I had a great conversation about SEO and news releases the other day with Michael Toner from Business Wire. Here are some tips.
Company name usage - Always use your company name in the headline but never the web address even if it's a web based company. It will search better that way.
When to put in web site address - The web site address should always follow the first reference to the company name in a news release.
Pointing out what matters - After the first paragraph add in 3-4 bullets of what’s important with your key words. It helps break up the text and with well chosen wording will help it search better.
Getting better tracking for your CEO - Your CEO or whoever is quoted should have their name hyperlinked to their bio on the company or organization web site. Reporters will click on it to learn more about you.
Code words and hyperlinks - Make sure you also create hyperlinks that match up with keywords that are important in your industry and heavily searched. Use them in your headlines as well.
Linking to your web site - Your section headings and text on opening pages of your web site should use the same phrasing as in your release. Also the coding should match up.
SEO word choice - Check the most commonly searched phrasing in your industry and pepper them through your release. Two ways to do this - you can just Google words you think will work and look at how often they are used. Or go to Google Trends and cross reference your words.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Tightrope of What You Can and Can't Say
Oh Harry Reid - now you've gone and done it. Someone dug up a comment that you made about Obama being white enough to win the presidency and it's come back to bite you in the butt. When will people realize that in this hypercritical, scream-a-thon of a world we live in you just don't say stuff like that?
Full disclosure: I'm just as guilty as the rest folks - except I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't say it even after I did.
What prompted this blog post? Well it's not yet another politician putting his foot in his mouth. I pissed off someone and he wrote me a note at 5:30 in the morning and called me Uppity. That's right Uppity. The word the south used to describe slaves who wanted to better themselves and stuck up for themselves. Does Uppity mean anything else to anyone except what I just said? Not in my universe.
Why on earth would anyone use that word? Because he just wasn't thinking.
So that's my point basically. We walk this tightrope - us writers and business people. PR people, and lawyers and all of those who are scared to death of saying the wrong thing, end up not saying anything at all.
We have to find some sort of happy medium. Inform but don't offend. What are the hard and fast rules of actually saying what you mean and not screwing it up? Some thoughts:
If it's something you wouldn't say to your boss in front of his boss you probably shouldn't say it. Same goes for your mother.
If you wish you hadn't said it after you did you shouldn't have said it - We all know that moment of panic when you think you're going to get yelled at by a client, a friend, your parent or whomever - that's a bad sign.
Think about how what you say can be twisted before you say it. Watch Glen Beck, Fox News and Sean Hannity a few times. They are geniuses at twisting what people they want to bring down say and turning it into something offensive. Remember when Obama said the police acted stupidly for arresting a man outside of his own house and it was transformed into he doesn't support our police force? That was Fox News.
Take America's pulse before you create your messages. Now this isn't possible all the time, but we are marketers and PR people. We should be paying attention to what the national conversation, mood and world is saying. A few months after 9-11 a woman named Amber wrote a press release about how pita pockets were a comfort food that could keep us feeling warm and safe. She didn't exactly say that but it's pretty close to what she did say. She worked for a large PR agency. A writer for the Washington Post published the release and ripped her to shreds.
If Amber (it doesn't help to have the name of a stripper) had been paying attention, she would have thought about what an incredibly sensitive subject 9-11 was then. Her bosses and client should have known better too. You don't take advantage of a national tragedy. Unless you want to go to war in Iraq.
Never write or send anything you write when you are angry. An old boss of mine said this a couple of months before he fired me for doing just that. It was a nice firing - there was mutual respect - I had made them a lot of money - and they were good about it. He said, put it away and read it again when you're not angry. Then throw it out.
Listen to the language of the young. One of the only words that still means the same thing it meant when we were kids is cool. Everything else has a different meaning. A lot of it comes from rap music. And I have my own household test market - which certainly helps. A few of them - Tight - it used to mean close - "We are tight." Now it means virginity. Ego - it used to mean someone who was full of themselves. Now it's slang for a male sex organ.
