Insights for PR Firms in a Recession Environment

Tough economic times will affect many industries. Some will be hit hard, but experts predict others, like health care, will weather the storm just fine. I’ve come across several stories trying to anticipate the effect on the public relations profession. I’ve never worked for a PR firm, but if we just look at that sector of our profession, there are some interesting prospects. I want to share two with you.

First, a recent episode of the Inside PR podcast focused on actions agencies can take when confronted with an economic downturn. The three people in the conversation (Terry Fallis , Martin Waxman and Julie Rusciolelli) are all with agencies, and part of their conversation points to opportunities agencies can take advantage of when companies reduce their in-house PR staff (sigh) and turn to agencies to take on some of that workload.

By the way, Inside PR is a podcast that I have strongly recommended you listen to before. I still do. It’s insightful and entertaining.

Second, Joseph Thornley, CEO of Thornley Fallis, posted a story, “Managing through the coming recession,” from an agency exec’s point of view. It presents some strategies that those of you in similar positions might want to consider.

Reflections on the PRSA International Conference in Detroit

Posted on behalf of Trisha Box, PRSA San Antonio's Vice President of Programs and Chair of Gift of Guidance Program

I recently had the honor of attending the PRSA International Conference in Detroit after winning the "Eat and Win" program hosted by our chapter. It was a privilege to be among 3,000 PR practitioners from around the world representing corporate America, independents, non-profits and many PRSSA students. Speakers like Craig Newmark founder of Craig’s List, Bob Lutz with GM, and an author and former sports anchor Mitch Albom were all engaging and educational. The many sessions to choose from offered to succeed in today’s economy and especially how to jump into social media.

I was also proud to represent San Antonio by serving as an assembly delegate. We discussed important trends and issues facing our profession. I attended our district meeting where I met members from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Next years’ conference is in sunny San Diego on November 7-10, 2009. With the ever changing economy, I highly encourage everyone to consider attending the 2009 conference to educate yourself on our ever changing profession and be a bigger value to your employer or client. Put in your '09 budgets, if you register by the end of the year you get this year’s price. See www.prsa.org.

Thanks again to the 2008 chapter board for hosting me and for voting me as an assembly delegate to represent our chapter.

Trust and Reputation in Public Relations

Today PRSA San Antonio members were treated to a presentation by Mike Cherenson, APR, Chair-Elect of PRSA and Executive Vice President of Success Communications Group. Mike is a second generation counselor, who grew up "doodling his ABC's on news release stationery."

Mike's lively presentation included numerous research examples about building and maintaining reputation, a particularly timely topic as our nation struggles with the effects of the federal bailout and an uncertain economy. Cherenson explained that public relations practitioners are the keepers of trust and repetition in a company and the CEO should be its chief trust officer. He offered a formula for the group: Reputation equals expectation plus credibility plus authenticity.

Cherenson advocates that social media is empowering more and more to join in on the conversation, but cautioned that in this age of "infodemics" it is difficult to sort out fact from fiction. Infodemics is defined as the combination of rumor, truth, fact, propaganda and interpretation. This presents new challenges for managing an organizations' reputation.

He offered a useful analogy called the Credibility Bank. Organizations make deposits each time they doing something good or well. Withdrawals, on the other hand, are made when wrongs go uncorrected. He sugggested all practitioners should develop a score card and share it periodically with their CEO. His advice to practitioners hoping to build trust among their many stakeholders is that the simpler the message, the easier it is to reach your audience. Mike's presentation will be available on the chapter web site.

Update: Kami Watson Huyse shares this video interview with Mike Cherenson on trust and reputation. Enjoy!

Photo of Mike Cherenson courtesy of PRSA Member Randy Escamilla

Election Retrospective: The Power of Political Words

Like millions of Americans, I watched the election coverage last night. Beyond the sheer wonder of the computer interfaces, integration of social media, and the usual political speculation, one basic of our culture and our democracy stood tall. The power of words. The defining moment for me last evening was two moments, actually. First, John McCain's eloquent concession speech, delivered with humility and grace. You can read his speech or watch the video of his speech.

It made me recall the basics of what drew me to public relations in the first place, the writing part, and how cool it would have been to be someone's speech writer. Then, before too much more time passed, President-elect Obama took the stage more than half a country away and delivered another powerful speech, which you can read or watch .

Many social media folks and media watchers are referencing the words of the evening, including Michael Sebastian at Ragan.com.

