Expert Marketing in Tough Economic Times

Trying to Win a Communications Award? Advice from a Recent Judge

2012-03-05T08:40:00.002-08:00

I judged a communications awards competition recently that was open to companies, non-profits, colleges and universities, etc. I’ve entered these before, and wondered how work I’m really proud of doesn’t even make it to the finals. Now I have some answers. Hopefully they'll help you as well.

The category we judged was print publications. First of all what we saw – especially in an age where visuals are everywhere and so important in getting attention – was just not very sophisticated.

Here were some common problems with the entries.

1. Didn't Answer the Questions

Many entries ignored certain questions or gave vague answers. That costs you. Those most avoided:

Results. At least 50% of the entries didn’t answer the results question at all and the ones who did weren’t very specific. If you don’t answer the question that shows you were successful, you are done. Also, if your measurements don't match your goals you get dinged on that.

Budget. I think there was only one entry that answered the budget question. Not all entries are created equal. So what if you don’t have glossy pictures, great stock, and beautiful design? If your budget is small we have more information to judge on. So tell us what your entry cost to produce.

2. Pay Attention to the Rules

Your application package. You have to follow the rules of the competition. If your entry form is only supposed to be two pages, don’t submit more than that. Yes you may have more to say, but you’re going to get disqualified.

Type size. We almost eliminated someone because their font was smaller than what was asked for. In the end we didn't because the entry did not score well anyway, but making a font smaller to fit more in, doesn't help you.

3. Your Narrative

Quite frankly, the narrative answering the questions and explaining the goals, objectives, etc. of the publication was in many cases far better than the actual work. A strong narrative helps you depending on how the competition scoring is set up, but if the category is publications judges are going to judge mostly by design. Remember that before you enter.

3. Your Design

All design is subjective but there were a few glaring problems we found over and over again.

Keep it simple. There’s a magazine on the newsstands and available digitally called Real Simple. That should be the mantra of every print and web designer. Far too many entries had really busy pages. We don’t need subheads, and pull quotes and captions and explanations of a headline and charts on one spread. It makes your head spin.Also it looks like design by committee, which it probably was.

One photo is better than ten. I used to work with an art director who was adamant about this. She hated collages. One great photo is far better than several and run it as large as you can. It will draw the reader in and make them want to read.

Don’t run your captions across photos. I don’t know if this is some new design style or what but a number of publications splashed their captions in dropped out type across photos. Why? It just ruins the picture.

Stock quality shouldn’t be nicer than your magazine. We saw some celebrity wedding invitation level stock in magazines that clearly didn’t need it. The printing alone probably ate a big chunk of cost. Design, stock, publication quality should all be equally weighted.

I could go on for awhile but I’ll spare you. We did not judge content, other than the way it was presented but one thing I noticed was a mix of number of columns, font overload, type that would have made Victorians happy, and again a sad lack of simplicity.

If you’re going to do a print publication, and I don’t want print to die, study the look and feel of digital and learn to work in formats that people under 40 can relate too.

Best of luck next time.

Trying to Find a Reporter's Phone Number - Good Luck

2012-02-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

No wonder it’s so hard to find a good media list these days. Some large media corporations have taken a Machiavellian approach to make PR people reach any form of live person. It’s even worse when you try to find something on the web site resembling a phone number - oh and don't bother filling out any of the forms they just go down the rabbit hole.

At least the dating sites like Match.com send you a robo response telling you in badly written manual that you have a problem they don't understand.

Part of the problem is is automation because when they gave up operators of any kind the system was only as good as its programming. If they locked all the programmers in a room and made them try to find something out on the system they designed you can bet it would improve.

Why Media Databases Cost So Much

Picture the poor minions who must update media lists regularly. They start with an email and a phone number that goes to nowhere and a journalist who probably has been laid off or if lucky gotten another job. The thing about interns is they grew up with technology designed to make you text, email and social network without dealing with a real human. So they have no understanding of how to find information in a different kind of world.

I had an intern last summer from an Ivy League school who couldn't get past editor@Xpublication.com. Then she wondered why nothing that she sent was picked up in the press. Turned out if you sent something to a local Gannett paper it had to be specifically about the county they operated in. If it was the county next door it got tossed. But she never got far enough into the system to learn that.

This is why companies like Vocus and Cision can charge up to $5,000 a year for their lists and a system that helps you maintain them, which provides actual access to reporters information. Oh it's not always a direct extension but it's a name of someone who has worked their recently.And even if that doesn't work there are other names of people you can call and say things like "I'm trying to reach X but I can't figure out your voice mail system," as innocently and nicely as possible. And they will help you.

I've protected the identities of the media companies I'm talking about except the really good ones, but let me remind everyone that these are communications businesses. Start there.

The Hair Pulling, Screaming Worst – A very well known trade magazine has absorbed two others and is owned by some global media behometh with a name that makes me remember something about fire, gods, power and revenge. The names of the absorbed media outlet are still listed and they've gotten the name of one publication completely wrong in a ridiculous iPhone mistakes kind of way.

Their telephone system works like this – You call the giant media company and get a dozen options, find the one you think you want, click through a couple more levels, then get a list of the properties they own. The one I'm looking for goes to a voice mail of the editor that I’m pretty positive no one ever listens too. Oh and don't try the old method of hitting operator then # - there is no such thing unless you go back up three levels and it's a robot.

So how do you get reporter's phone numbers if you don't already know them? Well there's no person you can talk too - I've tried calling the VP of sales because he/she must answer the phone to do their jobs. But they don't answer either. I don't usually leave a message because lying enough to get them to call you back is not me.

Oh you can definitely find email addresses for the reporters, some next to their bylines, others buried a few levels into the web site. If they've written stuff elsewhere you can try finding an email that way. You can look on LinkedIn, and send a message to them which probably won't be answered. You can find most of them on Twitter (but if they don't follow you, you cannot send a message).

The Frustrating, Obnoxious Second Worst – This is also a trade group that I have begun to think uses only freelancers whose information it just refuses to give out. They have some sort of listing on LinkedIn – some of them – but again you're stuck with their system to contact them through. Or you can Google them but it still doesn’t yield an email. One guy I tried to find recently lives behind a wall so thick I have to conclude he's not in the office, not on staff and perhaps on the other side of the planet.

On this system there is no such thing as a live human being you can talk too. It just isn't set up that way. You can send emails but no one will answer them. The next step is probably to go to the buildings they proudly list as their addresses on their web sites and see if they're really there.

The OK System that Doesn't Make You Curse at the Machine – The major consumer news bureaus have people who answer the phones or a voice activated system where you can dial by name - first or last depending on who it is - and get to their actual voice mail. The voice mails offer email addresses and sometimes even cell phones with a warning not to use them unless it's an emergency. That's old-school or at least young, ambitious and well-trained reporter.

Unfortunately you sometimes end up pitching into a machine which is kind of like leaving a message for a date you should wait to have call you. Will he listen to the voice mail in its entirety or hang-up as many people do the minute they realize it's a pitch? Well if he's interested, either way he'll get back to you.

But that's assuming that voice activated system work which can be a crapshoot. You do have option of going back to the operator who usually does come back on and will try to help. The brand name media of my childhood does this, the secondary tier does not. They are the ones where the people don't exist anymore or at least work there, yet they act like they do.

The Best - four stars for effort. At a major newspaper I find a real phone number (not a circulation office) get a real operator, transfer to a real person who doesn't pick up. I go back to the operator and ask if there's someone else in that department who might be able to help. She tells me that most department don't have assistants anymore. Then she spends the next few minutes on the phone trying to help me find someone until I give up, feel guilty, thank her and go on to the next publication.

Kudos to a trade publishing group too. Behind the name of the writer is a bio - with a real email address or a link to one and yes, a phone number. And people answer their phones, not all the time but they do answer them. With this trade group I was 2 for 3 in actual conversations which is quite good. And they were nice, really nice. Didn't get what I wanted from them yet but I felt better about life after that experience. One of them even called me back - that made my day.

I've been winning new business pitches lately against companies whose leadership drops lot of reporter names and gives the impression all they have to do is pick up the phone and your story will run. Let me assure all of you marketers out there that it's not true. You're probably better off with the media list and a very persistant PR person who knows what they're doing. The story will get out there it just takes time.

NPR Reports High School Grads Can Succeed in the Federal Government

2012-01-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

Here's some info on the federal government's pay and benefits practices that we should pay attention to from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). If you have a high school diploma and want to get ahead - don't go to a fast food chain - go work for the federal government.

Overall, the federal government paid 2 percent more in total wages than it would have if average wages had been comparable with those in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.

A quick rundown:

High School Grads Go Work for the Government

Federal civilian workers with no more than a high school education earned about 21 percent more, on average, than similar workers in the private sector.

Bachelors' Degree Federal Benefits Rock

Average benefits for federal workers whose education ended in a bachelor's degree were 46 percent higher than for similar workers in the private sector.

PhD or Professional Degree Salaries Lower

Federal employees with a professional degree or doctorate received 18 percent lower total compensation than their private-sector counterparts, on average.

And for the Taxpayer . . .

On average, the benefits earned by federal civilian employees cost 48 percent more than the benefits earned by private-sector employees with certain similar observable characteristics.

Millenials are Different - So What Generation Isn't?

2012-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

A lot of consultants have made a lot of money spouting expertise on the Millenial Generation, those who are 20-31 right now. Born from 1979 to 1991, they are more socially conscious, more technology savvy, likely to job hop, demand more in the workplace, latch-key kids and harder to convince sitting in a cubicle all day is a way to get ahead, etc., etc., etc.

Doctoral dissertations are written about them, businesses are grown around them and it still goes on.

But aside from the fact thatey have every generation before them beat on tech savvy are they really all that different from previous generations? I mean I really don't like their music and they spend more time on Facebook than I do but my parents didn't like our music and we talked on the phone all night long.

Oh and I forgot that millenials don't communicate as well in person because they're so used to texting all the time. But what kid whose in college, just got out or has not been in the workplace for awhile is really literate in grown-up, corporate speak?

I've worked with this generation and I think many of these studies, and many of the "Millenial Consultants" are spin masters. First of all, the recession has completely levelled the playing field. Those Millenials who went out and got jobs right after college or graduate school are no longer able to demand signing bonuses, raises or many of the other things they got away with when the economy was soaring.

Many have had to accept jobs that are not as lofty as those they envisioned and they've learned how to deal with that.They've been humbled by the economy, as we all have.

Second, there are always generational differences in the workplace, and some Millenials have a strong work ethic and others have been handed everything by their parents. How is that different than the world the rest of us grew up in? Doesn't it really come down to good parenting versus spoiling your children rotten?

So I propose that Millenials and those that follow them (other than the fact that my 12 year-old can program my iPhone and GPS while I have to watch her) aren't that different than previous generations. They're learning what they have to do to get ahead and figuring it all out as they go.

I saw a "Millenial Consultant" a couple of years ago at a trade show and she was in jeans and extremely entertaining. But personally, I would have preferred someone who taught me how to market my business rather than deal with a generation gap.

More power to the consultants who've created an industry out of this they've found the golden goose. But in the end, that was a fairy tale too.

How Did the DC Holiday Parties Turn Out?

2011-12-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well this year I haven't spent much time on the holiday party circuit but I did attend three, so here's the rundown for anyone who is interested.

Best Holiday Party of the Year Hands-Down

ASAE & the Center's Yule Rock - Underwritten by Multiview, a publishing and directory company that services associations, it's nice to know someone had a fabulous year. Multiview shut down DC's Hard Rock Cafe, had a full open bar, two bands, and passed food all night that included shrimp shooters, scallop ceviche, and of course the classic mini-hamburgers.

Top shelf liquor for all. It was like a great wedding. Someone whose name I didn't know but who I've seen at many ASAE events, pulled me onto the dance floor before the rock band switched over to punk and we just went wild. Very fun.

My only critique - It was way too loud for networking - even in the far corners of the rooms.

DC Science Writers - At National Geographic which is always a great spot for a party. There's a picture of me and Santa that I've shared. I'm not that chubby really, it's an optical illusion. Santa had a Spanish accent, gave out awards and was very funny. The crowd was mostly freelancers and pretty welcoming. I had just joined. The food not so much - they had champagne glasses with mashed potatoes and stuff that you could put in a baked potato and that was the best of the party fare. Tasteless desserts. But it was cheap, and that was the point.

PRSA National Capital Chapter - Held at Carmine's and again reasonably priced except we had to pay our own bar bill. They gave you one drink but as a wine snob we skipped it. Maybe about 100 people came to the private room in the back. A good crowd. A diverse mix of mostly consultants but from many different facets of the industry.

Had a long conversation with a young women who is an analyst for a company called CARMA International - they evaluate the power and reach of your social media presence. I had never heard of them. About 10 people and they seem to really know what they're doing.

Food was garlic and fried overload, although I'd give the calamari a solid B. Carmine's has mouthwash in the bathroom which anyone who eats there desperately needs. We ended up having dinner afterwards, at a spacious upfront bar with inattentive bartenders.

Skipped The One Party this year, often very crowded, hard to network and filled with very young, very pretty people who are often being followed around by older not so pretty people. I usually feel invisible and last year heavy snacks were chicken wings. The other issue is it's supposed to be a conglomeration of several different organizations within communications and advertising, but it's usually just the ad people who go. Not sorry to have missed it.

Stay tuned for an update from the Twelfth Night party in January via Women in Film and Video. I have a feeling that will be a blast.

LivingSocial - Shop, Go, Don't Slow Down

2011-11-22T05:54:00.000-08:00

A friend applied for a communications job at LivingSocial recently, one of the daily deal juggernauts like Groupon that are invading cities all over the planet. Like the dot.com and social media booms, people are skeptical but can't help but jump on the bandwagon.

My friend "Katie," who is in her late 40s, submitted her resume and cover letter to LivingSocial in the morning. By mid-afternoon she got a note that said, thanks for applying, you're not what we're looking for, best of luck. That must be some sort of world record.

What impressed me about that note was its speed and that it left no room for further discusssion. In a very simple way they told her we're young, we're hungry and you'll slow us down. The average age at LivingSocial is 31 years-old.

I'm going as fast as I can

This understanding of LivingSocial and the business it operates in was reinforced by Alexandra Solomon, senior director of marketing, who gave a presentation last week to the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) in DC. She spoke fast, rushed through and said a lot about growth (they are now in 21 countries, with 40 million members, and were named one of the top 50 places to work by Washingtonian magazine). Then she was out the door to talk to a company they had just bought on the other side of the planet.

LivingSocial's goal is to become the leader in international retail deals and they are buying companies like crazy overseas. They have a deal of the day, are introducing a gourmet group (for those who don't want to wait on line forever at an obscure ethnic restaurant that is suddenly flooded with patrons), and a variety of last minute, decent percentage off travel, dining, etc. packages.

Living Social Ads - Check out its new campaign.

The business model is strong but quite frankly we've seen it come and go in other recessions. Retailers cut prices, give away freebies and drag traffic into their places. Most, Solomon said, make a little bit of money or break even on the deal. What she did not say is that people have shown up at restaurants with their 50% off coupon, only to discover that they cannot get in - at all that day. Right now there's no cut off or control over usage. That will likely end soon.

Many of the European and Asian services are still branded under their own names, and often have existed for a couple of years already, so they come with followers. Although the ultimate goal is to make the LivingSocial brand prominent on everything - right now that's not an option. Bragging rights to becoming the largest global player in thes market are worth it.

I also don't know if the deals are all that good - so you get 50% off dinner in a restaurant you've never tried, but you end up spending 25% more than you would have anyway. But the bottom line for marketers and retailers is consumers like to feel as though they've gotten a bargain. They brag about it to friends. They become deal of the day junkies. It's harder to compete with that.

Local retailers can probably compete with LivingSocial through better service, deals that pamper rather than are fully based on saving money, and just developing strong repoire with their customers. But that's what they should do anyway, right?

Will the LivingSocial model survive? Probably but it's getting cluttered out there and there will be a lot of shake-out first. Like any new market that's growing faster than it can keep up with, the excitement is high and the value to its various players is all in being part of the game.

Defense PR Joins the Real World

2011-11-12T06:37:00.000-08:00

At the Capitol Communicators Group lunch last week, I saw a refreshingly frank presentation by Frederick P. Wellman, president of a small PR company called ScoutsComms. Wellman served in Iraq twice and returned to launch a PR company to help the aerospace, defense and veterans' sectors navigate the muddy waters at the end of the decade long defense spend-a-thon.

Wellman discussed General David Petraeus' management style as just go figure it out. He was replaced by General Martin E. Dempsey who operated by asking what's your plan? He has worked for both and learned a great deal in the process.

Wellman discussed how many defense contractors approached their businesses in the gravy train years as don't do anything to rock the boat. But as the budget cuts keep coming, the new defense PR strategy is transitioning into fight as hard as you can for your piece of the pie.

Wellman also described the competitiveness for media attention at a recent trade show. There were over 600 exhibitors and just over 20 reporters to cover all of them. That seemed like pretty good odds to me.

How the Washington Post Covers Defense Contracting

Wellington brought along a Washington Post defense contracting reporter, Marjorie Censer, who quickly explained she is the only one left covering this topic. Censer is working for the Washington Post's weekly magazine Capital Business, and appeared smart and accessible. She offered a few tips about pitching her stories:

Deadlines - Capital Business comes out on Monday and the Washington Business Journal (its major rival), the Friday before. Don't pitch the two of them the same story at once because if the WBJ runs it first, her editors will be very upset.

Sources - Her main sources are analysts who cover defense contractors in our region and she is looking for others. While the analyts are helpful, they are not unbiased. She welcomes input from college and university professors who teach defense policy and other topics within this realm.

Story Pitches Censer says she reads press releases and story pitches, and gave an example of how she'd featured a small company whose release she'd received recently, within a larger story. Product pitches are out unless you can tie them to a bigger trend. Fresh ideas about the battle between Maryland and Virginia for corporate headquarters and jobs are welcome.

Association Execs Share Creative Ideas for Member Bonding

2011-11-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

The American Society of Association Executives which now goes by the acronym ASAE, holds what it calls Super Swaps four times each year. The one I sat in on last week in Washington, DC was about membership marketing. There were probably 40 professionals in the room, many of whom contributed to a spirited conversation.

The session was moderated by Talisa Thomas Hall, president of The Center for Effective Organizations, who was very good. Although some of the ideas were association specific, many could be adapted to different marketing situations.

Annual Meeting – One association streamed its general sessions by putting them live on its Web site, so all could members could benefit and share in the conference. One of the speakers was well known and from a TED Talks series. When asked, the membership person said the general sessions are of interest to all, and not necessarily conference specific. It’s a great way to get people who didn’t attend the annual meeting last year, to think about coming next.

CEO Outreach - One CEO has a conference call every three months for all new and current members. They get on the phone and ask him questions about the association during the call. It’s a creative method for welcoming new people, and to show that you care.

Helping Members Get Through Tough Times. For members who are on the fence or can’t pay all at once, consider offering an extended installment plan. You can do it through Pay Pal. One membership professional said her association’s membership was down 20%, and since it's offered a payment plan membership is up 6%. That’s impressive.

Market to Where Members are with You Understand where specific members are in the lifecycle of membership, and deliver member benefits for them around that. For instance, one association has new members get a call from a staffer after the first 90 days to see how it's going. Another association has a forum annually where founding members are honored. Several associations have recently added associate memberships at a lower rate. All agreed that as part of this, you should give your current members recognition or an added bonus.

Wooing younger members One association sends members out to recruit and talk about it to high school students. They offer a free membership to them and follow them to college. Often the high school students join as college age members later on.

Members tell their stories Consider capturing the stories of how your association made a difference in the lives of individual members and sharing them. One association had a photo and video booth at its annual conference where people could tell their stories of membership. It was kind of an old fashioned idea, but members loved it. The association was also able to create a library of material that it could use to reinforce the value of membership.

Remember to Constantly Ask Yourself These Membership Questions

Consultants also shared some of the questions they ask membership staff and leaders when they are called in to help. They are pretty basic, but always good to revisit.

What is your members’ can’t, why aren’t they involved with the association and what’s stopping you from delivering it?

What do your members want from you?

Who are the members in your association that bring in non-dues revenue and how are you reaching out to them?

Are you focusing your membership marketing on what you do well?

What can you stop doing and no one will care?

Yahoo Social Guru Offers Engagement Tips for Facebook

2011-10-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

I saw Patrick Albano, executive director of social and mobile sales at Yahoo speak at Adweek DC recently. I thought it was one of the best presentations I’d seen in a long time. So I’m sharing. I’ve also added some thoughts of my own.

The evolution of social

If you go to a party and just talk about yourself, you will be the least popular person there. That’s how most organizations approach Facebook. But that can damage all of that brand loyalty you've worked so hard to build.

Albano discussed how social media has created a major shift in how we approach branding. For decades marketing and advertising was focused on convincing people that The Brand Cares about Us. Remember the Pepsi Generation, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, or You are in Good Hands with Allstate?

But in Yahoo’s post engagement analysis of its Facebook pages, it determined that the most effective approach is to convince individuals that The Brand Cares About Me. The emotional connection now has to be made on an individual level.

Back to the Future

Believe it or not, Albano, who is well under 40, suggested reading How to Win Friends and Influence People. Written by Dale Carnegie in 1936, it offers six steps to getting people to like you, which are as relevant today in social media as they were in sales then.

1. Become genuinely interested in other people
2. Smile
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Remember when people answered their phones, and the customer service rep was a person not a voice mail or computer help list designed to not have you talk to anyone? When a human being was on the other end of the line, actually voiced concern, and a real connection was made. That’s two-way communication.

But today, the vast majority of business Facebook pages repackage information that’s been approved, sanitized, etc. from other sources. Often they are from another form of media, like a press release, and read like one. The goal of these Facebook pages is to search well, to have some sort of a presence. But just having a Facebook page doesn't do much, except improve SEO to some degree.

It’s All About Caring What I Think

Albano pointed to research which found when advertisers asked people questions around content sales jumped by 12%. Ads that ask questions are 4x more engaging than those that don’t.

If you troll Facebook pages, as I often do looking for ideas, you will see a lot more questions. Some work and some don't. Albano points to the contrast of the traditional Oscar experience on the Web where experts tell you who will win and why they think so compared to weighing in on who wore that dress best.

Sports is in a question mode too – not just in social but mobile. Teams and commentators are asking fans who they think will win the game and giving real time stats on what everyone thinks.

The Art and Science of Questions

The best question example Albano gave was State Farm’s Fallen Firefighters’ video posted on 9-11, and created for its 10th anniversary. Called “Empire State of Mind” and directed by Spike Lee, it runs six minutes and tugs at the heartstrings while revering the firefighters. The question State Farm asked – What did you feel that day? The responses were overwhelming.

PBS has about half a million Facebook fans and is a master at asking engaging questions. Here are a couple of recent ones that sparked conversation:

• What do you hope President Obama talks about? (reference was to an upcoming news conference)
• Do you have a favorite Steve Jobs moment or quote?

I also took a look at some of Yahoo’s Facebook sports questions:

• Which NFL team has surprised you the most this season?
• The NBA players are willing to miss games. Do you think there will be any games at all?

Of course, it's not just the questions, with any marketing approach you must have a sound strategy behind your page. And from that strategy, your questions will evolve more easily.

So what questions can you ask on your Facebook page?

What a Great Ad - Tax Breaks vs. Spending on Schools

2011-10-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

No matter what you think of tax breaks for businesses, this new ad from the Michigan Education Association done solely online is genius. It's one of those show me, don't tell me ads that really drives the point home. It makes you shake your head, tsk, tsk and so believe in the rightness of what they are saying.

Go to kidsnotceos.com. That's advertising that works. It's also going viral on the Internet.

Can LinkedIn Really Help with New Business Development?

2011-09-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

I am determined to figure out the best ways to use LinkedIn for marketing. As a PR and marketing consultant, social media is a great tool for me. Many consultants swear by LinkedIn as a way to find new contacts, build networks, share information and generally just make yourself look smart.

But can you get business from it or is LinkedIn just the world’s largest database?

The answer is I really don’t know. I have used LinkedIn successfully in the past in several ways that are helpful:

Team Building – When I need to put together teams of people to go after large contracts, and I am missing a key team member, LinkedIn has provided a resource for finding new talent.

Prospect and Database Development – I network a lot and each time I meet a new contact, I send an invite to join my LinkedIn database. This is part expediency (it’s easier than inputting cards into my system, and people respond quickly and remember you), and part a way of connecting that is not a direct request for business.

Building Attention for Blogs and Other Writings – I belong to many LinkedIn groups, actually I think I’m over the limit, and a handful I monitor regularly. I have several blogs and posting a link and note on a group that may care about what I’ve written drives traffic to my spaces.

Twitter and Facebook for Business Associates – I tweet about all sorts of things – from Paul Simon’s performance of Sounds of Silence at Ground Zero to how hard it is to teach my 15 year-old son to drive. But on LinkedIn I can “tweet” the professional stuff that interests me and not worry about the entire universe seeing it.

Keeping Up With Journalists – I am connected to many journalists on LinkedIn and I can keep up with them this way without reading endless Twitter feeds.

Monitoring the Conversation – Some LinkedIn discussions are pure drivel, others go on forever, and others I’ve learned from. One conversation on How do you know if someone really doesn’t understand marketing? resulted in a blog post, that resulted in a news article, and the conversation is still ongoing.

Much of the talk is about stuff I already know but it’s good to be reminded and I have learned some new things.

Looking for New Work – I’ve had former clients (and unfortunately boyfriends) find me on LinkedIn, and sometimes when I get wind of a new project I can look up a person from that company and ask for help connecting. This seems to work well. Of course you have to pay a fee to use the InMail function but it’s worth it.

But can LinkedIn be used for Marketing?

I digress. Can LinkedIn be used for business development? I am trying. For the last couple of months I have been going through my list of 600 or so LinkedIn connections and getting in touch with those that I think I could partner with or help. I’ve met with about a dozen of them for coffee or lunch, depending on how well I know them.

I’ve found a lot of job seekers who I’ve helped more than they’ve helped me. But I’ve also gotten some leads. Stay tuned for an update. And feel free to comment and offer your own advice.

Can Cheerleaders Successfully Market Science?

2011-08-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

www.sciencecheerleader.com, an organization started by the dynamic and committed citizen scientist Darlene Cavalier, has a noble goal. It wants to demonstrate to young girls that it’s OK to be pretty, smart, and love science. In fact, all of the cheerleaders want young girls to believe in themselves and do what they love to do.

At the first USA Science & Engineering Festival in 2010, the Science Cheerleaders drew large crowds, as they shook their pompoms, did a brief summary of what kind of scientists and medical specialists they are, and joined in unison to yell “Go Science.”

The Science Cheerleaders travel around the country and do many public appearances. They hold cheerleading clinics and try to inspire young girls to take science seriously as a career path.They have gotten a lot of media attention, as well they should. It’s a unique idea and it negates a persistent problem in science - the notion that female scientists are weird and frumpy.

With all that said, I simply can’t get away from the fact that the whole concept of cheerleader, whether pushing science to girls or not, has always bothered me. Perhaps it’s because I was one of the smart girls who hung out with but didn’t date the jocks. Perhaps it’s because the cheerleaders didn’t like me and I didn’t like them. Perhaps it’s because even at my 30-year high school reunion, the cheerleaders still wouldn’t speak to me.

Or perhaps, it's because I’m the mother of a 12 year-old girl and I don’t want my daughter to be a cheerleader or a beauty queen or a model. I want her to be liked, and loved for that matter, because she’s funny, smart, cool, a total jock and all the other wonderful qualities that make her, her.

