Universal Information Services

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On the eve of a new marketing campaign, I find myself reflecting on what our objectives are for this campaign. With message points like, "Are you sure your news monitor is tracking all your news?" and "How much news are you missing?", it seems we're trying to appeal to a person's sense of doubt.

Doubt is something that seems to be innate, a primary function of our rational being. For this blog, I would say this falls into that category of #samerules for people. Ironically, doubt has become a positive force for compelling buyers to make a change from their existing vendor. Sales teams use this doubt in order to get you to simply consider their pitch. The #newtools of social media let marketing and sales greatly amplify doubt across many buying channels.

Doubt can take many forms. Marketing professionals try and get you to doubt the price you pay for service, doubt the features you get for a price, and most commonly doubt the results of the product or service you are receiving. The hope, if you will, in using doubt is that you will stop what you are using and switch to the new vendor.

My feeling is that doubt is nearly related to skepticism. With skepticism you get cautiousness, and from cautiousness you hopefully arrive at a point where you fairly evaluate your options. It is in evaluating your options that one finds the truth...but that truth is not always easy to see. In our marketing campaign we hope that prospective clients will only question who they are using for news monitoring and media analysis, asking themselves if they are truly getting what they need.

If it sounds like I'm talking in circles, that's because I probably am. The circular nature of moving from doubt to decision seems to ultimately bring you back to doubt. Even if and when you decide to change your vendor, that choice eventually falls victim to that doubt once again. This recurring doubt is most often introduced by the next vendor in line.

At Universal Information Services one of our Core Values is Honest and Direct Communication. If we do nothing more than help educate the PR professionals and corporate communicators we serve, we have done a good job. If these prospects have doubts about their current vendors, maybe we can help either confirm they are using a good service, or maybe compel them to look elsewhere. We, of course, hope these prospects look at Universal, but most importantly, they look at the best service to fulfill their needs. Personally, I have no problem naming services like Cision and BurrellesLuce, in addition to Universal Information Services, as complete news monitoring services that do a great job.

If you doubt my opinion, leave a comment. Cheers!

Of course the headline of my post today is supposed to cause people to take exception with that comment. What I mean by "nothing new" is that fundamentally, creativity still carries the day. For all the high tech production tools we have, the social media integration, and the ever growing use of celebrities, creativity always wins. The #samerules of advertising are never more evident than when the professionals debrief on which ads won the hearts and minds of Super Bowl Viewers.

Although I don't have my hands on the exact stats, I would theorize that as many watch the Super Bowl for advertisements as much as the game. As Universal Information Services analyzes the news and engagement from this year's Super Bowl, we may find that more are watching for the commercials as the Super Bowl is a cross demographic event. It's the one time of the year that you might gather men, women, children, grandparents, and pets in the same room to watch a program without the remote control in your hands. Yes, the Super Bowl may be the one television broadcast where we override our conditioned response to channel surf during commercials. Of course, who would want to miss a commercial.

The irony of watching a broadcast for the commercials could be analogous to broadcasts of the 1950's, where viewers enjoyed the live product information as much as the show that the product sponsored. It is interesting how our response to Super Bowl ads may be a vestigial viewing habit from many generations ago. Or, it may just be that we are all members of a species that is still very intrigued by creative advertising. Could it be that simple?

Super Bowl advertising is a great example of #samerules with #newtools...and I really enjoy it. Tell me what you think. Has advertising tapped into something far greater than the simple interest of a person who wants to be entertained for 30 seconds or less? Leave your comments. Thanks.

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!

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This time of the year brings forth hundreds, if not more, of opinions on what trends or tricks you need to use for the coming year. For the public relations and media relations industry, many of these top X lists speak to utilizing the latest tools for social media, or embracing internal content to drive your communication efforts. These ideas are all good ideas as content is truly king, and the social media tools are great for amplifying your messages. For a great example of a "Top Trends List", check out Liz O'Donnell's post. In the end, this short post focuses on the #1 thing you can do to enhance your public relations and media relations.

