I’m very sorry for lack of any news on recent development of Evoque. It is caused because of my other commitments and responsibilities.  I was forced to move launch of Evoque to 14th of November, 2011. I’m sorry for any incovenience. Testing will become available around 6th of November, 2011. If you are interested, drop me a line.

Stay connected! Add me on LinkedIn.

Today I came up with a brief of Cherie Carter Scott’s great book - If life is a game, these are the rules. It inspired me to write this post and share my plans with you.

I’ve always been ambitious but didn’t know how to manifest it. I’ve been seeking the perfect way to let my creativity and entrepreneurial spirit run free. I’ve read a lot of inspiring articles with other entrepreneurs, listened to great e-books such as Millionaire Upgrade, watched hours of TEDastic speeches and other presentations of successful entrepreneurs such as Guy Kawasaki, just to learn how others found their way, what decisions they made and what did it cause. In the past, I thought I want to be have a graphic brand design company. Creating was my hobby but when I started doing it professionally, I quickly lost an interest for it. I’ve been very good at it, but I didn’t feel that spark. I believe that our career choices are little bit like finding your life partner. You need to constantly feel that “spark/butterflies in the stomach/motivation to be a better man. Otherwise, you will burn out and loose an interest whatsoever.

I didn’t want to be recognised as “graphic designer”. I felt ashamed when people called me like that. Don’t get me wrong, graphic design is a great career path, but people have to feel it in order to perform to their best. I, however, wanted something bigger, meaningful, revolutionising. I found what it was by trial and error. I now can easily shout – I’m in love with Evoque!

I’m in the very important moment of my life; I let go of the people who were holding me back, stopped procrastinating and found what I truly believe in – only then I could be inspired and lose myself the working process. You can never truly be motivated if you don’t have passion for what you are doing. That’s why it’s so important to do/be what you love, whether it’s your career choice or personal relationships.

Sometimes you need to let go of a comfortable life in order to achieve something bigger, better.

I know, that it’s my life and I can do and be whatever I want to be. I chose to surround myself with wise, ambitious people. I chose to be different rather than forgotten.

Everyone is an master of his faith – there is no such a thing to blame as fate. Things happen to us because of how we are and what we choose to do. Some people give up straight after realising that success doesn’t happen overnight – you have to work on it hard… But as someone wise once said:

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway

Like in any kind of business, when sales people are trying to make you sign off the contract,they will not tell you many unpleasant things… In PR environment, there are 6 main issues you will not be told before bonding to pay your PR agency, and Lucy Siegel knows them well:

1. You Are Better Off With Anything But PR

Not all business is newsworthy. Maybe your company is better off spending a very limited budget on different form of communications (such as direct marketing, or offline/online advertising) instead of hiring PR agency? Some agencies will not tell you that PR is not always the best solution to meet communications needs with your market.

2. We Don’t Specialise In Your Business Area = We Don’t Have Right Media Contacts

They actually don’t have media contacts in your business area.  Media contacts are shrinking these days, due to the high rate of layoffs in the journalism world and increasing phenomenon of citizen journalism. Chances are that more than 60% of the journalists a PR person has worked with in the recent past are no longer with the same media outlet and/or may not be covering the same topics. (This is why we are creating Evoque Agencies and PR freelancers use hyper-expensive media databases to find the right journalists and bloggers to target. It’s time to understand that personal contacts among journalists are mostly overrated. Why? Either you have something worthy of being covered (and it doesn’t matter if you have developed contacts because the media WILL respond whether they know you or not), or you don’t (and any hard built contacts are unlikely to help because the media won’t cover something with no news value whether they know you or not).

3. Your Wish Is My Command. No Advising Included.

Often, what you want your PR agency to do is really not what you need from them. Clients should look for PR companies who will consult, analyse with them and develop strategies, rather than just do what they are told. After all, aren’t you paying for creative expertise?