Of course, if my daughter wants to be a cheerleader then I will support her in every way I can. But I would feel a lot better about that choice if the image of a cheerleader wasn’t such a negative one, particularly as it is portrayed in media.

If you watch a lot of bad teen TV, or teen movies, which I insist on viewing if my daughter does, cheerleaders are still portrayed as not very nice girls. They are the queens of the high school, the popular girls, the ones who wear too much make-up, really short skirts, and date the captain of the football team. They are shown as the original mean girls, shallow, foolish and admired not for who they are, but what they look like.

Cheerleaders conform to a male, let’s face it pretty darn sexist, image of who and what girls are and should be. The Science Cheerleaders have a serious message to impart, but they’re attention-getters because they are pretty, sexy and good dancers. That’s a fact.

The beauty queen who followed the Science Cheerleaders at the event I saw them performing in, lost me within seconds. She talked for a good half hour about the work she does with growing passion. But no matter what she said, she couldn’t negate the image of the woman I saw heading towards the stage, strutting her stuff in skintight jeans, boots with five inch heels, with an entourage of men beside her. After she changed into her long white beauty queen dress – I think she even had a crown on but I could be making that up – she wanted to be taken seriously. But I don’t think she was.

So do I think that smart, beautiful women who want to level the science and engineering playing field should be out there doing what they do for science? Absolutely. But there is a part of me, and not a small one, that wonders how much good the Science Cheerleaders can really do if all those good intentions get lost behind the stereotypes.

What do you think?

How The Kane Show Markets by Saying I Love You

2011-08-09T05:29:00.000-07:00

On the Kane Show, which is on Hot 99.5 FM and one of Washington, DC's most popular morning shows, Kane has the usual radio line-up of 20-something cohorts, including Sarah, the perky, pretty one, who comments on everything without saying anything vaguely controversial, and Samy, the post-college boy who always seems to be hung over and sounding very About Last Night.

Kane and his team tell listeners they love them all the time, and those who call in to answer various questions do the same. It's like a great big love fest, and it works for branding and bonding listeners to the show.

A much milder Howard Stern

I don’t know Kane’s first name but he reminds me of Howard Stern when he was funny and silly, before he became a shock jock. I used to listen to him while driving around Manhattan early in the AM searching for on-street parking, and hating every car that managed to get into a space before me.

Now it's my middle school-aged daughter and I listening to Kane after we drop her brother at high school (he wouldn't be caught dead listening to the kind of music she does), and it's only for about 20 minutes. But at least, in the middle of traffic, speeding cars, morning crankiness and a lot of last minute hair brushing, it gives us something to smile about.

Kane does cross the decorum line often, and when he does we shut the radio off, and my daughter doesn't argue because it's so abundantly clear she shouldn't be listening. But we still listen every school day because Kane is like the annoying uncle at Thanksgiving that gives you too much information, but makes you laugh hysterically.

The show also has a strong morality streak, bathed in humiliation. On our favorite segment, called “War of the Roses,” half of a married or deeply involved couple asks the show to call their significant other and find out if they're cheating. Generally they are and a cat fight ensues.

The ruse to get the person they phone talking is that they will get a free bouquet of roses sent to the one they love. The "War" depends on who they decide to send them too.

But this blog isn't about the various antics of Kane and his gang, it's about building relationships with listeners or customers.

At the end of almost every call from a listener, Kane or Sarah or Samy say “I love you.” Listeners tell Kane and his sidekicks they love them too. The love flows so freely it seems natural - like we're all part of one big happy family. No wonder it's one of the most popular radio shows in our market.

I think telling people you love them is much more accepted now than it used to be. Today’s parents say I love you all the time to their kids. When they end a call. When they say goodbye. When they just feel like it.

My 15 year-old son tells his friends he loves them at the end of phone calls. “Love ya man,” is often the goodbye. It reinforces good feelings and in today’s screwed up world that’s a big plus.

Should marketers call to say I love you?

So it got me thinking. What would happen if marketers started telling customers they loved them? How much do we thank those who have helped us for their support?

If you’re in a service business you work for people that you love because they are a great fit with you and they are easy to work for. When you work for people that are jerks you immediately regret it. So why don’t we tell the business people who are good to us that we love them? What holds us back? Do we think they’ll be embarrassed? It’s better to tell them then not, don’t you think?

The Kane Show gets it. Kane shares the love. It's expressed many times during his show, out loud by the people who work with him and those who listen to him.

Better yet, in a lousy market, it sells a lot of advertising.

Beat the Heat with a Little Plagiarism Perhaps?

2011-07-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's 102 degrees in Washington, DC today and with the humidity index it's 115.

How many times do people just pick up information off the Web and republish it under their own names? It's happened to me and I saw today a perfect example of how it's done- except this person got called on it. And their immediate reaction was to deny it, even though the articles were almost identical.

It reminds me of a discussion I contributed to recently about whether or not picking up someone else's blog post - if it was attributed - was considered unprofessional. Although it is common practice, the comments were pretty straight forward. Don't do it. It makes you look bad.

If you can't come up with something that is at least a new take on an age old topic then don't write it. Blogging is a pain in the neck, and I can't tell you how tempting it is sometimes when you see something that's good by someone else to change it a little and make it yours. But that's plagiarism pure and simple

The original article was written by a U.S. News & World Report blogger. I'm not going to put names on this because I'm really writing about the topic rather than the people. The bottom line is someone in this little story took someone else's work and passed it off as their own. That makes all of them look bad except the original writer who pointed it out.

Here's the discussion - judge for yourself. The plagiarized blog post has already been take down so I copied the conversation for you. Interesting example of a gut reaction to deny and then a realization that a person who was trusted really did just take someone else's work.

The original writer - This article is copied from an article I wrote for US News and World Report, word for word. Are you really passing this off as your own - in a group that I moderate? This is the the article that I wrote. Word for word.

The blogger who posted the copied article - Our article came directly from a manager with a Fortune 500 Company. If you read both articles there are differences. We don't copy articles. She did an interview with our content writer and I know she didn't copy your article.

I have written articles myself on what is now a hot topic, that are now showing up all over the sites. I published a book in 1998 with an entire chapter on the subject.

Sorry if you want to take this off the site please feel free to do so. She included new info in point number 6. I think there are only so many ways you can reinvent the wheel and write from experience. The manager wrote this we just edited and helped with the title.

The original writer - Are you kidding me? Helped with the title? It's EXACTLY the same title. The content isn't rewritten - it is the same. You added one thing to post it in a group that has a string with 450+ comments to try to bring more traffic to your site. Before you write me back and try to justify your position, take a look, make a quick comparison. It is copied and then you had the nerve to come and post it in a group I moderate. Really?

Your manager didn't write it. You should start checking your content from your content farm through a checker for plagiarized work. This is copied. You should be giving credit to the original owner, not passing it off as your own content.

And yes, please take it off your site.

My take on this - In this situation, if I was the person who posted this article, I would never try to defend it - just apologize and take it down immediately. There's nothing to be gained from denying it especially when the two articles are almost identical.

A few minutes after I posted this the apology came. Kudos to the blogger for taking action quickly.

The blogger - I am so sorry. We had no clue this was copied. We are taking the article off our site and I will leave your group. This is a new site, we didn't expect anything like this to happen and we will make sure from here on out that this does not happen again. I have a feeling the manager read your article and didn't realize what she was doing was wrong b/c she does interviews all the time using Stars.

Also I just got off the phone with my editor and she told me she heavily edited the content of the article that she submitted. The manager and I talked weeks ago and she gave me all of those reasons she didn't hire people off the top of her head. I asked her could she write them in an article and she said yes.

I have two staff writers that freelance and they have either interviewed our contributors or sent them questions for the articles. And some of our contributors have submitted their own content. We don't copy. I am a published author and I would not want anyone doing this to me. I apologize and will leave your group. I posted to a few sites and I can't see a way to remove the posts but I will try to get them off of Linkedin. . .

In the end, the lesson learned is pretty straight forward. People plagarize other people's work and on the Internet I believe it's become a much more common practice than it once was. What people don't seem to understand is that everything on the Internet is copyrighted the moment it's published. So the same rules that applied to print work - apply online.

Will the copyrights be enforced? Probably not. But is it really worth it? In the end, the whole point of blogging is to add to the conversation, not copy someone else's. Yes we're all crazy busy and it's easy to take an idea, change some of the words, and represent it as your own.

I've been working a long time, and have seen most of the new and brilliant marketing approaches touted as new ideas before. The media marketers are using today may be different, but fresh ideas are hard to come by. This particular blog post was pretty generic and contained information that has probably been published in many different forms over time - repeating much of what has already been said.

What do other marketers think? Do you re-package others content and if you do how do you attribute it?

Marketing the Real Senior Executive - What it Takes

2011-06-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

I got a call several months ago from a recruiter who asked me if I knew a younger version of myself who would be interested in a PR position in a scientific organization.

Wow. I have my own business, although periodically I do look for a full-time job because I’ve got a kid going to college in two years, an ex-husband who thinks he should pay much less child support than is needed, and a house that is pretty costly to run.

So is there age discrimination in PR? Is there air? Over the past six weeks a massive conversation that I believe is up to 420 comments has occurred over this topic. The original question was actually Age Discrimination in PR Recruiting posted by Mark Schumann, former IABC International chair, on his blog.

The debate ensues on The Public Relations and Jobs Community LinkedIn page. There is a photo of a man who appears to be in his 70s and it doesn’t even show his whole face. But we get it. This guy is older and wiser.

The answer from all of us who are above the age of 40 is DUH. Of course there is age discrimination and not just in PR, everywhere. In this recession, companies have basically decided that 10 years of experience is enough to do pretty much anything except the CEO’s job. Highly experienced is 3-5 years. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know anything about anything when I was 25. I was all raw talent and a lot of bluster.

Getting a Job When You’re in Your 40s plus

The discussion on the LinkedIn page is more about getting a job in PR, which unless you somehow manage to get incredibly lucky and find a state or federal government position, or something in non-profit many of whose leaders understand that age means experience, you can kind of forget about it. The discussion has centered on a number of topics some of which I’ve listed here.

Social media and it’s meteoric rise has elevated the 23 year-old to a new status. Even though they don’t often have a clue how to use it for business. Youth means social expert, everyone under 25 is a social media expert. It’s not true, but hiring managers buy it and so do their bosses who think Twitter is a fun thing that no one else looks at. Yes Congressman Weiner, I’m talking about you.

The HR people who are the first round of filling many senior PR positions, knock out older people because of cost and because we refuse to give up our dignity. They ask for references (to a blind ad are you kidding me?), salary requirements (I wouldn’t provide those to someone who didn’t even interview me), etc. If you don’t put those in, you get deleted. Well you know what, that’s their loss, but it’s also ours.

They make you fill out endless forms and produce your college transcript. My college transcript is probably in a crypt somewhere and the idea of giving it to anyone is ludicrous. I mean really. Twenty five years of experience and you need to see that I got a C in geology. They also make prospective candidates fill out the same application that an entry level person would fill out. How demoralizing is that?

The 35 year-old Executive VP. PR is famous for inflating titles, particularly the agencies. If you’ve got ten years of experience you are a veteran, an expert, a genius. What they don’t bother to think about is you are also getting ready to start a family (which limits a woman's potential depending on what her mothering beliefs are), and means the dad has to go home too if he wants to see his kids.

Wouldn’t you be better off with a 55 year-old whose kids are grown and can work late into the night and travel when needed?

Europeans don’t do this. I’m not sure this is true, but many who’ve chimed in from England, France, Italy, etc. have said that there isn’t that much age discrimination in their countries. Experience equals wisdom. Well good for them. In the USA experience often equals the person who wins the Apprentice. Paris here I come.

How to get around the age issue

Shave everything but the last 15 years off your resume.

This is actually decent advice because something you did 25 years ago is pretty darn irrelevant right now. Don’t put down your college graduation date – even though it’s a dead giveaway you are older when you exclude it and anyone who knows how to Google can find it in 30 seconds or less. But maybe they won't bother to find out you were a child of the 70s.

Keep up to date with new developments in the PR profession.

If you don’t understand social media, aren’t at least doing it for yourself, don’t have a blog, don’t get what digital means, you’re of another generation. Get your skills up to today’s market. Read what’s going on – attend seminars, learn how to walk the walk and talk the talk. Do you know what SEO is? If not, learn, and I don't mean just what the acronym means but how to do it well.

Update your technology, music taste, celebrity knowledge, etc.

I guarantee you most 50 year-olds have no clue who Justin Bieber and Usher are, think kids admire Lindsay Lohan, have never seen a Harry Potter movie (the last one is due out this summer), have no clue that an eight year-old can get around any computer security device on the planet, don’t take and edit video, and cannot name an X-Box game or define virtual reality.

Brush up people. I am lucky in this regard because I have an 11 year-old and a 15 year-old. I even listen to the Kane Show, watch Jon Stewart and haven’t seen David Lederman in years. Oh that’s right, you’re already in bed.

My final question is for the people who keep saying we should raise the retirement age to save social security. Yes of course we should save it. But if you cannot get a job at 48, how are you possibly going to work until 70? No one will hire you. Maybe it’s time for them to get a reality check too.

The New Business Rudeness

2011-05-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

A decade or two ago if a mid or senior level executive was approached by a peer or someone younger they responded. They may not have given you the answer you wanted to hear, but they knew that rudeness was not how you do business.

What happened to that professionalism? Did it go the way of the land line, and the receptionist that isn't a computer, a return phone call or email acknowledgment, the we've decided to hire someone else but thank-you letter?

I was talking to a friend the other day who designs men's jewelry, which is featured in a number of high priced men’s catalogs and stores.

She was telling me how she’s calling people she’s known for a long time about showing her designs for Father’s Day. About how so many people that she knows well just don’t call her back.

I got to thinking about that too. As a marketing/PR consultant and a former journalist, I have a wide network of people I’ve worked with over the years. We’ve had fun, we’ve done great work together, we’ve respected each other, and often these days I email them, I call them and I can’t get them to call me back.

A number of people have recommended me lately, I’m in a marketing mode, and their contacts don’t call me back either.When you finally get them on the phone, the standard excuses are I didn’t get your email, I was really busy, etc. You still can't get in to see them and the interaction is uncomfortable and kind of weird. They want you to disappear. You want them to act like you deserve the courtesy of a response.

I’ve also noticed that people will put you through a couple of phone conversations, ask you to write a proposal and then a couple of weeks go by, and you don’t hear from them. So you get back in touch.

Of course you know they’ve decided “to go in a different direction,” or hired someone else. But if you ask me to take my time to think through a proposal for you, at least do me the courtesy of telling me I didn’t get hired.

I know the market is tough. I know that people are doing two and three jobs. I also know I’m not a kid raised in the age of email, Facebook and online dating, etc. where if you’re not interested in someone you just blow them off. I have never done that. No I’m not some kind of an etiquette maven, but whatever happened to basic common business courtesy and professionalism?

That’s when I started to realize that there is a new, inexplicable rudeness in the business community today. People who are looking for jobs tell me they write letters, they call, they apply, and they never hear a word back.

A hospital down the street from me was hiring a senior communications person, and I applied. It’s a great facility, growing, they are very strong medically, etc. I’ve always admired them and what could be better than working three blocks away from your house?

I never heard a word, so I called the senior vice president who runs that division and emailed her. She ignored me completely. I checked with HR, and they said if we’re not interested we just don’t respond. This after making you fill out an endless application that makes you feel like an idiot with the banality of questions asked. And they don’t even acknowledge you. Wow.

I worked for a business executive awhile ago who was probably the most driven person I’ve ever known. He worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He never stopped working. But anyone from an intern to the president of a company who got in touch with him, got an immediate response. That was impressive.

This man didn't have to work anymore and he didn’t need any of them. Maybe he was old fashioned. Or maybe he just understood that it's not smart business to be rude.

Remember Bill Clinton, before Monica Lewinsky. The Friends of Bill. The way he had of keeping in touch with everyone he met along his road to the presidency. He built constituencies. He made friends with everyone from doormen to CEOs. And it worked.

I don’t know why professionals today are so unbelievably rude. Why people who have achieved many of the same things you have, don't have the common courtesy to at least say no thank-you. But as long as I’m working, I will not have much respect for anyone who is.

Only 30% of Americans Understand Basic Science - What Should Marketers Do?

2011-04-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

Scientific literacy in this country, and around the world, is a big issue discussed regularly by educators, government leaders and other important stakeholders.

Without it, most people cannot read the science sections of newspapers and understand them. Most are written at a 5th or 6th grade level. Research from Michigan State University shows less than 30% of Americans qualify as scientifically literate.

What does this have to do with marketing you ask? The job growth in the next few decades is going to be in science, engineering and health fields, and so will many of the products and services developed. Without basic science literacy it will be impossible to hire people for these positions and for them to market what they are selling effectively.

And if companies want to hire Americans, it is up to them to train the high school and college kids of today in the information that they need to know in order to get hired.

What does a scientific literate person need to know? According to the Nuffield Foundation he or she should be able to:

• Appreciate and understand the impact of science and technology on everyday life.

• Make informed personal decisions about things that involve science, such as health, diet, and energy.

• Read and understand the essential points of media reports on science.

• Reflect critically on the information included in such reports

• Discuss scientific issues with confidence and clarity.

Michigan State University professor Jon Miller said in an article published by AAAS’ EurekAlert that, "A slightly higher proportion of American adults qualify as scientifically literate than European or Japanese adults, but the truth is that no major industrial nation in the world today has a sufficient number of scientifically literate adults.”

A recent study of scientific literacy in college students, which was published in January of 2011, shows just how deep the problem goes. Miller and other researchers recently examined the science knowledge of more than 500 students at 13 U.S. colleges in courses ranging from introductory biology to advanced ecology.

Most students could not answer these questions:

1. How does carbon transform? Most students failed to apply principles such as the conservation of matter, which holds that when something changes chemically or physically, the amount of matter at the end of the process needs to equal the amount at the beginning.

2. Why and how do we lose weight? Students trying to explain weight loss could not trace matter once it leaves the body; instead they used informal reasoning based on their personal experiences (such as the fat "melted away" or was "burned off").

3. How do plants grow? Most students incorrectly believe plants obtain their mass from the soil rather than primarily from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

We've found in research done for AAAS on our Science Inside Alcohol project that the majority of middle school students didn't know that human body systems are interconnected. So when we set out to write a book for parents and a microsite for kids, we started by explaining each body system that they needed to understand in order to get the science of how alcohol affects our bodies.

Aside from needing jobs, college students are the ones who will over the next few decades be grappling with climate change issues, among others. How can they intelligently discuss and debate what is happening to our planet and people without a basic knowledge of science? The answer is they can’t.

In Chattanooga, TN under a grant from the National Science Foundation, a local high school formed a health academy that students attended from 10th grade on. They wore scrubs to school (how cool is that) and learned much of the basic science and technology they would need to take jobs in local medical companies (albeit they weren't high level jobs they were entry level employees but you have to start somewhere).

There are academies like this within many high schools, courtesy in part from the Gates Foundation. And there have been for quite some time. But Chattanooga did it differently.

High school teachers went to local health and science companies, and talked to them about future workforce needs. They learned about what it would take for students to get their jobs, and worked with the companies to create a curriculum that prepared them with the basic science and medical background they would need. The companies also agreed to hire the students as interns so they could learn while doing and get to know their inner workings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCvQKuTBONY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSXW7rDJHvM

So come on marketers, step up to the plate.

Back to Basics: Three Things a Marketer Should Never Forget

2011-03-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Toward his honorable discharge from service and in pursuit of his second career, a colonel is interviewed for a CEO job in a large corporation.

"Why do you think you fit the job?" he is asked.

"I have all the relevant experience because running this company is just like commanding my brigade: You have employees, I had soldiers; you call it a stock room - we called it logistics; your HR is just another name for our adjutancy; we compete with the other units in the command just as you deal with your competitors!"

"OK,” says the interviewer, "How about the customer?"

"The customer?" retorts the colonel after three seconds of thinking, "he's the enemy!"

The Moral: FOCUS IS EVERYTHING

A discussion on LinkedIn’s Marketing Executives Group), started by Dr. Brian Monger, CEO at Marketing Association of ANZ in Melbourne, Australia, addresses this and other core marketing issues that sometimes we forget.

Monger posed the question: “How do you know when someone really doesn’t understand marketing?” What are the primary indicators - in your experience?” That discussion has drawn more than 300 comments to date. I’ve taken some of the best answers and turned them into three questions marketers should ask themselves on a regular basis.

1. When was the last time I listened to my customers?
People who’ve worked in the same industry for several years, often start to take it for granted. They’ve done the focus groups, the talking to members and customers and conducted satisfaction survey and needs analysis just the way they are supposed to. But are you really on top of what your customer needs. Let’s do a little self-examination here:
• Do you dislike visiting plants, stores, meetings or talking to customers?
• Do you talk with all the different departments in your organization that are connected to marketing on a regular basis – advertising, member services, web developers, social media experts, etc?
• Do you listen to what internal employees are telling you and act on their feedback?
• Do you read discussions on your LinkedIn, Face book and other social media pages, as well as tweets on your industry, and bring important information to your attention?

2. Is my marketing plan integrated across all the different parts of the mix?
There’s a big difference between marketing that creates opportunities, and sales which transform those opportunities into making money for the organization.
In my experience, marketing often begins before advertising, public relations and outreach. Many organizations decide to hire a communications or marketing firm after they’ve just redone their web site. This is a clear indicator that they don’t understand integrated marketing.

While many companies have a marketing plan, it does not account for every as Ogilvy & Mather puts it “touch point” by which an organization reaches its customers. As a result, branding is fragmented across different target audiences, and cohesive messages on what a company stands for and the value of its products or services aren’t always delivered.

The MEG members pointed out many times, that they know immediately that someone doesn’t understand marketing when they start talking about elements of the mix, without an overall strategy that drives the work.

Some of the comments on lack of integration and branding were:
• Marketers need to go back sometimes and remember the brand we have tried to build. A brand is a promise. To foster loyalty, it always has to deliver on the promise.
• Elements of marketing work together – it’s a unique blend of art and science.
• So many marketing departments continue to not connect a marketing activity to metrics and not tie it to a business goal.
• When they use words interchangeably such as marketing, sales, promotion, PR, publicity, etc ... without regard to context.

3. Do we have a clearly articulated marketing strategy and a flexible plan?
I’ve worked for marketers who had a clearly articulated marketing plan – and didn’t want to pay to develop one. But the plan resided in their heads which doesn’t leave much for those who are expected to implement it. Basically it was this is what we need to do, and this is how we’re going to do it. Then the rest was about sales, sales, sales.

Perhaps the best purpose of a clearly articulated strategy and plan is involving everyone who must implement it during development, and obtaining buy-in as you go.

One marketer reports, he used to have a sign hanging on his door that said, Just because you have always done it that way doesn't mean it is right (pictured underneath was a man getting run over by a bull at the running of the bulls in Spain). He reports, there are so many aspects to successful marketing: knowing what works and applying it, knowing when a practice doesn't apply anymore and being open-minded enough to look for new approaches to getting in front of your target audience.

(A version of this article was published by ASAE's Marketing Insights, March 2011, written by yours truly).

6 Warning Signs a PR Firm is Not What it Seems

2011-03-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of bad PR people out there, as there are in any industry. If you are trying to hire a PR agency and notice any of these issues run like hell.

1. A Room with a beautiful view – I had a colleague who was convinced PR agencies used the same tactic as pharmaceuticals - hire a lot of young, beautiful women to sell their products and services, because let's face it the majority of doctors are still men. There are some extremely bright and attractive young people in the PR business. But PR is also famous for bait and switch. If the agency gray hairs do all the talking in a room and you have a handful of young, very attractive people who only say a few scripted remarks, chances are those are your new account executives. Ask how many vice presidents the PR agency has who are under 30? That’s a good way to check what’s really going on.

2. That’s a brilliant idea – You’re not hiring a PR agency to tell you what you want to hear. If your ideas are so great you would just implement them yourself, right. I had a boss once who would sit in a room with our CEO and repeat back exactly what he’d said a few minutes earlier in different words, and glow when he praised her. She had grown up in a Fortune 500 company, and was very good at it, but if you were paying attention you would notice she had nothing to say.

3. We know him, her and every journalist in your field and they take our calls This person is lying. Media has gone through so many upheavals in the past few years that no one knows everyone anymore. Name dropping in my opinion, is just obnoxious, unless it is done very sparingly and only to emphasize something you are already saying. Fortunately we live in the age of easy search – get a client list and Google recent stories about some of their biggest clients. Ask for the Today Show or evening news clips, articles about their clients by the famous columnist they know well, and that NPR story they are so proud of.

4. An outdated web site – If the PR company you are talking too has case studies from 10 years ago, no video or visuals, inactive social media spaces, no blog or a just plain outdated web site run like the wind. I've heard the excuse I'm too busy to redo my site many times but you know what, we're in an image business. Your web site is your image as are your social media spaces. What matters is the quality and currency of the information they put out there. We live in a very fast moving world and if the PR company hasn’t updated their look, materials, etc. they don’t live in it. What kind of message does old stuff send to a potential client?

5. You don’t need media training – Everyone needs media training before starting a campaign, no matter how big their ego or how many interviews they’ve done. I had a client once who used the exact same quote in every interview he did, and thought he sounded young, hip and brilliant. There are benefits to sticking to your messages but he came off as having only one thing to say which when you searched his interviews didn’t make him look very smart. The media training doesn’t have to be a full-blown, multi-tiered, many thousands of dollars deal, but at the very least – no matter how small the budget is – new messaging and mock interviews are really important.

6. Our expertise and role in the formation and dissemination of messages to all stakeholders is of value across the spectrum of traditional media as well as increasingly called upon by numerous new media options. English please? This lovely sentence came off the web site of one of the biggest PR agencies in the world. There are just way too many people out there that hide behind big empty words that don’t tell you anything about them. Many people are comfortable with that, it sounds like they write I guess. But the fact is if you can’t tell me your point of difference, then you don’t have one.

Women Still Earning 75% of What Men Do - This is about PR

2011-03-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

When I was in my mid-20s, I worked with a guy who is now a big shot writer. I can't remember how, but I learned that he was making substantially more than I was doing the same job. At that time, I thought it was because he was a much better negotiator. His strategy was to walk in and tell them what salary he expected to earn, then let them negotiate him down. I had taken what they gave me and negotiated that up slightly.

This happened at another company too and it was done because the men were supporting families and the women were considered secondary wage earners. Well when I got divorced I was no longer a secondary anything. I am raising the kids, paying a pretty hefty mortgage and still getting underpaid.

The bottom line is the workplace still doesn't value women the way it does men. We also need to push harder for equal wages and know what the disparities are before we start talking about salary.

Right now, no one wants to push too hard because the line behind them stretches so far back that the organization will find someone else male or female who will take less.

But we still shouldn't let people take advantage of us when it comes to fees and salaries. And we still do.

All of this leads up to some new data that documents over the past 20 years women have still not reached parity with what their male counterparts earn for the same positions. This information is for PR people - which should put all of us females on notice.

Bey-Ling Sha, Ph.D. chairs PRSA’s National Committee on Work, Life & Gender and she published this article recently on LinkedIn. I thought it was important enough for all of us to give it more distribution.

The White House this month released a report showing that women still only earn about 75 percent of what men earn on the job. I feel disgusted but unsurprised.

