Le relazioni con gli analisti sono una componente fondamentale delle attività di relazioni pubbliche delle aziende di information technology, soprattutto nei Paesi di lingua anglosassone. In Italia, si tratta di un’attività relativamente trascurata. Per chi ne vuole sapere di più, sul sito di Quocirca - azienda inglese - è disponibile una guida.

Technorati Tags: analyst relations

Tags: pr, relazioni pubbliche

Richard Edelman writes we need to keep our clients focused on the stakeholder, not the shareholder model. What about public relation agencies? We belong to the corporate world as much as our clients do, and the strategies that we suggest to our clients should be as well our strategies. In my opinion, large PR agencies have abandoned their clients to concentrate on shareholders, and this has forced them to focus on time sheets and billable hours. Because of this attitude they have completely lost a couple of critical factors: quality of client service and innovative thrust. I think that is time to get back to the basics of the profession, and regain our status of corporate consultants.

Technorati Tags: public relations, business model

Tags: pr, Public Relations

David Reich has written the following comment to this post by Scott Baradell (definitely worth reading):

When I worked as a senior manager at two large agencies before starting
my own shop, I was horrified at the sloppiness of the work. The big agencies are too caught up with billable hours, and most don’t devote the time to properly train their junior people. Also, too many mid-size agencies are run by people who do PR unprofessionally, and the young people who work for them learn really bad habits.

I sometimes suffer from being painted with the same brush as the hacks. But I’d say most media people I’ve dealt with see that I try to do it right, and they appreciate it and are then open to future pitches from me. There are many others in this field who are professional. There just needs to be even more.

I have worked as a senior manager at three large agencies on the wrong side of the ocean (i.e., in Europe), but I have had exactly the same experience. We too need more real PR professionals.

Technorati Tags: bad pr, public relations, media relations, billable hours

Tags: media, Media Relations, pr, Public Relations

If you’re looking for a PR agency, you should read several recent posts from the blog of Alan Weinkrantz. I completely agree with his opinions.

Let’s start with this post, where Alan comments about one of the first thing we are asked from a prospective client: “do you have the right connections and contacts in the media in order to get our story out?”

Good question, but not the right one to start off with.
Are we connected? Yes. But if your message isn’t right, it’s not going to matter.
Do we know a lot of analysts, bloggers and journalists? Of course. But we are only as good as our last contact with them.
1. Be patient. Journalists, analysts and bloggers are busy and backlogged. You are better off cultivating the relationship and helping the journalist write something interesting, relevant, timely and perhaps even exclusive.
2. Be timely. Send out news on the day you announce something and it’s old news. In other words, send your news out early, before its live, under embargo to selected journalists.
3. Sustain. Counting on one announcement to make you famous is not going to happen. We find that on-going outreach results in longer-term and media coverage of substance.
4. Populate your newsroom with timely and interesting content. Have a newsroom with screen shots, white papers, executive bios, and of course your most recent news releases. Also, don’t forget to have media contacts listed with contact info so you can be found when they need you.
5. Consider blogging. This is a great way to have journalists find your company’s human face and quote your executives who are blogging.

Once cleared this major problem (I’ve lost more than one pitch against agencies that were bragging about their supposed “right connections”, when I was trying to explain all of the above to the prospect while showing him results instead of relations), let’s read Alan’s five confessions.

Confession #1: “No, we’re not personal friends with everyone at CNN, WSJ, NYT, Reuters, etc”.
When making new business presentations, I am always very clear about one thing: yes, we have good contacts, but the truth is that we’re only as good as our last pitch to that particular contact.
I tell the client to be: “Don’t hire us because you think we are so connected. Hire us because we’re really creative and very good at what we do”.

Confession #2: “Much of what we do is by discovery”. Or put another way, we’ll figure it out as we go along.
Sometimes, we try things that just strike a chord and resonate. Then, we know we are on to something. Sometimes, we get a blank stare at the receiving end when we pitch.
I tell the client to be: “Don’t hire us because our initial plan is so good. Hire us because we believe in the principle of discovery”.

Confession #3: “Even with editorial calendars in hand, we don’t always know what the media is going to write about”.
If there is a story written about your competitor or your industry and they don’t mention you in the article, there are a variety of reasons why that could happen. Most of the time, you are not being “found”.
A good way to fix it: produce daily content with relevant tags on your webs site or blog. Your rankings will go up and you’ll be found.
I tell the client to be: “Stay focused. Keep your messages current. Make sure you can be found”.

Confession #4: “You have to give the PR process at least six months to take hold”.
The realities of gaining strategic media coverage is that it takes time to develop and articulate your message, define your strategy, develop quality documents for your press kit, and begin the process of outreach.
This type of coverage takes three to six months from concept, to pitching, to writing, to editing and to have it surface in the media.
I tell the client to be: “If you are looking for immediate coverage, you probably won’t get it from us. If you are looking for sustainable, impactful coverage, you’ve come to the right place”.

