6 Surefire Signs of Good Public Relations

There is good public relations and there’s bad. 

Let’s face it, some organizations, people and agencies are good at it, and some are not. 

But when you are in the thick of it, when you’re spending the money, how do you know?

Oh, that’s quite simple, you wait five months and then look at the coverage you achieved.  Wait a minute, did someone in the back utter that they move quicker than that and they don’t want to wait five months?  What, you actually want to know now if you are spending time and money wisely?  OK, well in that case, there are six sure fire signs of good public relations.

1 – First up, you better have a strategy.  A clear, concise strategy.  Can you (or the person/agency in charge) define in half a page:
- the target market that needs to be reached
- the media used to reach it
- the message that needs to be communicated
- the desired action of the target market
- the media tools that will be used to achieve that
- and when they will be used?

If you can’t then you’re running your PR strategy in an ad-hoc manner, which is not going to give you the results you need.  The number one tell-tail signs is inconsistency… in regards to when coverage is achieved, who it reaches or the messages it conveys.

2 – How are your relationships? It doesn’t matter how great your strategy is if your PR team doesn’t have the best media relationships to get it delivered.  This is where larger teams have the advantage. I’ve yet to meet one person who gets on with everyone.  So it stands to reason that if you have a one-person team or freelancer on your PR they can’t have relationships with all the core media.  It takes a diverse team of people at various seniority and experience level to be able to hold all the core relationships.

This is doubly important if your target includes multiple social-economic targets or possibly more than one language.  Look at the make up of the journalists and editors you are trying to reach and make sure your team are similar.

3 – Responsiveness and consistency rules.  PR is not a tap you can just turn on or off as you feel.  It’s more like a snowball pushed down a hill - once started it will keep on rolling and growing if you treat it right (and if you don’t treat it right it’s like putting a tree in front of the snowball). To keep that snowball rolling and growing you need to be ever responsive to the media (never leave a man hanging) and you need to ensure you fuel the media machine with consistent, newsworthy and relevant information. 

Tell-tail signs - if your PR team can’t respond to you within a coupe of hours, then they are not responding to the media quickly either.  And if you don’t have a constant funnel of news and ideas being worked on, then it’s akin to your snowball rolling over concrete.

4 – Reporting and feedback. At NettResults we make it simple for all our team members: for a successful client/agency relationship there are two things that drive success – media results need to be obtained and there needs to be constant reporting with the client.  A campaign that has great results, but there is little client/agency interaction or lack of reporting, will fail. 

Media relations is a constant feedback loop.  Multiple minds need to plan it out and everyone needs to be watching what is working and what is successful. This is the only way that momentum can be gained and we can drive a higher return on investment.

5 – Business acumen.  Look at it this way - there’s this funnel.  At the bottom of the funnel is PR, above that is marketing and above that is ‘the business’.  While I’ve had bosses that have said to me they can write a press release about anything, irrespective of whether they understand the subject, you can’t play in the PR space successfully unless you understand business.

Much as we would like to think that media and PR teams are the bees-knees – there is always a higher being that is driving the business. The PR team needs to be aware of this and have a true understanding and respect for when PR plans need to be modified due to a business requirement.  Tell-tail signs – have a conversation with your PR team about your business, not the latest PR news, but about the actual business.  Do they talk sense?

6 – Is there a level of trust?  What this all comes down to is trust.  A client needs to be able to trust that their team/agency is proactively working on their behalf.  There has to be bilateral trust between the PR team/agency and the media. 

More than most industries I have witnessed, trust is central to PR success.  Like all professional service business, we’re talking about a professional’s time.  How it’s being used and how efficient it is.  We’re talking about abstract terms.  We’re talking about things that people get emotional about.  Wrap that all up and the lubricant that keeps the cogs turning is trust.

These six simple concepts will give you good insight into how successful your results will look in five months.

Doing the right thing - a smart PR move

It’s always great to see when a sensible business gets their PR so right in a proactive manner.

