GRPR

New MLive Grand Rapids Contact Info

2012-02-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Grand Rapids Press completed its digital conversion and physical move to a new hub yesterday.

Here's the contact info for news staffers.

A few things for PR people to notice:

The title "producer" is not just for TV anymore. Think about offering b-roll and other video opportunities to the newspaper when you pitch stories.
Some of the staffers focus statewide as well as local. Keep scope of audience in mind when pitching.
They have a 'Today Show' style room with glass wall right on the sidewalk in their new space downtown for video interviews. Bring clients and yourself over there for interviews in advance of and/or in addition to the article coverage you pitch.
Every reporter has social media contact information in addition to email. A phone, apparently, is not for actually calling anymore, but for email and engagement. So follow your key beat reporters and editors on Facebook and Twitter. This is best for getting a sense of reporters' interests. Pitching via social media requires some savvy because it is done in public. So use your judgment there.

Back to work everyone.

MLive Goes Live, Getting Ready for Close Up

2012-01-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's been interesting to watch the news executives at MLive Media Group doing public relations and blogger outreach in the gear-up to the bow of its new digital/print product and home in a 'hub' in downtown Grand Rapids later this week.

After blogging recently about MLive facing a new competitive environment with the increase of local news bureaus at the Rapidian, including some branded journalism efforts of local nonprofits, I was invited to take a tour of MLive's new downtown space with Grand Rapids Press Community News Director Julie Hoogland.

Ari Adler got a similar treatment from MLive Media Group President Danny Gaydou, as Adler recounts in his own blog.

Hoogland had taken issue with my indication that the Press was losing staff capacity. Of course my sense of that was largely informed by the numerous farewells of long-time Press staffers on Twitter, Facebook, and in person. Hoogland maintains that many were offered jobs but chose to take a buyout and move on to new ventures. What remains is a large number of veteran journalists, as well as some savvy young ones who have graduated from area college journalism programs. So she says quality journalism will remain. She also points out that capacity will not suffer as formerly independent Booth papers work more collaboratively on statewide news, including coverage of Lansing, major league sports, entertainment and other subjects. Meanwhile, each of the local papers will continue to stress local coverage.

In the new hub across from Rosa Parks Circle, Hoogland showed excitement at the possibilities. The ground floor will have a studio with a window on the sidewalk, similar to New York City morning network TV programs, for video interviews of newsmakers. Job titles include the word "producer," indicative of the new multi-media nature of news gathering and reporting by MLive and its various digital entities.

The public will also be welcome to walk-in and visit on the main floor. The second floor news room looks strikingly like a college computer classroom, with modern Steelcase chairs at long tables where journalists will work adjacent to each other when they're not out in the community.

"Previous changes were triage; this is embracing the future," Hoogland said.

She did change my view about the potential for both the quality and quantity of news coverage in the new model. I am excited and hopeful that the "newspaper" we have known and loved will adapt and thrive, both locally and nationally.

But I still maintain that the MLive launch later this week puts it into a new media landscape. The Press will co-exist and/or compete with with citizen journalism, other print media, television, and news content directly from companies, nonprofits and government entities--all of which will have a digital presence as well. Just as young people have lost the distinction between cable and network, in the online/mobile/social mix of 24/7 information, news consumers may lose at least some of the distinction between print and broadcast, as well as between third party news reports and direct sources of information.

I eagerly await their close-up.

From the Journals: Search Ads, Mobile Politics, Online Sources

2012-01-26T11:05:00.002-05:00

Search ad impact, mobile political discourse, and online news source credibility are some of the interesting subjects in current academic journals. Public relations and advertising practitioners don't have the time, and often the access, to academic journals, so I periodically give a brief summary of articles I find interesting. I provide source information for anyone who wants to access them via an academic library.

Incremental Clicks: The Impact of Search Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 51(4), 643-647.
A meta-analysis of several hundred studies revealed that 89% of visits to advertisers' web sites were the result of search ad campaigns. Obviously this shows the value of search advertising as part of an effective campaign in which an objective is to drive traffic to a product page or other site.

Political Involvement in "Mobilized" Society: The Interactive Relationships Among Mobile Communication, Network Characteristics, and Political Participation. Journal of Communication, 61(6), 1005-1024.
This study looked at how mobile-mediated discourse is related to political participation. Essentially, political participation increases in large networks of like-minded individuals, but decreases when mobile technology is used in smaller homogenous networks. This would indicate that a strategy to increase mobile networks would be effective in efforts to get out the vote.

Source Cues in Online News: Is the Proximate Source More Powerful Than Distal Sources? Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 88(4), 719-736.
Readers have lots of sources of news online--a media site, an aggregator, a bookmarking page, shared links via Twitter or Facebook, and so on. This study showed that highly involved (i.e. deeply interested in subject, more seriously considering content) will consider both proximate and distal sources, or those that are close and identifiable as well as distant or second-hand sources. Meanwhile, readers of low-involvement are primarily influenced by a proximate source. This has interesting implications for messaging as well as a social media delivery strategy to reach and resonate with intended publics.

Nonprofit Shows Glimpse of Media Future

2012-01-16T10:18:00.001-05:00

An recent item in the citizen journalism outlet The Rapidian offers a glimpse of the local media future. The article notes the debut this month of a news bureau dedicated to environmental news. It shows the further growth of alternative niche media outlets that are a significant presence in the local media landscape.

This is interesting on several levels. For one, it shows that even as Mlive.com adapts and morphs from a collection of local newspapers on actual paper to a digital hub, it faces competition. The same is true for local television stations highlighting hyper-local areas on their web sites and apps, such as WZZM TV13's "My Town" effort. There was a time when the Grand Rapids Press and Muskegon Chronicle had reporters dedicated to the environment beat. Now they still cover environmental issues--there is even an 'environment' category on the MLive.com mobile app--but they don't cover it as often.

The reason mainstream media don't cover things like the environment with regularity is for economic reasons. Conventional media are market-driven. They are caught in a cycle of losing readers and viewers, which leads to lost ad revenue, which lead to less staff to cover everything. They are trying to recapture that by getting more local, but this puts them in a new competitive ballpark.

Citizen journalism projects are content-driven. They operate with grants, underwriters and donations. Support may come in the form of ads eventually. But for now they are not averse to content that yields smaller audience. In fact, that is their purpose, as evidenced by the series of news bureaus launching focused at the neighborhood or topical level. Readers can subscribe via RSS feed to the specific neighborhood or topic of interest to them in the community.