4. Go On. Dream On.

Your expectations and goals for PR are too high. Your announcements are not newsworthy. Of course you think your company and products are media-and buzz-worthy, but it’s very hard for you to be objective. It’s not at all unusual to hear a prospective client say, “We want to be in the New York Times,  The Guardian [or on the BBC, or to create a record-breaking buzz about our product on Facebook and FourSquare]. It’s even more possible for innovative start-ups and small companies to reach that kind of goal, but it’s unlikely to happen. Rather than matching your expectations with realistic and achievable opportunities, some PR firms will keep quiet and not tell you that kind of exposure may be very unlikely for your company. They figure they’ll educate you after you’ve signed the contract with them.

5. Any Dollar/Sterling Is Welcome.

Often you don’t have too small budget to “move the needle.” In every business situation, there’s a minimum amount of budget that’s necessary to get good and measurable PR results. Rather than telling you that you’re budget is inadequate, some PR companies will accept whatever you can pay for as long as you’ll pay it, until you realise that you’re not getting the results you want and need. This isn’t a smart way to do business, because the client will assume that it’s the agency’s inadequacy and incompetency that’s to blame, and not their own lack of resources.

6. I’m Not Involved In PR, I’m Outsourcing It.

If you think, you can hire PR agency, contact them once in a while and magically start collecting the yields – guess what – you are wrong. Your company has to spend time and effort working with the PR firm on a daily basis to make a successful Public Relations. For beginners, the agency PR team has to be briefed thoroughly on a regular basis.  It isn’t possible for an agency to do great PR for your company if your executives won’t make themselves available for interviews, Q&A or don’t get back to the agency in a timely way to answer media questions.

Did you experience any hypocrisy or falsity from any PR agency you used to hire? How did you solve those issues? Share your thoughts in the comment section bellow. Thank you!

A recent survey conducted annually by the Oriella PR Network (which is an alliance of 15 PR agencies around the world) revealed a number of interesting issues regarding how social media has changed the nature of news-gathering and sharing. The Oriella Digital Journalism Study was carried out in March and April 2011 and is based on a survey of almost 500 journalists in 15 countries.

The study helps understanding what journalists currently are seeking in news releases. This post is a follow-up to give you advice on how to make your news releases more “targeted” and perceived by media as high quality. You can treat this article as a quick refresher course, but I’m hoping it will create stimulative debate on how can we better target media. Below you have 6 tips for making your message a must-read to the writers you’re pitching.

1. Hiring another employee is not a hot news

Part of crafting a quality press release is having a clear sense of what exactly the big news is. Experienced and highly effective PR agencies know that, and you should too – if you are trying to do your own PR for the company. Your press release should focus on the most newsworthy element of your announcement with supporting media (including photos, multimedia links, videos – anything seen as engaging ) that clearly lay out why this news is significant. If you have a good story with good visuals, a press release should be straight to the point, succinct and engaging. If you still want to cover common news, try presenting it from the original angle. Make it sound fresh and compelling.  Keep in mind that journalists and other media members are increasing their time spent online while searching for the news. In Oriella’s study we can read:

Given many publications’ gradual shift from print to online output, we asked, for the first time this year, how widely digital and social media are used within newsrooms themselves. Journalists were asked about the extent to which they use social media both for sourcing new leads, and verifying stories journalists are already working on. When it comes to sourcing new story angles, almost half (47 percent) of respondents said they used Twitter, and a third (35 percent) used Facebook. Blogs were also highlighted as a key element of the sourcing process, with 30% saying they used blogs they were already familiar with. More interesting still, forty-two percent of respondents drew on posts from blogs they had not visited before.

Take the above numbers under consideration while writing messaging on your website’s newsroom.

 2. Aim for proper timing

Timing your news release on a specific day (or even hour!) also can make a huge difference in the effectiveness and impact of it. Most news releases are slated for Monday publications. In some cases (especially entertainment, travel and food industries) the weekend is the best bet for your market. Research your particular market you are targeting, see when most news stories are published. More readers will look for stories during those times, so you’d benefit more from timing your release during these days. If you are aiming your news being picked up by journalist – always make sure you are ahead of his deadlines! Also be careful about putting out your release at the same time as another story in your market that is bigger than your story. It is commonly used to seek “news anchor” – relation between your news and trending topics being covered. Putting a release out about the growth of your cell phone store will likely not do as well if you timed it to release the same day the as the official iPad release, however, if you your news release will create “added value” to e.g. iPad release, you can still get covered and benefit from popularity of the main issue.

