Links & Blinks | May 28
- Three Minds – the Organic blog… which lead me to…
- Findability.org – good read… which lead me to…
- Social Software Building blocks
- Interesting read from Nicholas Carr
- User generated Advertising isn’t all its cracked up to be…
- Don McGlashan’s Warm Hand via Peter Griffin.. Which includes a song on a bad, bad PR Man…
As the PR man, working late, looks at the photos of the fire’s aftermath he managed to keep from the press, he reflects on the nature of his job:
I look at the photographs once more in the Manhattan sunset
The same light falls on the one of my wife and my kids
Then I put them back in the file
Permit myself a smile
Keeping them hidden was the best work I ever did‘Cause people like us, we do make the world better
And if it’s better for us, it’s better for everyone
I open the window to the rush hour sirens on West Street
I see the Power and the Glory all over this town
All over this town…
The Top 10 Reasons Why PR Doesn’t Work
PR DOES WORK. If I look across our marketing mix today it remains strategically important. And of all the vendor – agency relationships, the one with the PR Agency is certainly the most trying and important.
While PR does work, apparently these are the Top 10 Reasons why PR doesn’t work – from over at the PRSite. This is a pretty typical list based on pretty unsophisticated clients.
Here are a couple of other reasons that I’ve seen occur regularly here in the Valley – where the clients can be very sophisticated:
- When the Agency really invests to grok the client’s business, PR works big time. Lack of understanding by the PR agency of the clients business. The Agency applies the formula that worked – or is working best – to the new clients business rather that truly understanding the client’s business…
- … which is often a result of very junior staff pretty much doing all the work on accounts that require senior experience (PR Works where the internal and external team mix is right!)…
- …which means, they fail to grok the client’s audience and tailor the media campaign for that audience…
- … which is worsened by the client that doesn’t grok their audience, what they read, or what their circle of influence is… PR Works where everyone groks the audience and understands how to communicate effectively with them – and that might mean skipping the media alltogether.
- Clients don’t manage the relationship with brutal honestly and accountability. And that gets exacerbated by lack of clear and agreed outcomes at the get-go. PR Works when you start with the end in mind and measure progress along the way.
- Agencies value work done over outcomes delivered… PR Works where the Client is clear about what they value.
- … but don’t invest to deliver value add in terms of measurement and strategy. If it ain’t on the clock, it ain’t happening. PR Works where the Agency invests in adding value.
- and the main one… The Agency doesn’t deliver on the implied or direct promist of coverage. This is often a result of Agency selection processes that resemble beauty paradaes. Here the Agency is forced to sell agressively and often sets a bar which they then struggle to get over. This goes back to 6 & 7, in part. PR Works where there has been an effort to look for the right things in a relationship.
Good News… Soon, no more thinking required…
Google is going to do it all for us apparently.
Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation. The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”
Read It and Lacrimate
A hilarious piece on the verbosity of the PR profession. Guilty as charged!
Nice Analogy
I enjoyed this post over at Always On from Ezra Roizen – nice analogy:
The startup game is often one of aerodynamics and drag. The number of factors working against a new company is almost infinite, and most companies are unable to ever really achieve lift-off. Beating “startup drag” takes nearly perfect aerodynamics: a beautifully designed product, brilliant marketing, financial acumen, the whole shebang—all in concert and accompanied by great timing (and a bit of luck). It’s tough to think of a substantial Internet company that didn’t have a pretty sleek and aerodynamic concept at the start. Google (search), eBay (online markets) and Amazon (online shopping) were all elegantly designed and implemented.
To get the aerodynamics right, almost all startups require a combination of time, money, and experience. Normally, getting off the ground takes an excess of at least one of those ingredients. Investment capital for rapid expansion can be a surrogate for time spent slowly building a business through operations—just as experience can be a surrogate for money, allowing the company to skip wasteful steps on the learning curve, and so on.