Another interesting aspect of all of this is the source of the news. The Rapidian seeks "journalists and aspiring journalists" for these bureaus. Some of them will be journalism students in internships. Others may be laid off journalists doing freelance work. But nonprofit organizations will also be providing news for these bureaus. As an example, the Creston Neighborhood Association will be a primary source of neighborhood news for that bureau. The West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC) appears to be running the environment news bureau.

Some people might wonder about the credibility and quality of news being provided by young or even untrained journalists. But keep in mind several things. First, MLive.com is downsizing and rehiring a leaner, younger staff too. Who is to say The Rapidian site won't be equally credible? In fact, in the case of the environmental news bureau, WMEAC's Executive Director Rachel Hood has a background in public relations, and their Communications Director Dan Schoonmaker is a former journalist and public relations professional (see their staff directory bios).

Secondly, the news has always been largely supplied indirectly from businesses, nonprofits, government spokespeople and other sources. It's been called "information subsidy." The way The Rapidian is doing it is more transparent. That relates to the final point, that the public will have to be thoughtful and critical of all information they consume, even as they are now with local and national "mainstream" news. I would also hope that WMEAC will be magnanimous and offer news from other environmentally focused nonprofit organizations, and that they are fair and even-handed vs. activist if there is an environmental story with multiple points of view.

It's also important to note that what The Rapidian is doing will supplement mainstream news such as MLive.com and other local print and broadcast outlets. The advantage of The Rapidian for PR professionals is a greater chance of getting news publicized than in the busy conventional media outlets. It's also possible to reach a smaller niche audience of people most interested in your subject. However, smart PR pros will also keep in mind the need to reach people who are not currently interested or engaged, and the best way to reach them is through a greater mass distribution that conventional mainstream media will offer.

In short, there will be more outlets for public relations professionals to consider, and more news for the public to consume.

Assets Laid-Off Journalists Can Leverage for PR Jobs

2012-01-05T17:31:00.000-05:00

It’s a common expression in business to talk about“leveraging assets.” That’s just the way people in pinstripes talk about takingadvantage of skills and resources to achieve your objective.

I’ve been talking to a number of laid-off, outsourced,terminated, bought-out journalists over the past few months who are looking totransition to a new job. Many of them are understandably upset, because theyhave spent 20-30 years acquiring skills that don’t seem valued in an industrythat is collapsing under their feet.

But those skills aren’t entirely irrelevant. There’s nodoubt that journalism is adapting radically to respond to the confluence ofchanges in technology, culture, and economics (see Steve Rubel’s “Clip Report”for a nice overview of the emerging news media landscape.But that doesn’t mean “old-school” journalism skills are irrelevant. It justmeans they’ll be applied in different ways, across different platforms, and fordifferent organizations, even those outside of journalism.

Public relations has been a refuge for former journalistsfor centuries. In fact, in 1926 Editor& Publisher decried the number of journalism school graduates goingdirectly into “this new field called public relations.” Many have debatedwhether journalists can make the transition to PR. Some joke that they have to“sell their soul” to go to “the dark side.” But this merely shows amisunderstanding of what PR really is, and that there are different types of PRjobs out there, based on different models of PR practice.

Journalists can make the easiest transition to the type ofPR known as “public information”. Public Information Officers (PIOs) often workfor a government agency or state university, and the job involves disseminatingobjective information, primarily one-way. That’s not too dissimilar from what ajournalist does. A recent example would be Ed Golder, former editorial pageeditor of the Grand Rapids Press, whois now the PIO at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Journalists may struggle a bit more to work in PR rolesknown as “two-way symmetrical” or “two-way asymmetrical.” The former involveslistening and engaging with publics in dialogue and advising management to adaptto public concerns. The latter is still two-way but more driven to bepersuasive in ensuring the organizational goals are met. This can be more of achallenging transition for journalists used to writing objective informationand distributing it one-way (although editorial writers have an edge here). Anadvanced degree in PR or organizational communication, or at least attendinglocal chapter meetings of the Public Relations Society of America, could be helpful to make the transition.

But there are base skills that good journalists have thatthey can leverage for PR jobs, especially since the landscape for PR incorporate, nonprofit and government institutions is changing for the samereasons, social media and otherwise, that journalism is changing. Those skillsinclude:

Writing. This sounds fundamental, and it is. Buta common complaint I hear from employers is the lack of writing skills amongthe work force. Even the most brilliant strategy or communication plan can failif it’s not well articulated.
Storytelling versus catalog copy. Consumers andother publics these days need to be “engaged,” not just informed. Journalistswho are experienced in writing more than meeting reports but getting to theessence of a story and stressing its relevance can be an asset in PR. Those reporters who have been active on Twitter and Facebook and other social platforms, building their own brand as well as their media outlet's, are a step ahead here as well.
Reporting. Reporting is more than askingquestions. It’s knowing what to ask, who to ask, processing the informationquickly and re-presenting it in a way that is accurate, clear, understandableand compelling. A reporter transitioning into PR can be a “quick study” inlearning the organization quickly and well enough to represent it to thepublic. They just have to remember they are no longer a reporter but actuallyhave to keep organizational objectives in mind.
Multi-media. Print reporters who also did pagelayout, photography, or video for a newspapers web site—not to mention formerbroadcast reporters—bring an increasingly valuable tactical skill toorganizations. “Every organization must be a media organization” is a commonmantra as corporations, nonprofits and government offices have their own blogs,YouTube channels and other online and social platforms requiring more thansimple text.

Former journalists have other options besides working inpublic relations for an organization. One is to continue to be a journalist.The radical changes in news media are demonstrating that it is not necessary towork only for a traditional newspaper or TV station. Citizen media like the Rapidian and online media like RapidGrowth continue to grow. As mainstream media are diminished, the opportunities for these alternative, online-only media outlets may grow.

Another likely option is to be a journalistic entrepreneur.This is more than the old notion of being a freelancer. Journalists could beself-employed and provide content for a variety of news media and otherorganizations. While newspapers are diminishing, the online media environmenthas a burgeoning number of outlets. Add to that the nonprofits and companiesand government departments that need to feed the content beast, and a goodjournalist could stay comfortably busy. This will be even more true as the demand forquality versus quantity of information naturally rises as the public isoverwhelmed and seeks credible, timely and relevant information.

Who knows—a group of former journalists could even starttheir own agency, not unlike Editors at Large, formed by former Grand Rapids Magazine editor John Brosky years ago, or the Wordsmiths whose staff has changed over the years but the agency continues today. They could even start a new news media outlet--either broad based or niche focused by audience or subject--to compete with the one that laidthem off.

When PR is Too Public

2011-12-06T10:46:00.001-05:00

A local long-time PR professional shared with me a post he saw on a local reporter's Facebook page.

