Below the Line

Strategic thinking on PR, IR and media relations in the conversational age

This post about has been stuck in my drafts for ages, but with the benefit of hindsight, I've edited it down to only the parts that are still relevant. I did tweet live at the event, so follow me on Twitter (@ddudgeon) if you're into that sort of thing.

BusinessWire hosted a panel event on PR-driven social media, with panelists from Think Communications, AMD, MH Group, SEGA and Ogilvy 360. Here are some highlights.

Why should brands use social media?

• "Social media helps humanize the brand...Social media gives SEGA a more human face. We're not constantly pushing products at you." - Kellie Parker, SEGA

How should brands incorporate social media into the rest of their communications?

• "Social media can’t live in a vacuum. It needs to be integrated into the rest of your advertising and messaging. Every component should be tied in to the same ROI and strategy to be effective. You can’t just sprinkle it in." - Rachel Polish, Ogilvy 360
• Clients may show resistance to adopting social media. No surprise there, but I was surprised to hear Courtney Barnes, VP at MH Group, dishing on her client United Airlines.* She talked about United's social media steering committee which includes reps from sales, customer support and marketing and complained about needing "17 signoffs". She also mentioned the infamous "United Breaks Guitars" videos and said "Usually it takes a crisis to get big companies to engage".

How do brands manage social media internally?

• SEGA has a “community team”. - Parker
• "People can be trained in advance and still communicate in a way that can be engaging. The richest social media programs have different people/perspectives telling their story." - Polish
• "Empower people with tools – carefully and in context of their brand and corporate culture." - Barnes

What social media guidelines should brands use?

• AMD gives out a social media “license” to employees so they know who can blog about what.They incorporate a traffic light system on blog topics. Red topics = don’t blog, amber = check with social media council, investor relations or legal. The license system made people feel more responsible and employees get a bit of training. - Ruth Cotter, AMD
• "The policy should be mapped towards the corporate culture." - Barnes
• Social media guidelines are publicly available from: IBM, Coast Guard, Intel, Cisco. - Polish
• "SEGA doesn't have a social media policy. Our policy is 'don't do it'. Only the social media team should be using social channels." - Parker

Some quick tips:

• Plan for the worst in advance.Go through scenarios.Plan for recalls. - Polish
• On secrecy: Think before you post, think again, and then go ask someone. - Parker
• On damage control: Maximum exposure, minimum delay to move the conversation along. - Polish
• On using Twitter for customer service: Customer service complaints go top of Twitter search results. Take conversations offline. - Barnes

Parker also shared SEGA's success story on Twitter. Every Friday, they have a giveaway on Twitter which started "just to get rid of old swag." Now the giveaway is part of their plan; they award six prizes per week. As a result, they get more followers on Fridays than any other day of the week - about 1,000 new followers every Friday.

*Full disclosure: United is a former client.

Analysis of free press release distribution sites

Over the past several months, we've tested out various free online press release distribution sites on behalf of some of our clients. Here's what we've found:

PR.com
We've had a good experience with this site; our releases have been approved and indexed on Google. Be sure to set up one account for each of your clients.

Free-Press-Release.com
We've also had success with this site; the releases post immediately and are indexed on Google. In addition, the site allows for certain formatting tags such as bold and italics (most sites don't offer this).

PRCompass.com
This site has a strict policy about what it will distribute, which is actually great if your release is accepted - it means more attention for your client. We sent a release for one client who won an industry award which was accepted, but another client who was announcing a new product line had their release rejected as too promotional. You can also include three pictures with your release at no charge.

24-7PressRelease.com
The site requires up to two days for approval and we had no trouble getting releases approved initially, but were told after submitting a recent release that they were "too busy" to review and approve it for free, but that they could make time if we paid $49. Another thing to note is that they require a physical mailing address which is publicly displayed; this can be awkward if you are an e-commerce entrepreneur working out of your home. Although they offer regional targeting, this is available for the U.S. only - they did not have any UK targeting.

General notes on free press release sites

The free sites generally don't let you include a live link to your site unless you pay an added fee. You are also limited in terms of formatting (even simple bolding etc.).My clients have reported an increase in traffic, they've had stories picked up by other sites/blogs and they've had sales as a direct result. However, if you have the budget to pay for a premium service such as PRWeb, I would recommend it over the free sites. (It's currently $140 per release at the "social media visibility" level.)

You can find a list of additional free online press release sites on Mashable. I have a few notes on some of the sites they've listed which may save you time:

• PRBuzz.com is no longer free (they charge $99).
• PRUrgent.com doesn't guarantee free distribution due to a large volume of submissions.
• PressMethod.com had terrible spelling and grammar on their site confirmation page.(In case that's important to you.)
• PRLeap.com is no longer free.
• PRLog.org - this site was full of bad links, including the "submit" link!

How to get online PR? Just ask.

I started my first blog in February 2003, when there were probably still less than two million blogs, so it's probably fair to say I was an early adopter. But there are now 94.7 million blogs, according to Technorati, so it surprises me that some people just don't get it. Yes, even otherwise savvy online marketers. They haven't engaged with the blogosphere, so it remains a mystery.

There are some blogs with massive readership. There are some blogs with no readers. There are even inactive, abandoned blogs. But in between, where most of those millions of blogs fall, there are blogs with a small (or medium) group of dedicated readers.

Something I'm hearing a lot of with clients and agencies is "how can we get the bloggers to start talking about us?" The answer is simple: just ask. There is no secret formula. The people writing the blogs are just people. So, treat them as people and you're likely to get a response. E-mail them a mass press release, and you're not likely to get a response.

Recently, I was contacted by the founder of ParkatmyHouse.com. He said he was checking out technology blogs on Britblog and came across my site. In five short sentences, he explained what they do, asked for feedback on the site and asked (if I thought my readers would benefit) whether I could mention them in my blog.

Clients take heed: they didn't need a forum of "A-list" bloggers or a specialist PR agency to write an online strategy. They just asked. So here it is. ParkatmyHouse is a great idea. If you have a space in your driveway or garage you can rent it out and earn some cash. If you need to rent a space as a one-off or on an ongoing basis, you can look for the nearest spot by post code. It's simple to use, and they are doing all the things you'd expect from a young web 2.0 site: blog, RSS feed, Google Earth interface, widgets and even affiliate marketing. They've made the affiliate marketing so easy, I'm giving it a try: Rent a Parking Space with ParkatmyHouse.com