As Paul Harvey would say "And now...the rest of the story"
As PR professionals, we work really hard to present our clients in a relevant and newsworthy manner to the press. At BLASTmedia, we do this by researching the press and building relationships with our contacts so that we know undoubtedly when our client's news is something of interest.
Unfortunately, as with any industry, there are the few bad seeds that ruin it for the rest of the bunch. Perhaps you're familiar with the Bad Pitch Blog, a great site that focuses its attention on all of the wrong-doings of PR people. This site is an excellent way for PR people to see exactly what NOT to do - and if you every read a post and aren't sure why something was inappropriate, you better find out or risk finding yourself there as the next feature.
Recently, the Bad Pitch Blog posted this hard-to-believe press release on the Back-Up - a bedside shotgun rack. It is not the ridiculousness of the product itself that makes the release so lacking of decency. Take a look and see for yourself!
While it's great to be reminded of the basics through these examples of bad pitches, we would also like to point out that media people are not always free of guilt in the press-PR relationship. We occasionally receive humorous emails from editors, freelance writers and/or reporters who don't see the connection, aren't used to being pitched, or are just plain 'ole grumpy.
I'd like to share this gem of a response I received earlier this week:
"Ashley, my dear, while you were busy popping off your bulk emails all over hell's creation, did you happen to notice that we folks at XXXX XXXX Magazine hang our hats in Canada?
That's that huge land mass to your north. A separate country, no less.
You just might have noticed it. (Let me give you a clue. It's where all your bad weather comes from.)
I doubt very much that Client X is going to pack its polar bear repellent in order to perform the installation of (say) a sound system in Medicine Hat, Alberta. What think you?
Anyway, thank you for your amusing email.
Cheers!"
No sir, thank YOU for the amusing email! Everything about this response gave us a big laugh at the office - but most importantly I should note that the client in question DOES in fact provide services in Canada... even Medicine Hat, Alberta.
A word of advice: if you're ever unsure whether or not one of our clients is available in your area, all you have to do is ask!
Also, if you can recommend a reliable brand of polar bear repellent... that would be super!
It's Halloween: a time for ghosts, ghouls and horrifying events all around. Even with the season in mind, that is absolutely no excuse for this appalling release we found over at Bad Pitch Blog. There's no excuse for taking advantage of a family tragedy to push a product. All this will do is give the company a bad reputation and a decrease in sales for lack of sensitivity.
"Could a Bedside Shotgun Rack Save Families from Becoming Victims?
Chicago, IL (MMD Newswire) October 28, 2008 -- Everyday, there are over 8,000 home invasions in America, many resulting in assault, rape, and murder. That's according to a report by the US Department of Justice.
Whether it is someone known or a stranger entering the home, too many people in this country are paying with their lives during these home invasions. The Hudson family is just one of far too many Americans gunned down in their own home.
What can be done? Law enforcement and the government aren't solving the problem. So law-abiding citizens are now forced to take their safety, security, and life into their own hands.
Shotguns are often weapons of choice at home because of their deterrent effect on assailants, their close-range stopping power, their affordability and their reduced risk of injury to innocent others from stray shot. But the problem is storing them in a place where you don't have to turn your back on your assailant. Propped in the corner or under the bed takes valuable time to get to, and could cost you your life.
But now there is a solution. The BackUp makes them easily accessible during a time of need. Racked between the mattresses, The BackUp offers immediate access to the homeowner's shotgun: in the hands, cocked and ready to defend in 2 seconds.
Home Security Expert Howard Pitts says, "A shotgun provides the most effective protection against home invasion. And The BackUp is a much safer and secure solution than having a shotgun in the corner or under the bed."
The BackUp is made in America and the adjustable 2-foot by 2-foot rack assembles in minutes.
For more information, visit the website at www.the-backup.com"
And to this we can only say: wow. Okay, so maybe this release is timely, but that's about it. There is certainly something to be said about a company willing to issue a release around such a tragedy. On the other hand, they might also be looking for a new media relations agency, who can help get them positive coverage.
On a more positive note- it's officially the only acceptable day to dress up and eat ten pounds of candy--Happy Halloween! Although, this office usually goes through 10 pounds of candy pretty easily via the office "candy drawer." How will the BLAST crew impress? I am going as a cliche vampire, and as for everyone else:
Heidi- Flasher (Trenchcoat and all - but don't get too excited, it's a fairly PC costume, so she says!)
Lindsey- "Intoxicated Georgia Bulldog fan (a lot of people will be wearing the same costume as me in Jacksonville)"
Carey-German Beer Girl
Ryan- Snake Charmer (see below)
Hillary- A Cop- (she says she was "inspired" since her boyfriend is a real cop!)
