my 2 cents

PRedictions for 2010

In some ways, 2010 may turn out to be similar to 2009.

Before starting my look ahead, I took a look back to what I predicted for this year that's almost behind us. I said 2009 would be both good and bad for the public relations agency business, with smaller shops in a better position to do well during tough economic times.

I also said we'd see more journalists move into the p.r. field, as a result of media layoffs and the search for greener financial pastures.

And I expected to see more p.r. people getting into social media.

I think I was fairly on target with those predictions.  And I think we will see more of the same in this new year, while we're (hopefully) emerging from a recession.  But it won't be business as usual as the economy gathers back its strength.

2010 will be another challenging year.  Marketers will still be under pressure to get the most out of their budgets.  That could be good news for the p.r. agency business, since p.r. can be more cost-efficient than advertising.  But agencies will need to show measurable ROI, which is always a challenge and will become even tougher as more agencies add Social Media Management to their list of services.

Again in 2010, I think smaller agencies with lower overhead will be in a position to do well, while the large agencies may still be in a cost-cutting mode in order to make their bottom line look acceptable.

We will see more "virtual agencies," where there is not a large fixed staff, but instead a loose affiliation of p.r. pros who work together on business as the need arises.  My agency is, in fact, built on that premise with minimal payroll and experienced p.r. pros who are brought in on an as-needed basis, depending on a particular client's needs.  It's worked pretty well, since we don't have to try to fudge to make staff experience fit a client's needs and hope for the best.  Instead, we bring in the best people who have experience and skills that best respond to what the client's program calls for.  I'm seeing a few other small agencies working this way, and there will be more in the coming year.

Social media will be part of the agency menu.  Some p.r. people have been dabbling in social media -- blogging or active on Facebook and Twitter.  As more clients recognize the potential of direct contact with customers and prospects through social media, they are turning to the agencies -- advertising, public relations, SEO or the new crop of social media specialist shops.  Since, in the end, it's more about content than the technology, p.r. agencies should be in the best position to add social media management to their menu of services offered.  2010 and beyond will see more p.r. shops move in that direction.

Traditional media relations is not going away.  Despite constant talk of shrinking traditional media on one hand and chatter about the death of the news release on the other, media relations -- publicity -- will continue to be a large part of what p.r. agencies do for clients.  And traditional media will still play a major role, even as we pay more attention to online and social media.  It's still publicity, but with a larger and more complex playing field.  Targeting, rather than mass mailings and email blasts, will still win out in terms of bringing best results.

Writing will remain a key skill for young people entering the p.r. field.  A working familiarity with social media will be a skill that is assumed.  But above all, the better p.r agencies and p.r. departments will still want young people who can write well and who can learn to think like editors, so they will understand what the media want and how best to present it to them.

 I'd love to hear any thoughts readers might have, as well as any other predictions that we should add to this list.  And in a year, we'll take a look back to see how we did.

And as always at this time of year, we send our best wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR from NEW YORK CITY!

A disaster waiting to happen

Last week I caught the tail-end of a Twitter discussion group -- Journchat#.  It was my first time venturing into an online discussion group on Twitter and, although I found it hard to follow at times, it was interesting and fun.

I got caught up in one thread of the conversation, talking about citizen journalists.  Some participants felt they are playing an important role in the newsgathering process, citing staffing cuts in newsrooms of many traditional media outlets.  Citizen journos, they claim, can help fill that gap.

There is some truth to that proposition, but there is also considerable risk which, frankly, frightens me.

Some of the chatroom participants also expressed concerns about accuracy and context, saying those things are best left to professional journalists to deal with.  Citizen journos can help with the raw reporting, they feel.

But as newsroom staffs are getting smaller, with fewer copy editors available, might accuracy and context get lost in the shuffle?  And throw in the pressure to be first with a story, coupled with the increasing frequency of deadlines as print and broadcast reporters have constant updates to file for online editions, Twitter feeds and the blogs of the media outlets.  It's a recipe for disaster.

Big celebrity news has been broken more frequently by TMZ, which may have started life as citizen journalism but is now very much a real newsroom.  Their track record for accuracy seems to be pretty good.  But they're dealing with celebrity news (and soon, sports news).  It's not news of earth-shaking importance.

What about the more complex and important stories on the global, national and regional fronts -- politics, war and terrorism, natural and man-made disasters, crime, business?  Can we afford to get those stories wrong? 

Mistakes get made, even by the most respected news organizations.  But throw citizen journalists -- untrained "reporters" -- into the mix and it's a disaster waiting to happen. 