So if you have any other advice for this tightrope walker of language let me know. I'd love to hear from you.
Full disclosure: I'm just as guilty as the rest folks - except I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't say it even after I did.
What prompted this blog post? Well it's not yet another politician putting his foot in his mouth. I pissed off someone and he wrote me a note at 5:30 in the morning and called me Uppity. That's right Uppity. The word the south used to describe slaves who wanted to better themselves and stuck up for themselves. Does Uppity mean anything else to anyone except what I just said? Not in my universe.
Why on earth would anyone use that word? Because he just wasn't thinking.
So that's my point basically. We walk this tightrope - us writers and business people. PR people, and lawyers and all of those who are scared to death of saying the wrong thing, end up not saying anything at all.
We have to find some sort of happy medium. Inform but don't offend. What are the hard and fast rules of actually saying what you mean and not screwing it up? Some thoughts:
If it's something you wouldn't say to your boss in front of his boss you probably shouldn't say it. Same goes for your mother.
If you wish you hadn't said it after you did you shouldn't have said it - We all know that moment of panic when you think you're going to get yelled at by a client, a friend, your parent or whomever - that's a bad sign.
Think about how what you say can be twisted before you say it. Watch Glen Beck, Fox News and Sean Hannity a few times. They are geniuses at twisting what people they want to bring down say and turning it into something offensive. Remember when Obama said the police acted stupidly for arresting a man outside of his own house and it was transformed into he doesn't support our police force? That was Fox News.
Take America's pulse before you create your messages. Now this isn't possible all the time, but we are marketers and PR people. We should be paying attention to what the national conversation, mood and world is saying. A few months after 9-11 a woman named Amber wrote a press release about how pita pockets were a comfort food that could keep us feeling warm and safe. She didn't exactly say that but it's pretty close to what she did say. She worked for a large PR agency. A writer for the Washington Post published the release and ripped her to shreds.
If Amber (it doesn't help to have the name of a stripper) had been paying attention, she would have thought about what an incredibly sensitive subject 9-11 was then. Her bosses and client should have known better too. You don't take advantage of a national tragedy. Unless you want to go to war in Iraq.
Never write or send anything you write when you are angry. An old boss of mine said this a couple of months before he fired me for doing just that. It was a nice firing - there was mutual respect - I had made them a lot of money - and they were good about it. He said, put it away and read it again when you're not angry. Then throw it out.
Listen to the language of the young. One of the only words that still means the same thing it meant when we were kids is cool. Everything else has a different meaning. A lot of it comes from rap music. And I have my own household test market - which certainly helps. A few of them - Tight - it used to mean close - "We are tight." Now it means virginity. Ego - it used to mean someone who was full of themselves. Now it's slang for a male sex organ.
So if you have any other advice for this tightrope walker of language let me know. I'd love to hear from you.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Marketers: Failure is Merely a Dress Rehearsal for Success
I have worked for a lot of entrepreneurs and am working for two right now that I have enormous respect for. Often they see something in me – perhaps how badly I want it and how hard I will work to make it happen. I’d like to think they see smart and creative.
Many PR people and consultants can’t work for entrepreneurs because they don’t like having to quantify what they do. They follow formulas not ideas. And they don’t do the work themselves but hand it off to junior people who bill less. Bad idea. Most junior people are lousy strategists - they don't have the background for it. They need you more than you wish they did.
I worked for a company once that ate its young. Senior people always knew better than everyone else. They let you do all the work while they made nice with clients, went out to lunch a lot and expected you to wait around until office hours were over for them to review your work and pass it on to the client as theirs.
Whatever you told them, whatever you suggested, whatever you wrote, it was never as good as what they could do. The good news was if you made them money they left you alone. For awhile.
So what happened? They stopped leaving us alone. All of the people who were really talented left because they put in reporting systems and structures that took the entrepreneurial spirit right out of the company. Oh they went out and found new people and they are still doing fine. But they never got past their comfort zone. That’s the difference between an entrepreneur and a middle manager who got lucky. Don’t ever forget that.
