That was definitely the case at Blog Indiana 2010. The two-day conference was filled with smart presenters who gladly shared their knowledge and expertise with everyone in the room.  With 35 speakers, I wasn’t able to attend every session but there were two in particular that stood out.

I learned a lot from Jeremy Dearringer’s, of Slingshot SEO, session on Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM). If you think search engine optimization is all you need to worry about, think again. For example, have you ever considered the impact of Google’s suggested search pop-up? Because users search for negative search terms, those will show up in the pop-up. And since people are impulsive searchers, they will see the negative search result and often decide not to click into the results to see what the story really is.

Jeremy also shared this nugget. Just because your site becomes popular, it doesn’t mean people will remember and access your URL directly. Most people do branded search – sometimes even entering the URL into the search window.  And if company website has negative result directly below it in the Google search results, up to 70% of surfers will click on the negative result first. Yuck.

So what are we to do? Jeremy suggested being proactive with the sites under your control, which isn’t new, but also advised us to do nothing to add to the negative conversation. Somewhat counterintuitive, yes?  After listening, it makes sense. If you respond to a negative comment, you only strengthen its position in the search results.  So take that negative customer service response offline.

I’d also like to give kudos to Chad Richards from Firebelly Marketing who presented a session on Facebook for Business.  Not only did Chad give oodles of information, his presentation style was calm, measured and easy-to-follow.  He briefly covered the basics of Facebook pages vs. profiles and how to create a relevant page, but want struck me was his attention to setting goals and a strategy to reach those goals.  One of the standout comments was, “Anticipate and plan so you don’t have to react on the fly.”  That’s the way I like to do business, so I immediately was prepared to trust just about anything he presented after that.

I won’t get into all the tactics he presented about how to promote your Facebook page and build your community here. He also had great information on how to explore Facebook data and identify trends in what people respond to on a page to find an optimal time and place to post.  In addition, he walked us through the process of creating a static FBML page and using Facebook Places – including prepping us for changes that are coming Monday (August 23).  He also spent time talking about Facebook’s promotion guidelines and shared how to conduct a promotion or contest the legal way.

What struck me about Chad’s presentation was the number of tools he shared during the course of his presentation. Remember Firebelly gets paid to build Facebook strategies, create tabs and develop promotions and contests for their clients. Here Chad was in essence throwing candy on the table and teaching the group how to do what he does every day.  Jeremy did this too, even suggesting some of his competitors as resources for SERM. That is the mark of a true, confident professional.

Both Slingshot SEO and Firebelly Marketing gave a great presentation but they also positioned their companies well in the process.  If they were giving away that much information, imagine what else they know and can do for you?

(Note: While I’m not getting paid to promote Slingshot SEO or Firebelly Marketing, I do have the chance to win an IPad from Slingshot as a result of this blog post. Out of fairness, I thought you should know.)

Here’s the thing about control…it comes down to trust. Can you trust a bunch of people to stay on message? But then again, can you entrust your message to those within your organization?

Corporate blogs rank at the bottom of the trust scale. (Source: Forrester’s Research) Other corporate voices are often viewed with cynicism. Take the Director of Social Media at PepsiCo. We should trust him – PepsiCo has grown from 250,000 likes on Facebook to 877,000 (still lagging Coke’s 10 million).  But do you even know his name? (It’s Bonin Bough.) If he is doing his work correctly, you don’t need to know and trust him. His job is to connect you to Pepsi through people you trust. 

The opinion of a friend or acquaintance ranks highest in Forrester’s Research studies for opinion, news and referrals.  That’s why my session dealt with ways to  add real voices to your company blogging strategy. The community approach to blogging adds personality. Builds loyalty of shared experiences. Presents different perspectives and different opinions on the same topic.

The FitCity Moms blog is a good example of how different voices can give your audience a variety of ways to connect to a brand. Launched in March 2009, we started with three moms and have grown to 7 moms with kids ages 11 months to 20 years and the periodic guest blogger. To date, they have posted 130+ times on health, fitness, family activity, dinners in the car, oreos and triathlons.