Will 2010 be the year we have a major reporting screw-up that jumps from the online stream into the mainstream media, taking on a life of its own?  It could be a simple error, or it could be something more sinister -- intentionally erroneous or distorted reporting slipped into the news stream by someone with a political or financial ax to grind.  Surely, there are many people or organizations who would love to take advantage of any weakness in the social media-to-mainstream media news pipeline.  Since information moves so rapidly now and is so pervasive, the impact could be substantial.

I'm just not a supporter of citizen journalism -- at least, not for important news.  I hope I'm not proven right on this.

photo: Future Perfect Publishing

Other Voices: Rush to Technology Outpaces Need to Use Intelligence

Other Voices

This guest post is by Kenneth J. Weiss, director of e-commerce for Hoover.  Ken has a new book out titled Slightware -- The Next Great Threat to Brands.  You can download the first chapter free at www.slightware.com.

.....

Companies are turning up the use of technology for marketing and operations.  Unfortunately, the rush to do it is outpacing the need to do it intelligently.  Last month, the brand hits kept on coming and, remarkably, companies thought they could shrug off brand damage with a carefully constructed press release.  Some examples...

App Absurdity

A few months ago, Apple took a huge PR hit when it released a "Shake the Baby" game in its App Store.  When the animated baby started to cry, the user needed to shake the iPhone until the baby stopped.  After a huge backlash, Apple simply removed the app and offered the typical "Sorry" press release.  Not to be outdone as the leading classless iPhone app, Pepsi launched one in October to help users "Score with women."  Enter the type of woman in question and the app would offer ways to make her feel bubbly.  The app got plenty of coverage, but nearly all of it was negative.

PhotoSchlock

The fashion industry has been hammered repeatedly for settinn impossible standards of "thinness" for women.  So how does Ralph Lauren respond?  By Photoshopping a model to non-human, stick-thin proportions and then firing her when she complained.  The story broke in mid-October when Fillipa Hamilton was fired for being overweight.  Ironically, the Photoshopped ad showing Fillipa was supposedly approved by Ralph Lauren himself.  The company claims the ad was only intended to run in Japan.  Somehow, an internationally known model and brand would be immune to the dynamics of the "World Wide Web," right?

Lose Data - Lose Customers

T-Mobile and Facebook are supposed to be brands that are good with technology.  Well... both suffered massive data problems last month.  T-Mobile experienced a glitch that compromised personal data and information for thousands of users.  The company eventually came clean and said "most" of the data had been recovered.  "Most?"  How well is the company perceived if you are one of the people not part of "most?"

Facebook took a page from the corner-crack-dealer playbook.  First it gets people addicted to checking their Facebook page with relentless emails, and then it blocks 150,000 people for nearl;y a week.  How bad do they want it now?  Some want it more and others have happily decided to go cold-turkey.

Banks You Can Trust - Technology You Can't

No industry has more trouble with consumer trust than banking.  October started with Rocky Mountain Bank attempting to explain why it sent confidential information of more than 1,000 customers to an unauthorized Gmail account.  Next, TD Bank, which bills itself as "the most convenient bank in America," had a technical problem that prevented deposits from showing up in people's accounts.  Convenience quickly turned to panic when paychecks were vaporized.  Bank of America followed with a glitch that stopped people from making ATM withdrawals.  The problem then expanded to drive-ins and tellers.  In all instances, competitive banks reported an increase in new customers.

The drive to do business faster and cheaper will continue to fuel the rush to technology, and mistakes are likely to continue.  Brands need to realize that an apology may make the brand people feel better, but the consumer will feel differently once they've been burned by the brand.

A note from David Reich:  Ken's piece points up the need to think things through carefully by trying to put yourself into the mind of customers and non-customers.  Had that been done, it's hard to imagine the examples of Ken's "App Absurdity" section would have advanced beyond the brainstorming session.

Embrace new technology, for sure.  But don't forget to use good old common sense as well.

Even good news is bad news for newspapers

A Scarborough Research report flies in the face of headlines we've been seeing about the decline in newspaper readership and demise of newspapers.

The good news is 74% of American adults -- 171 million of us -- still read daily newspapers.  The demographics skew toward better-educated, white-collar folks with above-average household incomes.  The survey shows 84% of newspaper readers are college grads and 82% are in homes with HH income of $100,000 or more.

So this sounds like great news for the newspaper industry, right?  Why, then, are we still hearing about papers losing circulation and ad revenues, as they decimate their newsroom staffing to try to slow the flood of red ink.

The good news is part of a double-edged sword, it seems, with the two edges being print and online.Print readership continues to decline, although not as steeply as the gloom & doom forecasts would indicate.  In print, newspapers still reach tens of millions of people every day -- much more than the average prime time network show.