Women have earned less than men since the government began tracking these numbers. In 1979, a woman earned 62 cents for every dollar earned by a man. In 2005 and 2006, women made 81 cents for every dollar men made. That was the all-time high!

In the last half decade, we’ve not only failed to make progress on the issue of gendered income inequity—we’ve increased the wage gap between men and women.

The public relations profession is not immune to this larger societal problem.

Preliminary data from the Public Relations Society of America’s 2010 Work, Life & Gender Survey indicated that the average annual income for men in public relations was about $120K; that figure for women was about $72K. In our 2006 survey, the average annual income for men was $98,188.82; the average for women was $67,853.08.

This income disparity is a problem for the public relations profession. Here’s why:

1. The problem appears to be getting worse. In 2006, the average income for women in public relations was 69 percent of men’s average earnings. In 2010, the figure was down to 60 percent. This widening wage gap is discouraging, not only for women practitioners, but also for the increasing number of households that rely on women as the primary wage-earner.

2. The percentage of women practitioners in public relations is increasing, not decreasing. This means that, as more women enter public relations with their lower annual earnings, the average incomes for the profession as a whole will decrease. This is a simple issue of math.

3. The profession may lose talent. As average incomes for the public relations profession decline, we may see talented practitioners move to other, related fields with higher salary offerings. This is a more complicated issue of competitiveness for our profession as a whole.

Of course, preliminary data are just that—preliminary.

This year, members of the Work, Life & Gender Committee will be doing some detailed analysis of the survey data. Perhaps the income differential is due to differences between men and women in years of experience or education levels. Perhaps it’s because more women than men are working part-time. Perhaps it’s because women’s careers get interrupted by child bearing and other family responsibilities. Perhaps.

Of course, past research has indicated that—even with all these possible explanations controlled and accounted for—women in public relations still earn less than men. But perhaps this will be the year the data show us a different picture.

If so, I will be totally surprised, but totally not disgusted.

USA Today Writer Reminds Us What PR Person Should Do Before an Interview

2011-02-25T09:29:00.000-08:00

Went to a lunch presentation yesterday about what is really Off the Record and came away reinforcing my opinion that nothing is. The conversation was set up by Ed Barks who is a well-known media trainer in DC and given at a Capitol Communicators' Group lunch. Ed gave definitions for each of the terms – OTR, deep background, not for attribution, etc. If it’s a writer you know really well and trust you could go OTR, but I would still recommend that a client not do it.

In this age of social media you can develop messages for clients and coach them, but reporters are smart and they know how to manipulate people. I know, I was one. I think it’s better to take the approach that anything you say will be made public. That way you’ll be more careful.

The most interesting presentation was by Donna Leinwand, a justice and crime reporter for USA Today. She reminded us that what your client says isn’t everything. Good reporters notice details and will write about them.

Think about where the interview is taking place, who escorts the reporter out of the building, and those final moments when everyone is relaxed and more likely to say something they don’t want too. Also remember you should be careful of the follow-up questions, sent by email or delivered by phone.

Here are a few of the PR faux pas that Donna mentioned:

• A senior executive was wearing mismatched socks and she put it into her profile of him. He called her up after it ran and was furious.

• If you don’t want people to know you smoke don’t do it. Another senior executive chomped on a cigar throughout an entire interview and then his wife called Donna after the piece ran complaining that he was trying to quit and she shouldn’t have written that.

• Donna interviewed a DEA official along with a Rolling Stone reporter in Amsterdam at a local coffee house (translation legal dispenser of marijuana). The Rolling Stone reporter lit up a joint and she mentioned it in her copy. As you can imagine, the DEA official was beside himself.

• Clear your desk or conference room table before an interview. I used to read everything on a CEO’s desk as he was talking – and yes it was all upside down.

Marketing 3.0 - Bring Back Real Creativity and Concise Messaging

2011-02-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I am just astounded by how little attention is paid to messaging in presentations, brochures and other marketing efforts. At how many times I’ve seen the same pitch or argument repackaged with a different colored bow and called insight or "brand new."

Maybe it’s my advertising background, maybe it was the Harvard Business School, maybe it’s from journalism or perhaps it has come from years of trying to distill from what a client says and the materials they produce, what it is they are really trying to tell me. What is uniquely theirs that will make me buy from them or go to their event.

No matter what the source, in this age of messages flung at us with words, visuals, in emails – we all need clarity of vision, originality and most important simplicity.

There’s an ongoing discussion on one of the LinkedIn groups I belong to asking the question “How do you know when someone really doesn’t understand marketing?”
Well my answer is when they can’t sell me on three concise messages that tell me why I should care about their product, service or event, why it's different than everything else out there and give me compelling reasons why I should go out and buy it.

So for what it’s worth here are some examples of what I’ve seen lately from very smart people who could do much, much better.

1. Presentation that was a jumble of bullets – I went to a speech by a senior executive recently that was a PowerPoint presentation of pure bullets. Not a single visual emphasized a point – actually there were a couple of photos of the executive interacting with kids jammed in the middle somewhere. It was a total jumble of we’ve done this, this, this, and so much more but it’s your job to figure out exactly what that means. The three messages I took away? The executive supports a discipline he believes in, his organization is throwing gobs of money at improving it and forming a lot of committees none of which I really get or seem to have accomplished much.

2. Brochure whose title and graphic didn't market to the right audience. – This was a missed opportunity. The cover of a brochure is supposed to send me strong messages about why I should continue reading. This one basically announced its purpose and then had a colorful visual that would be very attractive to young children. Yet the brochure was aimed at senior marketing executives – people who would pony up a lot of money to support a non-profit that helps kids. It was a good reminder of a basic marketing premise - know your audience and remember what they care about and will motivate them. Use a visual and words that reinforce a message that will make them take notice.

3. Assuming your audience understands everything about your business.

I was reading an online brochure the other day that had many nice pictures and jumbles of text – about a product that is fairly new.

The trouble was it threw a ton of information at me telling me how successful the product launch was, and also informing me that the new and improved version would be even better. But there was so much data it gave me a headache. You could tell it was written by more than one person and the writers couldn't decide what was important so they just threw in everything they could think of. There were also lists and lists of events attached to the product with no explanations of what they were. Let’s go back to what I was told over and over as a young journalist which also applies directly to marketing. Don’t assume that your reader knows what you’re talking about. Explain your products or services as you would to a novice.

4. Event with incredibly compelling title that delivered none of what it promised – I went to this panel discussion because it had very impressive people talking and a great title that sold me – combining health care reform with another issue I care about. The trouble was I watched three speeches none of which addressed the title. It wasn’t even really referenced in what they said. I’m finding this happens more and more lately. People have figured out that a sexy headline draws traffic. Yippee. What they haven’t figured out is how to deliver on it.

Those of us who’ve seen “The Social Network” know that the Internet has become a repository for taking the ideas of others and changing the thought or example slightly – and pretending they are ours. What passes as creativity these days often comes from what Mark Zuckerberg got sued over - intellectual property theft. Of course most people don't sue, they may not even know their work was taken.

I cannot tell you how many blogs I read where someone is pontificating about a brilliant “new” idea, that I read 20 years ago, expressed in different words by a past guru who has long since retired to his or her own private island.

Once it’s online, everything is considered fair game. But what about real creativity – the kind that takes your breath away it’s so fresh and original? Can’t we have that back? In broadcast, if it weren’t for HBO, Showtime and some independent films I would believe that creativity is no longer possible.

So my point in all of this is we live in a very complicated world and are barraged daily with far more than we can process. As marketers, and communicators, we should be long past the days where an information dump is how we sell. Everything we say and write in our outreach efforts should be straightforward, clear and ours because if it’s not our products and services become a rehash of everything else that’s out there. And especially in these tough economic times - I need compelling reasons why I should listen, care and buy whatever it is you are selling.

There's a Gunman in the Building: How Discovery Communications Handled the Crisis

2011-02-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

(Originally appeared in the IABC February 2011 Newsletter written by yours truly)

On September 1, 2010, James J. Lee, a militant environmentalist who had picketed Discovery Communications headquarters in downtown Silver Spring, MD in the past, entered its lobby and took three people hostage. Lee had a bomb strapped to him and threatened to blow up the building.

Last month, Michelle Russo, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Communications for Discovery, shared her team’s experiences and lessons learned before an audience of more than 100 communications professionalat IABC/DC Metro's regular chapter meeting.

Russo said one of the first things she realized as the crisis unfolded, is that no amount of planning can prepare you for feeling personally threatened. Thus it is important to monitor your own reaction and that of your colleagues. Relying on a well-thought out Crisis Plan is important, but so is relying on your best professional instincts to guide your actions throughout the crisis.

Here are some of the other lessons learned from that day and its aftermath:

Prepare to Message in the Moment – Crisis communications plans are reviewed by many people who adapt messaging to what they’re comfortable with. But those carefully crafted messages – in a genuine crisis – are not always what you need. Russo realized that her team knew what to say and how to say it, so messages were developed on the spot and it worked.

Consider Not Talking to the Media Right Away - Within minutes, news of the gunman entering the building spread to local and national media. Russo and her team received calls almost immediately and reporters arrived in downtown Silver Spring. The team established their first priority was Discovery employees, not a media response. The communications team decided against talking to reporters until the situation was resolved. They relied on their track record of good relationships with the media and hoped reporters would understand later why their responsiveness was not at usual levels.

Assign a communications team bridge – Russo monitored the executive bridge, where Discovery’s global leaders were kept abreast of the situation. She suggested that it would have been helpful for the global communications team to have a bridge as well to keep information flowing to the company’s front-line communicators.

Consult Other Businesses in Your Community on Your Crisis Plan – Since the Discovery building was evacuated very quickly, many employees left house and car keys, bags and other items in their offices. Local organizations pitched in to help - from the hot dog vendor warning people not to go back into the building after lunch - to another large organization which assigned two staff people to help Discovery make sure its employees got home. Russo suggested, as a best practice, to set up a reciprocal business continuity agreement, in certain situations.

Planning a Global Celebration Helped Communications Run Smoothly - Earlier that year Discovery held a global celebration of its 25 th Anniversary which lasted a full week and required partnering and planning large scale logistics with offices around the world and helped instill a cohesive internal community that was invaluable on September 1.

Employees will want to share their experiences, give them guidance on how – Discovery’s approach to social media during the crisis was to respect its employees and the decisions they made. While they asked employees not to tweet, Facebook or communicate with press about updates during the crisis, they did not want to stop people from assuring their families and friends they were safe. When two of the three hostages decided they wanted to do media interviews employees were notified so they were not surprised when their colleagues were reliving the day via various media outlets

The Geek Whisperer Offers 7 Key Questions to Ask During Web Design

2011-01-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

What’s a geek whisperer? Katie Hawkey, who acts as a liaison between marketers, techies and designers smoothing the path for successful web design, is called that by co-workers. Hawkey works for Astek Consulting, a web consulting firm based in Chicago, Il.

If your web site was designed more than 2-3 years ago, chances are it’s dated. And the last thing that marketers want is to look like they don’t know what they are doing. Hawkey, chief operating officer for Astek Consulting, provides a few key questions marketers can ask their web developers and designers so they don’t look like they need a copy of “Web Sites for Dummies.”

1. Can you create or use a content management system so that I can update my own web site?

Companies used to think of their web sites as online brochures, so it didn’t matter if the information was stagnant. But with social media, blogging and news feeds, you need to be able to change information on your site without going back to your developer all the time. Those small changes will add up. So make sure you get a web platform that allows you to make changes as you need too.

2. Will you be designing in html or Flash?

Even with today’s cool graphics and improving technology, Flash is still not as search engine friendly as HTML. For instance, says Hawkey, Google is unable to read the text in many Flash sites to index the content for search. So if the bulk of your site is in Flash it’s going to be tough for search engines to scan your site and find words they are trying to match to a user's search.

Also mobile phones read html and can be very unfriendly to Flash. The IPhone doesn’t read Flash at all. Better to stay with html and insert a bit of Flash to make your site more contemporary.

3. Can you design the site so we can feed our blog information directly into social media sites?

Many blogs do this because it gives the writer and his/her company complete control over all information that goes out, and updates every time a new blog post appears. But if your blog auto-feeds into your Facebook page for instance, it will start to look robotic (like the Facebook sites that look like they are participatory but won't let you comment or discuss anything), and people will stop coming back. Better to pick and choose which content is dynamic and what you want to feed out to other sites.

4. Can you deliver the designs for review in a way that we can view them in a browser?

At the beginning of the design process you will usually get a couple of comps that are options for your site's home page and/or secondary page design. A web site is a dynamic visual and you will never know what you are looking at if you get print outs of potential designs rather than seeing them in a browser. Color, images and design approach need to be reviewed in the medium in which they will be used. This will eliminate any surprise factor as you move forward with the design process.

5. What information do you recommend we put above the fold?

In a print piece, before the fold means what you see first, before you unfold the brochure or advertisement, etc. On a web site above the fold is what you see on the home page of a web site before you scroll down. You always want your most important messages above the fold, and secondary points or messages below it. You will also want to try calling up your home and subsequent pages on a Mac-based and a PC-based system as well as on mobile phones, IPads and other devices to see what it looks like live.

6. Can you help us brand our look and feel across multiple platforms?

Believe it or not, many marketers still don’t address all their forms of communications with customers and prospects when redesigning a web site. Particularly in tough economic times, a decision could be made to update a web site and leave other materials as they were before. You don’t want inconsistent visual, verbal or written messages across different communications platforms. Developing an integrated approach from the beginning will help, even if you end up phasing in the changes gradually.

7. What pixel width do you recommend for my site?

Right now Astek is recommending most clients go with a design at 975px wide. This is definitely a conversation to have at the beginning of the design process as it will have a huge impact on the layout. Google reports that 90% of Internet users will be able to see a design that is 975px wide without needing to scroll left to right. If you work in an industry where out-dated computers are the norm, you may want to consider keeping your site to 825px wide. This will accommodate about 95% of Internet users.

But there is a price to pay for the 150px difference. It translates to about two inches of additional width on most monitors, and it will have a huge impact on how much content you can get above the fold.

A final note from Katie is that you should tell designers at the outset you want 12 point type for all content - anything smaller will be too hard to read.

For more information email katie@astekweb.com.

Don't Follow Me and Other Online Ad Predictions for 2011

2011-01-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

Doug Stevenson, the co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Media, offers predictions for the online advertising space in 2011. This is a recap, and I've cut a couple of predictions, but the ones that are here are worth reading.

FYI - online ads according to e-marketing sources are expected to grow 10.5% in 2011 and reach $40.5 billion in 2014.

1. More advertising integration with content. It's all for sale, pity the poor real journalists. Look for more convergence of content and advertising to continue in 2011, with branded utilities such as listings, live sports scores, weather, search results, Twitter, etc.

2. DON’T follow me. Remember the do not call list? Expect an online equivalent to gain popular support. Brands will engage consumers through clear, opt-in group-purchasing technologies leveraged for direct marketing.

3. The number of online ad networks will shrink. The weak will get purchased and the strong will grow. Stephenson says “The industry needs to simplify and become more coherent for marketers. Wall Street will take a vigorous interest in ad technology companies as the industry matures.”

4. Social media tools will become more common in advertising. Stevenson believes that you’ll find “like” buttons in everything from advertising to content. We’ll share more and new approaches will further the integration of social-sharing and social recommendation functionality, adding value to content through utilities such as toolbars.

Can Scientists Market Science to Kids?

2011-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

A number of scientific organizations these days are creating Meet the Scientist programs and sending scientists and engineers out into public schools, science cafes, and other venues with the hope that they can drum up interest in pursuing careers in these fields. The idea behind these programs is to inspire students towards careers in these fields with the work that they do.

The problem is many scientists still don't know how to talk to the general public about their work, and today's students are even harder to communicate with. Raised on YouTube, Facebook and with a computer savvy that is far more sophisticated than many of the scientists who go to speak to them, students are far more likely to play Angry Birds on their cell phones than pay attention to a guest scientist.

How have the programs addressed this challenge?

Some Meet the Scientist efforts are training the scientists and/or giving them ground rules before they let them go out into the schools. The guidance I've seen is pretty good - PowerPoints are forbidden, they must bring physical examples of their work, do an experiment if they can, treat students as equals, etc.

Other programs have asked organizations to suggest scientists who are articulate and have experience talking to kids. But unless the scientists has done K-12 education sessions before, or have children that age, no one really knows how the scientists will do in front of a room full of kids.

Another approach that is gaining in popularity around the nation and throughout the world is sending science and health Nobel Laureates into high school to talk with kids. But many Nobel Laureates are older and male and haven't raised a child in a very long time. Rather than have an auditorium or room full of kids many of whom may not understand what the Laureates are discussion, the schools select their best and brightest which in essence is preaching to the choir.

The fact is an audience of school aged children is far tougher than a scientist's peers or even other adults to keep engaged. If the scientists are going to market science to the schools they need training and guidance.

Here are a few examples of what works and what doesn't according to my experience with these Meet the Scientist Programs.

Getting High School Kids to Come

I watched a scientist who helps wounded veterans learn to use new limbs that can literally function like real ones via signals from the brain. I first saw him in front of a room full of high school students who were really engaged with his talk. He brought props so the kids could touch and see them and left a lot of time for Q&A which went very well.

I discovered after wards that the real reason the students showed up for this lunch time event was the free pizza promised by the teacher. So that's a key learning - feed the kids and you'll get much better attendance. You know what - this works in companyies too.

Forgetting the general public is not a scientific audience

Interestingly, I saw the same scientist do a presentation a week later in front of a room full of adults at another location. This time he had no props - he had PowerPoint. I couldn't follow a lot of what he was saying and I already knew his research. By the end, at least half the people in the audience had walked out. If he had used the same approach he did with high school students, I bet they would have stayed.

It's Complicated - But the Math Kids will Get It

At another high school there was a mathematician scheduled to speak - a rather well liked and famous one - and I wanted to get some attention for the program by inviting local media. I had a reporter convinced it was a good idea to come (sold the prestige angle) but then he asked me questions that I couldn't answer - basically what the heck is it that this guy does.

I called the professor's university PR office and asked for general audience information on his research and a bio on him. The communications person had no idea what the mathematician did and no materials that I could understand. She was supposed to get in touch with the professor and get back to me. I never heard a word from either of them and the reporter didn't go.

Sell the Adventure and Remember It's Also Show and Tell

At a middle school, a scientist come in and talked about her work in archeology - she basically dug up dinosaur bones in pursuit of new and older dinosaurs. The kids asked if they could see them and she hadn't brought any. She also had a PowerPoint which was OK - at least it tried to convey the spirit of adventure in searching for life from millions of years ago. But by the end girls were nudging each other, and boys were doing that I can't sit here one second longer uncomfortable thing that boys do.

To be fair, the scientists were giving of their time and some had very successful presentations. One filled the stage with smoke from dry ice and another sang rock songs with science lyrics which were actually very amusing and engaging.

What Does Work? Ask Bill Nye or the MythBusters

The fact is in order to get the attention of kids science has to be theatrical. There have to be wows and scientists jumping up and down and a sense of excitement in the room that is palpable. If the scientists aren't going to get training before they go into a classroom at the very least they should watch a couple episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy. He knows how to get the attention of kids.

Without that, despite best intentions, many scientists end up reinforcing the notion that science and math are boring.

The Younger You Reach Kids With Science, the More It Can Help

Another issue with these Meet the Scientist programs is many of them are aimed at older kids. High school kids already know what they like and don't like - you're not going to take an 11th grader and suddenly convince him he wants to be a physicist with an hour long talk. Middle school kids are pretty cynical too, although they will listen if the presentation is fun and interesting.

I have taught seventh grade and it's remarkable how despite the constant refrain that being smart isn't cool that permeates our public schools, you can still get them excited when the presenter and the subject is really engaging.

Elementary, Elementary, Elementary

Elementary school teachers, on the other hand and to this day, despite No Child Left Behind, etc., teach very little science. And they are desperate for it. But most of the Meet the Scientist programs are aimed at older kids. Much of the reason why is that the scientists are uncomfortable talking to really little kids. So this is one area where training for scientists is really needed, and could provide a great deal of value.

Simply put, if the scientists can convince fourth graders that what they do is cool, everyone wins.

Don't Just Meet the Scientist Spend Time With Him or Her

One option for these Meet the Scientist programs is to really focus on elementary school kids and have the scientists dedicate more time than an hour to them. There is a program in the VA, MD, DC area where retired scientists make a commitment to support an elementary school class for a semester. They go into the classroom about six times and get to know the teacher and the kids well. The teachers love it and the kids get to not just Meet the Scientists but to know them well, and really understand their work.

How Do You Know if Someone Really Doesn't Understand Marketing?

2010-12-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

Those of us who have been around for a long time – and yes I am one of you - think we have seen and heard it all when it comes to marketing. So I began following this discussion on LinkedIn answering the question – How do you know when someone really doesn’t understand marketing?

The discussion is on Marketing Executive Networking Group, MENG, which you can join on LinkedIn.

The person who started it and those who chimed in at least early on, are the marketing veterans. These are the- marketers who’ve been doing it since the 60s and 70s – mostly men – and those who’ve experienced and survived through a huge transformation on the Internet and in the social media era. They’ve also watched the painful death of advertising as we once knew it.

When I first started out in journalism covering marketing and advertising for everyone ranging from Adweek to the New York Times, most media people understood advertising on a basic level but marketing was just being recognized as an important topic to cover.

In the mid-80s The Wall Street Journal started a marketing column, followed by Business Week, Forbes and many others. But I know for me I didn’t really understand marketing until I started doing it. And there’s still a lot I don’t know.

So here’s the discussion: How do you know if someone really understands marketing? Most of the answers are what do they not understand. So here you go:

They are Obsessed with Data:

They think marketing has a lot to do with math and not just creative.
They forget that marketing is about listening to the consumer via interviews, statistical analysis, and other metrics.
They can't connect their activities to business results.

They Are Way too Full of Themselves

They use a lot of buzz words and are not able to articulate the details of your work.
Their eyes narrow and they get suspicious when one begins to talk about integrated programs.
They have not changed with the times.
They suffer from Entrepreneur's Syndrome, the belief that because they founded the enterprise, no matter how large it has grown, they must continue to be personally involved in every aspect of its operation. Some can be educated enough to work with you. Others you have to walk away from.

Women have started chiming in now. Here are some of their stories. They don't know marketing when:

They Think They Can Change Elements without Considering the Mix

One woman tells us, "I had a new director walk into a first round logo meeting with our chosen agency. He brought his own logos in color. Yikes! He walked to the front of the room pulled out his soap box and began telling the group what the logo should be and why. Did I mention we had the agency run a branding session? We had developed a positioning statement and the group was in consensus and ready to work on logo development?"

They Don’t Understand Their Target Audiences

They begin using words interchangeably such as marketing, sales, promotion, PR, publicity, etc ... without regard to context.
They dislike visiting plants, stores or talking to customers.
They don’t believe in integrated marketing – which has some new equally innocuous names - connected marketing and compound marketing were mentioned.
They take the attitude if it breathes, it's a customer.

They Don’t Have a Marketing Strategy

They want to do marketing but are not willing to work on strategy first.
They talk about the Industrial Era "4 Ps" of marketing which according to the marketers should now be seven, or still four. Consensus was the 4Ps are only valid if you re-interpret them in terms of how they should be applied in the Internet-based marketplace.

As Social Media Ages How Will it Live Within Organizations?

2010-12-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

While interviewing a social media strategist, the phone conversation was stopped abruptly as the strategist confessed, “I’ve gotta go. There are two people standing in front of my office demanding Facebook Pages.” If they didn’t get the Pages, they were going to build them on their own.

And there-in lies social media's next challenge. The next generation can do all of it themselves. And while they're doing that - the social media strategist within an organization may be deleted and new positions and approaches will be needed.

Research by Altimeter with 140 social media "enterprise" strategists yielded some intriguing guidance into the future of the medium and how we can keep it moving forward. I'm paraphrasing and interpreting because some of the recommendations didn't make sense to me.

Take off the evangelist hat. The time is past for people who talk up social media to everyone in their organization or people that they meet. "The strategist will be responsible for resources, timelines, Gantt charts, ROI models, analytics, data modeling, resource management, project management. It’s a very different skill set than the evangelist role that we’ve seen before." I guess that means they need to be marketing and creating a lot of charts and data.

Create programs that can be scaled up - Community engagement and advocacy are great ways for organizations to create and develop new social media spaces. Also the chances of growing sites that address personal and professional concerns are much higher.

Choose your model - There is a list of five models in the study all of which gave me a headache. It seems like the most effective one utilizes cross-functional teams to develop social media strategy and build engagement with that space. It also acknowledges that social media strategy may go brand by brand, division by division, or work group by work group. So the central strategist role may be phased out in favor of targeted decision-makers.

Customer communications and service channel - One of the recommendations is to make social media not just about marketing to add communications and customer service as ways in which you can use the media. But isn't that what marketing is too? Not really sure I got this one but I think the point is if you sell, sell, sell in your social space - and there are many who push products, themselves, etc. endlessly - and don't add to the conversation - people will leave, leave, leave.

Use it as a career advancement tool - This one is mine. I have to admit the best use of social media that I've seen is as a way for young professionals to communicate about their career challenges and jobs that are out there. This type of approach keeps them coming back and talking.

Health 2.0: What Will the Future Look Like?

2010-12-10T11:37:00.000-08:00

I went to a conference this morning at the Hope Street Group, a DC-based think tank. They had a panel of doctors, PhDs, a lawyer, consultants, an agency head and an economist discussing Using Open Innovation to Reinvent Primary Care.

Panel moderator was former Washington Post healthcare policy reporter Ceci Conelley who jumped ship to McKinsey probably for gobs more money.

While no one mentioned the P-word (price) a great deal of the discussion centered around reducing costs.

Some points were really interesting. Among them:

One of the panel's recommendations is Use new people, places and tools to achieve greater capacity at lower cost. Great idea and that's why so many primary care practices are relying more heavily on Physician's Assistants and Nurse Practitioners.

They wanted to take it much further and have a third tier of community healthcare worker who could perform basic services such as giving injections and many of the other functions at primary care facilities.

The problem with this, as someone pointed out, is you have to redraw the boundaries of what different medical practitioners are allowed to do. Patients are taught to give themselves shots, but in a licensed medical practice no one below a nurse can do that.

This kind of circle the wagons thinking reminded me of a nurse practitioner friend who wanted to teach and was doing so at the University of San Francisco where she got her masters. She taught one semester and was booted out even though she was very popular with the students.

Why you ask? Because she was teaching at the nursing school and the Board didn't want a nurse practitioner teaching those studying to be RNs. That our role is sacred philosophy in healthcare is part of why reform is so hard. And it's not going to change easily or quickly.

There's a program called Texting for Healthy Moms and Babies that sends weekly text messages to pregnant women timed to their babies due date. So far 18,000 women have signed up and it's just rolling out. But it could create new models for how to deliver information about routine healthcare issues.

Empower consumers to take personal responsibility for improving their health through education, interactive tools and incentives. Bush One started this and we haven't come very far with it in how many years has it been - 20? There are new tools though that can be used in new ways.

Someone mentioned the development of a Facebook for healthcare - Healthbook as they called it. Not really sure how it would work but I think it's a good idea to have a place where the general public can get together and network about about healthcare challenges, providers, etc.

Electronic medical records that are portable and accessible (within privacy guidelines) can help spur this process along.

Leverage technology, patient engagement, population management and payment reform to accelerate smart processes. The Veteran's Affairs (VA) healthcare information and services provides a model for how to do this. When logged into HealtheVet consumers can refill prescriptions online, get wellness reminders and participate in secure messaging from their healthcare team.

