PR Niblets

The Tease

2012-01-31T16:06:00.002-05:00

It seems like more and morecompanies want to keep us guessing - whether it’s Apple’s on-again/off-againproduct releases or GoDaddy’s sexual innuendo-filled ads that force us to thewebsite to “see more” of Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels (um…no thanks!).

Most recently, JC Penney has joined the party by running TV spots of shoppers screaming at sales they’ve missed and beingbombarded by coupons and flyers (http://youtu.be/aj3PfcPuauM). The commercial ends with the tagline, “Enough.Is.Enough.” and teases February 1, 2012 along with a link to JC Penney’s Facebookpage. So, can we assume the company is gettingrid of all its couponing? Is it just aploy to get people to check out their Facebook page?

After chatting with a colleagueabout the commercial (which admittedly is pretty funny), he told me about an articlethat said JC Penney is getting rid of all promotional sales in their stores. Overall,I think this campaign could be a win for the company – the tease is generatingsome buzz for both the campaign and the brand…all in anticipation of the “bigannouncement and full details!”

In the PR, marketing and mediaworld, the “tease” can be both advantageous and disadvantageous to a company ornews story. Think of all the times anews anchor teases us to stay tuned after the commercial for the latest householdcleaning product that can KILL US! Theanchor comes back and the news is so far out that we snicker to ourselves and becomea little more jaded each time it happens. As marketers and publicists put more “tease” into their copywriting and campaignelements, are we switching our audiences off by overusing this tactic?

With the Super Bowl (ofadvertising) less than a week away, let’s see how many brands turn to tease tactics. I have a feeling that our information overloaded generation willbe seeing a lot more of this across mediums (i.e. from TV to Twitter) ascompanies are doing everything they can to draw us in and keep us coming back.

"Top 10 Secrets to Great Analyst Relations" by Judith M. Rothrock

2012-01-05T18:22:00.000-05:00

Industry analyst relations are a critical component of most technology companies' external marketing campaigns. Ignore the analysts and you prospectively lose important third party endorsements, inclusion in RFIs and RFPs, citations in the media and more.

In this guest blog, Judith M. Rothrock, president of JRocket Marketing, an analyst relations and outsourced chief marketing officer organization, offers 20+ years of street smarts on how to effectively engage in analyst relations. JRocket Marketing and Feintuch Communications are strategic partners; Mr. Feintuch has known and worked with Ms. Rothrock in a variety of capacities for nearly 30 years.

Recently I was asked by an industry colleague how JRocket Marketing is able to get even small vendors attention by the technology analyst firms….when the IT market is dominated by billion-dollar behemoths. Here is the JRocket Marketing Tip Sheet:

1. Homework: Know the analyst; pull their bio, note prior companies, schools, etc. Connect the dots and build the relationship off of his or her background. For example, knowing that Mint Jutras www.mintjutras.com principal Cindy Jutras is a math and science whiz from Boston University http://www.bu.edu/ … is going to at least get her to take your call if your brother/sister/aunt/uncle went there and/or you have a penchant for engineering!

2. Competitive P.I.: Super sleuth how your targeted analysts report on your competitors; what they like and don’t like, and get a good grasp of where the biases are going to be. A little private investigating goes a long way towards exploiting opportunities and avoiding pitfalls. For example, if you are in the enterprise solutions space and want to speak about “agility,” you need to know what UNIT4 has said on the topic www.unit4.com.

3. Packaging: Spin works. Net clever messages work. Complex acronyms and boring R&D speak (unless you are talking to an architecture analyst) will put your target analysts to sleep. Be sticky read http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-Others/dp/1400064287/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321920765&sr=8-1

4. Powerpoint Simplicity: 50 page powerpoints scream one (or both) of these messages: I’m not sure what’s most important about my company/differentiation; I haven’t done this before so I am going to dump it all on you to figure out. Tight net presentations of 20 slides and one hour are perfect for getting key points across to analysts who are overloaded with sometimes 25+ vendor briefings per week. Skip the highly complex slides that deliver TMI. SYSPRO U.S.’s http://www.syspro.us.com/ ‘Einstein Theory’ received more traction than 60 page powerpoints previously given on the same/similar products.

5. I.V. Drips not Overloads: Analysts are often booked hourly (like lawyers) and three hour (unbillable) meetings and ongoing non-urgent information is going to peg you as a time waster to be avoided. Twice yearly face to face meetings, augmented by 2 additional WebEx’s on launches, acquisitions or other hot topics are plenty for a smaller (non-Microsoft) sized company …but share your key press releases via linked emails and/or twitter. JRocket Marketing’s Grape Escape http://www.jrocketmarketing.com/grape_escape.html is a great example of how to showcase your messaging annually and draw big analyst crowds.

6. Hot Topics: Stay abreast of the industry – what’s hot, what’s not, what’s game changing. They package your messaging to pick up on these trends because that’s what the analysts will be writing about. Check out Gartner’s Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012 http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/gartner-10-key-it-trends-2012

7. Travel Tie-Ins: Get the target analysts travel schedule and dovetail it to ANY locales, happenings or home bases of you or your key executives. Build in a lunch, dinner or airport coffee time to build the face-time relationship. Social media is GREAT, but relationships bond across a meal table.

8. Newbie Knowledge: New analysts (often from the vendor or press community) are feeling their way and grateful for any data you can share about their new assignment. Help them, and they help you! Send a welcome letter, start a file about any personal information they choose to share (spouse, kids/ages, hobbies)…and don’t forget the flowers if they have an illness or major accident because they will never forget YOU for it! Recommendations: for women analysts, nothing says it like a personalized “analyst of the year” Vermont teddy bear http://www.vermontteddybear.com/ or Pro Flowers http://www.proflowers.com/ plant and Mrs. Fields cookie combo … I’ve built 20 year relationships from just doing the “right thing” as we New Yorkers say (and it makes YOU feel great to do it!).

9. Scoops: If your company is the first to do something – bring in your most important analyst under NDA and get them a pre-briefing prior to launch. Some firms will allow a press quote, but even for the larger ones (Gartner http://www.gartner.com/, Forrester http://www.forrester.com/, or IDC http://www.idc.com/) an advance briefing will put them in a position to take a reporter’s call to provide color on the topic.

10. Respect (Both Ways): This is the most challenging tightwire act of analyst relations. Not all analysts treat smaller vendors with the same respect they give “the big boys” and there are quite a few egos. On the flip side, there are dozens of wonderful analysts out there who you can cultivate career-long friendships with. I’ve found that (contrary to what’s staffed at most PR agencies) that AR people who have deep, experienced knowledge of their market, their products and their competitors’ actions get the best shake from analysts. I’ve also found that there are some analysts that, regardless of how earthshaking your IT breakthrough is, will never believe that a small company announcement trumps even mundane news from the giants. Read Brian Sommer’s grid on the types of analysts for a good comedic look at the various analyst “types” in the market http://www.zdnet.com/blog/sommer/humor-the-rosetta-stone-of-it-industry-analysts/1089?tag=content;siu-container.

Visit http://www.jrocketmarketing.com/ for more information or follow Judith Rothrock on twitter @JRocketMarket.

It’s Race Day in the Big Apple and the Crowd Goes Wild!

2011-11-18T11:43:00.004-05:00

Every year since I’ve lived in NYC, I’ve cheered onmarathoners running the streets of New York in the beginning of November. Every year I’ve said, I’m going to run it oneday. This year, I did! And, as I had posted on Facebook after the race, twowords sum up the experience – awesome and tiring!

The New York Marathon is one big block party. The media buzzall around New York propels and enhances the excitement of the city. Every yearvarious world-class runners and celebrities mix in with ordinary runners.Everyone remembers the Chilean miner who ran the marathon last year. This year the big news was that Apolo Ohnowas running the marathon. With this kind of attention and publicity, it’s nosurprise that marathon day is the one day every year that New Yorkers come outin the thousands to cheer on runners of all ages, ethnicities, class level,etc.

The three months of training prior to the race, were not easy.The foresight, research, organizational and planning skills PR practitionersuse in their jobs were put to good use. I researched various trainingschedules, chose the one that worked for me and plotted out my running schedulefor the next three months. When I completed a run, I’d check it off theschedule. Sometimes I’d have torearrange my workouts on a weekly basis to fit them in with other commitments.Often, I would leave work on a Thursday or Friday and run anywhere from 13-20miles around Manhattan and/or home to Brooklyn; many weeks saw me awake at 6amthree or four days during the week for a four- to six-mile run; or I’d have tomake sure there was time on a vacation to complete my miles for the week.

Sunday, November 6 was race day, and I was excited andnervous. I hadn’t slept well the night before and had set two alarm clocks justto make sure I was up at 5am and didn’t miss the ferry. Despite trying toremain quiet and not wake my parents and sister, who had flown in fromCalifornia for the occasion, my Dad woke up, kept me company while I got readyand walked me out the door. I was glad for the distraction. Nerves set in againas it seemed like forever for the train to come. Once I got to the ferrystation, excitement took over.

It was complete organized chaos - from boarding the ferryuntil I got to the starting line. For having to deal with 44,000 runners, theNew York Road Runners did an amazing job making sure everyone was where theyneeded to be and when they needed to be there.

The crowds are what make the marathon spectacular. Theentire 26.2 mile route had tons of supporters with signs, both funny andinspirational. Spectators cheered everyone on – whether they knew you or not.If your name was on your shirt, they’d shout for you. If you were wearing ashirt with the Italian flag they’d shout “Go Italy.” Worst case, they’d justshout and holler like banshees. When a runner they knew came by, groups wouldgo crazy! The energy from the crowd keptyou going and when you saw someone you knew, it feels as though you couldsprout wings in your chest and fly away. There were little kids giving out highfives. Every mile had a different band, DJ, choir group, elementary schoolconcert band or some sort of music blaring. Some spectators took it uponthemselves to blast music to help runners along. Others handed out Gu, bananasand paper towels, in addition to the volunteers passing out water, Gatorade andwet sponges. There were people in costumes – both runners and spectators alike.I think the spectators were having as much fun if not more than the runners. Icouldn’t stop smiling for the first 13 miles.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely hit the wall - at about mile20 - but the crowds keep you going and make you want to finish, as do the otherrunners. At no point are you alone, and even though I didn’t know anyone elserunning, there was a certain camaraderie. Finishing was amazing. You realizeyou’ve just run 26.2 miles through the closed-off streets of Manhattan in frontof two million spectators and the exhaustion and pain settle in next to the euphoria.

When asked if I’d run another marathon, my answer istwo-fold: I’d definitely run the NYC marathon again and I might do a differentone, but only if I have someone to train and run it with. It was my sister’s firsttime watching the marathon in person and she loved it so much that she’s tryingto convince me to run one with her, so we’ll see…

The Art of Launching a New Company

2011-11-15T14:47:00.001-05:00

The following is a guest post by MattLerner, VP of product development and marketing for AllStar Deals. Mr.Lerner and his colleagues are about to launch a new enterprise. In thepost below, he presents an interesting look, from an entrepreneur’sperspective, on launching a firm. Stay tuned to the FeintuchCommunications website (www.feintuchcommunications.com)for future developments!

For the last four months, my team and I have been pushing each day to prepare for our site’s launch. Like any tech start up, new problems arise organically and our strategy to solve them is seemingly ever changing.

After back-and-forth internal discussions as to whether or not we were ready to face the public, last week, we reached our first major company milestone: pushing the pre-launch page live for AllStar Deals.

We did this with the help of LaunchRock, which not only gave us the tools to bring our page online, but also allowed us to begin collecting a database of early users, provide share buttons to those users so they could spread the word to their networks, and track primary analytics such as user sign-ups and page views.

Putting up our pre-launch page was incredibly gratifying and it provided a great lesson: JUST GET OUT THERE, ALREADY!

Stop tinkering. Stop expecting perfection. Stop worrying. You’ll never fully grasp what aspects of your site need more work and require adjustment until you actually put it in front of people. No amount of preparation will be able to act as a substitute for the learning you’ll glean from an actual launch.

There was a fantastic article in New York Magazine called Bubble Boys last month that every entrepreneur should check out. It’s certainly worth reading in its entirety but here are a couple of the quotes that stuck with me:

“Done is better than perfect.”
“Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is what matters.”
“If ten people have the same idea for a piece of software, the one who succeeds will be whoever launches it fastest, then iterates as quickly as possible.”
“There has never been a better time to be a geek with a dream. Launching a new product is all but free.”

Since our site will be taking on the online daily deals space, there is certainly no shortage of competitors for us. In fact, there are more than 500 daily deals sites in the US alone. That said, they all do the same thing.

They hire a sales force to try and find as many deals as possible, then they blast daily emails to all their users hoping that everybody buys them. As a result, your email box becomes cluttered with deals for microdermabrasion, helicopter flying lessons, and jewelry making classes.

Our plan is to change this model by not hiring a sales force at all. Instead we will be the first site entirely populated with user submitted deals. If you find a good deal in your neighborhood, we’ll give you the tools to secure that deal and submit it to the site. The incentive to do so is that we will pay cash commission to those who submit and share the deals.

Since our site gains strength by having more people signed up, submitting deals and sharing them with each other, and since this space is only getting more crowded each day, we knew the time was now to finally get out there.

Will there be major problems we have to deal with? Hopefully not, but maybe. Will there be tweaks and changes along the way? Certainly.