But print advertising in most markets continues to decline, fueled by the tough retail economy.  And printing and delivery costs are rising, exacerbating the financial squeeze on publishers. Ad revenues for the year to date  are down 29% from a year ago.  Even online ad revenues, which make up only 10% of the total, have dropped.

The bright side -- from a readership perspective -- is the tremendous growth in online newspaper readership.  Nielsen says nearly 72 million people visit newspaper websites every month -- more than three times the combined print circulation of the 125 biggest dailies.

But... newspapers are still downing in red ink and, as mentioned above, even online ad revenues have dropped.

Part of the problem is that newspapers still haven't figured out how to make real money from all those online readers.  Online ads sell for a fraction of what a print display ad can fetch. 

It's a real Catch-22 situation.  Newspapers are rich in content that people want -- news, information, analysis, advice, entertainment.  Historically, though, it's been given away free, and it's hard to get people to pony up for what they've always had for free.

But let's compare it to cable of 30 years ago.  Why would anyone pay for TV when it was free for the taking, as long as you had an antenna?  But cable gradually added value -- an amazing menu of program options, perfect signal quality, and finally, quality programming that equals or often exceeds what's on free TV.    

For newspapers, the solution may not be unlike what happened with cable.  Using available technology, tools and apps, or possibly awaiting the introduction of new ones we don't yet know, newspapers may be able to charge and receive subscription fees for offering a wider array of content that's available in very targeted or individualized packages.  It might be in the form of a delivery method we haven't yet imagined.  Or it might be organized in a way that makes it easy and fun to get exactly the news and information that you deem is important to yourself.

Publishers need to be creative and embrace new technologies.  What will the answer be?  Time will tell.  Hopefully, for the survival of newspapers and the important role they play in a free society, it won't take too much time.

Be careful what you say (and where you say it) -- Part 2

Back in January, I wrote about a high-level public relations agency exec who embarrassed himself and his agency by tweeting how he hated visiting his client's headquarters city of Memphis, calling it a cultural wasteland.

People at the client saw his tweet and it quickly got passed throughout the company.  Last I heard, the agency kept the giant account, but the wayward tweeter was removed from running the account.The lesson then -- be careful what you say online -- is as true now as it was ten months ago.

Even a supposedly private email can create a problem.  Last year I sent an email to a friend, saying some gossipy (but true) things about someone else who we both knew.  Months later, the recipient of that email  accidentally it to a few people -- including the person I had ripped into.  It proved to be a bit awkward for me.

I've learned -- if you don't want anyone to know what you've said, don't write it -- especially online in any form.  Personal conversations and phone chats are safer, for sure.

I just heard a story about another online communication that backfired on the person who sent it. Over breakfast a few days ago with a widely-followed business reporter at The New York Times, he told me how he had done an interview with an ad agency executive for a story to run the next day.  The person who was interviewed wanted to blow his own horn, so he bragged on Twitter that he'd just spoken with this reporter, and he went on to say what the story was about.

The reporter was surprised when, moments after the interview, he got a call from the guy's competitor at another agency, saying he heard the reporter was working on a particular story.

By trying to make himself look more important, the tweeter unwittingly invited a competitor into the story that eventually appeared.  The reporter wasn't all too happy, either, since the tweets also could have tipped off reporters at other papers to the story he was breaking.  I don't think that reporter is too fast to respond these days to that guy's calls and emails.

So again, the lesson to be learned is this:    

        Be careful what you say and where you say it.   

If it's using any form of digital communication, perhaps it's wisest to keep quiet.  Or at least think before you tweet, email or blog.  Remember -- it could be out there for the world to see.

I thought so...

When Twitter seemed to explode on the scene a year ago, I took a look, just to see what all the hype was about.  After a few days, I thought to myself, "Either it's a wasteland of inane chatter, or maybe I just don't get it."

A few months later, after seeing several of my blogging friends spending less time blogging and more time on Twitter, I figured I ought to give it another try.  Some bloggers who I follow and respect were all but calling Twitter the next best thing since sliced bread... or since, well, blogging.

I started following a bunch of people,including some journalists I know or would like to know.  I installed Tweetdeck on my computers.  I updated my Twitter profile.  I was ready to go.

What happened?  Even more inane chatter, except now from even more sources.  Some of the journalists I decided to follow, hoping to perhaps get insight into stories they're working on or info they'd like to receive from a p.r. person, seemed to be writing more about what bar or restaurant they're at or what they had for dessert.  And some of my blogger friends, who write with insight about marketing and social media issues, are tweeting about movies they saw or providing a running dialogue (or monologue) on what they're watching on TV. at the moment.