I was just watching Larry Bock, a bio-tech entrepreneur and inspiration behind the USA Science & Engineering Festival give a commencement address to Berkeley. The address is from 2007. But what he says is so smart and so inspiring all of you should watch it. He talks about five things that Berkeley students should remember as they go out into the world. One of them is the headline of this post.
So after I watched the video, I thought about what he said and what I’ve learned working with entrepreneurs. For what it's worth here are my five characteristics of what makes a great entrepreneur. All five are also what makes a great marketer. Not just someone who makes a lot of money but someone who also makes a great boss and a great leader. Take from it what you need.
1. They look for people not projects. People are what make a venture work – smart, driven, creative people who want it to succeed. Without that, you have a shell.
2. They don’t tell you what to do but listen to what you say and let you do it. True entrepreneurs know they can’t do it all by themselves. They acknowledge that people they hire know what they’re doing – and they hire them to do it. So they give them lots of rope and let them figure it out. They are the encouraging voice behind you.
3. They combine chutzpah with humility. Bock said this and I agree. There are plenty of people who start believing in their own mystique. Look at celebrities. They start to make it – then surround themselves with yes people who say it’s OK to fly sushi into the desert because they have a craving for it. Who treat them like they are better than everyone else.
We’ve created a culture of celebrity love in this country – especially through reality TV – that is truly scary. The basic message is simple. We are all people – we break, we fix things, we love, we get mad and we live and die. In the grand scheme of things – we are all pretty similar. So keep that humility - it will make you a better person and a much better entrepreneur and marketer.
4. They understand the value of PR but measure it in dollars not hits or clips. Entrepreneurs want value from the people who work for them. They don’t measure it in amorphous buzz words.
Sorry folks but today there are tools that let your clients figure out exactly what they are getting from you. The smart ones are using analytics – most likely Google because it’s free. How many people are going to their website because of the coverage they’re getting? What’s driving their sales figures? Is it your work? They will measure and they will make you measure too.
5. They work their asses off and expect everyone else will too. The difference is that they do it right alongside the people they’ve hired.
I am clueless to why the YouTube direct link doesn't work. But if you go to the site and search Larry Bock - his Berkeley address is the first listing you get.
Many PR people and consultants can’t work for entrepreneurs because they don’t like having to quantify what they do. They follow formulas not ideas. And they don’t do the work themselves but hand it off to junior people who bill less. Bad idea. Most junior people are lousy strategists - they don't have the background for it. They need you more than you wish they did.
I worked for a company once that ate its young. Senior people always knew better than everyone else. They let you do all the work while they made nice with clients, went out to lunch a lot and expected you to wait around until office hours were over for them to review your work and pass it on to the client as theirs.
Whatever you told them, whatever you suggested, whatever you wrote, it was never as good as what they could do. The good news was if you made them money they left you alone. For awhile.
So what happened? They stopped leaving us alone. All of the people who were really talented left because they put in reporting systems and structures that took the entrepreneurial spirit right out of the company. Oh they went out and found new people and they are still doing fine. But they never got past their comfort zone. That’s the difference between an entrepreneur and a middle manager who got lucky. Don’t ever forget that.
I was just watching Larry Bock, a bio-tech entrepreneur and inspiration behind the USA Science & Engineering Festival give a commencement address to Berkeley. The address is from 2007. But what he says is so smart and so inspiring all of you should watch it. He talks about five things that Berkeley students should remember as they go out into the world. One of them is the headline of this post.
So after I watched the video, I thought about what he said and what I’ve learned working with entrepreneurs. For what it's worth here are my five characteristics of what makes a great entrepreneur. All five are also what makes a great marketer. Not just someone who makes a lot of money but someone who also makes a great boss and a great leader. Take from it what you need.
