Public Relations has often been portrated as “the power behind the throne.”  The voice that whispers sage counsel to those in leadership positions.

In part this makes sense: “power” in the raw sense depends on the willingness of underlings to obey their marching orders.  Revolutions occur when the masses (including employees, Boards of Directors, etc.) decide that their leaders are incompetent or untrustworthy. 

Thus, “public relations” is a way to ensure that powerful forces bend to the will of the people … or at least come across that way!

But as the era of socialized communications dawns, it’s no longer acceptable for PR pros to shrug their way out of troubling situations with the lame excuse that, “I’m just the PR person.”

We’re out in the open. The advice of the “grand vizier” is no longer a whisper but is essentially shouted with a bullhorn.  Journalists and bloggers will publish our pitches, our names, our mistakes, without hesitation.  Our case studies are critiqued in public.  Our agency/client affiliations are increasingly hard to keep under wraps … which means that every client communications flap now reflects on the PR counsel, fairly or not.

Embrace this, fellow PR professional.  Do not despair!  We’re actually pretty darned smart.  There may be some clueless flacks among us, but let’s be honest: there are a fair number of clueless people in all corporate job functions.  In the main, we know our stuff; it is okay if the world knows and appreciates this, so long as the majority of the benefits acccrue to our clients.

You’re not “just” the PR person, not anymore.  More and more, you are the proud & public standard-bearer for the brands you serve, even while working agency-side.  Knowing this, yes, you must train harder.  Then you can jump fearlessly into the sunlight of Social Media.

As I’ve written before, this relationship-building is both tough to scale and to maintain, but is still mandatory practice.

But how long must you cultivate relationships with bloggers before you get up the gumption to make your pitch?

Quick answer: it depends.  It depends on the blogger, it depends on the pitch.  A brilliant and spot-on pitch might be enough to convince a blogger to give the PR pro a pass on the whole relationship-building thing.  And anyway, some bloggers are still so pumped to be noticed (and pitched) in the 1^st place, they don’t think twice about the fact that they’d never heard from the PR pro before.  It depends, it depends.

Given this unchanging level of uncertainty about “how long is long enough,” it’s worth wondering if the ever-changing dynamics of PR, personal branding, and social interaction might evolve the concept of Blogger Relations. 

As a reader of PR-Squared recently commented, “In today's world of instant access to information, the relationship-building process doesn't have to take as long as it used to…”

In other words, maybe it is becoming a little bit less important that the PR pro develop a day-to-day relationship with the blogger, and more important that they establish a personal brand that suggests to the targeted blogger that “this is someone I can trust.”

Think about it: the blogger gets a pitch.  “Who is this person?  Why are they pitching me?  What’s their agenda?”  A Google search reveals the PR person’s blog, their agency affiliation, their Twitter handle.  “Hmm, she looks like a decent sort, actually; I can tell she means well, by looking at her interactions online.  OK – now, what did she pitch me about, again?”

This personal brand potency is NOT an excuse to NOT develop a relationship: in all cases, a realtionship-building approach is absolutely, positively preferred!!  After all, the PR pro can’t presume that the blogger will perform that Google search.  And, dammit, the pitch better be dead-on relevant! 

But, in our hustle-bustle to get results, a strong online presence for the PR person might short-circuit the need for a strong and lasting bond with every single blogger.

Before you suggest that this post (potentially) sends the message to some numbskull that they don’t have to develop a relationship so long as they “tweet a lot,” keep in mind that a.) I’m assaying some bleeding-edge thinking here, about how personal branding might change the nature of PR tactics … and b.) numbskulls don’t read this blog.

The cluetrain is chugging into the station.  Smart companies are embracing empowered end-users. 

Intuit is crowdsourcing customer support.  And Procter & Gamble has officially moved away from focusing on internal “Research & Development.”

“P&G's effort … (represents) a seismic shift in strategy, moving the consumer products goods company away from an ‘only invented here’ mentality to an outside-in approach that actively seeks to import good ideas.” 

Those are great examples from Customer Support and R&D.  What about Marketing?

Perhaps because Marketing is too-often considered a cost center — always in “prove-it” mode — its adherents have historically focused on control.  Control provides a sense of safety.  But it’s a false security. 

