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This year a friend of mine was featured on Food Network's Cupcake Wars. About a week before the airing I sat down with him, while dining with my wife. and suggested he engage a PR professional to help harness the publicity of that show. A few days before airing, Bill contacted me to pursue the use of PR. Within 10 minutes I had him connected with a real PR professional. As a news monitoring service it is very apparent to us that if an organization wants to reach the largest audience quickly, local TV, Radio, and Print are the best bets. Now of course this depends on the audience and the service or product, but generally speaking the largest audiences for a single story are found in traditional media. However, as everyone knows, magnifying placements in traditional media through the social networks is a key component of most PR efforts.

Public Relations was the perfect tool for this promotional need as the event, a Cupcake Wars episode, could easily be promoted as a "local company done good" story. But, it would require someone with real media relationships in order to rally the TV, radio, and print media quickly. With the trending power of solo PR professionals, almost any event or PR push can be managed by a single PR pro. Through the use of now more affordable tools for news monitoring and earned media measurement, these one person shops can compete on a broader stage. Such was the case for this Cupcake Ware effort. This effort utilized traditional media relations outreach, event planning, and social media engagement to promote the show.

One of the trends for 2012 is how solo PR professionals will continue to grow their ranks. Whether because of downsized agencies, or the trimming of corporate PR departments, or even news media personalities entering the public relations industry, this does seem to be more than a trend...maybe the new normal. But I digress.

Back to the cupcakes. The overall statistics were amazing.

ROI is evident by the lines now forming at Jones Bros. Cupcakes. They did a good business before, but now it is booming over there. The TV and radio coverage generated through PR was, as expected from a well formed effort, great. And even some mentions in print were earned.

This short post illustrates a classic #samerules approach was needed here, but amplified by the #newtools of social media. One of our points for the last two years, not as just a trend for 2012, is that public relations and marketing must get away from thinking in terms of traditional and social media as separate mediums. We have only media, understanding and using each medium within the greater media takes a real pro. Whether you're an agency pro or a solo PR pro, being an expert in media relations is a primary function if you expect results. There is no faking real public relations.

Let me know if we can help you understand the impact of your PR efforts through measurement or tracking. Or better yet, give us your thoughts on how to best generate PR for an event, service, or product. Sharing the knowledge makes us all better.

Cheers!

Comments (5)

At Universal I take calls, emails and tweets all the time asking about our news monitoring and media analysis services. When I think in terms of #samerules and #newtools, it strikes me that almost no two clients have the exact same need. Sure, many of our clients need TV clips and press clippings, or their media exposure analyzed, but rarely do they need their information in the exact same manner as another client.

I originally set out to provide a primer on the various news monitoring services like Critical Mention and Cision, as well as other News Data Service affiliates like Utah News Clips. An overview of what each news tracking, media measurement, or even media contacts platform provides would be helpful to clients. But seriously, who is going to read a blog post that runs 10 pages long? What I've presented below are the three main types of vendors to consider when discerning which news monitoring and media analysis service is best for your organization.

1. Free solutions: In this category you find search engines with basic functionality for storing some keywords and returning results to you. Free services like Google News Alerts or Bing act as search agents informing you of some of the news you want to hear. The most recent studies indicate these free services contain about 30% of the published or broadcast news in the United States. If you just need some information, and aren't picky about the specific media outlets that ran the story, these free services can be a great tool. You can track a lot of news for free. For organizations that need more comprehensive media monitoring, or media measurement beyond basic quantitative metrics, the paid monitoring services are essential.

2. Paid solutions: The most comprehensive services come in two flavors. You have the monitoring services that provide all the online tools you need, plus true customer service to support special needs and ad hoc requests. Companies like Universal Information Services or Cision fall into this category. Then you have the SaaS companies like Critical Mention and TVEyes. SaaS vendors provide a login to their platform where you perform the work yourself.

Comprehensive services that offer service and support generally have the following benefits over their SaaS competitors.
Backsearching for ad hoc orders
Support staff to handle questions and special requests
Crisis management contacts to assist with after hours needs
The ability customize your service package to specifically fit your needs

SaaS services are very good at:
Providing a single platform for reviewing and editing TV clips
Offering competitive pricing, although options and features are reduced
Delivering a nice looking interface to their platform.

