For the last few years, Glide Technologies (purveyors of the well known Online Press Centre product) have conducted an annual journalist survey to delve into the nitty gritty of what kind of information journalists want and how they want to receive it.  The Glide surveys have tended to stand out from other similar, run of the mill research efforts in this area – they actually do seem to come up with some valuable insights.

The 2009 survey is now getting underway – the key difference this year is that Glide is looking for input from both journalists and bloggers (sorry, no PR folk required).  I realise most hacks would rather poke their own eyes out rather than spend time on yet another bloody survey – but if the thorough approach of recent years is replicated again this time around, I’d say it is 15 mins well spent.

As an added incentive, everyone who helps by completing a survey will be entitled to enter a prize draw and a chance to win 2 bottles of Champagne –  3 sets up for grabs – and of course, everyone who takes part will receive a full copy of the results (naturally).

So if you are a journalist or blogger, feel free to go here to complete the Glide Technologies 2009 Media Survey. Go on. You know you want to.

As I noted in my recent Online PR whitepaper, there are some novel digital twists occurring within traditional media relations. Take the good old journalist interview. In the past, a journalist would probably have to take at face value a bio provided by the PR person of a prospective interviewee.  On LinkedIn, although the background info provided by the person themselves might be of relevance, more value is to be had from what other people think of them ie LinkedIn recommendations.

Here is a practical example.  We began working with information risk management specialists ArmstrongAdams in December last year. Tim Kipps is ArmstrongAdams’ spokesperson on all issues related to information risk management and IT security.  Tim certainly knows his onions when it comes to his subject matter. However, another thing that I found very impressive were the huge number of recommendations he has on his LinkedIn profile (46). The frequency with which words and phrases like “expertise” and “high integrity” appear has certainly been reassuring to me that in terms of media interviews, we are putting forward someone who is clearly respected in his field and really does know what he is talking about.  And is trustworthy.  For journalists, that surely has to be a good thing.

It’s also a good thing for a PR too. It is easy to overlook the fact that a PR is often judged by the quality of the spokesperson he/she pitches to the media. Rightly or wrongly, a journalist may view a PR less favourably if the quality of interviewee they pitch is seen as sub-optimal. If both PR and client have a mutual interest in ensuring that only the most qualified and worthwhile spokespeople/interviewees are pitched to the media, then surely that too has to be a good thing.

Have just finished reading senior Business Week writer Stephen Baker’s book, The Numerati. A great read – and worthy of several blog posts rather than just one. However, this quick precis (and experiment) will have to suffice for the moment.

The underlying premise of the book is that a combination of maths, monumental data gathering, smarter algorithms and human brains are taking an ever more powerful and influential role in modern society. At first glance, many might dismiss this as a familiar “geeks are going to rule the world” kind of argument. However, Baker is more specific – it’s the mathematicians and statisticians that are wielding the power – and the people who adopt their mindset.

The book goes into detail as to how technology, data and mathematics are having (and will have) an immense impact in various aspects of life such as shopping, politics, blogging, terrorism, healthcare, even romance. In short, the mathematical modelling of humanity.

However, in relation to the field of PR, it did remind me of something that I’ve been banging on about for some time – namely, where are PR’s algorithms? Where are PR’s mathematicians? What PR campaigns are being driven by the kind of data gathering, maths and analysis that is clearly being deployed in other areas of business?

Steve Rubel at Edelman talks about “ a dearth of geek marketers – those who use and understand online sharing tools but also know how to sell a brand”. I agree that this is part of the equation, but there is also a need for the mathematical and analytical mindset in PR that Stephen Baker talks about.

Interestingly, Baker was recently asked in a Bad Pitch Blog interview if there was something he wished all PR people would do (besides leave the face of the earth)?

He replied: “In my dreams, they’d all have read everything I’ve written and understand in great detail the demands of each one of my channels. In other words, they’d quietly tee up just the kind of stories I want to write.”

Of course, even the most diligent PR these days is going to find it nigh on impossible to read everything about every relevant journalist on every relevant channel (the inability of human beings to even come close to digesting the data out there is a constant refrain in his book). Perhaps Baker was hinting that PR ought to be deploying the tools of the Numerati to analyse his output and to help shape the kind targetted PR he seeks? ie generating the kind of very specific and relevant subject lines he craves in PR e-mails.

On a slight tangent, the following is a little experiment.

