It’s become an axiom of social media that everyone today is a publisher. That’s the good news. Wanna know the bad news? Everyone today is a publisher.

The problem is that because content has become so cheap and easy to produce, much of it is worthless. Not to mention that no one has the time or inclination to read most of it.

Of course, everyone talks about creating remarkable content, but unfortunately most of us don’t have the talent to create that. And even if we do, there’s no guarantee anyone will read it.

Enter Public Relations and its role in content marketing, the subject of an article I wrote for the Content Marketing Institute.

As I note in the article, “In my experience, adding a PR component to your content marketing adds a powerful incentive that expands your reach, thought leadership and the power of your brand. Better yet, done right it can ultimately lead to sales.”

Click here to learn about how two companies are doing just that.

How are you using content marketing in your PR efforts? I’d love to hear from you.

Or at least my little test showed that some of these big fellas have little ears when it comes to listening and reacting on Twitter.

Please click here to read more

Rather than talking about his cancer, the book is a meditation on life and has a lot of lessons for us about the art of living. Pausch is particularly astute on how to live out your dreams, seize the moment and be a leader.

I was thinking about all of this in light of the BP disaster where to date there has been a crying lack of leadership and plain communication.

Pausch aptly titles one chapter: “Tell the Truth.” He says, “If I could only give three words of advice, these would be “Tell the truth. If I got three more words, I’d add  ‘All the time.’”

That is not only a good principle for living but for companies. As author and PR consultant Alan Caruba recently wrote, “The worst kind of PR person is the one who is so eager to “spin” the story they forget that telling lies always, always, always comes back to bite them and their client.”

The fact is you don’t get away with lying over the long-haul. Not to mention the ethical and moral dilemmas.

Pasuch also reminds us of the importance of apologizing. I love the way he puts it. “Apologies are not pass/fail…When giving an apology, any performance lower than an A really doesn’t cut it.”

I’m sure like me you’ve gotten half-baked apologies that somehow ended up making you feel worse  than before the apology. BP and company, as well as the rest of us could learn a lot by adopting Pasuch’s three-part apology strategy.

• Acknowledge that what you did was wrong.
• Acknowledge that you feel bad about the hurt/problem you caused. At minimum in lying you injured someone by not respecting them enough to tell the truth.
• Ask how to make it better. What can you do to correct the problem?

(Full Disclosure:  I recently tried this with my husband and it worked like a charm.)

Some other Paushisms:

• “There is more than one way to measure profits and losses. On every level, institutions can and should have a heart.”
• “Rights come with responsibilities….When we’re connected to others, we become better people.”
• “Ask those questions. Just ask them. More often than you’d suspect, the answer you’ll get is, ‘Sure.’”

What are some lessons in life you’ve learned that apply to business? I’d love to hear from you.

The media person wants to get a story. And typically the story diverges from the one you or your company want told.  And then there are biases. Traditional media in fairness tries to present both sides of the story.

Remember that the classical definition of a story includes a protagonist and an antagonist.  The clash of the two is what makes drama.  A good media person in telling a story wants to recreate that conflict. It more accurately represents the multidimensional truth and makes better copy. Warm and fuzzy typically means boring.

All of which means you need to be aware when you talk to the media not just of your side of the story, but of the entire story. Is there any negative slant to what you do? Any opponent who can claim to do what you do better? Anyone who can question the validity of your work? Now obviously you don’t want to bring to light any negativity. But be sure you put your best foot forward so that any possible attack is proactively defended against.

That is you need to think like a strategist…or a savvy politician.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re in a manufacturing business where some chemical concerns might arise. The best way to deal with this is to clearly explain what you’re doing and why it’s valuable – the positive story while quelling any nascent concerns. You don’t want to dwell on any possible negative backstory; however, you want to be sure your side of the story gets told.  That means mentioning the extraordinary quality control you use or other validating points to insure your meeting or exceeding all safety requirements in order to deliver this very needed product.  You don’t want to belabor the point and look defensive but simply state the facts. Obviously, if a media person comes back to the issue, you’ll want to go into greater detail. But in the meantime you want to hone in on the value you’re providing.

Here is a checklist of 4 things to think about when talking to a media person/blogger:

• Be prepared. Know your talking points ahead of time.
• Have a clear message. Don’t be afraid to think like a politician. Have clear points you want to get across and repeat them several times.
• Visualize the entire story. Realize where the story may head and be prepared for all possible angles.
• Be helpful.  Don’t try to fudge a story. Provide facts, figures and material the writer can actually use.