For anyone that ever spent 5 minutes in a car in Southern California, they are (without doubt) bound to have heard the rather dodgy sounding radio commercial for 1-800-GET THIN and their revolutionary lap-band procedures that will have you dropping 125 lbs and whizzing around shopping malls in no time. Oh, and your insurance will cover it. But hurry – this offer won’t be around forever.

OK – so the commercial is really, really tacky and their jingle sounds no better when my 9 year old suddenly starts humming it.  You listen to this advert and you know, instinctively, that something is wrong. Somehow you visualize yourself walking into a very dirty and smelly waiting room and being helped by personal that don’t look qualified to take your temperature – let alone open your stomach up.

California has some very large people, and when you live in a city that chooses to wear sweat-pants and do yoga on the beach, you know you got to look good. It therefore stands to reason that there is some very serious amount of business here.  And as any savvy businessperson has probably already worked out, 1-800-GET-THIN is really only a marketing company – that in turn provides leads to independent clinics that in turn provide surgery using Allergan’s Lap-Band weight-loss device.

What do you do when you provide the devise that according to lawsuits is central to five Southern California patients whom have died since 2009 following Lap-Band surgeries at clinics affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN?  You do the right thing.

Allergan today announce that they will no longer sell its Lap-Band weight-loss device to companies affiliated with the 1-800-GET-THIN marketing company. In a business where everyone is chasing the dollar and making their next quarterly goals for financial pundits, this is the right thing to do. From a business perspective, while it’s never easy to turn down sales, in this instance the PR team is handling what could be a PR crisis very well.

Good luck to Allergan Inc – smart PR move.

Now hopfully my 9-year-old can stop humming that stupidly anoying jingle.

SOPA, PIPA & PR

There has been a lot of noise around SOPA and PIPA in the past three weeks so lets break this down and see what this really means, as while there is a lot of noise, there seems to be little real understanding, of how that effects online users and those of us in the PR business.

The chief protagonists in the story that is SOPA and PIPA are getting a bit full of themselves. If you haven't been following this saga, these two bills, prompted Google, Wikipedia, and a bunch of other sites to black out their logos or temporarily shut down in protest January 18. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, the House version) and PIPA (Protect IP Act, the Senate version) are said to threaten free speech, the future of innovation, the technical infrastructure of the Internet, and the economic foundation of the global economy. Wrote one wag: "Big content is quite literally trying to foist its own version of the Great Firewall of China on to the American public."

For another example of the overwrought reactions, consider the public statement from blog site Boing Boing, which shut itself down on Jan. 18 to protest the two Congressional bills: "We could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages, just to be sure that we weren't in some way impinging on the ability of five Hollywood studios, four multinational record labels, and six global publishers to maximize their profits."

For more background on the SOPA anti-piracy legislation, see SOPA: 10 Key Facts.

I'm not going to defend SOPA or PIPA. If, as their critics maintain, the bills effectively give ISPs, search engines, and payment services carte blanche to cut off foreign websites that U.S. movie, music, and other content creators merely claim are profiting from their stolen goods, then the legislation is outlandish. On the flip side, if the SOPA and PIPA language is so broad as to invite such flagrant abuses, then the bills' authors need to start again.

Question is, are they up to the task? An argument making the rounds among the digerati is that SOPA and PIPA are 20th century answers to a 21st century challenge, that the movie, music, and media industry lobbyists and their Congressional puppets just don't understand the dynamics of the Internet. If that's so (and maybe it is), then it's up to the Internet industry stalwarts opposing SOPA/PIPA to rally support for a meaningful, 21st century alternative to stopping online content piracy. Most of them pay lip service to the notion that such piracy is a serious problem. It's time for them to stop grandstanding--stop stomping their feet and holding their breath--and start showing the 20th century studios and record labels and media companies and their clueless lobbyists and Congressional supporters a much more effective way to address this issue.

