Okay, I'm getting older. Not super old, just older. As a result, one of two things is happening. I'm not exactly sure which. Either I'm getting more cynical about the latest-and-greatest marketing and PR hype, or I'm finally experienced enough to see things for what they are and not what they could be.
Case in point: online communities. They seem to be all the rage these days with marketing and PR types. "Create a vibrant customer community and the world shall be yours" the experts say. On the surface, it makes perfectly good sense. If a company can organize its customers into a community, then they can "Share, Learn, and Network" as BMC's community web site professes and maybe, just maybe create more loyal customers interested in buying more.
On the surface, BMC's community site looks as complete and content-rich as any I've seen. They offer blogs and podcasts from experts, include links to useful white papers and even offer chat areas for community members to collaborate and talk amongst themselves. Despite all these great things, I struggle with one simple question: "Who is so bored in life that they'd willingly and actively participate in this community?" I simply cannot come up with a good answer for that question.
In all fairness, I'm not BMC's target market. I'm a PR flack, not a CTO or IT manager. It would be more fair for me to evaluate something that would be a bit more relevant to me and my own occupation. Unfortunately (and ironically), PRSA doesn't have an official "community" site for fellow PR professionals to share, learn and network. If ever there was a group who "should" want to network 24x7, you'd think it would be PR people. Now, the website is chalk full of useful information, white papers, case studies and more. All stuff that should be of interest to me and other PR pros. Even still, I only find myself visiting the web site once or twice a year.
By now, you're probably thinking, "Okay, you are old and just don't get it Charles!" That may be true, except for the fact that I DO in fact belong to several online communities and participate in them daily - sometimes hourly. But here's the thing. None of the communities I belong to have anything to do with work. And they certainly don't have anything to do with a particular product. In fact, none of them have anything directly related to my job or even the tools I use to do my job. The only reason I'm a member of these communities is because they're fun. For me, they're a form of entertainment. Granted, some offer great information. But even these sites are fun. Call them "edu-tainment" communities.
All of this leads me to a fundamental belief about online communities: If they're not entertaining or edu-taining, people simply won't show up often or show up at all. They key to building community is making them fun. One way to do this is toss out any notion of creating a community around your product or company. Instead, find a passion or cause that inspires, motivates and fuels your customers life.
There's plenty of powerful examples. There's a vibrant community of Harely Davidson enthusiats called HD Talking. But it's no an official Harley Davidson site. It's simply a group of people who have a passion for riding. I'm sure there are other examples of communities where the "passion" or "cause" supercedes the product or company.
Communities are no doubt powerful things. But as a consumer myself, I just can't imagine joining a community for everything I own and use? If I can't imagine that, how could I possibly imagine the same thing for my own customers?
Again, maybe I'm just getting old.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Beware of BAD PR Firms
I received the equivalent of a cold call from a "seasoned and respected" PR firm based in Silicon Valley today. The call came from the founding partner of the firm. After we chit-chatted for five or six minutes, the suspense overwhelmed me and I asked, "So exactly what can I do for you?"
I didn't mean to be rude, but I really couldn't figure out why she had called me. It turned out that she wanted me to hire her PR firm. But had I not asked, I'm not sure I would have ever figured that out.
The world is full of tremendous PR firms who really get it. Unfortunately, there are far more PR firms who just don't get it. In my experience, the firms that don't get it are just like the firm that called me today. Outside of trying to tell me about all their experience, all their successful clients, they can't tell me exactly what I need to know from them - "What can you do for me that nobody else can."
Now there's a lot of different reasons to hire a firm. Some people hire firms because they know nothing about PR or how media and analysts operate and they need the help. Others know a little or a lot about PR, but don't have the time or resources to do all the legwork themselves. Regardless of why you hire a PR firm, picking the right firm can make all the difference in the world.
Having worked with several large and small PR firms, and having worked in small and large PR firms myself, here are the top three things to keep in mind when choosing a firm:
1) Be Weary of the Grey Hairs - A lot of PR firms like to bring in the grey-haired (no offense) partners to show off all their years of experience, fancy reporter "friends" and the long list of past clients who have gone on to earn millions and billions. They show up to the pitch, say a lot of smart-sounding things, share some old stories about launching Google or Apple (even if they didn't) and then disappear never to be seen or heard from again (at least until you fire them). So make sure to always ask who will be assigned to your account and how much time you can expect from the senior team.