3. Executive Summary Services This category represents the newest breed of news monitoring services. The goal of these services is to filter through the entire information sphere, pulling only the most strategic news stories as defined by the client. In a sense, this type of news monitoring cuts through the noise for the client so they don't have to filter their own results. In constructing our Executive Reports we still look at virtually all media outlets for print, broadcast, web and social media stories, but then select only the news that is most critical to our client. Although Executive Summary services come at a premium over the "all you can eat" models, the time and resources saved by the client can make up for that additional cost.

Our most recent analysis shows that most prospects are looking for flexibility, options, and the ability to modify orders with the help of support staff. However, not all users need that kind of help. In the end, you need to decide what your real needs are and what vendor can fulfill them now, or evolve with you in the future. If I can answer any questions, please leave a comment. I'm listening.

At Universal Information Services our national news monitoring and media analysis efforts have evolved to a point where our client prospects are mostly found through inbound systems. In other words, with the growing use of #newtools from social media platforms, the need for us to interrupt/disrupt our prospective clients is greatly reduced.

Many resources have illuminated this shift away from outbound marketing, but essentially the #newtools (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, Groupon, etc.) now let any organization that must routinely generate new clients, attract those clients to them rather than hunt them down and interrupt them with a marketing pitch. Mix in Google Analytics, and you have an amazing way to analyze your effectiveness for inbound marketing. Whether you call it "interruption marketing" or "disruption selling", it is a much harder sell than allowing prospects to find you when they are looking for what you have.

If you look at the economics of maintaining a staff of national sales people, how many calls and follow-ups do they have to make in order to bring one new customer to you? We both know the answer here, and that number is somewhere around a "boat-load". Figure in salaries, support staff, CRM costs, other consumables, and the expense in finding a new client is very high. But, if you can decrease the number of outbound marketers you employ, and convert those people devoted customer service representatives, you'll find that your ROI is much greater when focused on retention of clients and in selling additional services to those happy clients.

Allowing low, fixed-cost social media tools to funnel leads to your inbound marketing staff means your team is working with those who are already predisposed to want what you are selling. Equally important to this inverse marketing path, is the #samerules concept that clients want to have an enjoyable experience when working with their vendors. From the beginning of the sales cycle you now have a pleasant relationship instead of one that starts with disrupting your client's day.

Outbound marketing (interruption/disruption) has become a mostly adversarial encounter as we are all trained to initially say, "No!", when approached by a salesperson. In some cases the salesperson gets lucky and can warm the prospect up to what they are selling. But this conversion is the rare occasion for any service. The excessive abuse by the bad apples of telemarketing and direct marketing has inoculated everyone against the cold call. But if that cold call is now a warm call, and is initiated by the end user and not the marketer, you have a very potent sales mechanism.

Here are several resources that can help you make the jump from disruption marketing...the #newtools of social media.
Rick Burnes, Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web
Brian Halligan, Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
Lee Odden, 22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools

I love the idea that I don't have to deploy a force of clever sales people charged with penetrating the natural defenses of our future clients. It's much more enjoyable to be viewed as a solution to a prospects need when THEY contact us. We do still identify and proactively approach organizations that clearly need our services, but now we can be much more selective and increase our probability of winning that business.

The costly, shotgun approach of disruption marketing is dieing, but certainly is not dead. We'd love to hear your opinion on inbound vs. outbound marketing. What #newtools have you found that increase your ROI for marketing and sales?

Todd Murphy
Vice President
Universal Information Services
http://universal-info.com

Comments (2)

As my sixth post to Universal Information Services' blog page, I felt it was time to elaborate on the philosophy of #samerules and #newtools. This blog was intended to cast light on what new tools are available to the PR professional and business communicator. We also want to contrast the flood of new tools against the common sense thought that using these tools entails an understanding of the fundamental rules of communication and PR. At the core of the new tools is not a paradigm shift in the way we communicate, but rather a set of rules we've seen and used for many years prior.

