Stage Two's blog

I’ve read more blog posts and tweets about how “all” PR is bad, full of spammers and people likely to go out and club the occasional baby seal. I wish I could say this was super-far from the truth, but from the stories I hear, along with the pitches I get for LIVEdigitally, it seems like a lot of these complaints are justifiable.  But, just as much as generalizations are over-used against PR people, I’ve noticed an equally, if not more, disturbing trend from bloggers and social media users in general.  It seems like there’s a trend toward less due diligence than in years past, in fact there’s often no fact-checking or other research done prior to a blog post or a tweet.

As much as PR people are here to pass news along to content creators, another reason for the existence of the trade is to support the news making/breaking process.  PR people are here to answer questions, support fact checking processes, provide access to executives for interviews, etc.  And just as guilty as they may be for deluging underinterested bloggers in uninteresting news, they are not being used as a good resource for many a blogger.

Our firm prides itself on its relationships and reputation (amongst other things).  We are well-known not to spam, and take a lot of effort to try to self-select which media outlets would be interested in our clients.  But even with that degree of credibility, I still feel there is a missing element to modern news-making. Here are the three most disturbing observations I have:

1. An utter lack of inbound requests from bloggers to companies/PR firms for anything other than review units.  No asking for comments, interviews etc.  Recently one of our clients had a really great wave of blog posts get written, without a single one of those bloggers contacting us to check details of the story or get an extra quote from the CEO.
2. A tendency to publish/tweet first, wait for corrections and more content later.  There’s been a lot of posts written with a goal to be “first” (or near-first) on a topic, without getting into details.  I’ve seen tweets and posts happen that make wild assumptions or accusations, and only see fixes or retractions much later.  There is unquestionably a stronger emphasis on breaking any news than there is an emphasis on reporting accurate stories.
3. A likelihood to use other bloggers as “sources” without any fact-checking.  This one pretty much goes without saying.  It is as if an article on TechCrunch or Engadget is simply “factual” just because it’s there (incidentally, I picked those blogs solely due to their size, not because they have done anything wrong and I am not calling them out for any wrongdoings).

I find these trends upsetting in many ways because of the relationships we have.  When a rumor (true or not) begins spreading across tech blogs, we would expect to get numerous inbound requests for information.  We are accessible via IM, email, phone, and Twitter, and virtually anyone we pitch has all of our contact information.  Yet we hear virtually nothing, and are more likely to hear inquiries from those who don’t know us.

So what’s going wrong?  I asked a few of my blogger friends their opinions, here’s some of what I heard (note the context here was me sending them the above statements, so this doesn’t necessarily reflect how they blog as individuals!):

Joshua Topolsky (Editor-in-Chief, Engadget): The news flow being what it is, it can be hard to wait on a quote from a CEO, and more often than not, the quotes they want to give us are generally as safe as possible. Companies often deflect or deny even when there’s a real story at play, so it’s a tight spot to be in, we’re breaking news in new ways, and companies are combating having their secrets spilled, surprises ruined, or plans misunderstood.  Overall though, I see a lot of writers making the mistake of shooting first (with their eyes closed), not bothering to ask questions later, and never owning up to anything.

Marshall Kirkpatrick (Lead Blogger, ReadWriteWeb): Right now there’s little incentive in terms of page views to do any but the most high quality research.  Cursory, matter of course, due diligence doesn’t get a whole lot of reward.   I’ve done it in the past and try to now when I can, but readers rarely seem to care.  Well earned scoops do get rewarded, but few bloggers have the chops or work priorities to focus on scoring those.

Louis Gray (independent blogger): If a story is “interesting”, but not a game changer, I tend to typically just ask for a login so I can check it out and do screenshots. On longer-lead stories, I do trade e-mails with the developer, but not if I expect they are “blasting” the announcement to a ton of folks, because then the effort seems wasted. I also tend to send the URL of the post to the contact after it’s up to ask them to make sure it is “right”.

Dave Zatz (independent blogger): Unfortunately, I think for many bloggers being first is important for traffic which directly corresponds to ad revenue. And of course controversy sells. Most of my PR people I have a relationship with at this point, so it’s very different. In fact, I’m visiting a company in Virginia tomorrow to be briefed by the CEO. No freebie hardware, just an overview for me and I’ll shoot some pics.

Robert Scoble (aka The Scobleizer): It seems like a majority of the time when I ask a PR person for something I want, I get answered “no”, and it sours me on working with PR people.  Also, I think there’s not much homework being done, just a lot of repurposing press releases.  I think it’s not just a blogger thing, by the way, I think it’s a journalism thing in general these days. There’s exceptions to these rules, and they really stand out from the crowd.  Lastly, there’s too much pressure on being first, yet there’s no pressure on being right.

