Archive for the ‘blogger relations’ Category

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Molson Gives A Crash Course In Relationship-Building

08.07.06

Every so often you see something that makes you sit up and think, “wow, these guys are on the ball.” I saw that from the folks over at Molson this week.

Brew 2.0

Brew 2.0 A few weeks ago I received a pitch from Molson’s PR firm inviting me to an event called “Brew 2.0.” As the pitch put it, “[…] to introduce their new breed of brew, [Molson] lined up Brewers Ian Douglass & Bryan Eagan, booked a badass room in the ACC & organized a tasting for the awesomest geeks in Toronto.”

This wasn’t the “wow” moment. To be honest I was originally more than a little confused as to why they invited me, a PR blogger who’s about as likely to write about a new beer as I am to brew it (or so I thought!). Still, it was free beer and I had a free evening so I thought “sure, why not” and agreed to attend.

I approached Molson communications rep Tonia Hammer at the event and asked her that same question. Her response was essentially that they wanted to start to get to know a few folks in the space. Fair enough – I’m open to that.

The rest of the evening was good – you can read more in Tonia’s write-up or Eden Spodek’s post – as expected, beer flowed freely, the people were great and I came away planning to write precisely nothing about the event.

The follow-up

Fast-forward to last week. I was a few days from hosting a barbecue at my house and had invited a bunch of social media types to come on out. Imagine my surprise when I got a direct message on Twitter from Tonia:

“Heard you’re having a bbq this weekend – want to drop off some ‘samples’ for the party!! Let me know when you’re avail. for a beer drop”

I let her know where and when I was free and sure enough, the next day a whole lot of beer arrived at my door. What’s more, Tonia remembered what I was drinking at the Brew 2.0 event and included some of that in the mix.

Would this have worked if Tonia (and Molson) hadn’t already established a relationship with me before hearing about the barbecue? I doubt it. In fact, I probably would have thought it was a little creepy that they found out I was hosting a barbecue.

In reality, Molson’s approach did work – for several reasons:

  • They pre-established a relationship with me
  • They communicated casually with me (not in bureaubabble)
  • They proactively reached out when they saw an opportunity that would genuinely benefit both sides
  • They contacted me through the tools that I choose to use
  • They didn’t ask me to write anything about their products in return
    • In fact, they went to pains to say we weren’t expected to write anything about Brew 2.0 and when it came to the barbecue they didn’t even mention my site.

It was still a risky ploy – I’m sure some people might not have reacted well to being approached like this – but it worked for me. That’s the benefit you get from connecting with people early-on – you learn what works for them and what doesn’t.

The results

  1. Me, writing this post about their blogger outreach
  2. Twenty or so people who drank free beer all night and will likely tell their friends all about it
  3. Photographs like these:

Eden Spodek, David Spodek and Rick Weiss

What do you think about this kind of outreach? Would it have worked for you? What would you have done differently?

(Image credits: Tonia Hammer, Dave Fleet)

Posted in: blogger relations

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Metallica Update: Post ‘Em All

08.06.12

A quick update on the Metallica situation – as I wondered in my earlier post about the Metallica/blogger review situation, it looks like this was a giant mis-communication that blew up in the band’s face. Metallica released a statement on their website:

“…once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was “WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record. . . that makes no sense to us!””

The band has apparently taken matters into their own hands, and posted links to the reviews themselves. Good call, guys.

The only thing missing from their statement is an apology for the screw-up. Who knows, perhaps that happened privately. It might have been better for them to come out and say it publicly though.

Regardless, I did chuckle at the thought of “…a few rounds of managerial ear spank and sentencing everyone at [management company] Q Prime to 20 push-ups each…”

</blogostorm>

Posted in: blogger relations, crisis communications, public relations

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Metallica: …And Censorship For All

08.06.11

Metallica has done it again. Forget going after people pirating their music; this time they’ve gone after people writing about it… after inviting them to hear it.

The Story So Far

MetallicaHere’s how the story goes: Metallica representatives recently played tracks from their upcoming album to a bunch of critics/bloggers/journalists (depending on whose take on this you read). They then (surprise surprise) blogged about what they heard.

As Wired’s Listening Post blog reports:

“At no point was the writer ask[ed] to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The Quietus and other websites ran pieces on the album, but were quickly contacted by Metallica’s management via a third party and told to remove the articles.”

Blogostorm

Surprise surprise – a storm has erupted in the blogosphere:

You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to tell how Metallica is coming across in these posts but in case it wasn’t clear, here’s a quote from the CNet piece:

In the wide world of music, our level of distrust first begins with the RIAA, but Metallica is running a close second.

PR Disaster

It’s hard to imagine a worse PR disaster for a band that, until this point Metallica had seemed to be warming to the Internet recently.

