM website which you can read at piclib.nhm.ac.uk/meteorite-blog

Here is an idea. If you want to promote an long running enendeavour. have a blog to act both as a diary and to attract a niche audience.

Another Blog application to put in the library of Social Media experiences.

Be a blogger - said the editor

From Ian Delaney there is a report of an interview with Josh Quittner, the editor of Business 2.0, who has just instructed all his journalists to start writing blogs in addition to their normal duties. The individual blogs will be aggregated on a super-site, in addition to the normal Business 2.0 blog.

I think this is shooting from the hip.
There has to be more to it than 'be a blogger'.

MySpace applications

Sam Sethi has been watching some campaigns that are being run in MySpace.

He offers these comments:

In recent months, the online hangout for over 35 year olds, MySpace has taken a more active role in promoting social causes. For example on September 21st MySpace (Europe) partnered with Bono’s latest venture Red in a joint campaign to eliminate Aids in Africa.

Today MySpace (USA) has announced it is going to organize 20 concerts featuring bands promoted on its site as part of a campaign to raise awareness and money for the humanitarian relief in Sudan.

For more details, a longer report is at Sam's blog.

What is a blog

Suw Charman defines a blog by what it is not at Watson Farley & Williams.

She lists:
a) The blog entries are PDFs.
b) The blog entries are dire. The company has asked the trainees to blog, but obviously hasn't helped them understand what blogs are, what might be good to write about, or how best to write it.
c) No comments.
d) No trackbacks.
e) No archives.
f) No blogroll.
g) No RSS.
h) No links to other blogs.

It is a great read.

Public Relations in Strategy Mode

Public Relations today we have to be able to present the case for letting society into our organisations. It is hard. It is news that management does not want to hear.

The hard bit is to be able to say to the Board that at least some of the business will be disintermediated and it is better to join in that resist.
If you are Microsoft, cosy up to the Open Source movement; if you are W H Smith, offer e-books. The alternative is the Tower record solution offered by Chris Anderson this week:

In August, it was bankruptcy; now it's liquidation. Tower Records is no more.

Mike at TechDirt describes what led to this end:

While other record stores began to recognize that that they needed to completely revamp their business -- from becoming combination music/dance clubs and stores to starting their own record labels or becoming "destinations" rather than just stores -- Tower Records leadership insisted that the web "is certainly never going to take the place of stores."

See what I mean....

PR has to knock on the door and say: Soacial Media is going to change our business - can we look long and hard at how and at waht wen need to do.

This is big budget stuff and not the back of an envelope muse.

You can vote on anything

Ian Delaney has interesting news that Revver is to partner with UK TV company FameTV to air user-created clips on the channel. Viewers will be able to send SMS messages voting for their favourites. As with its advertising, Revver will share the revenue 50-50 with the clips’ creators.

Revver is less well known than YouTube but hosts the videos from Ze Frank, Ask-a-ninja, and (now ’she’ has outed herself) lonelygirl15.

Sid Yadav comments that the system ought to work, since it compares to the other well-established ‘vote-for-your-favourite’ systems in place:

I see a clear-cut model here: users like the content, they want the owners to be paid AND they want the content to be popular (just like they want their favorite American Idol contestant to win), so why not support them by voting for them?

Over on the FameTV site, there’s more explanation:

On Fame TV, viewers will be able to create their own moments of fame by uploading video clips, pictures and texts via mobile phones and the internet. Broadcasting will take place all year round, 24/7, and be available to Sky customers in the UK and Ireland.

Fame TV aims to broadcast all video submissions live on air within 15 minutes of the user submitting the content. Viewers are invited to send in their own music selection which will play as the backing soundtrack to their clip during broadcast.

There is more on Ian's post.

What interests me is how this model can be applied in PR activities. Thus one might see a user group (cars, computers, washing machines - oh! anything) offering content that can be shared with friends, voted on and broadcast as a bit of fun and community building.

What a blast!

Digital UK

The UK has the highest digital TV penetration of any country in the world (70% of homes), but then again, 70% of them are watching Freeview. Sky ‘only’ has 8mn subscribers. (Ofcom) .

I guess that it now needs the highest digital PR penetration of any country.

Scream marketing at its best

David Teather at The Guardian

Lloyds TSB last year sent more than 92m pieces of direct mail. That is almost 1.8m letters a week, detailing offers of credit cards, insurance and loans, landing on the nation's doormats from one bank alone. A spokesman for the bank sheepishly said the mail simply reflected the size of the bank and the volume of products it offered. "It is never sent to customers who explicitly say they don't want it," he said.

What can a 'spokesman' do. Toe the party line? The alternative is to tell the Board that it is just not hacking it and needs to use PR instead of dead trees.

What could be achieved by way of interesting conversations online for this kind of budget.

Video on local newspaper web site - a PR opportunity

The Derby Evening Telegraph has posted a video on its website of a woman pleading for her partner to be allowed to stay in the country.

Her Iranian partner is the father of her 18-month-old son, and her unborn baby is due in three weeks.

Press Gazette reports The Northcliffe paper has published the woman's full story and filmed her plea to the immigration minister, which had been sent to the Home Office on DVD.

The use of video by a print newspaper is interesting. It has now extended its offering from print to web to video. It also means it can cross sell and cross promote the paper, web site and the video. It is great PR.

It is also an opportunity that any PR practice can develop. Have story - have video - can cross promote.

How social media circumvents marketing

Jonathan Kranz has a post about how an ebook became a dead tree book.
This is a classic example of how values online convert to real money. It takes the seller direct to the buyer. Note: no advertising, no marketing, no pop-ups just value.

If you offer values to people with similar values the symbiotic reality is a relationship. In this case a book contract.

Trust and the media

Ian Delaney notes some statistics about media and trust.
There is a diffrence between the UK and the USA.

Half of those surveyed in the US said that they would turn to network television for immediate news information (NB: 66% in the UK)
The next most popular source was the radio (42%)
37% of consumers would use daily local newspapers
33% cable news or business networks
25% of those interviewed would rely on Internet sites of print and broadcast media
6% would turn to Internet user groups, blogs and chat rooms (24% in the UK)

I have doubts about this sort of survey. It may be that the first call is, for example, television, but then there is all the background and the net is awash with added information and knowledge, In addition, when people are interested in stories, they go to sites of interest such as company web sites and government sources. It is not either or it is both.

For this reason PR practitioners have to use multiple channels. There is problem associated with this which is an ability to re-purpose our news for many channels and this is one reason why we need tools built on standards like XPRL.