2) Bullshit Bingo - Pull out a piece of paper and write down the following words: Strategic counsel, paradigm, thought leadership, social media and any other buzz word in your industry. If the firm pitching your businesses touches on each of these words more than twice, stop the meeting and thank them for their time. These guys simply want to sell you ten-cent words at the low-low price of $165 an hour. These guys aren't free thinkers. They're parrots.
3) Hustle Counts - Above everything else, the best PR pros and firms are constantly hustling - and I don't mean the shady kind of hustle. A successful PR program is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration. The firm that demonstrates their ability and eagerness to work hard, move fast and do whatever it takes to win your business is the PR firm worth working with. Hustle is the single most important thing when it comes to good PR.
Of course, there are many other reasons, but these are the top three that I think about when evaluating a firm. Above else, remember that PR is far less strategic and complicated than most PR firms would lead you to believe. Don't be distracted by their smoke and mirrors. Trust your gut and you'll be better for it.
I didn't mean to be rude, but I really couldn't figure out why she had called me. It turned out that she wanted me to hire her PR firm. But had I not asked, I'm not sure I would have ever figured that out.
The world is full of tremendous PR firms who really get it. Unfortunately, there are far more PR firms who just don't get it. In my experience, the firms that don't get it are just like the firm that called me today. Outside of trying to tell me about all their experience, all their successful clients, they can't tell me exactly what I need to know from them - "What can you do for me that nobody else can."
Now there's a lot of different reasons to hire a firm. Some people hire firms because they know nothing about PR or how media and analysts operate and they need the help. Others know a little or a lot about PR, but don't have the time or resources to do all the legwork themselves. Regardless of why you hire a PR firm, picking the right firm can make all the difference in the world.
Having worked with several large and small PR firms, and having worked in small and large PR firms myself, here are the top three things to keep in mind when choosing a firm:
1) Be Weary of the Grey Hairs - A lot of PR firms like to bring in the grey-haired (no offense) partners to show off all their years of experience, fancy reporter "friends" and the long list of past clients who have gone on to earn millions and billions. They show up to the pitch, say a lot of smart-sounding things, share some old stories about launching Google or Apple (even if they didn't) and then disappear never to be seen or heard from again (at least until you fire them). So make sure to always ask who will be assigned to your account and how much time you can expect from the senior team.
2) Bullshit Bingo - Pull out a piece of paper and write down the following words: Strategic counsel, paradigm, thought leadership, social media and any other buzz word in your industry. If the firm pitching your businesses touches on each of these words more than twice, stop the meeting and thank them for their time. These guys simply want to sell you ten-cent words at the low-low price of $165 an hour. These guys aren't free thinkers. They're parrots.
3) Hustle Counts - Above everything else, the best PR pros and firms are constantly hustling - and I don't mean the shady kind of hustle. A successful PR program is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration. The firm that demonstrates their ability and eagerness to work hard, move fast and do whatever it takes to win your business is the PR firm worth working with. Hustle is the single most important thing when it comes to good PR.
Of course, there are many other reasons, but these are the top three that I think about when evaluating a firm. Above else, remember that PR is far less strategic and complicated than most PR firms would lead you to believe. Don't be distracted by their smoke and mirrors. Trust your gut and you'll be better for it.
Monday, November 10, 2008
What PR People and NFL Kickers Have in Common
As I was watching tonight's Monday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and Phoenix Cardinals, I was reminded of an essay I wrote comparing NFL kickers and PR people. It's pretty crude and rough, but hopefully you'll get the idea I was going for.
*******************
What PR People and NFL Kickers Have in Common
by Charles Var
The crowd roared as the New Orleans Saints’ kicker trotted onto the field with 1:55 left on the clock to try and kick the winning field goal against the Denver Broncos. The snap. The hold. The kick. No good! The kick sailed wide right. For this kicker on this day, there were no high fives, slaps on the back, congratulatory head-butts or the all-too familiar ride off the field on the shoulders of fellow players. No, for this kicker there were only cold stares of disappointment from fellow teammates – if they bothered to make eye contact at all.