I’m willing to bet that Stephen Baker has set up a Google alert for the term “The Numerati” – in which case, this blog post should be showing up in his Google Reader shortly. I’m also going to Tweet him directly to see if he responds (Hello Stephen – great book!). And by using the bit.ly URL shortener, I’ll know how many people have been directed to this post via Twitter – and any ensuing conversation around it.

FYI, as I have a track record in building out journalist profiles via Twitter, I’m just wondering what some savvy mathematician would make of the following that might help better inform a PR approach to him?

Number of pages referencing Stephen Baker at Business Week.com = 4.010
Reference to the term Numerati over the last 12 months (allowing for the fact that is is a common Italian word)

Twitter profile

BusinessWeek writer, author of The Numerati (2008)
Location: Montclair, NJ
Time Zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Joined: Tue 08 Jan 2008 20:31
Following: 195
Followers: 2276
Updates: 927
Favorites: 7
Friend: Yes
Notifications: No
Protected: No
Web: http://thenumerati.net
Twitter: twitter.com/stevebaker

According to ComScore via the latest issue of Revolution magazine, we Brits make an average of 4.1bn Internet searches every month. If the UK Internet population is around 35.6m, then I calculate that the average UK internet user makes around four internet searches per day, every day.

According to some sources (in this case, a report touting the benefits of railway advertising), the average UK person is on the receiving end of over 2000 commercial messages every day.

I appreciate that a Google/Yahoo/MSN search isn’t the only way we seek out information (we talk to people, we still watch TV, we still read newspapers), but the contrast between how much we pro-actively seek out information via the Internet (commercial or otherwise) versus what gets pumped to us (whether we want it or not) seems huge.

If we accept that the vast majority of purchase decisions – business or consumer – begin or involve search, you do begin to wonder why more people don’t spend more time and money on inbound marketing as opposed to the traditional “push” model.

From a media relations perspective, it also occurred to me that the average journalist is exposed to way more commercial messages than the average person (because of all the additional PR related messaging that comes their way – and much of which doesn’t seem to work).

Isn’t it time we adopted an inbound approach to PR? Inbound media relations anyone?

Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Google’s offline TV. radio and print ad services don’t get much attention in Europe (they aren’t available here yet). However, it surely can’t be long before we do get them – and I don’t doubt that they will have the potential to further disrupt the media services landscape.

If you subscribe to Google’s Let’s Take It Offline blog (and only 833 people appear to) you’ll have seen the constant stream of new enhancements and case studies about Google’s services in the offline arena. Take the example of Event Triggers. In the US, it is possible to not only book your radio ad airtime via Google, but only have the ads run if specific environmental criteria are met. As Google says:

With event triggers, you can set up your Audio Ads campaigns to play only when specific environmental conditions are forecasted in your target market. This high-tech feature lets you deliver a relevant message to potential customers in the moment they need you most.
For example, you could set up your campaign to start playing only when the forecasted weather indicates “hazy” conditions or “rain showers,” or when the UV index is above 10. Currently, advertisers can set campaigns to trigger based on four types of environmental cues: apparent temperature, actual temperature, UV index and weather conditions.

How it works:

• Build an audio campaign with your desired demographic, daypart, format and markets.
• Indicate the environmental cues you’d like to target during campaign setup. (Tip: You should create a separate campaign for each set of unique conditions)
• Upload specific ads with messages to match the event that triggers them to play.
• When the conditions are met, based on the forecast for the next day, Google Audio Ads will trigger your campaign and serve the ad you specified.

The services in TV and print ad booking are no less innovative. For example, it is now possible to carry out the entire print ad process from creative design, media space booking and measurement all within Google. The Hotels.com case study is a good example.

Imagine if you could run PR campaigns like this? And what limit is there on the type of criteria you can use to target your content? Who knows. As William Gibson said, “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”

First, my thanks to Mr Stephen Waddington for flagging Antony Mayfield’s e-book, Brands In Networks.

As Wadds says “publishers, journalists, PRs and marketing professionals that are looking for a pragmatic analysis of the fragmentation of the media industry should download the 50-page eBook immediately.”

I agree. The book covers a huge amount of ground – and I have to admire the time and effort that Antony has put into writing it. Given one of the key themes of the book is around the subject of attention markets, he has succeeded brilliantly in gaining much of mine this morning.

Rather than a formal critique of the book, I have pulled out below some of the key points that struck me on first reading with my own initial comments.

Antony Mayfield: The numbers

1.4 billion (one-fifth of the world’s population) people online in the world today.

400 Million of them are members of social networks.

There are over a trillion web pages indexed by google.

There are 112.8 Million blogs being tracked by specialist search
engine Technorati.

