Mutually Inclusive PR

PR Briefs - News Items October 10, 2006

• Bloggers: How To Approach Companies - Mike Manuel - Some suggestions for bloggers who want something from a company.
• Will S**ttsburgh Forgive Sienna ? - Scott Baradell - Why screw around with words when a straightforward apology would do the trick?
• SNCR Symposium & Awards Gala in 3 Weeks - Elizabeth Allbrycht invites social media and new communications folks to a symposium in Boston Nov. 1-2. Put on by the Society for New Communications Research.
• Newspapers 2.0 - Doc Searls - Ten tips for newspaper publishers on how to get with the live web and avoid extinction.

New Blog Progress - A Little Optimization this Time

Work continues on my new PR blog. Yesterday my chosen task was to do some key word analysis of Mutually Inclusive PR, which I'll apply to the new blog.

Search Engine Optimization has grown into a very profitable industry, with most of the practitioners running successful blogs of their own. Heck, some of them have entire farms of blogs, growing "relevant" links every day.

I have no interest in going the link farm route, but with this new blog I'm going to pay a bit more attention to actively pursuing an audience.  Traffic has never been a big deal for me, but I have to admit I'd like to reach more people who are curious about how business communications, and especially external public relations, affect companies and their relationships with customers, suppliers and others.

Is search engine optimization a nefarious way of gaming Google and Yahoo?  I'm sure that's part of the landscape.  But for me, it's more about making sure that people who want to read about the topics I cover can find my stuff.

Without any effort at optimization, I've become one of the top sources on Google for such exciting searches as "Toby Maguire fat", "Pierce Mattie", "Promo Girl revealed", "Terry O'Reilly and the Age of Persuasion", and a few other laser-focused searches like that.

I'm okay with that, but I'd also like to be the one people find when they're searching for items about linking communications with business goals, examples of simple but effective PR techniques, and finding a compelling angle for your organization's story.

This is a learning process.  Two years ago, I looked at all the "how to make your blog stand out" advice from Darren Rowse and others,  and cringed a bit at the crassness of some of the techniques suggested.  Now I realize that some of those techniques would have served me well, as long as I applied a bit of class to their use.  Being witty and clever is less fulfilling if you're doing it by yourself.

A couple of other sources I'm using for advice on SEO:

Performancing and SEOBook.com.

Update: Here's a long-winded search that came my way today:
What are the public relation tools when using proactive public relations

 

My blog shows up no. 9 in Google for that search term.

Tags: promotion, self-promotion, blogging, seo, search

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PR Briefs - News Items October 2, 2006

• Spoiled Rotten (Apple) - Joseph Jaffe - The big question is, why do people let Apple get away with such consumer-unfriendly behaviour?
• Avoiding Tradmarkicide: Ziplock Bags and Apple’s iPod - Kami Huyse - The Apple trademark legal battle that's shaping up, and the challenge of protecting a trademark from becoming a generic term.
• PR Pro says NO to Skin Whitener Cosmetics - what is SK-II to do? - Pierce Mattie - Toxic products and promotion.
• Guess what? Press releases have never been exclusively for the press - David Meerman Scott - The argument against viewing a news release as something written just for journalists.
• Everybody Has the Right to Be Depressed - Scott Baradell - Depression can hit celebrities and the wealthy, the popular and the beautiful. Scott B. takes the media to task for attacking famous people who struggle with depression.
• The Social Bookmarking Faceoff - A good comparison of the various social bookmarking sites. Link via Brian Solis - The Social Bookmarking Faceoff and its Effects on PR.
• If you encrypt, are you guilty? U.S. Customs peaking into your digital life - Tris Hussey - A look at the issue of customs officers wanting to view sensitive, confidential info on your laptop or other device.
• The Future of Television, Revision3 Launches - Thomas Hawk - Digg launches a video service.
• Sharing the PR Podcast Lurrrrve - Paull Young - A quick look at several PR podcasts.
• Where are the Public Relations Firms? - John Andrews - Johnon.com asks why the fresh goods companies aren't doing any proactive public relations in response to the spinach e-coli food scare.
• I'm back to celebrate OneWebDay - Dave Traynor -  wonders if we're any further ahead in our workload and quality of life after all these advances in information.
• Social Media Communciations - A downloadable e-book. 
• Ingenious Reporting Using del.icio.us - David Jones notes a Toronto journalist who encourages people to send her del.icio.us links of things she should check out.
• Why RSS is important to marketers - Paul Gillin posts results of a survey of bloggers.
• Heather Mallick Column at CBC.ca - After quitting her column at the Globe and Mail over editing choices, Heather Mallick lands at CBC.ca with a column.