They’ve allowed their tunes to be sold through iTunes, they have a cool new website, Mission: Metallica and Ethan Kaplan, head of technology at Warner Bros records (who was behind the new site) gushed about some of their latest efforts at mesh 2008 recently. It seems, though, that they still have a lot to learn.

However, Metallica lost much of their credibility with fans after going after Napster a few years ago – a move that still looms large in peoples’ minds (and was the first thing out of the mouths of my colleagues when I discussed this with them today).

On top of that, consider that this revolves around an event where writers were invited to listen to the new songs, without a non-disclosure agreement… and that their reviews were largely positive by all accounts.

Recovery?

How can the band dig its way out of this situation?

Before thinking about that, you need to ask yourself a couple of important questions:

Should they just move on?

Is this situation salvageable? Given the apparent contradiction in their approach to this situation so far, perhaps it’s best for the band to ride this one out and learn from their mistakes.

Do they need to respond?

Metallica has a die-hard fan base. They’ve been around for 27 years now, and many of their fans are long-time listeners that, quite frankly, won’t be put off by a few bad articles in the press. Let’s face it, they’ve been getting those since they put out the ‘Load’ album back in the ’90s.

Still, some of the comments I’ve read recently seem to indicate that they’ve even managed to annoy some hard-core fans. Perhaps some damage-control is in order.

What To Do?

Knowing that they’re unlikely to go the Nine Inch Nails route, what could they do?

Go One Better?

Why not let those the writers listen to the full album once it’s done (along with an assurance they can write about it)? No bribing, just an honest attempt to make things better.

Personally I think this might be problematic. There’s not a lot of trust in Metallica right now, as I discussed earlier. What’s more, I’m not sure these publications would give them a second chance. The horse may have already bolted on this one (insert Ride the Lightning pun here).

Apologize

Someone, somewhere has screwed up. Maybe the band didn’t know about the advance listening and freaked out. Maybe two people in the record company got their wires crossed. Maybe someone forgot to arrange for a non-disclosure agreement. Who knows.

If the band wants to say anything about this situation, they need to apologize first. Whatever went wrong, they need to figure it out and apologize to the people involved. Don’t point fingers at the writers or make excuses. Just say sorry.

That’s my take on this one. I’m not sure I can see a way for Metallica to come out of this looking good. Their options seem to be to either ride this one out or to risk re-stirring the pot and apologizing.

I think the damage may be done. Perhaps the ‘duck and cover’ approach might be better here. What do you think?

Can you think of a way Metallica could salvage this situation?

Posted in: blogger relations, crisis communications, public relations

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Enough With Blogger Strategies!

08.03.04

I attended an event recently where I had the pleasure of chatting with a number of executives about social media.

All a-buzz with buzz words

The ‘in’ term seemed to be “blogging strategies” – “we need a blogging strategy for what we’re doing…”

While it wasn’t the time or the place for a lecture on not leaping in too quickly, I squirmed inside every time I heard the term, because I knew they meant it in one of two ways:

  • We should have a blog for every initiative we do, or
  • We should be pitching our initiatives to bloggers.

There’s more to social media than blogs

I’m thrilled that these folks, some of whom I already knew and have great respect for, are excited about social media. However, I worry about people launching headlong into ill-advised, poorly thought-out initiatives, getting burned and not coming back for more, just because it’s the ‘in’ thing to do.

Social media is about more than blogging or blogger relations. These are two great tactics, but just as with any other communications project you should take a look at the situation and pick the appropriate tools.

Don’t dive in head-first

To compound the problem of narrowly defining social media, rushing into blogging or blogger relations is a bad idea.

Getting into blogging and blogger relations

Now Is GoneThere are three basic steps that I think every company looking at both blogging and blogger relations should undertake:

  • Listen
    • Sit back, relax and read. Check out what people are writing about your company, your products and your executives
    • Use free tools like Google Blogsearch, BlogPulse and Technorati to track what’s going on
    • While you’re doing this, work out who the influencers are
    • If you really want to shine, consider creating a media clippings-like product, summarizing online coverage, and circulate it internally
  • Engage
    • Bit by bit, start to comment on posts about your brand. Take it slow to start with – focus on the influencers and expand from there
      Update: Your initial comments shouldn’t be on posts about your brand. Get involved in the wider conversation and build a relationship with bloggers before starting to engage about your brand. If you find they don’t want comments from PR people about their clients, respect that.
    • Take care in selecting who to respond to and how to respond
  • Contribute

In reality, I’d recommend additional steps (like considering whether your organization is even ready for this kind of environment), but these three steps are a good start. For more tips on blogger relations, check out Lee Odden’s excellent primer and work through the links at the bottom.

Thinking of steps to success, what advice would you give to organizations looking to get into blogging or blogger relations? What are your favourite resources?

Posted in: blogger relations, blogging

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RichardatDell Visits Third Tuesday Toronto

07.11.26

richard-binhammer Richard Binhammer, aka RichardatDell, will speak at a Third Tuesday Toronto (which I’m quickly realizing is possibly the most arbitrary name ever) on December 4.