For many people the prospect of mastering new tools to enhance their media relations efforts can be unappealing or simply a burden. Like it or not, new tools present themselves everyday and for every industry. These new tools do have differences that make them unique, but their fundamentals remain the same. Here are some examples of #newtools with #samerules at their core.
1. The iPod: Did it change how we enjoy music, or simply the ease with which we enjoy music? Most would say that the Sony Walkman ushered in the era of personal audio. The iPod represents a new tool, but fundamentally has the same rules as the Walkman. The phonograph brought music into the personal space more than a century before the Walkman.
2. Twitter: Did Twitter change all that we know about communication and public relations? No. Fundamentally one can argue that Twitter is a micro blogging system, stemming from the blogging conventions, that stemmed from the fundamentals of writing and journalism. Blogging and micro blogging are a great example of what happens when we democratize the tools. These new tools are now available to everyone and at no cost. But, the same rules of writing compelling content (did everyone just leave?) apply or else no one will read what you have to say (*small exception to this point, see below).
3. Rock & Roll: My friend, Jeremy Lipschultz, Ph.D., almost tripped me up with the illustration of what Elvis and The Beatles meant to music. Do these bands represent #samerules or new rules? Then it came to me, what the original Rockers did was analogous to what social media is doing for journalism and public relations. Electric instruments, amplifiers, and a faster tempo were, at their core, the application of new tools using the same rules. Aside from the most pure form of industrial music, Rock & Roll (including all variations) still adheres to the #samerules of tempo, notes, chords, chord progression, etc. Elvis used his new tools to amplify his message and draw a greater audience, much like the social media tools.

Now I don't want you to walk away thinking that none of the #newtools have new rules. I believe quite the contrary. All new tools do have new rules that make them unique, but they ALSO have the #samerules at their core. One should not forget common sense, human nature, and the fundamental conventions of good public relations. The new tools are great because they let us amplify our message beyond what we could previously do with the older tools. The #newtools help us engage other mediums by extending our audience and community.

I'm confident someone will find a new tool that has none of the #samerules at its core. When that happens I will embrace that concept and most likely discuss it here on this blog. But until then I encourage you to try and test this theory. Are there any new tools of communication you are using that you feel have no fundamental rules from prior modes of communication? Leave your comments to engage with me, or visit our website for some ideas http://www.universal-info.com/

Cheers!
Todd Murphy
Vice President
Universal Information Services

(*small exception: The Long Tail philosophy dictates that there is an audience or buyer for everything, no matter how unique the product or content. At the very far end of the Long Tail you may find some #newtools that have no corresponding #samerules. I love The Long Tail.)

Comments (2)

If you watch Twitter or follow public relations groups on LinkedIn, you've seen a common question about the #newtools for monitoring news or social media. Over the past week I counted no less than 200 sources people had offered up as their favorite new tool for tracking media. Some are free, some are paid, but what all of these services have in common is they are trying to help users and organizations cut through the deafening media noise. People want solutions, the answers, an educated interpretation of what their media exposure means in terms of values that are important to them. 99% of the services out there are missing the mark.

The subtitle of this post is "The Art of Noise", not as a reference to the avant-garde alternative band of the 1980's, but as a reference to the growing volume of news and information available to everyone. What PR professionals, corporate communicators, and anyone tasked with tracking media need is simply an answer to the question of, "What stories should I be focusing on? Show me what is truly important and why."

Here are a few of the services I believe have sound methodologies for generating meaningful earned media placements: Cision, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, BlueVision, and Carma. Yes, these are competitors: Universal Information Services offers many of the same services, but these companies have also demonstrated a high rate of reliability and are worthy of mention.

In contrast, the shortcoming in almost every online news monitoring solution available is that it is a software-as-a-service (SaaS). Invariably this means you, the customer, must know exactly what you want to track, what metrics you want to see, and then you have to do the work of correctly entering that information into an online tool. All of this effort on your part must occur before you can see any analysis or report outlining your results.

For accurate media monitoring and pr measurement, and to cut through the noise to just the news you need, human reasoning is ultimately required. Computers can only decide a yes or no proposition (1 or 0). Yes, the human is still critical for accurate news monitoring and media measurement. So, in the end your use of SaaS solutions, or a system that includes customized human interaction, may be the difference between receiving an overwhelming amount of media noise and getting truly valuable information. How loud must it be before you can no longer do your job well? We look at the #newtools with the #samerules in mind…then do what is best for our clients. What do you do?

Welcome to our first ravings related to news, information consumption, social media, tools of dissemination, and how all this is impacted by Human Nature. Universal Information Services has created this blog to illuminate ideas related to the intersection of communication fundamentals and new channels of information distribution. Basically, our media analysis and position as a news monitoring service has led us to the conclusion that the fundamental rules of public relations communications has not changed, only the tools we have at our disposal are new (#SameRules #NewTools).

