Along with Doug, Topazer Tony Sapienza joins me for a round table discussion about journalism these days, as well as a few tips for PR pros like us.

Add to our discussion – how else have PR and journalism changed?

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Add to our discussion – how else has PR changed?

MP3 File

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Technorati Tags: Infographics, Pitching Media, Sam Whitmore, Scare Tactics

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It’s every client’s dream to get TV coverage, however news assignment editors are swarmed with emails for us PR folk every day, all day trying to fulfill this dream for our clients. The panel was great and offered excellent insight as to how to get their interest. They also said not to take it personally if you don’t always hear back with a response – they’re essentially working in a tornado.

Here are a couple highlights from last night:

After all the fires & robberies are covered, how do they make their decision as to what to feature next?

Roche: He sees what people are clicking on. It’s about giving people news items that they are interested in and want to see. The news is 3 parts: what the audience wants to know, what the audience needs to know and what the audience didn’t know.

Olsen: At NECN keep in mind there are different areas to tap into: the Business Show, CEO corner, etc. She tries to look for a mix of stories and noted 3 very important things a pitch should be packaged with:

1. Make it visually pleasing
2. Make it of human interest
3. Have the story be relatable

Bettencourt: LNS covers many things that some of the other stations couldn’t. She loves community outreach stories.

Let’s talk on-air vs. web, do they choose different stories for each?

Auresto: We don’t wait till the 6 o’clock news to break a story that happened at noon. It’ll be put on the web (but it still may be covered during the 6 o’clock news). The Web is like having a sister-station. Everything is moving to the Web.

Roche: For instance, if there is a news conference, only part of it might be shown on TV – but you’ll be able to see the entire conference online.

What don’t they cover?

Olsen: Dry meetings or events that are more like a dry meetings. Stuff that isn’t visually stimulating.

Auresto: You have to think, “Do I want to watch this on the 10 o’clock news?” Fine a compelling story about what you are pitching.

Bettencourt: Also, if you send releases about events, have an interesting person available at the event.

Top Dos and Don’ts

Bettencourt: Don’t send an email then call 5 seconds later. You can call, but remember she always is checking email, but she might be busy. Give her time to digest. Do, however, leave contact information including cell phone numbers.

Auresto: Contact information is extremely important. Put that up front with details below. *Regarding events

Olsen: Establish a relationship. She’ll take a few minutes to talk to you if you start a relationship with her. Also, remember you don’t always have to pitch the assignment editors, build relationships with others at the station too.

Roche: Relationships are important. Don’t call too close to news time. Don’t pitch the same exact thing to him that you are pitching to another station.

A couple other interesting pieces I got out of last night:

Roche: He said they aren’t a bunch of prima donnas, so do reach out.

Auresto: He files all the experts he receives, so send him a list of clients and what they can talk about/specialize in.

All-in-all, the panel stressed the fact that they just want to put together an awesome newscast. Think about what you would want to see on the news, create a good story for your pitches and offer them a nicely packaged story idea.

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Technorati Tags: FOX 25, NECN, Pitching News Station, Pitching Tips, TV Coverage, WBZ, WCVB-TV, WFXT-TV, WMUR-TV

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The Publicity Club of New England held a panel discussion of regional business editors to hear their likes and gripes – and to find out what works and what doesn’t when trying to secure your clients in these highly sought after publications.

The panel was moderated by Tina Cassidy, VP of Soloman McCown & Company, and consisted of the Boston Business Journal’s Eric Convey, The Boston Globe’s Shirley Leung and the Boston Herald’s Frank Quaratiello. The competition among these publications was clear but despite this, or perhaps because of it, the dynamic among them was great – engaging, entertaining and most importantly, helpful to us PR folks.

Here are some highlights:

* Wait for the no *

According to Leung, even if a reporter likes your story it’s almost guaranteed not to be published if they realized you’ve pitched multiple people.

If you don’t hear back from someone in one department, wait for them to say “no” before pitching another department within the same publication. If you must move on to another reporter before you get the “no”, be transparent with the next person you pitch – letting them know you reached out to someone already.

