New York Times Staff Pay Cuts

According to Editorsweblog.org, the New York Times will implement pay cuts of 5% for nine months starting in April.

Sadly, the cuts extend to the business side with 100 people on the chopping block for layoffs. Staff who receive pay cuts will be granted ten extra vacation days and have been told that their salaries will return to normal levels in 2010 if the economy improves.

Read more about the story here.

BuzZGain Monitoring Service - Effective for PR or Not?

MediaBistro just posted a story about a new web service called BuzZGain. Check out the details here. One of the comments to the article brought up a really good point about the importance of understanding the impact of coverage online, in broadcasts and in print about our clients and brands versus receiving a list of where the coverage ran.

Blagojevich & Reputation Management

Photo Credit: chicagopublicradio on Flickr

From today's AP article: "Blagojevich spent Monday making the rounds of news shows in New York, declaring his innocence but refusing to discuss the criminal allegations he faces. On ABC's "Good Morning America" and "The View," CNN's "Larry King Live" and more, Blagojevich would say only that the quotes in the criminal complaint were taken out of context."

Read this latest AP story on Blagojevich for more.

Yesterday's media blitz by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich really makes one wonder...where do you even begin when it comes to reputation management with a situation like this?

Belated Happy New Year

Photo Source: Associated Press

Has it really been four months since my last post? Ouch! In my defense, my client's busiest time of year is during the winter, we moved into Manhattan in January and I began grad school (I was accepted into NYU's Master of Science in Public Relations Corporate Communications-surprise!) this month also.

So yes, times have been busy and good but I do miss blogging so please consider this my re-entry to the blogosphere. For 2009, my resolution is to blog more frequently but with shorter posts on interesting PR news or hot topics. After using Twitter more often in 2008, I noticed that I was almost always able to squeeze a quick tweet in on a daily or weekly basis. In keeping with that theme, I'll write shorter posts but will get a chance to share my opinions more frequently than in the past.

And here we go!

PRSA's PR Tactics and The Strategist Online has an interesting January article by Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer of TNS Cymfony, with his social media predictions for 2009. The article notes research showing that there was a 33% increase from 2007 to 2008 in the number of consumers online who use social media. It's a great read for thinking ahead about how the changing economy will affect how our clients include social media into public relations strategy this year. Although it can be a cost-effective medium to communicate key messages, I agree with Nail that caution should be exercised to ensure companies don't wear out their welcome with social media users. At the end of the day, the heart of social media is continuous and transparent two-way communication. I predict that if we allow our clients to use social media as a marketing tool to push messaging out rather than being on the receiving end of what consumers want - the only result will be frustrated customers who won't pay attention to the message when it matters most.

See the article for yourself here.

Brian Solis Sets Record Straight on Viral Marketing

Brian Solis recently shared his viewpoint that there is no such thing a viral marketing...well sort of. "This isn't a campaign. This is something new, this is something we have to do every day," Solis said. CNET's story on Solis reports why Solis believes viral marketing isn't what many people think it is.

Although I'm sure his statements will be misunderstood and misconstrued by some, I have to say that I agree with much of what he said. From CNET: And the underlying truth is that this is all still advertising, marketing, and public relations, and too many attempts to mask it as "conversation" can come across as a gimmick. Indeed, Solis said that a lot of people are screwing it up. "They're creating profiles on every social network and they're 'friending' everyone like it's going out of style," he said, talking about Twitter spam and showing a PowerPoint slide of the cartoon incarnation of trying too hard, Wile E. Coyote. "It's not about shilling, it's not about pushing, and it's not about faking it."

Couldn't agree more Brian.

Twitter Brand Index

If you're into Twitter, I highly recommend saving the link to the Twitter Brand Index for future reference. In addition to listing media that you can follow on Twitter, it also includes companies from various industries such as airlines, entertainment, even the government. So far in my Twitter experience, I've found the most useful updates are those from my local media. I can quickly get updates on headlines of interest or weather warnings which has proven very useful for obvious reasons.The topics I find myself "tweeting" about vary from projects I'm working on to breaking news to headlines affecting the public relations community. Overall, I think Twitter is growing in popularity because of its increasing usefulness and as a colleague at my firm shared recently, "Many-to-many messaging is one of Twitter's greatest strengths."

read more digg story

MediaPost story "Social Media: It's More than Facebook"

Interesting read on MediaPost. Check it out...

"Social Media: It's More than Facebook"

TV News Finds Revenue in Product Placement

In case you haven't heard yet, The New York Times reports that product placements have found a new home in some TV news studios around the country.

Read more here.

Picture Source: The New York Times

Peter Shankman's HARO vs. PR Newswire's Profnet - The Battle Continues

MediaBistro posted a story this Wednesday titled, "It's Official: ProfNet vs. HARO," and the story does a nice job of summarizing a potential issue of stiff industry competition for ProfNet thanks to the quick success of HARO. To be completely transparent, I will admit that I am a current subscriber to the HARO list serve, own a copy of Shankman's eye-opening book, "Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work— And Why Your Company Needs Them," and I'm a former user of ProfNet from my old agency's subscription. I believe my current agency subscribes to ProfNet queries as well but I haven't had any interaction with the service here yet.

Media Bistro's story includes a link to The Industry Standard's article on HARO from this Tuesday, "A source is a source, of course, even when it's free and turning an industry upside down," and I definitely recommend reading this as well to get a brief history of HARO and a look into why it's caught on with so many public relations professionals.

What jumped out to me however after reading through these posts and articles as well as comments from other readers, is that I don't know if I want HARO to become a ProfNet replacement. I wish for its success in the long run of course but I don't know if I see it overcoming ProfNet for several logistical reasons (many of which Shankman cites himself as the reason he's not trying to compete with ProfNet in the first place) and I hope it doesn't for personal reasons as well.

Although ProfNet is a terrific service and serves its purpose well at the end of the day, my main issue with using it in the past was that so many reporters I contacted through the service who did respond to me would often complain about the mass of off-topic/off-pitch e-mails they received from using ProfNet. No surprise, this really aggravated the journalists. In fact, when I worked with a media contact a few months ago who needed a source that I couldn't provide her with directly, I encouraged her to use HARO and her first concern was that she might be swamped with irrelevant e-mails in the same way that ProfNet works. She did end up signing up for HARO, posting a query and later received helpful responses. I just know she was hesitant to do so for fear her inbox would be overloaded with in the way it has with ProfNet in the past.

So I'm not sure where the perfect balance lies for HARO in continuing to be a useful service for both practitioners and media alike while avoiding the cliam it's trying to take on ProfNet, but Shankman seems to be a smart cookie so we'll just wait and see what develops.

Read the whole story here.

Earning Media Attention Through Repetitve Buzz-worthy Words

The New York Times had an article today in their Media & Advertising section about how press releases with the appropriate word choice selection can receive attention from major news organizations. Target words suggested for use to gain buzz from one public relations practitioner in the article were: money, fat, cancer or sex. I'm not sure if I agree that this always works to a client's advantage however. Although repetitive use of these "buzz-worthy" words in press releases may prove beneficial for search engine optimization, I worry that our media colleagues will begin to see these words as a last-ditch attempt to gain their attention for non-newsworthy items and soon become target words for our outreach being dismissed.

Read the article here.