Here are 7 things I’ve learned from managing the FitCity Moms blog that you can use if you want to start your own community blog, or add voices from the community to your existing strategy.

1. Know Why.  Understanding your audience to make sure you are speaking with the right voices. FitCity targets Moms – Tourism targets travelers of all ages, backgrounds – Art blogs target artists, patrons and causal collectors.

2. Pick the Right Mix. You can recruit established bloggers (selected to get to their followers and bump your numbers). Or you can train new bloggers to fill a void on your blog (overlooked region, different ethnicities).  Staff and guest bloggers can fill in as well. Before you get started, do your blogger research. Whether it is a Google Blog search or a keyword search on Twitter, find the right blogger. But that is only the first step. (See tip #4 and 5)

3. The Control Factor. You have to strike a balance between protecting your brand and letting your bloggers’ authenticity shine through.

- Be upfront with expectations
- Train them on keywords and things your brand does and does not talk about. For example, FitCity does not talk about dieting. You may see posts about healthy weight, about food choices but bloggers can’t use the word diet.
- Create a schedule so they don’t blog over each other
- Edit them for a time if necessary.
- Don’t censor them
- Don’t refuse to post negative blog entries. Encourage them to be honest about experience.

4. Don’t Let Them Blog Cold. Don’t assume bloggers know your topic, business or cause just because they agree to blog for you, have blogging experience. If you have done your research, you should understand how your prospective bloggers write, what their reputations are and what tone they take. Once you do hire them, give bloggers background and ramp-up time.  FitCity uses a three-month editing/vetting period. If they are new to blogging, be sure to train them on the basics of writing for a blog.

5. Don’t Walk Away. Life gets in the way of even the best blogger, so we make sure to keep them engaged. We’ve started hosting quarterly luncheons so the FitCity Moms can meet and share in person. We also provide topic ideas, information on resources in the community, and monthly stats on the most popular blogs so they know what works, what topics are popular and what can be improved.

6. Pay them (maybe). I pay all my bloggers. Have a letter of agreement and payment helps provide accountability. A contract also removes the potential for misunderstands since it outlines the blogger’s responsibilities. Guest bloggers we don’t pay, however. They have a platform to promote themselves, their company or their agenda. That is often payment enough.

7. Invite Them to Do More. Your blogging strategy needs to be about more than just the posts. FitCity’s Moms participate in Twitter Chats, promote their blog posts on Facebook, make community appearances and participate in our partners’ events. The best thing though: The moms are so passionate about the topic of family health that they want to do even more. Three of the moms have started exercise groups and two have recently asked to write even more often. 

All this activity is getting results for FitCity. 1,000 new, unique visitors. 30% increase in referrals from Facebook and Twitter. Traffic to www.fitcityindy.org.

There are more examples of good community blogs in my presentation: Building a Community of Bloggers v2.   One I want to single out is i.see.Kissimmee. To date, 25 bloggers have posted a minimum of 11 blog posts each about their vacations in Kissimmee, Florida.  The Kissimmee tourism bureau started the blog to get real opinions about their destinations. They’ve succeeded and then some. I might have to plan a vacation…

This be-careful-what-you-reference thing works both ways, you know. So for all you 18-year-olds out there – not to mention you 20-something professionals – here is my Middle-aged Mindset List from the Class of 1990.

In 1990, the year I graduated from Miami of Ohio,  …

1. There were no laptops in our dorm rooms.

2. All the computers were in the dorm rooms.

3. And the printer paper was the continuous feed kind. 

4. We had no internet access (unless you were a professor or a hacker).

5. That means no Google, no Yahoo, no Bing. Definitely no Facebook, Twitter or Buzz.

6. There was, however, AOL. And we all said “You’ve Got Mail.”  All the time. Seriously.

7. They were testing SMS messaging in the UK, but no one on campus had heard of it.

8. Why? No cell phones.

9. There wasn’t even “free nights and weekends” on our home phones.

10. Plus phones had cords, so we had to talk in the kitchen in front of our parents.

11. Calling someone meant more busy signals than call waiting beeps. And voice mail required a machine.

12. We wrote more letters. (Thank goodness stamps only cost $0.29.)

13. We sent pictures instead of videos. Of course, we couldn’t see how we looked in photos until we developed the film. 

14. We read books that we held in our hands. We held our newspapers that way too.

15. There was no ITunes. Instead we made mixed tapes from our records and cassettes.

16. On TV, we only had an average of 47 channels to choose from.

17. Thank goodness one of them was HBO (launched in 1982). But it played movies, not original shows.

18. We had our MTV. Of course, that means we also had the Spice Girls, Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice.