This is a core fundamental, the epitome of #samerules for #newtools, it is the art of the "Thank You". Yes, providing a real "thank you" is just good business. Whether serving clients, or working with the media across any channel, showing your appreciation reinforces a relationship and helps ensure that relationship can grow.

At Universal Information Services we provided a bit of a tongue-in-cheek play on saying thank you with a cup of coffee or hot cocoa.

Our news monitoring and media analysis clients are attracted to Universal because of our culture, the fact we enjoy what we do, but most of all, because we appreciate working for them. Oddly enough, the aforementioned qualities are the most often heard reasons our new clients cite for leaving their prior vendors. So if you're going to do one thing in 2012, or even here at the end of 2011, tell those you appreciate, "Thank you". I thank you for taking time to read my posts this year and look forward to presenting #newtools of 2012 and emphasizing how your fundamentals, or #samerules, are key in the coming year. Cheers...and Thank you!

...well sort of. I was able to capture part of an industry using my WordPress dashboard for creating time sensitive blogs and tracking comments. If content is king, engagement is queen.

In August of this year the broadcast monitoring industry's largest vendor declared bankruptcy. VMS, Video Monitoring Services, filed Chapter 7 and spilled thousands of clients onto the open market. A year ago this would have been of great interest, but of little consequence, to Universal Information Services. With the help of What-Cheer we completely renovated our web presence back in the fall of 2010. This gave us a custom themed WordPress website and a complete content management system for blogging and managing comments. What I would also find is that with the provided plug-ins of WordPress, my posts were being optimized for Search Engines and growing my brand presence with my industry. Here's where the story begins...

I was in Scottsdale, Arizona on a work related retreat when I learned that in 18 short hours VMS would be closing their doors. My associates quickly helped me brainstorm how I could best help the soon to be orphaned VMS clients find a home with Universal Information Services. Rather than exploit the misfortune of a friendly competitor, I simply created a higher profile for Universal Information Services, a profile that would help these clients find my company. Below is a timeline of what I did, what transpired as a result of my actions, and how that translated into growth for my company.

• 6pm August 25: A rumor of the impending bankruptcy hit my cell phone and six business friends helped me formulate a strategy using the #newtools of social media to help pull new prospects to Universal.
• 12:01am August 26: Seeing an industry email related to the bankruptcy, a second source confirming the rumor, I turned to my iPad to begin blogging about the bankruptcy and how it may impact VMS employees and clients. I accessed the CMS dashboard of Universal's website, a simple but powerful WordPress interface. There I quickly tapped out my thoughts on the matter. That original blog can be found here.
• 5am (in Arizona), 7am ET August 26: I moved my first blog on VMS with a single click of the Publish button.
• 6am August 26: Began commenting on other blogs and web sites, using my blog url on the comments to drive traffic back to the Universal Website.
• 7am August 26: Had breakfast and waited.
• Noon ET, August 26: VMS officially announces their bankruptcy...industry email, blogs, newsletters explode with confirmation and questions.
• Afternoon of August 26: Emails start hitting my smartphone with people commenting on my blog post. I respond to these comments quickly.
• 6am August 27: Update my original VMS related blog, citing some comments from over the past 18 hours.
• 7am August 27: Answer more comments on my blog post. I also realize that this blog has drawn more comments than any other in the prior year.
• 8am August 29: Post a related blog on my other company's website, The NewsTracks.
• September 2: Write a follow up blog reflecting back on the week since the VMS bankruptcy. Again, drawing a high volume of comments and links to our site.

The net effect:
My efforts, through our WordPress blog, effectively boosted our search rankings, with my sites capturing most, if not all, of the first page of organic results. Additionally, our Google AdWords campaigns went through the roof as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube related postings all pointed back to the Universal website. Similarly, my Utah News Clips company saw a huge jump in google hits due to the SEO effect from that WordPress blog. All the comments, links, and links back to our site helped elevate our exposure in the industry by an amazing rate. So much so that our broadcast monitoring business, the part most similar to what VMS provided, saw a jump in sales of 36% for the month following the VMS bankruptcy.