So is the life of an NFL kicker. A champ one minute; a chump the next. Their value to the team is measured solely on the result of their last kick. Who cares about last week's winning kick? So too is the life of many PR professionals who work day in and day out to create positive awareness for their company, product or cause. What they did last week, last month or last year matters little. All that matters now is the next big announcement or next big story.
NECESSARY EVIL
The similarities between an NFL kicker and PR professional don’t just stop at the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately nature of their jobs. They also both suffer from the constant criticism, misunderstanding and envy of the people working around them. If you've ever played organized football and run endless amounts of wind sprints while the kicker frolicked on the sidelines kicking balls, you know the sentiment. “Kickers are pussies!”
Executives within businesses often view PR professionals in the same way, assuming the job entails nothing more than schmoozing at fancy parties, traveling the world on a bottomless expense account and lounging with the big wigs. What few people see is the groveling, scraping, negotiating, pleading, arguing, and fighting that’s behind every single piece of media coverage they generate.
NFL kickers and PR people are also plagued with the common misperception that what they do isn't that difficult or complicated. “I could do that easily if that’s all I did all day long,” many people reason. The truth of the matter is that they’re probably right. Practice kicking a football enough, and almost any athletic position player could kick a field goal. The same is true about PR. Take any reasonably smart and educated executive, and they too could learn to do the basic job of a PR professional.
Ironically, there are a lot of occupations and jobs out there that are reasonable simple to learn and even master. Take a commercial pilot. Today’s modern aircraft are so well designed and so well equipped with sophisticated computer systems, that most of them literally fly themselves. But how many of us think to ourselves, “I could do that, no problem.” Even well educated and trained doctors performing surgery admit that the routine nose job is a relatively simple procedure. Yet, surgeons are among the most respected and well-paid professionals on the planet.
So if an athletic position player could learn to kick and a smart executive could learn to do PR, why don’t teams and companies just do away with kickers and PR professionals all together? They answer is simple. They can’t. If they did, they’d be at a major competitive disadvantage.The truth is that it’s not enough just to be able to kick a ball or do the basic PR jobs. What counts is whether you can do it consistently, and more importantly, do it when it counts.
Kicking a football off a tee in practice is easy. Kicking a football in the last seconds of a game in front of 70,000 screaming fans while 11 monsters from the opposing team fly from all angles at you is hard. Likewise, writing or editing a press release from your office on an idle Tuesday afternoon is easy. Convincing an overworked, underpaid and pissed off journalist who listens to countless corporate blowhards that your company is interesting, different and worth writing about it is hard.
Still, each time a kicker misses the winning field goal, I suspect there's no shortage of upset position players who grumble, “I could have kicked that field goal.” However, I suspect by the time the next practice rolls around, few if any step up to ask the head coach for the kicking job. And even if they did, any smart NFL coach who really cared about winning would surely tell the player to just worry about his own job.
I hear the same thing in Corporate America all the time. CEOs, heads of marketing, and even the occasional ego maniacal venture capitalist constantly criticize PR professionals and belittle their jobs. “You don’t need to hire a PR firm or PR person” they preach. But to this day, I've yet to witness any one of them take on the job full time themselves and do any better. And I don’t mean those wanna-be CEOs at start ups who work from their parents basement and do everything from business development to balancing their business checkbook with Quicken. I mean the real CEOs of real businesses. Perhaps more importantly, I've yet to find one single successful company – small or large – who doesn't have a veteran PR professional somewhere on the payroll with the skills and balls to kick it through the up rights when it really counts.
Like them or hate them, kickers and PR professionals are necessary and important parts of any successfully team. If you don’t believe me, by all means give it a shot. But trust me, the only thing you’ll be kicking is yourself.
*******************
What PR People and NFL Kickers Have in Common
by Charles Var
The crowd roared as the New Orleans Saints’ kicker trotted onto the field with 1:55 left on the clock to try and kick the winning field goal against the Denver Broncos. The snap. The hold. The kick. No good! The kick sailed wide right. For this kicker on this day, there were no high fives, slaps on the back, congratulatory head-butts or the all-too familiar ride off the field on the shoulders of fellow players. No, for this kicker there were only cold stares of disappointment from fellow teammates – if they bothered to make eye contact at all.
So is the life of an NFL kicker. A champ one minute; a chump the next. Their value to the team is measured solely on the result of their last kick. Who cares about last week's winning kick? So too is the life of many PR professionals who work day in and day out to create positive awareness for their company, product or cause. What they did last week, last month or last year matters little. All that matters now is the next big announcement or next big story.
