furlongpr.com blog

Exciting news, I’ve been offered (ok begged for) a spot on Brand Republic, so, my latest observations on the crrrrazy world of PR can be found here:

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/prfurblog/default.aspx

It’s official – news coverage has become more negative. According to the latest benchmarking survey by media evaluation firm Metrica – negative coverage of organisations has doubled since 2001 from four to eight percent.

I suspected as much, last week at breakfast, we were presumably supposed to splutter into our museli as several high brow news channels announced ‘THE LARGEST HOUSE PRICE PLUNGE FOR 15 YEARS’ – bong, sound the gong of doom, quick get the estate agent on the line, financial ruin beckons for  all of us.

But what was this enormous plunging figure, this fearful omen of property meltdown?  2.4%  - that’s right,  a staggering 2.4% across the UK. Oh my god, find me a tall building to jump off.

In a less sarcastic tone, PR Week speculated recently on why coverage has become more negative. Possible explanations included the lack of exclusive stories which pressure journalists into putting the most dramatic spin possible on stories and the number of channels they are expected to write for - print, web, podcasts, vodcasts, such that the ‘journo’ is turning into a ‘churno’.

Whatever the truth behind it, there’s no doubt that the media world has become a more treacherous place in 2008 - there’s more potential for client stories to be spun off course, driven by the currents of modern journalism. However at the same time, the ocean has expanded considerably and there are many more places to get your client’s message heard and in a more targeted fashion.

The industry as a whole certainly seems to be rising to the challenge – a recent survey by the PRCA found that 90% of senior PR practitioners expected their staff to remain the same or grow this year. 90% - now that’s what I call a significant percentage.

Ross Furlong

Have you ever been to a website which didn’t resemble the advert you’d seen or the shop you’d been in, or if it did, was a pale imitation of it? Equally, have you been to flashed up, all singing sites that are actually minimised for search – i.e., not scannable by search engines?

Getting the balance right of online branding and search engine optimisation is a tricky business but some sites, like New Scientist pull it off with aplomb. It comes down to lots of relevant articles with a ‘reasonable’ use of keywords and phrases (not every second word) plus a few other SEO tricks you may have up your sleeve.

One thing from a PR perspective that isn’t always appreciated is the importance of key words and phrases to SEO, branding and PR – both online and offline. If these are used consistently throughout your business communications, you can then be assured that your search AND branding are working with each other in harmony - at least in terms of copy and messaging. Graphics are a different ball game.

Ross Furlong

I found myself once again at the trade show juggernaut which is Internet World this week and with five clients involved either speaking or exhibiting, it was a busy couple of days. The spiralling demand for digital expertise was clear to see from the long queues for seminars which is great news for everyone, including PR people as there’s no shortage of new editorial material to pitch with many exhibitors considered valuable depositories of cutting edge know how.

The quality of the material was clear from the unusual position I found myself in of being approached directly by journalists looking for contributions. Being asked as opposed to having to badger the editor into submission is a nice place to be for a PR but journalists in this market do appreciate the value of information available to them via suppliers (on the whole).

The comparatively limited number of established media outlets does mean that much of the flow of information that ended with the show on Thursday will now have to find its audience another way but those companies who continue to publish quality content on their own websites and blogs should not find it too difficult to recreate those long seminar queues for themselves online.

Ross Furlong

Further evidence of businesses failing to make the link between online content and online PR comes in the form of Eurocom’s annual worldwide IT confidence survey covered in Direct Marketing International this month.

While search was voted the most impactful development in marketing in the last ten years, 42% of respondents didn’t recognise the value of blogs with 32% complaining that it is too time-consuming.

This is a bit like saying you accept the environmental value of the new hybrid Toyota Prius but don’t see the point in driving it anywhere or at least, don’t have the time to learn how.

As we get further down the road (sorry) with online PR, surely the link between blog content and SEO will make corporate blogs a must have rather than a must I.

Ross Furlong

Savvy PR agents have been quick to market their online expertise in the explosion of web 2.0 but the industry chatter is mostly about how PR can influence blogs and other online publishing channels.

What we don’t seem to talk about is the creation of online content - news, press releases & whitepapers - which can have a big affect on our clients’ organic search rankings.