Can I trace our September growth solely to the fact that we were able to quickly facilitate online interaction through our WordPress site, probably not. Having a coordinated plan to Tweet, Blog and comment all contributed to the growth. Most importantly, we didn't wait to take action and our WordPress blogs let us capitalize on the best #newtools of the web. The #samerules of time sensitive marketing is all we did, but in a much different way than would have been possible in years past.

Do you have a similar experience from blogging? Any tips you care to add to the strategy I used? Please contribute to the knowledge base (community) who views this site and leave your comments. I appreciate the engagement.

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Let me start off by saying at Universal Information Services there are some clients I do not want to date. Not because they are too much work, or a pain in the neck, or their margin is too low, but rather because they are already in a love affair with their current vendor. This post briefly explores the accelerating nature of marketing through the #newtools of social media, but focuses more on the #samerules of a positive customer relationship and why that leads to lasting love between client and vendor.

In the news monitoring industry, there are only a handful of services that provide complete news monitoring, media contact management and releasing, plus the ability to analyze all your media exposure...some would call that the whole package. There are many more news monitoring services that service a part of our industry by focusing on broadcast news, or media measurement, but few who can do it all. Therefore, in order to grow we must feed off of each others clients for a certain percentage of client base growth.

Through social media tools like Youtube, Facebook, and especially Twitter, we can amplify our message related to our strengths and relay testimonials from existing clients to prospective clients. I would call that advertising that we are "available to date". Primarily a "pull" marketing tool, the fun social media tools actually provide some great inbound opportunities. Yet, we still maintain a "push" marketing effort to reach out to those who haven't yet found the value in social media. Being honest with myself, I estimate 80% of our prospects are using one of our competitors. Therefore, in order to get to that 80% we must pull them away from a service like cision, Critical Mention, or TVEyes. At Universal Information Services I can tell you we don't want most of their clients. We only want clients who are unhappy and considering some kind of change. I would call those clients "available and hot".

As a user of services, news monitoring or otherwise, you should really think twice before dumping your current vendor for the "promise" of something better. Ask yourself these two questions before entertaining a pitch from a service competing against your current vendor.
1. Am I satisfied that I'm paying a fair price to my vendor in exchange for the services they are giving me?
2. Am I satisfied and pleased with the level of customer service, support and results my current vendor is giving me?

When we find a prospect that is happy on both accounts with their current vendor, that is a signal to move on. Realistically, my service will always be competing against what was considered by this client to be a good service. Not that I can't compete and surpass the quality of my competitors, but it is not the best position to be in when you will always be compared to an enjoyable relationship. It's kind of like dating a new person and having them continually talk about how great their old boyfriend or girlfriend was. Fundamentally, no news monitoring service can keep all of their clients happy all of the time. At Universal Information Services we hope to help those who are looking for better quality, faster turnaround times, or a more competitive cost for the services they need. In other words, we want to only "date" those clients that are really ready to move on or are unattached.

If you answered yes to the above two questions, I would suggest you tell the next competing vendor, "I'm flattered, but I'm seeing someone else". This can help save you much time spent listening to pitches for services you don't need to change, and will also let the competing vendor move on to a better prospect...not that anyone wants to be "that guy" at the bar.

Simply, if you are happy with your vendor stay with them...reward them for breaking their back to make sure you get the best service possible. If you find a competitor pitching a tool you need, ask your current vendor if they can provide that tool as well. Open communication is the key to any relationship. More often than not, your current vendor has all the same tools AND knows exactly how you want to work...already. This is in your best interest as you've invested months or even years into a relationship with your current vendor. How much is that investment worth to you and how long might it take to establish a functional relationship with a new vendor? Changing vendors does not come without costs.