NECESSARY EVIL
The similarities between an NFL kicker and PR professional don’t just stop at the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately nature of their jobs. They also both suffer from the constant criticism, misunderstanding and envy of the people working around them. If you've ever played organized football and run endless amounts of wind sprints while the kicker frolicked on the sidelines kicking balls, you know the sentiment. “Kickers are pussies!”
Executives within businesses often view PR professionals in the same way, assuming the job entails nothing more than schmoozing at fancy parties, traveling the world on a bottomless expense account and lounging with the big wigs. What few people see is the groveling, scraping, negotiating, pleading, arguing, and fighting that’s behind every single piece of media coverage they generate.
NFL kickers and PR people are also plagued with the common misperception that what they do isn't that difficult or complicated. “I could do that easily if that’s all I did all day long,” many people reason. The truth of the matter is that they’re probably right. Practice kicking a football enough, and almost any athletic position player could kick a field goal. The same is true about PR. Take any reasonably smart and educated executive, and they too could learn to do the basic job of a PR professional.
Ironically, there are a lot of occupations and jobs out there that are reasonable simple to learn and even master. Take a commercial pilot. Today’s modern aircraft are so well designed and so well equipped with sophisticated computer systems, that most of them literally fly themselves. But how many of us think to ourselves, “I could do that, no problem.” Even well educated and trained doctors performing surgery admit that the routine nose job is a relatively simple procedure. Yet, surgeons are among the most respected and well-paid professionals on the planet.
So if an athletic position player could learn to kick and a smart executive could learn to do PR, why don’t teams and companies just do away with kickers and PR professionals all together? They answer is simple. They can’t. If they did, they’d be at a major competitive disadvantage.The truth is that it’s not enough just to be able to kick a ball or do the basic PR jobs. What counts is whether you can do it consistently, and more importantly, do it when it counts.
Kicking a football off a tee in practice is easy. Kicking a football in the last seconds of a game in front of 70,000 screaming fans while 11 monsters from the opposing team fly from all angles at you is hard. Likewise, writing or editing a press release from your office on an idle Tuesday afternoon is easy. Convincing an overworked, underpaid and pissed off journalist who listens to countless corporate blowhards that your company is interesting, different and worth writing about it is hard.
Still, each time a kicker misses the winning field goal, I suspect there's no shortage of upset position players who grumble, “I could have kicked that field goal.” However, I suspect by the time the next practice rolls around, few if any step up to ask the head coach for the kicking job. And even if they did, any smart NFL coach who really cared about winning would surely tell the player to just worry about his own job.
I hear the same thing in Corporate America all the time. CEOs, heads of marketing, and even the occasional ego maniacal venture capitalist constantly criticize PR professionals and belittle their jobs. “You don’t need to hire a PR firm or PR person” they preach. But to this day, I've yet to witness any one of them take on the job full time themselves and do any better. And I don’t mean those wanna-be CEOs at start ups who work from their parents basement and do everything from business development to balancing their business checkbook with Quicken. I mean the real CEOs of real businesses. Perhaps more importantly, I've yet to find one single successful company – small or large – who doesn't have a veteran PR professional somewhere on the payroll with the skills and balls to kick it through the up rights when it really counts.
Like them or hate them, kickers and PR professionals are necessary and important parts of any successfully team. If you don’t believe me, by all means give it a shot. But trust me, the only thing you’ll be kicking is yourself.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Simple Brilliance
Have you ever taken time to notice and really study something you consider to be brilliant? A person. A sunset. A photograph. A book. A product. A business strategy. Regardless of what it is, all brilliant things share one thing in common. They're usually simple.
Over the weekend, I was reading Guy Kawasaki's blog. I had the good fortune of attending one of his presentations about entrepreneurship. If you ever get the chance to see Guy present in person, do it. He's not only insightful, but pretty hilarious too. (See his presentation on "The Art of the Start" online). He shares a lot of common-sense advice about everything from ditching mission statements for mantras and making sure products have "meaning" above all else. He even shares some practical, simple advice about PowerPoint presentations. A brilliant presentation indeed.
