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So you want to break into public relations?

This is a difficult and confusing time to break into the public relations business.  As  traditional media continues to disappear at unprecedented speed, and the acceptance and use of social media increases exponentially, the PR landscape becomes radically altered.  How do you promote a service, product or person in 2009 when the rules of engagement have shifted so far that nobody can say for certain what they are? How do you judge success when you have no verifiable way to measure it? Why on earth would anybody want to break into this business now when there are no jobs and nobody can agree what public relations is anymore?

I faced a room full of mass communications students last weekend at VCU and tried to answer these questions. The short answer is:  Uncertainty brings opportunity and this is a thrilling time to be in the communications field.  It begins at the top, as Barack Obama re-defines how government communicates with and interacts with its constituents.  And it comes down to us - never before have the methods of communication - the ability to package and distribute news and information on a mass scale - been in the hands of ‘the people.’

All the news and info distribution sources we now have at our disposal - including web sites, blogs, Twitter, Flickr (or any web photo platform), YouTube (or any web video platform), RSS, widgets - are absolutely free. All it takes is imagination and time and you can shout to the world. 

The PR business still treats social media as a curiosity, an add-on. They generally still don’t get that  PR needs to lead the communications mix (PR/marketing/advertising) and PR needs to follow media into an Internet-based, digital distribution system. Instead of pitching the media we become the media.

Writing has always been an important, and sorely under served, element of public relations. Now that we can’t complain about lack of avenues for publishing, writing is even more important.  Check out Emily Valentine’s blog Cultural Anthropologist. Emily was one of the 50 or students from the 10 colleges and universities at the VCU PRSSA event last weekend.  There are also links to writing samples on Emily’s blog, including Microfinance: social networking meets social enterprise on the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy web site. Coming into the ‘new PR’ landscape, Emily is honing her writing and social media skills, and engaging in socially optimized PR. It make take some time for PR employers to understand the value of writing, blogging, and social media literacy - but the smart ones will soon enough.

See The Future of PR (SlideShow) | Mark Rose LinkedIn

The Future of PR

Do we have a future? We will discuss that tomorrow at Virginia Commonwealth University PRSSA PROmoting Success event.

 

See slideshow on the Future of PR

Communication, Transparency, Participation

Those are the three by-words of Barack Obama’s PPR (Presidential PR) strategy.

Precisely the minute Barack Obama was sworn is as the 44th President of the United States (noon, Jan 20, 2009), Macon Phillips (left), Director of New Media for the White House, published his first blog post, titled Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov.

“President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history,” wrote Phillips.

Communication is the easy part. In the blog/twitter/text era anybody can ‘communicate’ with virtually anybody (but are they listening?). Transparency can be faked or at least the law can be complied with and a public display of ‘transparency’ can lead to the appearance of open government (an improvement over the previous administration).

The most difficult element of this new communication equation is ‘participation.’  To foster citizen involvement in the federal government Phillips announced in his first blog post that “we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. The Washington Post  reported that the Obama administration did not heed its own mandate on recent legislation.  Of course, running a new media program to reach and engage 380 million Americans is a huge and seemingly impossible task (trying doing it with an organization of a few hundred with a few thousand constituents). They have run into technical issues, as reported in the Washington Post, and you have to wonder - is anybody really reading 5,000 character comments on pending non-emergency legislation, or is this simply a futile exercise in mass venting for the appearance of ‘participation’?

The White House YouTube channel currently has over 30,000 subscribers. The quality of the videos is excellent and they are nicely segmented into easy to search categories. The main White House social media communication channel is WhiteHouse.gov, a blog, or rather a blog portal that leads to many other blogs, according to agenda items, government agencies, etc.  The Obama Twitter channel has been mostly dormant since Jan. 20th, except for an alert on March 25th to join an innovative Open for Questions session through the Internet.  93,000 people submitted 104,000 questions and cast 1.8 million votes on which questions Barack Obama would answer over the net. Obama promoted the event through web video.

The White House has inevitably faced many problems in its rush into social media. By using YouTube are they favoring a third-party provider, rather than serving the videos themselves?  Why not use any of the other video servers? “It’s an ongoing experiment,” said Phillips. Our experiment in democracy has survived wars, economic depressions, man-made and natural catastrophes over the past 250 years … but hey, this federal government social media experiment is close to 100 days old. Where’s the results? Welcome to the 140 character or less, immediate gratification Twitter age. No wonder Phillips is burying his head in his hands.

PR Goes Video

This is the year of the Video Web - that’s been my proclamation since the beginning of 2008 and certainly we are seeing the manifestation of that all over the Internet. Take a look at the newly revamped Wall Street Journal web site and you get a feeling for how far video has come on the web. We now get live Presidential debates on the home pages of major news sites.  These are quality real-time feeds that are working on home broadband connections.