19. There was no Wii or XBox either. We had Atari and Nintendo but only in 64 bit.

20. Thankfully, there was no reality TV.

One other thing, we thought we were cool. We still do.

What is your point of reference? Does the Class of 2014 make you feel old or feel wise?

Case in point:  I recently met a lovely 80-something woman named Betty. While she truly believes in “by the community, for the community,” Betty will tell you now that she is simply a homemaker.   In reality, this silver-haired, soft-spoken beauty has served the Indianapolis community since she was in her 20s. As a young health professional, she even helped open a community health center to serve the needs of her southwest side neighborhood. She helped find ways to pay the bills to keep it afloat too, even if that meant rummage sales and organizing neighborhood carnivals.

Betty remains active as she has aged. She serves on a local board and continues to try and make her lifelong neighborhood a safe, welcoming place for everyone, especially people who are aging. She is a strong advocate for supporting locally owned businesses but sometimes even this community activist is pushed to the chain stores.

For some time, Betty has told her local grocery store owner that they should consider adding chairs or benches around the store so the older shoppers could rest as they shopped. Betty recounted times when she has had to lean against soda displays when she gets tired.  The manager responded by saying they had a folding chair in the office.  Now how is that going to help an older shopper who may be back in the freezer section when she can’t stand up any longer?

Reluctantly, Betty has decided to frequent a chain store that has the electric carts to help her navigate the larger floorplan. It makes her sad because she’d much rather spend her money locally.

You may argue that stores can only spend so much to cater to one subset of its audience. Here’s the thing – this niche audience is large and, with Baby Boomers reluctant aging, growing.  One of four Hoosiers will be age 65 and older in the next 30 years.

It may be hard for Gen X (and Gen Y) business owners to imagine a day when they are too tired to make it through a grocery store without sitting down. But this is a reality for many seniors (and people with disabilities and people suffering from illness and young parents shopping with the kids and…)

Do you want to be the business with the folding chair in the office or the forward thinking business that listens to its customers and prepares for a future of serving them the way they need and ask?

I blame myself really.  Here’s what I think happened.

They said “build awareness.”
I heard “make sure key audiences know about them.”
They meant “get them in the newspaper and on TV.” 

A former boss used to tell me repeatedly, “If a client says they want to build awareness, keep asking them ‘why?’ until you get to the real goal.”

In other words, I must give myself permission to act like a 5-year-old and bug you, dear client, by asking “why” until I really, truly, totally get what you want to accomplish.  In this case, I assumed that awareness in the community meant being top-of-mind in the industry and gaining credibility with community decision makers.  What the client really wanted was to read the company name in the newspaper and hear it on the radio and have a whole bunch of others do the same.  

That is a fine goal.  But let’s be clear on something. As a colleague of mine commented, “A story in the paper does not equal direct access to decision-makers.”

With respect to my fine reporter friends and associates, there is still some great reporting going on but newspaper readership is WAY down. There also are thousands of niche publications, satellite radio stations and TV stations that fragment the impact traditional media can have.  That’s good for PR people who want to get clients in the media – there are more outlets. And media can still break a story and shape public perception.

But consider this – younger adults are more likely to get their news from a Facebook or Twitter search.  Heck, even 104-year-olds are getting their news from Twitter (RIP Ivy.)

It falls to us in the communications industry to listen first, understand clients’ goals, and then deliver as best as we can.  We have to find the niche media outlets.  But that’s only one strategy in the PR arsenal.  We also have the responsibility to educate our clients about all the “publics” in public relations.

