Some of you may have been following the PR Week Blog Competition. In a nasty twist of fate, the Buzz Bin got pitted against friend and PR Prodigy Todd Defren and his PR Squared blog.
Well, I can tell you we are not too thrilled at this pairing! Upon reflection, we decided to pull a classic Washingtonian PR move and endorse Todd to win the PR Week Blog Competition. Here’s why:
And by the way, you can do more than just vote. You can support Todd with your own “In Todd We Trust” apparel! Visit the Todd store here!
Original Todd Image by David Alston. If someone actually buys something, we’ll give him all of the profits.
This is all very cute, Todd’s a very smart guy, Geoff is a very smart guy. It’s all a lot of fun, but I guess I’m old-school still. How does this help us demonstrate the value of a communications channel to business clients? What’s the ROI of boxer shorts with Todd’s name on them (except if he gets a cut…)
As Clara Peller would say, “Where’s the beef?”
I’m at least buying something for the wife. ;)
Thanks for the endorsement, my friend. (I think.)
This is great, lighten up Steve! Sometimes there is no inherent value to things, just a little fun.
I think it’s great fun, but we also need to have good messaging for clients about “the why.” These kind of inside-baseball competitions spurred by magazines only read by PR people are leading to very public blog traffic. We tell clients to get active in the social media by reading and exploring, and then what are they to do to make sense of this kind of self-congratulatory competition that, frankly, is really only designed so that we will all comment about it on our own blogs, or by posting here, so that the whole thing becomes visible, etc.
I know it’s fun, a little goofy, all that, but many clients still have some traditional (and yes, reasonable) expectations about the results they want to get from investing their communications budgets in these new channels. They will need to hear more about the value in achieving communications goals, and less about the silly stuff. I know this is a contrarian point of view, I know it sounds like I’m too buttoned down, but we still have to sell this stuff to people who think that way. I’m just trying to be provcative and say, OK, explain this to a 60-year old corporate CEO who wants to believe in you and your social media strategy.
As to “there is no inherent value to things,” I love Kami and her insight, but we tell college kids to dress up their Facebook sites and take down the frat party pictures so that employers don’t get the wrong impression. There is inherent value to EVERYTHING, in my NSHO, especially if we make it public in an easily Google-able way. So as communications professionals, we should be able and prepared to justify and explain it.
How does this help, really? Persuade me.
NSHO, indeed. Someone sounds jealous.
Steve, a definition of sarcasm is “harsh or bitter derision or irony.” My post was poke at the ridiculous nature of the PR Week campaign, which you so well describe here. Anyone who actually knows me understands how competitive I am. They know I go for blood matches, so for me to toss a competition like this shows you how I view the campaign. That is irony. I am sorry that was above you.
And it is social media so the point is infusing personality to achieve results for your clients, not messaging at people. I did with that post.
Finally, if you can’t understand the approach, if you don’t like my style, I suggest you unsubscribe. The Buzz Bin is not for everyone.
OK, Geoff, so I should have watched the video and not just relied just on the copy. (I’m not a big YouTube fan, and sometimes I just automatically don’t watch them, wrong move in this case.) My bad.
But I still think the approach of this post may have been too subtle and may have looked to other casual readers like an effort to play in the competition rather than a dig against it. Very clever, but maybe too smart and too cute since it went over my head.
Infusing personality is good, and I’m not talking about messaging AT people, but being able to explain why we are using a particular approach. Social media is one channel, not the only. So we need to be able to explain why.
All I wanted to do was present a different POV on this thing.
I’ll concede I missed your satirical point, a point with which I actually agree (and I took out the hedge words “might have missed” — I’m admitting the error, full stop), but I think it’s fair to suggest that since I’m a reasonably bright guy, that if I missed it, maybe somewhere out there, a 50-60 something potential client might have missed it too? Or have we written off the audience older than 30-40?
My point is that we shouldn’t get all cute and inside baseball and so esoteric that we think everyone gets what we are doing.
If that’s not the case, if all of your clients understand you completely, fine, let’s debate that, but I’m sad that you feel the best response is to show me to the door. Help me understand how you think, persuade me effectively, but don’t chase me off the property because we talked past each other in one blog post, huh?
Steve: You commented without viewing the content and now you are stuck defending a bad point. Sorry, no sympathy here. I couldn’t see things more differently, but thank you for spending all of this time delivering your point of view. In the end, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. You can always choose not to read.
Whatever. There’s certainly nothing like just beating on blog visitors heads when you disagree. Must feel good. Must make them want to come back for more. If clients don’t see your point, this is what they get too? As Dr. Phil would say, “how’s that working for you?”
Geoff,
If I might, I’d like to add my two cents and hijack your post for a quick minute. Steve and I have been talking about this a lot recently. I think part of what Steve is referring to is that folks who aren’t investigating and learning about social media the way we do (even though they should, but that’s an issue for another day) might misunderstand the context of your post.
Meaning, corporations or PR agencies might look at the PR Week Blog Competition as a shiny new object (or GMOOT – @scottmonty) that they *must* have…and then they send all their little PR underlings scurrying around to create a new blog so they too can be in the competition. Then add to that, the notion of *I must have* YouTube videos and cool clothes with [logo here] on them! You can see where I am going with this.