10 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

In 2008, for the first time, the volume of internet traffic generated by consumers will overtake that created by corporations and other organisations.

Andrew Bruce Smith: And while we are on the numbers, let’s not forget the billions of e-mails and text messages sent every day.

AM: Any one of the 1.4 billion of us who is connected to the web can create content. from basic, written-word web pages, via interactive blogs and forums with podcasts, through to videos and pictures and endless commentary from us, and from anyone else in the network.

ABS: We can – but we don’t. As per the recent Rubicon Consulting report: “community experts have been aware of this phenomenon for years, calling it “participation inequality.” Jakob Nielsen wrote an influential article on the subject in 2006, describing the “90-9-1 rule”. It states:

• “90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
• “9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their
time.
• “1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem
as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever
event they’re commenting on occurs.”

The 10pc of “Most Frequent Contributors” are also the biggest influencers in these communities says Rubicon. The logical assumption is that PR might want to assume a role in becoming MFCs – however, frequency needs to be tempered with issues of trust and value.

AM: Prediction: expect to see the first major global brand appoint a digital agency as its agency of recordin the next year.

ABS: Agreed. The recent Sapient survey bears this out.

AM: Email: you can send content or alerts to people’s inboxes. email is already so
embedded in our lives that it doesn’t feel like a revolutionary medium, but it is.

ABS: Jason Baer recently shared the following in relation to e-mail:

1. 21% of email recipients report email as Spam, even if they know it isn’t

2. 43% of email recipients click the Spam button based on the email “from” name or email address

3. 69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line

4. 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone

5. IP addresses appearing on just one of the 12 major blacklists had email deliverability 25 points below those not listed on any blacklists

6. Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their email delivered by ISPs

7. 17% of Americans create a new email address every 6 months

8. 30% of subscribers change email addresses annually

9. If marketers optimized their emails for image blocking, ROI would increase 9+%

10. 84% of people 18-34 use an email preview pane

11. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers

12. 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email

13. Subscribers below age 25 prefer SMS to email

14. 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device

15. 80% of social network members have received unsolicited email or invites

Draw your own conclusions.

AM: RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to websites and have new
content sent to them via their inbox, a newsreader like google reader, or a widget
sitting on their computer desktop. RSS means that none of the people who enjoy
my fabulous Cat has to remember to check your website everyday to see if there is
new information: they wait for the RSS tool to bring your cat articles to them. This is
the same distribution method that powers audio and video podcasts.

ABS: Adam Parker of WebITPR recently argued that RSS subscribers now numbered around 100 million – hardly a niche any more.

AM: Anyone – brand, media owner or individual – looking to thrive online would do well to
understand how networks work, where their own are and how they fit into them.
for networks are how the online world works and they are the essence of the
revolution that we are living through. Crucially, to succeed in networks we sometimes need to move away from thinking about promotion or selling as the key activity. a selling message pushed uninvited into a social space is rarely useful, and rarely welcome. brands that do this are ignored if
they are lucky, and may find themselves on the sharp end of criticism from blogs and
forums if they aren’t. Once we have understood our networks we need to ask: “What is a valid role for us here?” and: “how can we add value?”

ABS: No doubt brand owners are also asking what (financial) value the network can give back to them in return for adding value. Cracking the transactional element of these relationships is going to be key.

Also, the Rubicon Consulting report had a very good analysis of the varying types of network and community:

“The survey showed that different types of online communities have very different user
bases and rates of usage. Although many observers speak of web community as if it’s
a single thing, in reality there is incredible diversity between communities.
Approaches that work well in one type of community may fail utterly in another. That
means companies looking to found community sites, or partner with them, need to
understand what kind of community they are engaging with.

Every community is unique, but they can be grouped into five broad categories, based
on the motivations of the people who participate in them. The five major types of
communities are:
• Proximity, where users share a geographic location (Craigslist is an example);
• Purpose, where they share a common task (eBay, Wikipedia);
• Passion, where they share a common interest (YouTube, Dogster);
• Practice, where they share a common career or field of business (many online
professional groups fall in this category); and
• Providence, where they discover connections with others (Facebook).

AM: We sometimes like to think that in digital marketing we have developed a new
discipline, but coming to this sector from the outside two years ago it looked to me
like an awful lot of agencies had taken ad agency models and simply transplanted
them to the web. Many laugh at the “brochure-ware” websites of the late 90s – where
people had literally taken the marketing literature formats of the print age and put
them online – but in many ways we have only progressed a small distance in terms of
understanding the way the web works. It is my contention that marketing needs to be rethought in almost every aspect. Even if there are things worth keeping, nothing should be exempt from the challenge:

ABS: Totally agree. We have barely scratched the surface.

