Bloggers and journalists needed for annual Glide survey

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.

Filed under: Digital marketing, Media, Web/Tech, digital pr, online pr , Gilde Journalists Survey

Jackenhack Awards 2009:The (unofficial) video

What do you get when you cram around 170 UK tech PR people into a small bar in London, ply them with booze and offer up the prospect of some cheeky mickey taking? Answer: The Jackenhack Awards 2009 which took place last Wednesday evening at The Dust Bar in Clerkenwell Road, London.  If the PR Week Awards are “the equivalent of the film industry’s Oscars”, the Jackenhacks are the Razzies. Due to the current economic climate, there was no official video record of the evening. So I took it upon myself to create an unofficial one.

Armed with a Flip HD video camera, a copy of iMovie and a spare 30 mins for some (very) rough editing, this is what I came up with. I’m sure with more time I could have come up with a very polished video – but that would probably be “off-message” for the Jackenhacks. Suffice to say there is plenty of footage that didn’t make it into this version. If people were really that interested, I might be motivated to create an extended documentary.

Parental advisory warning: normally smooth talking PR people can be heard to be swearing in a way which makes Malcolm Tucker look like a recently ordained vicar. Those of sensitive dispositions should watch with the sound turned off.

Filed under: Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, tech pr , jackenhacks

Does your PR agency really understand Page Rank? A client checklist.

Talking to various people over the last weeks, it is clear that a small but growing number of PR firms are attempting to use Page Rank as a metric for measuring the value of online media coverage.  However, it seems that some either don’t really understand what Page Rank is – or are misleading clients over the real Page Rank (and value) that their coverage has delivered.

For example, I’ve been told of a few firms who if they gain a piece of client coverage on, say, Computing’s web site, will claim that the value of the coverage is Page Rank 6.  However, what they really mean is that the Computing home page has a Page Rank of 6 – the actual page where the coverage appeared will almost certainly have a Page Rank of 0. That’s a mighty big difference.

In fact, almost all press coverage (or indeed any new web page) will have a Page Rank of 0 to begin with. Any new page added to a site will first have to be indexed by Google. And it takes Google time to take account of factors that will determine what Page Rank should be assigned. It is certainly possible to get Page Rank up to 1 0r 2 relatively quickly if people begin linking to the coverage  - but unless you get some very high Page Ranked backlinks rapidly, the chances that a piece of coverage will have gained a Page Rank of 5 or higher in the space of a few days is highly unlikely.

Traditionally, gaining a piece of coverage on a major site like the BBC would be cause for celebration. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t still be. However, we need to be honest about what value that might really deliver. And why we need to be careful about using Page Rank as a PR metric.

For example, the Guardian has a massive 3.8 million unique visitors and 130 million page views per month in the UK alone. Some PR firms might be tempted to say that getting coverage on The Guardian site provides an OTS (opportunity to see) of 3.8 Million. Of course, this is not exactly the case. The Guardian has roughly 20.3 million indexed pages – not of all of these are going to be editorial pages, but most will be. Fact is, not all pages are equal. Only the publishers themselves know the real data, but I’d hazard a guess that a smaller percentage of the total number of indexed pages gain the majority of site traffic. That’s the same for any website.  The challenge with using Page Rank as a PR metric is that it is an indirect measure of traffic. If you think about it, if Google determines that a page has a higher relative importance than another then it is likely to have more traffic. In which case, try randomly sampling some pages from the BBC and other major sites and you’ll probably find that the Page Rank is o.

Here is another example. This story was one of the Most Popular on the BBC site a few days ago. However, it has a Page Rank of 0. In spite of 49 backlinks, including backlinks from pages with rankings of 7. Now the Page Rank may change over time, but again, this is unlikely unless further interest is generated via additional backlinks.

That’s not to say that over time, an article might not be able to build a higher Page Rank. But how many PR firms do you know that would recommend and implement an ongoing “merchandising” strategy to try and generate more backlinks and comments to a piece of coverage in order to improve Page Rank? Or would be able to track changes in Page Rank over time and demonstrate what factors may have caused that change in Page Rank? And have a plan for using that change in Page Rank to generate further traffic to the client’s website? (Disclosure: this is a standard approach at escherman)

The traditional PR mindset is one that says once a piece of coverage has appeared, the job is pretty much done (other than to prepare a clippings book and invoice the client). Part of the opportunity with online PR is that generating the initial coverage can in fact be the start rather than the end of the process.

So beware of PR firms touting Page Rank as a metric. Here’s a handy quick checklist of things to ask them:

1. Explain what Page Rank is and why it is important. Hint: go here to find out for yourself.

2. If a PR firm claims a high Page Rank for a piece of coverage that has appeared in the last 2 days, ask them to explain what factors have caused this to be the case.

3. Ask them if they have a plan for potentially improving the Page Rank of a piece of coverage – and how they would track that over time

Filed under: Digital marketing, Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, online pr, tech pr , Page Rank

What is Your Unique Buying Proposition? – Content Marketing Today

via contentmarketingtoday.com

Good post on how the traditional concept of a Unique Selling Proposition views the problem of positioning “almost backwards”. Hence the idea of a Unique Buying Proposition.

As Newt Barrett says: “A UBP is a first cousin to a USB. The difference is that a UBP is all about the buyer and what the buyer will gain from doing business with you. Thus, your buyers don’t care that you are the only maker of green widgets in the United States. They do care if your green widgets will enable them to double their sales or cut their manufacturing costs by 50%.

Therefore the structure of a UBP should be something along the lines of: You will achieve X positive outcome by taking advantage of our solution Y which is precisely designed to solve your most challenging problem Z.”

Filed under: Digital marketing, Web/Tech

“We’re Swayed by Confidence More than Expertise”: Predictably Irrational: Blog Archive

via predictablyirrational.com

Good post from Dan Ariely on new research that seems to show we tend to seek advice from experts who exhibit the most confidence – even when we know they haven’t been particularly accurate in the past.

Filed under: Books, Web/Tech

Posterous: testing e-mail from iPhone

Filed under: Web/Tech

How U2 producer Brian Eno solves the paradox of choice (lessons for online PR)

A recent Daily Telegraph interview with legendary music producer Brian Eno contained an instructive quote about dealing with too many choices:

“In modern recording one of the biggest problems is that you’re in a world of endless possibilities. So I try to close down possibilities early on. I limit choices. I confine people to a small area of manoeuvre. There’s a reason that guitar players invariably produce more interesting music than synthesizer players: you can go through the options on a guitar in about a minute, after that you have to start making aesthetic and stylistic decisions. This computer can contain a thousand synths, each with a thousand sounds. I try to provide constraints for people.”

Whereas in the past these recording choices would only have been available to a small number of well funded bands, the problem is now one faced by anyone who has played around with Apple’s Garageband software.  It is all too easy to get sidetracked into tinkering with different instrument settings and effects (how about trying a bit more phasing on that clavier?). Before you know it, hours have passed, and you haven’t actually recorded anything meaningful.

In many ways, a similar problem faces marketing and PR clients. The range of possible choice in terms of the composition of the marketing mix grows by the day. A mind blowing selection of agencies, tools and offerings that serve to make your brain fuse. Experimenting with Twitter and Facebook is similar to agonising over Pinch or Flutter Harmonics – and the million and one permutations of digital effects.

Brian Eno thus seems to belong to the same “Less is More” camp as Clay “filter failure” Shirky, Barry “Paradox of Choice” Schwartz and Richard “80/20″ Koch.  You have to set up some boundaries and constraints up front to prevent getting sucked into an endless cycle of fruitless tinkering.

Filed under: Music, Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, marketing, online pr, tech pr , brian eno, less is more

New free whitepaper will help PR and marketing professionals kick start or improve online PR programmes

Hot off the digital press today is a new whitepaper from Daryl Willcox Publishing entitled “Online PR in action – an introduction to implementing and measuring a digital PR programme.” I have a very personal interest in this – I wrote it. Within the confines of a 4000 word whitepaper, we’ve tried to make it as comprehensive as possible – but clearly, all feedback will be appreciated. Let the conversation begin (see below for press release):

PR and marketing professionals looking to kick start or improve their online communications programmes now have a valuable new free guide thanks to the publication today of the latest whitepaper from Daryl Willcox Publishing (DWPub). The whitepaper, entitled “Online PR in action – an introduction to implementing and measuring a digital PR programme”, sets out the basic steps required to get results from digital media. The whitepaper was written by digital PR veteran Andrew Bruce Smith, founder of online PR specialist consultancy escherman. It was inspired by a lack of detailed information about how to pull together all the various elements of a successful online PR campaign – despite huge volumes of information available on specific aspects of the subject.

According to Smith: “PR and marketing professionals are spoilt for choice when it comes to information available on niche features of online PR such as press release distribution or search engine optimisation (SEO). It occurred to me that much of this material was being produced by search marketing specialists rather than PR practitioners. And no one had really put together a practical guide that looked at the subject from the perspective of the PR professional – whether in-house or agency – as well as looking at the entire PR process from planning through implementation to analysis and reporting. This new whitepaper aims to provide a solid framework for allowing PR professionals from SMEs to larger businesses to begin making rapid improvements to their online PR campaigns.”

DWPub chairman Daryl Willcox said: “There are tons of people out there blogging about how important online PR is, but there is very little in terms of actual guidance – especially for those who have limited online PR experience. This latest whitepaper seeks to address that imbalance and give people a practical introduction to digital PR techniques.” In the whitepaper’s foreword, Willcox warns that if PR professionals do not adapt to an increasingly digital media, they risk being sidelined by other marketing disciplines. Willcox first made this prediction in his 2007 whitepaper entitled “PR versus Search” – a forecast that is showing signs of coming true. “Online PR in action” is the latest in the Public Relations Whitepaper Series from DWPub which covers such topics as press release writing, getting coverage in feature articles and working with freelance journalists.

All the whitepapers can be downloaded at www.dwpub.com/whitepapers

Online services from DWPub, such as its media database and online press release distribution services, are effective tools for supporting online PR campaigns.

For more information contact:

Vanessa McGreevy

Daryl Willcox Publishing

Tel: 0845 370 7777

Email: vanessa@dwpub.com

Andrew Smith Escherman

Tel: 0208 334 8095

andrew@escherman.com

About Daryl Willcox Publishing

Online services for journalists and media relations specialists www.dwpub.com Daryl Willcox Publishing (DWPub) focuses entirely on online information services for journalists and PR professionals. DWPub brands enjoy widespread recognition with both the press and the PR community. DWPub is a UK-owned independent company and has grown every year since its launch in 1997. The company was founded and is run by an experienced journalist.

Filed under: General PR, Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, online pr, tech pr , daryl willcox, whitepaper

“Should I kill myself or read another Twitter message?”: Camus’ question for the social media generation

The above quote is a reworking of Albert “The Outsider” Camus’ existentialist poser: “Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?” It is referred to in Barry Schwartz’s highly insightful cult classic, The Paradox of Choice to stress the point that everything in life is a choice. One of the key themes in Schwartz’s book is that although having no choice at all is a bad thing, having an ever expanding growth in choice isn’t leading us to the promised land either.

In other words, choice overload is an even more serious problem them information overload. And choice overload is clearly in abundance in the world of PR, marketing and social media – whether it is the range of marketing channels available (and ways in which these can be combined), or the number of 3rd party agencies and suppliers queuing up to offer their services to the deluged client side buyers.

As Schwartz says: “Filtering out extraneous information is one of the basic functions of consciousness. If everything available to our senses demanded our attention at all times, we wouldn’t be able to get through the day.” (He has clearly never used Twitter).

We are becoming trapped by what economist Fred Hirch has referred to as “the tyranny of small decisions” (or in social media terms, the Tyranny of the Twitter Stream or the infinitely expanding Google Reader RSS subscription list). According to Clay Shirky, there is no such thing as information overload, merely “filter failure.” If that is true, then we just need to build better filters. But presumably building better filters requires us to be more clear and decisive about our goals. And as Schwartz fascinatingly points out: “Goal setting and decision making begins with the question, ‘What do I want?”. But knowing what we want means being able to anticipate accurately how one choice or another will make us feel, and that is no easy task.” A number of experiments cited show that our predictions about how we will feel about our goal making decisions are usually wrong. “Susceptibility to error can only get worse as the number and complexity of decisions increase, which in general describes the conditions of daily life. The growth of options and opportunities for choice has three, related unfortunate effects:

It means that decisions require more effort

It makes mistakes more likely

It makes the psychological consequences of mistakes more severe

Another key element of the book is the distinction between people who are maximisers and satisficers. “Choosing wisely begins with developing a clear understanding of your goals. And the first choice you must make is between the goal of choosing the absolute best and the goal of choosing something that is good enough”.

If you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximiser. Maximisers need to be “assured that every decision was the best that could be made. Yet how can anyone truly know that any given option is absolutely the best possible? The only way is to check out all the alternatives. As a decision strategy, maximising creates a daunting task, which becomes all the more daunting as the number of options increases.”

Take some social media examples. A Twitter maximiser will presumably keep following more people and reading more Tweets in order to reassure themselves they have found the absolute best in terms of Twitterers and material. They will click every link they can to make sure they haven’t missed that vital blog post or news story. Or what about a client side PR director who in order to reassure themselves they have chosen the right agency will keep adding to the pitch list until they have 20 agencies lined up (as Schwartz points out, the more alternatives you consider the more likely you are to suffer from buyer’s remorse and still feel disatisfied with your decision – he cites a number of experiments which seem to verify this principle – at last, scientific proof of the ineffectiveness of lengthy pitch lists!) He has a lot more to say on maximisers, but one of the key conclusions is that maximisers tend to be unhappier people – and unhappy people tend to be poor decision makers.

Contrast this with “satisficers”. To satisfice is to settle for something that is “good enough” and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. A satisficer has criteria and standards. He or she will search until they find the item (whatever it is) that meets those standards and at that point stop. They are not concerned that a better alternative might be just around the corner.

I could go on, but I’m making a decision to stop now and go and do something else instead. Suffice to say there is a lot be learnt from The Paradox of Choice – and I shall return to it again in later blog posts.

So. Should I follow yet another person on Twitter? Spend another few minutes on Tweetdeck? Or kill myself? Or go an re-read some Camus?

Filed under: Books, General PR, Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, marketing, online pr, tech pr

“Software as a Service: it’s about the business model, stupid” says SaaS-IT Consult

A quick plug for client SaaS-IT Consult and their new whitepaper entitled “Software as a service: It’s about the business model, stupid”.

SaaS-IT say that too much focus on technology and a failure to develop new business models will mean many traditional IT industry players such as ISVs and resellers may fail to capitalise on the emerging Software as Service (SaaS) market.

They also say the SaaS market has got more in common with supermarket retailing than traditional IT sales models. Or as they put it, selling cheese rather than technology.

As SaaS-IT founder and partner Anders Trolle-Schultz remarks: “Software as a Service (SaaS) is going to have a major impact on the business world in the next few years. In spite of this, virtually all of the discussion around SaaS to date has focussed on technology – and that SaaS is merely a different technology delivery model. The simple fact is that SaaS isn’t about technology at all. It’s a business model. As a result, mainstream SaaS adoption will require a major mindset change on the part of all participants, not least the existing IT channel. Technology is not the main market inhibitor. We have produced this new whitepaper to help move the debate and discussion toward the real business drivers in the development of the SaaS market.”

Click here to download copies of the whitepaper,”Software as a service: It’s about the business model, stupid”.

About SaaS-IT

SaaS-IT is Europe’s leading Software As A Service (SaaS) business enablement consultancy. SaaS-IT provides a bespoke mix of practical, real world consulting services to allow small to medium size ISVs, value added hosters and mainstream software vendors to optimise their SaaS business capabilities.

Unlike larger generalist and technology led consultancies, SaaS-IT delivers an unrivalled level of business partnership expertise to ensure SaaS market opportunities are properly validated and optimally executed where appropriate.

SaaS-IT consultants have extensive expertise, understanding and experience of local European market conditions and are best positioned to advise on all aspects of SaaS business enablement including messaging, pricing, sales & marketing, demand generation, licensing models, product development lifecycle, and support operations.

Filed under: SaaS, Technology PR, Web/Tech, digital pr, online pr, tech pr , SaaS, saas business model, saas-it