To its credit Google, whose YouTube is a dumping ground for pirated material, is behind an alternative bill--The Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade, or OPEN, Act and is seeking industry comment and collaboration. That collaboration must include movie, music, and media companies.

And from a PR point of view – why do we care?  Well, as with most discussions/arguments that prompt emotions in the public domain, it is PR that can fuel the fire or bring parties closer to find a resolution.  Inevitably one side or another has a stronger PR strategy and that often leads to the majority of media aligning.

We’ve said it a million times – we live in a new digital age… and that is somewhat upsetting the public domain apple cart.  With so much personal publishing (yes, I’m talking about the blogging and micro-blogging world) we see loose groupings (non-corporate) of individuals creating power. I’m thinking of the Occupy movements in cities round the U.S. and Spring Uprisings in the Middle East. So here’s the million-dollar question – how can these groups really integrate a coherent media relations program?

They don’t have the structure, resources or full time dedication of most organized businesses, charities or public offices, but they still have the power. They have a need to push public debate and while they are very good at using social media to do this, they need to work out how to use public relations to further develop their power and to reach those luddites that don’t spend 3 hours a day on social media platforms (apparently there is a massive population around the world that doesn’t – who knew?). Or maybe they don’t.  Maybe a successful PR agency will find a solution…

When advertising needs PR (yes it's Super Bowl)!

As far as the U.S. market is concerned, there's once a year when advertising and PR hold hands; or maybe more precisely advertising depends on media relations to make them successful (OK - so that has just pissed off a bunch of creatives, but hey, that's life). It's the Super Bowl.

Quickly approaching this coming weekend, the Super Bowl 2012 always promises to bring out TV adverts that entertain and delight.  While we don't have time to go over some really cool PR stories about ads from the past, we do have time now to give you a sneak peak of what is coming up this weekend.

Some of the adverts are available (or their previews are) here.

There is inevitably the actual media relations about how much money a 30 second spot actually costs. Then the best ads create great PR around them.  This year, look out for the companies which are using social media to get the anticipation glands going (Century 21 seem to have a strong strategy in place). Similarly look for hash tags that are quite prominent in the ads - not of the company/brand name, but around the campaign name/message.

Enjoy the ads and watch this space to see how PR will treat this year's ad-fest.

PR Defined

Can you really define something like the definition of PR through consensus?

Well at this point I would have defined consensious, but of course Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is blacked out today (good for them).  Webster is my second go-to and they provided:

a : general agreement : unanimity <the consensus of their opinion, based on reports … from the border — John Hersey>  

b : the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>

Anyway, this is the long and seemingly very drawn out process the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) is going through as witnessed here.

The Candidate Definitions (love that definition in itself) are:

1 - Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.

Ummm... OK.  what makes it  management function? I can also think of plenty of unethical PR (aka Political PR) which much as I wouldn't want to be involved in it, should still be defined as PR.

2 - Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.

Well... I can think of plenty of times when PR does not set up a 'mutually' beneficial relationship.  And can we really say that PR is always strategic?

3 - Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

As such... I'm not sure I can agree here either.  I don't think the process is always between organizations and individuals - but maybe I am reading too much into that.  And there is that word 'mutual' again.

Straight up - I do have an answer (and it's superb), but don't think for one moment I have the answer that everyone will agree with.  But as Margaret Thatcher said:

consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

Actually, the quote that is even more apt for this situation from old Mags is:

Consensus?  Consensus is the negation of leadership!

So is the PRSA trying to keep everyone happy (and in the process we know that will piss everyone off), or can they come back from the abbys and lead?

How to have a hugely successful PR campaign

Seth Godin blogged about it today.  One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room... Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.

The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.

And so it is with succssful public relations. We take the unusual step of saying to our clients (either during a pitch or after it is successful won) that frankly we don't care how many press releases we are asked to distribute.  All too many agencies seem to want to calculate their retainer or projects based on the number of press releases.  This doesn't make sense to us.  So long as each and every press release is newsworthy and relevant we don't mind working on one a day.  

