Archive for August, 2011

You Don’t Need To Know Everything

11.08.29

I recently took on a new role within Edelman (it’s a good thing, don’t worry), and as a result have begun working with a new team – once again, spread across different offices. Last week, I made a trip down to our DC office to meet with several of them.

You know what I did down there?

I learned.

I sat with each member of the team there and asked them what they did on a day-to-day basis; how they saw themselves within the team; what was going well and what wasn’t, and how I could help them. When they had questions I answered, but in general I said as little as possible and just absorbed.

I found it immensely valuable.

It seems like common sense, but I don’t think many people manage to find the time to make these sorts of meetings happen. To me though, they’re among the most important conversations that I will have in the near future – these are the people I’ll be working with day in, day out; getting to know them, what makes them tick, what they like and dislike and what they need from me will make it a thousand times easier to do my job. Plus, they’re a great group of people who I really like, which makes things even better.

I know that I’m good at what I do. By the same token, I know that my new colleagues are good at what they do, too (really freakin’ good), and that we have a tonne to learn from each other. I certainly didn’t learn everything over the space of a few hours meeting with them, but it’s a start.

What’s more — and critically — through these meetings I let them know that I don’t pretend to know their jobs. I’ll rely on them to educate me and on the leaders of the team to let me know where I’m needed, so I can focus appropriately.

Will I have ideas? Sure. I already do. However, I’m making sure I take the time to make sure that my ideas are grounded in reality and not just flights of fancy, and that I don’t just interfere in things that are working well when there are things that really do need my attention.

My old boss gave me a good piece of advice recently — he said you don’t need to know everything; instead, you need to develop a team around you that you can trust and that can make sure you know everything you need to, so you can help where you’re needed and get out of the way where you’re not.

Good advice.

Posted in: Agency life

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Book Review: Social Marketing to the Business Customer

11.08.22

Despite all of the books out there about social media, most of them are pretty generic or focus on end-user 101s. So, when I heard about Social Marketing to the Business Customer (by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman), I picked-up a copy straight away — because I think the marketplace is desperately in need of solid B2B books offering practical social marketing advice.

The bottom line: I’ve already recommended this book to several colleagues looking to learn more about social media from a B2B perspective. Even if you’ve worked in the social media space for a while, this book offers useful pointers and case studies that will help you to think differently about how you approach B2B social marketing.

For me, three key things stand out about this book:

1. It acknowledges that social media isn’t the second coming. While, per the title, the book is totally about social marketing, the authors frequently remind the reader that there are other promotional tactics available to business owners, and points out that social media isn’t always the best set of tools to use. A little dash of reality is essential to a book on this topic, when everyone else sometimes seem to have the blinkers on.

2. It brings new case studies to the table. We’ve all heard about the obvious case studies a hundred times. Dell, Starbucks, and so on (disclosure: Starbucks is an Edelman client). If you’ve read a social media book, you’ve heard their stories and you’ve learned all you will from them at this point. They’re in this book too, but so are organizations like InnoCentive, the Oil Spill Recovery Institute and the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts. In fact, along with the examples spread liberally throughout the book, there’s a whole chapter consisting purely of case studies of eight diverse organizations using social media in diverse ways.

Why does this matter?

Because you’re much more likely to be able to relate to one of these companies than you are to the giant first movers.

What’s more, this book doesn’t just talk inputs, it talks outcomes – it lets you know the results of those companies’ social media activities. In doing so it provides the substance that you need to take those case studies to your management to help convince them that your ideas are good ones.

3. It’s written for the average B2B marketer. You don’t need to be a social media expert; you don’t even need to be a digital marketer. You just need to have a good marketing head on your shoulders to understand and get value from this book, as it starts you at the beginning of the planning process and takes you through to tool selection and measurement. That’s why I’ve recommended it to colleagues who are looking to learn more about this topic — because it will help them go from 0 to 30 in B2B social media marketing. Our digital team can help them along the rest of the way.

Of course, there are things I would change. The chapter on ROI makes a LOT of assumptions, and I noticed more grammar errors in the book than in most others that I’ve read recently. They didn’t detract from the value in the book, though — and the fact that there IS a chapter on ROI made me happy.

Who should read this: People looking to gain a basic understanding of B2B social media. If you’re in this boat, Social Marketing to the Business Customer is a worthwhile read.

Who should avoid this: Purely B2C marketers (although you may still learn some useful pointers) and people at an advanced level of knowledge in the B2B social media space.

What you’ll learn:

  • Use cases for social media in B2B marketing
  • How other companies have successfully used social media in the B2B space
  • How you can go about planning and optimizing your own activities
  • Ways of measuring the return on your investment

Posted in: books

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Newsflash: PR is Not Easy, Cheap or Quick

11.08.16

As I continue to work towards my challenge of reading 26 books in 2011  (an aside: I’m up to 18 right now – two ahead of schedule), I recently finished reading Michael Crichton’s book State Of Fear. Within it, one section got my attention, and neatly illustrates why so many people think PR is cheap and easy.

For context, the following excerpt reflects a discussion on the media relations surrounding a new environmental conference, four days ahead of the first day of the conference (emphasis in the excerpt is mine):

“What’s the time-line of the campaign?”

“It’s a standard starburst launch to bring public awareness to abrupt climate change [...] we have our initial press break on Sunday-morning talk shows and in the Sunday newspaper supplements. They’ll be talking about the start of the conference Wednesday and interviewing major photogenic principals [...] we’ve given enough lead time to get into all the major weekly newsbooks around the world, Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, Oggi, The Economist. All together, fifty news magazines to inform lead opinion makers. We’ve asked for cover stories, accepting banner folds with a graphic. Anything less and they didn’t get us. We expect covers on at least twenty.”