The PR business has been slow to recognize this trend and to capitalize on its potential. We have yet to transition from pitching media to becoming the media.  Crafting a pitch, writing a press release, disseminating to the press and following up is the old way - labor intensive, perennially frustrating, expensive - for questionable result.

Developing web-based digital assets is key to any communications program that will penetrate and have legs in the digital age. Make it visual, make it immediate. Create news that media wants to cover - simultaneously create news that all constituents can access through the web. Above all, make it visual.

Business Wire has partnered with Digital Citizen Media to produce PR content that will establish and manage digital media assets, promote and track it. You look at some of the video annual reports they develop - they are engaging, clever, informative (there are always disclosure issues), and critically important in this time, you see the faces behind the numbers.  This is a time when people are enormously distrustful of corporate executives and financiers. We need to see business people and hear them to be convinced that they have constituents best interests in mind.

PR/Media Week-in-Review, 07/27/08

Jew on Jew Violence

My first day in grade school at P.S. 244 (correction: it’s P.S. 277) in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, a tall Irish thug named Patrick Selkirk introduced himself by sharing his favorite joke: “What’s the fastest means of transportation?” asked Patrick. I shrugged. “Throw a penny and hop on a Jews back,” he said and Patrick and his gang of thugs cracked up and boasted of making raids into ‘Jewland’ (neighboring Marine Park) to beat up on kids like me. Patrick and his boys made good on those boasts.  Enticing and evading the Irish gangs was a favorite activity back then until we developed our own brand of thuggery, albeit much more subtle.

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Content is King - where’s the king?

The huge disappointment of web-based video on the web is lack of compelling content.  Front of camera talent and innovation has not caught up with the backend technology, which still has a long way to go. What we get is more bad and mediocre video delivered faster and cheaper. Whoopee.

My big complaint with NY Video 2.0 has been the heavy backend/middlware presenters who get excited over algorithms and distribution channels. Where’s the end result - the talent that compels us to watch video on the web? Who is in front of the camera?

As luck would have it I’ll miss the upcoming NY Video 2.0, July 28, 6:30 PM, Webster Hall, New York City, that is focusing, finally, on the content producers.

According to Yaron: “This special event will be a town-hall style meeting with New York’s top Internet TV innovators in front of and behind the camera. We’ll screen clips and discuss what’s working, what’s broke, and where we’re headed with Internet TV.”

Sounds groovy but how far can geeks go?  We need theatricality coupled with tech innovation to get the web to really challenge TV.  Why not Loren Feldman (1938Media, right), Michelle Oshen, and Julia Allison  (McCabe via satellite?) putting on a skit on the stage in the grunge glare of Webster Hall - and transmitting the event real time over the web with the speed and clarity that makes it a real show? 

Can’t some of the incredible individuals who have showcased their ideas at NY Video 2.0 collaborate on an event that will really capture the possibilities of web video?

I’d hate to see NY Video 2.0 disintegrate because of its own inertia. We need to see more great original video, not talk about it. 

Related: TechCrunch, 6/30/08- 1938Media Inks Verizon Deal | Meshugga spaceman invades NY Video 2.0

Mormon PR Guy Web-Savvy, On Message

Pity the poor polygamist. They have been collecting wives quietly hidden under the protective cover of the Mormons way before wife collecting was popularized by Jacqueline Suzanne.  Now the Mormons are striking back with the power of PR.

Emboldened by a survey (the oldest trick in the PR arsenal, although quite effective here) showing that most Americans think wrongly that they are polygamists, the Mormons have embarked on a viral PR campaign to set the record straight.

“It’s about clarifying who we are,” said Michael Otterson, Director of Public Relations for the LDS (Mormon) Church. “We’re not denigrating any other group. We’re not criticizing any other faith. We are simply saying this is who we are.”

Otterson (left) is a web-savvy spokesperson for the Mormon Church. He is the on-air “Anchor” of the first online news conference of the Mormon Church in October, 2007.  In this 35 minute video Otterson is summarizing an aggressive, consistent, comprehensive public relations program that has been on-message and remarkably effective.

First, Mitt Romney’s bid for the Presidency sent the Mormons into fourth gear PR mode. Then the raid of the polygamist cult had them scrambling. The best defense is an offense, in footbal and PR, and the Mormons are on the march.  Most impressive is the use of viral PR and the real-time and archived video outreach.

See NPR 6/30/08 Polygamist Raid is PR Nightmare for Mormons and 6/26/08 ABC4.com story from Salt Lake, Utah.

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