The Connecticut attorney general who had an image as Mr. Clean suddenly has been uncovered as a truth-shader, having made it appear he served in Vietnam when it turns out he was safely ensconsed in the United States.

Those of course are two big No-Noes – Dishonesty and taking credit for something he didn’t do.

So what would a PR person advise?

Not a helluva lot other than what any person with a little common sense and decency would have told him to do.

That is to apologize to the veterans who did serve for creating a misperception that he served in Vietnam and expressing his utmost respect for those who did serve. And then move on with the issues.

That would have stopped veterans’ groups from lambasting him and helped move the conversation.

That’s Ethics 101. It’s also smart PR.

Instead of apologizing, however, he said he “misspoke,” a statement on the order of “I never had sex with that woman.”

I think sometimes people mistakenly think that PR is a magical wand that can instantly change someone’s persona.  Yes, PR is about image, and messaging and relationship building. And, yes, you can change the way you’re perceived up to a point. But that’s an important distinction.

No PR machine in the world can restore someone’s good name and reputation in one fell swoop.  Plant all the veterans you want around him, get other political bigwigs to announce their support and it’s all just a band aid.  However, honesty can go a long way in at least making a politician look a little more courageous and honorable — and help turn the tide. I know we’re not accustomed to saying those two adjectives in the same breath as the word “politician” but maybe if we were we’d be a lot better off.

It’s no different for a company. Remember the Jet Blue mess a few years ago when passengers were left stranded on planes for hour.  Jet Blue stepped up the plate and took responsibility. Its  CEO issued a video apology, the company ran apologies in major papers and issued a Consumers Bill of Rights. The company righted its reputation and won plaudits for its actions.

Now, of course, the Jet Blue responses are all PR responses. However, someone at the top of the company had to make the decision to right the course. And to realize that the honorable action was the right business decision.

Why can’t politicians and their handlers make the same calculus?

Whether the voters in the state of Connecticut will excuse his behavior and elect him is anyone’s guess. Just don’t expect PR to bail him out. Only he can do that.

The latest evidence is a great discussion going on in LinkedIn started by Rick Vargas, who asked: “Social Networking: Is the death of Public Relations on the Horizon?”

Most of the commentators have rightly answered the question in the negative, saying that social media in fact has reinvigorated PR and emphasizing that PR was never just about media relations.

I think the fact that this question has gotten raised so often in the last few years has to do with a fundamental misunderstanding of PR. And, perhaps, we as PR professionals have no one but ourselves to blame for this.

Ask the average business person what PR is and I bet the person will say it’s all about doing press releases. And while PR professionals still do press releases – to get an idea of the seemingly bottomless pit of them check out prnewswire.com or buseinsswire.com – that is only a small part of what PR does. As a number of the commentators on LinkedIn also indicated, it doesn’t require tremendous brain power to write a passing press release (though it does take some training to write one that is readable!).

Where PR professionals can raise the bar is when it comes to setting the overall messaging strategy for a company. While marketing should lead the charge, PR needs to be a key part of the process, helping craft messages to they resonate for media, bloggers and the average client.

PR professionals will then translate the messaging into key tactics of content creation and relationship building.

PR’s evolution is a natural extension of the changing purchase funnel. Much has been written about the fact that the traditional purchase funnel of Attention, Interest, Desire and Action is no longer applicable. Online search has changed the funnel making it more of a loop than a funnel as consumers consider more brands as they get closer to making a purchase.

Here is where PR can add tremendous value by providing the proper messaging for this extended consideration stage and by finding new ways to engage and relate to prospects.

Below are three ways PR can be even more useful during this expanded consideration phase – with a special shout out to an especially useful blog post by Heidi Cohen on ClickZ.

1. Provide “Content at a Glance.” Prospects when they’re first getting started what easily accessible information. PR professionals and their ilk can create FQS, introductory videos, enewsletters, blog posts, tweets – and yes, press releases.
2. Provide “Hardcore Content.” Prospects as they dig deeper want more engaging content. PR professionals can create articles, white papers, thought leadership videos, case studies, testimonials and demos.
3. Provide Post-Sales Confirmation Content. After the sale, PR professionals can instill further customer loyalty by continuing to provide engaging content that educates and adds value. Companies like Vocus and BusinessWire in the PR space, for example, are good about providing continuing educational webinars for their customers.