Tags: china, apple, trademarks, depression, del.icio.us, video, encryption, security, rss, social+media

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PR Briefs - News Items September 24, 2006

• Changing Clients into Better Ones - Julie Rusciolelli - The head of a Toronto PR agency has advice on how clients can play their role better. Link via David Jones.
• PRSA to Members: Please Be Ethical, Hypothetically Speaking - Steven Silvers - The PRSA urges its members to expose unethical practices, while it bends over backwards to avoid mentioning any particular examples.
• Resources And Wrap-Up! - Leo Bottary - Hill and Knowlton's Leo Bottary offers tips for people getting started in public relations on how to provide good service to customers.
• Wanna See What "The Media Pitch 2.0" Looks Like? - Todd Defren - PR Squared blog points to a new beta version of a service that could be used to help reporters with story suggestions.
• Phildelphia Launches Soundabout Tours - Shel Holtz - Audio tours of Philadelphia neighbourhoods that can be taken virtually, through Google Maps API, or with a portable MP3 player while wandering the actual neighbourhood.
• Screaming Users Considered Good - Dan Russell - On the Creating Passionate Users blog, a discussion about how negative feedback can be much more useful than bland reassurances, if your goal is to design something that's truly useful. Link via McToonish.
• Defining Success Metrics for Corporate Blogs - Bill Sweetman - On the One Degree blog, Bill Sweetman lists the metrics of success for a corporate blog.
• What Kind of Genius Are You? - Daniel Pink in Wired - A researcher identifies two kinds of creative genius.
• Red Cross Guerrilla - Miel Van Opstal - The Canadian Red Cross tries a geurilla marketing campaign for learning first aid.
• On Crisis Communications and “What if We Didn’t Own the Company?”  and Up and Running - Freshbooks on crisis communications, following a major service disruption.
• Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms to represent interests of PR consulting firms - Joseph Thornley - PR firms in Canada have created an association to help them share common concerns, share knowledge, and identify issues for joint action. The group is looking for firms with billings of $1 million a year and up.
• Finally, Somebody Ranks Brand Monitoring Services - Mike Manuel - A comparison of brand monitoring services.
• Suing for Product Placements, May Be the new PR - Pierce Mattie PR - A lawsuit against US Weekly seems to suggest that publications owe coverage to brands, and can be held liable if they stop providing the brand profile in their publications, etc.
• Are all PR People Clueless Telemarketing/spamming Drones? - Dan York - A blogger/podcaster's frustration with clueless PR spam and pitches sent to him, regardless of the narrow focus in the VOIP industry that he covers.
  