Thanks, Alan.

Tags: media, Media Relations, pr, Public Relations

I’ve started to mumble about this subject after I’ve read this post, which I have quickly summarized.

According to the original Peter Principle: ”in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. This means that all the work is done by those who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

A wider application of this principle emerges from looking at how companies grow in the marketplace and how they innovate and how they “lose their soul” and stop innovating.

Companies innovate until they find a cash cow. At that point, only innovation that supports the cash cow is promoted, while innovation that does not support the cash cow languishes or is actively killed. Eventually, most of the innovation ceases as the innovators leave and start new companies (and the cycle repeats).

PR as an industry has definitely lost the “innovation momentum” a long time ago, when cash cows such as media relations have started to consolidate. Too many people are offering “commoditized” services, which do not - or should not - belong to our profession.

PR should be about research and innovation. Using the same strategy and tacticts - when there is a strategy and there are tactics - to reach audiences wich are different by age, sex, income, culture and skills (and so on) is a total nonsense.

PR should be at the forefront of innovation. PR should be about inventing new ways of relating with people, or perfecting those invented by others, and not about selling “two pounds of press releases and half pound of interviews”.

Too often, this is PR today, at its highest level of incompetence.

Tags: media, Media Relations, pr, Press Release, Public Relations

Bisognerebbe spiegare a Microsoft e alle agenzie di relazioni pubbliche statunitensi che l’azienda utilizza per i suoi numerosi progetti di comunicazione alcuni concetti di base della professione. Ultimamente, infatti, non ne azzeccano una…

Dopo Edelman con i notebook Ferrari e Windows Vista, adesso è la volta di Waggener-Edstrom - l’agenzia “storica” di Microsoft, con sede a Seattle - con il giornalista di Wired Fred Vogelstein.

In breve, l’agenzia spedisce - inavvertitamente - a Fred Vogelstein le cosiddette briefing notes (attenzione, è un documento PDF) preparate per Microsoft, Fred le commenta qui, e Frank Shaw - CEO dell’agenzia - replica qui.

Chris Anderson, autore del bestseller The Long Tail commenta qui.

Tags: pr, Public Relations, relazioni pubbliche

The Institute for Public Relations has just released a paper about Measuring the Effectiveness of Speakers Program authored by Marianne Eisenmann (Determinus, Chandler Chicco Agency) and Katie Paine (KDPaine & Partners). Speaking opportunities are often sought by executives who want to profile their organizations and products to live audiences for a theoretically small investment. In reality, the investment can be quite substantial, as the costs may include preparing the speech, producing presentation materials and travelling to the conference venue. In some cases, for a fairly brief shot at the podium.

Tags: pr, Public Relations

Toni Muzi Falconi mumbles about several interesting inputs collected while teaching at a social media training seminar organized by Ferpi - the Italian PR Association - in Rome and Milan, and while attending the Euroblog 2007 Symposium organized by Euprera in Ghent. He summarizes the process (which you should definitely read) with this sentence: are we leading to a radically different model of practice which involves much rethinking?

My answer is definitely yes. You can find some of my rants on the subject here, here and here. I will come back on the subject.

Tags: media, pr, Public Relations, Social Media

I’m really tired tonight. I’ve spent the day trying to support Toni Muzi Falconi in explaining to a number of colleagues - members of Ferpi, the Italian Federation of Public Relations - how to interact with social media. Toni is always inspiring, as most of its posts. I strongly suggest to download his last presentation, and have a look at slides 13 to 17, and then at slides 20 and 21. I have to work on my presentation, as the agenda has been scrambled - because of the level of interactivity - to the point that the order of the slides is totally different from what I had originally planned. I will upload the documents during next weekend. Stay tuned.

Tags: media, pr, Public Relations, Social Media

Heather Yaxley at GreenBanana writes:

I believe online is the natural home for public relations. We are used to discussion and confronting negative viewpoints through our experience with journalists, activist groups, etc. We are able to respond quickly and flexibility from crisis and issues management perspectives. We are a people business, skilled in group dynamics, connections and interpersonal relationship building. We understand the value of reputation and how this depends on the perspectives of others rather than on simply what we wish to portray. We understand information - how it flows, the power of word of mouth conversations, the use of narrative to improve recollection. We work creatively with much lower budgets than marketing’s big spend. We have experience in not being able to directly control or measure the outcome of our actions - something business is having to recognise as the power of networks, communications and public opinion is moving to the masses.

I’m not a native English speaker, and therefore I wouldn’t have been able to express these concepts in a better way. I do believe that online is the natural home for public relations.

Tags: Marketing, pr, Public Relations