1. They look for people not projects. People are what make a venture work – smart, driven, creative people who want it to succeed. Without that, you have a shell.
2. They don’t tell you what to do but listen to what you say and let you do it. True entrepreneurs know they can’t do it all by themselves. They acknowledge that people they hire know what they’re doing – and they hire them to do it. So they give them lots of rope and let them figure it out. They are the encouraging voice behind you.
3. They combine chutzpah with humility. Bock said this and I agree. There are plenty of people who start believing in their own mystique. Look at celebrities. They start to make it – then surround themselves with yes people who say it’s OK to fly sushi into the desert because they have a craving for it. Who treat them like they are better than everyone else.
We’ve created a culture of celebrity love in this country – especially through reality TV – that is truly scary. The basic message is simple. We are all people – we break, we fix things, we love, we get mad and we live and die. In the grand scheme of things – we are all pretty similar. So keep that humility - it will make you a better person and a much better entrepreneur and marketer.
4. They understand the value of PR but measure it in dollars not hits or clips. Entrepreneurs want value from the people who work for them. They don’t measure it in amorphous buzz words.
Sorry folks but today there are tools that let your clients figure out exactly what they are getting from you. The smart ones are using analytics – most likely Google because it’s free. How many people are going to their website because of the coverage they’re getting? What’s driving their sales figures? Is it your work? They will measure and they will make you measure too.
5. They work their asses off and expect everyone else will too. The difference is that they do it right alongside the people they’ve hired.
I am clueless to why the YouTube direct link doesn't work. But if you go to the site and search Larry Bock - his Berkeley address is the first listing you get.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tiger Woods - Fire Your Publicist
Dear Tiger -
What a mess this is. I read today about how you'd lost Accenture, which I'm sure is a hefty endorsement deal. Who the heck is handling your public relations? You should dump them and find someone else who knows what they are doing.
Remember David Lederman and how he was accused of having sex with female staff members? That's long over. What about Elliott Spitzer who rumor has it is considering another run for political office? That's over. Hugh Grant and his infamous hooker pick-up on Hollywood Boulevard? Who cares.
There are others including President Clinton who screwed it up too - then slowly made his way back. More than I can remember - why? Because they dealt with it.
Hiding behind lawyers and whoever else you are trying to duck behind is dumb. You are the top golfer in the world and have the admiration of millions of people. So you've got a weakness for - models, porn stars, hookers - and now it's public. You won't be the first and you won't be the last. Address it - go back to the game - and make it go away.
Instead, you are hiding like a scared little boy behind a web of bad advice hoping it will blow over. That makes you look weak and foolish. It will eventually blow over but unless you deal with it now you won't be free of it. It seems like every day the media finds another woman who cashes in on your fame. Think about your kids. Think about your career. Think about how many women there are out there who can keep this going.
It's not rocket science Tiger. Apologize. Americans love to forgive and forget. Go on the talk show circuit and say you're sorry. Hold a news conference that is about as humble as you can get. But please don't force your angry, glaring wife who looks like she wants to chop your head off to stand by her man. That's just cruel and it upsets women - well it upsets me anyway.
I'd much rather see her deck you. If your wife wants too she can release a statement - I'm sure she will consider it because without those endorsement deals she'll lose a lot if she divorces you.
Start with: "I've done some things I'm not proud of and I've hurt my family, my friends, my fans, my fellow golfers, my business partners and whoever else matters. I'm very sorry to have let all of them down. I've made some big mistakes and I take full responsibility for them. And I'm going to spend some time making it up to all of them."
The next part puts your money where your mouth is. "As part of this effort I'm going to donate gobs of money to some cause (sick kids always works). I'm also going to take the next few months and donate time to help one or several (again kids') charities further their work."
You only need to apologize once and don't do it for the Europeans or Japanese because they are laughing their butts off. I can almost hear their voices saying "Those ridiculous Americans, what does having affairs have to do with playing golf?"
Finish with the "And I hope you will all learn to trust me again."