Even before Social Media’s rise, a corporate behemoth could quickly lose all semblence of message control.  Remember the Tylenol Poisonings?  The Ford/Firestone Rollovers?  Any one of the PR chiefs at those companies would have swept the news under the rug, if they could.  They couldn’t then — and as we learned via the Motrin Moms flap — it will only get harder in the Social Web era.

So let’s embrace it.  Here are some ideas on relinquishing control.

Having a crisis?  If you don’t already have a corporate blog, create one immediately and hold forth on what’s going on.  But take it a step further: enable comments, and encourage both customers and employees to comment publicly.  You can also ask employees to leave their ideas and concerns on an in-house wiki throughout the crisis.  Make the commitment to have a C-suite executive review and comment on a regular basis.  You never know where a good idea — or unforseen threat — might come from.

Holding an event? Randomly select a dozen attendees and arm them with Flipcams and cheap digital cameras (put an irremovable barcode on each device, so you know who’s packing each piece of equipment).  Ask these multimedia-powered attendees to take videos & pictures from their own perspective: ask their colleagues on the floor what’s good or not-so-good about the event; tape a speech or a booth demo; etc.  Maybe turn it into a fun (optional) scavenger hunt. 

When the event is over, tag and post the media assets to both corporate websites and to other Social Media channels (e.g., pics on Flickr and TwitPic).

Feeling ballsy?  Let everyone in the company blog and tweet, with full disclosure as to their place of employment, their role, etc.  Obviously, these activities must not detract from their office productivity, and obviously you’d want to publish and educate the staff on some basic “rules of engagement.” 

But if you can get past those bugbears, try to imagine the consequences of such a ballsy move.  Your entire company just became your PR department.

Out of ideas?  Ask Chris Brogan for some. 

OK, that’s a cop-out.  Instead of asking Brogan, try asking your customers.  Don’t be afraid of them; they might like you; they might want to be helpful. 

“What other services can we provide?  What do you like least about our products?  Knowing what you know now, how much more — or less! — would you have paid?”  This concept is bearing fruit for Dell, Starbucks, and even Barack Obama.

Remember that everyone wears an invisible sign that reads, “Make me feel important.”  When you acknowledge that message, your employees, customers and prospects will rise to the challenge. 

It’s okay to relinquish control when your brand is in their good hands.

We are living through the best and worst of times, for sure.  Everyone’s enthused and hopeful that our new president will lift us up from the mire — but meanwhile, we’re hip-deep in horror.

You know what that means?  It means now is the time.  Now is the time to take your next gamble.

Sure, you might fail.  But, what safer time to fail than when everyone else is failing, too?  You can always blame the economy.  Everyone else does.  Rather than judge, your friends and colleagues will commiserate with their own tales of woe.

And, hey — you might succeed.

Think about it: a rising tide will lift all boats.  If a rising tide is coming, are you in the right boat?  Are you in the boat that will sail you on your way to your greatest achievement?  Or are you in a dead-end job, living hand-to-mouth, hoping to simply stay afloat?

In the last 2 years, I watched as a friend died of cancer at age 39.  This month, my mom died of breast cancer, at the too-young age of 62.  In both cases, these remarkable women lived and loved well; they left behind few regrets.  This fact was an amazing source of solace to those they left behind. 

“Regret” is a nightmare worse than failure.  Life is short.  The time is now.  Take your next gamble, while you can!

There’s much to be said for brand consistency.  There are good reasons for rigid rules regarding standard imagery (logos, fonts), core messages, user interfaces.  There’s a calming sense of professionalism that comes from suit-and-tie executive headshots.

But it’s also kind of boring.  Why would you want to bore your customers?

Think about every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen (or been forced to sit through).  Without fail, a female protagonist mourns the loss of spontaneity in a loving relationship.  There are no surprises anymore.

Every company must resist this stasis. 

It can come from little things — like the Obama campaign’s “logos for every interest group” or the funky stuff Google does with its own eponymous logo to mark each holiday. 

It can come from weird things — like Coca-Cola’s Second Life experiments. 

It can come from delightful things — like when upstart treatmaker Tasti D-Lite saw that one of its customers (Rick Liebling) was tweeting from the Empire State Building … and sent up a huge cake, a box of flying saucers, preloaded $5 giftcards and other treats.  This made Liebling and his co-workers everlasting fans.