Enough!  Please.

I'm not saying Twitter is bad or a waste.  It doesn't do much for me, personally or businesswise...at least at the moment.  I still check Twitter a couple of times a day.  Tweets have pointed me to some interesting posts and articles.  But I have to wade through so much chatter to find the good stuff.  There's just not enough time.  I complained about it to one friend, who simply told me to unfollow them if I didn't like the chatter.

A study ,mentioned in this week's Mediaweek, said 58% of Twitter account holders rarely or never send or receive tweets.  Twenty percent do several times a month; 11 percent several times a week, seven percent every day or nearly every day, and only two percent are doing it several times a day.  Those are the people with thousands of tweets logged and often thousands of followers. That two percent may be the ones jamming Tweetdom with so much clutter.

So I feel a bit redeemed when I read results of a study that found more than 40% of Twitter tweets are "babble." (Not my word. That's how it was reported online by BBC News.)

Market research firm Pear Analytics looked at the Twitter stream every 30 minutes for six hours a day over the course of a week.  They took 2,000 messages at random and categorized them into six groups:

      News

      Spam

      Self-promotion

      Pointless babble

      Conversational

      Messages having pass-along value

Pointless babble took first place, accounting for 40.5% of the messages analyzed.  Conversational accounted for 37.5%.  Those with pass-along value were 8.7%.  Self-promotion and spam were 5.9 and 3.8 percent respectively.

Ryan Kelly, founder of Pear Analytics, was quoted saying, "It will be interesting to see if Twitter takes a heavier role in news, or (will it) continue to be a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else."

I hope it will change over time. More marketers are experimenting with Twitter, and I know there are some serious and helpful dialogues going on.  It just seems, now at least, that they're few and far between.

In the meanwhile, I'll keep trying.  And I'll probably keep complaining, too.  So bear with me, you heavy tweeters.

Journalism...Information vs. stories

Joe Mandese, editor of MediaPost, has been covering advertising, marketing and media for at least 20 years -- maybe more.  I've known Joe since his days at Advertising Age.

Joe has a great opinion piece up at MediaPost that takes a look at how the changes in the media are impacting journalism.

Joe writes:
One of the casualties of the shifts taking place in the media economy may be the kind of journalism that has transformed and influenced Western Civilization for the past century or so.  Big journalism organizations that depended upon an abundant and free-flowing print and TV advertising marketplace appears to be collapsing, or at the very least, trading 'analog dollars for digital pennies.'  They are the organizations that...have been referred to as the Fourth Estate - the one that was necessary to counterbalance the religious, industrial and government estates that would otherwise rule a corrupt and unlighted world.

Joe recalls the journalistic ideals of the Watergate era that drew him to journalism, and reminds of how those ideals have been tarnished over the past 30 years by faulty reporting, careless editing and outright plagiarism that's hit institutions as mighty and revered as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the Trib in Chicago.

Changes like the 24-hour news cycle, thanks first, to CNN and then news online, coupled with recession-forced cutbacks in the newsroom, and you see a formula for journalistic disaster.  Pressure to get information out immediately, without the extra set of editors' eyes has hurt the reliability of even the best news organizations.

Joe talks about the onslaught of so-called citizen journalists who, thanks to the internet, have instant and widespread platforms.  Bloggers, Twitterers... more often than not, people with no journalistic training and often without much writing ability, are becoming primary sources of news and information. 

He ends his piece by saying, "Don't get me wrong, I believe that professional journalism is important and does make a difference.  But I also believe that new communication and publishing technologies are also enabling people to make their own difference.  I just hope we can co-exist."

Joe, I think you may be too humble by downplaying the importance of professional journalism.  While pros and citizen journalists will have to co-exist, we can't afford to let new media and new technologies push the real journalists aside.  While the pros aren't perfect and make mistakes and sometimes let their personal bias slip in, they generally keep our view of news honest and accurate.

Bloggers (and I'm one, obviously) and Twitterers are hit or miss when it comes to accuracy, integrity and honesty.  Look at the sellouts among the Mommybloggers who've brought down the wrath and controlling rulings of the Federal Trade Commission. I don't think we can afford to rely on "hit or miss" sources of important news and information, Joe Mandese's modesty aside.

Good journalists know how to gather information, filter out what's wrong or slanted or just plain fluff, and give it to us in a logical way so we can understand it.  Part of good journalism is telling a story.

Vin Crosbie, an adjunct professor at The Newhouse School at Syracuse University, writing on ClickZ today, has a disturbing piece he calls "Death of the Story."  He says "the foundation for any news organization in this millenium should be live, interactive databases of utilitarian information."  Provide the raw information first, before the story about it, he says.