It started by saying "[Reporter's name] has the BEST PR friends ever." Then it raved, with zeal of a freshman sorority girl, about the gifts received and expected from four named PR professionals.

My friend who sent the message didn't mince words about his reaction to this:

"I miss the days when PR people and journalists maintained some semblance of tension between their respective roles."

It's an interesting thought. Social media has changed much about how the media and PR professionals do their jobs, including the specific PR function known as media relations. There's no doubt that using Facebook and Twitter can enhance the ability to establish and maintain relationships with journalists. Reporters also have opportunity to establish more contacts, enhance their reporting, and make news outlets more personal than institutional.

In short, all the self-appointed social media gurus encourage everyone to be social.

But is it possible that public relations can be too public?

Part of me sees this as an extension of junior high, in which kids talk about who they are hanging out with, not as idle conversation, but to boast and make obvious that other kids are NOT hanging out with them or their really cool friends. Maybe that's not going on, but it leaves that impression.

I also wonder about public reaction. The most important value of publicity is third-party credibility. In other words, if its in the paper or on TV it must be "legitimate" news because it's not just something an organization says about itself. This is also called "uncontrolled" media.

But if people start seeing stories about the same organizations that reporters have recently cooed about gleefully and transparently in social spaces, especially when it's been about the receipt of gifts, it's not surprising that they would doubt the validity of the story, the reporter, the media outlet and the organization being covered.

It also sends a bad message about public relations, that it's all about schmoozing and manipulation of the media.

I'm all for the social aspects of social media as applied to any business. But I would hope that does not mean abandoning a sense of professionalism. It might not have to be a 'semblance of tension' as my friend suggests, but it could at least emphasize actual news value.

If reporters and PR pros want to get into displays of personal affection, they should get a conference room.

Jobs and New Media Good News for West Michigan

2011-12-01T09:05:00.001-05:00

I received an email yesterday from Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor for Rapid Growth Media, that lifted my spirits. The blast email was to announce expanded job news coverage in the online publication. The expansion launched today in the Innovation and Job News section.

"Our philosophy is this: there may not be many big companies hiring 100 employees, but there might be 100 small businesses creating one job each," Wood explained in the email. "Those businesses are often overlooked as news stories, or the owners are so busy doing the day-to-day they don't think to let us know about their growth."

More than a publication, Rapid Growth has been a cheerleader for the region since its inception. It's not just seeing the positive job news in this economy, and the articles about smaller businesses, that is so uplifting. It's the fact that a local news outlet is dedicated to constructive coverage.

A complaint about the mainstream media has long been the dwelling on scandal and negativity, the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality. Sure, citizens need to be informed of crime and less than uplifting news. But the constant barrage of aggregated unemployment numbers don't tell the full story. People need and want to hear about the small scale turnarounds and successes, the entrepreneurs as well as the monoliths.

That may be partly why Rapid Growth has grown to 30,000 unique visitors per month, and an email distribution of 15,000, according to publisher Jeff Hill. I would expect that to be a growth story of its own in the months ahead with its good news and the opportunity to peruse 98 jobs available at the moment I write this. It's also encouraging to read about jobs landed--especially when they feature a former student of mine:-)

I realize that the mainstream media has been working to make their coverage more positive and local as well. But it seems that new media like Rapid Growth, citizen journalism project The Rapidian, and an impressive e-zine from local social media maven StellaFly are leading the way into online, hyper-local, smaller focus, positive news. In a bit of irony, StellaFly recently posted a long feature of Mike Lloyd, the formerly ink-stained and curmudgeonly Grand Rapids Press editor now doing PR for Broadway Grand Rapids.

All of this is good for the news consumers of West Michigan. It's also good in terms of the added outlets for the public relations professionals with small but good stories to share.

Re-Defining Public Relations

2011-11-21T09:50:00.001-05:00

An effort is starting today to re-define "public relations" in response to changes in the communication landscape owing largely to social media. The New York Times yesterday had a nice overview of the effort.

A web site to solicit suggested definitions has been opened by the Public Relations Society (and numerous PR association partners) with a word cloud used to show common terms emerging. PRSA hopes to announce an updated definition of "public relations" by the end of the year.

Well, good luck with that! As most introductory textbooks in public relations will point out, there are more than 500 definitions of public relations. There's even a Wiki page of PR definitions to try to make some sense of it all. In fact, talk to anyone practicing PR and they'll seem to have their own definition. I am not entirely unhappy with the "old"definition from Cutlip, Center and Broom in their 1984 textbook: "public relations is the management function that seeks to identify, establish, and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and all of the publics on whom its success or failure depends." I like this definition because it has all the right emphases--management function (not a tactic), organizations (not just business or agency work), all publics (not just consumers), mutually beneficial relationships (not just one-way communication). This works even in a social media era.

Nevertheless, I applaud the effort and have already submitted my suggestion. But I'm less interested in a new definition than the attention the effort will get to provide a more accurate view of PR in the minds of several of PR's own "publics." First there are current practitioners, many of whom do not have a degree in PR nor are members of an association. As such they have little knowledge of the breadth of PR, see it as a tactic (i.e. media relations) as opposed to a diverse discipline, and have little comprehension of an ethics code.

In addition to this "internal public," a re-definition effort would hopefully seize the attention and respect of other functions in organizations who, as the academic literature calls it, have "encroached" on public relations functions. Such is the case when lawyers act as spokespersons, or human resources tries to own all employee communications, or marketing tries to steer branding efforts entirely from a consumer perspective. On the latter point, maybe a new definition could force even some of the industry's own trade publications to stop referring to public relations as a "marketing discipline" (are you listening PRWeek?).

Of course, the public at large needs to have an accurate picture of public relations, which they currently get from stereotype, criticism of the "spin" of politicians, and popular culture's unflattering insinuations. See my earlier post about PR in pop culture and the public opinion of the profession for more on that point.