I'm very interested in the psychology of "change". I'd love to hear your thoughts on why you change or don't change when a new vendor comes calling. Of course, if you're not seeing anyone, metaphorically, give me a call. I'd love to meet you.

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.

Gina Svendsen serves as Media Analysis Director for Universal Information Services.

This blog entry is my rant—my opinion. In writing this post, I am putting myself “out there” for a discussion –because without discussion, it’s just me on my soap-box. As the Director of Media Analysis for Universal Information Services, it's also a great diversion from analytics.

I have a slew of nieces and nephews from college-age all the way down to elementary school age, so I’m always wondering, “What can I learn from these great kids and apply that to my life?” As I was brainstorming over this blog post, it donned on me. Transparency. I learned about transparency in a media relations class in college. This old rule has changed over time and, I believe, is MORE important today and will begin to change even more over the next five years.

Today’s younger generation knows way more about this than we do because of Facebook and mobile devices. I just read that the web is older than today’s incoming college freshmen—their posts on Facebook are transparent, with the person behind the post showing their authentic self. They post the good, the bad and the ugly. (I am amused by the number of people on Facebook who air their own dirty laundry! But this is another blog subject for the future.) But seriously, I think we can learn something about transparency from the younger generation and apply it to our industry. I’m talking about being MORE authentic and transparent, more than you are right now.

When I think about transparency in PR, I instantly think of the Toyota gas pedal problem. Toyota didn’t own up to the problem right away and the end result was they lost customers. Toyota forgot the second part of the old rule. If you own up right away, we will be incredibly forgiving. The younger generation has a real problem with this because their transparent, digital lives are chronicled on Facebook. Their meaning of transparency is much different—much more stripped away. More transparent than the transparency we learned about. To them, even privacy is different. It is also stripped away, and private is not ‘as private’ as it once was. The younger generations are consumers and soon to be our peers and they have different ideas on being transparent and private.

Now, I’m not suggesting you go overboard with this idea and post the bad and the ugly, but sit with this a few minutes and think about it: how can you, your brand, your company be more genuine and transparent? More than you already are? Research has shown that by doing so, you will show your friends, your consumers, your employees a true self, and this will gain trust. Trust gains more followers, fans and customers. Trust gains the word of mouth advocate, the most desired customer out there.

Stop hiding your personality, the younger generation doesn’t! You have one, don’t you? Put some personality into your announcements, press releases, or blog. Do you “put on” a corporate façade –if this is you, pull up! The younger generation can already see through your front and they don’t appreciate the legalese. And of course, this will all come full circle when there’s a big screw up and you have to quickly admit your fault (and what you plan to do to fix it) because then everyone will forgive you. If you don’t the opposite will happen.

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Determining the effectiveness of your public relations efforts, or how your brand/service compares against the competition, has always been a very important task. However, two aspects of media analysis have routinely made it the part of the PR professionals' job that they hate. First, in the past, tracking the news you need in a timely manner has been difficult. Second, DATA ENTRY SUCKS!

Recently I posed the following question on Linkedin under the group Media Monitoring and Media Evaluation.
"How important is comprehensiveness of found media to your organization's media analysis effort"?
Background: We believe that some people are content to analyze only a fraction of their media exposure, while most need to track as much news as possible in order for their analysis to be valid.

The responses to the above question showed that there are truly two different types of clients when it comes to media evaluation. One type needs comprehensiveness of found media in order to truly demonstrate their share of voice, reach, impact and meaning. The other type of client can trade comprehensiveness for timeliness and focus of the data that is analyzed. I also believe there's a third category of client, one that wants a balance of both timeliness and comprehensiveness, at least to the point of making their results more reliable. At Universal we try to load for all three analysis clients and then customize around their specific goals.