Here is a bit of background, courtesy of Todd. The social media release was developed in 2006 when wire services like PR newswire didn’t include aspects of multimedia in releases. Generally speaking, releases were not geared towards SEO, nor were they interactive. In fact, they were extremely boring. To fix this, Todd created a release that was search engine-friendly, used multimedia and employed bullet points instead of a narrative to fix the “unreadability” problem.

That was a few years ago.

Now, conventional news services include many aspects of the social media release – in fact they’ve been coopted by those services. Wire services can be utilized for a traditional release, along with many features inherent to a social media release. These extras include: multimedia, the option to share via social media, links and more.

So where do we go next?

Todd suggests going back to the future by using a traditional release – yes, you heard that right — and including links back to a social media newsroom.

“Your traditional release on the wire services points to a sexy release on a website,” says Defren.

His reason?

“There’s a challenge when you put releases over a wire service for downstream news outlets like MSNBC.com or Yahoo news to take content in any form other than straight ASCII. A social media media release that looks beautiful looks like crap when it goes downstream.”

There is also a cost savings by not paying for multi edia add-ons with a wire service. An alternative is to use a service like PitchEngine which make it exceptionally easy to create and distribute social-media releases, adding multimedia, SEO features and hyperlinks without charge to a traditional release. PR Web is another cost-effective way to get a release into social media.

For our clients, we typically send a traditional release over a wire service like Business Wire and propagate a release in social media using PitchEnge.

Meanwhile, back on your website, you can pull out all the stops, adding multimedia, trackbacks, comments and make your website a hub for connectivity. Companies like Cisco and Ford are doing just that.

Only one thing. Much of the engagement seems to be happening off the reservation on sites like Facebook. Cisco, for example, integrates all its social media activities on Facebook where its fans can comment on its activities. In fact, Cisco was recently recognized by B2B Magazine for “Best Use of Facebook.”

Which brings me back to the press release. While a good PR professional can decrease the boring quotient of a press release, no matter how a release is configured and no matter how talented the writer, the release is still meant to convey facts, not engage. In our age of conversation, you also need to interact with your prospects/customers. Social media be it a blog, Facebook page or Twitter account is the natural forum to do that.

So don’t put such a heavy burden on a press release. It’s just one part of your PR tool kit. Used in conjunction with social media, it can be a powerful force for getting your story told.

(see original post on Fast Company Blog)

“Content is King.

Can I revise that to “Content is Exercise”?

Huh?

Let me explain.

If you’re in business today, it’s essential that you produce content. By content this can be anything from articles, blog posts, white papers, podcasts, case studies…you get the idea. Any content that will help educate your clients/consumers and make you credible and useful. The idea is that people buy from those they trust and find credible. Nothing makes you more trustworthy and credible than producing useful content that addresses prospects’ needs.

Sonia Simone, of Copyblogger, nails it: “Successful salespeople will tell you that your customer needs to know, trust and like you before she’ll buy….Great content buys you the time to build that trusting relationship. So use that time wisely.”

The web has made it a snap to create content. The bottom line is that anyone today can be a publisher. And there’s the rub. There is a lot of bad content out there (and of course a lot of great content) as I’m sure you’ve discovered.

Where we find in our PR business that companies run into problems is that they suddenly say to themselves, “I need to produce content.” The problem is that a company may then willy-nilly start a blog, write the occasional article, and then wonder why nothing is quite working.

Here’s the hard truth. Content marketing can’t be a half-hearted effort. Think of it as exercise. You  know if you work out occasionally all you do is at best get a sore body. You don’t make any progress. When you exercise – if you’re serious about it – you develop a strategy and goals. You may join a gym or a running club if that’s your sport. Your goal may be to lower your blood pressure or to firm up your abdomen. Regardless, your goals can be measurable. It’s the same with content marketing. You need to develop a strategy and an action plan with measurable objectives:

Here are some helpful questions to ask yourself as you plan your content strategy:

• Why do I want to create content?
• What will it do for me/my business?
• Whom do I want to reach?
• What action do I want someone to take after looking at the content?
• How can I integrate my content in with the rest of my marketing?
• What type of content will appeal to the people I want to reach?
• How will I implement a content marketing program?
• How can you determine if you’ve been successful?

You also should check out this useful post by content marketing expert Joe Pullizi. Pullizi advocates a three-step process for launching a content program:

1. Have a clear understanding of the organizational goals first.
2. Understand the informational needs of the buyer.
3. Create a content plan that is specific and measurable…one that directly speaks to the organization’s goals and an understanding of the customer.

So how are you creating content to make yourself and/or your business known? I’d love to hear from you.

Whaddya say?