One thing is for certain though, we won’t know for sure until we’re up and running.

Follow AllStar Deals on twitter at @allstardeals and facebook.

"My Wallet, or my Cellphone?"

2011-10-08T18:29:00.002-04:00

On Friday, in my rush to make a 7 a.m. train from Chappaqua to Manhattan for a partner breakfast meeting, I left my wallet in my car.

I didn't know I was "naked" until we neared Hawthorne and I heard the conductor coming down the aisle asking for tickets. As I reached for my monthly pass (housed in a special pocket in my wallet), I instantly realized what I had done. Terror set in. No train pass. No cash to buy a ticket on board. No credit card. No business card or any form of ID to offer the conductor as "collateral" of my good faith.

The conductor came to my seating group. When he looked at me, I said "I don't know what we're going to do with me... but my wallet is in my car...together with my credit cards, cash and ID."

I held my breath. My heartbeat sped up.

He looked at me and simply said, "okay," before moving on.

Crisis averted. And then I thought ahead to what the absence of my wallet meant. How to pay for breakfast. How to enter my office building. Who's paying for today's staff lunch. How to get home tonight. I thought about exiting at White Plains, grabbing a northbound local and starting all over again. After all, that's what I did a couple of years ago when I left my BlackBerry in my car.

On that occasion, I had similary weighed my options. Client calls? They'd go unanswered. Family calls and emergencies... no answer. Text messages...forgetaboutit! Facebook..LinkedIn...Twitter...other apps... no... too scary... I couldn't make it through the day. Back to the parking lot to get my phone. Not even a second thought.

Yet here, in 2011, I knew I could get by without my wallet. An email to Christa and Savannah, my work colleagues, produced two offers of we'll meet you at the restaurant to bail you out. And with that, I knew I could make it through the day.

Breakfast with Lito Bunag, of the Phillipines, went off as scheduled. When Christa walked to our booth, and discretely slid $80 and her gold AMEX to me, I noted the puzzled look on Lito's face. I explained my morning's angst and he smiled and said, "I was paying for breakfast anyway."

The security guards at 245 Park Ave. were sympathic but officially needed someone to vouch for me. But then, they noted that my staff had guest-signed me into the building. They produced a temporary paper badget. I was in!

I made it through the day without any other surprises. Lunch -- no sweat. New client meeting -- positive. Christa's micro-cash loan worked fine to buy my one-way ticket back to Westchester. My son picked me up with my car and I was finally reunited with my wallet.

So, in my own modern version of Frank Stockton's short story "The Lady, or the Tiger," my cellphone wins. I can make it through the day -- with a little bit of help from my friends -- without a wallet. But touch my cellphone? We need to have a serious conversation about that!

My lunch with Warren Buffett (and several hundred other clients/partners of Business Wire)

2011-10-03T00:35:00.002-04:00

Warren Buffett and I had lunch together on Friday!

We were joined by several hundred other clients, partners and guests of Business Wire -- all invited to lunch at the New York Stock Exchange and the chance to see and hear the "Oracle of Omaha" in person. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. The day was marked with a proclamation by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg making September 30, 2011 "Business Wire Day" and a smart news release chronicling highlights of the company's history and numerous industry firsts.

The company's senior management team talked about the evolution of the company and its services both on stage and in a fast-paced and engaging video, "50 Years of Innovation," that provided a great historical perspective.

Leading up to its 50th anniversary (officially Oct. 7), Business Wire held a "Future of Public Relations and Communications" college video contest challenging full-time college students to submit short videos answering the question "What is the future of public relations and communications?" 21-year-old Jenna Marie James (photo/left at podium), a senior majoring in telecommunications at Ball State University in Indiana, was the winner of the contest. Her prize package included a trip to New York (her first) to meet and have lunch with "Warren" -- as well as to speak at the luncheon (preceding Warren). Her video is refreshing, creative and engaging -- I strongly recommend you view it!

And then, it was Warren's turn. He was "interviewed" on stage by Business Wire President & CEO Cathy Baron Tamraz followed by questions from the audience. What's amazing is his mental acuity at age 81 and ability to go from questions on the stock market to investor relations to communications to business in China and politics without missing a beat.

His answers were peppered with facts, figures, dates and plain spoken clarity not typical of most captains of business. He ... and Cathy... spoke about the period Berkshire Hathaway purchased Business Wire (following a "sales" letter he received from Cathy).

One questioner wanted to know how long the recession would last. Warren talked about the housing market and housing starts as the key indicator given their direct importance and ripple effect on the economy. Another questioner asked about governance in Washington. Warren indicated the problem was neither party was governing and instead all were obsessed about their re-election prospects rather than doing the right thing for the people. He brought a chuckle to the room when responding to a question about President Obama's proposed millionare's tax. "I"m not so sure it's good to have a tax named after you," he mused.

No matter how long and nuanced the answers to the questions, he always circled back and answered each question fully. It was an awe-inspiring performance of a genuine business leader, straight talker and straight shooter.

My thanks to Sarah Shepard, a former colleague and director of sales, NY Region at Business Wire for inviting me to this sophisticated celebration.

P.S. The menu was an appetizer of candied walnut, gorgonzola and mesculun salad with sherry walnut dressing; choice of pan seared French cut chicken breast with rosemary jus or pan seared sea bass with gingered pineapple and papaya (my selection) and New York style cheesecake.

Interning 101

2011-08-17T14:57:00.005-04:00

By Nicole Cimo, Towson University Class of 2012

Ever since I graduated high school, I’ve been told that college would be the most valuable learning experience of my life and I would ultimately graduate with an expertise in what is called my "major." Well, after interning with Feintuch Communications this summer, I became aware of how my major in public relations differs in an academic versus a professional world.

I've learned that there’s a big difference between knowing and understanding. From my experience thus far in college, my professors have led me through countless PowerPoint presentations, terminology and textbooks. Everything I’ve studied and memorized has been relevant for things I need to know, but it wasn’t until I landed my first internship at Feintuch Communications that I began to apply these to a real situation. Of course, being required to know and memorize the terms B2B, B2C, boilerplate, abstract, and Ed-Cal throughout my college years is all essential, but engaging in an internship is what gave me the hands-on experience to understand how these terms are actually implemented. For example, I’ve been taught since my freshman year that using media such as print and broadcast will help a client get exposure to core audiences. However, until I was given my first pitching task I never realized how clients actually receive exposure in a magazine article or interview. I had to research the client and industry, as well as the reporter to see if they would even be interested in our client. After numerous, persistent calls and voicemails, I ultimately landed my first media placement, which is something I would have never experienced in a classroom.

An internship is defined as a program designed to provide a learning experience for beginners in a profession, which is exactly what I gained this summer. Twice a week, I would commute and work my 9-5 day as if it were a full-time career. Not only did I acquire useful tips such as how important it is to ask questions and that every assignment counts, but I also attained a great deal of knowledge from attending my first trade show. All colleges should require some type of internship prior to graduation. This experience gave me valuable practice for the future and allowed me to grasp the world of PR better than any textbook, which is something I wouldn’t have been able to achieve from college alone.

PRSA New York’s Book Publishing Event

2011-06-02T13:04:00.007-04:00

Wednesday night our company assisted with the PRSA New York program, “A Book Publishing Double Header” hosted by Dow Jones at the beautiful Fox Sports Bar. The food and drinks were magnificent and the presentations were intriguing. Andrew Wheeler, Marketing Manager at Wiley & Sons, discussed how marketing books in this digital age is different from how books used to be marketed. Identifying your target audience and then utilizing social media appropriately is important. Creating a connection and conversation with book reviewers and reporters is also important in order to generate reviews and coverage. All great takeaways!

Jonathan Spira (left) with Andrew Wheeler (right) during the Q&A

After Andrew Wheeler, Jonathan Spira, author of Overload! How Too Much Information is Hazardous to Your Organization, discussed his book, released Tuesday. The book discusses how knowledge workers are overwhelmed with the increasing amount of information thrown at them every day. Email, IM, phone calls and our 24/7, always connected mentality affect knowledge workers’ productivity, costing companies billions of dollars. Included below is part of Jonathan’s presentation where he discusses the ways workers can help decrease information overload – all very good tips that can be easily implemented!

The State of the News Media: A Print vs. Digital Debate

2011-03-17T14:48:00.001-04:00

We all know the media environment has been on a roller coaster ride over the last few years as print and “traditional media” have been fighting (and losing) the incursions of the Internet, iPod and an increasingly fragmented media environment. A new study from Pew Research sheds light on some of these trends and uncovers some interesting findings:

Newspapers declined 6.4% in 2010
Online news consumption surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue and audience for the first time in 2010
For the first time in more than 12 years, the average audience of all three cable news channels declined
Local TV revenue rose 17%
Radio has remained stable
Only 31% of Americans have heard of HD radio
In 2010, auto advertising increased 77% in local TV, 22% in radio and 17% in magazines

Just today, in seeming response to the print/digital war, The New York Times announced its new online digital/mobile editions subscription policies: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/opinion/l18times.html?WT.mc_id=ED-SEM-E-GOOG-SEM-TXT-VAR-ROS-0311-NA&WT.mc_ev=click.

What’s your take on the print vs. digital debate? Do you subscribe to any paid editorial content? How do you consume your news?

Make That Two Social Medias To Go... and Hold the "MySpace"

2011-03-14T08:00:00.003-04:00

No one would accuse me of being a Luddite. My office “set-up” includes two monitors (one for e-mail; one for my “apps”); a CardScan business card scanner; a webcam; and an add-on sub-woofer and satellite speakers. I pack a Blackberry Torch (and far too many mobile apps); use a Flip Cam; own a Sony DSLR camera and drive a tricked out Mercedes convertible. At our home in Chappaqua, visitors (and even my wife) often ask how to turn on and use our integrated video and audio entertainment centers or how to log onto our private Wi-Fi network.

And yes… I tweet, spend far too many hours on Facebook, am a Power Seller on Ebay, actively manage my LinkedIn profile and just bought a great restaurant coupon deal on Open Table.

My PR career has largely centered on supporting the needs of emerging and established technology organizations in the U.S. and abroad. Over the decades, the tools I’ve used to support clients have grown increasingly more sophisticated – from typewritten press releases, Wang mail merges and early use of the fax to video news releases, satellite media tours, SEO, interactive marketing, email blasts, multimedia press releases and mobile apps.

But when it comes to the topic of social media in public relations, I find the hype maddening. Standalone digital firms have moved into the PR market focusing on social media plan development and implementation. Every month, more and more “traditional PR firms” announce the launch of their own social media or digital practice.

The buzz started slowly enough. As teens lost their lock on the early social networks (e.g. MySpace; Facebook) and the mass market moved in, self-declared social media pundits began doing talks and seminars explaining the new world of social media and encouraging PR and marketing practitioners to jump in and get their feet wet. Soon, a cottage industry of book authors, speech presenters, conference organizations and trade press beat the drum for social media. “If you don’t create a practice, you run the risk of becoming entirely irrelevant and ceding market share to your competitors.”

In our own young firm, born during the rise of the social media era, we all agree that the impact of social media on the PR and marketing mix is profound. But, with all due respect to the late sociologist, scholar and media theorist Marshall McLuhan, the social medium is NOT the message – at least when it comes to the development and implementation of strategic public relations programs.

We believe that too many marketers are focusing on the coolest and most buzzworthy tactics for novelty sake and not due to an underlying marketing strategy. Our firm builds social media elements into client programs as strategically appropriate rather than supporting the P&L of a social media practice that requires the continuous sale of separate projects or expensive add-ons. We look at social media elements as additional channels for reaching targeted audiences not as the desired end product our clients should be invested in.

So today, dear friends, we are proud to announce that we are NOT building a social media practice. We will continue to offer our clients a variety of creative and strategic tools to support their business objectives – including smart blogging, setting up LinkedIn groups and Facebook fan pages, custom developed mobile apps and location-based marketing services – in addition to the old fashioned use of the telephone, word-of-mouth and integrated marketing. Business objectives are the message; wise counsel to our clients and prospects is the deliverable.

Forced Obsolescence

2010-11-22T10:39:00.003-05:00

I’m sitting at my desk trying to put a tape into the ancient walkman we have at the office, when my co-worker starts laughing hysterically.

“What’s so funny? It doesn’t fit!” I said, frustrated.

“I’m not laughing at you,” said Jules.

“Yes you are. Why?”

Jules takes the walkman from me and starts pulling the cassette I’ve jammed in it out.

“No, really I’m not. I’m laughing at the fact that you’re using that thing to record. You also realize that this tape isn’t for an audio recorder. It’s for a video recorder.”

“Oh,” I said, as my face drops. “Well they didn’t have any other tapes in the store.”

“You’re probably right. They probably don’t sell audio recording tapes anymore,” Jules laughed even more hysterically. “Come look at this.”

I begrudgingly roll over to his desk. “Do you see a record button anywhere?”

“No.”

“Right. This isn’t a recorder, it’s just a tape and radio player.”

“Damn it. Oh well, I guess I’m not recording the panels,” I said as I rolled back to my desk.

“Just download an audio recorder on your iPhone. That will probably work better than this would have even if it were an audio recorder.”

Within five minutes I downloaded Audio Memos for free and figured out how to use it. At this point, Henry returned from lunch wanting to know if I found a tape for the audio recorder and if I know how to use it. Jules and I laughed and explained the calamity of what had happened. Jules still finds it hilarious. This launched everyone in the office into a discussion about how much technology has changed over the past 20 years.