There is still communication power in the barbershops, churches, rotary clubs, high schools, book clubs, grocery stores and bars in this country.  Not to mention the corporate, government and foundation offices.  And yes, definitely, online.

True PR professionals understand the nuances of communication. When to share. What to share. How to share. Where to share.  Sometimes the most effective PR comes from reaching the right people at the right time instead of everyone who still reads the paper. We have to make sure our clients understand all that public relations really is and can be.  Next time, I’ll have more of an upfront agreement with the client so I can help them achieve their goals at the same time.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my clients asked me to assemble a group of teens to learn more about the best ways to talk to teens, how they talk to one another and what gets their attention. Research shows that texting and other social media platforms are popular with the under 18 crowd. To see if that holds true in Indianapolis, we decided to conduct a survey on teens’ social media habits in addition to the focus group.

This survey was done with a very narrow target group of Youth as Resources participants. I do not mean to suggest it is representative of the entire Indianapolis population; however, I do think the results are interesting and worth sharing here. 

As you can see, nearly 100% of teens reported using text messaging, with Facebook, instant messaging (IM) and YouTube also being popular. Our focus group of teens agreed wholeheartedly:

“If you text me, I have to text you back.”

“I text with my friends until we run out of things to say or one of us falls asleep.”

“Waiting is hard (when I text). I want to…I need to get a reply.”

For the teens we talked to, texting is absolutely a way of life. They text all day, every day. They text in school. They text in bed, after curfew. They fall asleep with the phone every night. And while they acknowledge that texting can give wrong impressions and many of them have said things they regret over text, they can’t imagine a life without text messaging.

Yes, they will text their parents. And grandparents. But teachers or businesses…that’s just a little, well, weird. They did agree that they’d be willing to GET texts from businesses, if it wasn’t too often.

Takeaway: If you want to reach teens, you should be texting.

Based on research, I anticipated this feedback about texting. What I didn’t expect was what they told me about their online habits, especially with Facebook.

The survey results only tell half the story about why teens use social media. They may use it to keep in touch with friends and keep up with the latest news (and I use the term loosely) but they don’t use Facebook status updates to keep in touch, that’s for sure. As one teen said, “I never post what I’m really doing.” Instead they use the Chat feature, much like they use texting on their phone.  Other times, they use the e-mail feature. Especially if they are grounded from their phone and need to tell people how to get in touch.

They post TONS of photos and tag the people in them. Some of the teens did say they have asked friends to take down inappropriate photos but it is primarily the job-seeking teens that get how Facebook can define their personality. For the most part, the teens in our group either don’t think about what they post or they think what they post stays private.

They think it is private because they control their friends. And they NEVER would be friends with their parents. Not even younger siblings. They laughed at the suggestion. As teachers, coaches, the boss and other authority figures? No way. Plus, as one young man thought, it is illegal for some adults (teachers) to be Facebook friends with minors.

As for what teens “like” on Facebook? They are fans of the super-sarcastic pages like “You’re Ugly…ignore friend request” or “Stop being sexy. You’re distracting me.”  Only one teen in our group could think of a business or cause that he “liked” on Facebook. (McDonald’s and Nike).

Our group said they also use Facebook for the games. You know – those annoying Farmville, Mafia Wars games – are great ways for kids without smart phones to pass the time.  They utilize YouTube in much the same way. They search for favorite singers, bands or watch the videos suggested by friends. Several told me they just look for the “funny stuff.”  The more memorable videos get posted to Facebook for everyone to share.

Takeaway: If you think you can create a Facebook page and the teens will come, think again.

Toward the end of the session, I asked the focus group to share their thoughts on the internet at large.  Many in the group use the internet to watch TV, which I found interesting. This group also Googles. They Google a lot. In fact, if they have a research paper due, they are more likely to Google the subject than open a textbook. None of the teens could think of one site they access directly. They don’t bookmark sites. In fact they rarely go to sites more than once.

“If I need it again, I’ll just Google it.”

“It has to have a really cool introduction, a flash player or video.”