Comprehensiveness is a measure of how much media you are searching, out of all available media. Now while no company can find everything, a few do search and find more. At the bottom of the list, contrary to what many would believe, web monitoring misses most of the news consumed by the public and businesses. Current studies show that at least 60% of published and broadcast media is not available online. For this reason, a complete news monitoring service, one that tracks print, broadcast, web, and social, is the only option for the most comprehensive news tracking. Services like cision, Burrelles/Luce, and Universal can provide this level of comprehensiveness.

Timeliness is a measure of how quickly your found stories can be delivered and analyzed to you. The faster you see your found stories, the better. This is where monitoring online news sources can shine. Our Web-Alert service lets clients see their online media exposure in near real-time, but it comes at a cost over comprehensiveness. Nonetheless, if you want to quickly analyze a sampling of results, web monitoring can be a great tool. Free services like Google News tend to find less than subscription based web monitoring services, but if you have no budget Google News can fill the basic need.

Finally, data entry. Yes, if you are that entry level PR professional, intern, or from a small boutique firm you have undoubtedly either decided not to measure results, or you are among the masses who must engage in arduous data entry each time you need to develop qualitative and quantitative reports. We know your pain. Every single one of our clients uses our Media Analysis service because data entry sucks. Sorry to be blunt, but I don't think I'm saying anything you haven't thought before.

I joke with our Media Analysis Team that we represent "salvation". Salvation from the terror of cutting a media analysis report when it is the last thing you want to do. What did we do, we found a scalable team of "numbers nerds" who love to do that work. The salvation we offer comes from taking the pain off of your shoulders and putting it on the the shoulders of highly trained analysts...people who love to do what most dislike...but need. Match this love with some level of our news tracking and we have been able to take the entire tracking and measurement task to an outsourced solution.

Ask yourself the question, how important is it for my organization to understand the results of our efforts? If the answer is "pretty darn important", then look at how much time and stress is involved with creating results that may have varying degrees of reliability. Somewhere within that internal conversation you'll stumble across the notion that, "Maybe I should outsource this to a professional service". If not Universal, then one of several services that do truly accurate measurement. Accurate measurement only comes from validation by real humans. Machine generated results have such a low reliability rate that it's hard to believe people can charge for that, but they do.

Check out this blog for more info. Although Lusine Kodagolian is not related to our company in any way, I think she has some great insight on this topic. I'm glad I have connected with her on Linkedin.

Many books have been written and many speakers have spoken on this topic. I happen to prefer the way the guys behind 37signals lay it out in their book REWORK. Basically, you need to have a purpose behind your business. If you don't know why you are providing your service or product, and your staff doesn't believe or understand the purpose, you'll never reach your true potential.

This doesn't mean you have to have some lofty, philosophical purpose to save the world. Rather, it can be as simple as, "We just make really comfortable shoes". With almost every product and service a commodity, being different is not easy. Knowing what or how you should be different, relative to your competition, is a good start.

At Universal Information Services, we know there are only about four companies that compete in the "complete news monitoring and analysis" space, and we're one of them. Two of the four use a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, where your interaction with those companies is primarily through a portal...you serve yourself, you support yourself. Universal also offers most of our news monitoring through our SmartView and Print Portals, but we know what makes us different is our hyper focus on customer service and support. Yes, that mission can often sound hollow, but when your company has a rhythm that includes a service and support focus, your clients will feel it.

We do lose lose clients when the grass looks greener to them, and sometimes that other vendor is a good fit for them. Still, I'm always enthused at the number of clients that come back to us after a year with another news monitoring company because, "they just didn't take care of us like Universal did". For me, that's the ultimate compliment. Taking care of clients is what every company should be doing, that should be your purpose.

I'd like to think we only gain and never lose a client, but that would be naive for any business to expect. Regaining clients, or rather reclaiming clients because of the service and support of your team, that is the most powerful key differentiator out there. The #samerules of making your customer happy has not changed, you simply have #newtools to serve them with...and serve them better you should.

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