Another technology is Virtual Doctors and Healthcare Providers who talk to their patients via computer and even conduct routine exams that way. I can't really imagine how it would work but it's being tried in a number of hospitals and provider settings.

If you are interested in learning more go to www.hopestreetgroup.org.

Dear President Obama - It's Almost Christmas and Where's Your Mojo?

2010-12-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

Although I am a Democrat and still trying to be a supporter of our President, leaving the tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans for the next two years could cost him the votes of people like me.

Oh I get that you negotiated for another 13 months of unemployment benefits (but as the guy I'm dating pointed out - only one year versus two and that's how most people think), and a couple of other really important tax breaks for the middle class.

But Mr. President it doesn't matter. All that will be reported and all that middle class people will remember is that you let the rich keep the tax breaks that cost the country way, way more than it could afford. You're supposed to be the defender of the rest of us, the anti-Conservative, anti-rich, anti-Fox News etc. leader. You're supposed to help us.

I know you think you're doing what's right for the country But Mr. President don't you realize that by allowing the Bush tax cuts to stand you've completely caved on a very symbolic and vital issue for mainstream America right before Christmas? John Boehner may be the Grinch but well I don't even know who you are in that story. Maybe the little girl Cindy who goes up to the Grinch and asks him so innocently why he's so mean.

PR is a tricky business and goodness knows I've made mistakes as a PR person. But perception does outweigh reality when it comes to mass media. The no spin media is the super spin media. The unbiased media reports what it thinks will get the highest ratings. And the newspapers and blogs which seem to have the only good writers left in America aren't read in full and certainly not often by the people you've just really pissed off.

Yes we elected a thoughtful, educated man to bring this country together. But those characteristics don't work well in the post-Bush era. The right is too good at tapping into national disappointment and building rage. Right now what we need is a super hero. And Mr. President you're no a super hero. You're just a man who is making decisions that alienate your base.

Think I'm over dramatizing? Have you seen what the pundits are saying? The conservatives are now saying your approval ratings are lower than George Bush's. Of course they are skewing the data but most people don't know that.

The liberals are just plain disappointed. They don't get it and they think you've sold them out. I can't help it but I kind of agree with them.

And then of course there's Jon Stewart who I think is smarter than the majority of media and all he can manage to do is come up with golden showers raining down from the rich to the rest of us. That's a parody of trickle down economics which you said you would eliminate.

No wonder none of us have any Christmas spirit. It's beginning to look a lot like you're going to be a one-term President, and that is a very scary premise.

Now that the Social Media Hype is Fading - What Comes Next?

2010-12-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

I got an email recently from someone I have worked with talking about a new account that they got on Facebook. Every once in awhile I get these and I read them because don't we all want to make new contacts and ultimately get new accounts from the time we spend in these spaces?

The truth is although I'm in all of the major ones, and I've found partners on LinkedIn for projects, I've never gotten real business from social media. I've gotten in hot water over a handful of blog posts which isn't fun. The problem is we want to be provocative to drive traffic to our social media spaces but then when we are someone gets upset. I suppose that would happen face to face as well - although the audience is certainly much smaller.

As a journalist, you have more leeway. You can take an issue and examine it from all different sides - unless you work for Fox News. But as a marketing/PR person truth is it's better to just repeat the pablum that passes for information which most businesses put up.

The whole point of social media though is to start a conversation that others join in. To me that's the benefit more than anything. People are continually trying to come up with questions that will spark responses on Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, etc. But there doesn't seem to any rhyme or reason to what gets people to respond.

Some of the conversations I've seen that have drawn a huge following include -

Why is business writing so bad?
Who still uses PowerPoint and what's the alternative?
What is the best communications book ever?

Here are a few other ways that organizations are using social media right now:

Social media as a billboard ad - Many organizations use social as a one way billboard to push information out into cyberspace. It appears to be a control thing - if you close down your comment sections or police them people have a tendency not to respond. But you can still look at traffic and where it comes from which has some value.

Social media as a network building tool - I go in and out of this one with Linked In being the one I use most often. Every couple of months I start to contact people I've met and ask them to join my collection of business contacts. Does it do much? I don't know - it's better than nothing. For awhile Linked In was a hot bed of activity - now it seems to be lukewarm.

Social media as a way of showing personality - That's what blogging is supposed to be about but it's pretty risky unless you're already well known in a certain field and watch what you say. I prefer Facebook because I have clients and friends on it - my network is closed and I can say and do more of what I really want too. I wish my Facebook page could be more open - but sometimes we have conversations that shouldn't be open to the world. And that's better I think.

Social media as a way of establishing and maintaining your niche - This is a Twitter issue mostly. I work with a lot of different clients on different projects. While we focus on science and health there are so many other things I find interesting and want to share and do on Twitter. But my messaging is all over the place. Besides Twitter has become total blather although I do try to tweet a few times a week. But who has time to read all of that stuff?

Social media to push a political agenda - People may not agree with me but I think that social has created a new venue for what Hillary Clinton once called a "right wing conspiracy." In health care particularly, any time someone comments on reform there are dozens of responses by people who blame the president and the Democrats for taking away their right to choose. The messaging is just too consistent and I do believe on many of these issues there is an army of people who are paid to respond to hot button issues. Kind of like the tea partiers misspellings and all.

Social media as a way of starting a dialogue - The most innovative spaces - take a look at ScientificBlogging which is a very good example of how to do it right - offer an open forum to everyone and get conversations going. I do blog on this site when I have time and I find people read what's written and do comment frequently. The site is far more provocative than most and is kind of like a think tank for scientists.

So where is this post heading? People are still preaching the importance of social media particularly to non-profits and associations who want to keep members engaged. Corporations seem to use social as another distribution system for the stuff they put out anyway. Lawyers and management consultants can't really be convinced to go on these spaces because they're so public - same with therapists. Probably better they remain discreet.

Independents - I think we're still figuring it out. If anyone has something to add please do.

Workplace Bullies - They're Rampant and We Let Them Get Away With It

2010-11-30T05:41:00.000-08:00

This blog is about marketing and I'm digressing from that topic to discuss something that affects all of us, particularly women who work.

Bullying among school kids is really hot right now - schools are scrambling to come up with rules and states and counties with laws that protect vulnerable students from bullies. The schools at this point really have no choice - some of these kids are committing suicide and having all sorts of other mental and developmental problems.

Yet, there is not a single law in this country that protects workers from bullying. If you can prove it's discrimination you may have a harassment case. Otherwise you're on your own.

What is bullying exactly? The data comes from an article in Forbes. In the U.S., where the practice is being studied, an estimated 37% of workers, or about 54 million people, have been bullied at the office, or repeatedly mistreated in a health-harming way, according to a 2007 Zogby International survey.

The percentage of bullying balloons to 49% of workers, 71.5 million people, when witnesses are included. What do bullies do? The whole point of workplace bullying is to make the employee feel powerless and bad about themselves. It's about power - and wanting more control.

Years ago when I was working at a leading business school there was a management professor who had been practically knighted as a guru on how to lead companies and manage employees. I knew her research assistant and although the professor was brilliant and getting quite famous, she was abusive to those who worked for her.

What does that mean exactly? Her research assistant was 22, smart, a really nice person and very competent. Yet everything she did was wrong, and the professor continually picked at her until her assistant confided in me. My advice to her was pretty simple - if you go to the administration they will listen and then ignore it. The only thing you can really do is get another job.

A couple of years later the New York Times ran a story about that professor. The story line? Management guru is awful manager. I was writing for the NYT then and I remember thinking I really wish I had written that story.

How do you know you're being bullied? The data shows its mostly men who bully women. Their affect on you is insidious. Bullies usually single out one person who they know is vulnerable. They are often well liked by others. But the person they've chosen to go after doesn't see that side of them. They see someone who makes them feel worthless, and even more, powerless to change their behavior.

What are signs of bullying:

Unwarranted or invalid criticism. You know that you are a competent, hardworking professional. The bully knows it too. But if they can take you down it builds them up. Watch out for this.

Blame without factual justification. "But I didn't do anything," is the rallying cry often of those who are bullied. It doesn't matter. The bully needs someone to blame and he or she has chosen you. Likely the bully did something that screwed up a job but it doesn't matter because bullies can never be wrong. It's your fault, never theirs.

Being treated differently than the rest of your work group. - You hear that others were invited to a cocktail party or a get together that you weren't invited too. Or people line-up outside your door to go to lunch and you can see them but are not invited. That's bullying and it makes you feel horrible.

Being sworn at. Someone who never curses in the workplace is suddenly cursing at you. Or who never loses her temper, lets loose on you. You go to a meeting with her and she's great with the clients - charming, smiling, thoughtful. Then you get out of the meeting and she starts cursing at you - out of earshot of course.

Being shouted at or being humiliated. - Bullies are yellers. The veins stick out in their neck. They attack you personally. They try to scream you down. Know that no matter how much you fight back you cannot win because the bully is wrong and they'll never acknowledge it.

Excessive monitoring. - Your boss asks you to do something. You've done it. Then he asks you 15 minutes later if you've done it. You don't answer right away. He does it himself making you look stupid in the process. You hand in something that you know is really good but she tells you it's garbage. I once had an editor who did that with a story I'd spent weeks writing - she said it was unpublishable. A co-worker read it and said it should have been a cover story.

What kinds of problems can bullying cause? Bullying can mess with your health both mentally and physically. If you were bullied as a child or by a spouse or school mate it can bring up all sorts of repressed issues that bring you back to that time. Here are some examples of what bullying can cause:

High stress; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Financial problems due to absence

Reduced self-esteem

Musculoskeletal problems

Phobias.

Sleep disturbances.

Increased depression/self-blame.

Digestive problems.

So if you are bullied, and need the job, what can you do? You can confront the bully but make sure you do it in front of a witness. You can get a new job. You can go get some counseling. You can report it to a superior if there is one.

But know this as you try to deal with the bully. They've done it before and they'll do it again. The school yard bully 20 or 30 years ago is that man or woman who is screaming at you today. A bully will never change. You're what matters. And as a co-worker once said to me, even if you and your family have to live on macaroni and cheese for the next year you're better off walking away than letting the bullying continue.

Whatever Happened to Truth in Journalism?

2010-11-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was watching Bill Maher last night and he was interviewing Bill O'Reilly. Interesting combination of personalities.

At one point Bill Maher asked O'Reilly about the $200 million that Fox News was reporting President Obama is spending everyday of his trip to India and whether he knew that was true and if knew it wasn't true then why were they reporting it?

Bill O'Reilly - We're not reporting that.

Bill Maher - Sean Hannity did.

Bill O'Reilly - Well he's not news, he's entertainment.

Bill Maher - Well it's still a lie (Ok this is not exactly how he said it but you get my point)

So I Googled that statement. It has 3,130,000 listings on Google. Many of them were this is untrue and ridiculous and way exaggerated. Many others treated it as fact.

What has happened to journalism? I know that Fox News has created a new manipulation standard and a nation of believers of these television talk show personalities who just spout anger and fear. But why are we putting up with it?

Is it as Maher inferred that the Democrats just don't know how to sink that low, lie that well and fight that dirty? Certainly the mid-terms showed that both sides are capable of it.

How have we let "liberal media" become the equivalent of a racial slur? Why are we all so afraid to stick up for what's right - Is it the economy? Is it the job market? Is it the fear of a backlash?

I was a journalist for a long time and I got raked over the coals if I made even a small mistake in a story. We apologized. We corrected it. I got a lecture.

Once in an article for the New York Times about Russian business students at Harvard, I mentioned a company and mis-identified what it did. I wasn't far off but it was enough that it was wrong. It was the one fact in the story that I thought I knew and didn't bother to check. And I had to write a retraction and an explanation with my name on it that was published a week later in the business section. That would never happen today.

Now major news organizations make stuff up and repeat it over and over again until people believe it's true. And tons of media outlets go right along with them.

My son who is 15 and of course knows everything, says that liberal media does the same thing. And there is truth in that - but it's not the same. They don't outright lie and treat it as fact. Bias is one thing. Lies are another and spreading them is worse.

So here's one voice that is speaking up. Let's bring truth in journalism back - or we're going to create a generation of kids who don't even know what it is.

Can You Believe this Campaign Didn't Win An Award?

2010-10-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

I hated high school. I have judged some of these awards programs and although there is a formula for how to pick winners sometimes it still seems like all that matters is size, trying to impress people who can help you and brand names. Just like high school. This is one of the most successful PR campaigns I've ever done. Enough said.

Healthcarebluebook.com Launch Campaign - 2009

The Market was a Mess

As healthcare costs climb 9-10% a year, and national unemployment edges close to 10%, companies are increasingly shifting their employees into consumer directed health plans which with health savings accounts, according to Mercer, mean more out-of-pocket costs to everyone.

For a generation trained by managed care organizations to pay flat fees for most healthcare services and prescriptions, learning what they have to pay for health insurance and care can be staggering. Most consumers didn’t even realize that physician’s and hospital fees can be obtained in advance, vary dramatically even within the same market for the same service, and are negotiable particularly if they pay cash.

Dr. Jeffrey Rice, an E-health veteran and healthcare data expert, created the web-based product Healthcarebluebook.com, to help educate consumers about fair prices for surgeries, treatments and provider office visits.

I worked with Dr. Rice 10 years ago at the beginning of the E-health boom when he raised awareness about the inaccuracies of healthcare information on the Web and advocated the beginning of research-based sites. He asked me
if Stern Communications would help him market and publicize his new venture.

Since all healthcare contracts are negotiated by insurance companies with individual providers, prices for the same service in the same market can vary by more than 500 percent. The Blue Book provides the average price that PPOs pay their providers by zip code for each service. It includes not just the doctor’s costs, but facilities and most other fees associated with a procedure, helping people avoid sticker shock. So consumers can go to their provider with fair pricing information in hand before they agree to a healthcare service and where it will be performed.

Figuring out a Media Strategy with a Product No One Understood

Jeff had a Beta prototype up of Healthcarebluebook.com on the Web. While competitors required digging for pricing information and a lot of generalized data, the Blue Book was really easy to use. The challenge was that although consumers were savvy about shopping for cars and houses – they knew very little about shopping for healthcare.

A media assessment conducted by calling a dozen major healthcare bloggers at outlets like the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, the New York Times, and Health Day showed that the challenge was even greater. Veteran healthcare reporters were skeptical that any new product – was funded by insurance companies as a way to make more money. And they were not reluctant to tell us that.

Making a Splash with a New Launch

The PR campaign goals were to: Transform the Healthcare Blue Book into the leading brand in the fledgling healthcare pricing market by educating media and consumers and creating a network of advocates through industry partners and PR, and to make Dr. Rice a major resource to the media on healthcare pricing.

We wrote a Communications Plan with messages, target audiences, etc. but it was very flexible and changed a lot as we moved forward.

The www.healthcarebluebook.com web site was designed for maximum search potential. Key words were identified and used throughout the site, page coding was aligned to SEO terms and volume and all traffic was tracked and sourced.

More specialty categories are developed as search terms for commonly searched ailments and tests, a higher volume of traffic was driven to the site. Every media hit was analyzed for how much traffic it drove to the Blue Book – and we made a point of going back to places that drew large audiences.

The launch focused on Web versions of traditional name brand media as our top twenty targets and then PR Newswire as a primary distribution source. Our plan was to use monthly news releases to get the Blue Book’s name out there explaining that price is negotiable and build a solid search engine presence.

We did put up a Facebook page, a Wiki, and I tweet campaign milestones, but as the healthcare industry is closely regulated it was not a priority. We also added a modest media home to the web site but focused more on resources for patients, teaching them how to use the Blue Book and shop for fairly priced care.

Initial coverage of the Blue Book was extensive but pretty negative by seasoned healthcare reporters – most media came right out and said it wouldn’t work. Many of the bigger outlets we wanted to write about the new company passed. Although this was somewhat expected, it was a real stumbling block. The bright spot was radio coverage which was primarily based on how to save money.

We sat in on the early calls with Dr. Rice and gave advice on how to tell his story better. He has done quite a bit of media before and is very good at it – our focus was mostly to point out areas where he wasn’t as succinct as possible and could strengthen his messages.

So we switched to a regional strategy and collected data on healthcare prices on specific services or tests like MRIs on a market by market basis. So for instance, we researched MRIs in Chicago, pediatrician office visits in Manhattan and physical therapy fees in Boise. With data showing that what people were charged varied by hundreds or thousands of dollars, we were able to go back to reporters and get them to write about us.

Some took our data as it was – others did their own research. The campaign started to build momentum and we started to get coverage in markets like Chicago, Miami, Houston, etc. We also got coverage from some local television stations – but it was harder because they wanted real people to talk about their experiences. That became a year two goal.

Using Google and Lots of Free Tools to Track Everything

As a supplement, we monitored through Google Alerts coverage of CDHPs, healthcare pricing, and a dozen other search terms related to the business the Blue Book is in. Every time a story appeared on one of these topics we left a comment relating to the story but talking about the Blue Book and the benefits it offered. Slowly but surely we began to get the attention of leading bloggers and writers in the healthcare and consumer finance industry.

Then the health reform debate started and we shifted strategies again. To take advantage of the coverage, we started pushing stories on how to negotiate prices with doctors and hospitals offering advice for how to do it to personal finance reporters who began writing about how to save money on health costs.

We received feature coverage in the online editions and some print editions of the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, New York Times, CNN Money, SmartMoney, Forbes, NPR, Mother Jones and many other outlets.

Analytics were closely tracked and we were able to evaluate which media hits sent the most traffic to the Blue Book site and develop an understanding of media reach in this changing time. There were over 1,000 articles mentioning the Blue Book and about two dozen features in major online media.

How to and pricing data-based news releases were written for SEO and garnered hundreds of thousands of web placements. Blue Book web traffic climbed from a handful of users to upwards of 30,000 per month and grew dramatically in year two. It consistently places at the top of major search engine rankings.

Consumer education is still in its early phases but the Blue Book is clearly the most respected and best known healthcare consumer pricing guide on the market today. Dr. Rice gets an average of 3-5 media calls a month, generated by the 2009 campaign, and the Blue Book was recently featured on CBS’ Morning Show, the Today Show and ABC News online.

I spent three days and a couple hundred dollars creating a notebook that was really thick, a cover, etc - killing trees - because there wasn't even an electronic submission process.

I guess that's what blogs are for.

The RFP Process is Not a Test Kitchen

2010-08-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is a rant so if you don’t want to read it then leave this blog. This is a post for every organization out there that outsources public relations or other services and conducts an RFP process. When you ask an individual consultant with a small or virtual firm to submit a proposal for your company, and put them through a proposal process, it’s not some mid-level executive’s expense account that you are using.

It is funds that go into feeding their children and paying their mortgages. If you give them the idea that they really have a chance at your business, then they will drop everything and go after it. That’s not a small thing for a small firm. At a larger firm, they take a proposal template, throw a 23 year-old on Google and say enough that they sound smart about your industry.

Or maybe they know your industry. That doesn’t mean you are going to get the best thinking they have. The creative people who would do the work were promoted to a level where they started spending all their time pitching new business, years ago.

So my message to all of you is don’t use my company as a sounding board so you can go out and hire within your comfort zone. If your CEO wants a brand name agency, then ask brand name agencies to pitch. If you want a firm that knows your market and works in it right now, then ask those firms to pitch. If your marketing director isn’t a risk taker, or wants someone with the exact experience you need, because they have worked for one of your competitors, then ask those firms to pitch.

Don’t ask me to be part of the RFP process if you don't know what you want. I'm not a test kitchen. My time is money and it also belongs to my family.

I’ve heard a lot of independents complain lately about how they’ve put enormous time and effort into proposals because they were given the impression they are a serious contender for the business. And then the organization that issues the RFP hires someone the chairman’s wife recommended or they just take your ideas and give them to someone they hire to do the work. That’s just plain wrong.

Again, if you’re an agency with overhead and staff, you can write that time and funding off. Independents can’t. We pay our bills – no one else does.

Independents also don’t use formulas. We figure out what you need to do and offer you salient advice on it. There are some that won’t do anything without a legal document, but the rest of us don’t have that luxury. We treat your RFP like it’s the first week we’re working for you. That’s how we get business. And it’s also how we get screwed.

Every minute that I spend writing a proposal and researching your organization takes time that I could spend raising my children and finding funds to pay for them. It’s hard enough to find time to spend with my kids and run a business. I’m a single parent. My life is packed with other peoples’ needs.

My children’s father writes an embarassingly small check every month and takes them on vacation for a week or two in the summer. The rest of the time, I raise them. If you ask me to write a proposal and I have to miss the class play to do it, and I really need the money, I will probably miss the class play. Don’t put me in that position.

I don’t know, maybe I’m different than most consultants. I saw a proposal recently from a firm we compete with often in one business segment, and their winning proposal was a formula that they had taken off someone else’s web site and didn’t even bother to change the name of. I Googled their “proprietary model” and found it in less than five seconds with someone else’s name on it. Yet, they beat us. Why?

Well it wasn’t on merit. Our proposal was far stronger, contained original thought, and didn’t promise things we could not deliver. I assume because the other firm had close ties to the organization that put out the RFP, they were a shoe-in to begin with.

Then just give your buddies the business or don’t ask me to pitch it in the first place. If you need to stay within your comfort zone figure that out before, not after or during the RFP process.

I'm not talking about the people who really genuinely consider you and decide to choose someone else. That's the way business works and it happens all the time. Chemistry matters. Budget matters. What your CEO wants matters. And you have to do what's best for you too.

I understand that in recessionary times, if you hire a brand name agency and they do a lousy job, you can always say but we hired So and So, the brand name agency. And it won’t cost you your job. We know that you have a family to feed too.

I take comfort in one thing I really do believe in. Good people raise good kids. Bad people raise bad kids. I see this all the time - the neurotic parent ends ups with neurotic children. The parent who is not paying attention ends up with kids who do things their parents don't want them to do just to get their attention. The parents who do their kids' homework for them end up with kids who don't learn anything. It all comes back to haunt you eventually.

I am a good parent and a good person. At the very least my kids, even if I blow half of our vacation on a proposal for a project I never stood a chance at, will not grow up to be awful. That makes me feel better. But not right after I find out that you just wasted a week of my time.

So just to make sure I’m completely clear here. Marketing people – if you’re not going to seriously consider my firm for a job, don’t ask us to compete for it. Ask the people you really will end up hiring. You may not sleep better at night. But I know I will.

The Death of Traditional Journalism - Not Yet

2010-08-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

There's a new resource on what journalists think of the media's future a ""Digital Journalism Study 2010" from the Oriella PR Network. Some really good information is available in the study which is free and can be downloaded at www.orielladigitaljournalism.com.

About 350 journalists across Europe and another 300 plus in the US and Brazil participated. The study is annual so what I'm highlighting shows changes from 2009 to 2010.

Print media will continue to shrink - 44% agreed in 2009, 59% agreed in 2010

Editorial quality will continue to erode because of lack of resources - 43% agreed in 2009, 54% agreed in 2010

Dependence on PR for news will continue due to cuts in staff, etc - 34% in 2009 agreed, 41% agreed in 2010

Blogs will continue to lead the new media landscape - 40% agreed in 2009 and 46% agreed in 2010

Percentage of companies using Twitter feeds - 35% in 2009, 43% in 2010

People will return to reliable media brands because of "opinion-driven" journalism (they basically mean media for sale and/or Fox News) - 29% agreed in 2009, 42% agreed in 2010.

New Twitter Features that Can Stem Overload

2010-08-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Marketing Profs which always has interesting info came up with something today that I thought would be useful to all. It explains how to spend less time on Twitter and get more value from it.

Tweet Adder. This desktop application, used with care, can be great for marketers who need to grow followers fast, and who repeatedly promote deals or services:

Here's stuff you can do under this application -

Auto-load tweets promoting deals/services/blog posts, and set your publication times. Example: Schedule tweets for publication every 90-120 minutes. Limit the amount of auto-tweets sent in a day.

Run searches for keywords of interest, say "basketball" or "birthday gifts." Tweet Adder provides a list of matching profiles you can follow or save for review. You can find, then research, potential clients/heavy tweeters who could become evangelists for you.

Use conversion (follower:followee) tracking. People look at your follower:followee ratio. Don't get obsessed, but avoid following hundreds more users than those following you. Better to let your followers develop organically - at least I think so. If what you say is useful they will find you.

Access and save current/historical trends. Track what's hot on Twitter and compare it with times past to find patterns in user sentiment.

For more: www.marketingprofs.com

A Lesson from the Marketing Scams

2010-08-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

I really can't help it - I am absolutely fascinated by these letters I get from third world countries and people in dire need of getting my banking information in order to give me millions of dollars.

What I don't get is how on earth people fall for them? But they must because otherwise why bother doing it.

So I had to share this one because it's better and the reason why is immediacy. Not only does this person have all of this money that they want to transfer to my bank account but the person writing to me from Spain is dying so he must give me the money NOW.

One of the biggest mistakes people who don't really understand marketing make is they don't come up with a reason why you have to immediately respond to their offer. A good marketer comes up with reasons not just why you need what they are selling but why you need it immediately.

Good PR people do the same thing. I can tell a journalist or producer about a product I'm pitching but if it doesn't have a news peg or some immediacy you go into a file and never come out - if you get that far. The "WHY NOW" is the second half of your sales pitch.

This happened with an event ad I saw recently - the ad was focused on the event but not on why you should go to it. This happens sometimes when we're so involved with our brand we think everyone feels the same way about it we do. But of course they don't, it's your job to make them.

The writer of this scam email which is below has done a few things others don't do - he's linked the money to a real plane crash which I looked up and he even got the date right. What he got wrong is that David Learmount was a writer who covered the crash, not on the plane and so leaving me his fortune. Yes I can Google too.

So for what it's worth here's the latest of these emails I've gotten.

Dear X -

I am writing to introduce you to a prospective mutual venture regarding an unclaimed deceased client`s portfolio that i have been in charge of for over 18years. My client; Late Mr. David Learmount died on 14th of August 2005 on the ill-fated Cypriot Helios Airways Flight 522, that crashed over Greece. I have since searched for any of his known relatives to fill-in as his next of kin to claim inheritance, but all to no avail to this date as he did not name any in his file until his sudden death.

The said portfolio will be liquidated and returned as unclaimed if I don't name someone to inherit it before the end of this month(August 2010), hence why I have contacted you. I got to you through my massive web search for his relatives, now i need you to stand as someone who shall work with me to be named as the next of kin. I had earlier contracted this search/case to a junior colleague in the UK since i was diagnosed of esophageal cancer early this year.
My condition is no longer stable at my present age of 70years, to the point that i can hardly speak well now and i want this matter wrapped up before the deadline at the end of next month or anything happens to me.

Please send your response urgently with your Names Address, Telephone etc) for more information on the value of the said portfolio, procedure, etc via this email:[ de.faustinoelias@yahoo.com ]

Note that time is of the essence and i implore your strong assurance and strict confidentiality on these matters.

Remain yours

De Faustino Ramon Elias (Esq.)
Madrid, Spain.

Why is Business Writing so Awful?

2010-07-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

This was a question posed on the International Association of Business Communicators web site recently and about three dozen people responded.

Here is some of the rationale people gave:

They don't teach people how to write in college - and then they get out into the business world and there's no one to train them.

Executives are uncomfortable letting others write for them and so take all the punch out of what they say.

Writing for SEO means you don't write at the highest level you can - instead it's to fuel the search engines.