3. Target right people who cover your subject

This one seems so obvious, yet so many PR pros and companies doing their own PR forget about that. Always be on top to know what topics your media contacts cover. Remember, that changes of trending topics in the media are happening at a rapid clip. Before you send out your release to your old media list, analyse it to be sure the reporters you’re targeting still cover the beats that are relevant to your story.

4. Get some serious PR advice

Part of the reason self-publicists have a reputation for pitching crap stories is because they don’t know what a real “news” means. Another problem occurs when PR pros are being commanded by their clients to pitch those crap stories. PR pros like to call themselves “advisers,” so advise your clients that their time and money are better spent working on other promotional tools which will yield good results rather than sending out press releases that will get simply ignored.

5. Proof, edit, proof, edit, and then proof and edit some more

Many press releases are being sent out without being proof edited.  Poor grammar and unclear sentences making it difficult to decipher are going to be quickly ignored. Most of the media members will see receiving that kind of news releases as lack of respect. For advice on grammar stories go to PR Daily. You can also check  AP Stylebook which helps you clean up your writing. Reporters don’t have time to crack a code to understand what you’re trying to say.

6. Make it searchable

Do some keyword research to see what keywords media members are searching for to find stories on products or services like yours. Make sure that the search keywords that you choose have a decent search traffic (at least a few thousand searches a month is a good target)

7. Answer the obvious

“When you begin the press release, start it with a BANG!” wrote Alyssa Anst (@alyssa_ast)  “A press release with a strong start is more likely to entice readers to keep reading. Make sure you answer the questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how.”

Do you know any other tips on how to create more targeted news releases? What works the best for you? Share your comments in the section below.

Today’s digital marketplace offers PR and Marketing professionals working in B2B environment a plethora of tools and channels to distribute messages. However, the quickly expanding social media also brings a lot of challenges to the table.

According to a recent Digital Readiness Report:

In the era of social media you should look beyond traditional B2B public relations and embrace digital PR strategies to deliver compelling messages and influence your market. With  information easily available,  B2B buying decision makers have become smarter and tougher to convince. The good news is, social media gives you a lot of opportunities in the marketplace to strengthen your brand with just a little creativity and preparation; a well written and distributed press release can turn into a successful marketing and lead generating campaign. But how exactly can you conduct a strong PR campaigns within noisy and crowded online environment?

Here are our top 5 tips for conducting strong B2B Public Relations Campaign:

1. Monitor and analyse your industry

   Knowing what others are saying about your industry, company and brand are essential in B2B public relations. You have to know what your existing and potential customers are saying in order to tailor your message properly. The point here is that the conversation about your company or what your company does is happening online whether you like it or not. Therefore your public relations efforts need to stay on the pulse of conversations and news.To find out what’s happening, monitor a variety of sources including:

   • your Facebook and Twitter account
   • B2B blogs about your industry (Tip: Use Google Reader or similar RSS feed platform to monitor all news in one place)
   • News feeds (Tip: TweetDeck is currently the most popular software to monitor desired tweets and #hot topics)
   • Search engines (Tip: Use Google Alert or similar tool to monitor desired topics)
   • Newsletters sent by your competitors
   • Industry forums

2. Optimise your content

   When writing brand messages, keep in mind integrating the phrases your brand is trying to be visible for online. Adding popular (but not overused!) keyword phrases that target influencers such as journalists and bloggers searching for to your headlines and content will help bring in publicity and increase traffic to your Media.

3. Keep brand message consistent

   When optimising content remember about keeping consistency in all your PR tools:

   • B2B Press Releases
   • Newsletters
   • Media kits
   • Webinars
   • Online Interviews
   • Blog Posts
   • Online newsrooms

4. Involve everyone

   B2B is about relations; hence public relations is not just about one person (or aiming for buying decision makers); it’s about involving everyone who is a part of your brand to communicate and build long term relations. Every department serving your business customers should be involved; from product managers, marketing to customer service, including. Since in social media everyone is a publisher of information, getting all parties involved will help nurture your community of advocates who can organically help increase digital share of voice.
   

