Stage Two's blog

In a word: no.

An old adage says that “all press is good press,” meaning that if you are getting noticed at all, even with a negative portrayal, that still increases your visibility and recognition amongst the masses, which is a net benefit. I think if you are either really big (like Nike), or really small (like an unknown startup no one’s heard of), there might be some truth to the idea. But for the VAST majority of people in the middle, I simply don’t agree.

Nike doesn’t want to be known as a sweat shop that abuses Malaysian children with unsafe work conditions at slave wages, but they are. Does it matter very much? For Nike, probably not. They have the athletic endorsements and the marketing budget to overcome negative press (and yes, it shouldn’t be ignored). However, Nike is such a large, recognized, long standing and wealthy brand that bad press isn’t that difficult to deal with. It keeps their name in the press, most people forget the bad stories, and just remember Nike when they think of shoes and sports.

Tiny startups can usually survive bad press, and possibly even benefit from getting on someone’s radar. They might get some new user signups simply by getting trashed on Techcrunch. This could increase their user base, and perhaps give them an opportunity to improve their site / collect feedback. But it can also lead to a negative long-term impression in the public eye, which requires careful and intelligent efforts to fix (of which PR is a component, but it better not be the only one!). Ultimately you still need to deal with bad press on some level, or it will work against you in the long run.

Small to medium businesses definitely do not want bad press (also, we’re not talking about ‘one single negative blog post’, we’re talking about a series of notable posts/articles). It is not somehow “good” even though it’s bad. Small to medium companies don’t have the anonymity of tiny startups, nor do they have the budget and inertia of massive, long standing brands.

Take Twitter for instance. Twitter is a cool service, and I use it a lot. I enjoy it. But it fails… constantly a lot. The folks at Twitter have worked hard to improve, and have a very admirable, self-mocking attitude about the whole thing. They use a critter called the “Fail Whale” when their site is down, as a tongue-in-cheek means of acknowledging that they’re having technical difficulties. But their failure rate is so high that it strains the utility of their service, and some of its big early adopters and users are either moving or considering moving to new services. This leads to a lot of bad press, in spite of their self-deprecations. Initially, that press was jocular and supportive. Now it’s way past that. The Fail Whale is now ironic, and not in the good way.

The Twitter example demonstrates that a lot of negative press attention can, and will, hurt your image. As we’ve said before, it’s not just about the marketing to fix the problem – the problems themselves must be fixed before any PR can even begin (you don’t mend a broken leg with a bandaid). All press is not good press.

Tried traditional PR and feel like you are missing out on something? Agency blog doesn’t even have an RSS feed or allow commenting? Want to be more involved in the future of new media relations? Then look no further.

Things are continuing to “hip and hop” here at Stage Two Consulting, and we need to bolster the team with some fresh talent.  We are looking to add an Account Manager with at least two years of experience (read: prefer three, but no more than six and please, nobody right out of college unless you want to test your skills as an intern) who has seen the light and wants to get into influencer marketing.

This is an exciting industry, and this is a chance to get involved with exhilarating projects and learn a lot in the process! We are industry-insiders, wizened tech masters and pop-culture junkies who know how to maintain a proper work/life balance – whether it’s ending the day early to catch a Giants game, or drinking scotch with a client on our rooftop patio.

Qualifications:

• Able to work within dynamic start-up environment
• Fast learner and self-starting with impeccable organizational skills
• Managed a client relationship, bonus for multiple, simultaneous clients
• Extremely strong communications skills, especially written
• Good understanding of consumer technology (video, mobile, etc) with a genuine interest in new trends in tech, media, and culture
• Decent grasp of new media, including bloggers and social networks (you throw sheep, you tweet, you generally have too many methods to communicate with your peeps, and of course, you know that people don’t say “peeps” any more)
• Confident and articulate, yet brilliantly creative
• Brownie points to gamers, bloggers, pop culture geeks (extra bonus points if you can RickRoll JT)

Responsibilities:

• See above, and…
• Coordinating media lists and event logistics
• Monitoring client and industry press
• Conceive, develop, and implement influencer-marketing strategies for clients
• Build relationships with key bloggers, industry influencers, press/media, analysts, and potential marketing partners
• Outreach and traditional PR for new stories, company launches, product launches, etc.
• Our office is in North Beach, close to several MUNI stops, great restaurants/bars, and fine entertainment establishments.
• Compensation is determined on your level of experience and/or moxie.

If you’re interested, email us:
1. a resume
2. a short bio
3. your salary requirements
4. why you think this is a perfect fit for you
5. your favorite blog? Be honest – we don’t mind that you to can’t wait for the Survivor blog to fire up when the new season starts!

Any emails without all 5 of the above will be ignored, and probably marked as spam.  Feel free to let us know if you have any questions. Otherwise, we look forward to hearing from you. If you read nothing else (you won’t get the job, but…) be sure to at least read this.

In addition to some of the personal Twitter accounts in use by the team here at Stage Two (adam, andrew, david, ish, shaan, jeremy, jim, bobby, ricky, and mike), we’ve decided to create an account for company updates. Pretty straightforward stuff, eh? We’ll be using the account for updates of the following nature:

• Upcoming client news – for new press releases, stories, speaking events, etc
• Clients in the news – proudly sharing our clients’ coverage in blogs and other media
• Company news or updates – when we bring on new team members, or we’re speaking at an event, etc
• Other musings on marketing – if something strikes our fancy

We’re hoping this is a useful way for members of the media to get updates in a productive way. I don’t think we exactly know what to expect as outcome from this, but for those of you who find Twitter a useful informational tool, please follow and give us feedback (here or on Twitter) as to how it would be most useful to you.