Off course I've yet to meet a client that had that many newsworth releases... in fact back in 1999 I was speaking to a journalist who was compaining to me that Microsoft sent them a press release every two days.  They actually didn't care that the releases were every two days (they were allready clearing 100+ emails from their email of usless pitches), but they did care that 99% were irrelivent to the title they wrote on.  Of course it wasn't Micorsoft's fault - just the agency at the time that wanted to spam all journalists.

Successful PR campaigns and to add to that - campaigns with longevity - require a spokesperson that makes a difference - or to put it another way, one that will be missed if they are not commenting.

How is your spokesperson doing?

Social Media, Journalists and Public Relations Agencies

Our friends at Cision have just released their  2011 Cision-Newhouse School Digital Influencers Survey. It has some interesting findings and you can read the full research here.

Now, much as we love research and its findings, we do have to identify that Cision's research is often heavily skewed to the bias of selling media lists and the Cision services.  That said, we all benefit from understanding exactly how to use social media with the media.

The 2011 digital influencer survey shows that social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (with the impact of Google+ soon to be felt) continue to revolutionize how those who create digital content do their jobs: how often they post content (“file stories”) and how they identify stories and trends, cultivate and qualify sources, and share information.

But – perhaps even more importantly – it is apparent that social media has empowered anyone with a voice that resonates with a community to build influence and vie for the same attention and audience as traditional media.

These “other content creators” may not be connected to an established news organization or blog, but their “social capital” is so significant that they have a direct impact on consumers and other influencers.

Those who define themselves as journalists tend to have very different (and less positive) perceptions about the usefulness and accuracy of social media.

Yet all respondents agree that social media is a superior way to share stories, connect with communities, and make their voices heard.

Bottom line - what does this mean to PR agencies and organizations that use agencies?  Well, PR agencies need to use social media tools to inform/converse with journalists and those writing materials that customers are reading.  But they can't rely on them - social media needs to be integrated into journalist outreach.

Power is nothing without Control

...according to the tire manufacturer Pirelli. And so it is with public relations. Gone are the days when an organization can fully control their corporate message to the media.

In days gone by, it was normal for an organization’s employee handbook to strictly dictate that no employee could speak to the media without prior approval and spokesperson media training. No problem.

Then a few years ago social media popped up. According to a recent piece of research by Altimeter, companies average an overwhelming number of corporate owned accounts – about 178. That is a bunch of people from different departments and around the globe that are speaking on social media platforms, that the media are seeing. And that’s before we count the personal SM accounts of employees who happen to mention their job. So what’s to be done?

NettResults recommends three levels of corporate communication development:

1 - Relinquish a mindset of control - instead ‘enable’. In business school we were taught to foster message control and encourage all corporate representatives to stay on message. Yet today, as multiple business units from support, sales, HR and beyond participate in social technologies, communication is spread to the edges of the company – not just from the PR department. As a result, PR groups have changed their mindset to safely enabling business units to communicate, based on pre-set parameters they put in place through governance, coordination, and workflow.

2 - Roll out enterprise workflows - education programs at four levels. We’ve found that savvy corporations have detailed workflows, including sample language in which employees should respond. Beyond creating these workflows, they must be distributed throughout the enterprise through education programs, and drilled. We’ve found savvy corporations have up to four types of education programs spanning: Executive team, social media team, business stakeholder teams, and finally all associates. Even if the mandate is for rank and file employees to not respond in social on behalf of the company, reinforcing education is still required.

3 - Run mock crises. Lastly, we’ve found a closer relationship with media relations, social media and crisis communications. Savvy corporations are working with agency partners such as NettResults to setup mock crisis drills where they approach a week-long crises in a number of hours in private. Not only does this test the mettle of the organization it provides useful training so companies can respond faster, in a more coordinated approach. We have already witnessed health organizations receiving ‘social-crises-ready’ compliance notices and we expect compliance programs to spread into other industries.

Get ready – take control.

Who are the key decision makers and are the spokes people media trained?