5. Leverage multiple channels

With all the messaging you create, there is plethora of channels to distribute and deliver your message. To get the most out of your content creation efforts consider using parts or all of your press release in:

Do you know any other tips for making networking events more effective? Feel free to share them in comments section below.

This is a follow up post to what I’ve recently read: a case study of a stupendous PR agency – Shift about message development for one of their client – pre-paid mobile company. The challenge was to change the common perception and behaviour of U.S. market towards pre-paid mobile phones, which were seen as the province of drug dealers and cheating hubbies.
Shift team came up with an excellent idea to use social media to analyse what people are really thinking about pre-paid mobiles in current economic climate. Rather than spending huge budget on enforcing brand with tailored advertising, they decided to address on-going concerns and deliver message with positive image of pre-paid phones:

Beyond the customary chatter about the latest-and-greatest smartphones, consumers were talking about losing their jobs in the Recession and sweating about onerous cellphone contracts.  They were talking about the pros/cons of buying cellphones for their ‘tweenage children.  They were talking about weird phone-stalking exploits by ex-boyfriend/girlfriends.

Examine the marketing messages of the major mobile companies.  What do they talk about?  Network speed.  Cool phones.  Pricing plans.  That’s about it.  Now compare it to what we discovered people were actually talking about, in the context of their cellphones.  They were talking about human issues, not technology issues.  Given that we needed to be scrappy to make a dent in this noisy market, we eschewed the proactive “cool phone at a great price” messages (and the defensive “not just for drug dealers” line) and favored funkier, more humanistic messages…

What needs to be understood from the case above is importance of listening. Since Social Media dominated Internet in all its aspects, companies need to notice distinct difference between an “image problem.”  and  “listening problem”.

How Can You Drive Brand Concept & Development

Great IT lean start-ups became that great not because of technology reason but because they enabled community being involved in shaping solutions from the very beginning of company’s existence. Today’s pull-marketing requires the brand to listen to the customer via multiple social media platforms. So what should you do to get the most of your social media efforts? Here are some tips:

1. Engage in already lasting community discussion about issues you want to address. Do not try to sell your product! This will put the people of and  you will loose people’s trust instead of gaining attention.
2. Social Media is great with conducting focus group surveys etc. Use Facebook to develop quick questions and then use Facebook Insight to analyse demographics, behaviour etc. of your focus group. Alternatively, you can conduct survey via your website and then use Google Analytics to do the same.
3. Do not allow your employees to be a closed community! Brainstorming drives innovation and the more transparent your company is, the more benefit you will get. Involve your employees in blogging about issues related to your industry (and not only), allow your talented employees to be seen and heard. This will enforce trust of your potential and existing customers.
4. Consult on social media any future plans you’ve got for your brand. Do not be afraid of competitors. Your customers will see you “got that first” and will help you adjust your plans to their needs and expectations.
5. Listen and praise any negative comments and complains you get from the community. They will allow you to localise and address the problem quickly and your customers will be even more committed to your brand knowing that you listen to what they say.
6. Seek any opportunity to engage. In social media we are here to engage and build relationships with other people. Hearing their conversation allows us to be able to jump in and engage in a non-intrustive way.

Do you listen to your customers and stockholders when developing your brand? Which communication channels do you use? You are more than welcome to share your comments below.

Wikipedia defines Negative PR campaigning, also known more colloquially as “mudslinging“, as manipulative techniques used when trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent company or of a policy rather than emphasizing one’s own positive attributes or preferred policies. In relation to Public Relations, mudslinging covers any public action which aims to smear opponent and destroy its reputation.

Negative campaigning can be found in most marketplaces where ideas are contested. In U.S. politics, “mudslinging” has been called “as American as Mississippi mud”. Some research suggests negative campaigning is the norm in all political venues, mitigated only by the dynamics of a particular contest.