Here’s an interesting side note. The teens in my group check Facebook BEFORE Google if they want information about something. So while I said above that you can’t attract teens with Facebook, you must have a Facebook page for teens to stumble upon. It’s similar to how companies have to have a web site (i.e. online brochure) for credibility with my generation. You. Have. To. Have. One.

Takeaway: If you are building a website aimed at teens, you may have to be content with unique visitors who come to you via search engines.

As for e-mail? Yes, they all have e-mail accounts (100% in the survey) but think about it. They have to have an e-mail account to sign-up for Facebook, to get onto Twitter (for the miniscule few who get Twitter). Unless they are interacting with adults – parents, bosses, volunteer coordinators – who rely on e-mail, they are not checking their accounts.

E-mail is considered spam and junk. Several of the focus group teens said they only check their accounts if they are told someone sent them something. To my embarrassment, they used my e-mail as an example. I sent an e-mail reminder about the second focus group meeting. One teen told me attendance was down for the second meeting because I sent an e-mail, which no one checks.

If they do check e-mail, finding anything is like finding a needle in a haystack. Facebook updates notices, text messages that also go to e-mail, undeleted messages that just hang out in their in-boxes, and “real” spam make their in-boxes nearly impossible to manage. As one teen told me, “I just get frustrated checking my e-mail and end up deleting all of it.”

Takeaway: E-mail is a means to an end with teens. Don’t make a campaign out of it.

These kids are a smart group. They actively embrace technology as a means to create relationships and bring them closer to their peers. They know instinctively that text relationships are not always the strongest relationships. Wrong impressions, mistakenly sent messages, and rumors are easier on text or other social media platforms. But the teens I talked to also acknowledged they aren’t always comfortable with having face-to-face conversations.

What is the ultimate takeaway?  If kids need something immediately, they will pick up the phone…and call. If they have something troubling them, they will talk to your face. But if you want to really know what is going on? You better send a text.

You can text me at 317-979-4424 with comments or feedback. Just don’t get impatient if I don’t text you back right away.

In the first chapter, Cahill speaks about the philsopher and scholar Cicero, calling him the “great teacher of argument…the techniques of the successful politician, the methods of modern advertising – the whole panoply of persuasion is to be found in Cicero.”

Cool right? We can trace our field of public relations back to the Roman Empire.  Cahill was not so enamored:

“We are made uncomfortable and bored by Cicero’s elaborately coaching us in all the tricks of his trade – the many techniques for convincing others to act the way we want them to.  As a philosopher, Cicero was the great packager of his age, an unoriginal thinker with real flair, who could dramatize all the currents and schools of thought so that anyone might understand them well enough to talk about them at a cocktail party.”

Apparently the sound bite was created more than 1,000 years ago. 

Joking aside, I can’t stop thinking about that passage. What is it that would make a noted historian turn up his nose at Cicero’s contribution to Roman society, a contribution which the author says influenced modern persuasion? The terms advertising, marketing, public relations often evoke such negative reactions today as well. Perhaps it is because the package is often created as a distraction from what is really contained (or not) within the box.  

One example of this so-called distraction public relations is BP’s reaction to the oil spill. From the beginning, the focus seemed to be on image, not reality.  The company downplayed the situation, publicly underestimating the amount of oil that was gushing into the Gulf and over-enhancing their many solutions.

Even now, the commercials that feature beach clean-up teams on nearly pristine white sand ring hollow as the oil keeps flowing. Lives have been changed in the Gulf forever. BP has to make more than just pretty commercials and promises to convince the Gulf region that it is trying to improve the situation. Real trust requires transparency. Real dialog requires listening. 

Cahill may have considered Cicero to be an unoriginal thinker, but real influence comes from the seemingly boring ability to speak clearly and persuasively. That is an ability worth studying and cultivating.