Every company has a organizational chart - a ladder of power, but how this structure functions during a crisis must be clarified with all the stakeholders in the company; particularly the communications department. A crisis can hit at any time, and the company needs to determine secondary command structures in case key decision-makers are unavailable at the time.

Not only is it important for those to know who need to spring to action (and how those people are contacted) - it is equally important that everyone else in the organization knows they can not speak on behalf of the company or to the press. Something that is best handled in a company employee handbook.

Organizations also need to decide which situations warrant which spokes person, and plan accordingly.

Most importantly, the spokes people need to be media trained in advance. Effective spokes people should receive professional media training and should be well versed on how to deal with the press. An organization's spokes person need not necessarily be the most senior staffers. For example, in some cases, the CEO is not the most efficient spokes person due to experience, knowledge or geographical location.

Why Small Businesses Need PR and How to Start

An owner of a small (less than $5 million) company asked me last week why companies engage in PR. It seemed so obvious, that I had to go back to the basics...

You know your company does great work. Your employees and clients know it, too. But until you start telling your story-and sharing your successes-with wider audiences, you're likely to remain the proverbial "best-kept secret."

Enter public relations. PR can help a company reach new audiences, achieve top-of-mind awareness, establish a leadership position and enhance image. In fact, some say the only difference between the no-name shops and the big-name firms is PR.

If you aren't already doing PR, you should be. And if you aren't sure where to begin, read on.

1 - Getting Started - First find your PR agency partner. Whether you follow an initial "gut" feeling or engage in a lengthier selection process, chemistry is likely to play a role in your choice of PR consultant. A PR consultant should become an integral part of your team-someone who you'll trust, be comfortable with and enjoy working with. To that end, most smaller firms are likely to prefer working with a small PR agency or sole practitioner in a principal-to-principal relationship. Large PR agencies-while ideal for huge corporations-are unlikely to deliver the level of service you need.

2 - Arranging the Terms - As with any service, there are various ways of contracting for PR consulting. Most agencies and consultants recommend that clients pay a monthly retainer. Of course, you also have the option of hiring them on a project basis with an hourly billing structure. Before you sign a contract, be sure to inquire about what services are included in your monthly fee. Whatever pricing structure you choose, it might be wise to begin with a six- to 12-month commitment. Long enough to get PR going and to test the waters, but short enough that you can make changes if it's not going to plan.

3 - Setting PR Goals - Once you begin your relationship with your PR consultant, it's important to have realistic expectations. For starters, don't expect overnight success. It will take a bit of time for the consultant to become intimately familiar with your firm and to build or update an arsenal of basic tools, such as your background, fact sheet and bios. And keep in mind that many publications are monthly or bimonthly and have long lead times. So even if your consultant makes contact quickly, it will likely take three to six months before you see any results from thier efforts. Above all, experts advise against expecting to garner a certain type of coverage in a particular publication. Rather than creating such limiting goals, focus on building a workable plan that will guide your activities and provide metrics for measuring your success. If a plan is put into place that provides a consistent approach and is strategically focused, goals will be met. The results you get will be equal to the amount of time and effort that's put into it. A consistent stream of pitches, press releases and meetings with the media will produce the best results.

4 - Maintaining Momentum - Even after the initial excitement wears off, you'll need to continually re-energize your commitment to your PR program. That will require frequent, consistent communication with your consultant. PR cannot be conducted successfully in a vacuum. It requires a time commitment from the principal to work with the PR consultant, share what's going on with the firm and actively participate in the process. A PR consultant should become an integral part of the team and be viewed as an investment in the future of the firm. In other words treat your PR effort as you would your most important client. The more attention you give it, the more satisfied you'll be with the results.

5 - Measure - Make sure the factors for success are clear from the beginning, so both the client and the agency know where they are heading and how they are doing against SMART goals. This allows for a meaningful conversation between the client/agency on a regular basis - focused on business requirements.

Good luck! The global economy is dependent upon these smaller businesses, so let's use PR to make them great, create jobs and stimulate growth.