LOUD3R is a client based in Los Angeles, CA. They launched their network of vertical websites today, and it’s going off like a house a’fire.

LOUD3R uses a semantic publishing engine, combined with human editors, to create websites. The websites are each targeted at a different subject or niche, things like custom sneakers, motorcycles, wine and cricket. They launched today with 25 websites, covering a variety of topics. The goal is to create really great destination sites for all kinds of topics, including subjects that are often under-served online. The sites include:

One of the goals behind the technology is to help cut down on all the noise. For many of us, RSS readers daily become full of WAY too many stories, and often those feeds include duplications, spam, splogs, dead links, and other junk. LOUD3R uses semantic technology and natural language processing to find, filter, cluster, rank and display only the best, freshest stories about a particular topic. This way enthusiasts for a particular subject have a great destination to go, every day, to find the best new content for their topic of interest, be it mixed martial arts, custom sneakers, soccer or motorcycles (or anything else.)

Each of the sites shares the same 3R branding (SNEAK3R for custom sneakers, DECANT3R for wine, FAST3R for motorcycles, etc.) They own more than 550 URL’s that share the 3R brand umbrella. They will continue to publish new websites at a rate of 10-15 sites / month. The press release is up on PR Web here. If you have any questions about LOUD3R or want to chat with Lowell Goss (the founder and CEO) please contact me here: david@stagetwoconsulting.com.

Here are the first few articles to break today (we’ll be updating the list all day long).

• Louis Gray was the first I saw today.
• Mashable
• Webware
• Journalism.co.UK
• Download Squad
• BNET
• drob
• Social Media Club

Go LOUD3R go!

I think it’s safe to say that consultants, in general, are a mixed bag. Some bring priceless value regardless of their bill, others are overpaid and contribute little. Ironically (yes, it’s really ironic), when I worked at Sling Media I had a very anti-consultants attitude. Further, in my first few months of running Stage Two we took on some projects that weren’t really strong fits, for a variety of different reasons, and learned a lot from those experiences. Here’s some of my observations on how to best leverage external consultants for your business (small or large):

Don’t: write off consultants completely OR put all your faith into them – both approaches are unlikely to yield the best results. You are better figuring out the aspects of your business that need Real Experts to provide services, and making the right fit.

Do: hire the best you can find. Since you are generally paying a premium to begin with, find the individual/team that gets the best referrals and has the best domain expertise you can find. I highly recommend getting reference checks as they pertain to your own needs. For example, I’m personally extremely knowledgeable about the consumer electronics industry, much less so about, say, tax accounting. If you want to market a gadget, odds are Stage Two is a great fit, whereas if you have the best new tax accounting software on the planet, we might not be the top choice.

Don’t: assume everyone’s experts at everything. Per my point above, you might meet an absolutely brilliant individual with a great background but who has no specific domain expertise. Might not be the right fit for you.

Do: define the project well. While it’s okay to have some generic terms (e.g. “do PR services”) in a project scope, they should all have known bounds. A great example here is on product management – it means different things to different people and should be very clearly spelled out.

Don’t: leave your consultant out to dry. I’ve seen far too many companies hire consultants, then leave them to do their work with virtually no interaction, no access to information or resources, etc. You can’t just spend the money, you have to invest the resources too, or your project will fail, and ultimately contribute to the “overpriced, underdelivering” reputation of consultants in general.

Do: crawl before you run. Get to know the person/team. Consider a multi-staged project. Grab a drink with them, have them meet the whole team they’ll be working with prior to starting the work. As the seemingly-crazy-yet-possibly-wise John Travolta said, Personality Goes a Long Way.

Don’t: create impossible outsourcing projects. I was once asked to be the lead product designer on a fairly complex product, with an 8-hour-per week engagement. If this were being traditionally staffed, there’d be a full-time product manager on board, so how does this get replaced by a far less than part timer?

Do: work with people you feel you can trust. Obviously this is a ‘gut feeling’ but from my experiences
we do well with companies that we build the best relationships with. You don’t want to have to wonder if you can share a certain corporate secret with someone who is materially affected by it!

Don’t: force your new consultant onto the rest of your team. It’s a terrible feeling to be brought in as an expert yet have the people you are working with second-guess you and not really ready to adopt your plans or ideas. Get buy-in and make sure your internal staff is on board with what you are doing, and be sensitive to those who may have aspirations in the same field. Handle with care.

Do: trust your experts. I recall being brought in on a project to help with usability and positioning. Virtually 2/3 of my usability and positioning feedback was completely ignored. Frustrating for me, waste of money for the client.

Don’t: look for a friend. Your friends are there to tell you how great your company/product is, your consultants are there to help make it better. Put on your thick skin and get their honest feedback. If they are experts in their field, don’t take anything negative personally, but use it to make your product stronger. Glass houses…

Guest contribution from Ariel Waldman: Don’t: hire a consultant as your company mascot. There are lots of new “brand name” individuals, just because they work with you doesn’t mean they should be your only public image.

Any suggestions you’d like to share? Comment below, or send in via email or twitter!