Yes, despite all its touting by PR professionals, the social media release has never quite taken off. And, if PR professionals can’t sell something, I smell a rat.

So first some basics.

The social media release came to fame in 2006 when Todd Defren of Shift Communications introduced it. It was – and is – a multi media release
The idea was to give busy reporters everything they need in a release including photos, video, social media.

Yet it isn’t widely used. While Evans’ surmises that press releases in general aren’t necessary, I am going to refine that a bit and say that social media releases aren’t necessary. As some commentators on Evans’ post noted, the good, old fashioned press release can easily be tweaked to include video, social media and other elements of the social media release. In a sense the social media release has been coopted, its social and multi-media features absorbed into the regular press release. Business Wire, for example, lets you send multimedia releases and propagate them on social media.

There is another reason I would argue that it hasn’t caught on. In my opinion, it’s well —  how do I put this delicately?  –  it’s not too exciting to read. It’s bad enough to have jargon-filled releases as too many are – and I’m sure I’ve done some of my own. But who wants to read a glorified outline? Here see if you don’t agree.

The fact is that in the urgency to be helpful and offer up all the icing on the cake, the social media release misses what’s useful about a well-written release – and why I think it’s lasted so many years. Done right it tells a story – the who, what, when, where, how. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting the old gray lady of a release is a work of art. But it can quickly get to the point and in some cases gets you to pay attention.

Just for fun, I went on Business Wire’s site and looked under the contest category. This release, Calling All Swedish Hospital Babies and Parents, caught my eye and I bet it would yours. What a great title! The release is engagingly written with all the key facts. Now I would have loved to see a visual added to the release but the release does its job by itself.

So where does this leave everyone?

As David Meerhman Scott pointed out in his groundbreaking book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, now in its second edition, releases today are not just for the media but for the search engines and ultimately customers. That means:

• Press releases need to be readable and enticing and search-engine friendly so they get highly indexed by Google and its ilk.
• Press releases need to make it easy for journalists. All the facts tied together in a way that a media person could simply rewrite a sentence or two along with his/her byline if the media person or blogger were short of time.
• Press releases should not be puff pieces. Just the facts.
• Press releases need to be jargon-free

For other ways to improve your press release, check out this great post: 
http://www.badlanguage.net/62-ways-to-improve-your-press-releases

So what type of press release, if any, do you use? I’d love to hear from you.

I got to thinking about all of this when I read a post by Forrester analyst Sean Corcoran.  As Corcoran puts it,

“The recent explosion of social computing has in many ways broken down the walls between agencies as virtually all agencies are trying to own (social media) for their clients….All of this creates somewhat of an agency purgatory – where different agencies try and take on each others’ roles but no one type of agency is ready to take over.”

Corcoran is referring to the fact that every type of agency – from advertising to interactive to PR to “human experience” – yes, one agency Starcom Mediavest calls itself that – has taken on the social media mantle.

Meanwhile, this agency Tower of Babel  has led to marketplace confusion.  According to Corcoran, “most interactive marketers don’t trust their traditional agencies with digital work and yet most don’t believe their interactive agencies are ready to lead yet either.”

So where does that leave you?

In my book, and I admit as a PR professional I have a bias, PR should play a leading role in social media especially when it comes to B2B PR. Why? Social media is another platform for creating thought leadership. It allows you to directly engage with customers in a non-salesy, informational way just as you would in say an article.

Social media for B2B marketers, especially if you’re selling a complex product or service, is not a sales channel, but a customer engagement route. It allows you to reach out and touch potential clients or customers so they begin to know you and what you can offer. Only then can you begin to move your social media contacts into a sales funnel.

Where a lot of companies in our experience fall short is that they have created no pathway for prospects to take once they engage with them in social media. What good for example does it do to have a zillion followers  in Twitter if no one is really listening or interacting.

Here are some steps to take to begin to integrate social media with your sales leads system and untie the logjam where everyone is talking at someone and few are talking to you.

• Create a Twitter landing page where you provide additional information about yourself and your business.  It’s also important to provide a call to action or offer so that people can begin to interact with you and they can be brought into your sales funnel.
• Vet your followers and engage with those that are most likely to be prospects or influencers. You can do that through retweeting what they say, paying attention to their posts and responding as appropriate.
• Post useful content that is likely to appeal to your prospects and showcases your expertise. Provide a link to your landing page or site with more information about that content to get people to further engage.
• Monitor what’s working using Google Analytics

So what are you doing to interact with your social media followers? Are you turning any into prospects, and ultimately, customers? I’d love to hear from you.