PR and the power of a story...

I just read with interest the article that Meg O'Leary wrote on PRNewsOnce Upon a Time There Lived a Plot: The Importance of Storytelling. I've long been an advocate of storytelling in marketing and public relations. It just makes so much sense.

It's worth understanding why storytelling works. It's in-build into our DNA. We grow up listening to stories and frankly they are a darn sight more interesting than 90% of PR copy-writing out there.

A good story is one that touches people in some way. As PR professionals (storytellers), our mission is to involve the audience, make them interact with us and the story, even if it is just in their thoughts or core. A really good story has a sense of truth and resonates with some basic universal aspects of being human.

But it does more than that. We have stories because they:

- Build credibility

- Unleash Emotion

- Permission to Explore

- Influence Group-Thinking

- Create Heroes

- Vocabulary of Change

- Order out of Chaos

There is a simple way to look at good stories. Back in my youth I was involved in a movie production company and was asked to read my fair share of movie scripts. It very quickly became apparent that stories fell into one of two camps - 'usual people in unusual situations', or 'unusual people in usual situations'. Think about it. Think about your favorite book. Think about the last movie you went to see.

I believe there are six tips to think about when creating a story for PR purposes:

- Know your audience

- Keep it simple

- Stay fresh

- Be honest

- Demonstrate credibility

- Spark interest

There are also eight elements that in essence make a good story, the:

- protagonist

- antagonist

- inciting incident

- call to action

- dreadful alternative

- conflict

- quest or progression

- other characters

- transformation

- moral

You also could look at it another way - the 'wow' factor. Forbes had a great article about this written by Brett Nelson in July.

Lastly, thanks to Professor Brian Sturm from UNC Chapel Hill whom in 2007 had the foresight to record one of his lectures. There is a lot of value in the 45 minutes, and the first 8 minutes are fabulous.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFC-URW6wkU

Why not write a story today?

Ultimate Power to Shaving-Foam Pies – the good, the bad and the ugly…

Rupert Murdoch
- listed three times in the Time 100 as among the most influential people in the world
- ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes' The World's Most Powerful People list.
- net worth of US$7.6 billion,
- ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011

- ohh, and now part of a media crisis situation and getting shaving-foam pies thrown in his face.

And just incase you missed the news, the news you should be reading, is probably owned by Rup. From the recently closed News of the World and other ‘salubrious’ UK media such as The Sun, to the Wall Street Journal and into broadcasting - Fox Broadcasting Company to DirecTV.

In July of 2011 Murdoch became a prominent figure in the media after widespread allegations that the now defunct tabloid News of the World, owned by Murdoch's NewsCorps, had been regularly hacking the phones of private citizens.

Here’s the warning – even if you own a majority of the media, you can find yourself in a crisis communication situation.

What should be done?

We know the most effective cause of action in a crisis situation is:
Concern – Relief – Reassurance

Well, Rup did show concern & reassurance - On the 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologized for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns. On the 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns.

What did he do wrong?

Another basic lesson in crisis communications is:
Tell it all – tell it soon – tell it truthfully

Well Rup doesn’t get full points on this scale – in fact it took a summons (after a polite request) to get him to appear before parliament in the UK.

But the biggest sin is credibility. Rup just doesn’t have any:
1 – Rups response to a Member of Parliament’s question: “Do you accept that ultimately, you are responsible for this whole fiasco?” Without equivocation, Murdoch replied “No.” He, instead, pointed a finger at subordinates.
2 – He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid.
3 – news already out that the phone hacking scandal is the subject of a new book by Guardian reporter Nick Davies and publishers Faber and Faber.
4 – his son is the CEO...

Oh, you interrupt, but wasn’t it great how he expressed it was his most humbling day of his life?

But it takes the HuffPost to really put this in context:

Following several days of coaching by lawyers and PR experts, it must have been really rattling for Rupert and James Murdoch when showtime arrived to learn that the parliamentary committee questioning them would not permit opening statements. Framing, after all, is the name of the game.