As the project progresses, I would hope all contributors also consider the following:

History of Defining PR. The term "public relations" first came into popular use in the 1920s. But then, early practitioners like Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, and Arthur Page worked to move away from being called "press agents" or "publicity men." For example, Lee wrote in a 1917 article in the Electric Railway Journal “The advisor in publicrelations should be far more than a mere publicity agent." Eleven years later, in a letter to his largest client, John D. Rockefeller, he pointed out that publicity was not his business: "My job is assisting in dealing with the public." In 1927 Edward Bernays took out a full-page ad in the January 29th Editor & Publisher to stress that a practitioner of the budding profession be called "Counselor on Public Relations" whose job could be described as "he interprets the client tothe public and the public to his client." So, in an era when radio was "new media," practitioners were broad minded in defining PR. (See more about the history of PR and its description in my paper "First Impressions: Media Portrayals of Public Relations in the 1920s" in the Journal of Communication Management.) So, I hope the new definition will have a long view, both backwards and forwards, and not just respond to the social media moment.
Philosophy vs. Tactic. I've had arguments with PR bloggers like the appropriately named Strumpette who say "PR is media relations because that's what the client pays for." Maybe for some, but far from true for all. Note that Strumpette's last post was in 2008. It lasted a long time with that publicity definition given what Lee said in 1928. I hope the new definition will emphasize the philosophy of mutual relationships with multiple stakeholders and not get bogged down in tactical duties.
Aspirational, not Empirical. A definition of a field like public relations should not be merely empirical, i.e. based on observations of what its practitioners actually do. Instead, it should be aspirational in the sense of setting the bar high and encouraging anyone who dares to call themselves a public relations practitioner to hew to that definition, and not drag the definition down. Lots of so-called "PR professionals" are doing it wrong, either by lack of ethics or limited scope. We need a definition to enable a separation of professionals from pretenders.
Breadth of the Field. Defining public relations will be a challenge because of the diversity of the field. For that reason it will necessarily have to be in general terms. The breadth could be considered in three ways: 1) roles. Different PR professionals perform different roles at different times for different clients and in different organizations. These roles include boundary spanning, relationship management, public information disseminator, and vary from tactical technician to managerial counsel. 2) models. Roles could also be considered as models of PR. The classic four models of PR from James Grunig are publicity, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical. 3) sectors. While some indicate PR is all about business, or only practiced by agencies, the reality is that PR practitioners are plentiful in all three labor sectors: private (business), non-profit, and government. So I hope a new definition is inclusive of all the ways and contexts PR professionals can and will practice the profession.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on defining PR as well.

Media Use of Twitter

2011-11-16T10:23:00.001-05:00

A PR manager in West Michigan emailed me this morning to ask my opinion about the recent study by the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism about how media organizations are using Twitter. Her question came from commentary about the study on the Gigaom blog.

My own opinion about this is long and nuanced. I have read the Pew report and others like it, as well as some that contradict it, albeit the latter are anecdotal or prescriptive in nature. Just yesterday I also read the latest Journalism & Communication Monographs (subscription required), published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). This monograph (i.e. extra lengthy article) is based on participant observation in newsrooms and focus groups with news consumers. The theme of the article is that news is moving from product to process, and while there is variance in how newsrooms respond to this, it is still true that many reporters resist new social media aspects of their jobs as "more work." I have some sympathy for this. When I was reporter (before even the Internet, much less social media), the news process involved some research and interviewing, writing and revision, and then sending a finished piece on deadline to the appropriate editor. Then you were done and on to the next assignment. Today, reporters are expected to actually pay attention to comments about their work, respond to those comments, write blog posts as well as articles, update articles they thought were done to keep the web site and app fresh, and so on.

That may be why in general media organizations as well as individual reporters tend to use Twitter primarily to tweet headlines with link to main story. I also suspect the author of the Gigaom blog is right to assert that these tweets are primarily automated. A recent view of my own Twitter news list shows a handful of media--local and national, mainstream and online--tend to basically tweet headlines.

I couldn't find any examples at the moment, but I know a few reporters who have conversations with readers, solicit story ideas or information for story ideas, and respond to audience comments on Twitter and Facebook and in comment sections of web sites. The GRPressNews tweet above is not bad in that it touts a "live chat" and not just an article--at least the 'old' media is using some new tools.

But they could do more, which is what we in PR call 'engagement.' I think that is starting to happen, and will happen more. But change takes time, and this change is a big one. It is a paradigm shift where, in business and economic terms, every aspect of the journalistic process is changing: the "production" process in which news starts on a blog or tweet and not always initiated by a journalist or news release, the move from news as "product" to "process" or even service that is ongoing versus single transaction, the "supply chain" of contributors to a story including comments, the "distribution channels" which are not just trucks and antennae but sharing sites, re-tweets, aggregators and readers and so forth.

The changes we're seeing in media, the migration to online, in everything from the New York Times to the Detroit News to the Grand Rapids Press, may accelerate not just where but how news is produced. And that will require a cultural change inside newsrooms. The subject of news routines is well explained in the 1997 book "Social Meanings of News" by Dan Berkowitz. A sequel came out last year, "Cultural Meanings of News," which may already need an update.

Everyone, not just reporters, have to get used to this idea, and the related concept that communication is not one-way, not even two-way, but multi-staged group conversation. I was thinking just recently about all the "extra work" I do just as a news consumer to organize, aggregate, curate and share content. It used to be you read one or two newspapers, listened to the radio in your car, watched a little TV news at home at night and that was it. But with all the freedom and choice afforded "news consumers" comes the responsibility as well.

Public relations professionals also have a ways to go. The trades are full of stories and studies showing how many people only tweet headlines to news releases, or link back to product pages. Other studies show how few corporations or nonprofits have blogs, Twitter and Facebook pages and other active social media sites. The learning curve is there for all of us.

But given what I mentioned above, the resounding mantra is that "every organization is a media organization." That means everyone has content that they are putting out there on all the hot channels and platforms, including Twitter. But, if everyone indeed is doing that, that means to get audience share you have to do more, and that means engagement not mere distribution. That means having conversations, not making proclamations. The media and everyone else needs to re-read the 'Cluetrain Manifesto.'

What interests me most is the 'old' (1962) Jurgen Habermas notion of the public sphere and how social media is making the concept more relevant and popular again. The news media has less control and is more of a participant in the public discussion of issues of our day. In fact, there are several new organizations set up on this topic, including the Public Sphere Guide and the Public Sphere Project. You can engage with them on Twitter or play their Facebook games :-)

Media Morbidity in West Michigan?

2011-10-27T10:00:00.002-04:00

Maybe it's the Halloween season, but two events I attended last week seemed to have a morbid view of media. First there was the AimWest event with the teasing title "What Has Happened to Journalism?" The very next day, the West Michigan Chapter of PRSA hosted its monthly luncheon on the subject "Is the Press Release Dead?"

Cue the scary music. Do the zombie walk.

What Happened to Journalism?
AimWest bills itself as an interactive organization, so the panelists discussion of journalism, prompted by moderator Bob Taylor, was in that frame. It was a good discussion, with lots of audience interaction. And far from being gloomy, I would say the discussion was straightforward and even exciting. The event could have been named 'What IS Happening to Journalism.'