Layers of review water down text - and if lawyers are involved it only gets worse.

" I've come across many people who can write well technically and stun with their dextrous manipulation of multiple clause sentences.. . but they are not compelling."

"The biggest problem is that most people think of this as business writing instead of communicating. . . The goal needs to be: communicate in ways that drive the results you wish to achieve.

So what does the expert marketer think? The bar is just way, way too low. I hired a writer once who had a masters degree from a very prestigious "business writing" program and she had no idea how to organize information or determine what was important and what was fluff. She was a good technical editor - but she wasn't a good writer.

I was talking to a former colleague once about the writing that came out of our company and how bad some of it was.

And he said "I now understand that the bar is so low the stuff we produce - even when it's not really good - is better most of the other stuff out of there."

His point was if our clients didn't know what good writing was and didn't respect and admire it - then when they got something that was just OK, but comprehensible and said what they wanted - they were happy. I agree with that.

I also think that most kids are not taught to write in school unless they are in a communications or arts magnet program in middle and high school. I remember the stuff my ex-husband used to get when he was a teaching assistant at MIT.

Some of the papers didn't even make sense. He failed one girl on a paper and she came to him absolutely hysterical. She'd never gotten anything less than an A or B before on an assignment. She was a science and engineering whiz but no paid attention to her writing. When he did - and she calmed down - he was able to help her get better.

So if we as business professionals do not take the time to teach those who work for us - and over the years I have spent a lot of time trying and gotten very little management support for it in the PR world - we bear a lot of the responsibility too.

Redoing Stern Communications Web Site - Design and Definition

2010-07-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

If your web site doesn't reflect social media, video, the endless power of the Google search engine, new coding formats, I will not hire you as a partner.

I'm looking for a partner in government relations for what could be a very large project and people are sending me recommendations so I go to their sites - they are just like mine but even flatter. I will not work with them.

I've been wanting to my redo my site for awhile and now we're starting. Awhile ago, I realized that all of the things I was telling clients to do - start blogs, use social media, RSS feeds, and especially coding with key words - were not done on my site.

A colleague put up a band-aid on the gaping out-of-dateness of it, with an RSS feed from one of my blogs and some buttons to social media sites. He had absolutely no sense of design and it looked unbalanced and weird. But he didn't charge me and I can't complain.

My web site is three years-old. It was created before I understood social media and what it can do for you, when you couldn't upload your web site into really flexible formats (or at least no one told me that) and by a woman who though very nice, was pretty limited in her web skills.

Bottom line PR people - while it still may be possible to live within the worlds of the future and the past - your time is ending. Get with the program.

This time around I'm doing better with the web development process. I found a designer through one of the only designers I know in this town who is really good, and the woman she sent me is better. The exact endorsement was "I found this fabulous new designer. . ." and she is absolutely that. I'm not going to give you her contact information until she finishes my site though. The other advantage is Alissa is very client savvy and easy to work with.

Not only did the new designer come with talent - she came with a web developer who is affordable, will answer any questions on just about anything and is as smart and as affable as you get. I feel like I've died and gone to web heaven.

Oh and I forgot the best part. I got a bid to develop a web site from a company recently and it was $15-20,000. This is a designer and web developer who has already done the look and feel and put it into a book and e-book. Plus all their web sites look exactly the same. I'm not saying that overall they didn't do an excellent job - they did. But design wise my redo is creative, smart and going to be 15-20% of that.

To be fair I'm keeping my logo, but it looks so updated in the new format it's unbelievable. So it's really new copy, new categories, new architecture, it's a whole new web site.

So here's what I've learned so far, other than prices for these kind of services, and quality, are all over the place.

Know your business model. When I started this company it was after eight years of fuzzy thinking about how to brand an organization. A group of us tried to define and brand and specialize the DC PR company I was with for several years but all we got was rolled eyes from one founder, and a full listen too by the other who then didn't do anything. Their web site makes mine look like it was developed yesterday morning.

So I started my business and based it fuzzily on the practice I'd developed at the previous client. Like my old company, I was reluctant to specialize because I felt it would cost me business. But of course if you don't specialize, and you can't quickly define what you do best, no one else figures it out either. So now I know - Sharing science, health, engineering and education with everyone. We take our clients' complex stories and transform them into compelling easily understood ones for the media and general public. It's that simple.

Give yourself a break. I could think of a million reasons why I shouldn't pay out a couple grand to redo my site right now, but I can only think of one why I should. If I went to my site and looked at it, I wouldn't hire me. That's about as strong a reason as it gets.

Sound bites are the future You have to tell your company's story right away - and you have to get my attention or I'm off your site. Compelling isn't saying you are great at what you do - although I am. It's conveying experience and confidence then demonstrating through examples how you've helped others. Pretty simple.

More next time on architecture. Oh and as I was writing this I figured out how to connect my intro page with all of the others. So it's not just a rant - it's a productive one. Yeah.

TV Media Training 101 - What Really Makes You Better

2010-07-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=12776360

I don't do television very often, but I was on NBC Richmond recently for Healthcarebluebook.com, and it was a cake walk. The producer came to my house, did the interview, filmed it, edited it and handed it over to someone else to integrate into her broadcast.

If this is a model for the future - editorial house calls are more than welcome.

As a matter of fact, all of those high-priced media trainers out there should do a live interview on television and use that as part of their presentation to new clients. That would be a great way to find those who really know what they are doing.

Anyway the person I worked with said I was very good on television. Since I've trained people how to do television, I do know what I'm doing. But I've read so many banal tips about preparing for a broadcast interview, I thought it might be useful to add a few tips of my own.

Don't Be Nervous - If you can talk to your boss, or someone several levels above you with an attitude, television is much easier. First of all most interviews these days are friendly and informative, not hostile and inflammatory unless you work for a company like BP. Most of today's news is about getting information out there that can help people do what products used to do - get things done faster, smarter, more effectively, and save money in the process. Take a deep breath, do some sort of relaxation exercise - you pick - and just have a conversation.

Not being nervous, will also get rid of the Ummmms - remember Caroline Kennedy they counted hers. I can't remember how many there were but it made her look completely unready for the role in which they'd placed her. This may have been totally false, but if it's on TV or the Internet people believe it.

Know Your Talking Points But Don't Spout Them - Talking points are just that - they are ideas to talk about not a line you recite every time you get on television or a list of stuff you must get in no matter what the questions are. Listen first. Figure out the context in which the question was asked and what your interviewer wants to hear. Breathe. Anecdotes are always better than one liners. If you want to hear over talking pointed people, watch Jon Stewart. Most executives that go on that show have a list they've memorized, and aside from an occasional burst of laughter when Stewart says something outrageous, they often come across as scripted. The same is true for Steven Colbert and the morning shows.

Watch the Show - You don't always have to but you should. See how the interviewer interacts with people, and the kinds of information that makes it to into the actual program whether its live or pre-recorded. What do they really want to get across? Then make sure you do it in an engaging way.

Connect, connect, connect - If you don't like the interviewer, the camera will slap you down. Television shows leering, snottiness, anger, drug use (no names but you know you've seen it) you name it - your facial expressions tell a story too. I'm not telling you to be super bland but be conscious of what your face, hands, and mouth are doing. This isn't just talking it's also major body language.

Look where they tell you to look - Whoever is interviewing you does this all the time and knows what to do to make you look your best. Follow the instructions. Look at the camera exactly where they tell you too - or the wall or whatever else the instructions are. Whether you are pre-recorded or live, you'll appear confident and focused. When you have a central focal point, you fidget less. That's a good thing.

Say Thank You - It may not make it on the air, but it always pays to say thank you to the interviewer while film is still rolling. Depending on what kind of show it is - the morning shows in particular - it's a requirement. When people don't say thank you or they delay the thank you they look foolish and kind of rude. It's part of that connection thing.

So You Think Scientists and Engineers Can't Dance?

2010-06-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Marketing complex products and services to the general public is a huge challenge. Our firm specializes in it, and we struggle with trying to figure out how to connect science, health, education and engineering research and findings with the general public.

In many of these disciplines PR people take what they are given – edit it - and put it back out there in the same language it was handed to them in. That doesn’t help anyone else understand it.

So I thought this marketing story would be useful to everyone. It’s about a contest started by John Bohannon, the Gonzo Scientist http:gonzolabs.org working with AAAS. The point is to challenge graduate students and their professors to dance their PhDs.

PhDs can be endless documents that take exhaustive research, hours to explain and drive both the writer and his or her spouse (I lived through one fortunately, not mine) crazy. Marriages are destroyed over PhDs, friendships ruined, relationships with advisors can be either helpful or hostile. Earning a PhD is a long and painful process that few come out of unscathed.

PhDs start with a germ of an idea – in my ex-husband’s case the role of NGOs in international political negotiations – and watch it blossom around them. He wrote his thesis (Yes there are other kinds of sciences at MIT) at the beginning of the Internet, when the NGOs like Greenpeace, Save the Whales, and the World Wildlife Fund – were just figuring out how to use this new form of mass communication.

It took 900 pages and ten years to complete (including time out for getting a career and family started). The degree was worth it and the dissertation was thrown into a box in the attic where it remains today. A classmate destroyed his at a Burn Your PhD party. At 900 pages we weren’t burning anything.

I’m describing this process so you can understand just how hard it is for graduate students to transform their research into something that everyone can understand. In its third year, the Dance Your PhD contest lets graduate students and their professors create short videos that are representative of their PhD theses, acting and dancing them out for all to see. The winners get put up on YouTube, feted at the AAAS annual meeting and see their dance performed by a professional company.

As a marketer I love this idea – and so did the media. The first year, Dance Your PhD was on the network news, featured in the New York Times, on NPR and although it hasn’t happened yet – with a bit more pushing will probably end up viral. Call it what you want – Revenge of the Geeks, Geeks Gone Wild – it’s just plain smart marketing.

This type of effort to connect science with the rest of us in an art form we all can all appreciate is what informal science education is all about. From the thesis titles alone you could fall asleep – but the performances are inspirational. Here are few that really capture the spirit of the competition. You can find them on YouTube but the linking mess that is Blogger has stymied me once again. Just type in Dance Your PhD and the name of the submitter.

"Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, cooking, sharing and disposal at the Dunefield Midden campsite, South Africa" (University of Oxford). A caveman like figure chases a deer across the stage in an interpretation of hunting and gathering. It’s set to the music of Herbie Hancock and created by Brian Stewart.

The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function from graduate student, Sue Lynn Lau. An interpretive dance that takes you from Vitamin D production by the sun all the way through how it helps our bodies.

"The role of folate in epigenetic regulation of colon carcinogenesis.” PhD thesis of Lara Park at Tufts University, this one is performed by the Sarabande Repertory Dance Ensemble dance troupe and reminiscent of modern dance gone a bit wild.

All of the blogger links aren't working so if you want to enter go to Facebook - you can do it all through its Dance Your PhD page.

Not in My Backyard Will Become Not in My Ocean

2010-06-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

Will the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and images of oil slicked pelicans and blackened sea life, that our children are sharing on YouTube and Facebook, create a new generation of fanatically environmentalist kids? That’s what I’m betting on.

I’m dating myself, but I still remember the black and white concentration camp films we watched in New York City public elementary schools in the 1960s. We were very young, but the message was clear. They imprinted the raw footage taken by soldiers of gaunt, hollow-eyed concentration camp survivors on an entire generation of American children, so they would never let it happen again.

Many parents in my generation are very conservative - about what they allow their kids to watch and the trust they place in them. Some won’t let them watch PG-13 movies, set rigid controls on their computers restricting them to pre-approved Web sites, lock up the liquor and drug cabinets, and review what’s permitted and what’s not before every play date.

I don’t agree. Maintaining the innocence of childhood is wonderful, but turning off major events as they unfold in the world around us - childproofing our children rather than teaching - is doing our kids a disservice. They need to know and understand this environmental disaster, and make their own choices because if they don’t, their friends will do it for them.

Not only is my 10 year-old daughter furious at BP and the images they are glued to on the endless stream of YouTube, she’s questioning how something like this could happen. The only good that can come of it – and I keep telling her this over and over – is that it will never be allowed happen again and she will be a part of that. Do I believe what I’m telling her? Not really, but what else can you say.

A quick Google search found little written about the lasting effect of disasters on children although I know there's a lot out there. As a marketer and a mother I know the power of even the most positive of images and the messages that accompany them.

When my kids were smaller, they would watch ads on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon and a persistent drumbeat would start of asking for whatever had caught their attention. Children are relentless when they want something. And that was just toys.

Fast forward and picture today’s elementary school children a decade from now, standing on the west coast of Florida and asking "Mommy where are all the seagulls?" We could lose the gulf of Mexico just as the Europeans lost parts of the Rhine 30 years ago because of chemical dumping. They cleaned up most of it but it took a very long time. Children are very intuitive and even now they are starting to understand how bad a mess their parents have made, and left for them to clean-up.

I believe the backlash against Big Oil will rival the “Not in My Backyard” movement against nuclear power plants that started after Three Mile Island and was cemented into our global consciousness with Chernobyl. No nuclear plant has been built on American soil in more than 30 years, and despite the best efforts of the industry, lukewarm presidential support and the industry's PR people, it’s still a giant maybe.

If 1970s apathetic teens could fight the battle against nuclear – our kids should be able to shut down deep sea drilling.

Optimism is a rare commodity these days , but a new generation of environmentalists might just be our best hope yet.

What Were BP's PR Executives Thinking?

2010-06-05T06:14:00.000-07:00

I was out having a couple of drinks with a friend last night who runs marketing for a consulting firm. He's a bright guy and of course we started talking about BP and the Gulf and what the company and CEO Tony Hayward should and shouldn't be doing from a PR standpoint. A few of the steps it's taken:

Several weeks of silence during which you could hear the lawyers time clocks going Cha -Ching while they desperately tried to figure out what to do and what to say.
Hired a Bush loyalist who worked at DOE as the energy corporations were creating their own regulations or lack thereof. THer next boss was Dick Cheney which I won't even bother to comment on. Suffice it to say that the environment has never been a priority.
A $50 million ad campaign that has BP's chairman doing too little to late. As the company has finally said it's no longer trying to plug the leak, he's out saying they're sorry and they're working on it.

Every PR expert who doesn't have BP or energy work is going to weigh in on this with some version of a crisis communications plan that fell short of what it should. That's pretty obvious.

What's not obvious and I think unexpected is the rage that ordinary Americans feel against this company and the energy industry. And the incredible similarities that President Obama has finally taken notice of between what happened in the Gulf of Mexico and what happened in the nuclear industry after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Drill baby drill has become Kill baby kill. Not in my backyard is going to become not in my ocean - no way.

It's not just the images of the oil slicked beaches and dying wildlife and people of New Orleans and other places, lamenting the loss of their way of life. It's the mood of country. Notice how the tea baggers have been very silent since this happened. Keeping their mouths shut is all they've got. Or they'll get dragged into the oil slicked mud right behind BP.

So what should BP have done?

Don't Lie. Lying about the extent of the spill was just plain stupid. It would have been much smarter to say we don't know how bad it is, we're still trying to figure it out. Far better than saying the spill was smaller than BP knew it was. That means rich corporation caught lying to American people - not unusual perhaps, but in this situation a way to build really bad will.

Don't Spend Money that Should Be Used to Help People on Advertising. This is just idiocy. The CEO of BP blew it already, to put him on paid advertisements just makes it worse. Better he should get himself down to the affected areas - with body guards if he needs them - and talk to the people who live there.

Let the news cover it. Donate money to the fisherman whose world has just been destroyed - create a Foundation to help their families during this time. Demonstrate you care by doing something that matters not making yourself less of a villian. Don't underestimate the intelligence of the American people - even though that's a very popular thing to do these days. Eventually they will get it.

Educate the Public About What Really Happened. BP is going to get stuck paying for the vast majority of this mess anyway. So go out and explain to the best of your knowledge what really happened otherwise it's just rumor which makes it look worse. Many companies were involved - the system failed in multiple points. Mea culpa. We didn't have a contingency plan. This may be the biggest oil spill in the history of this country and it's going to take a long time to fix it. But in the meantime, we have thousands of scientists studying what happened and making sure it will never, ever happen again. Here's what we're learning as we go.

Get Environmentalists To Help You Figure it Out - Why is BP going out and hiring all of the people who worked for the Bush administration and are in part responsible for creating a world where energy companies could operate without any rules? Bring the environmentalists to the table. Get Al Gore to the table. Get the World Wildlife Federation to the table. Just the very act of asking for help of the people who have been predicting this makes it look like BP is doing something.

Most important, BP's advisors should be people who have demonstrated that they care about the environment we live in. Not those who sold it to the oil companies.

Hey Lady Your Web Site's a Dinosaur

2010-05-26T15:19:00.001-07:00

(In case you are wondering - I'm the dinosaur playing dead).

I am in love with a man named Jason Rosenberg. Not the kind of love that they write novels about but the love you feel when someone who is really smart and good at what he does helps you figure out what you need to do in business.

In this case, it's how to make my web site look like it's a 2010 instead of a 2008 creation. The online world has gone from the equivalent of the stone age to the iron age in 2.5 years. And my web site, which was designed then, is a pathetic example of what others should be doing.

Translation: If you do what I do and tell others how to market and communicate and your web site doesn't reflect all of your knowledge - why should they hire you?

To be clear, I know my site is way behind the times. A colleague put up an RSS feed to one of my blogs and links to Twitter and LinkedIn for me. He's not a designer and it doesn't look very good. But at least now it says I'm active in the social media world. SEO - Well that's another story.

Jason, who has a company called Neurofury, and helps people figure out what they need to do, offered me an hour's worth of advice from the goodness of his heart. That's why it is love. Between Jason and the designer who works with him, I am spending 1/6 of what a web site developer I work with told me she would charge to design and put up a site. And it's definitely not a case of you get what you pay for. The sites the developer designs may be SEO friendly, but they all look exactly the same.

Here's some of what Jason told me to do:

Use Word Press - It's a free web-based software that will support my site, blogs, Twitter Feed, etc. Even the Web Site for Dummies people can figure out how to use it. Which is the speed at which my brain works when it comes to technology.

SEO - I cannot compete with the big guys. Had already figured out that Google Ad Words is meaningless with the site I have now - my traffic doubled but off of a very small base. He is going to help with organic searching, which means that people who search and are looking for firms like mine, will have better chance of finding us. That's fine for now.

Copyright Old - When you go to my site it says Copyright 2008. Why don't I just up a banner headline that says she has not fixed this site in a long time? Instead, we'll just take it down for now.

Dynamic Site Map - Every site that wants to be found should have a map. Not that hard to do either.

Put up Your Press Releases - Many of them have big company names in them that will search well. It's great to have new content frequently. And I can use their brands to get more traffic to my site.

One Way Links are Fine - Everyone tells you the best links are when other sites link to yours. But you linking to other sites is good too. And that I can do easily.

Thank you Jason. There's more and we're getting started next month. Stay tuned for the new site announcement and what I learned redoing it.

Guess What Tiger Woods - Poll Says Scandal Won't Hurt Your Brand

2010-05-20T06:33:00.000-07:00

That old saying - no news is good news - well evidently scandal is not bad news these days. Even if your damage control is lousy.

Conventional wisdom in the PR business is that scandal must be managed - messages must be created - issues must be mitigated - trouble must be buried.

But an Adweek Media/Harris Poll found out differently. Even though Tiger Woods was a very bad husband - turns out a majority of people could care less.

Perhaps we're just so saturated with celebrity scandals - unless it's something as bad as the head of the Family Research Council taking a Rent-a-Boy to Europe to carry his luggage - oh the late night comedians love this - that most of the time it doesn't affect our impressions of a celebrity.

Here's some interesting tidbits from the survey:

75% of Americans say when a celebrity endorser gets involved in a scandal, how they feel about the brands that the celebrity endorses is not affected.

20% of Americans say they feel worse about the endorsed brands.

5% say they feel better about them.

Who are these people who don't live off of TMZ and Entertainment Tonight?

81% of Americans age 55+ say a scandal has no impact on how they feel about the brand

77% of those age 35-44 said scandals don't change their opinion.

28% of those age 45-54 say they feel worse about the brand.

11% of consumers age 18-34 say they feel better about the brand after a celebrity gets involved in a scandal. (This I just don't get but maybe it's the reality TV phenomenon).

Consumers in the Midwest are most likely to have a negative attitude toward brands after a celebrity scandal.

26% of Midwesterners say they would feel worse about a brand after a scandal.

19% of Easterners say they'd feel worse.

Aimee's First Visit to the White House - Obama Wants Local Companies and Schools to Learn from Each Other

2010-05-12T08:25:00.001-07:00

“Fighting a forest fire with 1000 eye droppers.” That’s how David Washington, acting CEO of Change the Equation, a non-profit, described the current effort to improve STEM (science, technology, education and mathematics) education in the United States.

There are hundreds of local and grassroots programs around the country addressing the nation’s need for improving STEM education, by companies and universities and non-profits through federal grants.

But no one knows who they are, or much about each other and as a result, there are no role models. No one wants to reinvent the wheel and without the wheel there are a lot of companies with money to spend and no one to help them. That’s a quandary my company would like to have.

This discussion was part of a larger meeting at the White House yesterday about President Obama’s science education initiative called Educate to Innovate. The Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) talked briefly about the work the president is doing which includes:

Creating a National Discussion about the need for improvement in STEM education by referencing it in his speeches and conversations with industry and other stakeholders.

Making the White House a Science Education Role Model – President Obama held an astronomy night at the White House recently, Michelle Obama attended the finals of DOE’s National Science Bowl this month, science is now part of the annual Easter Egg hunt, and the White House is planning its first ever Science Fair.

Convincing Business and Industry to Get More Involved in educating the next generation of scientists and engineers, both at the grassroots and the state levels.

Providing Support to States so they can Improve Science and Engineering Education through an array of grants and special programs.

Identifying Corporate STEM Education Role Models and sharing what they do right with other organizations who want to help.

A couple of hundred businesses, non-profits, teachers and other STEM stakeholders were invited, including myself as a representative of the USA Science & Engineering Festival.

So all the pieces are in place. Science is Cool again. Our president says so. But how do we translate that into business/education partnerships that change kids’ lives. That raise the next generation of scientists and engineers? As a marketer I can tell you – start here:

Science has a Marketing Problem.

Approximately 30 million children a month watch PBS and other media and they need to be exposed to more science. Many of them don’t think “Science is Cool” and we need to find ways to convince them that it is. We need more science programming. We also need people who kids turn to as role models to tell them that science is cool.

Science needs a Campaign Selling Science

Some companies have already begun to push science with their employees. For instance, Bentley Systems, an international software development company launched a program 18 months ago where it gave every employee $250.00 a year to spend on science education with their local schools. So far about $60,000 has been spent by employees around the world.

Time Warner Cable has pledged to spend $100 million to get more students involved in science and a national Public Service Announcement Campaign is planned to make science cool again. Ford Motor Company is very active in K-12 education and becoming more involved in STEM.

But it’s not enough, and I guarantee you that we’ll never hear about any of them.

Marketing 100 and Then Some

Fellow marketers I can hear you shaking your heads a long with me – Guess what guys you need marketing. You need communications. You need to create a strategic research and communications plan and get out there find out what corporations are doing – what works and what doesn’t – what is paid for by federal government grants and what are companies ponying up.

Say nothing of the fact that someone should have tracked this all along. We’ve got a president who wants to improve science education. There’s a White House mandate.

Grassroots is fabulous but grassroots never gets coverage. I worked all of last year with a wonderful group of people all lovers of science called the Coalition for Public Understanding of Science – hundreds of science projects across the nation.

But when it came to communications the projects were supposed to do it themselves locally and then nationally. And the fact is they didn’t. It was a volunteer army. And volunteers get the job done – they don’t tell the world about it.

Science needs national events. Larry Bock, who is pulling together the first USA Science & Engineering Festival is a visionary. Science needs others like him. And all these businesses who want to do something need to support this work.

One woman put it quite succinctly when she asked: What’s my to-do list after this meeting?

Science needs a plan to make it cool again and an army of advocates out there talking it up. Without that, we’ll just have a lot of dedicated people who want to help and do - but sans the attention it deserves.

Death of PowerPoint is Greatly Exaggerated - Some Alternatives

2010-05-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

Posted a question with several LinkedIn groups about how many communicators are still using PowerPoint. Receive about 70 responses across different groups – by far the most came from the International Association of Business Communicators.

I stopped using PowerPoint awhile ago in favor of a one page hand-out and discussion. Am trying to make the conversion to using video but finding it’s harder than I thought it would be even with a simple camera.

A couple of people remarked about how young professionals don’t use PowerPoint and I had to laugh – my fifth grader is a whiz at it and I’ve seen kids as young as second grade using it to make classroom presentations.

Almost all of the respondents still use PowerPoint. Many defended it with a variety of reasons.

Here are a few of the Pros

It’s easy to convert from one operating system to another – eliminating many of the problems especially when presenting at meetings, etc.

When you present or go to a meeting people expect a PowerPoint. If you don’t have a PowerPoint you look unprepared.

PowerPoint is a widely accepted form of presenting.

It offers a lot of flexibility in charts.

It’s inexpensive and comes with Microsoft Office.

When you add in video clips it updates the format and makes it look fresher.

Some of the Cons

Too many bullets – slides too full of gunk.

You’re not using your words – parents of young children will appreciate this.

PowerPoint influences over simplification of complex ideas.

Dated program – architecture is a decade old and hasn’t been updated much.

PowerPoint can take over a speaker’s presentation.

What are communicators using instead of PowerPoint?

Adobe Acrobat

Flash

Prezi

Apple’s Keynote

Mindjet Mindmanager

Brainshark

Flashspring

Links to good PowerPoints and a professor who offers ideas on how to use it best –

Sorry all - You will have to cut and paste - once again bloggers linkages are messed up.

http://www.slideshare.net/happykatie/visual-communication-revisited-for-iabc-houston

http://www.slideshare.net/trib/why-are-we-even-arguing-about-this-presentation

http://www.m62.net/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html

http://www.brainshark.com/brainshark/vu/view.asp?pi=zHxz154YgUz1rpbz0

Press Releases 2.0

2010-04-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've finally learned how to do it - get press releases picked up regularly in our rapidly changing media world. My coach at Business Wire has been a huge help. Had a release go out recently on A Rubik's Cube Contest and it did really well.

Why? A few key tips.

Use bullets. About paragraph 3 of the release - no more than 3 or 4 to quickly summarize what's been written.

Use your brand names as much as you can. We are all told to identify key words and pepper them throughout the release. That's good advice but don't forget name brands that are searched all time. Use all the brand names you can. If you can link your release to a well searched brand name - do it. Is your client partnering with name brand companies? Throw them in a couple of times and highlight them.

Connect those you are quoting to their bios - Our first thought is to send media to the web site but send them to the bio. That way readers can quickly find out who your client is, what her credentials are, and why they should care.

Use the news in your industry to your advantage. If it's spring and your product has a connection to spring break use it. If there's a government program ending or announced in your industry figure out a way to link to it. This is PR common sense but often we forget to think news - news - news. Without that hook, you're just another Brick in the Wall.

Use a lot of links. - 2-3 per paragraph if you can. Your goal is to get release readers to your web site and a landing page that makes them want more. Entice them all the way through the release with different links to different sections. You can't see into a reporter's mind - but you can give them a great many options to choose from.

Keep it short. We all have lost our attention spans. Tell me what I need to know - why it matters and then you're done. The days of long quotes to please the client are over. Tell them it will hurt pick-up. That's what they are paying you for.