You're done. Then get back to golf.
Sincerely,
A Big Fan
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Gossip Girl, OK Woman, At the PR Holiday Party Scene
I've been attending media, marketing and advertising holiday parties to network and also to check out what the business climate is like this year.
First off - everyone is scaling back. The status quo for many seems to be plan a happy hour, pick the venue, don't charge, and let everyone who comes pay cash for food and drinks. With the exception of the Independent Public Relations Association feast - the parties that did supply food so far skimped so much the pricing seemed really out of whack for what you got.
As for the photos - they are stock and the woman on the beach is what I picture in my mind as I sit here with a broken heating system. One can dream.
The One Party
Who: Ad Club DC, American Marketing Association and a few others.
Where: Eye Bar - Nice place, room a bit narrow
Crowd: A lot of vendors, ages mixed, older than I expected. Not many prospective clients.
Sponsor Gimmick: One of the vendors had a great idea - everyone who came in got to pick a card choosing from five endangered species. I was an owl. I had to get five other owls to sign my card (great icebreaker) and then submit it with my contact info to win an IPod Touch. There were a few other sponsors who had tabletop displays but some company presidents didn't even show. What's the point?
Cost: $50 ahead, $60 at door
Food and Drink: Open bar - three drinks came with it mixed and wine. Rack liquor. The invitation said the party included heavy appetizers. They were heavy alright - no one touched them. Sushi at the beginning and then they left the empty tray on the bar to make the rest of us feel bad. Food was scary - goo encrusted meatballs, some sort of fried Mexican meat in taco sauce that I could have gotten frozen at the market, vegetables and two different kinds of scary looking chicken wings.
Strategy: Think it may have been to get everyone to drink and then not feed them - 3rd drink impossible without food.
Anecdote: Left my car in a law firm lot a few blocks away after finding a parking lot attendant who asked for a bribe and put me in a Reserved Space. He explained in Spanish how to get out of the garage but I must have missed something because I couldn't figure it out. Couldn't go back up without a pass key. Got stuck down there until one of the lawyers saved me.
Time Spent: Lasted an hour - could have skipped it.
Washington Networking Group Holiday Party
Who: As listed above - no cool name
Where: Guarapo Nena in Arlington - private room
Crowd: Mixed vendors, I was late so didn't see much of it. The DC Networking Group has a very diverse group of people - this one had tech, communications, marketing, international and government people.
Food and Drink: Cash everything - the martinis were cheaper than in DC
Sponsor Gimmick: Why do vendors not have stuff - they just show up and run around and talk to people.
Time Spent: Was worth the trip even though it was a long metro ride. Someone came running out the door after me to invite me to another party. So stunned I gave him my card - he never got in touch. Alot of men - fewer women.
IPRA Holiday Lunch
Who: Independent Public Relations Society of America
Where: Maggianos at Tyson's Corner - and I found it - yeah
Crowd: The room was full - a mix of PR, printers, and other vendors. Draw was the food which was course after course of Yum and that wine came with the meal.
Cost: I think it was $50 ahead of time if you were not a member.
Bad Part: Way too much thank yous, and kudos to each other. If they hadn't done that I wouldn't have realized most of the people in the room were on the board and needed to be there. Sat next to an older woman who complained how much writers are discounting their fees - if you insist on paying seasoned people very little you won't get much. But maybe in this economy they don't care. On my right was someone starting a DC PR business who wreaked of cigarettes - what a turn-off.
Time: Two hours or so not counting getting there and back.
ASAE Holiday Happy Hour
Who: American Society of Association Executives
Where: Black Finn - Pseudo Sports Bar on I Street, DC
Crowd: Again a lot of vendors, several ASAE people including senior ones, and a mix of marketers. Also there was a bunch of college sports fans in the back watching the Georgetown game and yelling which was very distracting.