The power of words is evident all around us, and, thanks to Web 2.0, we can read, view, listen and comment on the words that will define our next four years.

Check Your E-mail Release for Spam-like Issues Before You Send It

Another PRSA member forwarded this link to me. It’s so cool. With this tool, SiteSell’s SpamCheck, you can just test a news release or advisory before you send it by e-mail. You’ll quickly get a report telling you how likely it is to get caught up in spam filters.

I tested one I sent a couple of months ago and was happy to get a low score of 0.2. It says that any score under 4.5 is great. The really cool part is that it tells you the precise problems it identified so that you can fix them if you choose.

Note that this tool does not keep you from spamming reporters with mass irrelevant messages. We have to tend to that ourselves.

PRSA Byline Blog Comment Policy

Given our chapter's recent programs related to social media, one of the messages that came through clearly was the need to have policies. We realized that for this blog, we had posted a policy for our blog team members, but we hadn't posted the one for commentors. So here is our official policy.

PRSA Byline Blog Comment Policy
We want to hear from you and encourage comments, critiques, questions and suggestions. We ask that you simply stay on topic, respect other people’s opinions, avoid profanity, offensive statements, illegal content, and anything else that might otherwise violate our standard terms and conditions.

Please understand that we reserve the right to edit or delete comments for any reason we deem appropriate. Obscene, racist, and otherwise objectionable comments will be deleted at the discretion of the moderator. If you do not provide a valid e-mail address, we reserve the right to delete or not publish your comment.

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of PRSA and we assume no responsibility for such content. Please do not post any private information unless you want it to be available publicly. Please see our privacy policy for more information.

Professional Development

Hi - I'm the incoming chair for professional development, and I'm looking for your help.

If you didn't attend yesterday's workshop on Social Media, would you please add some comments to this post and let me know why?

If you did attend, would you reply and let me know what you did and didn't like?

Would everybody let me know what you'd like to see as professional development for the upcoming year?

Thanks!

Beth Graham

Blogging 101 with Bryan Person

Live from the Seminar!

Our last speaker this afternoon is Bryan Person, social media evangelist at Live World. Bryan kicks off by asking the questions....why should you blog and, more interestingly, who shouldn't blog. He cautions that if you are afraid of negative feedback, you may not be a candidate. However, Bryan looks at this type of feedback as an opportunity to learn about your company.

Goal-setting is an important component of launching a blog... so now, here's a theme with all of our social media presenters today. If you don't have a goal, none of these strategies and tactics will be successful for your organization. Light bulb! All PR practitioners should be setting goals, no matter what tools you choose.

Preparing to blog is an important step. Visiting and subscribing to blogs that interest you is important research. Also, people who visit your blog can find you and contact you. Targeting your readers is very important and your blog need not have a huge audience to be successful.

Creating content is the most important part of your blog. Bryan suggests that you raise your industry up with your content, particularly by creating original content and not recycling content. The more you generate, the more you can be found in search engines. Bloggers should have opinions and take a stand, particularly on issues. Visuals can really help draw people into your blog.

Promoting and building your blog is key to its longevity. Bryan hosted a lively discussion about whether ghostwriting a blog by a CEO or organization representative is a good practice.

Quality in content needs to be followed by quantity....the average blogger should post 3 times per week at a minimum. Bryan gave numerous examples of good blogs in the public relations industry, including Slice and PR Squared .

As with all today's speakers, Bryan urged the participants to maintain transparency. Another theme which all our presenters have stated throughout today's seminar.

Amended on October 8, 2008 to add link to Bryan's presentation.

Christie Goodman shares her Podcasting Strategy

Live from the Seminar!
Have you ever thought about who you might reach with podcast? A podcast is merely an audio program that listeners can download or save from and to a source. Many companies use podcasting for training, professional development, to humanize a company, reach out to fans or influencers AND can unite an organization that is challenged by distance. This is a real niche in social media. Christie is giving us a myriad of examples, from education to barbecue secrets. Her first piece of advice is to plan, preferably a written plan. Listening to a variety of podcasts can prepare you -- try what interests you and what is part of your industry. Some of the early podcasts Christie recalled were very rough and lacked polish. Goal setting is a critical step to success. Christie advocates asking yourselfsome questions: 'what do you want to accomplish?' 'Where do you want to be when you're done?'This community expects transparency and an informal style of conversation. They do NOT want someone to read to them.

The podcasts used by Christie's organization, have become a great resource for teachers. Some are still getting monthly downloads even after a year or more. These are obvious of topical interest, according to Christie.