Write something that can be easily converted to an article. Your release will often be read by a computer or a kid who decides whether or not it's worth listing as an article. You want that designation in the URL so write for it. If your release has a lot of gunk in it - and many of them do - and really needs to be edited, it won't happen.

The Unsexy SEO Tool - Bounce Rate

2010-04-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of online research and media monitoring on company web sites, blogs, online newspapers, product sites, etc. I Google everything - it's become my bible of search.

Many of these sites have spent a fortune so they are on those first 2-3 pages when you type in a search term that is part of their business. But what most SEO firms don’t like to talk about is what happens when the potential customer gets there and can’t find what they are looking for? Simple: You’ve blown that referral.

What does Bounce rate mean? It measures the number of people who came to your site and never made it past the home page. Or as Google puts it “I came; I puked; I left." Bounce rate tells you how many of the people who came to your site weren’t impressed with what they found. No second click.

And yes, I'm reworking my site right now to fix that. It's only been up for two years and is already totally outdated when it comes to bounce rate. And it doesn't search well either although my name does.

Bounce rate is hard to misunderstand because the higher it is, the less effective your web site, blog, etc. is. Of course there will always be a small bounce rate but the bigger it is the less successful you are in exciting and engaging people in your site. That’s pretty straight forward.

Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, a search engine marketing firm, said in an article that he likes to look at the differences in how people of different ages, gender, etc. react when they get to a page.

He pointed out two distinctive difference, and said there are many others.

1. How males scan a page versus females
2. How those who grew up online and those who didn’t search web sites.

For more from this very bright guy who knows a lot more about search than I do go too www.enquiro.com.

How can you learn more about the way potential customers and other visitors use your site? Start looking at the details of where your visitors are coming from. In Google Analytics, check out your referring sites. Then visit them and find the source of how they are presenting your web site and the information it delivers.

One client of mine tracks referring sites like he is mining gold, and in a way he is. Remember when PR wasn’t measurable? Aren't we old timers? He can now look at the stories, mentions, etc. run about his company and see how much traffic it drove to his web site and how long it stayed. And we can make decisions on where we want to place stories based on the referral sites.

Looking at sources can tell you a lot about how major traditional and newer media pull traffic to your web site and blog. For instance media outreach for one client has found that:

A New York Times article is still pulling in traffic months later

Consumer finance web sites like The Consumerist and WalletPop drive huge traffic but only for a short time.

Reddit is a great traffic builder and it has staying power.

CNN Money is site people go back to time and time again for advice.

A Health Day article that got picked up by thousands of web sites didn’t drive that much traffic to the site and we're still not sure why.

I close with Bounce Rate Matters - Make it a Mantra.

No One Reads Email Anymore - Deal With It

2010-04-10T08:23:00.001-07:00

Two years ago you could send an email to a journalist or a business prospect and expect that they would read it and you might even get a response. Today I would forget about that.

I used to have a lot of luck with email media pitching. I would spend time creating these perfect pitches - I came from the freelance writing world and editors actually read them then. Today I have to assume that no one reads anything - because I really don't. And if they do it's on a mobile and more than a sentence or two gets deleted.

I worked for awhile with a woman who would send out email queries to get people to participate in projects. They were people who had signed up and at some point were engaged. If she didn't hear back she wouldn't even email again. Yes she was in her 20s and email was the only way she'd ever really communicated. She never even thought about doing it another way.

Another former client of mine sent out mass emails expecting responses. She had long lists and would send them from an email address that wasn't even a business. Then she would get frustrated when I would pick up the phone, call the person and get in touch with someone she'd been trying to reach for weeks.

The bottom line is - the telephone is really the only way to know that you've connected with the other person. If you leave a voice mail you know they got it. If they blow you off - at least you know they got it.

But we have to send email too because that's how our world communicates. So here are some simple tips:

Your subject line is your marketing tool - It's your headline, it's your sales message, it's the only thing they are going to read. Make it connect directly with the person that you're trying to reach and address a clear cut need that you can help with. For a product it's basic marketing - think what will make them take action. For a reporter it's why should I write about this - how will it help me impress editor, keep my job, get my next one?

Your email address is everything - If it comes form Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, or one of the other services that people use for personal email not only will the spam filters knock it out, the individual who sees the address will rarely open it.

So find yourself a business email address - even if the only person in the company is you. Set it up so it's linked to a web site that exists and is current.

Set up a Gmail account - It's always good to have a fallback position. I love Gmail because the Google folks know how to get around the spam filters and Gmail accounts don't get a lot of spam. So I use it as a back-up for everything I do. The email may not get opened but I know it got there.

Don't send attachments unless you know the person and even then do it sparingly. Many spam filters are set up to knock out attachments - particularly if it's from an unfamiliar account. This is a particularly big deal in PR - if you cannot include your information in the body of an email you are wasting your and their time. It's an extra click and if there's interest a link is better and it also gives them a reason to get in touch with you.

Keep it short I cannot repeat this enough times or put enough emphasis on it. People today don't read. If you can't distill your information into a couple of sentences you shouldn't be sending it. So many business people rewrite, add, edit, change - lengthen - it's crazy. Your email is your elevator speech cut by half.

The Wisdom of Staying Relevant

2010-03-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

Will Social Media Kill Traditional PR?

That’s a question posed by a consultant who thought of a great headline and hit a nerve. 98 people posted mostly defensive diatribes about how PR is so much more than just media – its strategy, its image control, branding, marketing, lobbying, etc.

The most recent person to write about this – in Ad Age today – discussed how social media is often an add-on these days – the advertising agency does all the creative work and then someone goes into the kids’ room and asks them to add something about social media. http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=143040

I used to work for a PR agency that was like that about graphic design. Their idea of visual branding, identity and messaging was “Make it pretty.” I wish I was kidding – but I’m not.

That’s kind of like the ad agencies cry of “Add something social.”

All of this is marketing. Marketing starts with the computer generated human who answers most phones at businesses these days and ends when I read your podcast. Ogilvy had this big campaign for awhile called Touch Point.

Every point at which you touch, reach, meet the consumer is a place that makes or breaks your brand.

In my experience – the bigger the company, the worse the branding experience. People hide behind info@gottohell.com. I like to write back to the computer generated responses which always come the first time you ask a question. Far better the chat rooms where real people actually discuss your problem. If I wanted to read the FAQs, I wouldn’t have written to you.

Anyway, I veer off course but my point is this. If PR people are any good at what they do they understand and keep up with all of it – marketing, sales, PR, promotion, advertising, customer service, social media, traditional media – because they know they have too. If they don’t, their businesses will die.

As their friends retire, their accounts will disappear. And the 20 something they are asking at the last minute to contribute a social media component will be their boss.

The Party of No Versus Yes We Can

2010-03-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

I was in Nashville the other day visiting a prospective and current client and found myself in a bar next to a couple in their sixties. She was lovely, very into the music scene, and chatty. He found out I was from Washington, DC and do work in health care reform and wanted to yell at me.

Politely, more than twice, I told him I really didn’t want to discuss this with him. But he was on fire with his talking points which spewed out of him like vomit:

• We can’t afford it, it will bankrupt the nation.
• It’s socialism.
• I’m a small business owner, and it’s not going to help me.
• All of the polls say the American people don’t want it.

I politely (and anyone who knows me realizes politely doesn’t come easily), again told him I wouldn’t discuss it.

He went on and on until his wife dragged him out. Tried to watch the basketball game but Kentucky was killing the other team and in the end, he was like a strange, exotic bird, and the basketball game just screamed defeat.

The next day I had lunch with a client who doesn’t believe in the reform movement and has a pretty persuasive case why. I told him about Health Reform Bad Bar Man and said, “I wish I was that good at getting people to remember my talking points.”

That’s when it hit me – the Republicans are brilliant at developing talking points that are simple, resonate widely, everyone remembers and are used by all who hear them over and over and over again.

The Democrats suck at talking points. Obama won’t sink to the level of “they’re going to kill granny,” and who can blame him. But what about a nice big positive talking point about giving granny dignity and professional care at the end of her life. It may not be angry but at least it’s hopeful.

But not those Democrats. They don’t think that way. They’ve reused the same campaign theme for every candidate in the last two decades “Change.” A big vague talking point that has no meaning other than we’re going to be different. Then they get to DC and it’s the same old stuff.

How do you think the Republicans have managed to pin the zillion dollar deficit on Obama when he walked into office and found out it was far worse than even his advisers imagined? Declarative, basic points – he who runs the country is responsible for the mess he’s in.

If you keep telling people over and over again that Obama created this mess – and they’re not very smart people and regular watchers of Fox News – they will believe it. It’s indoctrination – talk about socialism that’s a pretty good example of it in action.

And of course, there’s racism involved – more than I ever thought possible in this nation in the second decade of the 21st Century. May not be on a billboard but its right there all the time. Just look at who makes up the Congress and Senate. The Republicans are white men, the Democrats are the rest of us. But I’m not going down that path today.

But there’s good news. Finally, with the health care reform bill passed the tide appears to be turning. Armageddon didn’t happen and it isn’t going too. The letter John McCain sent out saying we must repeal the health care reform bill sounded weak, hissy and undignified. Talk about someone who knows how to kill his own career.

The Democrats appear to have gotten their cajones back as well. They have new talking points.

The Republicans are the party of no.
We are the party of yes we can.

It’s a good start.

Check out this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-pLSdGa0M4

The DC Addy Awards - Where Have All the Creatives Gone?

2010-03-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

Went to the DC Addy Awards last night. Usually I go to these things for creative inspiration - but you know the work was really pedestrian. I was really surprised.

This video of Mad Men is really kind of appropriate - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1gorEa-RKA

Oh the event was nice - at the Carnegie Institute on the second floor - up a gorgeous staircase, large, airy, room, great ceilings, pretty window dressing girls in short, strapless outfits and 4 inch heels. People wore cool glasses. They clustered and watched each other.

The food was your standard fare - prosciutto, cheese (baked brie was a surprise), passed sushi and crab cakes, decent wine. Oh and the scary looking sandwiches which I convinced myself would not be served if there was something really wrong with them - I did get sick to my stomach an hour later. Can't blame the wine either because I only had one glass.

The most creative ad I saw was on a cocktail napkin. Seriously. Remember when we used to scrawl phone numbers on a bar napkin and give them to boys - then worry about whether or not they'd call. In the age of cell phones, Facebook, etc. they had taken the napkins you get with your drinks and turned them into little ads.

There were 3 in the series - One said - My name is Sandy, my phone number is. . . , my LinkedIn profile is. . . etc. Another said - We met at the Bar & Grill and had space for your name, website, blog, and awesome tattoo. The third was about your Facebook page, name, etc. If I owned a bar - I would steal that idea immediately.

The winners were mostly the Arnold and Ogilvy type firms except for the napkin people who I had never heard of. Since there was no hand-out and I didn't write their name down - I apologize for not honoring you.

Saw some interesting retro design in the print - black and white line drawings - a few representative of how people who don't really draw do it which had a kind of gritty feel to them, some colorful blocky design that got my attention for a name that I can't remember.

Here's the schocker No Internet ads. Can you imagine? Not a single social media, Google or other ad that runs online was featured. I cannot believe that it wasn't a category. The girl I tried to ask questions of at the table upstairs said she had no information and I had to find Doug. She didn't offer to help.

I walked through the winning ads twice. The broadcast took too long to rerun and I can't remember any of it. The radio you couldn't hear. And not a single headline or product stood out. These are the winners!

So what is happening? I know the advertising industry has been hit really hard but come on all of you. If I can't remember a single ad except for the napkin people and I went there to look at them, what does that say? Aren't we supposed to get more creative when a recession hits? How can you sell your ad agency's value if you can't create ads that are even interesting?

Anyway they said all this stuff will be up on line in the next day or so which knowing the Ad Club DC could be a week. There should be photos, video and the ads. Please let me know what you think. Keep checking www.dcadclub.com

Do Successful PR People Show Clients the Real Pitch?

2010-03-07T10:37:00.000-08:00

I screwed up the other day. Any PR person who actually knows how to pitch media and place stories - and is good at it - knows that you should never show the client your pitch. Oh you make a really nice communications plan and talk about messages and strategy and lay out what you are going to say and get their feedback.

You do the press releases the way they want (with a lot of suggestions to improve SEO) and make fact sheets with a lot of their explanations of their business. But that's not what you pitch.

Even if you are good and start with the clients' pitch within a day or two you've changed it. Why? because they're sanitized and long and not succinct enough to get someone's attention in five seconds. And today those pitches are read on a Blackberry in a car that hopefully is not moving.

Media today - your whole pitch is an email heading and ten seconds on the phone. Getting media to open the email is most of it. Then you must capture your pitch in a sentence. Clients are caught up in their business and the love of what they do. They want all the information in there - exactly the way they talk and write about it. But that's not what they hire you for.

Yes there are still journalists who are thoughtful, smart, check facts, have real editors, etc. But their numbers are shrinking and most of their mail is read by screeners who are 20 year-old communications interns or were just hired as new staff. So good luck with that.

I read HARO which is a great resource to see the simplicity of what is pitched these days. Here are a few from Friday's - look how boiled down they are:

Credit Card Phone Scams (major financial website)
25 Young Entrepreneurs for Book ages 6 + (Raising CEO Kids Book and website)
Un-famous People with Famous Names (National magazine)
Brain Damage and Stereotypes/Categorization (Anonymous)

If you can't get your pitch down to something that simple -- you have no pitch.

And what many clients don't get either is that pitches evolve. You start out with this nice perfectly worded pitch that's a couple of paragraphs and then you start calling people and they start telling you why they don't care. Or they feign interest and then don't follow through which is the worst because then you tell the client they're interested and then they're not.

In an ideal world - the journalist gives you five minutes, tells you what they're interested in and it's some sort of derivation of what your client does.

When I used to pitch editors as a journalist I had more leeway. They wanted the trend - examples of the trend - data on the trend - sources on the trend - etc. And you could put that all into a pitch note. But you can't anymore because no one will read it. Capture their interest right away. Make a connection. Or it's over. The follow-up after they've said they are interested can be longer and more thorough - but the first time - go for concise.

We went through this with Healthcarebluebook.com. We started with national media pitching of this consumer pricing guide as a new service for consumers. But nobody got it - the healthcare writers wrote about it a little but the first couple of months a lot of the press we got was writers saying it would never work.

Then we went regionally and started pitching healthcare bloggers in major metro markets. We did research on pricing disparities in those markets and went to the writers with that data to get their attention. And it worked. Some used it and some didn't. But they all read the pitch.

Finally, we went after consumer finance writers. Because in the end the Healthcare Blue Book is about saving money. And that's when the press coverage started to take off. Our first huge hit was the WSJ and they were kind of upset about it because they were featured amongst their competitors. I started getting a slew of the look who got coverage in this great story and we're not in there emails.

But then they became the company that got the first call for a healthcare pricing story. And all was happy in client land.

Now we're working on an event that is nine months away and science-related. I called up a healthcare reporter that I know at one of the majors and asked him if anyone covered science anymore. He started to laugh and then we commiserated. All the science writers have been laid off. The Washington Post has one science writer - Rob Stein - for all of science. Can you imagine? So try pitching them an event that's nine months away.

So we're pitching deadlines to participate in events related to the big event which are this spring. When you've got 30 days people start paying attention. And it's working.

I was so happy with someone who actually did exactly what we wanted them to do, I fired off their return email to the client thinking well this is a kudo. What I didn't think about was that the pitch was attached and they would read it and critique it. And of course they did.

Then we have the client/PR person email or talk. In the nicest way possible, I tell them that I know what I'm doing and they have to trust me. Of course, if I worked for clients who didn't accept that I'd get fired and they would pay some big agency a lot of money to do less than we would do. But that's the way it goes.

So what kinds of things bug clients - mostly it's the stuff that business people can't handle either. Strong statements. Provocative writing. Major verb usage. Tying what they do to something pop cultural that they don't like or don't get.

A couple of examples. One of my healthcare clients didn't want to say that we advocated people negotiate price with their doctors. They had some big vague way of describing it that the average healthcare industry person would understand but would leave the rest of us bleary eyed. They thought advocating negotiation would get them in trouble.

Another client had an opera performance with a very specific title and description that explained only to someone who is an opera afficianado what the event was. I called it a Glee Club which was not perfect but at least everyone knows what a glee club. Glee is very popular these days. It got response.

One thing I often remind clients is that even though you think you are pitching some high brow journalist -- the person who gets your pitch may be a 20 year-old news intern who is skimming through headlines, bored and pissed off that they're not the writer.

Or the school superintendent with the PhD that we want to reach has a 50 year-old assistant who has been his assistant for 25 years, acts as his super screener, and is so ready to retire she's just not that thorough anymore.

You have to appeal to the largest common denominator. The journalist won't think you are an idiot for referencing pop culture - most likely they have kids and watch that stuff too. So pitch the screener.

I'd like to hear what you all think. Other war stories in the form of comments would be good.

The Snow is Melting and Marketers are Hiring Again

2010-03-04T06:09:00.000-08:00

According to a February 2010 study by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business -nearly half of the CMOS polled in its 2x a year marketing survey say they expect to hire new marketers during the next six months. Survey respondents were 612 marketing executives in small to large companies.

60% plan to hire new marketers in the next year and almost 90% over the next two years.

So expect an 8% hiring increase in the next six months, 13% during the next year, and 24% over the next two years.

But you’d better get your Internet and social media skills up. The areas of growth are marketers with skills related to Internet marketing, innovation and growth, as well as customer relationship and brand management.

And I have to admit, some marketers - at least here in the DC area - have changed their company branding to become Social Media Gurus. But are they?

I think they know more about the architecture than I do and they track recent developments which are sometimes written in a language that I can't follow.

But have they really figured out how to market effectively in the Social Media space? I'm still seeing a lot of consultant presentations on Creating a Social Media Policy. What does that tell you?

Overall B2B Product Marketing will be Up the Most and B2B Service Marketing is Up the Least. The good news for consultants is B2B services marketers report the highest expected increase in outsourced marketing activities. Translation: They need marketing help but aren't willing to hire permanent staff to do it. It's called hedging your bets.

Some key data from the CMO Survey –

Overall marketing budgets will increase by 5.9% this year. Traditional ad spending is still in the negative but the losses are smaller than a year ago.

How will the marketing budget be spent? Here's the breakdown Fuqua gave us.

Market penetration strategy – 44%

Market development strategy – 18%

Product service development strategy – 26%

Diversification – 13%

For the complete study go to www.cmosurvey.org

Science is Back: A Report from the AAAS 2010 Meeting

2010-02-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

OK so one of the reasons I went was because it was in San Diego - but who from the east coast is not sick of winter this year? Anyway the meeting is winding down and it's clear that science is making a comeback. And you could tell that many scientists are profiting from the Communicating Science workshops that NSF and AAAS are doing. Talk titles are improving and getting more provocative.

Last year the scientists turned up the volume on global warning with dire warnings - this year it continues unabated. Although I didn't understand all of the talks here are some of the titles which gives you a pretty good indication that we've got to do something now:

Will Coral Reefs Disappear? Separating Fact from Conjecture

Adam Smith Meets Jacques Cousteau: Using Economics to Protect Marine Resources

Denial, Detente and Decisions: Fisheries Science at a Crossroads

Can Geoengineering Save us From Global Warming?

And the list goes on.

So there were 1,000 newsroom registrants at the meeting - many like me more public information officers than real life reporters. But a lot of reporters/writers/editors did come. Among the people I chatted with Alan Boyle, science blogger extraordinaire of MSNBC who just wrote a book on Pluto, The Chronicle of Higher Education which was looking for stories on data organization and management, producers from the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who wouldn't reveal what they were writing, ScientificBlogging and it's hottie founder, and many more.

The AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards 2009 program and cocktail party was a massive discussion on the current state of science journalism. So many science writing veterans are now freelancers it's hard to keep track of who's where. But it seems like the wounds are closing and those who remain are getting back to work. Also there were many 20-something science journalists - a good sign for the future.

The science writing award winners were like little kids at their own birthday party - my personal favorite Amie Thompson from the Great Falls Tribune in Wyoming who won for a series on a rare genetic disease and its impact on a family and its descendants. Her husband was talking her up in the hallway before the awards presentation. The series, which ran in June 2009, is called "Lethal Legacy."

Thank you AAAS for continuing to honor great science writing - it seems like no one else is. Oh except the Kavli Foundation which has committed to funding this program for many years - I forget how they put it but it seemed like it would outlive me.

The USA Science Engineering Festival - Larry Bock's baby - got a lot of interest and managed to get a card in every one of the 8,000 conference bags. Bock had an assembly line of bag stuffers - you should have seen the empty boxes.

I met Francis Collins - human genome guru and now head of NIH - over pancakes as he met Bock, and talked about the Festival. A very nice man - he even responded to my thank you note.

My book with AAAS had a lot of lookers - that's Delaying that First Drink: A Parents' Guide - due out this spring and to be tied in with a spring break PR effort.

The SB&F Subaru Children's Book Awards had a packed room and the books are great - check them out on the AAAS web site www.aaas.org.

Yes we are still in a recession. It was really clear in the exhibit hall - the number of booths had dropped quite a bit. Why do people cut marketing when the economy tanks? It doesn't make any sense to me.

And I am in route later today to San Francisco for a 24 hour hang out with best friends break. So I'd better pack. Finally figured out how to use the parking garage in this building and I'm leaving. Oh well.

A Year in the Life of the Washington Post

2010-02-16T09:13:00.001-08:00

Went to a talk by Frances Stead Sellers recently at an IPRA lunch - a strange group - I felt young which is rare these days. Not very friendly either - mostly 50 and 60 somethings starting their own companies. One woman who asked for advice on personal finance PR was downright dismissive. Her comment when I tried to explain what we've been doing with the Healthcare Blue Book to her? "Oh so it's just like every other PR effort."

No it's not - but you go ahead and think that. Won't write down the word that came to mind but you know what it is. Anyway nice to be a few years ahead of them. And the feeling young was lovely.

Stead Seller's talk gave a pretty good update on the state of the newspaper business these days. This past year was a train wreck but she thinks the reorganization is done. Here's what we heard:

Slashed newsroom staff - Over the past year the Post has gone from 600 to 300 journalists - the survivors are working their butts off.

Combined sections - In my areas - science, health and technology - they used to have individual editors for each section - now Frances oversees all of them and they're considered a group. She does a macro edit then passes stories along to content editors who do the rest.

Who to pitch - the reporter, reporter, reporter. They are the ones who are making decisions these days about the stories that they write - the section editors are totally overburdened.

What are they reading - Industry blogs, some social media, using Google Alerts like the rest of us to follow beats. So it's particularly important to get your keywords right.

Science has taken a huge hit - with all the emphasis that used to be on science, now it's science and health - kind of a weird split. As they continue to debate the bills guess which subject area is winning?

How do they decide which emails to read?- It's all in the subject line - that's also what they send around the newsroom.

Six Great Ideas from the ASAE Super Swap – January 2010

2010-02-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

This new ASAE format had six Idea Swaps in four hours and I attended one on membership marketing and another on social media. The most useful advice was about boosting member attendance at meetings – a big issue these days.

Association professionals estimated their annual conference attendance is down 20-30%. So what are they doing to get more people to come? Here’s what I heard:

Try Going Regional - One association professional said she went from holding one annual conference attended by about 10,000 people, to four regional ones and each regional had 3500 people. Obviously, the regional conferences are cheaper to put on.

Rethink Marketing of Regional Conferences – Focus marketing to areas that are within easy driving distance to the conference – but further than you might have done in the past. Send driving directions from your office to the conference center with email marketing and point out driving highlights along the way to make it interesting and fun. One association told members about the World’s Largest Ketchup Bottle and a lot of people went to see it and talked about it when they got to the conference.

Using Facebook to Help Attendees Cut Conference Costs – With costs for travel and rooms at a premium, one association created a special Facebook page for ride sharing and room shares – kind of a buddy up site for the conference. Not only did members use it – they networked on it – and it drove attendance to the conference web site and increased the number of people who came.

Using Twitter to Share Conference News – A number of associations are tweeting to industry bloggers during their conferences. Many bloggers can’t attend but will re- tweet highlights from sessions. Some have created special hash tags on Twitter for their associations’ meetings and are telling members about them in other promotional materials and newsletters. This has boosted followers.

Finding the Optimal Marketing Mix for Conferences – One person said she cut out all direct mail and increased attendance by 7% through other means. Consensus was you need a mix depending on what your members respond too. Some tactics: Revisit your email opt-out list and open rate before you make your marketing choices. Older memberships still respond to faxes – one association is sending a fax one week before to boost attendance and its working. This was a medical society with a specialized physician membership.

To Theme or Not to Theme – Consensus was that no one chooses a meeting because of a theme and it's more of an industry/management choice. Many associations have moved away from the big picture themes and use a theme for the annual conference that stays consistent year to year. These are benefits driven.

Maximizing SEO on Press Releases

2010-01-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

I had a great conversation about SEO and news releases the other day with Michael Toner from Business Wire. Here are some tips.

Company name usage - Always use your company name in the headline but never the web address even if it's a web based company. It will search better that way.

When to put in web site address - The web site address should always follow the first reference to the company name in a news release.

Pointing out what matters - After the first paragraph add in 3-4 bullets of what’s important with your key words. It helps break up the text and with well chosen wording will help it search better.

Getting better tracking for your CEO - Your CEO or whoever is quoted should have their name hyperlinked to their bio on the company or organization web site. Reporters will click on it to learn more about you.

Code words and hyperlinks - Make sure you also create hyperlinks that match up with keywords that are important in your industry and heavily searched. Use them in your headlines as well.

Linking to your web site - Your section headings and text on opening pages of your web site should use the same phrasing as in your release. Also the coding should match up.

SEO word choice - Check the most commonly searched phrasing in your industry and pepper them through your release. Two ways to do this - you can just Google words you think will work and look at how often they are used. Or go to Google Trends and cross reference your words.

The Tightrope of What You Can and Can't Say

2010-01-14T04:47:00.001-08:00

Oh Harry Reid - now you've gone and done it. Someone dug up a comment that you made about Obama being white enough to win the presidency and it's come back to bite you in the butt. When will people realize that in this hypercritical, scream-a-thon of a world we live in you just don't say stuff like that?

Full disclosure: I'm just as guilty as the rest folks - except I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't say it even after I did.

What prompted this blog post? Well it's not yet another politician putting his foot in his mouth. I pissed off someone and he wrote me a note at 5:30 in the morning and called me Uppity. That's right Uppity. The word the south used to describe slaves who wanted to better themselves and stuck up for themselves. Does Uppity mean anything else to anyone except what I just said? Not in my universe.

Why on earth would anyone use that word? Because he just wasn't thinking.

So that's my point basically. We walk this tightrope - us writers and business people. PR people, and lawyers and all of those who are scared to death of saying the wrong thing, end up not saying anything at all.

We have to find some sort of happy medium. Inform but don't offend. What are the hard and fast rules of actually saying what you mean and not screwing it up? Some thoughts:

If it's something you wouldn't say to your boss in front of his boss you probably shouldn't say it. Same goes for your mother.

If you wish you hadn't said it after you did you shouldn't have said it - We all know that moment of panic when you think you're going to get yelled at by a client, a friend, your parent or whomever - that's a bad sign.

Think about how what you say can be twisted before you say it. Watch Glen Beck, Fox News and Sean Hannity a few times. They are geniuses at twisting what people they want to bring down say and turning it into something offensive. Remember when Obama said the police acted stupidly for arresting a man outside of his own house and it was transformed into he doesn't support our police force? That was Fox News.