If they don’t understand social media or the plain fact that this post was entirely satirical because you and Todd are in the heart of social media and humorous, then it’s a recipe for disaster if they try to implement something like this post for themselves or their clients.
In general, they aren’t looking at the business benefits when they see posts like this, only the *cool or wow* factor. And working with them, removing the cool factor, and getting them to focus on objectives/goals is a challenge because there’s a sparkle in their eye.
We all get it and we get your post. It’s the other 80% that we need to worry about (80% because a stat I heard is that only 15-20% of PR/marketers are actively engaged in SM). And those 80% of PR/Marketing folks aren’t out actively educating themselves. And worse, they are relying on agencies that AREN’T the Geoff Livingston’s and Todd Defren’s of the world. Scary, I know. (Trust me, I have experienced those pitches first hand, yikes!)
I am not suggesting that you don’t keep doing what you do best, I am just saying that from where I sit and from what I hear…a lot of people just react to what they see on the surface and that surface is, unfortunately, very shiny.
Consider this some food for thought to nibble on. Thanks for letting me add to the conversation.
BTW…Loved the video, hysterical!! Go, Todd, go!!! Now, I’m off to order a mug with Todd’s mug on it!
P.S. I want my mug proceeds to go the charitable Beth Harte Foundation so that I can afford David’s wonderful services. Thank you.
Beth:
I understand that, and Steve’s point.
At the same time, I’ve always been uncompromising about the content I create. We create content in our voice that we think people are interested in. If they don’t then we suck, so be it. I can live with that. Further, our stats will go down and the marketplace will vote with its feet.
But at the same time, I am not here catering to requests. We are taking a leadership position, not a yield to the masses customer service crowd source our content view. I trust my instincts as a professionally trained communicator and former journalist. That approach has not failed me yet.
Quite frankly, it is not my responsibility to blog the content Steve wants to see, or what he feels is appropriate. If Steve sees a weakness in our content then that is a great point for him to offer on his blog. I am well aware of our statistics and what works, and what doesn’t work. I’ll be happy to go toe to toe with Steve on a real social media content competition any day.
Nor is it my job to teach people and agencies common sense. I have said everything I can say to the newcomer, the novice to social media on the Now Is Gone blog (www.nowisgone.com). To some extent, there is a certain amount of common sense to this. You can’t teach common sense.
This blog is for the communicator who is savvy, who wants to have a real nuts and bolts social media conversation. If people can’t get that, or don’t understand, or don’t like it, then I am sorry. But again, we are not trying to be Seth Godin. We are uncompromisingly the Buzz Bin.
Thank you for your views.
So much controversy over a fun li’l blog post? I feel bad!
I appreciate the Buzz Bin as is, you know that. The common sense issue will be a long-hard battle, I fear. Now you have my wheels turning…perhaps there needs to be beginner, intermediate and advanced blog reading. But I don’t know any bloggers who would appreciate being grouped in that manner. ;-) Thanks for the insight Geoff!
@Todd Me, too. I mean, geez. It was just supposed to be some off-handed fun, and a great way to poke at the sillyness of the blog competition. Guess I’ll have to start blogging about Al Ries and McLuhan theory applied to social media for the rest of my days. ;)
I loved the video and I may just order a case of mugs to pass around the office. Wouldn’t it be nice if, every once in a while, we all just had a wee bit of fun…since we spend the other 99% of our working time helping folks “…demonstrate the value of a communications channel to business clients.”
Oh, and I think I’ve figured out a cost analysis ROI spreadsheet for the Defren boxer shorts, I’ll post to Google docs soon ;)
/kff
I’d say that to those who are willing to look deep enough, there is an extremely valuable lesson to be learned and/or demonstrated about social media marketing – ESPECIALLY – in a client/agency situation. Social Media can not – or should not – be merely peddled as a ‘communications solution’ to clients. It’s all about engagement and interaction… and that takes a great many forms in a public space!
Dare I say it? I do:
“The thong is over, but the malady lingers on … “
I look up to both Geoff and Todd immensely — this is all good fun! It is really nice to see how truly social the best really are. Looking forward to hopefully interviewing both of you for my thesis!
Wow – that was time well spent while plowing through my lunch at 2:00. Reminds me of a story about my father which I won’t bore you with here.
Todd – for as long as I’ve known you, you have been the real deal and still are.
Geoff – for as long as I have not known you, you have inspired me and many others.
Hats off to both of you. Sorry to see the competition is off – KIDDING.
Christine
Yes, the PR Week contest is silly, but who cares. No one is taking it seriously, least of all you. Your video is (not surprisingly) very funny and a good satire of a typical competition interview in the pseudo-documentary style. All sunshine and light when the camera is supposedly running, all angst and agony when the subject thinks he’s off camera.
As to whether it, or the PR week thing, isn’t sufficiently serious? Lighten up folks. That’s part of what needs to happen in the very C-suites we hope to influence. Gotta put on the comfy clothes and hang with the rest of the world. Bad jokes and all. Otherwise we will continue the same old, same old business, marketing and communications models that we *know* don’t really work.
Geoff… It truly makes me happy to see personality online. This pose hammers that nail in perfectly. Thank you… and nice job with the black and white mechanism in the video edits.
uh, pose = post. too excited I guess.