New Venture Marketing

Public Relations on the NET

I went to reach for a well worn copy of Public Relations on the NET by Shel Holtz, and realized that you may want to know about it.  While Shel and I have never met, I have been an admirer of his every since I first picked up a copy of his book , Public Relations on the NET:  Winning Strategies to Inform and Influence the Media, the Investment Community, the Government, the Public and More!, some years ago now.  There is a more recent, revised edition now available, but what strikes me is the applicability of my older copy even today.

Public Relations on the NET provides a good primer on how to use the Internet to conduct effective communications.  It provides a step-by-step approach to both the strategy and the tactics and an understanding of how they might best be applied for both large and small companies. 

The clearly written book features "a wealth of helpful information and covers the basic public relations tools used today - e-mail, e-mail newsletters, discussion groups, and Websites."  If you are looking to learn more about communications on the Web, I recommend it.

Also Shel Holtz now co-leads a weekly podcast on blogging and other next generation tools with another favorite, Neville Hobson.  It's great.  Check it out.

RSS

There's an excellent post on RSS, written by Tom Murphy, a highly regarded PR professional and blogger. "For the uninitiated," says Murphy, " RSS can be thought of as a news feed.  Using an RSS reader you can subscribe to relelvant feeds and as new items are published you are automatically alerted."

RSS feeds are a wonderful means for providing content distribution and delivery both within and outside of the corporation, and I will be discussing it at great length.  For now, however, Tom offers a very nice introduction to what can be a confusing topic.

News@Cisco (2)

Content Distribution

News@Cisco combines the use of both more traditional and newer ditigal technologies to communicate with an increasingly fragmented, increasingly connected world.

Cisco still produces press releases for wire and press distribution, still makes b-roll available to broadcast stations via the Internet or Federal Express, but about a year and a half ago Cisco introduced RSS syndication.  RSS is a specification which describes how to display syndicated content (known as a feed) in news aggregator software. Publishers (such as Cisco) make their content available by providing a RSS feeds on specific subjects, and users buy or install news aggregators which collect RSS feeds in which they are interested.

Then when someone writes about your company or products, your competitors or anything else of interest to you, an update is either sent to your email or aggregator account.   RSS syndication has often been called the "Tivo for the Internet" and it has been predicted that it will change the way content consumed.  (See PR Week for a good description of the technology as it relates to PR.)

Today, Cisco provides some 350 RSS feeds on as many categories. Journalists (and anyone else) can use Cisco RSS feeds to stay on top of breaking news for

Ten Ways Communications Will Change In 2005..

Andy Lark has written a nice piece on "Ten Ways Communications Will Change in 2005..."  I recommend it.

Online Press Rooms

I can't think of a client today who doesn't post some sort of company news on their site, typically in the form of news releases, company events and press coverage.  While this information is useful, it is not sufficient in an age of 24/7 communications when audiences are both local and global. Today an online press room is key to provide access, easy-to-find and use information an editor or analyst might need, without trying to track it down, piece-by-piece.

The changes that are required are not big ones, but they are essential.  For the company which is not yet public, it would include:
.   virtual press kit with:
         .  company backgrounder
         .  executive bios & contact information
         .  basic company FAQs
         .  downloadable product shots
         .  downloadable company logo (s)

Don't Publish for the Sake of Publishing

From the desk of content management guru, Gerry McGovern:

   Don't publish for the sake of publishing. You may have one key message that you leave on your homepage for years. It's not a matter of having content that is new or old; it is a matter of having content that is relevant and useful.
   
   Some organizations hardly ever bother to update their websites. There are stories on the homepage that can be months—if not years—out of date. These  organizations simply don't understand that leaving this content on the website is damaging to the professional reputation of the organization.
   
   However, some organizations publish new content even when they shouldn’t. They fall into the trap of thinking that publishing is about news. Yes, an element of publishing can be about news, but that is not what the core purpose of publishing is. At a basic level, publishing is about getting the right content to the right person at the right time at the right cost....
   
   If you are not an organization that creates news, then don't have a prominent news section on your website. If you have one major message, then it is perfectly okay to promote that message in the center of your homepage every day of every year....

   It's not about being new. It is about being useful. Your job as a website editor is to make the difficult decisions in relation to what really matters to your key readers. How does news help them complete the task that they came to your website to do.

I couldn't agree more.

Convergence Marketing

I’ve been rereading Convergence Marketing, and thinking about the impact of the Internet on business and our clients. The premise of the book is that while the Internet doesn’t change everything, it does create a major shift in how customers behave and in turn how business must operate. The Dot.com era, the authors say, taught us that successful companies don’t simply throw out the old technologies and practices in favor of new ones, but rather integrate them into their total mix.

The same applies to marketing tools and practices. Traditional techniques, such as advertising, PR, and direct mail, have not been replaced, but they sure have been impacted by a witches brew of new tools from blogs and wikis to RSS and news aggregators.

The difference time makes

I had dinner tonight with John Bierbauer, one of the best marketing managers I have run into and a client when he worked for Bell Labs.

We caught up and reminisced about old times.  And I am struck by what a difference even a few years can make.  When we last worked together it was on the launch on an exciting new verification product used in EDA.  We did many things to build to the launch:  intense PR, advertising, direct mail, newsletter inserts into the industry's lead magazine, product demos, an analyst panel at DAC, and a customer party at the Exploratorium. 

Today we would still do these things but the medium would have changed.  The newsletters would have morphed to e-zines, the direct mail to RSS feeds and email, the ads to Google Ad Words, the product demos into webnars.  The PR would be posted to the media room on the division's website. John would use a blog to announce and get feedback on the product. And we would all monitor the statistics and fine tune our program accordingly.

But somethings don't change, and it was a pleasure to catch up.  All the best John, it was nice to see you.

PR Firms Slow to Embrace Blogging

Curiously, most PR firms have been slow to embrace blogging as a tool for communications, slower than many of our clients. And yet, the Internet is quickly becoming the most popular medium for communications and information. Many people, editors among them, would rather access data on line then try to find a contact and a phone number.

I think we all resist what we don’t know.  In PR we’re used to sending communications out, but not in getting them back. Indeed, the idea of feedback might be enough to strike fear in the heart of the most intrepid marketeer.  But that conversation is at the very heart of blogging and its potential to communicate in a whole new – and very powerful - way.

Why? Because people are more apt to trust a real person than an anonymous corporate voice. When I can have access to you in your role as CEO, expert, or product manager, the relationship shifts from one of being sold to a conversation.  Reflects David Burns, in "New Tactics, New Tools" , "Imagine a saleman who never lets the customer speak."  The Internet makes PR a whole new game. As highly regarded PR blogger, Steve Rubel, observes, "Blogs have already started to change the news media: Now it's time for marketers to adjust their strategies."

The impact of blogging on PR

Last week the recently-formed International Association of Online Communicators lead a blog fest, The Thrilla' in Mozilla, that featured a different blogger each day, from among some of the blogosphere’s most thoughtful marketeers.  The fest was lead by Steve O'Keefe, the organization's founder. I highly recommend it for those who are interested in the impact of blogging on PR.