The most interesting part of this slightly frustrating situation is how significantly technology has changed. Sure, you hear this being said all the time, but this is the first real dramatic difference I’ve experienced. I remember walkmans and playing tapes when I was younger but then along came the CD walkman and of course CDs. After CDs everything turned digital - MP3 players, listening to streaming music, iPods, iPhones, and on and on. If I didn’t have an iPhone, I wouldn’t have been able to record our client’s panel that day.

Another thought occurred to me after both trade shows were over and I was downloading the recordings. How would I have saved the recordings if I had used the old audio recorder? It would’ve required a lot of effort to find a way to upload the file or I would have had to pass around the walkman with the recordings – not the ideal scenario with our clients in Boston and California.

It’s fascinating to see the extreme changes in technology and how people and companies are adapting to them. I’ve watched my parents struggle, yet still get excited, by new innovations, such as the digital camera, digital video recorder, the Internet, blogs and much more. It makes me excited to see how the digital landscape will continue to change. It also makes me wonder, if changes in technology continue to happen as quickly as they have in the past 20 years, will I eventually become out of touch with the latest technologies on the market? Or, will my generation be so used to these changes that we automatically adjust? Only time will tell…

I went to the PRSA International Conference and all I got was a new sense of community…

2010-10-22T09:10:00.001-04:00

Trust me, it was much better than a t-shirt! The 2010 PRSA International Conference, hosted by the D.C. Chapter, was an overload of information on all things PR, marketing and social media. Taking place from Oct. 17-19 at the Washington Hilton – fun fact: it’s also known as the “Hinckley Hilton” because Ronald Reagan was shot there by John Hinckley – the conference was an intense three days of keynote speakers, workshops, sessions and networking events.

Overall, it was very successful, I learned several new lessons, discussed many interesting topics from ethics to RFPs, and made some great connections (the last one is a given when you put a bunch of PR people in a room together). But of all the workshops and sessions I sat in (the total count was eight or nine), one major theme stuck out to me: Building your community.

It doesn’t matter how you build your community – platforms are agnostic. Whether email, snail mail, events, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., you need to have a strategic plan and mission for your company’s public relations efforts.

PRSA proved this in the outreach to attendees throughout the conference. Between QR code games, tweet ups, live tweetchats, Facebook pages and mobile applications (basically everything but Wi-Fi was available), we were able to connect with the organization and our peers in almost every way possible.

Communities are the reason that we all travelled to D.C. by plane, train or automobile, in the first place…to connect with a community of like professionals and share useful information to better ourselves and our business practices. If it wasn’t for communities, social media wouldn’t exist…we’d still be hanging out in AOL chat rooms or doing three-way calls with our colleagues and friends. We should all thank jebus that technology is advancing so quickly nowadays! And no matter what, we should not get overwhelmed by all of it. We have to come to the realization that we’ll never be one step ahead of the next Twitter or Foursquare – we just need to do what is best for our businesses right now.

Since I would never be able to recap all of the amazing info that was shared, check out #prsa_ic for tweets from and about the conference. And visit Feintuch Communications on Facebook for photos and videos from my trip to D.C.!

Blogjam – Or How I’m Becoming a Social Media Convert (kicking and screaming, of course)

2010-09-24T11:06:00.004-04:00

The ups and downs of social media, whether it be blogging, tweeting, playing foursquare or Facebooking really consist of two things: having something to say, and saying it effectively and regularly. As you can see from our Feintuch blog, this is a challenge even in the PR space. It’s also a primary argument I have with some of my clients and certainly my colleagues on occasion.

I think social media is great! Admittedly, I’m a luddite about it, but I truly see it as a tool that, when used effectively, can really propel a company or even a person forward in the public eye. And it certainly has a downside, as over-tweeting becomes tedious, people lose interest and certainly the effectiveness of the communication can be diminished (same as putting out a press release on a daily or even weekly basis).

But what happens when you have nothing to blog? Or things pile up (right Henry?) and you don’t have time to blog, or your social media budget runs dry and your blogger doesn’t work for free? What if you’re a small development-stage company that doesn’t really have any ongoing news?

The ups and downs of this 24/7 medium that we have created are that even if you have nothing to say, and no time in which to say it, you still need to be strategically part of the conversation for your industry. It’s the way people are going to find you, and they’re going to find you. But it’s also a way they’re going to find you relevant.

So if you're going to use it, it’s imperative you say something strategic and constructive: What’s happening in the industry that impacts your company? What’s happening locally that affects your employees or customers? What trade show or financial conference are you going to be attending next week? Or even respond to what others are saying (e.g., about healthcare reform) through a repost or commentary. Blog it, tweet it. But keep updating it and keep it on the regular (maybe not daily, maybe weekly or monthly).

I admit I may have changed my tune a little – even as I write this. Maybe it does make sense for the smaller companies to blog or tweet too. Maybe their having a Facebook page with regular notes about issues impacting their business, even if they don’t have ongoing news, does make sense. But it doesn’t make sense if it’s not regular, reliable, strategic and appropriate.

And yes, we need to continue to practice what we preach here at FC, too. Especially me. Time will tell, and so will the results for our clients. Christa, Savannah, I think you may have a convert on your hands...

Word on the “Street”

2010-09-14T17:52:00.002-04:00

Now that travel/vacation season is officially over (sniff, sniff) - I thought we’d reminisce about the summer and share all of the great things we experienced and conquered...

Now, I'm not sure if you’re like me, but every time I travel to a new place I can’t help but put my PR hat on. I’ll be at a restaurant or art exhibit that I absolutely LOVE and immediately have the desire to confront the owner to ask about his/her PR efforts and…can I help? It’s truly a disease. Are there any other PR pros out there that, after eating at an amazing, hidden gem of a restaurant or after visiting a sweet boutique resort off the beaten track, want to grab their smartphones or laptops and immediately post to their social networks that “I was here!”?? Or, are you NOT in PR and you’ve done this!? Then, welcome to the wide world of PR, my friends.

Thanks to social networks, everyone can practice PR now! Word of mouth is one of the best forms of marketing and PR that a brand can have. It’s a fact of life – if you like something, you want to talk about it. But as we know, this goes both ways, if you hate something, you are definitely going to tell the world how much you hate it.

Enter your PR agency.

For businesses (both b2b and b2c), PR agencies help to control the flow of the social network super highway by constantly monitoring and thinking about the next steps for a social media program. If one of your customers loves your new café, chances are they want to become the mayor of it on Foursquare and claim themselves as your biggest fan on Facebook. This in turn increases the chances that their friends/family/colleagues will want to try it for themselves. Newspapers and magazines post pass along rates, which are how many people read a publication without having a subscription (think a magazine sitting in a dentist’s office). This same principle applies to the social media buzz rate. If something is buzzworthy, people are going to pass it along. A PR agency can help you handle the buzz and develop a plan that shows your mayor (i.e. your biggest customer) that you appreciate his/her business.

We all have to remember that social media in its simplest form is a promotional vehicle. For my generation, it’s a little bit easier. When my parents take a picture of themselves, they don’t scream, “OMG, this is going on Facebook!” after they review the picture. Younger generations are constantly thinking in terms of “who can I show/tell” and “how can I get noticed” – the core philosophies of advertising and PR.

To prove this point of the generation gap, I have to refer to a story my dad recently told me. My aunt took my mom and dad out to eat at this great little place in Central Jersey with fresh Italian food. The restaurant was practically empty when they went in and boasted half-price appetizers every night. My aunt told my dad, “Now make sure you don’t tell anyone about this place, because if you tell people about a good thing, it might not be a good thing anymore!” I truly disagree with this statement. Wouldn’t a business want more business so that they can keep their good thing going? Groupon has made their whole business off of encouraging people to spread the word about a special or deal. And with all types of social networks and groups (from books to cars to widgets) – the opportunity to promote a growing business is getting easier.

A customer wants to feel like they are special when they visit and promote a particular local business to others and an owner wants to please their local patrons while enticing new customers. With social media, whether you are an enterprise software company or a cinnamon bun bakery, you need to recognize that your customer are your own little PR army! And your PR agency is the General, helping to wrangle the troops!

It’s time to recognize that word of mouth is social media and social media is PR!

Slow Down and Edit!

2010-08-17T16:09:00.006-04:00

There’s nothing worse in the PR world than misinformation. The slightest variation of a word, a decimal point, or emphasis can make the difference between a positive message and a negative one. But in this age of rapid-fire email and real-time communications, the simple act of spending some time editing written communications could mean a tremendous difference and increase its effectiveness exponentially.

Here’s a recent example. We were facilitating a series of interviews for a client with an influential trade publication. In providing the reporter background information, we included a White Paper that had been developed for the client to explain its technology and the general benefits of its use. I received an email from the reporter with several questions, one of which had to do with a mathematical figure that was designed to demonstrate the efficiency and power of the technology. But when he quoted me the figure, he felt it didn’t quite jibe with the messaging.

We wound up going back to the original authors of the paper only to discover that the way they expressed the technology’s energy efficiency was inaccurate. A decimal point too many places to the right and utilizing the wrong metric measurement made it seem pretty useless because the way it was written made it seem like it used one third of the energy that it was supposed to have produced. Fortunately, catching the error demonstrated that our client’s technology was much more viable than it would have appeared had the editorial mistake not been caught. But this was a White Paper that was being delivered as promotional material to prove the company’s concept!

And how embarrassing that the analysts who developed the piece didn’t realize the mistake, and it took several years and a member of the media to uncover it?

Of course there are other examples, one of which I’m told is Henry’s favorite. It almost sounds like a joke, but here goes: apparently there was a PR firm that didn’t do a very good job of editing their own press releases, as it seemed they provided one particular client pubic relations counsel.

The moral of these stories? Even in this fast-paced, real-time, supercharged environment in which we find ourselves, taking the extra five minutes, three seconds even, to edit what we say and how we say it, can make all the difference in the world – and make us all seem a lot smarter.

Oh Analysts, How I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways…

2010-08-10T10:52:00.000-04:00

Reason #1,486 why I love working with industry analysts – they tell it like it is! What other third-party resource knows your client’s industry inside and out? They know who the competition is and what they are doing and they are NOT afraid to tell you the honest to goodness truth.As a strategic PR firm, we always recommend an industry analyst program as part of our ongoing PR efforts for most (if not all) of our clients. Industry analysts are the eyes and ears of many industries (from advertising/media to energy, and of course tech) and, unlike journalists these days, they LOVE a good background meeting. With shrinking newsrooms and continuous deadlines, most reporters aren’t interested in spending an hour (or a half hour for that matter) listening to your client babble on about themselves. But an analyst will! They are patient and engaged and most importantly, they always ask the right questions.

Just the other day on the phone with IDC, a tier-one industry analyst group that we pitched and coordinated a briefing with, the analyst and my client went on for more than an hour discussing the market and the future of the telecommunications industry. Suffice it to say, the analyst and my client are now “buddy-buddy” and I know she’ll be coming to us with more questions and requests for background info in the future.

But besides the feel-good stuff that analysts do by providing an ear to bend, they write reports (read by our clients’ customers), they talk to the press constantly, they speak at many large venues with key target audiences, they tweet, they blog, they publish books, they adopt puppies… I’m not entirely sure about the last one, but I wouldn’t be surprised!

The only thing that you must be aware of is that industry analyst programs do NOT produce instant results. Like most PR programs, you need to invest time and effort by following up with the analysts and keeping them up to speed on the latest news and product releases from your client. Like some media outlets, they also like to know about things in advance, which might mean letting them “see behind the curtain” to a new product or service that is not quite fully baked yet. This can be difficult (or very easy) depending on the client. But in the long run, these types of programs do pay off. So if you aren’t incorporating an industry analyst program into your public relations campaign, I hope this has, at least, helped you to consider it.

(Photo Credit: Mike Arauz)

AATOTW

2010-08-03T16:30:00.006-04:00

(Acronyms Are Taking Over The World)

Every so often, something will set off my Women’s soccer team (plug warning: the amazing NY Smoking Aces) to have an extensively long, usually hilarious, email chain. The last one was counted at more than 80 emails. There are 18 of us on the team, so I’m sure that doesn’t help. Especially when the reply all button is so easy to use. But I digress. Towards the end of the last massive email chain, one of the girls used FTW in a sentence. This perpetuated the emails further as apparently very few knew what that stood for. For those of you reading this that don’t either, it’s For The Win. This prompted another girl to email and ask us to decipher ILYVM&WYWH, which her mother had sent her in an email. The solution to this riddle as answered by another teammate was “I Love You Very Much & Wish You Were Here.” No clue how she figured that one out!

The point of all this, besides the hilarity of the responses between my teammates, is that I’ve noticed the use of acronyms has gone beyond email and text exchanges amongst friends and is being used more widely in business correspondence. In fact, that same day I received an email from a reporter filled with acronyms. It took me a few reads to completely understand what he was saying. A couple of months ago, I received an email response from an analyst informing me he was working on a report on LBS. After checking with my co-worker, I had to write back and ask what that meant! Location Based Services it turned out, like Foursquare he politely explained. We even use acronyms in the office to shorten client’s names – LWM, IAI, MBO, TLB etc.

Acronyms have been used for a long time, but it occurred to me after the email exchange with my soccer team how the usage of acronyms has become more common when physically speaking to others and in business. This made me question why acronyms have become so prevalent. Does it have to do with the wider use of Facebook and Twitter for branding purposes. Twitter does only allow 140 characters, making acronyms the best solution. Or, have we become lazy? Or, does it make us feel cool? A special, secret code that only the cool, smart kids can figure out and are aware of?

No matter the question, the answer is an interesting one to contemplate. What effect will this have on the English language? You hear/see in the news how Gen Y is less literate than older generations. Will acronyms contribute and perpetuate to our country's illiteracy rates? O,WWASTTIC&SLR? (Or, will we all start to talk in code and sound like robots?) As someone who deals with writing and reading on a daily basis as the main part of my job, and loves it, it’s very interesting to think about the consequences.

Just consider how many phrases and slang words have become a main part of our vocabulary. “Yea” instead of “yes.” “Rad,” “That’s Hot” (my personal favorite), “props,” “lame,” “gonna,” "sweet," “yeah right.” These have definitely changed our vocabulary and flow into business and even reporters writing (depending upon the publication). While change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s still change.

The ultimate question then is, will acronyms have a big impact on our vocabulary? Or, will it just be a fad that fades out, much like the hairstyles of the 80’s? It will certainly be interesting to see. If we’re not careful, pretty soon we’ll have acronym dictionaries replacing Webster’s (there are a few that already exist online). Personally, while it made for a hilarious email exchange with my teammates, I hope the acronym fad doesn’t take over the PR or media world.

OAO (Over and Out)

(Photo Credit: Random Jess' Blog)

The Forbidden Dance - B2B & Social Media (Warning: This blog post has nothing to do with the Lambada!)

2010-06-29T18:27:00.004-04:00

Earlier this month during Internet Week in NYC, our very own Henry Feintuch organized a PRSA-NY panel discussion on how to get B2B companies to embrace social media.

If you missed it (like I did), below are some snippets from the discussion which featured speakers such as Bloomberg Social Media Lead Ron Casalotti; Capgemini Assistant Director of External Communications Jonathan Blank; CB Richard Ellis Senior Director for Brand Management Ron Houghtaling; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson Senior Business Development and Market Technology Advisor Alison Rooney; MS&L VP of Digital and Social Media Doug Winfield; and SAP Americas Director of Online Marketing and Social Media Michael Brenner:

To view all of the videos on the panel discussion, search YouTube for "PRSA-NY: The Forbidden Dance? B2B and Social Media."

Footie? Soccer? No, It's A PR Opportunity!

2010-06-21T11:04:00.006-04:00

PR is EVERYWHERE! Even in South Africa at the FIFA World Cup (that’s the football – soccer for us Americans- world championship held every four years). And this year’s cup is a potential PR extravaganza!

If you’ve been living under a rock, the United States side rallied to come back from a 2-0 deficit against Slovenia on June 17th, and appeared to have scored a third goal for the win in the last five minutes of the match. Mr. Coulibaly was the referee of the match and disallowed the potentially winning goal based on a mysterious off-sides call that has yet to be confirmed or the culprit identified.

So where’s the PR? Well, first, that most people reading this blog are aware of the situation means that basically, as several ESPN commentators put it, Mr. Coulibaly did more for soccer/football in the US in one match than ANYONE had accomplished in the last 100 years. Americans are now tuning into the World Cup in increased numbers, if nothing else, to lend their support to the U.S. side and cheer them on as they attempt to make the quarter final round (see the double-header on June 23). If this doesn’t demonstrate the power of a word of mouth campaign, I’m not sure what does. I hope Adidas, Puma, and Nike are paying close attention. The window’s closing on that news cycle, so you’d better get moving.

Now that’s not to say that there haven’t been some interesting attempts at viral marketing and other PR stunts at the Cup, despite rules that prevent any companies who have not paid for advertising to do any promotions. In fact, two women wearing short orange skirts trying to do some guerilla marketing were arrested as they were promoting a Dutch beer (much to the annoyance of Cup sponsor Budweiser). FIFA gets the difference; they just want to make sure they control the message for their sponsors.

Secondly, I’m afraid Mr. Coulibaly and FIFA are going to need a little crisis counseling. You can’t disallow a beautifully executed goal by one of the world’s leading economies who are considered an underdog in a potentially pivotal match and not have to answer a few questions from the media. While FIFA is currently protecting Mr. Coulibaly, and actions are expected to be taken to prevent him from being the primary referee in any future matches, he’s going to need some messaging help.

Now if we could just meet the guy who invented the vuvuzela...

(Photo credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)

Hedging Your Bets in PR

2010-05-07T11:14:00.007-04:00

Standing in the infield with my big floppy hat, my feet caked with mud, and the tension spreading through the massive crowd of 150,000 people all rooting for the most exciting two minutes in sports, I couldn’t help thinking about work. Did I reach out to both the early morning and nighttime bookers at CNN? Did I hit the long shot – Today Show? Did I reach out to the sure thing – the marketing trades? I know it may seem odd to compare the 136th Kentucky Derby to PR but my experience last weekend made me realize the similarities.

Over the past month our team has been in hardcore pitching mode for a client that recently released a major branding report that took multiple man hours to complete and an assiduous marketing team to promote. Between the planning discussions, brainstorming, editing and finalizing, I would have bet $1 million that we were a sure thing for the morning, afternoon and late evening news. I even dreamt about Katie Couric reporting that, “Google was named the top brand of the year…” and that my client’s name was on the teaser at the bottom of the TV, “Next up: Brand Consulting Firm Releases Top 100 Global Brands…” We were a sure thing!

But even in PR you can’t always bet on the sure thing -- especially when a little company called Goldman Sachs appears before the Senate Investigations subcommittee or when a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ruins a lot of people’s weeks… Both breaking news stories pushed our news aside but we continued to push through it and not give up in the 13th hour.

This same principle applies in horse racing – a horse with opening odds of 12-1 (Super Saver) could outrun the 3-1 favorite (Looking at Lucky) when the clouds roll in and the track goes from “fast” to “sloppy.” You never know what could happen out there so you trust your gut and keep on riding.

So lesson learned: hedge your bets. In PR, this could mean that you’re willing to comment on late breaking news that might indirectly tie to your company; or it could mean coming up with a vertical strategy by reaching out to publications that certain breaking news is less relevant to. But always remember to not give up - be prepared to keep riding the news cycle because you never know who might come out on top. Giddy up!

Remembering Carol Friend

2010-05-02T21:54:00.010-04:00

May 2, 2010

Mr. Peter Walker

Chairman

PIELLE Consulting Ltd.

Museum House

London WC1A PL

United Kingdom

Dear Peter:

I hope this note finds you well and rested after Thursday's memorial service for our friend and partner, Carol Friend. Given our extra long layover in Paris due to the Icelandic volcano, it was impossible to sneak out of the U.S. again for Carol's memorial service.

But I wanted to send this note to you, and perhaps ask for you to share it with her mum, Ida, and family, so that I can express my feelings and respect for someone I considered an extraordinary human being, professional and friend.

I've only come to know Carol well since the early 2000s (my loss) through involvement in ECP Global. We quickly became close colleagues, allies and collaborators on a host of business issues. Her counsel was always wise, her wry humor omniprescent and her pragmatic approach to solving problems and getting to the finish line a strong comfort. I treasure the time we worked together on Octal, emoze and other common clients.

Carol was both a deep individual/thinker as well as a humane person. She volunteered her time and energy and always operated with a strong ethical compass. I learned to trust her and treasure her advice.

I personally looked forward to our shopping expeditions in many world capitals and the joy she found when we went to the Woodbury Commons outlet mall in New York together after she bounced back from a round of surgery. She took particular glee in finding some Anne Fontaine blouses at outrageously low American prices.

As much a sense of loss that I feel here, I can only imagine the one you feel after working, sweating and laughing together with Carol as your business partner for more than 30 years. My thoughts and prayers continue for you, your staff and your clients, to Ida Friend and the rest of the family.

Despite our sadness, I hope that you all take solace in the fact that the public relations industry on both sides of the Atlantic, is a better institution due to Carol Friend. We will miss her, remember her and cherish our times together.

Sincerely,

Henry Feintuch

President

Feintuch Communications &

Director, ECP Global Communication

JumpStarting a Second Business

2010-04-27T23:30:00.005-04:00

Last year, at the height of the recession while jobs were being shed and the PR industry was contracting, we launched Feintuch Communications.

Many friends and colleagues questioned our timing; others offered their congratulations for our bold timing and going against the tide. The truth is it was both a scary period while at the same time liberating, exciting and empowering. Imagine -- the chance to build a new, ethically run business focused on the needs of our clients with little corporate baggage getting in the way.

Despite the worst recession in generations and a healthy share of unplanned start-up business challenges, our fledgling firm has grown. We added clients, many of whom expanded their programs with us; launched a healthcare and life sciences practice; expanded our corporate identity, marketing services and digital media offerings; and developed a joint venture investor relations practice.

That kept us busy through TODAY when we launched our sister company -- JumpStart Global Advisors (http://www.jumpstartglobal.com/). This newest venture had a slightly longer gestation period than the six weeks it took to conceive of and launch Feintuch Communications.

The back story: About eight years ago, I was staffing a Supercomm trade show booth in Atlanta for Celvibe, a now defunct Israeli wireless infrastructure company. A young attorney approached me, and believing that I was part of the Celvibe management team, began to pitch me on establishing a U.S. base of operations for "our" company.

Scott Gordon explained that his company, Gordon Global Associates (http://www.gordonglobal.com/), based in Lynbrook, N.Y., actively supported "international companies" seeking to establish a footprint in North America. His services ranged from establishment of the business, to legal, accounting, finance and back office support. I asked him about the obviously missing marketing component before I explained to Scott that I was a fellow New Yorker and a partner in a public relations firm.

We met up in New York and developed a friendship and informal referral network. Prospects liked the concept but its casual nature was a difficult sell. And my former agency business colleagues didn't understand how a venture of this sort would help our firm.

Last year, Scott and Gordon Global helped launch Feintuch Communications with a modified set of services that the company provided to overseas entities. It worked like a charm. So we restarted collaboration talks and decided that if we were to marry our businesses, we needed to provide additional critical services including recruiting/staffing solutions to help overseas companies to internationalize here.

Enter Don Zinn.

Don, another of my former clients and a friend, is a serial entrepreneur with more than 30years of sales, management and hiring experience. He has built and run many of his own high tech businesses and is now an executive vice president at Starpoint Solutions (http://www.starpointsolutions.com/), a leading solutions, staffing and executive search firm headquartered in New York City. Scott and I approached Don with our business concept; Don signed right on and we jumped in to begin business planning.

During the second half of 2009, and through 2010, we continued to meet to decide how our organization would work, what it would be called, how we would render services and how we would promote it. We developed our corporate identity, slowly built our Web site, began calling on prospects and today issued our launch press release (www.jumpstartglobal.com/newsroom).

We've already enjoyed success in attracting world-class partners to the JumpStart Global Advisors umbrella (announcements to follow) and have now been invited by IE Singapore to host a "Doing Business in the U.S." seminar
(www.iesingapore.eventshub.sg/Default.aspx?CalID=1&EventID=135) in Singapore starting May 25.

So 16 months into being an entrepreneur, the score is two companies and growing. The only scary part of it now is what happens when the economy improves?

Coming Clean

2010-04-22T11:00:00.003-04:00

Dear God,

I am writing this apology note because I feel I owe you an explanation for my failed attempt to give something up for Lent. While I tried to not log onto Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights, it seems the task proved to be too difficult. I am an addict and a bit of a stalker and for this I apologize. I have finally recognized that I have a problem.

If I had only checked the site once or twice I don’t think I would feel as guilty, but we both know that is not the case. I will point out however that I did not post any pictures or status updates and limited my time spent to four short minutes only every few hours. I think we can both acknowledge this is quite an improvement over my non-Lent habits.

With so many conversations I am having with friends and family starting with, “Did you see on Facebook….,” it is hard to not be on it. For those first three days that I didn’t log onto the site I was out of touch and my friends and family were forced to recap highlights – what a waste of time for them!

I think you would agree that if Facebook existed just a few years ago it would have drastically improved your marketing efforts as well as your relationship with your son Jesus. Think about it, you would have known where he drifted off to in his twenties as you could have seen the photos he uploaded of him and his new friends the Buddhists. You could have finally gotten some real insight into his connection to Mary Magdalene. His profile may have read “In a Relationship” or even “Married.”

While I was not able to give up Facebook for the full Lent season I did learn a valuable lesson about the importance of social media. You really do work in mysterious ways. I won’t be giving up Facebook again anytime soon and I have you to thank for showing me the way – lesson learned.

All the Best,

Jeannine

Booth Babes to Bearchive

2010-04-12T10:19:00.001-04:00

I’ve definitely come across some interesting information and requests working in PR. What follows is one of those times, when I was encountered with not one, but two bizarre and funny events from two very different clients in one week.

A couple of weeks ago, we were ramping up and preparing for one of our clients to attend a trade show, here in New York. We were helping with a lot of the logistical elements of attending the show in addition to conducting media outreach. In the middle of all this preparation, I received an email asking me to hire two “models” dubbed “booth babes” in the office for good reason, to pass out fliers at the conference. Not only was I to contact a modeling agency to hire the two girls, but our client had specific characteristics he wanted each of the girls to have.

He wanted a blonde and a brunette.

Initially, I thought this seemed slightly silly and fully expected to get laughed at on the phone when I called the modeling agency. I also was highly skeptical that there was even a modeling agency for "flier girls." Turns out I was wrong; seriously wrong. Apparently this is common at trade shows. The couple of modeling agencies I contacted all sent me portfolios of girls they had available and didn’t bat an eyelash when I asked for a blonde and brunette. The portfolios were real modeling pictures – pictures of the girls' swimsuits as well as other garb. Of course, they didn’t wear swimsuits to the conference, although that definitely would have attracted more attention to our booth.

The second hilarity of the week came from another client who is in the process of launching a new product. They have been laboring over choosing a product name, often asking us for advice and feedback on various candidates. We received an email that they had finally decided on one – Bearchive. We were all ecstatic as the launch is only a few weeks away. However, on our weekly call, the same week of booking the booth babes, our client informed us they are no longer going with Bearchive. When pressed as to why, our client shyly told us to check out bearchive.com. The site can only be described as soft porn featuring girls with enhanced (seriously retouched)big boobs. Laughter ensued followed by nods of the head concurring that another name was in order.

Needless to say, it was an interesting and stressful week, although one filled with lots of laughter. Just goes to show that you never know what to expect in the world of PR and sometimes all you can do is shrug your shoulders and laugh.

Jules Version 4.0 Working on the Weekend

2010-03-29T13:29:00.002-04:00

It was the first month of my tenure here at Feintuch Communications as the brand new head of our brand new healthcare and life sciences practice, and one of our brand new clients needed to appear brand new at a trade show I’d never been to before.

Anyone who’s ever worked at a trade show knows how intense they are, both in the preparation and in the execution of the work. So to say that it was stressful would be an understatement. Except we only had two weeks to prepare for the show – do all of the creative, draft and produce all of the content, oversee all of the production, not to mention staffing – the whole magila. Two weeks. Two. Weeks.

After a momentous push by our superstar team, and some last minute crisis management, we managed to get the client to the show and demonstrating the product to passersby.

Cut to day two of the show, and I’m on my way home from a long day of booth management, having to get into a tuxedo for a gala celebration that night. I’m literally one block from my apartment door when I’m accosted by a group of garrulous individuals wearing t-shirts that say “jules 4.0…”

Needless to say, my curiosity is piqued.

As I’m reading their t-shirts, trying to figure out what they mean, the loudest of the group grabs me by the arm and tells me I simply must have a drink with them. I’d had a day already, so the idea wasn’t out of the question, but technically, I was on the clock, and don’t like to indulge. Also, I was scarfing down a slice of pizza in preparation for what could have been a night of necessary imbibing at the hands of a new client and a fairly new employer. But to be accosted in the street by strangers and implored to drink with them?

I explained very demurely that I would love to have a drink with this mob (who wants to take chances), but that I really had to get home and change for a work event, and could I take a rain check. They were not having it. They absolutely insisted, explaining all of the benefits of having a drink with them (carefully leaving out the potential damage they could have done to my person). I agreed, indicating that this agreement was based only on the fact that they were wearing t-shirts with my name on them. This information incited the rowdy crowd even more – they gathered around me, took pictures with me as part of the group, and ushered me across the street to the bar on the corner – Cowgirl (a plug for them – they’re quite good). All the while, the group was cheering and making overtures that they were “going to get extra points for this one!” I wondered if it was the suit or the name. I wondered what “extra points” entailed. Would I ever see my beloved wife and child again? Would I be allowed to escape the labrynthian confines of Cowgirl? Either way, I’d never been considered extra points before, so I was intrigued.

Finally, upon one more picture being taken at the back of the bar, it was finally explained to me. A woman named Jules was having her 40th birthday party at Cowgirl (another plug, they have a nice party room in the back) and had asked all of her friends (and she has a lot – way to go Jules!) to go on an “Amazing Race”-like adventure. One of the requirements was to usher a stranger into the bar and have a drink with them. My being named Jules did indeed garner the yellow team extra points, and me a yellow Jules 4.0 t-shirt.

So Happy 40th Jules. I’m right behind you soon. And thanks for an amazing (and kind of weird) 15 minutes sandwiched between a wacky couple of workdays.

Creating a Healthcare and Life Sciences PR Practice

2010-03-07T14:24:00.014-05:00

Sometimes you develop elaborate plans and hope to implement them carefully. Other times, stuff happens.

This is an example of the latter.

Now in our second year, our strategic relations firm and PR practice are growing. That's despite the economy... minimal capitalization.. and other challenges of starting up a small business. We've added a significant investor relations partnership with MS-IR, headed up by Miri Segal, and together successfully added several clients. The potential for growing integrated IR/PR business is significant. More on this later.

Our friend and colleague, Steph Johnson, left for a new and exciting opportunity with a UK-based financial technology PR firm. We'll miss her decidely offbeat sensibilities but will continue to collaborate as appropriate. Steph and I have worked together twice; we both feel the threat of a third time looming.

Which takes us to healthcare. It's always been an important sector in the PR industry. And in recent years, the market has expanded aggressively into numerous related segments including medical devices, pharma and life sciences. I've been on the periphery many times -- and worked on many accounts in the space -- but truly never became the domain expert. At my last firm, I watched a significant healthcare/life sciences practice develop and ultimately walk out the door.

At Feintuch Communications, we served an initial client in the category and began incubating and working with several more. Many other leads began to materialize. Opportunity was knocking at our door... and then... serendipity struck in the form of Jules Abraham.

While searching for a healthcare freelancer for a former client, I met Jules -- again.

It turns out that we met briefly several years ago but the timing wasn't right and we each went our separate ways. Now, at age 39 (and sharing my May 3 birthday), and with Jules "between jobs" as so many PR practitioners can lament over the last 18 months, we restarted our conversation.

First and most importantly, Jules is a nice guy. His business credentials are equally impressive. He brings nearly 15 years of healthcare and life sciences public and investor relations experience. He's worked in nearly all aspects of the healthcare and life sciences industry including large and specialty pharmaceutical, biotechnology, clinical diagnostics and medical device companies, as well as small health systems, regional hospitals, managed care organizations, Medicare Part D providers and advocacy groups.

Previously, he helped launch and manage the healthcare public relations division at Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates. He also served in the global healthcare group at GCI Group and held positions at Manning, Selvage & Lee, Zeno Group and GTFH Public Relations.

He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the College of William & Mary and a master's degree in public communications/journalism from Fordham University. He lives in New York with his wife, Dana, son and two cats.

So now, the chance timing of our meeting again was amazingly right. We had clients ready to join the firm but we lacked the expertise to serve them properly. Jules had clients and former clients that wanted to work with him but preferred a more stable agency environment. We talked; we planned; we started to work together over the last few months.

Now, Jules has joined our firm as a vice president and managing director of our healthcare and life sciences practice. We've tied the practice to our investor relations partnership. This allows us to offer an integrated public and investor relations package to companies seeking to go public, or those that are public but are seeking better coordination of their messaging and outreach to Wall Street, Main Street and the media.

The formal press release goes out this week and soon we'll be announcing our initial clients. Wish us luck; send us your referrals; and call/write to meet Jules. In addition to talking healthcare, get him started on his days in the Peace Corps as a volunteer (where he became fluent in Spanish), his songwriting and his work as a "not-so-accomplished" Naam yoga practitioner. If the conversation goes well, he might even offer you a copy of his recent CD of original music for meditation.

A Device Free World

2010-02-23T09:52:00.017-05:00

Imagine a world where everything you do is device-free. No laptops, Blackberries or iPods. Calling a friend would be done using your hand as the keypad and phone. Videos could be watched anywhere and anytime and all you’ll need is a piece of paper to watch them on. Merging physical and digital documents would be as simple as cutting and pasting the physical document using your hands and pasting it onto your computer to combine it with the digital document.

Sounds like a scene from the movie “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise? Something future-esque? Star Trek like? Well, in a couple of years it may be reality. In the world of PR our clients often send us interesting tidbits related to their realm of expertise. The latest one came when our client was discussing what she sees as “the next big leap in science and technology over the next five years and how it will affect business and society at large.” She responded with the clip below:

SixthSense technology, as it’s called, is “worn” by an individual on their fingers and uses that person’s gestures and motions to allow them to interact with information. The keyword here is interact. You can use your fingers as a camera to take a picture. Newspapers become interactive tools that show broadcast clips of news reported or updated weather information specific to where the user is located. As our client put it – “it’s the merging of the physical and digital.”

Imagine marketing this puppy to the masses. True 24/7 connectedness no matter where a person is. Truly life changing technology for consumers.

While I like the idea of not having to carry around multiple devices anymore, it’s also a scary thought. To always be connected means you never turn off. It’s hard enough as it is to get away from always being connected. Losing my phone over the weekend was kind of a blessing – I spent Sunday talking to no one and relaxing on my own.

But the implementation of SixthSense technology is better than it is worse. It’ll be interesting to see if the technology comes to fruition in the next five years and how much it will affect society as it is today.

Extra, Extra, Read All About It - Snowmaggedon Hits Super Bowl Weekend Following a Major Market Drop

2010-02-09T09:53:00.006-05:00

Let it break, let it break, let it break. Breaking news is a PR person’s best friend…and worst enemy. It can spark a trend and help to build an expert or it can ruin a planned press announcement and overshadow a feature story. Back in the days of yellow journalism, outrageous and flamboyant, breaking news headlines sold papers. With the decline of print magazines and newspapers, the media relies so heavily on just one little click to stay alive.

Last week with Snowmaggedon, the Super Bowl, and a fairly big drop in the market, one story after another seemed to scream, “Click on me!” But, is a headline the only line in a press release that matters?

Most PR pros will tell you yes, if you can’t grab the reporter’s or consumer’s attention in 140 characters or less (thanks to microblogging) then the reader will not continue reading and your whole story is lost anyway.

In our PR firm, however, it’s been an age old discussion (much like the chicken or the egg) as to what comes first – the headline or the news story. Some believe that a headline should simply be written after you nail the lead paragraph – while others believe a headline should be written first to set the tone of the story and be the glue that holds the pieces together.

With the average length of a news cycle being hours or at most a few days, PR pros are constantly reverting back to the days of yellow journalism and using eye-catching headlines to draw in readers. The run up to the Super Bowl last week is the perfect example with multiple stories and segments (shameless client plug: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1405763867&play=1) on Super Bowl commercials and who the big “players” were this year - almost overshadowing the excitement around the game itself. The game was actually very exciting with a great comeback by the Saints - but there were few commercials that really were able to stand up to all of the hype around them! My personal favorites were Google's commercial and Letterman's featuring Jay Leno and Oprah! It’s funny to see that the build-up is sometimes bigger than the actual event.

And in the case of Snowmaggedon (duh duh dunnnn), most areas just looked at it as another storm to dig out of…we’re supposed to get another Snowmaggedon this week! Batter down the hatches – it’s the end of the world!!!!!

Now that got your attention!

Words Really Do Matter!

2010-01-19T10:35:00.003-05:00

As professional communicators, public relations practitioners are true believers in the persuasive power of words, regardless of the format in which they are presented. However, many of us worry that information overload – brought on by a seemingly unending creation of snazzy, electronic gadgets – has forever distracted and fragmented the audiences we strive to reach.

The good news is that those we aim to influence are no more ready to throw in the towel and look elsewhere than we, as originators and purveyors of newsworthy information, should be. As a matter of fact, the rationale and need for strategic wordsmithing has never been greater. It’s all about making what we have to write and say for our clients be both compelling and accessible.

At least that’s my take from a recently released major study, “How Much information? 2009 Report on American Consumers,” conducted by the University of California San Diego’s Global Information Industry Center (http://hmi.ucsd.edu/howmuchinfo.php). This report confirms that our thirst for knowledge and novelty has actually kept pace with the plethora of devices and technologies for conveying all that information.

UCSD research finds that the average American’s information consumption was 100,000 words, or roughly 34 gigabytes per day in 2008, equivalent to about one-fifth of a notebook PC’s hard drive, depending on the model. Over the past 30 years, the study estimates that information bytes consumed by U.S. households increased by 350 percent, for an average annual growth rate of 5.4 percent. In 2008 alone, total bytes consumed equaled the information (words!) stored in thick paperback novels stacked seven feet high over the entire U.S., including Alaska!

It’s perhaps noteworthy that the researchers chose this “written word” analogy to illustrate their point about rising American information consumption. Contrary to popular wisdom, we’re reading three times more words than we were in the early 1980s, before computers entered the information mainstream to challenge and ultimately displace TV and radio. While the share of printed words read by Americans for informational purposes declined from 25 percent in 1960 to 9 percent in 2008, the share of words read from the Internet and computer programs is now about 27 percent. E-mail, texting and “a lot of Web browsing is still in the form of reading,” according to Roger Bohn, director of the UCSD GIIC.

As the tremendous popularity of Kindles, BlackBerrys, notebook PCs and now iSlate tablet e-readers demonstrates, the importance and weight of the written, or filed, word to convey news and ideas remains vital. UCSD’s report concludes that “reading is the overwhelming preferred way to receive words on the Internet,” rendering press release writers’ output more relevant than ever in the Age of e-Information Technology.

To paraphrase loosely the other-wordly message that inspires farmer-baseball fan Ray Kinsela (Kevin Costner) in the 1989 movie classic, Field of Dreams, “If We Build and Strategically Issue Good Content, They Will Read It.”

Things That Changed PR in the Past Decade (aka: I Always Wanted to Create a List Like This)

2010-01-11T08:53:00.011-05:00

Unless you live under a rock, you probably noticed the hundreds of "list" articles over the last two weeks remembering all things 2009 and the past decade from fashion to quotes, to lists of lists, and even some cool videos. As much as we all love these articles, I didn't see anything for my PR/marketing colleagues out there as a reminder of all the things and events that changed our profession. So here's my short list of what I believe changed PR in the past decade:

The Social Media Revolution
We all know what a little thing called social media did for people around the world, but for PR and Marketing pros, it was instrumental in helping us to cut the fat and listen to our audiences. Sites like Facebook and Twitter stress pithiness in our pitches and allow us to geo-target our audiences. In addition, when the FCC called out disclosures for promoting clients and companies on social media sites, we all became a little more interested in the truth. I could go on for ages about how social media has changed PR but I also think it’s very important to note the effect that it had for some agencies and companies in the creation of new job roles and departments. Agencies began hiring social media experts (shiver) and directors. In the end, I think it's crucial that we all know and understand social media. We don’t ask interviewees if they are proficient in newspapers, do we?

The Economic Crisis
In the financial services industry (one of the hardest hit by the crisis), many PR pros coped with limited or no PR budgets. The PR teams that survived were forced to focus on smaller projects that would be sure to show ROI and not just fabulous events and excursions. But even for clients not in financial services, budgets were limited and PR/marketing folks were faced with difficult challenges.

Declining Newsrooms
The start of declining newsrooms happened earlier in the decade with the emergence of online news sites but the effects were felt in 2009 as shrinking newsrooms forced PR pros to look for alternative ways (i.e. pitches via Twitter) to grab the attention of the press. In-person meetings turned into 10-minute phone calls and eventually into email Q and As. But has this made us better story tellers and given us a keener eye? Only time with tell.

The Accidental Entrepreneur
For many people in PR, downsizing led to a growth in freelancers and start-up firms. Smaller firms have the ability to grow with their clients and in my opinion (but I may be biased), work harder to stay ahead of the competition. In addition, I believe PR entrepreneurs understand the challenges and travails of being a start-up and are therefore more in-tune than larger PR firms. Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the rising economy, and together with clients, are rebuilding it one day at a time.

Democratization of Blogs
Its amazing how many mommy bloggers are really out there! Blogging has become so ubiquitous that even my group of foodie girlfriends has a blog talking about what we eat. In PR, blogging is a great way for young and old professionals to hone their writing skills. As communicators we should be reading and writing blogs because they are the ideal medium for sharing instant knowledge, information and experiences with all types of audiences. So blog on pros, blog on!

Death of the Fax Machine
This slow death technically started a while back but the fax seemed to completely fizzle towards the end of the decade cemented by the fact that not many reporters and newsrooms accept faxes any longer. PR pros may use them to get a signed contract every now and then, but with scanners, emails and even the eFax, you can send a document just as quickly and easily.

PR for PR
I’ve noticed over the last few years that more and more PR pros are stepping forward to talk to the press openly about their expertise. Typically, PR firms have little time to think about their own brand when they are busy promoting their clients. However, in a time when personal and company brand image means everything, PR pros are doing what they are good at and promoting their own brands and images to the press and through social media. What good is a PR firm if they can't do PR for themselves anyway!

This ends my list, but FULL DISCLOSURE, my PR career only spans about half of the past decade, so I know I've missed major events that changed PR and marketing like 9/11 and the Dot Com Bust. So, I’d like to encourage everyone to comment on this post by adding on the things I missed. As JFK said: "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

Happy New Decade!

Happy "Elite" New Year

2010-01-01T13:54:00.007-05:00

It's January 1, 2010 and I'm just back from my annual ritual -- the "mileage run." I didn't really yearn for Texas in December. Cancun was guaranteed hotter.... but not enough miles. Chicago had more to do and better food to eat... but it also fell short. San Antonio, at 4,700 miles roundtrip, was just right.

For those in the know, and nodding your heads with understanding if not compassion, this is the time of year when the airlines judge whether we frequent fliers have been good or naughty. Have we been faithful to our airline alliance and racked up the prerequisite points or mileage legs? Or have we cheated by taking seductive fares and turning our backs on our chosen partner? Or do we lead double lives and manage multiple alliances and try to manage all these relationships by giving each "just enough" without appearing duplicitous to our chosen airline programs?

This year's air adventures (business and family flights) took me to Stuttgart in April (business class/double mile bonus); Columbia and Charleston, S.C. in August (Alex's college run); Lisbon and Milan in October (another bonus flight) and San Diego in November (PRSA international conference where I spoke).

Heading into December, I was 5,600 miles short of the qualifying 50,000 miles to protect my gold elite status for the New Year. Already filled with angst about my illicit Jet Blue flight to The Bahamas with my son in August, I was thankful for a planned new business trip to Pittsburgh in mid-month which added 1,000 miles to my account. It left a 4,600 mile gap and threatened to downgrade me into becoming a lowly “silver” (the minimum elite rung) and not the coveted “gold” rank I currently held (or platinum -- the true holy grail). This sealed the deal for my wife and I to visit and “Remember the Alamo.”

And to what end? Elite status means choice seat selection including extra legroom seats, bulkheads and exit rows. It means no charge for checked or overweight baggage -- a meaningful perk these days as the airlines nickel and dime passengers for all service components once considered free.

Being elite also means that during the second round of boarding announcements, we get to walk the blue elite carpet to our seats -- past the scornful and envious eyes of regular passengers waiting to board the aircraft. The trek on board is less frenzied with a choice of overhead bins for the laptop, batteries, cables, DVDs and noise cancellation headphones we working passengers bring on board. It also means a fighting chance for the few remaining pillows and blankets (where they still are offered).

Most importantly, elite status means automatic upgrades – even for a traveling family member or colleague -- when space up-front permits. This is one serious perk!

That final trip, with a return home of December 30 (and little margin for error) in full fare economy, yielded a precious 2,353 elite qualifying miles each way -- enough to solidify my stature as a Continental Star Alliance gold for 2010. I returned to work on New Year’s Eve Day fulfilled in my year-long mission and proud of my newly won status.

As I await my new credentials for 2010, I take solace in the fact that my perks will continue for 12 more months. But I have this nagging little concern that it’s now one day closer to the 2011 deadline and I still have zero miles accumulated for silver, gold or platinum. Meet up in Hawaii, anyone?

Jesus is the Reason for the Season … Is That Less Than 140 Characters?

2009-12-23T22:22:00.001-05:00

Tag lines and catch phrases are a lazy marketers dream … especially at this time of year. Cheese ball phraseology that packages, amplifies or encapsulates something we are trying to promote has a better chance of survival during the holiday season.

Editors are primed to accept hokey pitches for end-of-year summary stories and future trend pieces and most of us are slap-happy from increased exposure to wassail, iambic pentameter and tubs of caramel and cheese popcorn from colleagues.

The business world is feeling frisky and Twitter has sharpened our ability to dispatch pithy niblets and wonder aloud in less than 140 characters. No longer the province of Ashton Kutcher and PR firms who want to make a buck on social media, it has changed the way information is meted out by rewarding brevity and forcing us to describe complex occurrences in taut, evocative snippets.

While tag lines stick in the noggin - and the end of December is a jolly time to have a little fun -it’s important to remember that what we say now will linger beyond the glow of the holidays. When our defenses are no longer down and we are forced to face the scrutiny of a long cold January, we’ll need more than a phrase that is fun to repeat to keep our clients and causes in the public domain.

If the holidays are a time for lush and vivid previews, the New Year will be the time to parade our boring old support data in front of the critics and hope to take home the grand jury prize. Customer wins, executive changes and new products will all be dragged into the sunlight and examined to see if there is more to them than a catch phrase you can sing along to.

So carry on chroniclers of celebrity shenanigans, writers of campaign slogans and tweeters of hot new restaurant tips, just don’t forget how to write longhand again before the turkey comas wear off.

Party Like It's Advertising Week

2009-09-29T09:57:00.016-04:00

Like most PR women my age, I was introduced to the world of PR through the character of Samantha on the TV series Sex in the City. As a powerful publicist who went to the hottest parties and organized the coolest events, Samantha was my idol. I eventually came to my senses and realized I didn’t want to spend the first few years of my PR career stuffing swag bags (no offense) and decided business-to-business (B2B) PR was the way to go. B2B may seem less glamorous than consumer PR, but every now and then a killer event or party comes along that makes you remember why you LOVE this industry.

Last week was Advertising Week; everyone was buzzing about the AOL Opening Gala, the YouTube Battle of the Ad Bands, the Facebook Wrap Party, and so on. I have to admit I was a bit intimidated. Our team had been planning a client event for three months for the first day of "The Week" and I couldn't focus on any kind of celebration until the day was over. Like most events, it had come and gone in a flash and three months of planning, strategizing, coordinating, writing and pitching was over in what felt like a few seconds.

With the long (but good) day behind, I began to focus on the rest of what the week had to offer. How was I going to keep up with all the parties? Should I go to all of them? Which ones are worth staying till the very end? Who will I network with? Besides bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel, what's going to get me through the next day after a late night of partying? All of these questions started running through my mind. In the end, I remembered to "breathe twice" and before I knew it, The Week was over, and I walked away a different person with an Advertising Week under my belt and some new lessons learned:

For an industry that took a major hit this year, advertising is on its way to making a major comeback
Advertising is at the forefront when it comes to the evolution of "green" and innovation of technology
Spending time with clients outside of the office is a great way to develop lasting relationships
NYC is and always will be the Mecca of advertising
Bloggers can be like celebrities to some (i.e. Steve Hall of Adrants)
Don't be afraid to make new friends (but bring old friends with you to make networking easier)
If you are the Vlasic pickle guy, people will love you
It's OK to dance center stage
and finally...RELAX, it’s just Advertising Week and if you're at an agency you'll probably have (insert: CES, Internet Week, SIFMA, etc.) to look forward to in the near future

A wise PR Newswire exec told me, "The key to event planning is to work like a mad woman [or man] before the event so that the day of you are just sitting around and waiting for it to happen." And I have to agree, event planning (whether you’re Samantha Jones or Feintuch Communications) is a huge part of PR and it takes a well-oiled PR team to pull it off and keep on trucking.

There Is No "Steph" In Team

2009-09-20T20:06:00.004-04:00

After Henry Feintuch and I worked together for the first time 12 years ago, I went on to have several other PR gigs. Most of my time was spent working from a home office for my financial services PR consultancy. I represented companies based all around the world but worked mostly on my own.

In the beginning, I felt like a crazy cat lady. I was convinced that clients would assume I was at yoga or having my nails done if I didn’t answer the phone and I would keep the occasional telemarketer on the line because I needed human (if merely telephonic) contact.

In a word, I had turned into a wacko.

Over time, I became more relaxed about my situation and after comparing notes with my buddies at traditional day jobs, I learned I often did more in a day than they did in a week - even with a noon yoga break – because I didn’t have the distractions or the chatty colleagues that come with a communal work environment.

When we started Feintuch Communications in January I had a "lone wolf "work style that needed to be modified if I was going to make an effective team member. Used to taking total responsibility for both my successes and my failures, it was a completely foreign concept to have people to bounce ideas off of or share my work.

In June, my industry’s largest trade show came around. I had two major clients with big announcements and way more work than one woman could handle. I was forced to delegate editor and analyst calls that my colleagues would have had to pry out of my cold dead hands in the past. And, I even relied on them for some sensitive strategy decisions.

As far as I was concerned, the end was upon us. I was positive we were going to be fired by everyone as soon as the show closed …

On the contrary - and typical of having dedicated and talented colleagues - everything went swimmingly. Clients were happy, editors and analysts didn’t hang up on the Steph Johnson imposters who called them and the world continued to spin on its axis.

Steph Johnson ... a team player?

Baby steps, my friends … but at least I’m making progress!

Ageism in Social Media

2009-09-10T10:00:00.004-04:00

Social media is perceived to be a young person’s game, part of an arcane techno-geekdom attended by those who were raised with computers and the internet. There’s an implied temporal Mason-Dixon Line that lies somewhere in between Generation X and Generation Y, and if you’re south of that demarcation, common wisdom dictates that you kind of missed the boat.

But the facts don’t support this perception. Recent studies have shown middle-aged groups to be among the fastest growing segments in various social media channels.

In July, Nielsen released a report measuring Twitter’s growth by age group. The fastest growing group by far was the 25-54 segment. Most surprising, though, is that the 55+ group outpaced the under 24s (20% compared to 16%).

Also in July, an analytics company called iStrategy Lab examined the demographic statistics from Facebook ads. The number of overall users between the ages of 18 and 24 grew by an unimpressive 4.8% whereas the number of users over 55 grew by an astonishing 513.7%. In other words, young people may have hopped on the social media train first, but older generations are on the streetcar behind them.

In spite of the rapid adoption by older generations, there is still this perception (not shared by all but by enough to call it a trend) that older people are not privy to something; that the youth possess some mysterious quality: a certain quiddity that can’t be defined or emulated. By default, older generations defer to their more “with it” counterparts, resulting in the birth of an occupation predicated on ageism: the social media manager.

I concede that there is something to be said about the facility that comes with growing up with web-based technology, but the advantage is not as great as some might contend. Social media is young enough that no age group really has a distinct advantage over another, especially with how changeable the landscape still is.

As a person that straddles the line between Generation X and Generation Y, I’d like to send a message directly to any social media unsavvy middle-aged person (and older) reading this: We know less about social media than we think we do, but, more importantly, you know more than you think you do.

Innovating Our Way Out of Recession

2009-08-30T19:55:00.005-04:00

The news media seems to be reporting many economic indices and anecdotal findings supporting the fact that the U.S. may already be out of its 2008-09 recession. The pace of job losses has stemmed; consumers are slowly beginning to spend (albeit with the help of taxpayer-funded clunker cash and other stimulus funds); the stock market has stopped its free-fall and has risen significantly since the beginning of the year; and even real estate housing starts are on the rebound. Consumer confidence is slowly on the rise.

The public relations and advertising industry also offer an interesting albeit unscientific indication of the direction in which the economy is headed. In the fourth quater of '08 and early into this year, many companies were restricting their budgets or cutting their "discretionary" marketing spend. New business opportunities were few and far between and those that surfaced were prepared to spend a fraction of typical marketing budgets.

But today in the third quarter, there is a renewed flurry of activity -- verified by reports from colleagues at small- to mid-sized firms throughout the country. Start-up enterprises hunting for marketing support are calling again and new business meetings are being planned. Most exciting are the various innovative companies and products that are coming forward. A few examples we've seen in the last few months:

Electric Bikes*- A company soon to market a new line of upscale electric bicycles for consumers hoping to park their cars and get some exercise (with power assist as needed).

DVD Vending Machines- A new brand of DVD and video game rental machines returning the excitement of discovery and impulse shopping as convenient and accessible as visiting your favorite local store.

Blood Pre-treatment to Spot Disease*- A company that has developed a pre-treatment for blood samples that can help close the undiagnosed "window period" for HIV and Hepatitis C.

Clean Coal (really)*- A process for liquifying and gassifying coal without the release of carbon dioxide or the need to capture and sequester it.

Making Static Media Interactive*- A company that has developed a closed circuit system for taking traditional media and making it fully interactive in order to better compete with the Internet.

Our young firm is managing a lead queue approaching three dozen organizations, many of which are innovative and offer disruptive solutions to the markets they are seeking to enter. Microsoft was born during a recession as were many other of today's successful companies. Which of the companies edging their way to market launch will be tomorrow's Google and potentially change our world, our environment and our lives?

We appear to be on the edge of an exciting turnaround as companies begin nudging each other aside as they innovate their way out of recession.

* Companies are currently fundraising; contact us if you have interest in learning more.

Guest Post: Marketing Basics to Grow During a Recession

2009-08-10T12:37:00.005-04:00

Original Post by Leigh George, Ph.D, Director of Strategy, Moiré Marketing Partners

We all know that it's smart to market during a recession and that firms that do market are better positioned when the economy turns around. If we all know this, why aren't firms flexing their marketing muscle now? Here are tips on how firms can position themselves for growth in the post-recession economy that bear repeating. They're not earth-shattering. But they are marketing basics that you can't afford to ignore.

Incorporate social media into your business development efforts. Your clients, prospects and their suppliers are using it; you should strategically use it too. Leverage tools including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to connect with prospective clients and other professionals to build your network and demonstrate your expertise.
Be a brand ambassador. Remember, you are the face of your company's brand. Use your interactions to communicate your firm's brand promise and support that continuously in your efforts.
Network. Relationships matter. Social media is a great way to start a conversation with a client or prospect - but don't let it stop there. Offer to meet new and old colleagues at an upcoming industry or bar association meeting, civic event, non-profit activity or social mixer - or host your own hospitality function at your firm.
Seize the podium. Apply to be a speaker at upcoming events. If you aren't accepted, attend anyway to get a better handle on what topics are creating buzz.
Learn from other professionals. Invest in consultants to sharpen your brand. An outside perspective can help you assess the effectiveness of your business development efforts and offer insight into what strategies would work best for your personality type.
Be active in your home and business communities. Dust off those memberships in the local chamber of commerce and non-profit organization. Get involved in industry related activities and slowly increase your profile.

Can you Digg it?

2009-07-13T11:36:00.008-04:00

In one way or another, social media is changing our lives each day. It’s unavoidable. Some prefer to use it for networking, others find it a crucial tool for news consumption. But no matter how you use it, chances are it's changing the way you work and play.

However, not everyone is convinced that social media is the way to go when it comes to reading the news. At last month's PRSA T3 conference, one PR pro I was chatting with was extremely passionate about traditional media formats and was convinced that the next step for newspapers and magazines was a tailored print edition for each individual subscriber. I know what you're thinking, isn't that my Google reader? But for those who are reluctant to change, there is something familiar and comforting about sitting down with a cup of coffee and the Old Gray Lady each and every morning.

In a 2008 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, more people (35 percent) said that they rely mostly on the internet for news than citing newspapers sources. At T3, Beth Murphy, senior director of marketing & communications at Digg, an online news aggregator, started off her presentation with that statistic and then elaborated on the "democratization of online sources." There is a new realization that news is consumed in small bites thanks to news aggregators, micro-blogging and social networks. Currently, Digg receives more unique visitors than the WSJ and NYT combined.

So, why Digg? Those that don't have the luxury of reading every daily paper from cover to cover can indulge in the top stories that the majority believes to be headline news. About.com calls Digg "a goldmine of great news stories, tutorials and practical tips." Others look at it as a universe of all things current. Digg can also make or break an author or site. The more people who Digg an article can cause an influx of traffic to a particular site or blog, thus building your credibility in a community or network and opening up new opportunities.

Want to start Digging? There are some great online resources that can help you including an FAQ, instructions for adding a Digg button on your site (or just tweet @pdandreu), Digg the Blog, and more.

This ends another installment of adventures in social media. If you dig it, Digg it. But if you find it del.icio.us....well, that's a whole other story!

Happy Father's Trading Technology Day?

2009-07-03T15:05:00.003-04:00

Every June financial services executives are faced with the same question: What do I love more, my father or trading technology?

Not exactly a Buddhist Koan, but still a serious quandary …

Oddly, the SIFMA Technology Management Show, one of the financial technology industry's largest trade conferences, always happens right around Father's Day. How am I supposed to enjoy grilling petite filets with my dad when the 12 editors and analysts I've strong-armed into meeting with my clients the next week could mutiny at any moment and boycott my appointments for a cuter, more persistent PR practitioner or an event with better food?

This year, we hosted a joint event for one of our clients, Marketcetera, and the New York Stock Exchange at the Peninsula Hotel. Surely an 85 Dollar Bento box with lobster, steak and mini chocolate pot de crème’s should be good for a journalist or four?

Another client, Tervela, dazzled show-goers with their newest product, showcased topless (i.e. under museum-quality plexi-glass) so curious prospects, writers and analysts could see the bits and bobs inside. A civilized tactic compared to the kind of toplessness that often goes along with trade shows in male-dominated industries.

Although the show was smaller than usual given the fact that Wall Street hasn’t emerged yet from its smoking crater, it was still an excellent time to connect with colleagues, hear about new technologies and meet with the editors and analysts - all of whom kept their appointments :)

And, this year, as he has done for the last fifteen, my dad forgave my pre-occupation during our Father’s Day BBQ and accepted my early departure to get back to the office and prepare.

Editor’s note to SIFMA: don’t ever try moving the show up a month and scheduling it around Mother’s Day. They will not go as quietly!

My New Cult

2009-06-22T12:08:00.005-04:00

They were everywhere. I saw them in banks, in cars, walking down the street, in meetings, at Starbucks, in elevators, at lunch, in bars, at conferences and at work. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers: First, I noticed a few of them acting curiously. Before I knew it, the world had been overrun with shells of former people thumbing furiously at their BlackBerrys.

Although PR requires you to stay up to date, I never felt at a disadvantage. I did my job; I worked hard and excelled; but at the end of the day, I was able to disengage from work and put my personal life in a non-contiguous compartment. Initially, I was put off by these mindless creatures, this cultish Blackberrati (As you can see from today’s feature story in The New York Times, I’m not the only one: http://bit.ly/n8oTP). They were slaves to their electronic extensions, unable to extricate themselves from the ever expanding web of digital communication. I felt sorry for them. Then, I got one.

As part of my employment package at Feintuch Communications, I was supplied with a new BlackBerry (I opted for the Bold). In a matter of days I went from mild curiosity to rabid support, likely to sacrifice non-immediate family members if it were necessary to save my 9000, my preciousss.

This weekend, I was swallowed up by a vortex of texting, BlackBerry Messenger and App World. I lost track of time, like a Native American on a Peyote-induced vision quest, only to emerge on Sunday, realizing that I was texting, BBMing, Gchatting and emailing a childhood friend of mine all at the same time in order to work out the logistics of meeting up for lunch. When I realized what I was doing, I closed all my applications and, with the unsteady hand of withdrawal, called my friend up. We settled on a place in ten seconds tops.

My body is snatched. I already feel it. I am one of them. I am part of the Blackberrati. But while I already see the enormous potential this device has to support my professional development, I will do my best to remember that sometimes you need to pick up the phone to get the job done.

Black Ink is the New Black

2009-06-17T00:00:00.003-04:00

My career path has spanned a wide range of journalism and communications endeavors -- on-air newscasting for several radio stations; the assignment desk at WCBS-TV in New York; several public relations firms; and even a stint as head of corporate communications for an international telecommunications manufacturer -- in total nearly 30 years.

I've been priviledged to launch and build several hundred companies, take many of them public and support several multi-national organizations. The body of work has spanned numerous industries from trucking to tech; for-profit and not-for-profit to highly unprofitable; and domestic and international.

Despite having worked for so many entrepreneurs and consulted for so many other organizations, nothing quite prepared me for the roller coaster of emotions and milestones related to the launch of my own business.

December 2008 was filled with lawyers, accountants and real estate agents (oh my!). Friends, colleagues, recruiters, clients and other insiders lined up with often conflicting advice.

On Jan. 2, 2009, our fearless team of four launched Feintuch Communications. Three days later, we incorporated. The first months were filled with serving our early clients -- 3rd Dimension, GAIN Capital, Marketcetera and Tervela -- while at the same time, moving, naming our entity, creating our corporate identity and brand, hiring staff, developing systems and creating a corporate culture. All this while trying to figure out the straightest line to black ink -- a formidable task in the heart of the greatest recession in decades.

My wife, Alice, a geriatric social worker and care manager for the Westchester County chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, went from second income status to primary breadwinner. We all tightened our belts to settle in for the long haul to give the new business as much runway as possible.

In April we launched our website and added new services. We disseminated our own launch press release and announcement cards went out. News articles began appearing. And slowly, things began to click. Referrals started coming our way from our ECP Global international network and our network of hundreds of friends and business colleagues from around the world. While we sadly observed many of our friends' firms contract and downsize, we slowly added accounts. Bluenog. Moire. AccelerOptics. The Linux Box. Hanger Network. RadMD.

Last Friday, half way through our sixth month, the lastest chapter started unfolding. Word from an advertising and marketing prospect that we were hired. More good news today from a life sciences company. And so now, as the clock strikes midnight on the east coast, and as I prepare to take my wife to dinner and Broadway to celebrate our 25th anniversary (June 17), the red ink dried up and turned black.

The adventure continues -- staff hiring, new business meetings, launching our new clients, hustling to satisfy our longer-term clients and preparing to speak at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. To our clients, friends, supporters and families -- thank you. We hope to continue earning your trust... and black ink.

If My Mom Can Tweet, So Can You

2009-06-08T10:44:00.005-04:00

When Twitter first came on the scene, I knew that I needed to learn how to tweet. It’s a new form of media and my work revolves around media, so it was a pretty obvious connection. I’ve been tweeting mostly to stay connected and send and receive news, not to talk about what I had for breakfast. Where I kept falling down in the social media/PR connection was explaining to clients why they should be tweeting. "Because everybody is doing it," was not the right answer. So last week I attended a "Twitter 101" workshop presented by Sandra Fathi, @sandrafathi for the Twitter-savvy.

What I took away from the workshop was invaluable and helped me view Twitter as a tool for the business world. What client wouldn’t want to have their company in a publication that reaches 20 million people globally? That’s one reason to tweet. Some other reasons we discussed during the workshop include: to generate awareness; to seek and create new media opportunities; to foster customer loyalty; to promote products and services; to network with customers; and to monitor trends and breaking news.

The problem is there are some turnoffs and misconceptions. I've heard everything from, “I’m so overwhelmed by email alone, I can’t do anything else” or “the churn rate is so high, it’s just a fad.” Those are completely reasonable worries, but there are solutions. If you can't find the time in your day, how are companies like Southwest, Dominoes, Zappos.com and more all jumping on the Twitter bandwagon? These companies have realized the impact of social media and are allocating either internal or external resources to manage the efforts. Their successes with social media are talked about constantly and have even attracted coverage in traditional media. For those that say, "it's just a fad, Twitter will be forgotten about in a few months," they probably haven't taken the time to try it yet.