If all brilliant things are in fact simple, the why do so many feel compelled to f' things up by complicating them? You see this happen all the time in PR. Just read any company press release and you'll instantly know what I mean.
Interestingly, I don't blame PR people for this. Despite what many people think, the PR person rarely if ever has the final say. They may write the first draft of the release, but the dateline may be the only thing that remains after going through the internally editing process. In fact, most press releases have to go through several, if not dozens of rounds of editing. Product marketing tweaks it. Legal adds its disclaimers and annoying footnotes. HR may want to chime in. Heck, I've even been asked to have the receptionist read a release. But that's not the worse of it. A release generally gets really complicated once it gets in the hands of the executives. I'm convinced that your average executive can make pouring a glass of water sound complicated.
Unfortunately, PR people answer to executives. But PR people would be well advised to spend time educating executives about press releases and what makes good ones and what makes bad ones. This is your chance to emphasize simplicity. Of course, you shouldn't do this while trying to get a release edited and approved. Do it between announcements when the executives are less interested in being "right" at all costs.
The brilliance of any announcement should be in its simplicity. If what you're announcing is truly brilliant, then keep your press release simple. If what you're announcing isn't brilliant, well, maybe think twice about announcing it at all.
Over the weekend, I was reading Guy Kawasaki's blog. I had the good fortune of attending one of his presentations about entrepreneurship. If you ever get the chance to see Guy present in person, do it. He's not only insightful, but pretty hilarious too. (See his presentation on "The Art of the Start" online). He shares a lot of common-sense advice about everything from ditching mission statements for mantras and making sure products have "meaning" above all else. He even shares some practical, simple advice about PowerPoint presentations. A brilliant presentation indeed.
If all brilliant things are in fact simple, the why do so many feel compelled to f' things up by complicating them? You see this happen all the time in PR. Just read any company press release and you'll instantly know what I mean.
Interestingly, I don't blame PR people for this. Despite what many people think, the PR person rarely if ever has the final say. They may write the first draft of the release, but the dateline may be the only thing that remains after going through the internally editing process. In fact, most press releases have to go through several, if not dozens of rounds of editing. Product marketing tweaks it. Legal adds its disclaimers and annoying footnotes. HR may want to chime in. Heck, I've even been asked to have the receptionist read a release. But that's not the worse of it. A release generally gets really complicated once it gets in the hands of the executives. I'm convinced that your average executive can make pouring a glass of water sound complicated.
Unfortunately, PR people answer to executives. But PR people would be well advised to spend time educating executives about press releases and what makes good ones and what makes bad ones. This is your chance to emphasize simplicity. Of course, you shouldn't do this while trying to get a release edited and approved. Do it between announcements when the executives are less interested in being "right" at all costs.
The brilliance of any announcement should be in its simplicity. If what you're announcing is truly brilliant, then keep your press release simple. If what you're announcing isn't brilliant, well, maybe think twice about announcing it at all.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Media Relations vs. Conversations
After having two media briefings today, I got to wondering. Why is it so difficult to have a seemingly simple conversation with the press? Do we blame press for "gotcha" type reporting, instilling fear and uncertainty in the people they interview? Do we blame executives and PR people for over scripting every single word to the point that nothing sounds real anymore?
It shouldn't be that difficult to have a simple conversation. Unfortunately, it can be.
Regardless of who is to blame, I think PR people have to reinforce and remind executives that media interviews are usually nothing more than a simple conversation. Often, I see and hear PR executives instilling fear in clients and executives by coaching them on what to say, what not to say and how to say something. A good example of this is Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. No doubt a smart and accomplished person, the poor woman can't seem to answer even the most basic question. She's clearly been coached so much that answering a simple question like "What do you read" becomes nearly impossible to answer.
So the next time you're talking with a reporter, remember that it's just a conversation.
It shouldn't be that difficult to have a simple conversation. Unfortunately, it can be.
Regardless of who is to blame, I think PR people have to reinforce and remind executives that media interviews are usually nothing more than a simple conversation. Often, I see and hear PR executives instilling fear in clients and executives by coaching them on what to say, what not to say and how to say something. A good example of this is Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. No doubt a smart and accomplished person, the poor woman can't seem to answer even the most basic question. She's clearly been coached so much that answering a simple question like "What do you read" becomes nearly impossible to answer.
So the next time you're talking with a reporter, remember that it's just a conversation.
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