A few weeks ago, my friend Danny Starr, who hosts IABC Ottawa’s podcast The Voice, invited me to join him to talk about peer to peer marketing.

Have a listen here.

Thanks again, Dan!

I wrote a short blurb for PR Daily about the recent Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms survey on the factors influencing buying decisions (the press release from CCPRF is here in case you want to have a closer look).

The study’s interesting message is that traditional media matter more in buying decisions than soc nets, blogs, etc. This confirms what I already knew as a PR pro and co-owner of a small retail business.

I am SICK TO DEATH of new media hipsters proclaiming the end of traditional media. Hopefully this shuts them up for a minute.

Why on Earth you would undertake a campaign for a consumer product without SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING outreach to newspapers printed on dead tree parchment, TV stations, etc is beyond comprehension.

I know you are far too smart to do this.

Screw Twitter, Facebook and Klout! Get me in the damn printed paper, or an interview with some over-hairsprayed TV reporter, and we’ll sell us some widgets and head for the Caribbean, OK?

It’s cold here, so we need to think in terms of utility and the bottom line.

Sam Cooke had a voice like silk. He would have been 81 yesterday.

Mad props to a legend and a REAL influencer who left far too young.

Ever read The Doubter’s Companion by John Ralston Saul? If not, give it a whirl.

I am not JRS, and cannot write near as eloquently as he. However, I work and play with social media, and sometimes I’m moderately jaded about the whole thing.

Maybe you are too? If so, you might enjoy the Skeptic’s A to Z Guide to Social Media:

A  is for awesome. This is the most over-used word on the social web. It needs to be sent to a glue factory. Fast.

B is for book. Lots of social media ninjas have written books. They tend to sound the same.

C is for companies. Many of them adopt social media thinking it will drive sales. They #fail. Often.

D is for dumb. The social web is full of dumb shit.

E is for expert. This used to be something that people assumed it took awhile to become. The social web has dramatically changed this.

F is Facebook. This company’s muscle lends credence to the notion that socially awkward nerds are the real power brokers on the social web.

G is for guru. Peter Drucker once said that guru was an easier way to spell charlatan. The social web suggests he was VERY right.

H is for happy. Lots of people on the social web have suggestions for how you can become happy at all times, even if sadness is an integral part of the human experience.

I is for ‘I’. Social media has given  a platform to people who like to begin most of their sentences with ‘I’.

J is for Jaiku. At one time, Social Media Jedis charged people money to attend webinars on this obscure, dead in the water, Twitter competitor. They claimed it was “sure to be the next big thing.”

K is for Klout. At one time this influence grading service suggested Justin Bieber had more sway than the American President. This despite the fact that Bieber never had access to nukes or Navy Seal teams.

L is for LOL, LMFAO and other such things. There was a time when we didn’t know what these things meant. Do you even remember what that was like?

M is for men. There are less of them on social media than women. This somehow makes plenty of sense. What doesn’t is the fact that a disproportionate number of social media gurus are male.

N is for Ning. This company learned that, on the social web, you get spanked if you give something away for free and then start charging for it.

O is for outside. Some say kids don’t go there as much as they used to. This may be partly because of the social web.

P is profits. When companies view social media as a panacea to driving them, things get hectic and heads roll.

Q is for Queen Elizabeth. Her family has a Twitter account, but they only follow one person (in fact one “house”).

R is for roar. Many CEOs do this when they see the lack of effect social media ninjas have on their bottom lines.

S is for save. Many badly run companies think social media can do this for them.

T is for Twitter. Try and explain this service to someone who does not know what it is. Damn hard to do.

U is unengaged. It’s what I become when a social media expert tells me to “engage”

V is for vanity. The social web has been the biggest enabler of vanity since the mirror.

W is for WTF! I find myself saying this a lot when I surf the social web.

X is for Xanax. Business owners need truckloads of this stuff after social media campaigns end up doing jack for their revenues.

Y is for Youtube. If you want to numb your brain, go and read the comments on this site. Guaranteed to make you dumber.

Z is for zap. The social web can (in a negative way) do this to your intelligence and productivity.

Have a great week!

In the era of blogger relations, PR firms have begun specializing in particular verticals.