It can come from revolutionary things — like Apple’s decision to enter the mobile phone market.  (You can pretend like it was a forgone conclusion, but think back 10 years: 1998 marked the introduction of the iMac. The wondrous iPod was still 3 years away.  You can’t tell me you always expected Apple to make cell phones!)

These are examples of going off-script.  Of trying something out of the ordinary, for the sake of being extraordinary — if only for a day.  To see what happens.

America itself seems to have gone off-script, with the historic election of Barack Obama.  Everybody noticed.  Nearly everyone approves.

Think different.

This is post #1 of 4 that I intend to write, inspired by Mr. Brogan’s “reject pile.”

There are many ways that Public Relations can fail for a company.  Sometimes it’s the Agency’s fault; sometimes it’s the company’s fault.  Sometimes it’s nobody’s fault: sometimes the story has missed the moment.  (Imagine you invented a kick-ass word processing application: it might be a worthy competitor to MS-Word, but, no one would care.)

Never mind who’s at fault. The fact remains: PR is not working.  What do you do now?

Priority #1: Focus on Findability.  Take the PR budget you’ve got left and pump it into SEO and SEM.  Anytime anyone searches for something remotely related to your product, your competitors, your industry, make sure they see you in the Google results.

Priority #2: Concentrate on Content.  As I’ve noted before, Content Marketing plays a key role in maintaining interest in your brand, keeping pace in organic search results, and offering value to prospects.  Prospects should not only find you at your website; they should see your brand play a more “social” role, i.e., by finding content kernels across the web.  So, place 1–minute demo videos on YouTube, and screenshots on Flickr; answer pertinent questions on LinkedIn forums; become a helpful presence on Twitter; start a blog and become a friendly presence as a commenter at other industry blogs.  Etc. 

Priority #3: Act like an Animal.  When an animal is desperate, it does unpredictable things.  A wolf caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg.  A plover gets its meals by hopping into a crocodile’s maw, where it picks at stray bits of food stuck to the reptile’s sharp teeth: just imagine how desperate the plovers’ progenitors must have been, to look for a meal in a croc’s mouth!  So, if PR didn’t work, and Advertising is too expensive, what will you do? 

Will you park a breakfast cart, bedecked with your logo, in the parking lot of your biggest prospect, and offer free bagels to their employees? 

Will you strip down to your skivvies and wear a sandwich board to proclaim your wares at an industry trade show?

Will you create an invitation-only geocaching scavenger hunt for prospects, offering them a chance to get fearsomely filthy in search of a grand prize?

I don’t offer this “Act like an Animal” advice lightly.  Back during the Dot-Bomb Days, I got pretty desperate to keep our S.F. office afloat.  Did I “act like an animal?”  Hell, yes. 

I reached out to “friends of friends” (2–degrees removed) on LinkedIn, and offered them a “Free PR Fitness Test.”  Basically, for the price of 1–hour’s time, we’d create a full-on, creative PR Plan — no strings attached.  “If you like it, we hope you’ll hire us,” we told our newfound prospects.  “If you like the plan but still don’t care to fire your current firm, then feel free to use our plan to take your program up a notch… and we hope you’ll think of us first, when your PR agency situation changes.”

Did it work? — I’m still here, ain’t I?

PR may fail.  But you may not.  Do whatever it takes.

Someone called me a guru a few weeks ago, and when I demurred, they accused me of false modesty.  It threw me off.

There are a lot of charlatans and a-holes in any industry, including the so-called Social Media industry.  But in my experience, the best-known “gurus” in Social Media tend to be self-effacing and mild-mannered.  

This occured to me via a comment I read in a recent post:

“All to often, one of the panelists has a personal agenda of pushing their services, and tends to shout down or talk over everyone else. This happened during a teleseminar for which I signed up mainly to hear Rohit Bhargava, and he only was able to answer a single question because one of the other speakers completely dominated the conversation.”

It doesn’t surprise me that Rohit was crowded out of the conversation.  I’ve met Rohit once or twice and seen him speak.  And I’m pretty friendly with folks like Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Kami Huyse, David Meerman Scott, Scott Monty, Jason Falls and C.C. Chapman, et al.  You read a list like that and you might think, “Wow, that’s a who’s-who of Social Media gurus!”  But, trust me, these are not people who expect to dominate a room. 

These “gurus” are not rich and powerful.  They didn’t graduate from Harvard Business School.  They have incredibly diverse backgrounds.  Many of them simply stumbled into Marketing.  They are regular folks, in the best sense of the term.  They are confident without being egotistical.  These are folks who like to listen.  They are, above all, thoughtful and modest.

That’s why, when they disdain being labeled as “gurus,” you can rest assured that it’s not false modesty.

And that’s why you should listen to them.

UPDATE:  After posting this, I asked the Twitterati whom else they would add to this list of “brilliant but modest” guru-types.  Among those named in the subsequent outpour?

Paul Gillin, Mack Collier, Christopher Penn, Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul, and Beth Harte.  I’d also like to add Dave Fleet, my colleague Doug Haslam, and my friend Kami Huyse.

There are even more mentioned in the Comments of this post, and I recommend you check out ALL of ‘em.

On the one hand, I am heartened to see our industry’s hard lean into Social Media territories.  Every agency gets these emails, which means that even the mom-n-pop PR boutiques are getting the message that Social Media is the future of communications.

Personally, I don’t sign-up for these courses.  And the folks at SHIFT who have attended routinely suggest that our internal training is more helpful (but that’s a necessity, given our focus).  Still, these courses are not worthless — in fact, I know and respect many of the speakers, so my assumption is that the content is helpful to the uninitiated.  I also reason that if the vendors continue to offer these courses, it means that somebody’s buying them: there’s an audience for this stuff.

Yet we continue to see too many examples of PR folks getting it wrong.  Spamming.  Ignoring the research on how-to succeed in Social Media.  Following-up too relentlessly.  Sending unasked-for attachments.  Leaving anonymous comments in blogs and YouTube.  Rushing past the need to create relationships with bloggers and web-native journalists — even cynically (or ignorantly) exploiting their targets’ openness.

I truly do think Social Media is dramatically and relentlessly changing the practice of Public Relations for the better. 

I just wish it weren’t taking so long.

At first I was daunted.  I still feel a little wobbly after last week’s events.  And usually when I read the marcomm blogs, I am tensed for action: to comment; to forward to my team; to moan about a competitor’s victory; to drill a great new idea into my head.

But as I spent an hour or so reading through the posts, I felt pretty good.  If I’ve learned anything since January 1, I re-learned the importance of family; I felt the comfort that comes from the renewal of old bonds.

I’m not going to suggest that my blogger buddies are like kin.  They’re not: they are friends, acquaintances, competitors.  They are the community I am a part of, every weekday from 9am to 5pm. 

I was glad to see them hard at work. I became eager to rejoin their ranks.

My wonderful mother passed away unexpectedly due to complications from chemotherapy.  She was just 62; taken too soon.  I’ve been holed up with my dad for days.  Someday I’ll write a completely off-topic tribute to Mom here, after the healing process has done its work.  Meanwhile, to those hundreds of people who reached out to me via Twitter, Facebook and email: Thank you! – it helped.

More bad news: This week we made the difficult decision to conduct a layoff of ten percent of our account staff.  While we are in good company in that many other PR agencies have had layoffs in recent weeks, it’s still a tough decision.  These are good people.  Not only were they our peers and friends, they were PR rock stars  — we valued their contributions and are very sorry to see them go.  (Note to our competitors: If you can, you should scoop them all up.  I would, if I were you.)  

It’s a sign of the times and despite the fact that we feel very confident about the future, we aren’t immune from the nation’s economic woes.  We’ll be stronger as a result of taking these preemptive moves, to support the 90+ rockstars who remain. 

That’s all I can muster for now.  I hope to be pontificating here again soon.  Meanwhile, thanks for your patience.  I am sure 2009 has brighter things in store…

My plan for this year-end period was to expound on my contributions to Peter Kim’s Social Media Predictions 2009 project.  And I still might do that, if time permits.

But the holiday crush is upon us all.  I feel as if we are all careening into the New Year, don’t you?  Finishing up on work projects (or wondering what could be put-off to January!), wrapping presents, shoveling snow, worrying about the recession, prepping for visits to/from relatives, decorating the house, etc.

In addition to all-of-the-above, the Defren family just got a new pup (pictured) — a 2–year old collie/golden retriever mix from Save-A-Dog, an organization we’ve supported as foster parents for a while.  This gal walked in the door as just-another-foster but immediately captured the high ground.  Adorable, eh?  We’re still working on names … which presents yet another year-end distraction!

So can we agree to take a li’l break from Social Media? Re-connect, re-energize, relax?  I might still be inspired to blog before the New Year, but hey, even if I do write something, the posts will still be in your RSS reader in January, so don’t feel the need to check-in until you’re ready.

I hope you have a splendid, worry-free, quiet and fun holiday!  

(Photo credit: the wonderful & talented Branwen Defren)

I know that there are lots of things on my mind to accomplish in 2009.  For example, I’d like to grow the business by a solid 15% — downturns be damned! … I’d like to do more public speaking … I’d like to do more for my many friends in the Social Media realm …

As for the blog, I plan to publish an e-book next month (subscribe, if you’d like a copy!) … and I’d like to share more case studies next year … I’d also like to share more practical tips, along the lines of the Blogger Relations Bookmark, the Guide to SEO-Friendly News Releases, and oldies-but-goodies like Edgework with Social Bookmarking and Facebook.

I’d like PR-Squared to not only help you THINK but to help you TAKE ACTION.

But those are just nebulous thoughts on a snowy and quiet day.  And they don’t even matter all that much.  Because I don’t write this blog for myself.  I write it for you.  What are YOUR goals for this blog? 

Help me help you.  What do you expect to learn here that you don’t necesarily expect to see from friends such as Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Kyle Flaherty, Jason Falls, Scott Monty, C.C. Chapman, etc.?

2009 is coming and I am here to serve!

First up, “The Great How.”  Here’s my original snippet from Peter Kim’s Predictions Project: 

The “best” case studies of Social Media in action,to date, are marked by the introduction of “real” human beings into the customer conversation. As more corporations come to realize the obvious benefits of humanizing their relationships with online communities, they'll grapple with the “how.”

How many people need to be hired and trained?

How will they measure the success of engagement?

How will the rise of employee's personal brands be handled, if/when these personalities eclipse the popularity of the corporate brand?  How does a company introduce new voices to the conversation in a way that augments the effort, versus causing consumer confusion?

How does the corporation — by nature a conservative beast — confidently move forward into such a riotous environment, with so few roadmaps to guide them?

All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that in 2009, corporations will increasingly understand that incorporating Social Media into their communications plans is now necessary.  The evangelization is working; the customers will no longer be ignored.  So companies will be grappling with issues related to execution.

I rattled off some questions, above, but there are many more that will be asked — and I think any single one of these tough issues could derail many companies’ ambitions. 

Take this one: “How will the rise of employee's personal brands be handled, if/when these personalities eclipse the popularity of the corporate brand?” 

Harken back to the rise of Scoble.  He became the public face of Microsoft, rivaling the fame of Bill Gates in his heyday at the company.  Then, he left.

When you think about Social Media today, do you think about Microsoft much?  Me neither.  That’s not to say that Microsoft isn’t embracing the whirlwind: they have thousands of bloggers now; they do a ton of “Enterprise 2.0” stuff internally, etc. But Microsoft is not considered a leader in the space, primarily because Scoble had been such an outsized personality.

And that’s something that any major corporation wrestling with Social Media execution is going to want to think about.  Would they want to create another Scoble?  How would they keep the star happy?  Would it help their brand for the long-term as well as the short-term?  Is there a way to promote a variety of voices, to head-off the Scoble Problem — or would the dilution also impact their chance for success?

Then that raises the questions of staffing, in general.  Should the newly-appointed official corporate blogger be the only one to respond to issues and comments that crop up in the socialsphere of blogs, Twitter, etc.?  Or should a handful of non-bloggers — comprised of a mix of marketers and customer service reps, perhaps? — be responsible for that aspect of the comms plan?  Where are the lines drawn?  Who does what?

In 2009, it will no longer be enough for Social Media hotshots to help companies theorize and strategize.  Especially “in these troubled times.”  It’s not enough to question.  It’s a time for answers. 

2009 must be the year in which we answer the questions of HOW.  2009 must be a year of ACTION.  We’ll know that we’ve paid off on this requirement as we read a raft of new case studies in the months ahead.

Happy freakin’ New Year.  Now, let’s roll!

Chris Brogan and Izea (pay-per-post): Over this past weekend, Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang wondered aloud about Chris Brogan’s sponsored blog post about K-Mart, which was coordinated by the PayPerPost spin-off, Izea.  Brogan discussed the issue at length, as well. 

Does a well-known, trusted blogger like Brogan sully his brand by accepting sponsored posting assignments?  As Jeremiah originally tweeted: “Transparent, Yes. Authentic? Debatable. Sustainable? No.”

My take:  Full disclosure = carte blanche.  With disclosure “covered,” the community gets to decide how much credence to give the post, and to the blogger.  Jeremiah is right that it is probably not sustainable, i.e., if all of Chris Brogan’s post became paid-for, he’d lose brand equity and readers.

TechCrunch and the Death of the Embargo: Yesterday, Arrington informed the PR industry that TC will now routinely break embargoes.  We’ve been warned.  He also went into the typical rant about shitty PR firms.  To his credit, Arrington does at least seem to recognize that it is often clients’ demands that spur some of the most spurious behaviors… but then again, a GOOD agency will reject those client pressures.  

My take:  We can debate the merits of Arrington’s decision.  We can secretly wish that all PR firms could agree to “cut off” TechCrunch for a month, to see how it impacted coverage.  But it’s Michael’s blog and he can rant if he wants to: the job of PR has always been to adapt to the media’s need.  The PR agency’s only job with regard to TechCrunch is to advise clients of the new policy and plan accordingly.

I feel bad for the PR ninny who tells his client that TechCrunch will honor embargoes and then has to go back and explain why their sacrosanct news was so quickly and publicly unsealed, i.e., they didn’t know about the new policy cuz they weren’t paying attention.  You know that’s gonna happen.

Do Brands Belong on Twitter?  This issue was raised in a Mashable post. Some folks maintain that brands shouldn’t create personality-free Twitter accounts that simply spam corporate news, or that don’t allow fellow tweeps to “know” an individual within the company.  And some misguided purists still just dislike the idea of brands hanging out in Social Media forums at all.

My take:  I am more aligned with the follow-up Mashable post by Lon Cohen.  Twitter is opt-in.  If you care to interact with a brand via their Twitter presence: go for it.  Find it annoying?  Buh-bye.  Meanwhile I’d point to the folks at Dell, Comcast and my friend Lacy at RealNetworks (client) who strive to be helpful, human and creative online.  This can only help a brand’s image.  (Granted, the Twitter audience is still relatively small — but its influence is disproportionate: there are a ton of VIPs on Twitter.)

Tempests in a teapot?  Perhaps.  But these kerfuffles are important in helping us navigate a true course in Social Media.  In an area that is still so new, everything is important.  This is how rules are made.

What’s next? According to Business 2.0, it’s Shimano Coasting’s collaboration with Ideo that resulted in a very usable “bike for everyman.” And it’s also Ugobe’s adorable Pleo, “an advanced robotic dinosaur [that] could soon make Furby extinct.”

SHIFT congratulates both Ugobe and Shimano for their innovation and well deserved recognition.

To gain visibility in the growing free directory assistance market, SHIFT focused on an unrelenting media campaign for client Jingle Networks, operator of 1-800-FREE411.

The company’s continued momentum against competitors like Google and AT&T is evident with coverage appearing in BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal, as well as FOX News and ABC 7 Chicago.

1-800-FREE411 has a simple message: “Why pay for directory assistance, when it should be FREE?”

SHIFT supported the launch of Tiny Pictures’ new cameraphone picture-sharing service called Radar, which intends to completely transform the way consumers think about cameraphones and social media.

Since Tiny Pictures teamed up with SHIFT in May 2006, Radar’s user base has increased by 1600%, with the product still in beta.

Radar has been covered by wire services Reuters and United Press International, newspaper dailies Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury and San Francisco Chronicle, and consumer and industry blogs Cool Hunting and GigaOM.

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