Earlier this year, my client, FitCity Indianapolis,  asked me for advice about how to use social media to reach teenagers with healthy messages about food and exercise.  While this blog post isn’t about the tools, there is a wide range of data on how teens use social media:

• Texting is by far the most popular way for teens to communicate. 57% of wireless users age 13 and older are regular text message users. According to a recent poll, teens are using text and IMs to get homework help, upload photos, even to ask someone out on a date.
• While the number of Facebook users continues to grow, InsideFacebook.com estimates that only 11 percent of Facebook users in 2009 were  under age 17. 
• Nielsen released a report last year that only 3.6% of unique visitors to Twitter.com are age 17 and under.  (This doesn’t count the visitors via smart phone or texting applications.)

Understanding usage is the easy part. What we realized we didn’t have a handle on is how local teens really feel about the rise in youth obesity, what healthy messages resonate with them and how they are talking amongst themselves about the issue.  So we decided to get a group of 12 – 15 teens together and ask them to speak candidly about the issues and to share their ideas on how FitCity and health initiatives like it can talk to teens, get them to talk to one another about healthy weight, and encourage them to change their eating and activity habits.

The wonderful Youth as Resources program helped us identify the participants. Nine of the kids, ages 13 to 18, from five central Indiana schools, were able to attend the first meeting. As an ice breaker, we asked the group to share a few of the issues they face every day. (We did not stack the deck and talk about weight or health first; we just asked them to write down the issues in their high school.)

Here is what they listed:

• Bullying (mentioned by 5 of the group)
• Hard classes
• Gross school lunch
• Drugs
• Drinking
• Attendance
• Lack of diversity
• Racial profiling
• Theft
• Peer pressure
• Identity crisis
• Gossip
• Family issues
• Overweight kids
• Low self-esteem
• Money issues
• Poverty
• Violence
• Just graduating
• Disruption in class/hard to learn
• Uniforms

My client’s eyes were immediately opened.   In a 15-minute icebreaker, this group of teens really put things in perspective.  Teenagers, like all of us, are facing and dealing with major issues every day.  Eating healthy is just not as important as dealing with a bully in school or coping with peer pressure, family or money issues.

Now Indiana is the top states for unhealthy behavior and overweight. Weight issues contribute to health care costs, loss of productivity and quality of life.  There are a wide range of campaigns – from Indianapolis Get Fit Indy and INShape Indiana to Jump Rope for Heart and Action for Healthier Kids – aimed to reverse the trend. Because my client (and I) deal with ways to combat youth obesity every day, it seems like everyone is talking about how to be healthy and stay healthy.  

So why, when asked what healthy products or campaigns are out there aimed at them, they couldn’t think of one?   This is an important issue that even First Lady Michelle Obama is addressing.  Interestingly though, NONE of the kids in the room had even heard of the Let’s Move campaign. 

That doesn’t mean there isn’t good work being done around the issue. But this discussion was a good reminder for me of two things:

1. While you or your client may live and breathe an issue – in this case, youth obesity – that doesn’t mean your audience does too. 

2. Your message, no matter how well crafted, will not be effective if it does not resonate with your target audience in a way that is memorable and lasting.

The teen group all could identify the latest quick-weight-loss gimmick. (Who wants to try the Sketcher Shape Up shoes or the Shake Weights?)  And they could talk for HOURS about how gross their school lunches really are.  But they aren’t getting the messages that are being crafted for them about healthy eating and activity – sometimes with a high price tag.

With this perspective in mind, I am excited for the next meeting when we will really dive in to the issue and how they would talk about it to each other and what they want to hear about it. I can’t wait to hear what they come up with. I am prepared to be surprised.  I suspect they may shock me. I’m hopeful to be inspired. I’m certain it will continue to alter my perception about how to talk to and with teens in a way that creates real response and action.

I’ll keep you posted.

Side note to schools: Kids are eating your lunches under protest. They aren’t finishing them. And if they have to eat at first lunch period (10:30 a.m.), that means they are really, really hungry by the time the school day is over.

He went on to describe a publicist as someone who helped clients gain media coverage, identify story ideas, share information internally and with clients and partners, and helped his staff understand how to talk to the media. I most assuredly fit his definition of publicist.