AM: Our language gives us away. Think of the way we talk about the people we are marketing to, and what we want to do in a channel media context. People, individuals, are masked and herded into demographics that gloss over the complexity of the situation. We talk about consumers, audiences; passive terms. We talk about message penetration, or buying eyeballs. When you start to think about things from the perspective of networks, this language jars. People don’t consume content: they read it or watch it, and then often do things with it such as remixing, forwarding, or linking to it. These aren’t audiences or eyeballs. These are individuals. A lot of the language of channel media marketing sounds militaristic. We monitor (from on high) consumer behaviours. We penetrate markets. We dominate mindshare. We execute campaigns. These aren’t social words. They come from the mass; the industrial level – whereas in the networks we must operate (as we do in our personal lives) at a human level.

ABS: As an Orwellist, I completely subscribe to the view that language shapes our view of the world. Part of the challenge is being able to articulate the value of these new approaches to an audience that is still steeped in the language (and ideas) of an older era.

AM: When we think about attention markets, we should ask; who are our competitors?
They may be different from the people we compete with in our primary commercial
marketplaces – they may include media, social media, or other brands.
Taking full account of the market means properly understanding our brands’
networks, how they operate as markets, and how we can be effective in them. That
means not just having a handful of insights and a great one-at-a-time creative idea. it
means being able to listen closely and respond. it means having several competing
strategies and waiting for one to stand out, then having the resource to back it
up quickly.

ABS: Agreed. Parallel marketing will trump linear marketing.

AM: (In relation to Ted Rheingold’s Dogster site): Suddenly, it seemed, the failure rate for projects began to increase. When a review of projects that were failing was conducted, a common factor was quickly spotted:
almost all of the failing projects had taken six months or more from idea to public release. They were failing because the community had moved on; was interested in other things. Their needs had shifted. Ted calls this effect: the impact horizon. ever since, he has been working on bringing down the development time for new features to as close to a month as possible.

ABS: Speed rules everywhere. In marketing and PR, developing a test and learn mindset is key. In other words, lots of rapidly implemented small scale projects versus big bang campaigns. Implications for agency structure and resourcing.

AM: At iCrossing we talk about “designed-in measurement” for creative and content.
Thinking about measurement begins at the discovery phase, and it should be
implemented and remain live throughout a given project. measurement gives us
insight and evidence for refining every aspect of a programme – from search terms to
page design – almost from day one. This is a departure from the ‘build it and leave it’
approach that online marketers often take to building beautiful microsites, and then
tacking on some weak analytics measurement at the end.

ABS: Agreed. PR still hasn’t quite grasped the measurement nettle yet.

The reaction to my post yesterday about Can Journalists Write Great Marketing Content has been interesting.

It is by no means my most widely read post (my snippet on Mike Magee’s last hurrah for PR gets that honour – though that one clearly benefited from a Stumbleupon recommendation). It has however generated comments from the likes of David Meerman Scott, Sally Whittle and Ian Betteridge. And as my blog posts get automatically posted to the Marcom Professional social network site, others have picked up on it there.

I also had a comment from Joe Pulizzi at Junta42 in the US – I’ve never had any dealings with Joe before, so I took a look at his website – and what do you know, there is some good content there. Indeed, he has a useful e-book on content marketing – which he is happy for people to freely share and distribute – so in the spirit of co-operation, here it is. Get Content, Get Customers – Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett

However, the really interesting feedback to yesterday’s post was in relation to a new business lead. We’d been recommended to someone and arranged to talk to them today. A few days earlier, I’d suggested checking out our website and my blog to get an idea of our approach and ethos. Speaking to our prospect this morning, they remarked how interesting this particular post had been – it also encouraged them to look at David Meerman Scott’s site and gave them a pile of ideas as to how they might approach PR and marketing.

Now at this stage, I’ve no idea if we will win this business or not. But even if we don’t, I’m sure that this person will recommend us to others.

So what has all this got to do with measuring the ROI of a blog post?

First, I hear from a lot of people who are very cautious and sceptical about the value of blogging and its ilk. They want to know what kind of return you will get for investing time and energy in this activity.

The point is, when I wrote this post, I could never have predicted the response it would get (and this is only in the space of 24 hours). My reward for spending, at most, 15 mins reading some RSS feeds and writing the subsequent post could be worth £000s of business. Even if this particular lead goes nowhere, it has helped to enhance our word of mouth reputation a little further. And brought to my attention useful info I probably would never have come across in any other way (and by definition, it brings it to the attention of my readers as well). So a kind of Law of Unexpected Consequence is at play here.