A few of the common themes that came out:

journalism is moving from 'gatekeeper' model to sharing system;
related to the first point, news is not so much a product, but a process as the story never ends with comments, replies, updates etc.;
social media provides a 'first draft of history' these days, but MSM (mainstream media) provides the authoritative second draft;
there are things to do first and things to get right--the reputation of professional journalism is at stake, and lots of things on social media are not correct;
citizen journalism does not replace MSM but it does fill gaps, it's more inside-out from the community than outside-in to the community;
MSM has a form of responsibility in the public sphere to correct bad information, not in the sense of policing the blogs, but in sharing factual information when they have it;
individual journalists have personalities and unique audience as much or more than the institutions they work for because of social media;

I would add that there are still a few 'scary' things about journalism in the current environment. These don't apply to all media outlets, but there is ample evidence of journalists doing less reporting and more 'curating' and 'aggregating' other content. This is done for economic reasons, but a long-term view would say such weak repackaging is less of a service, and therefore less value, for media consumers. Also, the stories that are reported can often be done for financial reasons, called "market-driven" journalism, in which the news is still seen as product to be sold and not information of democratic or personal value to citizens.

My own question about the notion in public relations that all companies or organizations should be 'media organizations' (i.e. provide original content directly to the public vs via MSM) was answered in typical fashion from journalists--that the public will trust a third-party journalist more than claims from a company. True to a point--but my own research shows that the nature of information, the interests of the consumer, and the prior reputation of the organization are equal factors. In many cases the MSM does not report certain subjects, and they may not do so thoroughly, so the public satisfies its need to particular information from a company, nonprofit, or government web site, YouTube channel, Facebook page, blog or Twitter account.

Is the Press Release Dead?

Meanwhile, at the WMPRSA event, I was delighted to learn that the press release is not dead. (Please note sarcasm intended). Of course, when the presented is from Business Wire, one can expect that intimations of death of its primary product are intentionally exaggerated to boost attendance.

I would say the theme here is that the press release is alive in the sense that most journalists still say it is a primary source of news. But some, maybe even many, news releases are walking zombies. In other words, they need more life in them, using the new interactive tools available, such as multimedia options for actualities as MP3 files, video embeds, hyperlinks throughout the release, and the whole thing written with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind. We teach all this in our media relations class at GVSU, so it was good to hear the affirmation.

Business Wire, PR Newswire, PitchEngine and other service providers can help PR pros do this. But it is also possible to do yourself in an online newsroom, getting some help from IT or using a simple blog or other CMS option. Although, I met the president of PitchEngine at the PRSA Conference earlier this month, and the basic service is free!

The point is, you'll see "the press release is dead" as event titles and ranting blog posts again and again. The thing to remember is the press release is still a useful tool, IF you use it well. And it can be more alive if PR pros take advantage of multiple tools that make it more interesting not only to journalists but the public directly as they engage your organization online and in social media. For proof of this, pay attention to the advanced measurement tools that come with using multimedia and interactive press releases. It might add some life to the way your clients and bosses see the value of media relations as part of what PR people do.

Ford Follows Up, Gives Better 'Focus'

2011-10-25T10:41:00.001-04:00

I blogged in an earlier post about a Ford PR event in Grand Rapids that didn't seem to go too well. I subsequently followed up about how a Ford PR representative reached out to me and offered to visit campus.

That happened yesterday, when Dan Pierce, Environmental Communications Manager for Ford, and engineer Mike Tinskey, who manages Ford's electric vehicle program, came to our Allendale campus with a prototype of the Ford Focus Electric and ample time to spend with some of our Advertising and PR students.

Pierce talked to students about internships at Ford in our student study, then spent some time outside with Tinskey talking to students about the vehicle. From 6-8:30, more than a dozen students took in a presentation about electric vehicle technology and Ford's broad communications strategy with this emerging product category. The students did as much talking as Pierce and Tinskey.

Garret Ellison of the Grand Rapids Press was both outside and in the presentation. You can read his account. As for me, I'll share just a few PR lessons learned in an event that happily lasted longer than I anticipated:

Ford recognizes the variance among publics and its "Power of Choice" campaign is designed to let consumers decide between battery only electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid, or gas-electric hybrid.
Timeframe is important in PR campaigns. They acknowledge the need to reach early adopters and allow the popularity of electric vehicles to grow. They showed data and charts that illustrate slow initial growth that is starting to accelerate.
PR people have to think holistically. Pierce repeatedly pointed to Tinskey as an example of working with engineers and other internal publics. He also noted that the campaign needs to consider partnerships with companies that make charging equipment, addressing concerns of utility companies and government leaders and many other considerations beyond just sales pitch to consumers.
Messaging is important and must be tailored but sometimes a "shotgun" approach of multiple messages is necessary and strategic to reach diverse psychographic differences in a new product category.
This blogging thing can lead to great campus visits for students :-)

The best part was hearing the students' smart questions, hearing Pierce and Tinskey tell me how impressed they were with the students, and watching students show off their PR campaign plan books and resumes. Being taken by Tinskey for a short ride in the vehicle afterwards was pretty cool too. My '99 internal combustion looks dated now.

In the end, I'd like to think Ford and the GVSU School of Communications have charged up a positive relationship.

Media Partnerships and PR

2011-10-04T09:01:00.000-04:00

At first glance you might think "The Business Times of Northwest Ottawa County" is a bold new journalistic venture. Not exactly.

The new publication is a partnership between the Chamber of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, and Ferrysburg and the Grand Haven Tribune. A Tribune article recently explained the new partnership.

There's no doubt such a partnership has mutual benefits. The Chamber is using the design and production capabilities of a local daily newspaper to upgrade the look of its former newsletter, the "Beacon." Distribution is also a positive from this partnership, with the chamber tucking its piece into the local paper and reaching 28,000 subscribers as opposed to maintaining their own list and mailing process.

Meanwhile, the Tribune gets content and revenue. There's no doubt the Chamber is paying an insertion fee for the privilege of distributing their branded material in the Tribune. The publication also takes advertising. Also, in this era of struggling media, it's a great way for the Tribune to deliver more business related news to its subscribers, provided by Chamber members and others not on the newspaper's payroll.

This is just another example of such media partnerships in this era of shrinking media budgets and staff. The Grand Rapids Press added a health section a year ago to provide more locally focused health coverage from both reporters and staff of area health institutions. The Press also partnered recently with citizen journalism outlet the Rapidian in a series of "hunger challenge" articles.

But in all the win-win for papers and partners, what about the public and public relations practitioners?

Sure, this is a great PR opportunity for hospitals and chambers and other organizations who can use these partnerships to guarantee coverage of their issues and news. But lost in seizing these opportunities may be the realization that this is a transition from "earned" to paid media, or uncontrolled to controlled media. Earned or uncontrolled media means a PR practitioner had to convince a hard-working and appropriately skeptical journalist of the news value of their content. Paid or controlled media means an organization gets to place content verbatim in the space it has purchased as advertising.