Anecdote: Watched a pretty young blonde and her boss who was probably a bit older than I am. Black Finn served a free round of beer shots then took photos of only her drinking it. Made me feel ancient. A business exec slowly moved in on her hanging around for what reason I wasn't sure, dense person that I am, until he could find a way to talk to her. When I left they were chummy at the table. For some reason I've noticed these ASAE happy hours often have lots of cute young women and not so young men who love them.
Charity: Toys for Tots and most people did come with an unwrapped new gift. Thank goodness for the closet of presents never given.
Time Spent: Probably an hour - left to beat the ice storm.
International Association of Business Communicators Holiday Party
Who: IABC DC - this group of communications professionals has some very nice people in it.
Where: Arlington, Hilton in one of their nice but small rooms
Crowd: Not as well attended as some but a good crowd. Talked to a lot of people - someone who just started at a clandestine federal agency - and said she reads its web site sometimes to figure out what's going on. Some guy from Burson showed up, zoned in on the few potential clients in the room, and ducked out. He said they're hiring. Don't understand why IABC doesn't care that only a couple of board members show up at it's major events - shouldn't that be expected?
Cost: $40 but came with a small cheese plate and some passed appetizers that left me starving. Cash bar with mediocre wine and rack liquor. Also a member's band played Christmas music - give them an A+ for Santa Got Run Over By a Reindeer.
Time Spent: Probably 1.5 hours. If it hadn't been freezing and I hadn't lost my car on some side street in Ballston it would have been worth it.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Google Gold - Top Search Terms of 2009
Well the first thing I noticed is there's no business list of Google's top tens for 2009 search terms. Maybe that's proprietary? Or maybe celebrities and news don't matter as much anymore. We'd also like the top 100 if Google Zeitgeist would be willing to share.
So I went market by market hoping to learn something. Here's what I found - interpreted by yours truly. The most commonly searched places in a market are:
Local colleges - most of the ones listed
Local television, newspaper, radio - see people are reading news they're just doing it online
Local hospitals
Local museums
Local libraries - this to me was the big surprise.
So if you can mention any of these or partner with them on a news release or mention them in it - you are golden.
Here are the results from five giant metro markets.
Washington, D.C.
1. fcps blackboard
2. national harbor
3. e street cinema
4. nova community college
5. wtop news
6. wmata
7. nationals baseball
8. dc restaurant week
9. washington sports club
10. leesburg outlets
New York, NY
1. cuny portal
2. duane reade locations
3. mta trip planner
4. seamless web
5. conedison.com
6. hopstop
7. hale and heardy
8. shake shack
9. nyu home
10. queens library
Philadelphia, PA
1. penn blackboard
2. septa strike
3. ccp.edu
4. septa.com
5. penn in touch
6. penn portal
7. penn library
8. tumail
9. tuportal
10. wharton spike
San Francisco, CA
1. fox theater oakland
2. bay bridge closure
3. wicked san francisco
4. ilearn
5. sf giants schedule
6. sfusd
7. 511.org
8. outside lands
9. bart schedule
10. ccsf
Seattle, WA
1. sounders fc
2. bellevue college
3. seahawks 2009 schedule
4. snoqualmie casino
5. west seattle blog
6. uw libraries
7. myuw.com
8. wa unemployment
9. becu.com
10. snohomish county jail
So what does this tell us? Not much. Looking at all of the cities here's what I learned:
So I went market by market hoping to learn something. Here's what I found - interpreted by yours truly. The most commonly searched places in a market are:
Local colleges - most of the ones listed
Local television, newspaper, radio - see people are reading news they're just doing it online
Local hospitals
Local museums
Local libraries - this to me was the big surprise.
So if you can mention any of these or partner with them on a news release or mention them in it - you are golden.
Here are the results from five giant metro markets.
Washington, D.C.