To control the package that the narrative comes in is to control the meaning of the story.

No wonder Rupert Murdoch felt compelled to interrupt his son at the top of his first answer to say, "This is the most humble day of my life." That was the frame his team had planned, not some "what did you know, and when did you know it?" storyline that the committee wanted to pursue.

So today we learn to take one of the best examples of ‘framing’ to our next crisis communication scenario.

How marketing messages change post revolution - lessons from Egypt

As the Wall Street Journal recently covered, there has been an increase in ad spending in certain sectors in Egypt, but perhaps more interesting is the anecdotal evidence in the change of messages that are resonating with consumers.

In the weeks since Egypt's uprising, the television airwaves and Cairo's streets have been filled with revolutionary slogans.

"Build your country!" shout billboards hovering over the city's congested roads. "Develop your country!" urges another over smaller text demanding that Egyptians "Don't stop!"

But the signs aren't the work of revolutionaries. They are advertisements for Snicker's, the candy brand owned by Mars Inc., the U.S.-based confectioner.

Since thousands of protesters ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in a nearly three-week revolt, the enthusiasm for revolution has been redirected and repackaged for television ads, billboards and jingles selling products including hair gel, soft drinks and candy.

A television spot for Coca-Cola Co.'s Coke, which looks similar to a Latin American commercial called "Sky," shows hundreds of kids dressed in trendy clothes climbing to the tops of buildings in downtown Cairo. There, they lasso the sun, pull it out from behind menacing storm clouds and bask in the radiant glory that is the new Egypt. "Make tomorrow better!" the slogan beseeches.

A Pepsi ad urges: 'Think, Participate, Dream, Express who you are.'

Local brands are not to be left behind. A restaurateur renamed his cafe "January 25 Cafe," after the starting date of the uprising. In the middle-class Cairo suburb of Agouza, a billboard for Mink brand hair gel shows a young man with a spiky hairdo. The background of the billboard is an Egyptian flag next to a slogan that reads, "I am Egyptian."

This re-messaging for the Egyptian market has helped to lift ad spending in Egypt for consumer products.

Ad spending in Egypt actually increased to about $329 million in May from $310 million in February, according to data from Ipsos, a regional advertising and marketing research firm.

The revolution was hard on high-end products and large investments. Expenditures on household appliances and real estate between February and May of this year were down 46% and 44%, respectively, from a year earlier.

But in the category of fast-moving consumer goods, Egyptian advertising has increased in 2011. Advertising of soft drinks and snacks and appetizers surged 30% over the same period.

How will the more subtle art of public relations re-package messages in Egypt? We think the answer is obvious.

Why does public relations exist?

Hear it from NettResults' official spokes person:

What do you think?

How today’s media is changing Public Relations

The Huffington Post built a media empire from the digital zeitgeist.

 The Huff’s genius involved a nose for water-cooler conversation and an eye for resultant keyword searches. Its unreal ability to dominate the search by re-serving the public what it was already discussing allowed HuffPo to exit for a very real $300 million. 

 For the sake of comparison, Newsweek sold for $1. 

 Is Newsweek 300 million times worse than The Huffington Post? 

 Of course not. 

 But Newsweek never decoded that hidden strand of The Huffington Post’s DNA: Today’s winners no longer try to make news; they instead try to be nearby when news is made. 

 And here is the bedrock of where media is changing PR. For PR folks to be successful they shouldn’t try to be the news; they should try to participate in news.

Easy to understand, so how does that happen? We’ve represented many different types of client at NettResults – some have experienced spokespeople and some do not. Here’s what we have learned:

1 – if a company does not have a spokesperson then there needs to be a lot of news around new unique features or advanced product development that the user actually cares about.

2 – better (and less expensive for the company) to have a spokes person.

Next up – how do we get that spokes person to participate in the news?