He quotes the editor of the BBC's journalism training publication, who writes:

"The web is enabling our former audiences to come to their news in their ways at their times.  Our old image of gripping them with our stories is no more.

The story is dead."
 
What a horrible thought!  From our earliest years, we take in information and learn things that are told to us as stories.  It's been proven that it's easier to remember things if they are part of a story, rather than simple random bits of information.  How boring if no stories.

News is a series of events, often linked together as part of bigger and more interesting or meaningful stories. (Information:  Two U.S. soldiers were killed today in Afghanistan.  Story:  Two U.S. soldiers were killed today when they were caught in an attack by Taliban forces.  The soldiers were part of a patrol searching for.... etc.)

I think we still need real journalists to get the information, sift through it for us and put it into a form that we can easily look at, with the most important details at the top and the smaller or background stuff farther down.  Most of us don't have time to do our own reporting or our own sifting through all the information.  It's good to know the details are there, somewhere online, if we want or need them.  But I still want the pros to go through it and weed out the needless or useless stuff. 

Otherwise, it would be like trying to sort out real information from all the waste on Twitter. 

Hey Joe, I know you don't Twitter.  But please keep working as a journalist so I don't have to go there.

Paying for Twitter followers

I'm far from an expert on Twitter, but I have been playing with it and watching it for a few months.  If you want to increase the number of followers, which is important for some people, there seem to be a few ways to do so.

Unlike blogging, it doesn't always seem to be about quality of content, but more about frequency -- just being out there.  That seems to lead to a lot of inane chatter about what you just had for breakfast or what song or TV show you happen to have on while you're tweeting.

While I've complained about that inane chatter, I do understand that Twitter can and should be different things for different people.  For some, it's like having a bunch of friends a few keyboard (or phone touchpad) strokes away, to chat about a film or news event.  For others, it's about sharing information and pointing others to articles that they think might be of interest.  And for others, it's about discussing professional issues in whatever business they're in.

All well and good.  I'm learning to filter out the chatter from my "follow" list, so I can focus on getting what I really want from Twitter.

As I'm sure happens with many others who use Twitter, I get messages telling me so & so is now following me.  I take a look to see who that person is and what they tweet about, so I can decide if I want to follow them.  When I see someone is following hundreds or thousands of people and they have relatively few updates, I've learned that's often someone looking to sell something. 

The latest thing I've been seeing is sites that promise to instantly gain you thousands of followers.  Spend $85 and you'll quickly get 1,000 new followers, a recent one from across the Pacific promised me.

Why would I want to pay for followers?  I'm not trying to impress anyone with numbers.  But I suppose some people are.  Paying for followers, though, is like gaming the system.  Or like a politician buying votes.  Not fair, not right.

Check out an interesting post from an advertising guy in Las Vegas, Rich Becker, which I happened across via a tweet from my friend Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent.

AP Heading in a New Direction

The Associated Press is adapting to the times to stay alive and healthy in the face of threatened defections over membership fees by several major newspapers earlier this year. 

Last week, the 162-year old news cooperative said it would lower fees for member newspapers and broadcasters by a total of $45 million in the coming year.  That will help cash-strapped newspapers especially.

The AP also began a push to sell advertising and sponsorships for its online services, especially its mobile products that go directly to consumers.  In a presentation to ad agencies and advertisers, the AP challenged agencies to be creative about how they look to advertise on digital news content platforms.

It's much too soon to know how this will be received, but I hope this effort succeeds for the AP.  It's too important a newsgathering organization to have it be forced to cut back seriously on its reporting nationally and internationally. 

CNN and Twitter aside, we need the Associated Press.

A bright spot -- online -- for newspapers?

Perhaps there's a bright spot for newspapers after all.  Ironically, it's an "old" digital tool -- e-mail.

Major dailies including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have been using opt-in e-mail to distribute newsletters and other editorial content that's available only online.  Some magazines, like Forbes, are doing this as well.

E-mail distribution gives newspapers and potential advertisers something they may not get from their print editions -- reaching highly targeted audiences at a lower cost, along with expanded readership beyond their normal local or regional marketplace.  And the distribution cost is practically nothing -- no printing, no shipping, no sharing revenue with distributors and dealers.

According to a story in DM News, e-mail is proven as a medium that can be monetized, while other digital media like RSS, mobile and blogs haven't yet been proven as real advertising money-makers.

The New York Times, which has about 20 e-mail products (like Stuart Elliott's online ad column), reports e-mail columns are responsible for nearly 10% of The Times' digital revenue.

So maybe there's hope for newspapers, from one of the venues that's been contributing so heavily to their financial woes.