* Phone calls and beyond *

We were all dying to know about follow up calls, and basically what we learned is that every reporter is different. Here’s how it breaks down with these three –

Globe: Leung likes follow up calls, especially after timely pitches

Herald: Quaratiello won’t let you off the phone if he likes your story (but beware if he asks you to send him an email).

BBJ: Convey says not to even bother with phone calls (understandably so, according to Convey he wouldn’t be able to get any work done if he took every call)

* Twitter and Social Media *

Globe: Leung’s staff is adapting to twitter more and more and they have a specific person to keep up their Facebook page with events, postings stories, contests etc.

Leung realizes that social media drives traffic and amazingly, is about #4 out of the top ten facets that do so.

Herald: Quaratiello doesn’t really use Twitter and doubts much of his staff does either. Although, they will check Facebook to get photos to support any crimes/incidents.

BBJ: Twitter is very important to them and an important factor in driving traffic to their site/specific stories. Some of you might recognize one of their biggest cheerleaders, @lvanderpool

One thing they all seem to hate is mass pitching! When it comes to quality vs. quantity, quality always wins.

What are some pitching faux pas you’ve come across (or dare I say tried yourself)?

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Technorati Tags: editors, PubClub NE, public relations, Social Media

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Technorati Tags: mobile marketing, PRWeek, public relations, Social Media, Topaz Partners

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When it comes to marketing and branding, the conventional wisdom is that the “elevator pitch” is a must-have. It’s practically unquestioned that you should be able to boil down what your company does in 30 seconds, the length of an average elevator ride.

Marketing consultant Steven Melanson says the elevator pitch is seriously misguided. Steven says that 30 seconds is in fact too long and overlooks perhaps the key objective of any successful branding effort: differentiating you from your competition.

Steven is President of Melanson Consulting, which according to his website is a “verbal branding development and instruction company.” He’s also the author of Jaw Branding™, a book and audio CD “that describes the verbal gap in the branding services marketplace, Jaw Branding™ philosophies for verbal interactions, the relationship to memory and psychology, its superiority to traditional sales or communications approaches for revenue generation, and the implications of verbal branding for organizational culture.”

Steven joined Topazers Glen Zimmerman, Anne Dalrymple and Wendie Larkin for a special episode of PRobecast, which you can listen to here:

You can subscribe to PRobecast via Podcast Ready —

or iTunes.

Or simply use the RSS link here:

You can send your feedback to probecast@topazpartners.com. You can also call your feedback into 781-404-2409. Or leave a comment on our blog!

PRobecast’s opening music is “Junk In A” by Pat Zelenka, available on the Podsafe Music Network. Our closing music was composed by Rob Capra.

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Language Weaver is a human communications solutions company that uses proprietary statistical algorithms to translate over 60 language pairs. The company focuses on delivering translation solutions that enable high volume, high speed translation for government applications, customer care, digital content and business intelligence.

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Technorati Tags: Fox Business Network, Jenna Lee, Language Weaver, Mark Tapling, Translation

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I invite you to join us at the Communispace headquarters in Watertown On December 11, 2008 from 8 to 10 a.m. for the next Mass TLC Social Media Seminar.

Here’s the description:

Social media is a fast, efficient and relatively inexpensive way to get your message directly to an audience, but the variety of available tools can be intimidating.

Blogs, podcasts, online video and social networks each present intriguing opportunities for audience engagement, but one size doesn’t fit all. Successful social media strategies start with defining strategic objectives and then selecting the appropriate mix of tools to achieve them. In this session, successful social media practitioners share their secrets for getting initiatives off the ground and pointed in the right direction.

Panelists:

Dan Kennedy, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University School of Journalism; blogger, Media Nation, Medianation.blogspot.com.

Perry Allison, Vice President, Social Marketing Innovation, EONS.com

Chris Penn, CTO, Edvisors and the Student Loan Network; Founder and Producer, the Financial Aid Podcast, www.finacialaidpodcast.com

There are student discounts available for this event. For more information email me at tallik@topazpartners.com.

Even if you’re not a member of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council you can get the member discount to by using the promotional code socmed08.

You can register here. Tickets are still available!

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Technorati Tags: Blogging, Boston, Events, Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, online communities, Podcasting, seminars, Social Media

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In this podcast, Topaz Partners’ Tony Sapienza interviews four participants:

Bill Warner, Founder of Avid Technologies (Illustration courtesy of Mass High Tech All-Stars)

- Bill Warner(at right), founder of Avid Technology and a key organizer behind the unConference. Bill recently wrote a piece for Mass High Tech (www.masshightech.com) titled “How a dirt farmer made me an entrepreneur.”

- Michael Villa of Dovetail Internet Technologies (www.dovetailinternet.com)

- Doug Banks, Editor of Mass High Tech (www.masshightech.com)

- Paul Bemis, CEO of Applied Math Modeling, makers of CoolSim.

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Why Twitter? What got you started there?
I was skeptical about Twitter for a while, but I joined last summer, I think, as a way to keep in touch with a couple friends. I think someone from Agency.com followed me, which then led to a few others. Like any network it grew from there. I never started using it with any set plan.

Are you hoping PR people will learn something from your missives or are you merely venting (i.e., are we beyond correction)?
I don’t know, probably both. Since Max wrote that story, I have a lot more followers from PR. That’s cool, but I never started using Twitter as some way to vent about PR. I guess probably 5 percent of my posts are about it. One of the evolutions that I’ve found with Twitter is my audience expanded to include a lot more people in the marketing industry. One of the raps “traditional media” gets is it’s inaccessible, unlike blogs with comments and more personal commentary. I started to use Twitter as a way to bring people into the process a bit, from shaping story ideas to learning the frustrations reporters have with editors, companies we cover and, yes, PR people. That’s probably the biggest overall goal I have with Twitter now, if I have one. It would be great if new tools like Twitter enable reporters to close the gap between what we do and the people who read it. What I don’t want it to become is my lectures on PR. It’s not for me to tell PR people how to do their jobs. I’m only giving the perspective from my end.

Where do most of the conflicts come from?
The biggest thing that frustrates me is that there’s a disconnect between what PR people say they do and what they really do. There’s this idea that they’re there to “help reporters,” but that’s not true. Their goal, as I see it, is to make their client make good, control information and act as gatekeepers. Those are often in conflict with what I’m trying to do. On top of that, there’s too much spam coming from PR people. Trust me, I could write all day about the untargeted, useless stuff I’m bombarded with. Some people say “it’s your job,” but it’s not my job to get spammed. It actually detracts from my ability to do my job because of the time it takes and how often I’m interrupted. What’s most frustrating is the majority of PR people really have no idea what I do. If they did, they wouldn’t be wasting my team with some press release about an industry I don’t cover. Yet it seems the industry is in many ways predicated on “hits,” so the mentality, like advertising, favors bombardment.

You recently wrote about ad agencies not getting social media. That survey focused mostly on “traditional” agencies from what I could tell. Do interactive agencies suffer from the same problem?
I wrote about a study that found clients don’t think their agencies “get” social media.It’s a hard thing because social media is such a nebulous thing. I mean, we’re talking about conversations. Those conversations have applicability to all parts of a company, from marketing to product management to public relations to customer service. I find the debate of “who will own social media” utterly silly. Nobody will — not marketing, not PR, not customer service. I think it’s going to change how companies organize themselves.

The other side to that question, what do you think of PR agencies use of social media, are we using it effectively? What would you change about it?
I don’t know enough about how PR agencies use social media. I’ll say this: I’m impressed — or maybe alarmed — at how many PR people are on services like Twitter. (I kid about the alarmed part, btw.) It sounds corny but I’m a big believer that to really understand it, you have to do it, whether you’re an ad guy, PR person, reporter or whatever. It’s a tricky thing; getting your hands dirty is absolutely necessary. The question I have is how PR agencies end up “using” the channel. A lot of my frustrations with PR people stem from the same spray-and-pray approach used by ad agencies to bombard us with commercial messages. I get 150+ PR pitches a day by email and probably a dozen just-following-up-on-an-email-I sent calls. That’s why I don’t want Facebook pitches on top of that. Will these social media avenues just become another venue to promote the hell out of a client? I hope not. And I think it’s reassuring that many PR people use Twitter, because they’ll be less likely to pollute environments they use because they’ll empathize with regular users.

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