It’s probably not too hard for me to go out on a limb and say the incentive system in place for modern journalism is, in a word, screwed.  Bloggers are pushed by numerous market forces to be first, under any circumstances – a fact that was equally lamented by the bloggers with whom I spoke. And with the high growth rate of Twitter as the next big place to break news, it doesn’t seem like a problem that’s about to get better or go away.  Which is sad, but probably just the state of things for now.

That said, I sure do hope to see more people playing at the same level.  It’s easy to call out PR firms, since so many do employ inappropriate, outdated media buying techniques.  But it’s easy to call out bloggers and twitterers too. There are a lot of glass houses out there, and rapid-fire typists with pervasive Internet access are throwing more and more stones, inadvertently or not.

12seconds has some fun news to announce, the kind of news that’s a joy to pitch.   Today they launched a re-design of their website, unveiled their site to the general public in an open Beta, and released an iPhone application.  Apple approved their application and it’s on sale for $0.99 in the iTunes App Store.

iphone app for 12seconds.tv from Sol Lipman on Vimeo.

12seconds first launched in an invite-only alpha this past July.  Since then they’ve had wonderful success with users and gotten solid attention from the press.   Today is shaping up to be no different; a number of publications have covered the announcement, mostly with positive things to say.  We’ll continue to update this post with the news coverage as it occurs throughout the day.

• VentureBeat
• Geek.com
• AppShopper
• MobileCrunch
• What’s On iPhone
• Center Networks
• Mobile Marketing Watch
• Fearless Blogger
• Social Times
• MIT Technology Review
• Boing Boing
• MacNN
• Laughing Squid
• Our Man Inside
• Face Reviews
• Inquisitr
• Media Bistro (and Todd’s great Podcast)
• The Apple Blog
• Cult of Mac
• AppVee
• TUAW

Jeremiah Owyang, of Forrester, put out a couple of good blog posts last week analyzing the general distrust of corporate blogs (which, I guess, includes this one).  Here’s a nice chart of the study:

What’s surprising to me is how much people are surprised by this news. I am in complete agreement with this comment from RWW:

It also depends on the brand of the company itself. Let’s take Walmart as an example. It’s one of the corporate blogs listed above by The Blog Council. It’s fair to say that Walmart isn’t the most loved brand in the U.S., so I’m probably less likely to trust its corporate blog as a result. The style of blogging unfortunately doesn’t do any favors to Walmart either. Would you trust the following product recommendation from Walmart’s Checkout blog?

“As you know, I am an Apple fanatic, but this deal even has me looking twice. Our computer buyer has put together this!

It seems like it’s all so easy, but I guess it isn’t. Joe Wilcox from eWeek wrote a blog post that pretty much sums it up in the title: Make Your Corporate Blog Believable. That’s it folks, that’s the entire ball game.  I have no specific tips on how often you should blog, nor the length of a post.  It’s utterly irrelevant if you can’t decide on using your blog as a genuine, authentic voice of your company.

The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on “The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.”  I can summarize it fairly quickly as well (and I don’t have to say either “Web 2.0″ or “social media” to accomplish it): the Internet has made it too hard for you to hide your dirty laundry, so you’d be a lot better off getting out in front of it. Incidentally, that sentence summarizes the output of months of work from most high-priced social media consultants.

So back to the “how-to” part of this post.  Here are some tips we give our clients:

• Commit.  Regardless of posting frequency, it’s important to view your blog as part of your marathon run, not your sprint.  Except there isn’t even a finish line to the marathon.  The only upside to this is it’s okay to make it a relay race (more later).
• Focus. You can use your corporate blog for product/company news (new products, technology, staffing, events, etc) – I’d call this a “marketing” blog, since you are really using it as a marketing vehicle.  Another option is to use your blog for thought leadership, getting involved in bigger topics/debates online.  The two aren’t mutually exclusive by any means, but you might want to maintain two separate blogs (or more) depending on the frequency of updates.
• Interact. Having a blog, but not allowing commenting is just plain ridiculous.  But allowing commenting and not responding to commentors is just as bad.  By no means do you need to engage with every snarky jerk who leaves a nastygram for you, but you should be generally interactive.
• React.  The blog is not the end-all/be-all of your interactivity online.  If you see others writing about your company, or you are “in the news”, or basically anything important is happening out there, you should address it on your blog.  Remember, this is about enabling two-way discussions between your company and your customers, so the blog is one of the ways you should engage with those discussions.
• Spark. Don’t just be reactive to content, your blog is a great way to spark conversation.  Maybe you have a new technology you are using/developing.  Maybe there’s a policy debate about something that pertains to your company.  Share your thoughts and opinions on the topic.
• DON’T sell. I think the Wal-mart example above is apropo of what’s wrong with selling on your blog.  Your company should have enough other vehicles for “selling” your product.  It’s fine to be gung-ho and a believer in what you are doing, but let that come through naturally.  You don’t have to weave “why we’re so awesome” into every conversation you start.