1. fcps blackboard
2. national harbor
3. e street cinema
4. nova community college
5. wtop news
6. wmata
7. nationals baseball
8. dc restaurant week
9. washington sports club
10. leesburg outlets
New York, NY
1. cuny portal
2. duane reade locations
3. mta trip planner
4. seamless web
5. conedison.com
6. hopstop
7. hale and heardy
8. shake shack
9. nyu home
10. queens library
Philadelphia, PA
1. penn blackboard
2. septa strike
3. ccp.edu
4. septa.com
5. penn in touch
6. penn portal
7. penn library
8. tumail
9. tuportal
10. wharton spike
San Francisco, CA
1. fox theater oakland
2. bay bridge closure
3. wicked san francisco
4. ilearn
5. sf giants schedule
6. sfusd
7. 511.org
8. outside lands
9. bart schedule
10. ccsf
Seattle, WA
1. sounders fc
2. bellevue college
3. seahawks 2009 schedule
4. snoqualmie casino
5. west seattle blog
6. uw libraries
7. myuw.com
8. wa unemployment
9. becu.com
10. snohomish county jail
So what does this tell us? Not much. Looking at all of the cities here's what I learned:
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Let's Ban Consultant Speak Forever
I hate the way consultants talk. I just read, OK scanned, a white paper by a social media policy/strategy/consulting expert and it was filled with basic marketing, models, charts and quite frankly a lot of crap. Consultant speak.
An old friend of mine who is now in marketing once described it as “They make it look so complicated and academic that the clients don’t know what they are saying, and often they don’t either. But the client is afraid to admit they don’t know what it means because then it makes them look foolish.”
And the cycle continues.
The PR business is filled with consultant speak. People think we wave a magic wand and make publicity happen – that we are like snake charmers. We’re not. If you don’t have a good story - we can’t sell it. If 10 other companies are doing the exact same thing that you are – we can’t sell it.
You need to do something that no one else is doing. You need to add something new to the conversation. If anyone tells you differently, they are just taking your money. Hope you don't mind wasting it.
What kind of phrases comprise consultant speak? Here’s an easy one brought to you from the home page of one of the world’s biggest and most successful PR agencies.
“The modern practice of public relations is about creating, managing and enhancing relationships between a business or an organization and its key stakeholders to drive successful business or organizational outcomes. With the overall erosion of trust in institutions combined with the convergence of technology and media, at no time in the history of our profession has the proactive management of stakeholder relationships been more critical.”
Thank you Edelman. Just reading it gave me a headache.
Translation – You pay us gobs of money and we’ll figure out how to spend it.
I have favorite consultant speak words too – here are a few.
Appropriate – I had a consulting firm client once who used this on everything. Why? Because it doesn’t say anything. It's a lawyer word. If it’s appropriate it fits whatever situation you’re in and whatever way you are using it.
Effective – PR people use this all the time. They use the phrase “Effective Communications.” What other kind is there? Bad? Sucky? Great? Because that’s over promising. Effective promises nothing except we won’t screw it up too much. Isn't Effective kind of like when it's pouring rain on your wedding day and everyone tells the bride it's good luck. What are you supposed to tell the bride - that her outdoor wedding is ruined and it's bad luck? That wouldn't be very effective.
Right-sizing – This one became part of business lingo in the 1980s and has stuck around. It puts a positive spin on the fact that you’re getting fired. We’re fixing something that’s broken. No you’re not. You over hired or screwed up and now you can’t afford to keep some of the people that trusted you to keep them.
Impressions - This is actually the term for a unit of measurement that PR firms use to make you think that a lot of people paid attention to what was written about you. There's some abstract formula from newspapers where you take the circulation and multiply it by three I think, to account for the fact that people pass it to other people, and then you got value for your money.
No you didn't. You got value if the person who read about you picked up the phone and called you and asked you more about your company, or went to your web site and bought something. Impressions in today's world are useless. But someone recently told me that their PR firm got 50 million impressions for them - so it's still being used and it's still nonsense.
Change – Obama won the presidency on this. He borrowed it from Bill Clinton who also won the presidency on this. What does it mean? We don’t like the way things are. Do it differently. But how? Oh we can’t tell you that – it would be too specific. So let’s just throw that word around and people will gravitate towards it and vote for it. Then we don’t deliver – well that’s a whole other blog post.