The planning process for Christie include frequency of show, show length and format. She uses teachers and other professionals who are well-schooled in presenting to audiences, so they know their subject matter and minimizes the preparation she does as a PR professional.

Podcast content needs a predictable pattern, which includes music, interview introductions just like a radio show. One challenge for many organizations is the temptation to edit the interviews too neatly or an onerous approval process. The executives in Christie's organization have empowered her to manage the project and actually don't review the audio files until they are posted to the organization's Web site.

There are many ways to generate feedback on podcasts, which Christie also shared. What is interesting to note, is that this group lays down the audio on a digital audio recorder that is about the size of a deck of cards. She does engage professional editing to put music and ins and outs on the track.

Christie and IDRA are a great example of how to use new technology on a budget.

Kami Watson Huyse on Building Social Relationships

Live from the Seminar!
When Kami shares her expertise with our chapter, we all learn from it. Full disclosure: Kami and I have shared time on the PRSA San Antonio Board and she has a professional relationship with my company. She was also named the chapter's Public Relations Professional of the Year at this May's Del Oro awards.Read Kami's blog The key to utilizing all -- or any -- of these great technical tools, is to identify who your stakeholders are. Stakeholder identification is THE MOST BASIC task in public relations, so why should it be any different for online communities? Kami is talking about the four stages of engagement in building social networks. The first is to listen and take the time to learn about your community (formerly, audience!). The second stage, participation, is truly empowering for public relations practitioners. This enables you to truly have two-way communications with stakeholders. If you do your homework right, you will be engaging those who can influence or affect your business or organization. The third step is contributing to the community by providing content, sharing experiences and resources. The final step, evaluate, is the only way public relations practitioners can create value for their programs in today's business environment. What you evaluate can vary -- it could be interest, it could be attitude or could be some form of action. The valuable information in today's seminar is unbelievable!

Seminar photos today courtesy of Randy Escamilla, using his new IPhone.

UPDATE: This is Kami's Presentation

Building Social Relationships: Beyond Blogger Relations

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: blogger relations)

Monika Maeckle, Business Wire on New Press Releases

Live from the Seminar!
Monika Maeckle, vice president of new media for Business Wire is speaking right now about how to think differently about your press releases. Instead of a static document, press resources need to be enabled for searching and sharing. ONe of the easiest things a practitioner can do is to highlight items within the release using the usual formatting tricks in Microsoft Word. Boldfacing or italicizing text as well as using bullet points and subheads allow for better integration into search engines. Embedding links into releases is an easy and powerful tool to build credibility. Providing graphics, photos or videos -- in link form, of course -- will make your news more valuable to the reader. Now that Google is enabling its searches with photos, graphics and maps, this gives the press release writer the chance not only to tell their story, but to show their story. As Monika observes, press releases are traffic pointers. They should be pointing people to places they want to go and things they want to see. Business Wire hosts numerous, free webinars to assist practitioners with trying out all these new techniques. Check it out!

Social Media Cannot be Ignored

Live from the Seminar!
The big takeaway from Geoff's presentation today was you cannot ignore this medium of social media. Social media is categorized by its very nature as a COMMUNITY, not an AUDIENCE. This is a concept that is very difficult for many public relations practitioners to accept. But it is a message we must take back to our organizations, our CEOs, our nonprofits, our schools and our government agencies. Our stakeholders are online and we need to meet them online, on their terms, in their timeframe. Geoff is firmly entrenched in these communities and we can learn a lot from him.

Geoff Livingston speaking at PRSA San Antonio chapter today

Live from the Seminar!

Today, we're hearing from Geoff Livingston, who was introduced to us as a social media "guru." He is sharing with us about the fractured nature of communications today. Just launching a blog doesn't cut it anymore. You have to dedicate time and resources to build social media and networks. Livington is urging the group to let strategy guide the communications plan, using the traditional method of determining objectives and then selecting the tools to accompany those objectives. THEN, decide if social media fits into the plan. As Geoff says, don't let the nomenclature get in the way of understanding.

Watch for more from the seminar later today.

Some First Steps for PR Folk to Engage with Social Media

Let’s say you’re a high-level PR professional. A boss or an owner. And you’ve avoided dipping into these new-fangled social media things for some logical reason like the time required or because the way you’ve been doing things has been working fine.

Let me share some practical reasons you may want to give social media a try.