We’ve even chosen to hash tag these two phrases to underscore the importance that social media has on media engagement, media placement, and public perception. It is true, social media has greatly enhanced our methods of communication. But be careful, professional communication by any mode has not fundamentally changed. Therefore our blog will feature postings related to two areas of public relations and communications. We'll also focus on issues related to news monitoring, media analysis, social network influence. From press clipping to TV news clips to web monitoring, our broad spectrum of news monitoring and media analysis experience opens a wide door for discussion.

First, the fundamentals of writing style and the need for compelling content are not new. If you can’t write, spell, structure a sentence, or convey compelling ideas, it does not matter what channel you use to communicate, your audience will remain small and ephemeral. The same basic rules of communication survive today and are only slightly modified to match each medium (print, broadcast, web, social).

Second, how you harness the enormous power of the new tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Foursquare is a testament to your ability to apply your skills across the #NewTools. You should be thinking “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. Human nature, as well as common sense, dictates that one should meet their target audience through whatever communication tool they prefer. For this reason all of us need to stop referring to social media as something outside of mainstream media. Never has a new medium supplanted an older medium. Newspapers did not kill discussion, radio did not kill newspapers, television did not kill radio, the Web did not kill television, and social media will not kill any of the aforementioned mediums. The communication pie only expands while dividing into smaller pieces for each medium…growth instead of replacement.

I’m sure some will hold on to the false notion that there has been a complete shift in the communication paradigm. I hope to receive comments that the world has changed as we know it and we will forever be changed. These comments will help prove that no matter what our technical mode of discourse may be, human nature controls how we communicate…and that is fundamentally unchanged.

I am not a writer. You will see an overabundance of commas in my postings and I may not always structure my sentences correctly. Yes, you may correct me if you want, but in the end it is the ideas I’m hoping to spark interest with, not my writing prowess.

#SameRules #NewTools represents an extension of the media research we do here at Universal. This blog is for the “engaged community”. This does not mean only those who are social media savvy, but anyone who understands that humans create content and humans consume information. Those who fail to consider human nature when creating tools are doomed to repeat history by creating solutions that are DOA. There will be little acceptance of their #NewTool because they have chosen to ignore the importance of the #SameRules.

Future topics include: Niche content and The Long Tail, The Importance of Compelling Content, and an answer to the “Who Cares” question (ROI).

To balance my prior posting (Top 3 Reasons To Attend Conferences #NewTools), and an important point on its own, I believe one should not make a career of attending conferences. Over the last three years we have observed the emergence of those who are on a quest to be the most well educated person working in the new media/social media space. This effort is great when balanced with effort and output. But, when one simply makes a career out of attending meetings and conferences without pausing to create and further the initiatives of their company or client, it is largely wasted time and money. Agency and corporate communications personnel are equally susceptible to this problem.

We’ll call these offenders “perpetual attendees”. You’ve seen them. They have been to all the hot meetings, have collected the free swag on their desks, and are able to rattle off names like Shankman, Scoble, Vaynerchuk, and Evan Williams like they are close friends.

The aforementioned guys are very likeable, knowledgeable, and have brought much to our evolving media landscape. But the relationships most have with them are no different than my friendship with Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway…The Oracle of Omaha. I’ve seen him several times, been at arms length to Mr. Buffett, but we don’t “know” each other. Am I better for seeing and hearing him talk on finance and investing, for sure. But I don’t see him speak every time he’s available. I gather nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Buffett, and then apply them to my business and personal efforts. Similarly, industry conferences and learning opportunities work to impart nuggets of information I can apply to helping my clients or colleagues.

So, when deciding if I should attend a conference, for me it comes down to common sense (#SameRules). Will I learn something new or be inspired in a way that will benefit news monitoring and media analysis service, my clients, or my work/life balance? Can I improve our press clipping or web monitoring service? Am I free for the dates of the conference without any other true obligations? If the answer is “No” to either of these questions, then I will skip the conference and catch a different one. Basically, am I going to learn something new AND use what I learn? If not, skip it. That’s the good thing about conferences; there are so many opportunities if you just look. See the links on my prior post for some good sources of meetings.

Leave your comments about your number one reason for skipping a conference. All theory and no application does nothing for your company or clients. If you’re not adding value in your position, there’s somebody out there who will.