Smear Campaigns, Character Asssasination and Labeling

There are a few techniques used in negative PR campaigning. One of them is smear campaign which consists of presenting the false nature of the people, government policy, party or business organization, by innuendo and speaking half-truths or lies.

Few months ago we were a witness of the process of mudslinging between Facebook and Google, where the first hired a well-known and respected PR agency to attack Google’s privacy policies and practices, particularly around social search and Google’s Social Circles offering. (Google + anyone?). Another example is McCaine’s political smear campaign, which proved to be… too effective.

Character assassination is a technique aiming to destroy reputation of the opponent by information manipulation. The most common methods are: innuendo, exaggeration, biased interpretation of the facts and distort or a direct lie or disinformation. All information is presented in a way to protect attacker from questions about veracity of their sources.

Labelling, in turn, is to use - for a person or group of persons - a descriptive word that negatively categorizes and “labels” these people.

All techniques mentioned above are characterised by manipulation. The main elements of manipulation are often: misinformation, confusion, diversion aimed at disintegration of the group, provoking others’ behavior, pitting, the creation of appearances and pretexts.
What needs to be done in case your company or personal profile is being smeared?

Fighting a Smear Campaign

Highly arising and damaging comments about your brand, professional activities or even your private life (especially if you are at C-level), whether founded or not, can impact significantly on your media presence, by influencing and dominating it. As a result, your brand image and company’s reputation may be significantly damaged in the long term.

You can beat the detractors by minimising the impact of media attacks launched against you in 3 simple ways:

1. Always be prepared – create strong PR crisis plan and monitor anything what is being said about you/your brand in media. With possibilities of Internet, you can easily pay attention to the conversation in places such as Facebook, YouTube & Twitter. Have people who understand the capabilities and etiquette of the forums.
2. Don’t overreact – even if you know that your company/you are innocent, it’s what media shows what counts. Some inexperienced CEOs and company managers react and respond aggressively on accusations appearing to be untrustworthy and thereby harming reputation of the brand.
3. Communicate quickly with the media and any influential parties, and respond to the critics immediately. Use the medium where the offense took place. Provide value with new information and what’s the most important – be sincere.

Internet gives companies opportunity to get their message directly to their stockholders and followers. What once could be a unfair war of influence and power, now proves that even small companies can fend the attacks off in a quick and effective way.

Have you ever experienced smear campaign being used on your company? What did you do to fight it?
Please share your comments in the section below.

Let me ask you differently: Can you afford not doing Public Relations? Whether you are a small company or established business with a strong growth, doing public relations agency is one of the most cost-effective business decisions you can make. If you feel you don’t have adequate media relations and copy-writing skills you should consider hiring a PR agency.

What a PR agency can do it for me what I can’t do myself?

Unless you are a former journalist or your blog has thousands of readers, creating strong publicity for your company can cost you too much time. PR agencies are specialising in seeking for their clients the best media opportunities and channels. The major benefits of hiring a PR professional (PR freelancer or PR agency) to launch your campaign are:

• Media Contacts

  PR agencies exist to network and establish thousands of media contacts. Remember that journalists and bloggers are inherently distrustful and they need to clearly see the benefit of reading/listening to what your company wants to say. PR professionals develop their media contacts over several years and that can lead to much better and more numerous media placements for your campaign than if you would try to do it alone.

  Choosing right media for your campaign

Good PR agencies take the time to understand what you are trying to achieve and will advise you to develop suitable PR strategy. If you decide to go alone, there is so many things you can do wrong if you are inexperienced in PR: improperly composed or poor quality pitches or press releases are the major downfall of many PR efforts; over-commercialised media releases; not personalised or/and misdirected mass emailing of the release pitch; no follow-up media relations/media request fulfillment; etc.. Your first impression to the media is a lasting one – make sure it’s a good one.  Do you feel confident writing and distributing quality press releases? Media members are really quick and good in blocking unwanted email addresses. Do you think you can take a chance?