  Tags: communications, consulting, product placement, crisis, feedback, guerilla marketing, ethics, branding

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PR Briefs - News Items September 15, 2006

Found this week:

• News Junkie: Become One. In PR, It Is Required Behaviour - Robert French
• Facebook's "Privacy Trainwreck": Exposure, Invasion, and Drama - Dana Boyd
• Political & Government Blog Cases wanted - Shel Israel
• Searchmob - John Battelle
• Should Fair Use Apply to Your Family Portraits? - Thomas Hawk
• About Gen-P (or "Jimbo lays the smacks down on Dale Hoiberg") - Jason Calacanis
• Forget about Web 2.0 Cool. What's Useful - Mark Evans
• Important discussion about depression in IT. - Tris Hussey
• About dot com — not a bad idea - John Andrews
• Endemol's get-rich-quick scheme - Chris Edwards

Tags: copyright, fair use, search, facebook, privacy, blogs, depression, wikipedia, media, news

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Fallen Fruit from Scott Baradell's Orchard

I enjoy the often interesting, sometimes fratboyish view of the world provided by Scott Baradell.

I try to look the other way when he pimps for links, the way you pretend not to notice when your uncle zips his pants closed on his tie.

His latest gambit to build his global personal microbrand is a special button for bloggers to use when they have been blessed with a link from him.  With a wink, I've adapted the logo.  I'll use it for this special commemorative list of some of my favourite Media Orchard postings, chosen haphazardly from his recent outpourings.

The John Mark Karr School of Viral Marketing

If Hollywood Publicists Did Corporate PR, Would They all Be in Jail?

What GoDaddy Recommends when You Accidentally Check on the Availability of Ho.com

Go Negative with PR at your own Risk

Strumpette Goes after Scott's Accreditation

Happiness Lessons for PR People

10 Greatest Countries in History

Tags: blogs, media, scottbaradell, communications

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PR Briefs - News Items September 4, 2006

Where are Canadian Corporate Blogs? - Mark Evans - Tech blogger Mark Evans asks why Canadian companies are so slow to adopt corporate blogs. Check the comments.

The ego of a CEO: Noble Narcissist? - Ian Griffin - CEOs need to have big egos, as long as that doesn't get in the way of the way they communicate on behalf of the company.

PR Misses the Mark while Advertising Achieves - Gregory Mackenzie-Forbes interviews himself for this news release / article about the different roles of advertising and public relations.

Away With Words: Getting It Wrong about Web Writing - The client who didn't want to pay for a large web writing project, and instead hoped to cobble together a poorly written website. By Nancy Friedman.

My Visit to Scrapblog - Shel Israel on Scrapblog, a new social media product.

Using E-mail to Fire Staff: RadioShack’s Big Mistake - Scott Cytron on IABC Cafe comments on the Radio Shack layoffs that were communicated by e-mail.

Tags: corporate blogs, business, blogs, ceos, communications, advertising, marketing, writing, clients, consulting, social media

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The Relative Value of Professional Accreditation

Do some capital letters on your business card make you an expert?  Does their absence make you incompetent?

The obvious answer is no.  So what possible reason is there to pursue a law degree, earn an accounting designation, earn your professional assocation certification, or for that matter, any other official recognition of accomplishment or learning?

At least two reasons that I can think of:

• Gaining credibility; and
• Tempering your skills and experience in the fires of the accreditation process.

Professional associations weren't created in isolation. They were formed by people who had something to gain from working with others to gain skills, share knowledge and raise the profile of their profession.

Accounting has one of the more rigorous accreditation processes, and they've managed to parlay that into credibility in business circles.  You'll notice that they focus a lot of attention on improving mangement skills, which doesn't seem to be a focus for business communicators. Maybe that's why they've been so successful. Yet, even with all that rigour, you still see at least three different kinds of accounting designations, and anyone can do accounting without accreditation as long as they don't claim to be accredited. They're called bookkeepers and a number of other names, and they do damn good work.

Anything that pushes you to re-examine your methods and prove that the way you do things works is a good thing. Yes, such processes can stifle creativity. If you are approaching public relations projects with some radical new approaches, you may find the people who run the accreditation process don't understand the value of what you're doing, or question your methods. Welcome to the downside of innovation.

Is accreditation the only way to show the world you are qualified? Nope. 

Is it worth pursuing?  Only if you think the effort will bring real value to you or increased perceived value to your reputation.