Back to traditional PR – the ability of an agency to position that spokesperson with the media through introductions, interview and good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction. Through this process, the spokes person gains the ‘credibility’ of the media. Yes, vital – credibility. It doesn’t happen overnight and it is a distinct and almost contradictory PR action than the daily KPI of gaining publicity.

Once credibility has been obtained, it is the job of the agency to keep the media informed on what subject matter the spokes person has preferential insight to – most probably because of their corporate experience. This is how the spokesperson becomes an ‘expert’ in their area of business.

Then, later on in time, when the news is looking like it is approaching the subject that the spokesperson has claimed insight and credibility, it is the job of the agency to showcase that spokesperson. This could be as simple as a one-to-one contact (picking up the phone) or it may be more appropriate to showcase the spokesperson in a one-to-many communication (for example a press release).

Before the spokesperson is ready to reach out to the media and fulfill their spokesperson duty, it is the agency that has to create and curate timely content around the news.

It’s not rocket science, but it does take some medium term planning to achieve success.

Births, deaths and marrages...

My late grandmother used to have me read the births, deaths and marriages section of The Times every day after lunch (this was before I was old enough to go to school or too young to look after myself in school holidays).

I never really understood why she was so interested... but it turns out (yet again) my grandmother was more in touch with the mass media than I knew and understood exactly what the consumers of media are interested in.

The world's news reads very much like the announcements section of one of those old fashioned paper newspapers... all birth certificates, weddings and obituaries.

The long-form of Obama's birth certificate was all news worthy and took much of the press space until...
The Wedding took over. Whether it was the kiss, Pippa's dress or the Aston Martin, it was all we could talk about until...
The death of the century took over.

So I guess the question is - who's birth, death or marriage is coming next?

Top 10 most common myths about public relations

When it comes to teaching about Public Relations I often get students asking me questions that I think are really obvious. And then when I go to clients whom have not previously conducted public relations outreach, the questions and prior assumptions move the straight out strange.

So, with a little help from our friends at About.com, it is time to dispel some of these myths in hopes of helping students, business owners and others - avoid serious PR problems.

• Myth 1: Any Press is Good Press
• Myth 2: PR is All about Press Releases and Press Conferences
• Myth 3: Once You Break Through with Publicity, You're Golden
• Myth 4: Myth: Publicity is Free and Easy
• Myth 5: You Need to Hire an Expensive PR Firm
• Myth 6: Good Products Don't Need Publicity - - Only Bad Products Do
• Myth 7: Public Relations Can't be Measured and is Therefore Worthless
• Myth 8: PR Means Schmoozing and Controlling the Press
• Myth 9: Only Ex-Reporters Can Do It
• Myth 10: Public Relations is Spin, Slogans and Propaganda

There are many myths and misconceptions about PR that are not only wrong, but it many cases dangerously wrong. What else would you consider to be a PR myth?

Overused buzzwords in marketing

Last month, PR strategist Adam Sherk took 25 of the most overused buzzwords in marketing and PR—he compiled a list of the top 100 and ran them through PRFilter, a website from RealWire that aggregates press releases.

The results: “Solution” led the pack with 243 appearances.

Shortly after he published the post, PRFilter set the record straight: “Solution” did not appear in press releases 243 times; it appeared 622 times—and it was the second most common buzzword.

The most common word is “leading,” which showed its face 776 times—in one 24-hour stretch.

Here’s the full list—compliments of Adam Sherk and PRFilter:

1. leading (776)
2. solution (622)
3. best (473)
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)
5. leader (410)
6. top (370)
7. unique (282)
8. great (245)
9. extensive (215)
10. leading provider (153)
11. exclusive (143)
12. premier (136)
13. flexible (119)
14. award winning / winner (106)
15. dynamic (95)
16. fastest (70)
17. smart (69)
18. state of the art (65)
19. cutting edge (54)
20. biggest (54)
21. easy to use (51)
22. largest (34)
23. real time (8)

What's the word you use the most?

Video - is that what it's all about?

Hear it from NettResults' official spokes person: