Usually, we don’t post District of Corruption podcast episodes on the Buzz Bin as they tend to be more of a personal podcast for Geoff. However, this episode was unusually relevant for Buzz Bin readers given all of the brouhaha that blew up across the blogosphere.

Technosailor’s Aaron Brazell started us off as Geoff was late (doh!). Then we had a very long civil discussion about the whole blogger relations issue. We called Gina Trapani Rita all show. So sorry, Gina!

Ground covered included:

• Basic background
• Some of the causes, including undo pressure
• Whether or not all bloggers really have the power to blacklist vs. the top tier
• Press releases - why bother emailing them?
• Better uses of our time, including social good
• Flat out building relationships

Presto Vivace’s Alice Marshall joined us for a good part of the conversation and added a lot of great colorful insights.

Download Episode 19 - MP3.

The greater communications/tech networks are atwitter with another round of pitching rules and regulations. It’s a much needed, ongoing conversation, but it’s hard to ignore the undercurrent of nay saying and finger pointing (not an uncommon phenomenon in our space.) It seems like such a trivial pursuit when - forgive me - there are bigger burdens in our world at the moment.

We do need to figure out a solution to our pitching woes. Our firm and others are committed to finding the right mix of relevance, timeliness, newsworthiness and the people/publishing channels that would like to spread the word.

Let’s pretend that we had PR/blog relationships all figured out. There’s another issue at hand. I like to call it “Scott Ward’s* Theory on Things that Blow Up.” It goes like this:

The point being, of course, we’re all fighting for the same small piece of non-disaster pie. Competition is fierce (as it often should be) when it comes to unexpected catastrophes such as Myanmar or today’s earthquake in China. The thing you’re promoting is also up against anticipated explosions: the recession, the food crisis, the election, to name a few.

We sure do fight for that tiny piece, don’t we?

“Pitching in a tightened news cycle” requires a shift in what and why we’re pitching, be it to press or bloggers, through calls or emails. Margo Mateas, whose firm trains PR professionals in media training and management, calls it out clear:

. . . We have to understand the cyclical nature of news and the world, and adjust our plans accordingly. . . Now is the time to help people feel more secure, safe and certain.”

The how’s and how not’s of pitching are imperative. Jason, Geoff, Jared and John bring the many facets of this issue to light, and their ideas for reconciliation are worth the read. I humbly add that it goes back to the message and offering itself: if your company or client does not touch on the things that matter to people right now, those people might not care.

We have to appeal to the things that matter - the things that blow up - to stay relevant to the mainstream.

Until we get this figured out, is there a way we - this influential community of communications/tech people - can bring a little more aid to one of the bigger crises at hand? Myanmar is a good place to start, having lost nearly 30,000 of its people in May 3rd’s Cyclone. Donations for relief projects are trickling in through Network for Good and Global Giving.

In the spirit of cause marketing and CSR, aligning your company around a bigger, more relevant issue will reap rewards that dwarf the perfectly crafted message to a blogger, and perfect blacklist.

For additional incentive, check out Mark Benioff’s score on The Huffington Post, “The End of Philanthropy,” and how Salesforce.com is leading the way. Make an impact, make the news.

*Scott Ward might not know I’ve turned his thoughts into a pie chart, which stems from a media training I attended years ago. He was still with Widmeyer Communications then, but now heads Fifth Estate Communications. The “things that blow up” principle was great advice then, better now.

Ford Motor Company Communicator Whitney Drake caught up with Geoff Livingston at NewComm Forum a couple of weeks ago. She gave the Buzz Bin’s readers some insights into Ford’s Twitter activity, which is an excellent demonstration of crisis PR, as well as the more public Black Mustang Calendar issue. Whitney also teased us a little about Ford’s social media future…

You keep complaining, you keep asking us to stop. We do our best to listen, but some of us make mistakes. Now you have taken to outing PR firms and blacklisting their entire email address books via wiki (image by Sam Foster).

This is your right. And unfortunately, because of the very nature of our business most PR firms have to take it and in some cases apologize. Writers of any nature have the power. We need you more than you need us.

But this doesn’t make you right. In fact, you are in the wrong:

1) You are carpet bombing entire PR firms because of the error/mistake of one PR person.
2) The very nature of email pitches is so subjective that there are now shades of spam.
3) Even when a blogger/journalist states their preferred method, they are often thorny and downright nasty when you contact them in stated manner.
4) By shutting off sources wholesale, you are limiting your ability to deliver valid information to the readers you serve.
5) Because each person is unique, each blogger/journalist’s preferences can be so particular there is no way all of you will be satisfied.
6) These situations come down to relationships versus cold contacts. If we don’t have them, you won’t listen. But there needs to be a starting point. Email may not be the best way, but are phone calls? Snail mail? Each relationship begins somewhere.

I don’t feel bad for reporters and A-List bloggers who get this kind of attention. It’s part of the job and/or results of tremendous success. Get over it. With the good comes the bad. I’ve been a reporter in the past and got the daylights spammed out of my inbox, and to some extent get the same kind of pitches because of this blog and my book. That’s what the delete button is for… And for the record, PR is much harder than journalism or blogging.

Livingston Communications was not on the Trapani list, nor the Chris Anderson list. But we’ve had our own mistakes. We address them and do better. Training? Yes, we invest. Best practices? Yes, we discuss them and implement them… Weekly! Pay attention to specific requests for how to contact individuals? Yes, we listen (image by traveljunkieoz).

Is Stowe Boyd’s call for open PR a good solution? I don’t think so. The very nature of clients and competitive business will prevent this. But because of his request, when my firm wants to pitch him we’ll do it openly on Twitter.

Stowe also hit the nail on the head when he noted clients or companies as being the primary cause of these issues. Heat from clients is the name of the game. Good PR pros push back, fulfilling a role as an ombudsman. But corporate money often does the talking. Some firms won’t cross the line, others will.

How Outing Impacts People

Errors come to my attention because someone has the courtesy to contact me. That’s what executives are supposed to do: Address these problems.

When reporters or bloggers publicly act on a wholesale basis instead of asking the lead exec or account team leader to handle this issue, you never give us the opportunity to succeed. Worse, you doom some individuals to lose their job, to never get an opportunity to learn.

Here’s the fact: Nasty actions like publicly outing PR professionals and firms hurt real people. Bloggers (and some reporters) often act without professional ethics or thinking about how these acts affect others. I got one thing to say back to you: Take responsibility for your words and stop harming people.

Shocked? A PR person talking back like that? I’m just saying what almost all of us feel. Seriously, holster your guns, cowboys and cowgirls.

And for the record, sometimes nasty reporters/bloggers like you end up getting blackballed. Just something to keep in mind, but you’ll never read this will you? Because in your opinion, PR isn’t worth listening to… You know better.

For another excellent post in the same vein, read Jason Falls “Why PR Folks Should Blacklist Bloggers.”

Do you have strategy-envy over the groups that have it together in the digital badlands? You should.

• Zappos takes its shoes the extra mile with more than 250 diligent, twittering staffers, all part of a full-immersion dive into Twitter sanctioned by blogging CEO Tony Hsieh.
• Everyone at the Indianapolis Museum of Art is down with integrated social media, too - even the curators.

[Photo credit: “Envy” by Bright Star]

It’s your job to follow suit & get your own team on board.

Arthur W. Page Society’s “Authentic Enterprise” states that one of the four must-have responsibilities of Chief Communications Officers is to provide “Leadership in enabling the enterprise with ‘new media’ skills and tools.”


The digital lifestyle is one part enterprise ambassador, three parts personal brand. Even if you have one of the mythical blogging CEO’s on your side, and even if your efforts are endorsed by the board, you still need the hands and feet of your organization to take interest and initiative. [Photo credit: “colourful” by partykitten77]

How about setting a mandate for engagement? Really. Don’t forget to be encouraging and provide incentives. Take it one step further with this [draft] of a “personal digital covenant.” (These are initial ideas to simultaneously rally and rein in the faces of your organization. Suggestions for improvement are very welcome.)

Personal Digital Covenant

I choose to support [The Company’s] desire to become more relevant in this digital age. I promise to give my best shot at upholding the following tenants of progressive online engagement, and will encourage my colleagues to do the same:

• I won’t hold us back. Even if I’m fearful or a lazy sack, you have my blessing to try this out, for the sake of all of us. I’ll be honest about my concerns, which I expect you to address. (If you don’t address them, kiss my support good bye.)
• I’ll ramp up. In the spirit of “not holding us back,” I will give this a whirl. If it is my first foray, I’ll sample and ask questions, committing to at least one new space in which I’ll regularly play. Maybe LinkedIn is good enough for now.If I’m feeling frisky, I’ll find friends on Facebook, del.icio.us or Digg something (”and be dugg in return”), and maybe even tweet on Twitter.
• I do not have to be - and will not be - everywhere, all the time. There is real work to be done, obvi. Besides, the novelty of my online know-how will wear thin over time, especially if the bubble bursts or people think I’m screwing around.
• It won’t kill me to read or comment on blogs. I’ve experienced much more pain in my life than setting up a Netvibes account. In fact, if I feel so inclined, I’ll start my own blog on something that I personally care about. Of course I’ll abide by [The Company’s] Blogging Guidelines, which exist to help me blog smarter and cover my tail. If you don’t support my blogging ambitions, I need a new job.
• I’m not the Lord of 2.0 Craft. There will always be people who know more about this stuff, innovate cooler ways to put it into action, and have more digi-friends than me. At best, I will try to learn from them and share what I know with others. At worst, I’ll ignore you and everyone else.

Lindy Dreyer warns us:

Any association that refuses to adapt and leverage their community in this new medium is at risk.”

Your community includes your staff. All aboard.

Last Friday’s conference for PRSA’s Nonprofit/Association section, “PR 2.0: Riding the Social Media Wave,” was a big draw for the District’s 501(c)-something crowd. You might not know many of the attending groups, but this could change as they move into the digital era. Hey, the train doesn’t leave the station without the caboose!

Is it a “Wave” or a Slip-n-Slide?

Without question, the association world is taking strides in public relations and marketing. As with other sectors, you’ll find plenty of hemming, hawing and urgency here. (Photo credit: brodiemanlsue)

As membership-driven entities, associations often know what their stakeholders need before the members themselves have a clue. Sometimes it’s the other way around. And depending on the association, the members may or may not keep in touch before and after in-person events. Oh, the limitless possibilities to stay in touch with members, foster dialogue with each other, and create useful knowledge-sharing channels for all. It’s no surprise that most of PR professionals at this event represented associations.

I was lucky to speak alongside Jeff De Cagna, who could tell you a thing or two about the slip-and-slide nature of the association community’s group effort in this area. Jeff keeps associations on their toes through his private practice, Principled Innovation. He also yells at his audience.

During his presentation on the adoption of social technologies by different demographic groups, Jeff paced among the crowd, weaving through tables and chairs, pleading (if not preaching): “We have all these tools, but we’re scared to death of them. [You say] ‘Oh my God! The members might actually talk to each other!!’ I say, ‘FANTASTIC.’”

Jeff recently launched an interesting formula to help clients strategically approach social technology: P.R.E.P. (purpose, readiness, experimentation, practice). It could very well apply to your own issue at hand.

Influencing Leadership

Later in the day, Jeff joined my mild-mannered panel with Melanie Miller, VP of PR for The Sugar Association, Inc, moderated by Aaron Ellis, Director of Communications for the American Association of Port Authorities. (Pictured below - Aaron’s standing.)

We wrapped up the event with a frank discussion on senior leadership hurdles to adopting social media. It comes down to one secret: you have to do whatever it takes to get people on board.

• Present the facts: find your audience online, see what your competitors are up to, and point out opportunities to improve the situation.
• Highlight examples: the people who are doing this right want to be spotlighted; use their work as case study and to help expand the comfort zone.
• Provide a personal experience: Have a wary CEO who doesn’t get it? Set him up with a blogging platform, LinkedIn account or other hands-on training wheels.

Daryl McCullough (Paine PR), Brian Reich (Echo Ditto) and Howard Mortman (New Media Strategies and his delightful blog, Extreme Mortman) also spoke. Brian is a new personal hero: check out his blog, Thinking About Media.

Among those in attendance: Mark Coindreau, PR Manager of the the American Payroll Association, Amanda Bednar (another PR Manager) for the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, and Elizabeth Griffin and Jennifer Hardy from Catholic Relief Services. Thanks to all those who brought great questions and commentary to the forefront.

Looking for more association resources? Take a look at ASAE’s Acronym blog and Jeff’s wiki about social media for associations. They’ll help you maneuver the plunge.

Everyone says Twitter is the back channel for PR and marketing types.  But there is another one: Spin Thicket. Folks like Rich Becker, Cam Beck, Alice Marshall and many more spend a few minutes at a time on Spin Thicket submitting, perusing and riffing on the latest news stories online.

Spin Thicket Founder Scott Baradell launched a redesigned version last week. His goal is to quadruple the current 20,000 unique visitors per month by the end of 2008. This would also double the 40,000 uniques per month that Scott’s Media Orchard blog gets.

It’s long been my hope for a more interactive social community within our industry. Some have tried, but maybe Spin Thicket is the answer. Scott kindly commented in advance for this post:

I think a big part of helping people to understand PR — and to help PR people put their work in a broader context — is to understand that “spin,” the interpretation given to a set of facts, is nothing new.  History is written by the winners and always has been, and journalism is the first rough draft of history.  In this context, every day is a battle in which the best spin wins.

I think people are more aware of this now, because, for example, Fox News and MSNBC present the same facts very differently each day.  That’s spin, no different from how corporations spin and non-profit causes spin and so on. Everyone wants to get their point of view heard.  When an organization like PRWatch criticizes the PR profession, what they’re really criticizing is the power of large corporations.  They don’t mind when an environmental group spins; they just don’t like that Exxon Mobil has more resources at its disposal to get its spin in front of the public.

So people are more aware that we live in a Spin Thicket today — but it’s always been this way. Go back to the Punic Wars.  The reason we think Rome was the good guy in the battle with Cartharge is that Rome destroyed Carthage — burnt it to the ground and obliterated all traces of it.  And then they wrote the history is a way that made them look like heroes.  That’s Spin Thicket, B.C.

Thanks to Scott Baradell for his continued efforts. Go get spun!

I’m a dreamer, too. But when Steve Rubel says, “All media is social and all social is media,” it’s time for respectful disagreement – or clarification. Most of the debate in response to Steve’s plea to “kill the phrase social media” took place through commentary on his post, which is worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Yes, social media qualifies as media. In the U.S., bloggers more or less have 1st amendment support on this, as noted in my breakdown on last September’s FEC ruling.

But no, not all media is inherently social. It should be. Even so, we’ve long drawn lines in the sand around our professional territories and tools for concrete reasons.

• Starting with the medium itself. For example – and you’d think this would go without saying – print and broadcast are not always conducive to two-way exchanges. So while both channels are effective in their respective spaces, neither is intentionally “social.”

• Each medium is unique, further differentiated through targeted approaches via PR, marketing and advertising, but also has the potential to be fluid. Yesterday’s report and subsequent press release are today’s blog post and Reddit hit. YouTube takes an ad to new heights using both broadcast and social media. Other ads, bolstered by SEM, can take social strategies further (and vice versa). These are solid practices still unknown to and unused by - gasp - a lot of people, including too many practitioners.

Horses for Courses
“Social media” is not limited to a tool set, nor is it a phenomenon exclusive to the Internet. The online and offline, digitally kind can and should be tucked into other forms of media to foster community, comment and sharing. All these forms – print, broadcast, digital – fall under media relations.

We’re still a long way off from being universal in our social skills. Rather than belabor medium, find the mix that touches all relevant avenues to [insert your goal here].

Marking terrain and seceding based on boundaries of medium is a strategy-killer. And we all know what shoddy, segmented strategy leads to – anemic, pointless tactics.

Until we all settle on a better way to be (and a better word for) “social”: What’ll it be? Isolated or Integrated media?

Greetings from one scattered, multi-media bound Internet user to another!

Since we’re all caught up exploiting various digital tools for personal use - and for our organizations - it might be worthwhile to explore how to manage the toy box. If you’re juggling more than one company-branded, digital property (a blog, a forum, feeds, multimedia assets, social network profiles and so on), then it’s time to drop a little Elfa in the equation.

The benchmark: Dell Community. This site aggregates every available opportunity for engagement and feedback regarding Dell offerings. Checking them off: customer testimonials and reviews, discussion forums, blogs, co-creation points (i.e., IdeaStorm), podcasts, videos, RSS, and Dell’s Information Portal, TechCenter wiki, and Second Life presence. All that housed in one spot, eliminating the need to dig through tedious layers site navigation to find connection points.

All that’s missing is information about how to directly connect with employees online -an undertaking that’s probably more manageable for smaller shops like ours.

Not to suggest that we have our ducks in a row. On this blog alone, a visitor has his/her pick of many options to keep in touch with our team - but half of what we offer isn’t available, and the channels available are strewn across several pages. Did you know that you can follow/friend Larissa, Geoff, Marinel and me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? You would have if you’d visited the Buzz Bin’s About page. But that still won’t get you to Geoff’s podcast or events we host, like Blog Potomac. We have work to do, too.

Viget Labs got this spot on with their recent website makeover. Staff profiles feature their latest tweets along with links to their latest blog posts and personal blogs - not just links to individual social network accounts.

Viget also nailed multiple blog management. The group offers four distinct blogs, one for each of Viget’s “labs” (strategy, design, development and marketing), all of which are re-capped on a fifth (and founding) company blog - The Four Labs Blog.

Each blog has unique content, bloggers, and aesthetics, and attracts visitors independently of one another. To keep it together, the blogs are integrated through 1) the company blog and 2) each other - in a consistent fashion.

For example, from VigetEngage, the firm’s online marketing blog, you can access a menu of other blogs through icons in the top right corner (see image at left). It’s the same on every blog - graceful flow, great design.

In case you need the case, re-organizing digital properties is smart for several reasons:

• It’s Alive! Getting your assets in one place will force your team to keep fresh content on the table. Stagnant content should be revived or archived.
• It Multiplies! However you index your digital offerings, the catalog of content will make you want more, and ultimately encourage the addition of more corporate and staff assets.
• It’s All In One Place! One-stop shopping is good for journalists, potential clients/partners/employees and others - and that’s good for business.
• It’s Searchilicious! Start syncing your content and watch the machine work it’s Pacman magic. You’ll find that stronger assets will help deliver additional hits to other offerings through increased web traffic, downloads, blog hits and more. The rising tide lifts all boats.

A few cautionary words in closing, inspired by a frank remark by Viget Lab’s newest employee, Ryan Moede (Digital Media Strategist and VigetEngage blogger): don’t waste you’re time arranging and re-arranging the puzzle if you’re going to half-ass it, or if you have weak content. You won’t master the jigsaw without the right pieces in play.

Regulators, mount up.

Part III of Social Media’s Role within Global Businesses

As socialized feedback becomes increasing prevalent across a wide variety of business functions, enterprises will need to better absorb external information. This new listening “socialprise” (a term coined by Sarah Perez last week) will change from an outbound marketing communications machine to an organism interacting with a larger community of stakeholders.

In turn, the marketing department will also have to incorporate feedback. Consider the above chart, which demonstrates the usual business activity of executives determining strategy, followed by an outbound marketing push.  Hopefully, the CxOs determine product direction based on research.

In the social enabled environment, a majority of marketing department activities can and will receive direct impact from its customers.  As a result, the structure of communications will change.  Not only will marketing communicate outwardly, but ideally it will also serve as an ombudsman reflecting stakeholders’ input.

Here’s another chart that demonstrates this two-way feedback with various marketing functions (please forgive my photoshop skills):

Notice that almost all of the marketing functions have two-way feedback.  Even advertising and direct marketing can inspire conversation within a larger stakeholder community.  This feedback should be received through other vehicles, such as a social media monitoring program.

Just a disclaimer: Some may place different tools under the control of another function like PR or product marketing.  This is particularly true in the case of social media, which is often fought over by different departments within marketing, in large part because it combines aspects of many disciplines.

Used in the right way, external feedback can affect the very core of a business’s strategy.  Consider Dell’s change in customer service, or it’s decision to offer Linux services. How about Southwest’s decision to postpone assigned seating? The trend is spreading, too.  Sarah Perez’s already referenced post discusses several new tools that companies can use to harvest customer conversations.

More importantly this movement opens Pandora’s box…  Which conversations are the right ones to listen to?  Not all feedback and suggestions can be adapted by the company for a wide variety of reasons. How can a company harvest those conversations to effectively gage the marketplace before its too late?  In some cases, feedback may not be recognized as valuable, but taken into a larger context that feedback may be part of a critical trend.

On Friday, Part IV will further examine the listening conundrum that socially catalyzed enterprises face.  Past episodes of Social Media’s Role within Global Businesses:

• Part I: Beyond the Echo Chamber (Social Networks Impact on Business)
• Part II: The Future: Social Networks Will Fly Like a Led Zeppelin