• Cost and time-effectiveness and efficiency

PR professionals live from generating publicity for their clients by 8-12 hours per day and they are specialised in tracking and analysing what works and what doesn’t. You have to calculate your opportunity cost when deciding to do PR yourself. After all, you’ve got a business to run. You delegate part of your job to external agencies/specialists. Why not letting professionals taking care of generating publicity for you?

Having said that, don’t forget that Public Relations work the best when enforced with actions of business owners/managers. Nothing beats trust and reputation than words said directly from CEO of the company.

Social Media and Web 2.0 brought Public Relations into a whole different dimension – now companies reach and communicate directly to their customers with an ease. However, this doesn’t mean the rules of PR have changed. You still have know who is a thought leader within your industry and what is the best way to reach them. It’s not enough to flood your existing followers (customers, potential customers etc.) with company’s news. You need to know who has the influence to be an advocate of your company.

How much can it cost me?

Public relations campaigns are always effective in a long term. You shouldn’t think about it as alternative to advertising, where you get instant publicity (because you pay for it!).

Todd Brabender from PowerHomeBiz website made an survey, where 102 business owners were asked:

How much do you think it will cost to launch a solid, effective PR / publicity campaign for your product / business?

• 11% – Thought a professional PR campaign would cost $10,000+ per month
• 32% – Thought a professional PR campaign would cost $5,000-$10,000 per month
• 39% – Thought a professional PR campaign would cost $3,000-$5,000 per month
• 12% – Thought a professional PR campaign would cost $1,000-$3,000 per month
• 6% – Thought a professional PR campaign would cost less than $1,000 per month

The truth is – you can create an effective PR campaign in all of those prices ranges. If you have the time, right tools and talent to launch and maintain your own PR campaign, you should definitely do so. If not – there are a number of public relations/publicity agencies, specialists and services out there. Do a research to find the one whose services and fees match your needs and expectations. Whatever choice you will make between doing PR yourself or hiring an agency – it will always be a right one.

In fact, at Evoque, we want to help all kinds of businesses which want to do PR. Seeing that current PR solutions are insufficient, we decided to develop a new way to collaborate between PR and Media Members. And this is how concept of Evoque platform was born: a web-based platform for matching media members with businesses providing specific expertise (or their representatives in PR agencies). We hope to contribute to creating a whole new PR experience for both Media and PR members helping them get quality sources and become more time-effective.

Whether you are CEO doing PR for your company or large corporation with separate PR department, you should consider signing up for our product – Evoque. Launch already in late October 2011!

Inexperienced, often young publicists often do not know the basic rules of pitching to journalists and bloggers. Instead, they mass email a bazillion of pitches to people who don’t want them.  In order to NOT being blocked by a media member you should follow these simple steps below:

1. Know who you are pitching

Cold pitches are like bad cold calling. If you don’t research information about recipient of your message, the chances are your e-mail will be deleted with the speed of light.  Present only relevant material to the media member as they live on tight deadlines and do not have time to politely ask for more relevant info.  E-mails from the blue are not discourteous, but they are simply ineffective.

2. Personalise your pitch

Before you reach to a journalist, blogger etc, establish a relationship. This can be as simple as a short comment or conversation on Twitter, or perhaps an e-mail discussion about something other than your client’s company. Once media member knows your name, they are far more likely to read your press release, opening the door to them acting on it. Relate to media member’s work and show a genuine interest, then explain why your source can beneficial for them.

3. Be flexible.

Always conduct extensive research on targeted media member. Which topics he or she covers? Which form of news he prefers? Standard news release? Expert positioning news release?

4. It’s always a give and take

Create an experience for your targeted media members that gives more than demand from them.

5. Check for misspellings etc.

That’s an obvious one. Journalists and bloggers are particularly sensitive to typos, misspellings and any kind of crime committed on grammar.

6. Forget about attachments

Pitching is like a first date – you do not want to scare your partner/media member with overload of information. Always ask in advance  for permission to send some files in attachment. Better yet, forget about attachment. Rarely any journalist/blogger opens them. Instead, upload your files onto some secure, private server and share the link. You can also use software such as Dropbox etc.
For more useful advice about how not to pitch a blogger read Jonathan’s post.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. In your opinion, are the examples above helpful?