Richard is one of the key figures behind Dell’s emergence from Jeff Jarvis’s Dell Hell as a social media-savvy company, and his insights into Dell’s social media efforts should make for fascinating listening.

A small bit of trivia for you: Richard actually started his career in the Ontario government. As he told me, “Cabinet office folk always in way:-)” Thanks Richard :)

If you’re in the Ottawa area, Richard is also speaking at a Third Tuesday Ottawa meet-up on December 3.

To attend the events, sign up here:

Another big tip of my hat to Joseph Thornley for organizing yet another great event. Joe, I’ll buy you a drink tomorrow :)

Posted in: blogger relations

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Using Social Media To Create Social Media Training

07.11.12

Communications training courses on traditional strategies and tactics just don’t cut it any more. The ever-increasing rate of change on the Internet, and its emerging impact on media consumption, means organizations need to seriously consider offering social media training to their employees.

This environment, along with a few well-documented faux-pas by PR practitioners, has had me thinking about this topic a lot recently.

I got to thinking, "What should a social media 101 course offer?" I work with a lot of people who have no knowledge of social media. If I had one day to teach people a few key basics, what would they be?

Then I thought, "Why not use social media to create that program?" So, I’m trying something different here.

I’ve established the Social Media Training Wiki at http://socialtraining.wetpaint.com and given it some basic structure.

I’m throwing out a challenge to the online PR community: As a community, let’s develop a best-practice social media 101 training program.

Let’s create a one-day, scratch-the-surface program that will help employees who are new to this social media thing to find their feet.

Let’s put it out there for the good of the community.

Let’s encourage people to adapt it and adopt it.

Let’s see if we can raise the bar for social media knowledge in our organizations.

Check out the wiki. Participate. Input. Discuss.

A wider understanding of social media benefits us all.

Posted in: blogger relations, blogging, news release, pitching, pr, public relations, smnr, social media, social networks, training, web 2.0

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Public Relations Professionals Need To Get The Basics Right

07.11.09

In the wake of the ongoing bad PR pitches storm, I had a *slap forehead* moment this week when I (finally) realized the problem isn’t just about public relations professionals not ‘getting’ blogger relations. It’s not about people upgrading their skills to deal with this new media environment. This is about public relations professionals getting the public relations fundamentals right.

I love Todd’s blogger relations bookmark – it’s a great primer for people getting involved with blogger relations. We should also remember, though, that the people pitching Chris Anderson were pitching him as the Editor In Chief of Wired magazine, not as a blogger.

The principles remain the same, though: Know your market. Research who to pitch. Find out what they write about. Tailor your approach. Don’t spam people. It’s not rocket science!

Terry Fallis and David Jones discussed on Inside PR a little while back that fall into PR rather than choose it. This is by no means unique to PR. Still, I wonder if a lack of training for those who enter PR without a formal education contributes to the problems we hear about hear about daily.

A large part of my job involves managing about 30 training courses in our own internal communications program. We provide a place where government communicators can upgrade their skills or fill the gaps in their knowledge.

Obviously small agencies don’t have the resources to offer a full program like this. How does they go about training new staff?

I wonder: Do PR agencies offer training (whether internally or contracted-out) to their staff or are people expected to just know how to go about it? Are people thrown into the deep end and expected to float?

As we’ve all seen recently, that seems to be a recipe for disaster.

Posted in: blogger relations, pitching, pr, public relations, training

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PR Squared’s Blogger Relations Bookmark

07.11.01

Todd Defren posted a great Blogger Relations Bookmark on his PR Squared blog today.

The bookmark is, in part, a response to the storm that Chris Anderson kicked-off this week with his "Sorry PR People: You’re Blocked" post, where he named and shamed people he felt had emailed him inappropriately.

I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I’m interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that [...] Everything else gets banned on first abuse.

PR-Squared's Blogger Relations BookmarkLots of people have written much more eloquently about this than I could, so I’ll just say that I sympathize with Chris but disagree with his listing of email addresses.

Unfortunately, the resulting discussion seem to have lowered the tone of online discussion between PR pros and journalists to a new low.

I find the vitriolic comments flying back and forth distasteful and saddening. I don’t want to be involved in discussions like those, so I’ve stayed away from commenting on other sites on this issue.

One positive thing that has come out of this is an explosion of posts detailing how to effectively pitch bloggers. None have impressed me more than Todd’s.

Why is Todd’s post useful? First up, it links to a bunch of useful resources on best practices. It also shares Todd’s own best practices in a format that PR pros can print out and refer to when they delve into the blogosphere.

(I just realized I mention Todd’s blog quite frequently. You know why? Because it rocks. If you don’t read it, you should. Seriously. Why are you still here? Go there now)

Posted in: blogger relations, pitching, pr, public relations

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