I don’t want to go too overboard about one blog post – but if someone asks you about blog ROI, ask them how they would best maximise 15 mins of their valuable marketing time. And then point them point here.

David Meerman Scott clearly thinks so. In his latest post, he says:

“At every speech I give, I suggest one of the best ways to create great Web content is for companies to hire a journalist, either full or part time, to create it. Journalists (print or broadcast) are great at understanding an audience and developing information that buyers want to consume.” (My emphasis).

On a similar subject, Roy Greenslade at The Guardian points to former Sunday Telegraph editor Sarah Sands in her Independent on Sunday column:

“Once I stopped being a newspaper editor, I began to notice a discrepancy between the sorts of things journalists were interested in and what their readers liked. Journalists like crime and politics and sex. Readers care about gardening and, as it turns out, singing. The BBC series The Choir … has been one of the best things on television. There has been little fuss about it in the press, but at the school gates and in the garden centre it is very big news.”

Last year I was discussing an editorial promotion with one of the big financial trade mags – the ad sales guy was giving me the full sales pitch about reader demographics – I asked the editor for the rationale behind the editorial feature our client was being asked to support ie what rational basis did he have for choosing the subject matter. He cheerfully admitted it was “a gut feel” and he didn’t really know much about his readers at all. You could hear the ad guy audibly wince as we decided that perhaps this wasn’t something that we’d recommend our client spending thousands on – given the lack of hard evidence.

In summary, I don’t think journalists are automatically great at understanding audiences (and neither are PR and marketing people for that matter). I’ve often found that when journalists write PR or marketing copy they often produce something they think the customer wants ie full of the jargon and buzzwords they get subjected to themselves. Or when magazines try to do their own PR, it often falls into the traditional cliche they normally deride PRs for.

Truly understanding an audience is a lot harder than most people think – whether you are a journalist or a marketeer. However, proper investment in this area – backing it up with hard analysis and genuine listening – can reap rewards for hacks and flacks alike.

The latest issue of the Edinburgh-based literary and culture magazine One is now out. Excellent interview by Andrew J. Wilson with Iain M. Banks. And SF author (and one time Computer Shopper columnist and Linux guru) Charles Stross has a good piece on his recent trip to Japan:

“They’ve got our future, damn it! It’s not the shiny future of jet packs and food pills—oh no, that’s not what Japan is about—nevertheless, they’ve got it and they’re living in it.”

(Charles’ latest novel, Halting State, is now out – and seems to be generating some good reviews).

And before I forget, there are a couple articles by me in there too: Orwell’s Sound Of Silence and Orwell and the Scots. As ever, writing these features maintains my enduring respect for professional journalists who have to do this kind of thing day in, day out.

Guy Clapperton is one of UK’s most prolific freelance business journalists. So I tend to pay attention to things he has to say (as do others – I gather over 300 people turned up on Wednesday to hear Guy along with Sally Whittle, Sally Morris, Chris Wheal, Lori Miles and Catherine Cooper at a Meet The Media event).

His recent post on the death of normal media raises some key points.

He refers to entrepreneur and former Dragon’s Den panellist Rachel Elnaugh’s blog , where she says she sees evidence that her blog rather than any press coverage has made an impact on public perceptions of her. And she suggests ‘normal’ press will get “a wake-up call.” (She also says that her foray into blogging goes against a lot traditional PR advice, which is to stay silent and adopt a ‘no comment’ status – I’d like to know who has been advising her).

As Guy says: “Many blogs are written by people who are inexperienced writers and who have no training. This can be a good thing because you see their thoughts as unpolished, which can be more raw and genuine – but the laws of libel apply in Cyberspace as much as they do elsewhere.”

He continues: “There’s a lot of dross out there in blogland but then there’s a lot of dross in journalism too; but has anyone told the bloggers how carefully they need to check their facts before publishing them? Journalists, by training, are inveterate checkers and goodness knows we make enough mistakes. Bloggers, without that background, are prone to repeating anything they hear.”

And finally: “After the initial blogging bubble has subsided you’ve got to ask what’s going to be left. If this is going to continue and people are going to get it right, they’ve got to find a way to make it viable to continue. This means making it pay. This is likely to mean advertising, and that in turn will mean guaranteeing editorial quality (advertisers won’t subsidise something that’s unreadable).”

As Guy concludes: “It’ll be almost like the traditional media all over again.”