For example, last year I was looking for some tax advice on Google and a small accountancy firm in Cambridgeshire kept popping up due to their extensive library of free advice. As a result, I now use them for both my business and personal accounting.

Many companies just don’t have the time or resource to produce this level of information online which presents a perfect opportunity for PR agencies to do it for them in the same way we have always done with offline material.

In an industry famous for a vague ROI, PR’s powerful influence on search engine rankings promises not just an enormous new business area to pitch for, but a chance at last to accurately measure the impact our work has.

Ross Furlong

Interesting research came out this week in the US commissioned by PR Week/PR Newswire which throws light on the changing roles and attitudes of journalists in this online age. The stand out bit for me was that 90% say email is their favourite method of contact when being approached by PR professionals.

This high figure may best be explained by another statistic - that half of those interviewed thought that the pitches received are only relevant between 0-25% of the time.

With such a large percentage of chaff coming at them, it’s understandable that journalists prefer to manage the press release deluge by email rather than phone - it’s just more efficient – you can delete 100 messages far quicker than you can handle 100 calls.

The shocking level of relevance leads me to the unusual position of feeling support for the 7% of journalists who’ve stated they would prefer not to receive any kind of PR approach at all.

The lesson for PRs is a basic one and should be rule number one of media relations: If the story isn’t bespoke to the target – don’t pitch it.

Ross Furlong

Not always. Occasionally there’s just no good PR material to work with, or simply not enough outlets for the material, sometimes both.

Happily the reverse is the case most of the time, and to make the best of your company’s editorial potential, you’ll need a PR agent and here are some reasons why:

Editorial Policy

Editorial departments normally have one and a PR agent will know what it is so they can shape your submissions to match. Pitching material without knowing editorial policy is a lottery, with odds to match.

Credibility

Using an agent shows you are serious about your publicity and journalists will appreciate the professional approach even if you are a small company. A good PR agent will have a reputation for pitching relevant stories and be seen as an asset rather than a nuisance in the eyes of the journalist meaning your submissions will be properly considered.

Pitching Stories

Emailing even a well targeted press release is not enough. Most journalists get hundreds of releases each day and in order to get your news heard, your PR agent needs to pick up that old phone thing and sell the story to them. And it has to be a good story. If it isn’t, don’t pitch it.

Creativity

More often than not companies have great stories lying around without anyone noticing them. PR agents are skilled in the art of sniffing out a story, knowing the best media outlet and turning it into column inches or broadcast minutes.

If Things Go Wrong

A misquote or scurrilous interpretation of a release can be potentially harmful to your company’s reputation. You need a PR who can quickly negotiate with editors to minimise damage and even transform a potentially damaging situation into a PR coup.

ROI

One good story has the legs of a marathon runner, whereas one advert is one advert. And it’s not just the number of places your story may pop up, but the credibility it will give you in an editorial context.

Ross Furlong

If you consider the amazing volume and growth rate of blogs – there are currently 112 million being tracked by blog monitor Technorati.com and the number has been doubling every six months – it’s hard to believe that starting your own can have any sort of impact.

Yet importantly it’s not just the volume of blogs that’s growing but their influence. The Observer this month published an article - ‘The World’s 50 Most Powerful Blogs’ - which showed how blogs like The Huffington Post and British entrepreneur Nick Denton’s Gawker.com have not only become incredibly influential in their fields but also, in the case of Gawker, become viable multi-million pound publishing businesses.

For my clients, the value of blogging comes from the opportunity to publish their views, demonstrate their expertise and interact with the marketplace on behalf of their companies with a frequency that just wasn’t possible before. It also helps build individual profiles so that the next time you’re trying to sell in your client for an opinion piece and the editor says ‘who he/she?’ you can demonstrate their writing credentials.

So a very handy PR channel and a credible one (with a few high profile exceptions). There is however one big proviso - an estimated four out of five blogs end up dormant. So the biggest challenge of PR in the blogosphere could be simply motivating your clients to keep posting - a challenge that I now also appear to have set myself. The words ‘petard’ and ‘hoisted’ spring to mind.

Ross Furlong