These partnerships may be a middle ground. The Press and Tribune both show some editorial involvement. But one has to wonder what the public thinks. The key advantage of earned media is not just that it is not paid for, but that it has third-party credibility. In other words, the public is less likely to believe and trust something they know has been paid for or controlled by whoever is presenting the information. They are more likely to believe something if they sense it has been verified by an objective outside person, also known as a journalist.

What this means for those engaging in media partnerships is caution is in order. It will be a mistake to think that achieving reach and "getting the word out" is enough. It will be how such ventures are carried out, with transparency, honesty, and credibility that will not only reach people but inform and influence them.

Ford Friends Me

2011-09-23T09:43:00.000-04:00

My previous post "Fords Lost PR Focus" generated some attention from Ford. A Ford representative emailed me shortly after my post appeared asking to speak to me on the phone to clarify some things I alluded to about the Ford Focus event in downtown Grand Rapids.

I had thought the Ford PR team was on top of social media monitoring to respond to little ol' me so quickly. But it turned out that a friend of mine who works in PR in Detroit, and used to work for Ford, forwarded my blog post to a VP there and it eventually got to Dan Pierce, the Global Environmental Communication Manager, who contacted me.

Chris Knape, meanwhile, told me no one from Ford had followed up as promised to answer his questions.

As Pierce explains it, the event was not intended to be a consumer event. The Ford Focus Electric is not out of production yet and they don't want to offer consumer test drives until it is and they can make the right first impression. Those invited to the event were representatives of utilities, governmental units, and other early adopters such as hybrid owners who are interested in the concept and prototype before the release. While they didn't stop Grand Valley students and others who happened by from looking, they did not have a drive-able car at this event. The consumer events will come later this year when the car is out of production.

As for Knape's questions going unanswered, apparently there was one official spokesman at the event and that person was surrounded by TV and other media in the scrum that followed the official remarks. Still not good for first impressions to ignore the local business editor in any market in my opinion, but I'll let you decide for yourself.

Meanwhile, the discussion I had with Pierce proved productive and a good example of PR fence mending. He's offered to come to GVSU next month with a prototype car and an engineer to talk about it. Then he will address a group of PR students about promoting an all electric vehicle, sustainability and environmental communication. My students from last winter's Fundamentals of PR courses are already getting out their plan books to show their own ideas on promoting the Ford Focus Electric to a college student market.

More to come.

Some Quick and Dirty PR Lessons on Quikster and Quixtar

2011-09-20T11:29:00.001-04:00

The split of Netflix into streaming video and a new DVD service called Quikster has grabbed attention on blogs and Twitter lately. See this post on Ragan.com as an example.

Here are some PR lessons learned, including a West Michigan angle:

Apologies should be sincere and address what is really upsetting people. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted an "apology" that didn't address the price increase that upset consumers.
PR is about two-way relationships, and had Netflix grasped this and learned in advance with on-going dialogue or basic research of consumer brand and price attitudes they may have avoided this crisis.
PR involves dealing with multiple publics. Consumers being upset about price led to lots of them bailing which led to a 19% stock drop. Investors are people too. This is why consumers should not just be left to marketing and investors to investor relations or finance pros. PR people should be at the management table advising their management colleagues from all sides about how actions and words affect multiple publics. Some call this "integrated marketing communication"; I call it basic PR and common sense.
Name changes don't change perceptions or behavior. Splitting from Netflix to Netflix and Quikster is done for internal reasons. It is not convenient, easy, or better in any way for consumers.
Short-term decisions can lead to long-term brand damage. Notice how Amway and Quixtar are recalled by the Ragan writer? Quixtar re- re-branded recently back to Amway because the name change never worked. But the move--again which probably seemed good internally--backfired consistently.

Wise leadership and smart PR do not usually come from making quick decisions. They are evidenced by listening, pondering consequences, and managing relationships vs merely the bottom line. It's better all the way around to be patient and clean than quick and dirty.

Ford's Lost PR Focus

2011-09-19T09:06:00.000-04:00

My Fundamentals of Public Relations students should have been consulted.

In several of our PR classes at GVSU, we take on "clients" for whom students do PR projects relevant to the class content. In upper level classes, these are clients in the community. In the fundamentals class I have usually taken on a client from an on-campus entity to keep the scale and target public simpler for this introductory level class.

But last winter, I was coming off sabbatical and had not had a chance to recruit an on-campus client. So I took an idea from the newspaper and had students create a PR campaign plan book that sought to persuade college students that the Ford Focus Electric set to debut was a great concept and a car they should eventually buy.

The key word there was 'eventually.' My students themselves emphasized that, after doing research that showed a number of what we call 'barriers to persuasion.' Their peer students at GVSU and around the country had 'range anxiety,' or a fear of being unable to recharge when they needed to. They also wondered if the power would be adequate. Some felt that using electricity derived from coal wasn't really "green" so what's the point. Others were put off by the anticipated cost, mechanical upkeep, and other questions the students had to address in their communication tactics.

The campaign was complicated when Ford delayed the release of the Focus. So students smartly (with some of my counsel) focused the campaign on building brand and product category awareness and appreciation now for eventual purchase when the product is rolled out and when current college students have incomes that they can afford it.

My students came up with a variety of good ideas. Good in the sense that they were based on research and employed strategy grounded in theory. For example, the "diffusion of innovations" theory would indicate that "observability" and "trialability" are key when getting people to accept a new concept. So having students drive a Ford Focus around campus, and allowing other students to test drive it, was a popular strategy.

All of this came back when I read Grand Rapids Press Business Editor Chris Knape's review of a Ford Focus PR event last week in downtown Grand Rapids. After some prepared remarks, the Focus event lost focus. Knape points out:

Ford representatives were unable to answer basic questions, like the natural objections my students had uncovered;
there was no actual vehicle to test drive, just a mock-up that Ford representatives cautioned GVSU students who attended to not touch;
Knape concludes the event "brought little new information to the market;"

I agree. I wouldn't go so far as to call this Ford event a "stunt," which implies sleight of hand or bait and switch to get people out. But it was a poorly done PR event primarily because it seemed to favor image over substance. The value of events are exactly what Ford was unprepared for--live and therefore more persuasive interaction with your publics, hands-on interaction of consumers with product. Apparently, the Ford people were stunned that an event is not "controlled media." I am in turn stunned by this. If any persuasion happened it is that the Ford Focus Electric should not be a consideration when young people buy a vehicle in the next few years.

My students would have been surprised too. Ford should have consulted with them. The wisest advice they could have given Ford would have been to do some research and have answers to common and reasonable questions as well as an actual product on hand. Otherwise, they should wait.