Blog monitoring – You need to know what people are saying about your company or client. By monitoring conversations on blogs, you can get a jumpstart on issues that could otherwise blow up. Dell reports that they get a three-week heads-up about issues before they hit the mainstream media. This is something you can do for free. And it’s a minimum. Later, you can learn to participate in the conversations to build the brand, enhance reputation and dialogue with influencers. A key audience to be monitoring is the reporters you are likely to work with. Many are bloggers themselves.

Social networks – Let’s focus on Facebook. Why on earth would you want to set up a Facebook page? Because reporters are there. They are communicating with their audiences and their sources there. I’ve even heard of one who will only pay attention to pitches he gets via Facebook, not e-mail or phone. Again, it’s a minimum. You don’t have to reveal your family secrets on your page. And you certainly should keep it professional. Later, you can use Facebook and other networks to connect with your company’s or client’s key constituencies who are there. Again, it’s free.

Social bookmarking – Services like Delicious are highly useful tools to support your media relations or community relations work. I’ve posted some how to’s on this subject before. See the last post for links. And yes, it’s free.

Twitter – Using Twitter can be powerful for public relations. The thing is, you will not understand its value until you sign up and start using it. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Twitter is not the only service of its kind, but it’s the most popular. It’s where many journalists are. It’s where portions of your audiences likely are. People will tell you it’s addictive. But that means they aren’t using it well for their business. You can. But it’s all theory until you set up your account. And guess what. It’s free.

If you try any of these tools, the worst that can happen is you won’t find them useful and you’ll stop using them.

Our chapter is holding a full-day professional development session specifically on this topic to demonstrate ways to get started or expand participation. I’m sure there will be more posts about it in the coming days.

So here’s the bottom line. Social media is not merely an additional vehicle for distributing or even exchanging information. It is not a trend. It is a manifestation of social change that we are in the midst of.

Should Twitter be Used in Church?

Two news stories came to my attention this week, both involving the micro-blogging tool, Twitter. New technologies always stretch our boundaries, and these two stories are no exception to that observation. And, they point out a traditional struggle for public relations practitioners, the ballance between an individual's right to privacy and the public's right to know.

Case #1
The Rocky Mountain News recently decided to assign a reporter to cover the funeral of a three year old on Twitter. The child died after being hit by a car driven by an illegal immigrant with an arrest record. After the initial horror of thinking --what if that were my child?--I thought about the stress of having to relive the event electronically. But that's not the central issue here. The central issue is whether the public's right to know about the funeral was justified by the live streaming of events during the funeral OR if the family's right to privacy was more important. INterestingly enough, the coverage was given a thumbs down by media watchers as being bland and uninteresting.

You can read about the coverage and follow links to other parts of the story here:
http://poprl.com/1JX

Case #2
On Friday, the San Antonio Express News ran a story on Imagine Fellowship, a local church which uses Twitter during its services, allowing the participants to Twitter about the sermon, with the comments appearing on a giant screen behind the pastor. Imagining I was in the pastor's place, I thought how harsh the criticism could be and how distracting while trying to speak. Again, though, the broader issue seems to be the line between individual privacy and public information.

As these new technologies can enhance our productivity and broaden our reach, we must insure that they don't also interfere with individual rights.

P.S. I would link to the story, but the Express-News Web site is horrendously hard to navigate if you try to find a story more than 24 hours after it appears.

Update
A nice person from the church sent me this link to share: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/religion/Blest_be_the_tweets_that_bind.html

Quick Options for Finding Blog Coverage of Your Client, Company, Product, Etc.

I got an e-mail from a friend the other day who was looking for quick suggestions on how to monitor blog coverage or conversations. I thought I’d share my answer with you and you can add your suggestions as well if you’d like.

There are three big services – free. I use the first two all the time. I’m going to check out the third. Just like free media monitoring, it’s beneficial to use more than one source.

Google blog search http://blogsearch.google.com
Blogpulse http://www.blogpulse.com/
Technorati http://technorati.com/

The advantage that Technorati has over the others is that it somehow calculates a ranking for each blog which can help you determine which ones to target. The disadvantage is that its searching capabilities have declined significantly in the last year. So you will miss some important ones if this is the only service you use.

A really good paid service that I've tried and loved is Custom Scoop. It does media monitoring including blogs. You get an e-mail each morning listing and linking to all your coverage for each search term. You can do a free trial through: http://www.customscoop.com/fir (FIR just stands for the For Immediate Release podcast, one of three PR/comm. podcasts I don't miss.)