The logic – sound in my view – is that because building relationships with bloggers is a LONG process it is best to focus on a limited set of industries, build strong relations with media in them, and kick ass.

Tough to argue with, because there are myriad examples of this approach working well for firms. Our love affair with specialization also helps when marketing a firm’s services.

However, as my incipient firm gets going, I’ve taken clients in diverse verticals, some of which are relatively new to me. Clearly the imperative to keep feeding, clothing and sheltering my family looms large and perhaps as Proper Propaganda (the company) grows we’ll narrow the industry focus.

However, the takeaway so far is that PR is PR whether or not you’re selling cars, kids stuff , a politician or healthcare. The rules of engagement are the same, so too the keys to success.

Maybe you shouldn’t necessarily tell yourself “I can’t work in that vertical or industry because I have no experience.” You probably can. Probably well, if you’ve done well with clients in other industries. Don’t let the tyranny of specialization be a hindrance to you expanding your horizons, because too often the value of a narrow focus is overstated by entrenched interests.

Organizations, and the people who work in them, have personalities. Perhaps it is more important to consider THIS variable than an industry or vertical when deciding to work with a prospective client.

Maybe?

Your thoughts?

Writers like being read.

Here’s the thing: usually the posts I enjoy writing the most get read the least. It’s almost uncanny.

Don’t get me wrong, I know enough about the internet, and the kinds of content we like to consume on it to understand why stuff like this or this gets lots of traffic.

Also, this is a biz blog not some personal ranting soapbox, so self-indulgence is a silly game that serves no one.

Still, I am interested to know if you have a similar phenomenon going on over at your blog? Does the stuff you enjoy producing the most generate the least amount of traffic? How does this play out?

Last month’s post on 44 things the media wish PR pros knew seemed to strike a chord with readers. One astutely underlined the need to flip the script and let bloggers and jounos know the other side.

Here, then, are 12 things I wish the media knew:

1. That PR is not journalism’s bitch
2. That replying to a carefully crafted pitch, even if to say you don’t want to pursue a story, is VERY important and curries a lot of favour
3. PR pros have a job to do, just like journalists – so don’t spit venom and be civilized
4. How to spell clients’/organizations’/bosses’ names correctly
5. That getting the website URL wrong is tantamount to kicking me in the teeth
6. That PR folks have heard a tonne about how much they suck/are a bother/do things that annoy journalists
7. That YOU, dear media member, sometimes NEED me and others like me (and vice versa)
8. That I cannot always track down a spokesperson in 2 minutes just because you have a deadline
9. That PR is not the enemy of journalism
10. That people who were never journalists are sometimes better at PR than those who were
11. That good PR pros understand the visual and non-visual elements of a solid story and can be a real resource in terms of sketching this stuff out
12. That PR, in 2011, is about FAR more than just media relations

Do you have anything to add?

Mythology is pretty cool. Some folks think social media is too.

Wherever you stand, it can be fun to ponder how various mythical creatures might have used social media (had they been able to).

Here are some thoughts on how 4 might have leveraged various social sites:

1. The Minotaur – Foursquare: In Greek mythology this half man, half bull creature lived in a labyrinth in Crete. Living in a maze could not have been easy, so my guess is Foursquare, with its location based geo-tagging, would have been of great benefit to this fearsome fellow. Who knows, if folks entering the maze had been dumb enough to check-in, this ass-kicker would have had them for breakfast.

2. Medusa – Diigo: This gal rocked a head of snakes. She was so darn hideous that anyone who looked at her would turn to stone. While her evil side might have leveraged Flickr or Youtube to amplify her ugliness, I think she would have enjoyed Diigo. Why? Because it’s a great knowledge sharing resource and, on the site, one can find info on just about anything. Let’s face it, if you had to care for a head snakes, peers with insights and tips would come in handy.

3. The Phoenix – Pinterest. A host of different cultures have versions of the bird in their mythology. My sense is the winged wonder would have leveraged Pinterest to the hilt. The “virtual cork board” would have been a great place to seek and store tips on fire starting (and maybe prevention).

