PR nowandthen

Are Maclaren losing the online reputation battle?

Pushchair manufacturer Maclaren announced yesterday that it was recalling some of its models in the US over fears of little fingers getting trapped and injured in the hinges.  Potentially hugely damaging to its reputation: it's one of the most important purchases a parent makes, as of this morning, it's looking like Maclaren are struggling to win the PR battle.  Firstly they're only recalling products in the US which has led to comments like this one popping up all over the internet:

 

It may well be that there is a valid reason for it (they vaguely try to answer it in the guardian piece) but if so, they're not getting the message across.

Secondly their PR response appears to be woefully inadequate. There is an overlay on the home page of the site explaining the recall and a 'click here for more information' but you are then taken to a general news page (below) rather than straight to the information, meaning you have to click again to see details.  That page does have a FAQ but again it's a bit woolly about why they are recalling in the US and not the UK.

 
 

Thirdly it's hard to see them doing much proactive outreach.  The twitterverse is full of chatter about the recall and yet their own twitter feed appears to be broken? Oh dear Maclaren, come on.  You've got to move now, not in 2 hours or 12 hours or 24 hours.  The clock is ticking.....

Marissa Mayer - truly inspirational

In honour of the news that Marissa Mayer has been named one of Glamour magazine's Women of the Year, I'm flagging up this great video interview, done earlier this year.  If you don't know anything about Marissa or have never seen her speak, this demonstrates why she's an inspiration to so many - me included.

SideWiki - PRs ignore at your peril

Today's Guardian has a good piece from Mark Borkowski about how Google SideWiki is a potential game changer for brands.  He's right of course although I'm surprised its taken the Guardian this long to write about it (in the context of PR).  Neville Hobson's piece on the subject, which was written a couple of weeks ago, is better; much more comprehensive and also flags up the rather essential issue of adoption.  SideWiki has the potential to be incredibly disruptive - user comments in your own brand space, the marketers should be taking note.  But as always, it will stand or fall on whether it becomes adopted by mainstream users.

SideWiki entries for bbc.co.uk

Where does PR sit with social media?

Often I find debates curated on twitter fairly dull. Lots of posts all about the same thing flooding your twitter stream and adding nothing but the other day there was a really interesting one set up by hashtagsocialmedia.  Todd Defren moderated a conversation about the role of PRs within social media.  He covered topics such as where does social media belong within a corporate environment,what should a PR plan integrated with social media look like plus the relationship between PR, social media and SEO.

Many people suggest that the PR team within an organisation are not the right people to look after social  media because PR = spin whereas social media = transparency.  I'd completely disagree with that.  Having worked with digital agencies, SEO agencies and PR agencies, I'd say that PR people are the most natural to look after social media because they are familiar with building relationships, generating that 'talkability' factor and starting conversations.  The irony is however that at the moment PR agencies are the least well equipped to be able to handle social media effectively since, with a few notable exceptions, they're lagging behind in their understanding of the online environment.  They need to change that...and quickly.

You can see some of the twitter responses to Todd Defren's questions on the righthand side of the page here (although this page may well change in the future).

The learning curve

It was interesting to read Will McInnes' latest post Social Media Market Hots Up - these guys are better placed than most to ponder on how the market has changed over the last few years.

For me it reminds me of web development 15 or so years ago.  Clients were largely unsophisticated in their buying of digital.  There was no such thing as a web strategy, very few digital marketing professionals and a big rush to get a website with no understanding of why, what it was for, or how it would help the business.  Fast forward and they are much clearer in their briefing, sophisticated in their understanding and therefore their expectation are quite rightly greater.

In social media land clients seem to be falling into one of three camps:

1. Those who are ignoring it all in the hope it just goes away.
2. Those who believe they should be 'doing' social media but who don't want to know that it's anything other than a Facebook page (the rest of it is too messy, tricky, hard to put in a box)
3. Those who understand that social media is fundamentally changing what customers expect from and have taken steps to ensure that this feeds into all areas of their business (either because they are a young flexible company or because someone at board level actually gets it).

Right now I'd say that most are in camp 2 but give it a couple of years and, like web development, they will have moved up that curve and that will be a good thing for everyone.

In the meantime, this great post from Mike Arauz kind of sums up where I'm at.

And let's not forget that this approach is still very much out there....

dilbert.com

A Slice of the Social Media Pie

There is so much chatter about who should deliver social media for their clients.  Pretty much every day I speak to agencies who are battling a landgrab and clients who are, well, frankly just confused. 

Econsultancy's online PR Industry Benchmarking report completed at the end of last year demonstrated that clients are unsure where this part of their comms strategy sits within their agency roster (and internally, but that's another blog post). 

51% of clients reported using a PR agency to deliver social media, while 29% used their search marketing agencies and 22% their web development agencies. 

This debate shows no sign of being resolved any time soon. If anything the waters are becoming more muddied.  Having worked as a freelancer with all three of these different types of agency, my honest response would be that PR agencies (or 'pure' social media agencies) are best placed to deliver social media engagement, they already inhabit a world of stories and conversations.  They understand about connecting with influencers and developing ideas designed to initiate debate.  They're also already plugged into the client with this remit. 

BUT the biggest irony is that, while PR agencies might be the most natural people to deliver social (with a few great exceptions) they are currently the least well equipped to deal with it.  Lots are catching up but an equal number are living in blissful ignorance.

Photo by Daniel Greene

A very bad week for PR

Oh dear, dear me.  It's been a shocking week for the PR industry.

First we get a PR firm revealed as giving their clients positive reviews in the app store, then we get the PR spammers  who don't understand the basics about how to send an email (although to be fair the offender has subsequently set up a blog to 'learn' from the experience).

This morning respected entrepreneur Loic Le Meur blasted the PR industry wholesale and although there are some wild generalisations in his piece, much of what he says is fair comment.  And to round it off we have PR agencies sending 7MB attachments to journalists. 

It's just shoddy.  There's no excuse for any of this.  It's not brain surgery people, it's PR.  

 

What's makes a social media expert?

'nuff said.

Waiting for the invitation

It's like being a child again and waiting for a party invite from the most popular child in the class. 

I've submitted a panel suggestion for SXSWi.

Looking at the competition I think I stand a chance of roughly less than 0.1% but heh, who knows, if I'm lucky the system might break and I'll be allocated all of Peter Kim's votes.

Here are some of the ones I'll be voting for (although I've yet to wade through the 2000+ entries).

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/2371
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4544
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/2514
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4560
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4942
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/2385

And er, of course, if you'd like to vote for mine, that'd be lovely :)
Social Media: Tools to show The Man that it works

  

Cartoon reproduced from ReadWriteWeb

5 ways to jump into online PR

Quite a few times over the last month I've been asked about how you 'do' online PR, or how you make a start.  There are many people much more qualified than me to do justice to that question but for now, here are my 5 starter tips.

1. Set up google alerts for relevant terms (your own and client specific).
2. Get into the habit of checking these and when you find a blog of particular interest, subscribe via an RSS reader.  I use Feedly but there are many others.
3. If you're not already, get onto Twitter; important for three reasons, firstly because you need to use it to be able to explain to clients how it works, secondly because it's a great way to pick up on the latest developments in the world of online PR and thirdly because many journalists use it as a way to find stories.
4. Set aside time to research the online environment for each of your clients because it will be different depending on sector.
5. Play around with some of the free online monitoring tools, set up profiles for each of your clients.

But most importantly don't get so carried away with the great technology and tools that you forget about objectives.  Just because it's online, doesn't mean you should lose sight of what you're trying to achieve.