Take America's pulse before you create your messages. Now this isn't possible all the time, but we are marketers and PR people. We should be paying attention to what the national conversation, mood and world is saying. A few months after 9-11 a woman named Amber wrote a press release about how pita pockets were a comfort food that could keep us feeling warm and safe. She didn't exactly say that but it's pretty close to what she did say. She worked for a large PR agency. A writer for the Washington Post published the release and ripped her to shreds.

If Amber (it doesn't help to have the name of a stripper) had been paying attention, she would have thought about what an incredibly sensitive subject 9-11 was then. Her bosses and client should have known better too. You don't take advantage of a national tragedy. Unless you want to go to war in Iraq.

Never write or send anything you write when you are angry. An old boss of mine said this a couple of months before he fired me for doing just that. It was a nice firing - there was mutual respect - I had made them a lot of money - and they were good about it. He said, put it away and read it again when you're not angry. Then throw it out.

Listen to the language of the young. One of the only words that still means the same thing it meant when we were kids is cool. Everything else has a different meaning. A lot of it comes from rap music. And I have my own household test market - which certainly helps. A few of them - Tight - it used to mean close - "We are tight." Now it means virginity. Ego - it used to mean someone who was full of themselves. Now it's slang for a male sex organ.

So if you have any other advice for this tightrope walker of language let me know. I'd love to hear from you.

Marketers: Failure is Merely a Dress Rehearsal for Success

2010-01-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

I have worked for a lot of entrepreneurs and am working for two right now that I have enormous respect for. Often they see something in me – perhaps how badly I want it and how hard I will work to make it happen. I’d like to think they see smart and creative.

Many PR people and consultants can’t work for entrepreneurs because they don’t like having to quantify what they do. They follow formulas not ideas. And they don’t do the work themselves but hand it off to junior people who bill less. Bad idea. Most junior people are lousy strategists - they don't have the background for it. They need you more than you wish they did.

I worked for a company once that ate its young. Senior people always knew better than everyone else. They let you do all the work while they made nice with clients, went out to lunch a lot and expected you to wait around until office hours were over for them to review your work and pass it on to the client as theirs.

Whatever you told them, whatever you suggested, whatever you wrote, it was never as good as what they could do. The good news was if you made them money they left you alone. For awhile.

So what happened? They stopped leaving us alone. All of the people who were really talented left because they put in reporting systems and structures that took the entrepreneurial spirit right out of the company. Oh they went out and found new people and they are still doing fine. But they never got past their comfort zone. That’s the difference between an entrepreneur and a middle manager who got lucky. Don’t ever forget that.

I was just watching Larry Bock, a bio-tech entrepreneur and inspiration behind the USA Science & Engineering Festival give a commencement address to Berkeley. The address is from 2007. But what he says is so smart and so inspiring all of you should watch it. He talks about five things that Berkeley students should remember as they go out into the world. One of them is the headline of this post.

So after I watched the video, I thought about what he said and what I’ve learned working with entrepreneurs. For what it's worth here are my five characteristics of what makes a great entrepreneur. All five are also what makes a great marketer. Not just someone who makes a lot of money but someone who also makes a great boss and a great leader. Take from it what you need.

1. They look for people not projects. People are what make a venture work – smart, driven, creative people who want it to succeed. Without that, you have a shell.

2. They don’t tell you what to do but listen to what you say and let you do it. True entrepreneurs know they can’t do it all by themselves. They acknowledge that people they hire know what they’re doing – and they hire them to do it. So they give them lots of rope and let them figure it out. They are the encouraging voice behind you.

3. They combine chutzpah with humility. Bock said this and I agree. There are plenty of people who start believing in their own mystique. Look at celebrities. They start to make it – then surround themselves with yes people who say it’s OK to fly sushi into the desert because they have a craving for it. Who treat them like they are better than everyone else.

We’ve created a culture of celebrity love in this country – especially through reality TV – that is truly scary. The basic message is simple. We are all people – we break, we fix things, we love, we get mad and we live and die. In the grand scheme of things – we are all pretty similar. So keep that humility - it will make you a better person and a much better entrepreneur and marketer.

4. They understand the value of PR but measure it in dollars not hits or clips. Entrepreneurs want value from the people who work for them. They don’t measure it in amorphous buzz words.

Sorry folks but today there are tools that let your clients figure out exactly what they are getting from you. The smart ones are using analytics – most likely Google because it’s free. How many people are going to their website because of the coverage they’re getting? What’s driving their sales figures? Is it your work? They will measure and they will make you measure too.

5. They work their asses off and expect everyone else will too. The difference is that they do it right alongside the people they’ve hired.

I am clueless to why the YouTube direct link doesn't work. But if you go to the site and search Larry Bock - his Berkeley address is the first listing you get.

Tiger Woods - Fire Your Publicist

2009-12-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Tiger -

What a mess this is. I read today about how you'd lost Accenture, which I'm sure is a hefty endorsement deal. Who the heck is handling your public relations? You should dump them and find someone else who knows what they are doing.

Remember David Lederman and how he was accused of having sex with female staff members? That's long over. What about Elliott Spitzer who rumor has it is considering another run for political office? That's over. Hugh Grant and his infamous hooker pick-up on Hollywood Boulevard? Who cares.

There are others including President Clinton who screwed it up too - then slowly made his way back. More than I can remember - why? Because they dealt with it.

Hiding behind lawyers and whoever else you are trying to duck behind is dumb. You are the top golfer in the world and have the admiration of millions of people. So you've got a weakness for - models, porn stars, hookers - and now it's public. You won't be the first and you won't be the last. Address it - go back to the game - and make it go away.

Instead, you are hiding like a scared little boy behind a web of bad advice hoping it will blow over. That makes you look weak and foolish. It will eventually blow over but unless you deal with it now you won't be free of it. It seems like every day the media finds another woman who cashes in on your fame. Think about your kids. Think about your career. Think about how many women there are out there who can keep this going.

It's not rocket science Tiger. Apologize. Americans love to forgive and forget. Go on the talk show circuit and say you're sorry. Hold a news conference that is about as humble as you can get. But please don't force your angry, glaring wife who looks like she wants to chop your head off to stand by her man. That's just cruel and it upsets women - well it upsets me anyway.

I'd much rather see her deck you. If your wife wants too she can release a statement - I'm sure she will consider it because without those endorsement deals she'll lose a lot if she divorces you.

Start with: "I've done some things I'm not proud of and I've hurt my family, my friends, my fans, my fellow golfers, my business partners and whoever else matters. I'm very sorry to have let all of them down. I've made some big mistakes and I take full responsibility for them. And I'm going to spend some time making it up to all of them."

The next part puts your money where your mouth is. "As part of this effort I'm going to donate gobs of money to some cause (sick kids always works). I'm also going to take the next few months and donate time to help one or several (again kids') charities further their work."

You only need to apologize once and don't do it for the Europeans or Japanese because they are laughing their butts off. I can almost hear their voices saying "Those ridiculous Americans, what does having affairs have to do with playing golf?"

Finish with the "And I hope you will all learn to trust me again."

You're done. Then get back to golf.

Sincerely,

A Big Fan

Gossip Girl, OK Woman, At the PR Holiday Party Scene

2009-12-08T13:03:00.001-08:00

I've been attending media, marketing and advertising holiday parties to network and also to check out what the business climate is like this year.

First off - everyone is scaling back. The status quo for many seems to be plan a happy hour, pick the venue, don't charge, and let everyone who comes pay cash for food and drinks. With the exception of the Independent Public Relations Association feast - the parties that did supply food so far skimped so much the pricing seemed really out of whack for what you got.

As for the photos - they are stock and the woman on the beach is what I picture in my mind as I sit here with a broken heating system. One can dream.

The One Party

Who: Ad Club DC, American Marketing Association and a few others.

Where: Eye Bar - Nice place, room a bit narrow

Crowd: A lot of vendors, ages mixed, older than I expected. Not many prospective clients.

Sponsor Gimmick: One of the vendors had a great idea - everyone who came in got to pick a card choosing from five endangered species. I was an owl. I had to get five other owls to sign my card (great icebreaker) and then submit it with my contact info to win an IPod Touch. There were a few other sponsors who had tabletop displays but some company presidents didn't even show. What's the point?

Cost: $50 ahead, $60 at door

Food and Drink: Open bar - three drinks came with it mixed and wine. Rack liquor. The invitation said the party included heavy appetizers. They were heavy alright - no one touched them. Sushi at the beginning and then they left the empty tray on the bar to make the rest of us feel bad. Food was scary - goo encrusted meatballs, some sort of fried Mexican meat in taco sauce that I could have gotten frozen at the market, vegetables and two different kinds of scary looking chicken wings.

Strategy: Think it may have been to get everyone to drink and then not feed them - 3rd drink impossible without food.

Anecdote: Left my car in a law firm lot a few blocks away after finding a parking lot attendant who asked for a bribe and put me in a Reserved Space. He explained in Spanish how to get out of the garage but I must have missed something because I couldn't figure it out. Couldn't go back up without a pass key. Got stuck down there until one of the lawyers saved me.

Time Spent: Lasted an hour - could have skipped it.

Washington Networking Group Holiday Party

Who: As listed above - no cool name

Where: Guarapo Nena in Arlington - private room

Crowd: Mixed vendors, I was late so didn't see much of it. The DC Networking Group has a very diverse group of people - this one had tech, communications, marketing, international and government people.

Food and Drink: Cash everything - the martinis were cheaper than in DC

Sponsor Gimmick: Why do vendors not have stuff - they just show up and run around and talk to people.

Time Spent: Was worth the trip even though it was a long metro ride. Someone came running out the door after me to invite me to another party. So stunned I gave him my card - he never got in touch. Alot of men - fewer women.

IPRA Holiday Lunch

Who: Independent Public Relations Society of America

Where: Maggianos at Tyson's Corner - and I found it - yeah

Crowd: The room was full - a mix of PR, printers, and other vendors. Draw was the food which was course after course of Yum and that wine came with the meal.

Cost: I think it was $50 ahead of time if you were not a member.

Bad Part: Way too much thank yous, and kudos to each other. If they hadn't done that I wouldn't have realized most of the people in the room were on the board and needed to be there. Sat next to an older woman who complained how much writers are discounting their fees - if you insist on paying seasoned people very little you won't get much. But maybe in this economy they don't care. On my right was someone starting a DC PR business who wreaked of cigarettes - what a turn-off.

Time: Two hours or so not counting getting there and back.

ASAE Holiday Happy Hour

Who: American Society of Association Executives

Where: Black Finn - Pseudo Sports Bar on I Street, DC

Crowd: Again a lot of vendors, several ASAE people including senior ones, and a mix of marketers. Also there was a bunch of college sports fans in the back watching the Georgetown game and yelling which was very distracting.

Anecdote: Watched a pretty young blonde and her boss who was probably a bit older than I am. Black Finn served a free round of beer shots then took photos of only her drinking it. Made me feel ancient. A business exec slowly moved in on her hanging around for what reason I wasn't sure, dense person that I am, until he could find a way to talk to her. When I left they were chummy at the table. For some reason I've noticed these ASAE happy hours often have lots of cute young women and not so young men who love them.

Charity: Toys for Tots and most people did come with an unwrapped new gift. Thank goodness for the closet of presents never given.

Time Spent: Probably an hour - left to beat the ice storm.

International Association of Business Communicators Holiday Party

Who: IABC DC - this group of communications professionals has some very nice people in it.

Where: Arlington, Hilton in one of their nice but small rooms

Crowd: Not as well attended as some but a good crowd. Talked to a lot of people - someone who just started at a clandestine federal agency - and said she reads its web site sometimes to figure out what's going on. Some guy from Burson showed up, zoned in on the few potential clients in the room, and ducked out. He said they're hiring. Don't understand why IABC doesn't care that only a couple of board members show up at it's major events - shouldn't that be expected?

Cost: $40 but came with a small cheese plate and some passed appetizers that left me starving. Cash bar with mediocre wine and rack liquor. Also a member's band played Christmas music - give them an A+ for Santa Got Run Over By a Reindeer.

Time Spent: Probably 1.5 hours. If it hadn't been freezing and I hadn't lost my car on some side street in Ballston it would have been worth it.

Google Gold - Top Search Terms of 2009

2009-12-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well the first thing I noticed is there's no business list of Google's top tens for 2009 search terms. Maybe that's proprietary? Or maybe celebrities and news don't matter as much anymore. We'd also like the top 100 if Google Zeitgeist would be willing to share.

So I went market by market hoping to learn something. Here's what I found - interpreted by yours truly. The most commonly searched places in a market are:

Local colleges - most of the ones listed
Local television, newspaper, radio - see people are reading news they're just doing it online
Local hospitals
Local museums
Local libraries - this to me was the big surprise.

So if you can mention any of these or partner with them on a news release or mention them in it - you are golden.

Here are the results from five giant metro markets.

Washington, D.C.

1. fcps blackboard
2. national harbor
3. e street cinema
4. nova community college
5. wtop news
6. wmata
7. nationals baseball
8. dc restaurant week
9. washington sports club
10. leesburg outlets

New York, NY

1. cuny portal
2. duane reade locations
3. mta trip planner
4. seamless web
5. conedison.com
6. hopstop
7. hale and heardy
8. shake shack
9. nyu home
10. queens library

Philadelphia, PA

1. penn blackboard
2. septa strike
3. ccp.edu
4. septa.com
5. penn in touch
6. penn portal
7. penn library
8. tumail
9. tuportal
10. wharton spike

San Francisco, CA

1. fox theater oakland
2. bay bridge closure
3. wicked san francisco
4. ilearn
5. sf giants schedule
6. sfusd
7. 511.org
8. outside lands
9. bart schedule
10. ccsf

Seattle, WA

1. sounders fc
2. bellevue college
3. seahawks 2009 schedule
4. snoqualmie casino
5. west seattle blog
6. uw libraries
7. myuw.com
8. wa unemployment
9. becu.com
10. snohomish county jail

So what does this tell us? Not much. Looking at all of the cities here's what I learned:

Let's Ban Consultant Speak Forever

2009-11-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

I hate the way consultants talk. I just read, OK scanned, a white paper by a social media policy/strategy/consulting expert and it was filled with basic marketing, models, charts and quite frankly a lot of crap. Consultant speak.

An old friend of mine who is now in marketing once described it as “They make it look so complicated and academic that the clients don’t know what they are saying, and often they don’t either. But the client is afraid to admit they don’t know what it means because then it makes them look foolish.”

And the cycle continues.

The PR business is filled with consultant speak. People think we wave a magic wand and make publicity happen – that we are like snake charmers. We’re not. If you don’t have a good story - we can’t sell it. If 10 other companies are doing the exact same thing that you are – we can’t sell it.

You need to do something that no one else is doing. You need to add something new to the conversation. If anyone tells you differently, they are just taking your money. Hope you don't mind wasting it.

What kind of phrases comprise consultant speak? Here’s an easy one brought to you from the home page of one of the world’s biggest and most successful PR agencies.

“The modern practice of public relations is about creating, managing and enhancing relationships between a business or an organization and its key stakeholders to drive successful business or organizational outcomes. With the overall erosion of trust in institutions combined with the convergence of technology and media, at no time in the history of our profession has the proactive management of stakeholder relationships been more critical.”

Thank you Edelman. Just reading it gave me a headache.

Translation – You pay us gobs of money and we’ll figure out how to spend it.

I have favorite consultant speak words too – here are a few.

Appropriate – I had a consulting firm client once who used this on everything. Why? Because it doesn’t say anything. It's a lawyer word. If it’s appropriate it fits whatever situation you’re in and whatever way you are using it.

Effective – PR people use this all the time. They use the phrase “Effective Communications.” What other kind is there? Bad? Sucky? Great? Because that’s over promising. Effective promises nothing except we won’t screw it up too much. Isn't Effective kind of like when it's pouring rain on your wedding day and everyone tells the bride it's good luck. What are you supposed to tell the bride - that her outdoor wedding is ruined and it's bad luck? That wouldn't be very effective.

Right-sizing – This one became part of business lingo in the 1980s and has stuck around. It puts a positive spin on the fact that you’re getting fired. We’re fixing something that’s broken. No you’re not. You over hired or screwed up and now you can’t afford to keep some of the people that trusted you to keep them.

Impressions - This is actually the term for a unit of measurement that PR firms use to make you think that a lot of people paid attention to what was written about you. There's some abstract formula from newspapers where you take the circulation and multiply it by three I think, to account for the fact that people pass it to other people, and then you got value for your money.

No you didn't. You got value if the person who read about you picked up the phone and called you and asked you more about your company, or went to your web site and bought something. Impressions in today's world are useless. But someone recently told me that their PR firm got 50 million impressions for them - so it's still being used and it's still nonsense.

Change – Obama won the presidency on this. He borrowed it from Bill Clinton who also won the presidency on this. What does it mean? We don’t like the way things are. Do it differently. But how? Oh we can’t tell you that – it would be too specific. So let’s just throw that word around and people will gravitate towards it and vote for it. Then we don’t deliver – well that’s a whole other blog post.

Why am I allowed to rail against all of this? Because it's my blog. Because I don’t use these words. I tell clients the truth even if it’s ugly. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker. Maybe it’s because I started as a journalist and my bullshit detector is perpetually set on high.

So what’s the advice in all of this? We live in an age where people have the attention spans of insects. No one is reading any of this stuff. Say what you mean. Use short words that tell me something. Give me real information so I get it right away. That’s the difference between Effective and great PR.

You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me – Expert Marketing Sites Not so Expert

2009-11-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a series of articles on marketing web sites and their customer service and marketing. This site is called MarketingProfs.com. I already know it will be two parts.

I started getting the MarketingProfs newsletter “Get to the Point – B2B Marketing,” a little over a week ago. It was free and I was curious. The positioning of the site is great – Marketing Professors – or those smarter about marketing than everyone else are sharing what they know. Cool.

I developed, wrote, reported and edited a marketing newsletter for five years. I wrote about marketing and advertising for Business Week, The New York Times and other publications. I thought I had seen every possible angle. There were a couple of new ones – of course about social media.

The first couple of issues the cover stories of the newsletter were pretty good. I thought this is refreshing – and a couple of issues I actually learned something. Then the articles changed about three days ago – they became your standard web crap, drivel with a marginal headline – one point I already knew and a lot of other ideas I didn’t even bother reading. The About.com of marketing.

So I went on the MarketingProfs web site. I still like this idea so I go to a section called Sponsored Links. Maybe I should advertise? So I fill out a form – I make an ad – well it’s actually two lines but they call it an ad. Then the site asks for $140 for 20,000 impressions and there’s a 7 in there somewhere. I don’t get what this means.

So I call the toll free number and ask what the Sponsored Links are, where they go, what 20,000 impressions means. I get customer service and someone who puts me on hold for 11 minutes and then tells me his supervisor will call me back. Three hours later I have a toll free number that I think is them in my phone – I call back and it’s her, the supervisor. She didn’t leave a message and says something about getting interrupted by another call as she dialed. Right.

I ask about the content. I learn that the free content is not “premium content,” which of course you have to pay for. I do not ask the price and she does not offer one. I ask her if all of their content is for sale? She says something bright and chipper that kind of answers yes.

I get off the phone and figure out that the first content I got for the newsletter must be better and then they started sending the free crap. This probably makes people go to the web site and learn more. Or maybe it just makes me cancel or stop reading it.

So I ask her about the Sponsored Links and she says she can’t help me either but she can find someone who can. I ask if the Sponsored Links are for the web site. She says they are for the newsletters.

An hour later I get a call from an advertising sales rep. He says the sponsored links are self explanatory and he doesn’t sell them. When I persist, he says he’ll walk through the web site with me. He does not know where the Sponsored Links are on the home page. I show them to him. I remind him that he is an advertising sales rep - as nicely as I can while wanting to scream. His dog starts barking in the background.

I ask him the same questions about impressions, reach, etc. and he is impatient and tries to get me off the phone. I picture the dog, big, with a lot of matted hair, barking at the door wanting to be walked or maybe tackling a child or robber.

He sends me a media kit which has no information about sponsored links in it and asks me to send a list of questions and he’ll get me answers. I haven’t done this yet.

Stay tuned for Part II of Learn to Practice What You Preach.

Don't Waste My Time - Six Ways to Improve Your Presentations

2009-11-11T07:48:00.000-08:00

Throughout my career as a journalist and communications consultant, I’ve probably been to thousands of presentations. When I wrote a newsletter for marketers my job was to go to conferences around the world then come back and report on what top marketers were saying.

The vast majority of the presentations I saw were incredibly boring. But if I listened there was always something buried inside that I learned something from. Forty five minutes of hell to get one good idea? How many people whose job it wasn’t to sit there would stay in the room?

In all those years I probably saw half a dozen presentations that I’d sit through again. Here’s why:

1. British humor. Martin Sorrell, the former head of the WPP Group, one of the largest advertising and marketing conglomerates in the word, came to talk to the first year Harvard Business School marketing class. He opened with “Our research shows within the first couple of minutes during a lecture most people drift off into sexual fantasy. So here’s to enjoying where you go with that.” Be outrageous. It’s unexpected and incredibly compelling. And you bet we listened to him too.

2. A good schtick. Yiddish says it better than English – they had a gimmick. And they were entertaining. People like Stephen Covey and Tom Peters captivated the room. I felt better about myself listening to their common sense advice confirming much of which I already knew. They packaged it well and told a good story. Trouble was when I went back to my notebook afterwards I couldn’t find anything to write about.

3. No PowerPoint. Whoever invented PowerPoint made a lot of money. But they ruined business presentations. What happens when you use slides? People read them and stop listening to you. And these days you look dated and foolish. The Internet generation has no attention span. That’s the point a Generation Y consultant made at a presentation I saw recently. She showed up in jeans and just talked about why she didn’t listen to the grown-ups. I listened to the whole thing.

4. Got me in the gut. Something has to resonate with the majority of your audience, help me see myself in what you are saying and figure out how this could apply to my business or life right now. Jason Alba of Jib Jab wins this one. He talked about how to build a marketing program around your blog by explaining how he did it with his company. Still haven’t done everything he suggested but took small suggestions and did them right away. And it really helped.

5. Entertaining. Why do you think comedians make the best talk show hosts? Because they can be spontaneously endearing, funny and in the best cases, really smart. They make something we know is ridiculous look more ridiculous. Be Stephen Colbert. His parody of a right wing talk show host is so engaging we can't stop watching. Of course in business you’re supposed to be professional and serious. But you can also let some personality shine through. You’re on stage – work it or I start reaching for my Blackberry.

6. Keep it Simple. What do you want me to walk out of the room remembering? My brain can only hold so much information as I go from session to session. And I may be smarter than a fifth grader, but I don't always remember what they taught me in fifth grade about writing. A refresher: Tell me what you are writing about, give me information to support that, and tell me again. You can call it messaging, or many other buzz word like terms, but it's as simple as that.

6. Know when to shut up. I saw this in a new business presentation recently. The tenor of the room wasn't good because the prospective client was late and rushed. We had a long presentation and didn't communicate well and adapt it to the moment. The meeting just didn't go well because there was too much of us showing work and too little of her engaging with us. We should have shut up and engaged her by offering potential solutions to her challenges but instead we talked about ourselves. She just stopped listening. Yes even smart people screw up sometimes.

So what's your takeaway? If you don't know I'll be the one napping during your next presentation or texting my way through it.

Match.com for Scientists and Schools?

2009-10-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

This is not a story about dating. Six weeks before October of 2009, the DC Coalition on Public Understanding of Science, a loosely knit group of science cheerleaders from associations, federal agencies, local schools and businesses decided to hold a Meet the Scientist program in October.

We’d been kicking the idea around for months and hoping someone would volunteer to make it happen and that person ended up being me. Why? Because for five years of elementary school I saw almost no science taught to my son. Because I’ve been working in public understanding of science for the last eight years in the DC metro area and we needed it.

Because I love challenges – except in dating. How’s that for an intro?

Ed Rock of the National Science Teachers’ Association is a tech guy and one of our COPUS volunteers. He built two databases for us – one for scientists and the other for schools. The scientists told us what area of science they specialized in, how comfortable they were talking to students and at what level, how to find them and when they were available.

The science teachers (some were schools but most were individual teachers) told us what type of science they were looking for, which class they wanted scientists for, and what their expectations were.

DC COPUS – which has a small core group of about six people – and then a network of maybe 100 more – sent out the request for scientists to everyone it knew. Our best response came from the National Institutes of Health and we don’t really know why. A couple of federal agencies got cold feet and didn’t help but some of their people signed up anyway.

Since we had no budget – a local news release distributed by PR Newswire was out of the question. So I created a local media list and sent out a release that didn’t really go anywhere. I also posted on a free site called Impact Wire which got us some attention.

What worked? Facebook. I posted notifications for teachers and scientists on every page I could find where scientists and science teachers gathered – particularly young ones. I posted on the college and grad school pages of those nearby. AAAS sent out notifications to its Facebook Science Careers’ fans in the Washington, DC area (you can segment your audiences now with the last redesign).

I called some of the bigger scientific organizations in DC and got help from some – the neuroscientists in particular.

For the schools I tried two tactics – in Arlington, VA I went to the science supervisor for the district and she sent it to her entire list of science teachers. In Montgomery County, I randomly selected schools off its web site (it was the only local district that had all its people information on line) and sent to their science leads. In the end, the Arlington administrator worked better. Now we know.

Then Ed the tech guy matched the scientists with the schools. One of our big concerns was we didn’t want to get in the middle of schools talking to scientists because we didn’t have enough people to manage it (there were three of us) and we didn’t want to be responsible for what happened.

We had just over 100 scientists sign up and 50 plus schools. I could have gotten far more schools but I was afraid we wouldn’t have enough scientists. In the end, Ed was able to give each school two choices of scientists and the suggestion that they could have them come in as a team. Emails were sent to scientists and schools telling them what they needed to know. We will do a follow-up survey to see what they thought of it.

One issue is that many scientists don't really know how to talk with kids. But since we had no time for training, we posted information from organizations who do public understanding of science on the COPUS web site and hoped they'd use it.

I promoted the first Meet the Scientist event at Takoma Park Middle School and got the local paper to cover it as well as the district. A second event held by Johns Hopkins a few days later got the Washington Post.

October is almost over and it’s working. Yippee. Can we duplicate it somewhere else and do it the same way? I’m not sure but I’m going to try.

Some links that will be helpful:

Press Release for Meet the Scientist

http://www.impactwire.com/a/502/Scientists-Go-Back-to-School-this-October-in-DC

COPUS DC Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=33739102607&ref=ts

Before Scientists Go to Schools - Resources

http://staging.yearofscience2009.org/about/meet-scientist-dc.html

Ninety Two Year-old Aunt Helen Vs. The Web Developers

2009-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Web sites have come a long way in the past five years, which became evident at two presentations I saw yesterday before one of the communications groups I belong too. Twenty six dollars for browning roast beef, honey mustard dressing, and the salad greens I buy at the market and scoop out with tongs.

The space was nice but the Topaz Hotel should be ashamed of itself. My local deli would have done a much better job.

First of all these were old presentations. The world is changing way too fast to do presentations pretty much on anything that was developed more than a year ago. You used to be able to get away with 3-5 years when there was a computer and only the beginnings of the Internet.

I designed my web site two years ago and I’m embarrassed at how dated it is. And it’s much better than these.