WHAT???

Yes, it’s just a novel (not a particularly good one, frankly) but things like this shape peoples’ perceptions of the PR industry, so I feel compelled to point out a few things for the record:

  1. The world’s top media won’t all cover your brand new conference. It’s a struggle to get attention from even local tier one media in many cases, when travel budgets are low and conferences are a dime a dozen. Twenty cover stories? No chance unless you’re hosting the whole world at your event. In this book, the character notes a little later that they will have 200 TV journalists alone, along with “a number of print media people to carry the word to elite opinion makers, the ones that read but do not watch TV.” Ugh.
  2. You don’t get to dictate how earned media cover you. You can do your best to influence it, but “my way or the highway” is a myth.
  3. Four days lead time is not enough. In the book, the media kit for the conference was still in development, four days ahead of the conference (which, funnily enough, puts the conversation at the same time the coverage was meant to come out… ah, plot holes…). Sorry, you’ve missed a lot of your weeklies.
No wonder clients have such overly high expectations for their PR folks. Of course clients making a 30-minute presentation at a conference will want tier-one media coverage, if their experience of PR is limited to misrepresentation like this.
Again, it’s a novel and Crichton (as far as I know) isn’t representing himself as any kind of PR expert. Still, a little more of a grounding in reality would be nice, no? Or am I just overly sensitive? Maybe I am. There’s a State Of Fear pun here somewhere…
Ok, my blood pressure is dropping again. Moving on…

Posted in: pr, public relations

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The Top Misused Words in PR

11.08.12

Ragan’s PR Daily published a post yesterday listing their top 10 words often misused in press releases.

Their list:

  • Quality
  • Unique
  • Innovation
  • Official
  • Exclusive
  • Breaking
  • Never/ever
  • Revolutionary
  • Literally
  • Social
I’d have to agree with most of those. It feels like every new product that is launched claims to be “revolutionary” or “innovative”, and “social” is without doubt one of the most abused terms right now. No, adding a “share” button to your site doesn’t make your product “social.”
Why stop at ten words, though? Here are a couple more words that PR people seem to butcher on a daily basis:
  • Leading – It feels like every company claims to be the “leading” company in its industry. Most of the time the claim just isn’t true. Other times, they define their industry so narrowly that it’s accurate while still being meaningless. Once in a blue moon it’s realistic.I’m the leading red-haired digital PR guy sitting on my side of the Edelman Toronto office. It’s true. Also, no-one cares (sob).
  • Ultimate – This one’s a personal peeve. If your new product is the ultimate product for the market,  that means you’ll never need to release a follow-up, right? Oh, wait, you will? Guess it’s not so “ultimate” then. Sheesh.
What would you add to the list?

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Thoughts on Disconnecting

11.08.10

You may have noticed that things have been quieter than usual here recently. If you didn’t know, two weeks ago I got married and as I type this, I’m sitting on a plane on the way back from two blissful weeks spent completely offline on honeymoon in Italy.

At the Colosseum in Rome

While many of our vacations focus on adventure and exploration, this time we made a conscious decision to set aside at least half of the vacation for relaxation as the last few months have been… well, manic, to say the least. So, I had plenty of time to think, and I got to thinking about the effect that being offline had on how I thought and acted while we were away.

A few words come to mind:

  1. Old-school!
  2. Refreshing
  3. Disconnected

Resourcefulness

Yu know how you don’t appreciate a good thing until it’s gone? As I rapidly discovered while staying in a villa with no Internet access on the Amalfi Coast (it’s a tough life, I know), I use the Internet for a lot. A lot. No Internet meant no Google Maps; no Trip Advisor; no online bus schedule; no Google searches; nothing.

Was this tough? Absolutely not – it’s not that long since we didn’t have any of these things. However, it did make me reflect on just how much we use the Internet for nowadays. We had to search out real maps (you know, the ones “old people” use) and ask around for recommendations from local people. We had to use a phrasebook instead of Google Translate.

Again, I’m not crying “boo freakin’ hoo” here, but every time I take an offline vacation I find that the Internet had filled more and more functions for me, and I find that fascinating.

Refreshing

The view from Ravello, on the Amalfi Coast

The last six months have been, in a word, exhausting. We bought a house, renovated it, got married, and I was working long hours in the office. With everything that was going on, I found the opportunity to go completely offline reinvigorating.

Going from 300+ emails a day to none; waking up in the morning and not checking Twitter and Facebook; and not feeling like I should be Twitpic-ing photos of the sunset on the coast was completely refreshing. I highly recommend everyone unplug occasionally and just unwind.

Disconnected

Setting aside the hugely positive aspects of being offline, I did feel disconnected. I wondered what was going on with my friends. I wondered what was going on with my family. I wondered what was going on at the office. Not being able to reach out and connect with people whenever I felt like it was strange. And, yes, I did often think “I should totally post this photo” before realizing I couldn’t. It was unsettling at first, but the feeling passed.

Still, social networks are all about connecting with other people. I did miss those connections.

Looking ahead

The last two weeks were absolutely blissful and we couldn’t have had a better honeymoon. With that said, I return from it reinvigorated and re-energized, and I look forward to diving back into the things and relationships that matter to me – friends, family and colleagues – with more energy than ever before!

Posted in: miscellaneous, personal

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