The market won't be ready for your product until your product (and your PR staff) is ready for market.

Poll Dancing: PR's Perceived Image

2011-08-31T08:25:00.000-04:00

A new Gallup poll, as reported in PR Daily, reveals that more people have a negative view of PR and advertising. Such polls about the public's view of PR and other professions are common. That PR is viewed "negatively" is also not unusual. But that's the quick conclusion and not the full story.

First of all, a little critical thinking about polls, which are often taken as gospel or solid science but are really a mere snapshot. First, this poll could have a context effect in that PR is considered along side other professions. Is this a valid view of PR or one relative to other professions?

Also, PR and advertising are lumped together. While the professions overlap (our major at GVSU combines them), the public view of each may be different.

The scale--positive, neutral, negative--also indicates this is not a real measure of attitudes about the various professions. Mere positive/negative reaction is not an indicator of valence, or strength of opinion. The high neutrals on most responses could indicate a lack of knowledge. Put yourself in a survey-takers position: are you positive/neutral/negative on the "retail industry"? I worked in a grocery store during high school and college and I shop for groceries--I have no idea what my opinion is about the grocery industry. Far more people have experiences with groceries than they do with PR, so on what basis do they rate PR?

That's the biggest question, which goes unanswered in this poll--what are the CAUSES of public opinion about PR. I can answer that a bit from other research.

This summer I was part of a panel at the annual Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in St. Louis discussing "PR in Pop Culture." The panel was based off the work of Joe Saltzman who directs the Image of the Journalist in Pop Culture (IJPC) at the University of Southern California. Professor Saltzman also completed an impressive and comprehensive DVD of the portrayal of PR in movies and television. Others on the panel shared their own research on PR's image in broadcast entertainment as well as novels. Essentially, public relations has been portrayed negatively or incompletely over the years. However, the researchers did say it was getting better more recently. But we can conclude that the entertainment media stereotypes of PR is a partial cause of the public's perception.

Lots of other research shows that the news media doesn't give fair shake to the reality of what PR people do. Journalists typically encounter only the media relations aspect of the job and tend to portray that as the full story. They are also prone to describing PR with negative cliche such as "stunt" or "gimmick," or they diminish the value of PR by saying "just" PR or "mere" PR.

However, while media cultivation theory would say this affects the public's view about PR, a recent academic study shows it's not so bad. Respondents to a telephone survey viewed PR as having an important role in society and disagreed that it is damage control or an attempt to hide something. They did see it as primarily media relations, but at least the view wasn't mostly negative as the recent Gallup poll suggests.

As I noted on the panel about PR in pop culture, public attitudes are not usually strong. People with no real understanding or experience with PR answer the survey because they were asked to and quickly select an easy response, often with little considered thought. Because attitudes are not strong, they also are not stable--they can change quickly. I've witnessed this more than once, such as when a colleague in a faculty meeting comments that something they saw was "just PR" and then after the meeting asks me if one of my students can help them promote something they're working on. It's like people who are critical of lawyers until they need one.

So the lesson is don't get too emotional about these polls. Maybe what we need is a poll about the public's attitude about polls.

Finally, if you want to help improve the public's education and therefore perception of the PR profession, I have two suggestions:

Get a copy of the book "It's Not Just PR" and route it through your office and share it or recommend it to friends;
Pay attention to PRSA's campaign "The Business Case for Public Relations" and participate as you can by sharing information with colleagues in your organization or with your clients. Rosanna Fisk (@Fiskey on Twitter), a fellow panelist with me in St. Louis, is leading this effort.

A Gregarious Introvert on Social Media

2011-08-29T08:08:00.000-04:00

"Happy New Year." That's what they say this time of year on college campuses, as a new academic year begins. Since we're appropriating a phrase from January I thought I may as well engage in a tradition undertaken at the beginning of the calendar year and make a new year's resolution.

Here it is: I will be less social.

I've already gotten started over this past summer. It seems a paradox, that with more time on my hands I've engaged in social media less. But during the school year, when the frenetic demands of a professor's responsibility require my being almost constantly plugged in, monitoring and contributing to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. is a natural extension. But in the summer, a time when I enjoy being offline, outside, and more heavily into literature that exceeds 140 character bursts, I have found it easy to be absent from the surge of status updates, the legions of links, the torrent of tweets.

I have also found it delightful, refreshing, and increasingly, necessary.

A university administrator complimented me late last year by saying my extroverted nature made me well suited for additional administrative responsibilities. My first thought was that when administrators compliment you like this, it generally precedes more work. But more importantly, I wondered how it came to be that I am considered an extrovert.

There are two common misconceptions about extroverts and introverts. One is the definition, that extroverts like to be around other people and introverts like to be alone. Not true. In fact, it's not about liking other people or not, but the manner of drawing and renewing energy. Extroverts get charged up by social interaction, and introverts regain energy with time alone. The second misconception is that people are either one or the other, when the reality is that people fall at many points along an extraversion-intraversion continuum. In other words, people have bits of both characteristics to differing degrees.

It's interesting to me how this may play out on social media. The most active tweeters and updaters and commenters may be those closer to the extraversion end of the scale. This is something for PR professionals with social media responsibility to think about as you engage and segment your publics online.

As for me, I have determined I'm an interesting blend, a 'gregarious introvert.' I truly enjoy social interaction. But at the same time I need more time alone. Maybe I should make the lyrics to "Cool Change" by the Little River Band my mantra, or my ringtone.

It was an unintentional experiment this summer that led me to this conclusion about myself. I dove into a stack of books, both novels and academic tomes. I did projects in the yard. My daily runs were longer. I spent more time on a kayak or bike than in the office. I had more lengthy conversations with my wife (who, by the way, is one of the most social people I know but who so far has refused a Twitter or Facebook account). In all the above activities, I checked email and therefore social media less frequently.

The shocking outcome? I am the better for it. I felt both more calm and more energetic. I felt my thought processes improved.

Actually, this should not be a surprise. The benefits of solitude and deep cognitive activity have long been advocated. Here are a few examples:

Henry David Thoreau, who went into the woods to "live deliberately" and alone and wrote about it in "Walden";
Hannah Arndt's "Life of the Mind" in which she discusses thinking as a solitary dialogue;
Anthony Storr's "Solitude" which makes the case that it is good and necessary for creative expression;
Marshall McLuhan noted well before social media that "we shape our tools and our tools shape us." Perhaps this calls for stepping back a bit from social media to ensure we do more shaping than vice versa.