Chantal- Barbie (and she has a Ken!)
Patrick- Tassle Twirlin' Tessie
Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of our job is keeping up with the new trends in media. Contrary to 10 years ago, you know now that media includes so much more than newspapers, magazines, radio and television. A whole world of social media has evolved and has become a big part of what we do and how we do it.
I want to kiss the person who invented social media. Okay, so I know it isn't one person, but a combination of a whole lot of great ideas: Blogging, Vlogging, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. The lines between social media and traditional media have been blurred, and sometimes it's hard to tell if someone is working/researching or visiting the sites just for fun. Here are some of my, and the rest of BLASTmedia's, now-favorite blogs that we have stumbled across while reaching out to the social media space and researching for clients. As an added bonus, much of this research and outreach has resulted in coverage for our clients.
A product launch is an extremely important event for any company and, here at BLASTmedia, we work extremely hard to make the most out of your product's big day. A product launch can generate immense buzz and hype, which ultimately can lead to big sales out of the gate. However, there is a right way to go about a launch and many companies don't realize they put their own product launch in jeopardy. Here are some important aspects of PR that are crucial to your launch.
1. Keep a Secret. When you have a new product, we know you're excited to get it on the company Web site--WAIT. Anything on the internet is free game for journalists, editors and bloggers to write about. Your PR firm is busy working on exclusives from top media outlets to give your product the most coverage the day it launches and there is no controlling who gets their hands on news once it's on the Internet.
2. Coordinate. Coordinate. Coordinate. Your product Web page, third-party vendors and the launch date should all coincide. Again, anything on the Internet is fair game for the media.
3. Plan for success. PR firms have tried and true ways of giving your product the best coverage on its opening day, but this plan can always go wrong. Discuss the plan with your PR firm so that everyone is aware and you don't accidentally jeopardize a very successful launch day.
4. Give the media what they want. Media always want to try out whatever great product you are introducing to the market. If at all possible, be sure to have samples available to pass along to media, even if it's just a few. Great hands-on reviews can generate amazing coverage on announcement day.
5. Follow Gravity. Big news follows gravity-- it tends to start with the big media (the media you WANT) and trickles down to the lesser known and fewer read. The big publications don't like hearing about "old news," which means you should do your best to get it to the top first and let it fall from there.
Just like you only get one chance to make a first impression, you only get one chance to launch a product to the press. There are ways to make it an announcement with huge impact, and ways to really slow momentum. At BLASTmedia, we work with our clients to set a plan of action and really rock the product launch to ensure great coverage and client satisfaction.
Eight Most Useful Tools for a Media Relations Expert
As with any other job, PR experts are always looking for new, innovative ways to streamline their day-to-day activities. Whether it is catching up on the current news, connecting with editors, or tracking the effectiveness of our PR campaigns for our clients, we rely on some of the latest Web 2.0 and desktop applications, as well as a couple of other tools that hold categories of their own.
CNET's Webware has a great list of the 100 top Web apps, 10 each in each of 10 categories, as determined by Webware users and the fans of the products that were finalists in the awards. What I wanted to do is share eight of the most useful tools we use here at BLASTmedia that help us secure national media coverage for our clients. Here they are, in no specific order:
1. Twitter www.twitter.com - an online service that lets you broadcast short messages to your contacts, or "followers." It also lets you specify which Twitter users you want to follow so you can read their messages in one place (follow some of us here at BLAST @BlastMedia, @MargieSchaffner, @careyhart, @aHalbers, @HillaryMoney, @LaurenBLAST, @ChantizzleB). This is helpful in our jobs because we can follow editors we work with on a daily basis and get an insight into what they are working on, what they look for, what events they will be attending, etc.
2. Facebook www.facebook.com - a popular social networking service, which gives users a place to make and explore personal profiles and interact with friends. This is helpful in our jobs because we are able to connect with editors who we work with, but also connect our clients with their customers through Facebook groups, profiles, or events.
3. FeedDemon www.feeddemon.com - an application that collects and manages your RSS feeds from your desktop. This is helpful in our jobs because we are able to track things like client coverage, client industry keywords, client competitors' news coverage, etc. Staying on top of what people are saying about clients and their industry is a key part of media relations and helps us with our reactive PR pitching.
4. Woopra www.woopra.com - a comprehensive, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. This is helpful in our jobs because it gives us, as well as our clients, the ability to track the effectiveness of our PR campaigns. Client Web site traffic also helps us figure out where we need to focus more of our time and effort.
5. Google News / Google Alertswww.google.com/news / www.google.com/alerts - a computer-generated news service that aggregates headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader's personalized interests. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Much like FeedDemon, this is helpful in our jobs because we are able to track coverage, keywords, client competitor coverage, etc, but also what's happening in the world and our clients' industries that we can tie our clients into when making our media outreach.
6. Peter Shankman's HARO: Help A Reporter Out www.helpareporter.com - HARO connects journalists with the sources they require using a social media platform. HARO is already over 36,000 members and growing, and has a growing stable of national journalists using the service on a daily basis. This is helpful in our jobs because, while personal relationships with editors are our best way to deliver national media exposure to clients, we're always on the lookout for tools to help us generate even more media coverage.
7. Adobe ConnectNowwww.adobe.com/acom/connectnow - a Web conferencing solution that connects people online to share a meeting. It is a great way to share ideas, discuss details, and complete work together -- all online. This is helpful in our jobs because many times editors want to see our clients' products in action and it is not economical or convenient to meet in person.
8. Pandora www.pandora.com - a music discovery and recommendation online service, creating stations based around a chosen artist or genre. Users can listen to tracks via a simplistic player, and if they like or dislike a song they can vote yes or no on it. This is helpful in our jobs because we love music here at BLAST! A little Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Poison playing in the background can liven up any day!
Honorable Mention
TinyUrl www.tinyurl.com - a free service to make posting long URLs easier, and may only be used for actual URLs.
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com - an online network of more than 30 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.
YouTube www.youtube.com - the most well-known video service on the Internet. It lets anyone share videos online, either from their hard drive or recorded using their computer's Web cam.
YouSendIt www.YouSendIt.com - a file-sharing service. It allows receivers to get files by clicking standard URL links.
Photoshop www.photoshop.com - a complete software solution for importing, processing, managing, and showcasing your images, as well as pixel-level editing and compositing
It's amazing to me the misconception companies have when looking to hire a PR agency. Its no mystery I think PR is the powerful tool in your marketing toolbox. That being said, when companies look to hire an agency, the process can sometimes be daunting. Talking to five different agencies will generally result in five different "selling points" as to why their firm is the best agency for you. For all marketing directors or CEOs, let me give you the five questions you'll ever need to hire a PR agency.
1). What is your strongest competitive advantage?
-Ask this question and wait for the prolonged silence on the other end of the phone. PR agencies aren't used to answering that question. Why does is matter? Why is important? There are thousands of PR agencies. 950 of them will answer, "It's our relationships with the editorial community." If you're in the PR business, I'm going to go ahead and assume you have editorial relationships. Competitive advantage isn't relationships; it's the ability to get immediate coverage. If you get the "relationships" answer, thank them for their time and hang up.
2). I see you have a few clients in our space. If we went with you, how would you ensure we would be "top of mind" with your contacts?
-This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions in our space. "Agency X has four clients in my space, so therefore, we should go with Agency X". Here's the reality of the situation: As PR professionals, we uncover many PR opportunities for our clients. If ABC publication is running an article on "web applications" and we have five clients in the "web app" space, whom are we going to pitch? The client paying us the most? The client with the "best" technology? The client who hasn't had coverage in the past two weeks? choices....choices...choices.
3). How do you measure ROI?
-If you are speaking with an Agency, and they don't mention ROI analysis in the 1st two minutes of your conversation, run away.
4). Who is working on my account and what is their specific experience?
-By "specific experience," I want to see coverage generated by each person who is working on my account. Send me clips, links and videos of the coverage obtained in the last 90 days.
5). When can I expect coverage?
-The million-dollar question. I'm guessing you need coverage now.....not 90 days from now. ROI...ROI....ROI. We haven't had a client start with us in the last year that hasn't had media coverage in the first two weeks. As a matter of fact, BLASTmedia is eight for eight of our last new clients to get national media coverage in the first week.
Hiring a PR agency is a big decision. Be sure you are asking the right questions and not just the questions that are expected - otherwise, you'll get pre-packaged responses and kick yourself when you're six months in and are still looking to get national media coverage to drive sales.
Everywhere you look - yard signs, advertisements, news coverage - the buzz is all about the candidates and the looming November 4th election. NBC may have made the biggest jump on the election bandwagon when Lorne Michaels made the announcement that NBC would be adding on a three week, prime time slot leading up to the election with a "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday."
The Thursday night presidential debate comedy slots have definitely delivered, thanks to its participants like - Fred Armisen as Barack Obama, Darrel Hammond as John McCain, and returning "SNL" alums like Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Chris Parnell as Tom Brokaw. But the SNL poll numbers were propelled to its largest audience in more than 14 years, thanks to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's appearance on the actual "Saturday Night Live" episode, which aired on Oct. 18th. Figures from Nielsen Media Research showed that 15 million people watched the telecast, either live on Saturday night or on a video recorder the next day. NBC said it was the largest turnout for "Saturday Night Live" since Nancy Kerrigan hosted on March 12, 1994 -- and the third-largest audience since Nielsen's People Meter technology was rolled out in September 1987.
I was a little disappointed by the brief appearance by Palin on SNL, but think that all candidates have been great sports at appearing on the show, regardless of the motives - whether to help boost their campaign or poke fun / laugh at themselves. With the election only a few days away, candidates will be doing whatever they can to gain the support of undecided voters. So it doesn't matter if it takes watching SNL to get you pumped up for the election - just get out and vote on November 4th!
As I get ready for work in the morning, I think about the coming day. Goals, meetings and deadlines all run through my head and then it hits me - what am I going to wear?! The BLASTmedia staffers are oh-so-trendy, and I don't want to be the girl who might as well have shown up in a potato sack.
I realize I shouldn't stress out about it - we're very lucky in that, as long as we're maintaining a professional look, we're free to wear whatever we please. Since only a handful of our clients are in Indiana (the rest are worldwide), we rarely have in-person meetings. However, there are plenty of others who go to work every day abiding by very strict dress codes set by their employers. For example, the other tenants of our building have to pay a fee on special days to wear jeans and can't wear any open toed shoes.
This difference in dress codes from office to office made me wonder, do all PR agencies have similar clothing guidelines? Is it the nature of the business, or do other offices employ stricter rules? An interesting article from the October issue of PR Week observes the trend: "Dressing for success has a variety of permutations."
The article notes that "in an industry where presentation is key, dress code often reflects the nature of the industry the agency serves and its clients' corporate culture." This would explain how some agencies may have a more formal dress code and others have a more laid-back approach. Financial and IR firms may have a suit policy, where a sports PR firm may allow jeans.
Another article from MSNBC in 2007, "How to crack the corporate dress code," suggests that the majority of offices everywhere now tend to be more casual. The reporter also says that this may be to lure younger staff, as if the relaxed dress code will be seen as an additional benefit, like vacation and healthcare.
What do you think, do dress codes tend to be more free-spirited depending on the age of the employees, or does it really depend more on the offices clientèle?
One thing is for certain, you can't judge a book by its cover in this industry. Regardless of the clothes we wear to the office Monday through Friday, we're always hard at work securing media coverage for our clients. Of course, if you are lucky enough to meet us in person, feel free to compliment our great taste in shoes.
Yesterday marked a special day at BLASTmedia. Our favorite office mail carrier celebrated his 73rd birthday. Unfortunately, our plans to surprise him were spoiled when he unexpectedly took the day off work, but the cupcakes were still fresh for a belated celebration today!
To Bo from all of your BLASTmedia buddies, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
A press release is not a pitch. I repeat, a press release is NOT a pitch.
We use press releases very differently than other agencies and I thought it would be helpful to shed some light on the subject. You will come across many agencies who spend countless hours on a press release and use it as their first line of communication with members of the press. The problem is, blindly sending just a press release via email to all of your contacts doesn't provide any context for the editor. Most times, there are unique angles that can be derived from your announcement that appeal to different editors with various beats, so why treat all of them the same?
Editors want to know one main thing - why would my readers care? It is our job to gain their interest by providing that context up front, in an email or phone call. So, how and when do WE use press releases? We write them quickly and effectively, but use them primarily as a means of follow up (except with blogs, who are handled differently). We first tailor our communication to what the editor would want to share with his readers. Once we receive interest and the editor requests more info or an interview, THEN we provide the press release for all the hard facts.
Companies who have been in the PR game for awhile still hold press releases near and dear to their hearts. They often fight us on the content of the press release and put too much energy into it - taking valuable time away from actually pitching the announcement. Many still don't understand that the press release is not the first line of offense - it should come secondary to the conversations that we will be having with our contacts. Don't get me wrong - a well-written press release is extremely important and many of the old-school rules still apply (it must be newsworthy, fact-based and free of fluff), but it is simply not relied upon solely for coverage today. We crank out great press releases here, but we'll get you coverage with or without one.
No matter where you turn in the world of pop culture or where you go for your news, you can't avoid this year's campaign fever. Did you realize that today is the deadline to register to vote in many states? If you aren't sure when your state's registration deadline is, then head on over to Rock the Vote's Election Center for details.
Whether you're a die-hard Republican, dedicated Democrat, undecided, or somewhere in between, make sure you are registered to vote in your state. Make your voice heard now, or you won't have the full privileges to offer your two-cents on the administration's choices for the next four years.
If you need more information to make an informed decision on November 4, do your research. A couple fun resources include Forbes, which has the ABC's of John McCain and Barack Obama available and Snopes, which will allow you to confirm or deny those never-ending, nasty rumors about Obama and McCain.