Background

Todd Defren argues that because a person with no accreditation can practise public relations with excellence, there's no need to make accreditation mandatory.

Kami Huyse argues that accreditation is a valuable step toward becoming a better practitioner.   She responds to Defren's comments.

Stuart Bruce weighs in, saying accreditation is valuable to the PR profession's credibility.

(It's not too late to join the International Association of Nobodies.)

---

I responded to Stuart in his comments section:

This is a bit of a chicken and the egg debate.

You see the same issue in academia, where the qualifications for achieving a doctorate don't necessarily involve learning how to be a good teacher. Then universities set their academics loose on students, explaining that their research skills and quality of dissertation writing qualify them to pass on their learning to others.

Teaching takes a whole new range of skills that some academics have, and others are lacking. A PhD. does not magically transform them into an excellent teacher.

Accreditation is a good measure of whether someone: 1) Understands the fundamentals of business communications; 2) Has shown they can apply strategic thinking; 3) Decide to devote the time and energy to the process; 4) Values the accrediting organization enough to want to affiliate themselves with the accreditation being offered.

There are a lot of people who have 1-2, but don't have either 3 or 4.

Update:  Todd Andrlik lists the various bloggers' positions on this topic, and creates a comparison table of the various PR accreditations available.

Leo Bottary, who authors the Client Services Insights blog, e-mailed to let me know comments were turned off on this post. Not sure how that happened, but I've noticed sometimes Qumana (my blog editing tool) defaults to comments off.  I didn't catch that yesterday.  Sorry if, like Leo, you tried to leave a comment, and were unable.

Tags: prsa, cprs, communications, accreditation, professions, associations, reputation, business, careers

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Tom Murphy - Unsubscribed

I never thought I'd go a week wihout reading Tom Murphy's blog PR Opinions, but something he posted there today made me immediately unsubscribe.

About five seconds later, I subscribed to his new blog Murphy's Law, on which he promises to add some non-PR content (now that he's no longer one of only a handful of PR bloggers holding down the fort).

Tags: blogs, prblogs, tommurphy

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PR Briefs - News Items August 27, 2006

• Word of Mouth Is not Created, Word of Mouth Is Co-created - An independent film director asks Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod how to generate buzz for the film. He offers six seps to make bloggers smarter advocates for the film.
• Social Media Optimization - Todd Deffren notes that many companies still don't have the basics of Web 1.0 right, but that doesn't have to stop them from using Web 2.0 tools as a way to kickstart their web presence into high gear.
• Photoshop, It’s not about You. It’s about Me - Rob Cottingham discovers Snipshot, a web-based photo tool that lets you pull images from webites and edit them.
• Wanna Be Respected by Executives? Talk Less and Listen More - John Wagner suggests active listening, rather than showing off about what you know, as the best way to deal with clients and/or executives.
• How to Get People Talking about your Product - Software developer Eric Sink talks about how designing products that are perfect for a target group is a prerequisite to word of mouth marketing. Link via Scoble.
• Why Picasa Images Are Indexed Higher in Google Image Search than Flickr - Thomas Hawk takes a look at how the search engines look for images, and why photos on some sites show up better than the same photos on other sites.
• River's Edge - Doc Searls stands up for the River of News idea, that involves making the web readable via portable devices, like cellphones.
• Imagining a CBC-Free Canada - Darren Barefoot attempts to get some discussion going about what Canada would be like without the CBC, and runs into polarized silence. The web doesn't encourage real debate, he says.
• Invasive Radio Advertising on Its Way. Bring It - Tod Maffin suggests that one-to-one advertising isn't that far away on satellite radio.
• Could Industry Analysts Survive Total Transparency? - Todd Deffren would like to see someone push back against the analysts, who weild a lot of power without necessarily earning their credibility.
  
  Tags: marketing, film, word of mouth, social media, web2.0, photoshop, mobile, cbc, debate, blogs

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