I believe everyone is looking for something at all times and when John or Mary is online Googling “thingamajig” and Company X is twittering about their shiny new thingamajigs – a connection is made and everyone gets what they want. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out but you do need the initiative to try it.

The bigger issue I noticed is that people are reluctant to change. In the business world, you have to embrace change or your company won’t grow. Technology is constantly evolving and the business world relies on new technology to survive. As a young PR pro, I know I’m light years away from the professionals that "back in the day" used to fax or snail mail press releases to journalists. And I give credit to those pros that today are trying their hand at Twitter or that have Facebook pages (even to their kids’ chagrin).

My mom is a partner at a family-owned real estate company in New Jersey, and despite the tumultuous market conditions, she is taking the initiative to try new online networking tools that most of the professionals in her industry aren’t. With the economy slowly making its way back into the black, it's people in the service industry, like my mom, that don’t sit and wait for business to pick up again, they get out and network either in-person or through social media outlets.

So for those that don’t know how to get started with social media or are too overwhelmed by the thought of it, I say, if my mom can tweet so can you! Take the first step and spread your social media wings. Once you get started, you can count on me to be a follower!

Know Your Mark

2009-05-31T11:37:00.001-04:00

One of my friends, Kelly O'Brien, was named a "Top Tech Communicator" by PRSourceCode in 2007 for her acumen in pitching technical stories and exemplary work with journalists.

I was happy for her ...

While at the same time secretly worried that if accolades were given for excellent work there might also be a designation for the opposite and a horror show pitch written by a young Steph Johnson might be lurking in the public domain ready to catapult me into the limelight for “the worst pitch on the planet.”

Last week I had an exchange that made me think about this issue again. I used the phrase "editorial opportunity' in a pitch to editor Alan Z. who had just written a blog about why these two words are like nails on a chalkboard to journalists. I didn’t use the term six times like the schlameil he called out in his post, but it was still a transgression.

Every flack worth their salt knows you never start off a conversation by saying “I’m calling to follow up a press release,” and you better as heck know what the outlet covers before you try and pitch your client’s shiniest widget. Beyond that we now have an arsenal of fantastic tools to make sure we don’t try to sell ice to an Eskimo.

It is our responsibility to take advantage of this data…

Before engaging in a dialogue, PR professionals should follow blog posts, check out tweets, investigate Facebook pages and read multiple articles so we understand the pet topics, axes to grind and basic philosophies of our journalists and can develop some kind of rapport with them.

This is not to suggest that personal knowledge is a substitute for what is crucially important in today’s competitive media environment - a strong story based on solid fact with credible third party endorsements, talking end users and an angle that will compel the readership of a particular outlet. However - and as most club bouncers will tell you - building a relationship is important. It won’t necessarily get your ugly friend past the velvet rope, but it could at least help get her closer to the front door!

Queuing up For Business

2009-05-20T16:00:00.016-04:00

In our fifth month of business, we finally gave birth.

Our "child" -- Quu (http://www.myquu.com/).

The back story: When building the platform for Feintuch Communications, we decided we were going to go far broader than simply delivering smart PR. We were going to look at clients and prospects holistically and understand their full range of needs -- including advertising, search, marketing, business development, investor relations, funding, partnerships -- the works (See our April 6 post: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times). Then, if it made sense, we would offer a range of value-added services (plus PR). As an entrepreneurially oriented firm, we're prepared to roll-up our sleeves and work to create a lasting client relationship.

We met Quu in the fourth quarter of 2008. CEO Joe Harb had developed a great technology platform for the radio advertising industry but lacked cash, focus and an insider's seat. We took Quu on as our first incubated client, providing business and marketing counsel and introductions to radio, advertising and market research industry insiders. I was given a seat on Quu's advisory board. We created introductions to various entities with access to needed capital.

And as this vortex of activity accelerated in the past two months, Quu completed its beta test of its technology with Sandusy Radio in Seattle. We prepared a release (http://www.feintuchcommunications.com/index.php?s=43&category=9), contacted the media, and this Monday, we delivered.

Starting with a story in key trade Radio and Records written by Kevin Peterson (http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebsite20/members/ShowHeadline.aspx?FormatId=0&ContentID=49537) and with numerous additional stories starting to emerge ( http://news.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/rol.exe/headline_id=n19259 and http://www.rbr.com/media-news/advertising/14643.html and http://72.52.213.140/article/81304), Quu's phone has been ringing off the hook.

Meetings have been scheduled with radio and TV station groups, contracts have been sent out and requests for information have come in from around the country including Oregon, Florida, Chicago and as far away as Australia.

As Quu prepares to close its next funding round, we're preparing to go to work for the company full-time as its marketing, PR and business counsel. We are proud parents knowing we have helped deliver an exciting business opportunity for our client and proof of concept for our own strategic relations firm.

When It Rains, It Pours

2009-05-11T13:38:00.003-04:00

Ninety-nine point nine percent of us at one point in our lives have felt pressure, whether at work or at home, to get something done on a deadline. What I’ve noticed in my professional career is that some people LOVE pressure – they feed off of it. There is nothing like a reporter calling at 4:45 pm on a Friday with a 5:00 pm deadline wanting a question answered or a fact checked. You have to drop EVERYTHING and make those 15 minutes count! That can be very exciting to some.

On the other hand, when a new business proposal is due and you are still sifting through the RFP the night before and you’re missing the gym class you really wanted to go to, the excitement turns into panic and ultimately stress. Some people work better when the pressure is on and can even turn panic into constructive behavior. For those that have a hard time managing stress, here’s a great article from last month’s Fitness Magazine that helped me - http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/health/body/healthy-toolkit/beat-stress-take-control/

Personally, I don’t like stress. I try to avoid feeling stressed out at all costs. I’ve seen how neurotic behavior leads to pre-panicking and that stresses me out even more! To manage this, I schedule tasks for each hour of my day leaving room for the mini-crises that might pop up. But with all of the pressure to fulfill media requests on deadline, finish press releases, research data, schedule interviews, write memos and think about my next blog post (and that’s just a typical Friday), I better practice what I preach!

P.S. – Sorry about not posting until now, I was trying to meet all of my deadlines!

Falling Down on the Job

2009-05-05T20:29:00.000-04:00

Falling Down On The Job
The Friday before last I injured myself by being a multi-tasking New York executive. I was rushing back to the office from an appointment, dispensing strategic counsel from my blackberry on what I thought was a dire PR crisis-in-the-making and I managed to step into a pothole and twist my left ankle.
The first surprising thing that happened was seven people rushed to gather me and my scattered belongings up off the pavement and stuff us into a cab. So much for the lore of Genovese Syndrome – New Yorker’s aren’t all dispassionate!
The second surprising thing was the phone calls I started getting after I returned to work the next Monday. Clients were “shocked to hear that I was back on my feet,” and wanted to know “if I had received their fruit baskets.” Shocked at the velocity of the empathy, I asked someone why they were so surprised that I was back at my desk.
I learned that one of my colleagues had accidentally alerted them that I had fallen down a manhole instead of tripping into a pothole!
A much more dramatic scenario than my inelegant swan dive into the middle of 57th street, but I liked it. I was a star!
Being a professional communicator I marveled at the responses this minor dramatization had incurred. A little razzle dazzle can go a long way.
The declining state of the financial markets could become a precipitous death spiral exacerbated by eroding software architectures unable to scale….
A new Italian restaurant could evoke Batali after the Tuscan farmhouse, before the Pecorino Panzanella and right on the cusp of Babbo …
Joining a social networking site can reunite you with high school sweethearts, enhance your job prospects and walk your dog when you can’t get home from the office in time …
The moral of the story? Massaging the truth is okay as long as we make sure we never actually beat the cr#p out of it!

Social 'Notworks'

2009-04-28T23:03:00.004-04:00

First weekend back since my trip to Stuttgart, Germany and a meeting of our international PR partnership organization, ECP Global (www.ecpglobal.com). We met prospective partners from Sweden, The Netherlands and Spain. Interesting side trips to the Mercedes Benz Center of Excellence... medieval towns and gourmet meals.
While digging out from my workload, I was seeking inspiration for what to write about in PR Niblets. Make it serious and write about the challenges of growing our firm during a recession? Detail my foreign travels? Comment on alarming uptick in swine flu cases? How 'bout that Obama?
Inspiration arrived in an e-mail from my former colleague Christine Milligan Mulvehill, now living up in Beantown and working for Mullen PR. It appears that my upcoming birthday -- as revealed to 'insiders' by Plaxo Plus -- was the subject of a blog by Peppercom founder Steve Cody (http://www.repmanblog.com/repman/2009/04/useless.html#comment-captcha).

Steve writes about some of the useless information he is subjected to from Plaxo -- the poster child being my birthday announcement. He has a point. Social networking sites can be totally frivolous or an amazing networking, social or research tool. I'm amazed at how often some of my friends and colleagues "tweet" each day. There are days I have to scramble to find time to hit the bathroom... but there they are... several times an hour.. pointing out some interesting factoid about a disease... a celebrity ... or where they're going to lunch... what they ate... what was discussed... and how much they enjoyed lunch earlier.
Whether you LinkIn, Tweet, catch up with your peeps on MySpace or FaceBook or have Plaxo manage your address book, the 'social notworks' are all the rage. For me, I just want to find out Steve Cody's birthday so I can return the favor.

What's in a Name?

2009-04-20T10:45:00.006-04:00

As a young PR pro, you don’t have much time to take the phone away from your ear during prime pitching hours let alone delve into the inner workings of the communications business. However, at the center of a start-up in a rocky economy, I’ve seen firsthand how crucial it is to build your brand no matter the environment. That said, brand building doesn’t start at the corporate level alone – you need to consider your personal brand, your company’s brand and of course, your clients’ brands.

With not as many connections as my lovable (and well-connected) colleagues, I decided to start by working on my own brand – ultimately leading to greater credibility in the PR world. So I Kannekt, Facebook, Twitter, and Link In with colleagues and clients, groups and associations, with aspirations to one day have my name associated with a brand that stands for quality, hard-work and dedication!

It’s really not as difficult as I first imagined. Have a reporter friend? Follow them on Twitter to catch their most recent articles. Have a colleague you worked with at a previous firm? Connect with them on LinkedIn, then offer to meet over a cup of coffee to see what they have brewing in their life. It’s amazing how only one hundred and forty characters can open doors and opportunities.

So even with all of the warnings out there to “think before you tweet,” my feelings are, relax! Before social media, time was spent in idle email chatter and passing news through word of mouth. We’ve just changed our medium a bit to be more Web 2.0 (that’s your sign to cringe)!

So whether you’re @cconte, Joining my network!, or sending a message to your best friend, you’re taking the initiative to build a brand and form relationships.

Practicing PR in Troubled Times … Using Communications to Stave Off the Death Spiral

2009-04-12T19:15:00.005-04:00

As Henry mentioned in our first company blog post, we chose to launch our company smack dab in the middle of an economic tsunami. With several clients in the financial services sector, we are approaching communications (ours and theirs) with ample research and plenty of special consideration for the current climate.

The financial markets have never been more volatile. Banks, liquidity venues and broker dealers are all starting to look alike – and sell the same products and services. Mergers and bankruptcies happen every day and the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its lowest point since 1996 last month.

From a media standpoint, the bar for news has become a pole vault. Each time the North American economy underperforms, it sends spasms through the international markets, making it difficult to get clients in the headlines – unless they are getting indicted!

I am presently working on a whitepaper that examines how financial services firms can effectively practice PR during troubled times. Abandoning your communications campaign is never a good idea – but it’s even more damaging during a bad market. Perception is reality and a company must do everything it can to stay in front of its constituents.

Be thoughtful and proactive in your efforts, make sure you have realistic goals and decide in advance how you are going to measure success. Plan for the long haul and decide how to approach your tactics differently than you would during a boom time. Attend trade shows – but host a hospitality suite with a partner instead of renting out a lavish hotel lobby. Put out press releases - but space them out appropriately and rely heavily on the relationships of your PR counsel for coverage. Conduct analyst tours - but be strategic about who gets an in-person meeting with an expensive flight attached and who gets a phoner.

And, most important of all - don’t expect to see results immediately. It takes a while to steer the Queen Mary with an oar!

The Best of Times...The Worst of Times

2009-04-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

It’s April of 2009 and our new firm is just three months old. We launched in the midst of the economic tsunami that has taken hold of the U.S. and rapidly spread through world markets. Clever market timing for a new flavored professional services firm?

In fact, based on the reaction we’re receiving, our timing couldn’t be better.

We have entered an era of accelerated change – not just in our nation’s capital but throughout local and state governments, the financial sector, the automotive industry, the environmental and energy markets and more – indeed change is underway on a global basis and its impact on business is growing increasingly profound.

So, in forming a new breed of public relations firm, we didn’t want to simply recreate past business models. We decided to create a firm rooted in helping our clients grow their businesses, generate revenue and build their brands. To help accomplish that, we’ve surrounded ourselves with a network of partner firms and associates with whom we have been conducting business for decades. Top notch independent PR firms on every continent. Sharp copywriters and designers. Seasoned ad and marketing pros. Corporate finance executives. International trade law firms. Professionals focused on emerging companies and markets. The smartest minds in search engine marketing. And more.

We know we can’t do it all, but our extended network provides our clients with access to resources that can help them attain the velocity and support they need, through traditional marketing disciplines and beyond. For our new venture, and with a nod to Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”