A last thought on all this:  pretend your blog post is the summary of something you talked about at a cocktail party (prior to your fourth appletini, that is).  While at the party, you probably had interesting conversations about something related to your business.  You probably spoke excitedly about some new innovation you are excited about.  Maybe you talked to someone who had a really fascinating perspective on something tangential to your company.

You certainly didn’t whip out a credit card machine.

Exciting news for 12seconds today, they’re announcing their new public alpha. 12seconds is a video status platform for sharing moments from your life. Use a webcam or video-capable cell phone to record and share videos up to twelve seconds long. If you want an invitation to join the alpha, inquire here.

This was an instance where we felt a press release was unnecessary. As many people have discussed, the traditional press release is not the only way to communicate company news. I certainly agree with Brian Solis that “the press release is far from dead,” there are many uses for a well written and carefully thought-out press release. We use them often here at Stage Two Consulting. But some times (and some people) call for non-traditional means of communicating the news. Robert Scoble likes getting pitched on Facebook for instance. For 12seconds, we felt that a company blog post was an ideal medium for a company launch that fit well with the style and flavor of the company (which is totally bootstrapped).

There are several reasons behind this announcement:

1. The team wanted to formally announce themselves to the world
2. A number of new features were added to the site and service
3. They want to increase the size of the user community and test the scalability of their servers and infrastructure
4. They want to increase their visibility and work on fund raising
5. Using 12seconds is fun, and they want more people to experience the joy

It’s only 8:16 on the West Coast, but coverage has started:

• TechCrunch
• Webware
  
• CenterNetworks
• VentureBeat
• Mashable
• bub.blicio.us
• ReadWriteWeb
• LA Times

Lastly, how could we pitch the company if we weren’t users ourselves? Check out the Stage Two team on 12seconds:

• Adam
• Andrew
• David (who blogged about it on 1to10 and LIVEdigitally too)
  
• Ishmael
• Jeremy
• Jim
• Shaan

Over the past few years as “the blogosphere” has grown and evolved, we’ve seen many bloggers move from “desperate to get attention” to “so ridiculously swamped they can’t take pitches anymore”.  Tom Foremski and Scoble both tried a Facebook-only pitch mode for a while (neither lasted), Marshall Kirkpatrick recommends RSS pitches (read Matt Craven’s thoughts and our own response here) and Mashable has their “what not to do” list as well.  This is all part of dealing with new media technologies and PR, which are generally at inherent conflicts with each other.

Until extremely recently, PR was mostly about using lists of press and blasting them with updates.  Relationships were always key, but the system of Draft Release, Create Embargo, Blast tended to work pretty well.  Today, it’s clearly not that easy.  There is so much noise out there it’s almost impossible to distinguish yourself, even when you have interesting news (hence my post on positioning).  Relationships are more important than ever, and doing The Blast is more likely to backfire than it is to independently generate widespread awareness.  But the blame for all this should not just be aimed at the PR firms, I believe bloggers and journalists have some responsibility for the quagmire as well.

Most blogs have some form of “contact us” or “send us news” page or email address readily available.  The reality is those emails tend to get put into the lowest priority bins, if not ignored altogether.  And that’s hardly fair.  In my opinion a news organization, be it an individual blogger or a mega publication, has the duty to receive incoming pitches from anyone.  But they also retain the right on their preference of the nature, content, and style of those pitches.

In addition to some of the examples above, I believe Stowe Boyd’s request for “being twitpitched” is an excellent way to step up to the table.  He labeled the post “how to pitch me” on his blog, and as a result, anyone who wants to pitch him now has a simple and straightforward mechanism to do so.  In order to practice what I’m preaching, on my LIVEdigitally blog I just wrote a “How To Pitch Us” page, and added it to my primary navigation links.  I hope to see many other bloggers follow this type of a path, as its so easy to complain about the noise yet IMHO equally easy to do something about it.