What was wrong with these sites? Let’s start with the one for senior citizens, whose presenter's lessons learned after four years of research and development on a plain HTML site were:

• Nothing should be more than two clicks away.
• Don’t clutter up the page.
• Use the same headings on every page for consistency.
• Organize your content organized clearly and simply.

Duh - isn't that Web 1.0? Did I miss a decade or something.

Maybe these were Big Ideas to the federal government web designers, the ones who make sites that have so much stuff on them you can never find what you are looking for. The search engine was Boolean, which basically means it was created by developers who know how to look things up on the sites they build.

There was not a word said about any of the things that matter right now - SEO, integration with other forms of media, branding, whether or not anyone uses them, what they think? They are working on a redesign of the site.

Somewhere in there was one piece of information I could use. It had a button that would help make the font bigger. Yipee.

To be fair, at the time this site was designed elderly people were just learning to turn on a computer. Now I’d match 92 year-old great aunt Helen with any teenager I know.

Part two of the worst web site presentations ever tomorrow.

What Happens in Vegas. . . Can Be Shared A Little

2009-10-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Went to a panel discussion on branding your organization through social media the other day - one of the better ones I've been too. Learned a few things too. Here are some highlights:

Google Wave - Haven't had a chance to look at it yet but hear it is the next best thing out there and will give other social media sites a run for their money. Check it out.

Social Media Policy - A smart one. On office time if you go on Facebook you are a representative of your company. Don't post anything you wouldn't say to your mother at a family dinner. After hours you can be a little more risque but remember it can come back to haunt you.

Should You Keep Work and Life Separate on Facebook? - This question always comes up. Facebook now has enough privacy settings that you can literally segment your groups into different sets of fans and only let one group see certain posts while others can see posts more applicable to them.

Branding in the Social Space - Every company and individual has the opportunity to develop a personality on line that is uniquely yours. That's how you brand. Figure out who you are and what you want to be and make sure you emphasize that. If you don't have a personality (seen this a lot on blind dates) then it's going to be pretty tough to make a social media one.

Facebook Advertising - One participant had a lot of success with this by spending very little money. His ROI was fantastic. Again though what are you trying to accomplish with advertising? The Facebook words you can use for SEO on your ads can be pretty limiting. But they're getting better.

Cross Promotion - I tweet, blog, Facebook, Plaxo, YouTube and cross promote my business and products on all of them. How much you toot your own horn is up to you and your audience. How much will they tolerate? Best bet is to connect all of them and then figure it out.

Lawyers Online - The loss of control freaks them out - totally. How can you protect yourself if it's up there for everyone to see? They're still trying to figure it out.

Many Companies and Associations Still Not Using Social Media - NOOOOO - REALLY - they're not. And they're still in business, thank you very much. You have to start with your customer base. Are they on there? How are they using social media? Are you trying to reach young professionals - then you'd better be there. Is your client base white men over the age of 55 - social not so much. Know your audience. That's pretty basic.

There's more but it's my birthday and I'm blogging. Done for the day.

Wild Wild West of Internet About to End

2009-10-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

Today was a win for PR people, reputable journalists and those with ethics. I cannot count how many bloggers out there refuse to cover the clients I pitch (even when they really are different and useful).

Why - because they live by "pay to play" a form of marketing that fools the masses into believing that the products they are covering - and what they say about them - is an honest opinion. But the truth is these blogs and their writers are for sale. If you pay them, they will write about you. If not, well shrug, shrug, shrug.

Reputable journalists hate this because they are bound by ethics and rules. They can't take gifts. They can't take money. And most important, they try not to be sleazy.

Recently I realized just how bad it had gotten when I got an email from a personal finance blogger who just flat out said, “Tell your client to spend some of the marketing budget they are spending on you here on my blog and I’ll write about him.” WOW.

Sorry bloggers but your reign of ethics free writing is taking a big hit. According to an article in today’s New York Times, the F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1st, 2009:

Bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, particularly if they are paid for placement.

Celebrities will need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter.

Advertisers are losing the ability to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement.

The important thing is that the government is beginning to impose rules on the Internet, similar to the same sorts of regulations that other forms of media, like television or print must live by. They must have some powerful lobbyists out there.

Marketing with No Money

2009-09-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

Jason Alba of Jibber Jabber an online executive recruiting firm, gave the best talk I’ve ever seen on social media marketing. He was fired from his job a couple of years ago and launched this company, authored the book I’m on LinkedIn – Now What? and is finishing a second book on Facebook.

Despite his rambling, self-deprecating style Alba is very smart. He lives in Utah and built a nationally known company by sitting behind his computer.

And he did it without spending any money on marketing. Bravo Jason.

Here are four ways that Jason marketed his business without spending a dime:

1. Built His Network

As an executive recruiter network building and relationship management is Alba's specialty. He says the idea behind social media marketing is to create a network of evangelists – people who love you – people who will recommend you – people who will say great things about you.

Research says people have to see your brand at least 7X before they recognize it. So the strategy should be based on getting it in front of them in the most ways possible.

Alba's social media network includes Multiple Blogs – LinkedIn – Company Newsletter – Facebook – Communities/Groups – Twitter – Books - Articles

Your network should be built carefully and nurtured. It’s the guts of your business.

Alba recommends using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to track all of your contacts, many of whom are in different parts of the social networking sphere.

Segment your contacts and send information out to them regularly both by putting it in their in-box and having them come to you.

2. Used Email as a Branding Tool

You want buzz – people talking about you so you should generate interest in every way you connect with people. One place people forget to pitch their brand is in their email signature which should be used as a billboard for your company.

Figure out what message you are sending with it now (Do you have one?) and if not add one that distills your sales message into a sentence. Mine is now “Sharing health and science with everyone.” It’s not perfect but at least it says what I do.

Remember you can also paste your email signature into messages to communities, your LinkedIn, Facebook and other networks, and other places where you answer questions or participate in the discussion.

3. Got His Name Out There All the Time

Brag – Make a video, PowerPoint or slide show about your business. The presentation can go up on your LinkedIn page, your web site, and on other venues like Facebook. It will humanize your business and let everyone quickly get what you do and what your edge is.

Join groups – Alba says he’s found Yahoo Groups most active. The community groups are better because they are centered around a specific topic. The PR value of having someone post a positive experience with your business is priceless.

You can also give webinars that will make you sound smart and help others understand how smart you are.

Alba says at last count he had 7 blogs – some of which are written by others. He’s a devotee of blogging every day so people see your name in front of them every day. I have three blogs and strive for once a week. There’s only so much a busy entrepreneur can do.

He also regularly leaves comments on other's blogs and has built a network of links from his blogs to others.

3. Focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Alba’s growth strategy is blogging to build links and traffic to his site, other blogs, pages, etc. He started by developing a network of bloggers he could have relationships with – those who would link him, mention him or write an entire post about him. He always makes them aware of new and enticing posts. A recent one that got major attention: Depression in the Job Search.

Of course it’s great to be covered by the mega bloggers but getting their attention can be very hard. So start by building a large network of people who each have tiny audiences or you can start your own community and invite others to join.

(This is from me - many industries that I work with have online lists of the top 100 or 200 blogs in their area of expertise. The lists include names, contact information, etc. It's a great way to find out who's talking about your client's business - what they are saying - how they position themselves - and get a free up-to-date media list).

Twitter is also a great way to promote your blog - you have to strike a balance between too much tweeting your own horn and what works but once you find it - it's a great way to build readership.

You have to give your blog readers the ability to sign up and receive your blog via email – it gets your message in front of them if they don’t come to you.

4. Lead the Conversation

Alba says if you want to build your company then write a book. These days anyone can author a book and e-publish it. If you write a book about what you do, with a compelling title and smart advice people can learn from and it will help your business a lot.

Why? One reason is that most media programs – TV in particular – like authors. They can hold the book up in front of their audience. It makes them look smart to have read your book. And everyone sells more books.

If you write an e-book use online video, web sites, blogs, news programs, etc. that will link back to your book. An e-book can really help your clients understand what you do and how you do it well, as can white papers.

Should you charge for the e-book? Probaby not for the first one.

Don't Let FAQ Writers Design Your Web Site

2009-09-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

I love calling a company when I'm on its web site and telling whoever I get on the phone that I can't figure out how to find what I need on it. Then comes the polite little chuckle of agreement and an explanation of how to go five layers deep to still not find what I asked for.

Is that how you want your employees to think of your web site - as an embarrassing little joke?

Ever waited on line at a retail store and watched how slowly the line moved. Think of your web site like that. If people have to click more than two times or wait more than a few seconds for something to load they're done and gone. Bye, bye.

I conduct research for a living - then write about and market what I learn. And I can tell you most web sites suck. Far too many are on par with the owners' manuals of technology products - they were designed by people who don't need to read the manual or use the FAQs or find something on your web site. And we wonder why our bounce rates are so high.

Now we know more about site design and have more cool bells and whistles. But how do you get your web site to brand you - to help others find you - to create satisfied happy customers?

Seth Godin, who is one of the smartest marketers out there, put out a list of questions on his blog that you should ask and answer before redesigning your site. I've deleted and added a few and organized them differently - but here's his list. Hope it helps.

What is the goal of the site?

Are we trying to close sales?

Are we telling a story?

Are we driving people to take an action – what is it?

Are we earning permission to follow up?

Are we hoping that people will watch or learn?

How can we best manage this project?

Who are we trying to please?

Do we have to please the boss?

Is impressing a certain kind of person important? Which kind?

How many people do you need – what will they do?

Who needs to update this site? How often?

How often can we afford to overhaul this site?

How do we connect with our target audiences?

Who are we trying to reach? Is it everyone? Our customers? A certain kind of prospect?

What are the sites that this group has demonstrated they enjoy interacting with?

How many times a month would we like people to come by? For how long?

How do we spread the word about our site?

Do we need people to spread the word using various social media tools?

What are the best ways to continue connection with our audiences?

Do we want people to call us?

How many times a month would we like people to come by? For how long?

How can we make it easier for people to find what they need on our site?

Do you track the information that people go to your web site to find?

Do you analyze the questions that people ask when they call in and are trying to find info on your site? What do they tell you?

Have you asked your web site visitors how easy it is to find information they need or make a transaction?

Have you brought them in, sat them in front of you and watched the process by which they search your site?

Do they get what they need in a couple of clicks? Do they get frustrated? Have you looked for ways to address this?

Do we make it easy for customers to contact us and get answers?

Do real people answer customer questions that come in through your web site?

Do you add questions that come in from site visitors to your list of FAQs on a regular basis?

Do you send canned answers to all of your customers who write to you?

Do you revisit these answers on a regular basis and see if they address what people are asking?

Do you track what people who go to your forums for answers to questions they cannot get on your web site ask?

Is there a way customers can follow up with a real person if they need to?

How do we maximize our web site for SEO?

Are there ongoing news and updates that need to be presented to people?

Is the site part of a larger suite of places online where people can find out about us, or is this our one sign post?

Is that information high in bandwidth or just little bits of data?

Does showing up in the search engines matter? If so, for what terms? At what cost?

Will we be willing to compromise any of the things above in order to achieve this goal?

Will the site need to be universally accessible? Do issues of disability or language or browser come into it?

What's the best way to keep our budget in line?

How do we best prioritize our options?

How much money do we have to spend? How much time?

What's our time line?

Soldiers Go Social

2009-09-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the military on Facebook, Twitter and some other social media sites. Probably our largest, most bureaucratic organization – the transformation into social hasn’t been easy for those in uniform. Think about it though – what a great way for soldiers to communicate and to find new recruits.

At the Adweek DC Conference this week, Colonel Mike Jones, of the Army National Guard Strength Command, told stories about his experiences leading social media efforts in his branch for the last two years. He opened with a story.

Some of the generals love Twitter but they don't necessarily know how to use it. So recently I had to tell a four star, 'Sir you don’t have to tweet it every morning when you arrive at the Pentagon.'"”

Jones tales of helping the military enter the social media world are laced with humor. There’s something we can all learn from them. Here are some highlights:

Learning to let go

It was a big leap for us, Jones said, because we always have goals and metrics and a plan. We do have the ability to engage with our product and deliver it remotely. But to let soldiers tell their stories in an unfiltered way was a big change for us. It meant providing a deeper sense of connectivity but it also meant giving up a lot of control.

Tossing out the formats

We looked at our competitors, other branches of the military, and they were trying to make their social media sites look just like their web sites. They have all this gorgeous art and they want to use it. But that’s not what social media is. My goal was to make our site look like a friend’s site. It’s not very attractive, and kind of plain. You have to look like the media you are in.

Changing the rules

Many of our people love Twitter. They will hear a buzzword and say, "I’m going to go tweet about this." The generals see words like hell or damn and they want you to take them down immediately then question why we're up there in the first place. You have to explain to them that social media is different and make sure they get it. Because if they don’t buy into the concept, they won’t support you, and then you’re done."

A social army

We have 300,000 soldiers who bought into and live our product. When we started in social media a couple of years ago, there were already 700 power users in the Guard on Facebook. We decided to let them help us. They wanted to volunteer and be involved. So we use them as moderators – and their passion is conveyed to this community.

Winning

We want to be the best in class in our industry. We use social media for leads, enlistments, to talk about engagements and build traffic to our web sites. But it's been a real learning experience. We thought once we got out there everyone would come. But it wasn’t that simple – we overshot and were disappointed. Now it’s a slower more natural build.

Embrace Your Inner Bitch and Use it For Good PR

2009-09-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

That's what Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue did to save her job recently. Of course, she was already labeled as a super monster in the film "Devil Wears Prada," so it's not like the fact that she is a haute couture bitch is a stunner.

But how many times have women heard that successful women are bitches and successful men are smart. Female PR people and marketers who aren't afraid to tell the truth and be pushy are shot down by men all the time. I worked in a company like that once. My boss would sit there nodding as I spoke, his eyes glazing over and then finally responded with a "Good Point," when I was done talking. Then he'd ignore everything I'd said.

His comments were always followed by a number two who would repeat what my boss just said, adjusting it just enough so it sounded like it was her idea. Then a love fest of the highest order would erupt. The rest of the smart women in the room just wanted to crawl under the table and die. Number two was a bitch but never, ever in front of anyone male or who mattered. Why? Because she grew up in corporate America and had sucked up her whole life. She didn't know how to do it any other way.

Well guess what? According to Tina Brown, founder of The Daily Beast and former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, bitchiness can be creative, smart and attention-getting. Wintour was about to get replaced with a younger, hotter, more malleable version of herself. So she struck a deal with documentary film producer R.J. Cutler to film her life. She did something it must be really hard for her to do, gave away creative control. She combined the documentary's release with a special Fashion Week event that was a roaring success, and now she's back on top.

So what's the lesson here for PR people and marketers? Most PR people are scared. They put out fires not start them. They tell clients what they want to hear. They are terrified they'll get fired if their client gets negative publicity. They won't go out on a limb and tell a client what they really think - or perhaps they don't even know what would work better. They water down everything to the point where it says absolutely nothing. And then when they can't sell the story they put a bunch of 22 year-olds on the phone and make them sell it.

Anyone who reads my blog knows I have issues with talking points. What sells is something that makes me care, that is genuine. Bitchy people are interesting. They have character. They make mistakes. They fix them. The get in trouble. They figure out how to get out of it.

The best way to get a reporter to write about your client is to let them follow them around for a couple of days and write about what goes on behind the scenes - the decisions that are made. So what if it might be a little negative. I subscribe to the belief that all press is good press. A negative story gets a lot of attention - these days more than ever.

Years ago I wrote an article for Manhattan, Inc. magazine that was immensely popular called "Jerry Della Femina's Fast Pitch". It was the inside story of how a gutsy Madison Avenue ad agency went after new work. Jerry got it - he knew it would help him and it did. And I reported on some of the struggles in pulling the pitch together, but for the most part it was a positive story. And it helped him cement his place on top.

Here's the polar opposite of that. A woman I know vaguely through business has built hers around writing and speaking about Gen X and Gen Y - teaching the grown-ups how to manage their kids in the workplace. She has this whole spiel about the conflict between the generations, how the millenials are different, etc. The Washington Post came to one of her talks and covered it.

You could almost hear the 20-something reporter gnashing her teeth as you read the story. The writer pointed out that the material presented was irrelevant, dated and a combination of what a lot of other people had said about the same topic over the years. She questioned why baby boomers paid for the talk.

Quite frankly, the reporter had a point. The talk is entertaining, but it's all in the delivery. I've seen this presentation by others and it fails to address the realities of today's marketplace. The sense of entitlement in the millenial generation raised when everyone won a trophy at soccer and was coddled, is gone. They are getting fired. They can't get jobs. And none of these "generational consultants" address that in their talk. They're still saying the same things they were five years ago about people who don't exist anymore.

A couple of days ago, I got an email from the woman who felt offended by her Post coverage. The email explained how she'd received all this hate mail after the article appeared and how "hate should be addressed with knowledge." It was defensive and kind of creepy.

Was she wrong to let the Washington Post reporter in? Absolutely not. The press she got was pretty good actually - it was a long feature with photos and an overview of what she does. Though the reporter was skeptical, she noted the audience was happy. I would have let it go and been happy with the coverage. But people can't take it when others criticize them. They get offended by bitchiness of others. And they feel like they have to fight back.

So good for Anna Wintour - who wasn't afraid to be exactly who she is. As Tina Brown put it "Anna’s appeal is that she has no interest in pretending to be human. . . She showed her inner vampire."

Another woman waiting to catch a glimpse of Anna Wintour on the street at a Fashion Week event put said it even better. "Everyone loves a bitch."

Read All About It - Yachters May Save the Day

2009-09-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

There is an old saying that you can't get something for nothing. Well newspapers have disregarded that over the last few years by putting much of their content on the Web for free then watching their print circulation die.

Online advertising never became the draw newspaper ad execs thought it would, and as a result many are bleeding money.

But The Newport Daily News (Rhode Island's wealthy boating enclave daily) took a bold marketing step recently, according to an article on Newsweek's online version. It started charging for online content in an effort to strengthen its print market.

What happened? Readers started buying the newspaper again. Since NDN started charging for its online reading, the 13,000 circulation publication has seen daily print sales jump by 200 per day.

Can a publication devoted to yachting and the high life get the attention of an industry stuck in a time warp? It is starting too.

Since the experiment worked - other newspapers are looking into copying the marketing strategy. And well they should, it's about time somebody in that business got smarter about marketing that will save print.

Read the full story at http://www.newsweek.com/id/214607

We are So Over Facebook Mom

2009-08-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

I will NOT FRIEND MY MOM. That was my 13 year-old son’s rallying cry until it became a condition of him having what he called then “A Facebook.” In the past year, he’s de-friended me once – because he was supposed to be doing his homework and he was posting on Facebook which I of course had to comment on.

But a conniving babysitter found his password and had him re-friend me while he wasn’t looking. Tough break.

The Brits saw it first. The Guardian reports that just 50-percent of 15-to-24-year-olds in the United Kingdom had a profile on a social networking site in 2009, compared to 55 percent in 2008. This is the first time that number has dropped since the Facebook and MySpace boom a few years ago.

But the tail-end of the Generation Xers and their younger siblings still want Facebook. The number of 25-to-34-year-olds that use these sites grew from 40-46% last year.

Will the United States be next? Will social networking become uncool? Will we 30-50 somethings become the next generation of Facebook users mocked by our teens?

Listen up advertisers. If you work with or have teenage kids – two out of two for me – you know that if their parents do it they will stop. It’s kind of like the New York adage – “Once the bridge and tunnel crowd get there (meaning Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens – Staten Island doesn’t count) the cool people stop going.” We parents are the bridge and tunnel crowd. We’ve ruined it.

But if the kids leave social media where will they go? I’m seeing an upsurge in texting even off the current base which is quite high. After all texting is pretty private, and other teens always text back. Why sit on a computer when you can do it from your IPhone?

Or maybe, just maybe – meeting face-to-face (Anyone remember hanging out at 7-Eleven or the local pizza parlor?) will stage a comeback.

Is Your CEO Over Soundbited?

2009-08-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart is having a field day with Fox News demonstrating how it grabs onto an issue like a pit bull (with or without lipstick) and soundbites it to death. The idea of course is to influence public opinion by repeating the same thing over and over again. And on a mass scale it can work although in the newsroom well it's just plain scary.

We all know that the more you say something the more credible it is right?

No one would ever accuse Fox News of trying to bias viewers, well maybe not this week.

In the August 3rd episode of the Daily Show Comedy Central's Stewart demonstrates how you influence public opinion (or at the very least the Fox News audience) by repetition, attributing it to the man on the street, and then elevating it to a new level. It tried to put in the link but it doesn't work so just Google it.

First the talking head Ken Doll journalist Steve introduces a talking point on a Fox show that the Cash for Clunkers Program - which is working by the way - is running out of money and an abject failure for the administration. Then they show video clips on a later broadcast of two "citizens" in two different cities making the exact same point in town hall meetings.

But their point goes one better because if Obama can't run Cash for Clunkers how can he run healthcare?

Next the same "newsperson" reports it again as news. Finally we see the litany of Fox hosts - we all know who they are - who pick up the same talking points and run with them.

What's disturbing and yet very funny is the way Stewart lays it out for us without drawing any value judgetments. Some of the talking points include:

Bad program
Too much business
Running out of Money
Too effective
If can't run Cash for Clunkers How Can they Run Healthcare?

So my point is not just another liberal rant - it's really for marketers and media people. I have been watching a lot of morning and evening and even daytime news shows lately. It's part of my job folks. And what I'm seeing is that everyone is talking pointed to death.

They repeat the same things over and over again. They know exactly how to segway into the next talking point. The hosts let them get away with it. And it doesn't look real. They're not really credible because they are way too rehearsed.

What is the line you should walk between preparing your CEO for an interview and making him or her sound not only like they've practiced too death but also that they can't say anything but what's on the TV monitor in front of them?

Well here's my first thought - if he or she doesn't sound genuine to you - and be honest with yourselves not pandering - you need to shake it up a bit.

Throw in an anecdote that makes him seem human. A few uhs are not the end of the world.

More on this in the next post.

You Said What? Remember Social Media is Public Marketing Folks

2009-07-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

I've written about this before - but it's an ongoing problem as more and more people join us in social media land.

For those of us who use Facebook professionally and personally and don't split our pages - we sometimes have friends that post bad stuff. Not bad in the horrible sense, but bad in the sense that I don't want clients or prospective ones reading posts make me cringe. During the elections it was radical politics. Now it's reverted to sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Oh that 70s generation.

It's not just the posts but the photos. Look at the one on this page of a drunk, passed out teenager from the book I'm writing. Would I post that on Facebook? Of course not. But I see a lot of bare midriffs and butt shots and drunk passed out teenagers. Stuff that is well not in very good taste. Bad idea.

I don't want my clients reading stuff I wouldn't tell them in conversation. And I don't talk in gibberishy client speak. I'm direct. Sometimes I say stuff I shouldn't say. I can silence a room. But I'm not an idiot.

Many people keep separate Facebook pages for work and personal lives but as a small and growing company, it's not that simple for me. I want people I know professionally to see my human side. I want my business contacts to know I have a life. And it's nice to know that my clients aren't just that, but also have kids and spouses and dogs and interests outside of work.

Yet I have all these people from high school who act on Facebook like well - they are still in high school. And I've got a cousin in Hollywood who is hilarious but the stuff he talks about - well you can just imagine.

At least they are not boring - but they often do go too far.

My cousin hides his posts so my friends can't see them, but I can check up on him privately. That's one solution.

The captain of my high school football team is a different story. He's a professional guy and the stuff he's putting up I'm sure he doesn't want his kids, let alone members of his union team, to see. That mentality should stay in the shop sir. On Facebook you sound like a sexist and under-loved jerk.

Maybe he just hasn't read the zillion articles about college kids looking for jobs and prospective employers checking their social media pages. Who can forget the infamous Bristol Palin "fiancee " Levi whose MySpace page said something like - I want to be with as many girls as possible and I never want to get married. Jon Stewart found it, feasted on it, and it came down very fast.

The bottom line is Facebook and everything else on the Internet is public. IT'S MARKETING. It tells people who you are and how you think. It tells them how smart or not smart you are. It tells them what keeps you up at night.

Do you really want that stuff you're writing that you wouldn't say in a client meeting out there in Internet land? My guess is no.

My rule is simple: If you wouldn't say it to your boss don't post it. It can easily come back to haunt you.

Do I post personal things? Yes. My last Facebook post asked for "Advice to Survive Living with a 14 year-old boy." The answers were funny - from send him to relatives for the whole summer to Cosmopolitans. People responded in droves which is great.

Of course, I forgot that my 14 year-old boy reads that - but it's not news to him that he drives me crazy. And it makes me seem human to clients. But dirty jokes - no. Sexual references - no. High school drunkenness stories - been there, done that, writing a book about it - not going to write about that on Facebook.

So what do I do now with people like that? I used to cut them off right away. Now I send them a message and tell them the truth. If they stop - fine. If they don't stop that's their decision. But they are no longer on my fan page.

Manipulating Public Opinion Through Twitter

2009-07-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

That damn Twitter bird again. I can’t get away from him. The healthcare industry and its legislative and media champions have become experts on using Twitter to get people to pay attention to their point of view – right, wrong, false, true, it doesn’t really matter. Who needs Harry and Louise when you have so much information to re-disseminate?

How many companies and people have made a name for themselves by searching the Web, then tweeting the links of what they find to thousands of followers? About.com is a big one – some of its guides do nothing more than pick a topic, throw in an introductory sentence and put up links. Pretty simple stuff.

Twitter is a center of the healthcare debate. Public plan advocates push their agenda. Those who oppose it are pushing their own. Why is the White House with its great and powerful knowledge of the Web – not on Twitter? Because there’s too much junk on it.

We have become information junkies – all of us – on the topics that we care and don’t really care about.

Healthcare raises ire and passion. There are gut wrenching stories about people who lost everything because they couldn’t afford to pay doctors, hospitals, etc. for health insurance. There are gut wrenching stories about people who can’t afford healthcare at all so they die. There are even more gut wrenching stories about people who health insurers decide they won’t cover when they find out they are really sick.

A friend of mine had breast cancer. I say had because we all hope it is past tense. Her doctor ordered a stream of tests because her sister, who is in her mid-forties I think, had it when she was even younger. They found cancer. She had surgery – she is doing fine.

Her insurance company is refusing to pay for the tests because they say there is no family history of breast cancer. A sister evidently is lateral – which means she’s not part of her history. A friend of mine who works as a nurse practitioner said there was no reason to think because her sister had breast cancer she might have it. EXCEPT SHE DID and he saved her life. Her life isn’t worth the tests?

All of the people who say we don't want bureaucrats involved in our healthcare decisions (that's the argument of the Right which has plenty of money to pay for the best of care) are ignoring the fact that low level gate keepers are making decisions about what care the insurance companies pay for. Who gets treated for cancer and who doesn't. Is that better?

OK got off the topic on what some would call a liberal rant.

A lot of healthcare companies are raising their profile and making new connections through Twitter. It’s a great big Tweeting world out there.

But if you’re going to use Twitter – use it well. Learn from what the news organizations are doing. They are Tweeting about their best stories. Their journalists are Tweeting about their work. Original work.

Don’t be lazy. While Tweeting about the conversations of others may help you add followers it won’t help you build your brand.Anyone can post a link. Not everyone can add to the conversation.

So bring something new to the party. Give people information they don’t already have. Be provocative. The hell with what others are saying. Talk about what you know. Link to everyone you can. Build your followers. Build your company as a knowledge base. And keep track of the media in your business and what they’re Tweeting. You’ll be happy you did.