Why am I allowed to rail against all of this? Because it's my blog. Because I don’t use these words. I tell clients the truth even if it’s ugly. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker. Maybe it’s because I started as a journalist and my bullshit detector is perpetually set on high.
So what’s the advice in all of this? We live in an age where people have the attention spans of insects. No one is reading any of this stuff. Say what you mean. Use short words that tell me something. Give me real information so I get it right away. That’s the difference between Effective and great PR.
An old friend of mine who is now in marketing once described it as “They make it look so complicated and academic that the clients don’t know what they are saying, and often they don’t either. But the client is afraid to admit they don’t know what it means because then it makes them look foolish.”
And the cycle continues.
The PR business is filled with consultant speak. People think we wave a magic wand and make publicity happen – that we are like snake charmers. We’re not. If you don’t have a good story - we can’t sell it. If 10 other companies are doing the exact same thing that you are – we can’t sell it.
You need to do something that no one else is doing. You need to add something new to the conversation. If anyone tells you differently, they are just taking your money. Hope you don't mind wasting it.
What kind of phrases comprise consultant speak? Here’s an easy one brought to you from the home page of one of the world’s biggest and most successful PR agencies.
“The modern practice of public relations is about creating, managing and enhancing relationships between a business or an organization and its key stakeholders to drive successful business or organizational outcomes. With the overall erosion of trust in institutions combined with the convergence of technology and media, at no time in the history of our profession has the proactive management of stakeholder relationships been more critical.”
Thank you Edelman. Just reading it gave me a headache.
Translation – You pay us gobs of money and we’ll figure out how to spend it.
I have favorite consultant speak words too – here are a few.
Appropriate – I had a consulting firm client once who used this on everything. Why? Because it doesn’t say anything. It's a lawyer word. If it’s appropriate it fits whatever situation you’re in and whatever way you are using it.
Effective – PR people use this all the time. They use the phrase “Effective Communications.” What other kind is there? Bad? Sucky? Great? Because that’s over promising. Effective promises nothing except we won’t screw it up too much. Isn't Effective kind of like when it's pouring rain on your wedding day and everyone tells the bride it's good luck. What are you supposed to tell the bride - that her outdoor wedding is ruined and it's bad luck? That wouldn't be very effective.
Right-sizing – This one became part of business lingo in the 1980s and has stuck around. It puts a positive spin on the fact that you’re getting fired. We’re fixing something that’s broken. No you’re not. You over hired or screwed up and now you can’t afford to keep some of the people that trusted you to keep them.
Impressions - This is actually the term for a unit of measurement that PR firms use to make you think that a lot of people paid attention to what was written about you. There's some abstract formula from newspapers where you take the circulation and multiply it by three I think, to account for the fact that people pass it to other people, and then you got value for your money.
No you didn't. You got value if the person who read about you picked up the phone and called you and asked you more about your company, or went to your web site and bought something. Impressions in today's world are useless. But someone recently told me that their PR firm got 50 million impressions for them - so it's still being used and it's still nonsense.
Change – Obama won the presidency on this. He borrowed it from Bill Clinton who also won the presidency on this. What does it mean? We don’t like the way things are. Do it differently. But how? Oh we can’t tell you that – it would be too specific. So let’s just throw that word around and people will gravitate towards it and vote for it. Then we don’t deliver – well that’s a whole other blog post.
Why am I allowed to rail against all of this? Because it's my blog. Because I don’t use these words. I tell clients the truth even if it’s ugly. Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker. Maybe it’s because I started as a journalist and my bullshit detector is perpetually set on high.
So what’s the advice in all of this? We live in an age where people have the attention spans of insects. No one is reading any of this stuff. Say what you mean. Use short words that tell me something. Give me real information so I get it right away. That’s the difference between Effective and great PR.
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