Communication Tools ~ What Do You Use?

Communicate, it's what we do. We communicate to build relationships with our clients, colleagues, publics. We, as public relations professionals, build relationships as part of our living.

We all use different tools to do it; but, I was surprised by a recent Twitter poll asking if people still use the telephone to communicate (as opposed to just email, Twitter, and other social media). I don't know if I'm out of the norm, but I spend a substantial portion of each day on the phone. I call my colleagues, I call reporters, I call assignments editors, I probably make 15 calls a day.

Obviously, my answer to the question of using a telephone for relationship building was a resounding, "Yes!" But, am I out of the ordinary? Do you use a telephone still?

If you don't use the telephone, how do you make contact with your publics? As hard as I try, I am not able to see everyone I need to touch base with in person; and as friendly as I think I am, email just doesn't convey a friendly chat as well as a voice. So, what do you do to make contact? While I won't be giving up the telephone any time soon, I'd like to hear what others do to stay in touch, to build relationships.

Social Media Case Studies

The Society for New Communications Research has released a new research study, New Media, New Influencers and Implications for Public Relations, and made it available free online. It gives case studies of several companies regarding their use of social media. Here is the description from their web site…

Social media case studies and strategies from the American Red Cross, Blendtec, The Coca-Cola Company, Emerson Process Management, the Mayo Clinic, MARC Research, Quicken Loans, and the Seattle Union Gospel Mission highlight this research study by the Society for New Communications Research. The report also
features detailed findings from a survey of communications and marketing professionals focused on changing patterns of influence resulting from social media and other new communications technologies. This study was made possible by a grant from the Institute for Public Relations & Wieck Media.

And don't forget to sign up for our chapter's professional development session on social media!

How Employee Online Behavior Affects your Organization -- PRSA Luncheon Program

Today (Thursday) our chapter holds its annual luncheon in recognition of PRSA’s ethics month. Our focus is on how employee online behavior affects your organization – both sides of the story. I'm so grateful to our panelists, Kelly Smith, assistant superintendent for technology services at Northside ISD, and Jenny LaCoste-Caputo, education editor for the San Antonio Express-News, who will discuss how employee online behavior away from work can affect your company and how you can encourage employees to communicate online without putting you at risk.

Below are links to further information related to today’s discussion.

San Antonio Express-News Education Blog
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education

PRSA Ethics Information
See the PRSA Member Code of Ethics (in English) http://www.prsa.org/aboutUs/ethics/preamble_en.html

See the PRSA Member Code of Ethics (in Spanish) http://www.prsa.org/aboutUs/ethics/preamble_sp.html

See other resources, including advisories and case studies http://www.prsa.org/aboutus/ethics/

Samples of Policies
"What Employers Need To Know About Employee Blogging"

Blogging Policy Resources on the New PR Wiki

RUN, Don't Walk to the Chapter's Professional Development Seminar

If you're anything like me, every day I become aware of more tools and technology, many of which can help me in my professional life. BIG CAVEAT: there's very little playtime in each day's schedule to afford me the opportunity to learn about all these tools. So if you're reading this blog and looking for more, then RUN, don't walk to the San Antonio Chapter's Professional Development Seminar: New Media is Now! The details can be found here.

One thing I truly benefit from as a member of PRSA, is professional development. I know I can't afford those pricey seminars in exciting locations like San Francisco, Chicago and New York that frequent my mailbox, but the lineup of speakers for our San Antonio sessions, will guarantee that your investment will be worth it.

Start off the morning session with Geoff Livingston, author of "Now is gone: a primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs." The morning session will be filled with reasons why you need to go forth in this brave new media world.

At lunch, hear Monika Maeckle, Business Wire's vice president for new media development on launching the online conversation with web-friendly press releases. By early afternoon, you will be ready for some meaty "bytes" from an array of qualified speakers.

Kami Watson Huyse, APR, and the chapter's PR Professional of the Year and editor of Communications Overtones, will talk about building relationships with online stakeholders. She will be followed by Christie Goodman, APR, on starting on the podcasting technology. Our final speaker will be Bryan Person, who will get you started on blogging basics. (Once you have a handle on that, this chapter could use a few ambitious bloggers!).

At the end, we will share best practices and ask each other questions before wrapping up. Bring your laptop, an open mind and learn how to use del.icio.us to access course materials and background information. If you can't join us, watch this space for information on joining our Twitter group. I hope to see you there.