4. The Sirens – Soundcloud. In Greek mythology, these seductresses lured sailors with their mellifluous voices. Alas, when the sailors got near the shoreline, they usually ended up shipwrecked on the rocks. Soundcloud would have been the preferred soc net of the sirens. Instead of waiting at water’s edge monitoring the horizon for ships, with Soundcloud in their arsenal, the sirens could have recorded songs and played them back, or on repeat, whenever. Bottom line, they’d a been doing more chillin’ while still being villains.

You got anything to add?

The media want to cover your organization and its goings-on. Problem is, they have limited resources and need YOUR help putting together compelling stories. So, in order for everyone to succeed, you need to know a few things.

Here are 44 things the media wish you knew:

1. Not everything your organization does is newsworthy
2. A press release, while still a useful outreach tool, is rarely enough on its own
3. How to think like a reporter
4. That they’re often overworked and underpaid
5. That they use and are active on social networks
6. When their deadlines are
7. Not to contact journalists near their deadlines
8. Rich media – video, photos – helps them understand what you’re trying to say
9. The medium via which they like to receive pitches
10. How to write a compelling email subject line
11. That Twitter is a great way to interact pre, during and after a story pitch
12. That you should help them with something before asking them to cover you
13. Jargon confuses consumers of content
14. That sometimes, even if you pitch perfectly, you get no coverage
15. What news is
16. That corporate messaging goals and good journalism are often at odds
17. How to create and use a social media release
18. That bloggers aren’t journalists (except when journalists blog)
19. That citizens aren’t journalists just because Twitpic, Instagram and Yfrog allow them to snap and share pics quickly and easily
20. How to write a press release
21. Media is the filter not the enemy
22. That they’ll sometimes behave like a pack of sheep
23. The importance of displaying your contact info in a clear, easy to find way
24. They make mistakes (often)
25. People who work in industries in crisis – i.e. media – worry a lot
26. Loads of PR people pitch loads of crap
27. That, in some cases, you need to pay or ship truckloads of swag  in order to get editorial coverage (really)
28. That some of them remain confounded by the internet
29. The value of transparency
30. That the audience/news relevance of a story pitch needs to be spelled out clearly
31. That their beats change and they’re forced to learn new things very quickly
32. Slanted coverage is inevitable
33. That there are slow periods of the year, during which your not-so-newsworthy pitch will get play
34. That sometimes the busy-ness of journalism means big delays in replying to you
35. That leaving insightful blog comments and sharing their content  makes them extra happy
36. Leaving inane comments on their blog posts, like “Great post, dude” is vexing
37. The time-sensitivity of their work
38. Saying thanks is, and will always be, appreciated
39. That tough interview questions are not personal attacks
40. Video is the medium of the internet age
41. That spin is downright annoying
42. The utter importance of saying it quick and clear
43. That, like you, they are just human
44. Once again, that not everything your organization does is newsworthy!

Do you have anything to add?

Your CEO wants coverage. Your colleagues want coverage. Gosh knows, your clients frikkin yearn for it.

You, on the other hand, pray for it, since your fabulous backside is on the proverbial line.

Alas, scoring media coverage is no picnic.

Here are 19 reasons, the media doesn’t give a damn about you (and never covers you):

1. You approach them at the wrong time(s), when they are scrambling to file their stories, publish their blog posts, etc.
2. You don’t believe PR is a business function worth investing in
3. Your pitches are mass, anonymous blasts
4. Your contact info is not SUPER easy to find
5. There is other, more newsworthy, news to cover
6. You include no rich media in your email pitches
7. You’ve never cultivated and maintained real relationships with media
8. You pitch media on things they don’t cover
9. You write like a first grader
10. Your never follow up on pitches (media tell you that you don’t need to do this, they LIE!)
11. The media’s resources are dwindling, and you’ve not built the right kinds of capacity for this new reality
12. You don’t do social media. (Sorry, if you want media coverage in 2011, you probably need to be interacting with the right people on the social web)
13. What you’re pitching is REALLY not that interesting
14. Your pitches don’t explicitly spell out a news/audience interest angle
15. You ask for coverage before helping and giving to specific media. (It’s gotta be the other way around)
16. You pitch media via channels they hate
17. Your email subject line reads like Dickens wrote it. Looooooong!
18. You LOVE you some jargon
19. Other media have covered you a whole bunch, and earlier

You must have other ideas. Add them below.