Here’s the thing. I prefer to be called a public relations or communications consultant. The term, publicist, has (at best) meant “spokesperson” to me. I train my clients to speak for themselves whenever possible. My aim is to have them quoted, not me. My gut reaction to the term was based on a more negative stereotype of the Hollywood publicist trying to get media attention for the D-list celebrity client.

There are many stereotypes around the terms of our trade, including my own. But what really separates the two fields? Are they one and the same?

I’ve always believed, and the dictionary backs me up, that the field of public relations is broader than that of a publicist.

public relations plural noun (Abbr. PR)
1. (used with a sing. verb) The art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public.
2. (used with a pl. verb) The methods and activities employed to establish and promote a favorable relationship with the public.
3. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The degree of success obtained in achieving a favorable relationship with the public.

publicist noun
1. (Communication Arts / Journalism & Publishing) a person who publicizes something, especially a press or publicity agent
2. (Communication Arts / Journalism & Publishing) a journalist
3. (Law) Rare a person learned in public or international law

(I also like the fact that PR is defined as both an art AND a science. As most good public relations specialists know to be true.)

It will continue to be difficult to educate prospective clients about our field if we don’t define ourselves uniformly. It gets even more confusing when you consider how the fields of public relations, marketing, social media and communications continue to overlap.

So how do you define your field? How do you differentiate what you do as a public relations/communications specialist?

There are basically two ways to reach your marketing/PR audiences – directly and indirectly.  One of these methods offers more control than the other.  While this is a basic piece of a good communications plan, it is important to assess how well you handle both kinds of communication.

Communicating directly with your identified audiences gives you more control over the marketing message and delivery. Things like paid advertising, direct mail, e-blasts, PSAs, posters and flyers, yard signs, white papers, and fact sheets fall into this category.  

With indirect communications, there is something or someone between you and your campaign message. A byproduct of this strategy is your product details and talking points will naturally become subject to interpretation because they are being filtered by the conduit’s knowledge and biases. Or worse yet, you will send the wrong message if they don’t have access to information they need. 

As a communications consultant, you have to select conduits to convey your information to audiences that you may not be able to effectively reach otherwise. Picking them is the easy part. The harder part is building a relationship with them so they trust you as a source, respect the integrity of the information you provide, and turn to you for additional information when and if they need it.

A robust marketing campaign is most successful when it combines direct and indirect communications. So how well are you managing your relationships with your conduits?  Here are a few conduits and some things to think about to build your relationship with them.

Media: Are you just sending press releases or do you spend time reading and getting to know the journalists on your list, what they cover and what kind of information they want? Say it with me now; mass e-blast press releases are out. Tailored, well-thought story pitches are in.

Bloggers: Same goes here as it does for traditional media. Why rely on lists when you should be reading the blogger to know his/her topic, tone of voice, frequency, interests? Kevin at the Bad Pitch Blog reminded me how important this is in his recent post about Retrevos. (A rare example of a good pitch story on the site, actually)

Community leaders:  Everyone wants the Mayor, the Governor, the big philanthropist, and the local celebrity at his or her event or grand opening. We all want them to talk about our product favorably. Here’s the kicker: you are one of thousands trying to reach them.  Be sensitive to their time. Be succinct. Be direct. And be ready to accept no for an answer every now and then.

Faith leaders: Especially for the nonprofit world, faith leaders can be a terrific conduit. However, these clergy are focused on the spiritual health of their community. Make sure your information has a true connection before you approach them.

Social media: There are many smart people with great blog posts like this, this, and this (and this about multicultural social media) about how to effectively utilize social media as part of your marketing strategy. I’m not going to add much more here, except to echo one important piece of tactical advice.

Don’t auto-message me. Don’t auto-message anyone. Ever.

Sharing your messages through indirect communications lends credibility to your campaign and serves as an endorsement of your work. Don’t alienate your key conduits or you may not like the way your message is communicated.

If there is a theme here, it is the importance of doing your homework to understand your conduits in the same way you take the time to learn about your target audiences. It all goes back to audience development and strategic planning.

What are some other conduits for marketing and public relations and how do they fit into your marketing and communications strategy?