I notice now that I've been getting back into the swing of things that social media of course has many advantages in terms of information flow and maintaining distant relationships. But it also has a dangerous negative effect in its cacophony of childish voices. At the beach recently I saw children screaming "watch me!" and then they would do something entirely unremarkable and receive their parents' effusive yet obligatory praise. Too often, that's social media. I found much greater benefit being alone atop a dune, getting reacquainted with my inmost thoughts and true self. In view of the Lake Michigan horizon, the words of the ancient psalmist floated through the modern clutter: "be still, and know that I am God." Indeed, what don't we hear when we think we're "engaged"?

So, Happy New Year. After a brief summer break, you'll be seeing me more active again in blogging, tweeting, Facebooking and other forms of media and personal interaction. But I will also seek more balance and time offline. I'll be thinking deep thoughts, reading long texts, and recharging myself. I know I'll be better for it.

Grand Rapids Should Market Its True Population, and Image

2011-07-12T09:50:00.000-04:00

This week's Grand Rapids Business Journal asks in a page one article (subscription required) "Is it legal to market GR as being larger?"

Whenever someone asks is it "legal" my ethical red flags start to flutter.

At issue for the city of Grand Rapids is whether to tout itself as having a population of 602,622, which is the number of residents in Kent County. This would be as opposed to describing itself as having a population of 188,040, which is the number of human beings who live within the actual city limits.

This is a question?!

All of this is related to the ongoing One Kent Coalition debate about merging municipalities with Kent County as one larger and more marketable entity. If those who promote Grand Rapids say the city has more than 600,000 residents they would be in league with places like Boston and Baltimore. The idea is to attract employers and conferences to a city with a more impressive number.

Here's why they should not do so:

It's not true, not even "technically" so. Do I have to explain this more?
Long-term thinking is better. Fudging the numbers is short-term thinking that people will be attracted to Grand Rapids. Long-term thinking considers what happens when site planners, business leaders, convention planners and so on find out the 600,000 was the COUNTY and not the CITY? Probably they'll feel disappointment, have a sense of being swindled, and collectively experience the long-term reputation damage of Grand Rapids trying to present itself as something it's not. Saying that the numbers are "technically" true or "legal" to report that way mean nothing to someone who feels duped, and in fact add to the insult.
There are other sources of information. Government and business directories can easily give the true population figures. When objective and credible third-party information is that far off from marketing materials, it is not a good thing.

A better idea would be to honestly state the facts and then give the context. The heart of the PRSA Code of Ethics is that PR enables "informed decision making"--not inflating the information. A marketing brochure or web site could indicate that the fact that the City of Grand Rapids has a population of 180,000 and then provide the context that the total population of Grand Rapids and surrounding suburbs and other areas in Kent County total more than 600,000. Copy could also address other factors beyond mere numbers, such as quality of work force, education, accommodations, attractions and quality of life. Target publics would then be fully and honestly informed. Imagine that.

Honesty has long been said to be the best policy. It's also best in marketing and public relations, where long-term thinking and relationships yield the best return. That's why PR is about reflecting an actual image, not creating an illusory one. Those who promote Grand Rapids should think about that before they earn a bad reputation.

Whirlpool Represents West Michigan in 2011 PRSA Bronze Anvil Winners

2011-06-30T10:57:00.000-04:00

Benton Harbor based Whirlpool has won a Bronze Anvil in the 2011 awards given annually by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). The home appliance manufacturer is the only West Michigan winner in this years list of awards.

Bronze Anvil awards recognize excellence in public relations tactics, ranging from media relations to annual reports, web sites, social media and other communication tools.

PRSA also gives Silver Anvil awards each year to recognize the best in comprehensive campaigns in a variety of categories. There were no West Michigan winners on the 2011 list of Silver Anvil winners.

Why Did Perkins Slam the Door?

2011-06-14T10:04:00.000-04:00

The closure of Perkins Restaurants, including a half dozen here in West Michigan as well as 65 around the country, happened suddenly. A total of 2,500 employees showed up for work to find locked doors and a closure notice.

The restaurant chain has reasons for the large number of store closures. The Wall Street Journal reports they have filed for bankruptcy after struggling like everyone else in this economy. But a business that bills itself as 'family' -- Perkins Family Restaurant and Bakery -- may have seemed a little dysfunctional in closing its doors to workers without warning. These are the people who tend to work paycheck to paycheck, and a little lead time would seem to be the compassionate deed in a 'family' business.

However, we've seen this sort of thing before. When Cracker Barrel closes stores, including the one on Alpine near I-96 in Grand Rapids a few years ago, it was also done by note on the door. In retail, decisions like these are often made based on market share, competitive analysis and same-store sales (those that have been open more than a year and are not enjoying sales simply because they are new). It's a business, and it makes no sense to stay open if there's no profit.

But from a PR standpoint, how a business closes would seem to matter. Unfortunately, relationships have two sides. I know an investor in Cracker Barrel who was told at an annual meeting that when they used to announce store closures in advance they would see a rash of employees simply not show up as they looked for new jobs, many of them took store property with them on the way.

So, the sudden closures have become the norm to prevent further erosion of assets from employee shoplifting and reputation damage from bad customer service when employees don't show up.

It's unfortunate from a public relations perspective that a relationship with employees needs to be terminated so abruptly. The spokeswoman for Perkins was vague in statements given to local media about the closings and care for employees. I would hope that, after the fact and behind the scenes, management is giving employees some severance pay, and maybe a chance to say goodbye to each other. "Closure" has different connotations when it comes to relationships, and business reputation depends on that as well.

Grand Rapids Lip Dub and PR Value

2011-06-03T13:05:00.000-04:00

There's no doubt the Grand Rapids lip dub video made a big splash. It set records for YouTube hits and garnered an impressive amount of media coverage both locally and nationally. A casual observer would conclude this is fantastic for Grand Rapids.

Certainly there's much to like about it. In fact, the video was almost as good as the one done last fall by the film/video students and faculty in the Grand Valley State University School of Communications (he said without any bias whatsoever).

But a critical PR mind goes beyond the "all publicity is good publicity" simplicity commonly attributed to circus showman PT Barnum. What will all this lib dub hubbub really do for Grand Rapids? There are a couple of questions to consider:

Awareness, attitude, action. I call these the 3 As of public relations measurement, whether from media relations or any other PR activity. There is no doubt the lip dub generated awareness, but is it changing attitudes? Maybe, but most of the comments are about the video itself and not necessarily a resulting positive perception of the city. You also have to wonder what people know about Grand Rapids beyond the few downtown scenes--maybe the video will be a catalyst to read more, and social media no doubt will have influence. Finally, will the lib dub result in desired actions by key publics, such as more business and tourist visits to the city? Possibly, but not necessarily.
Exposure, outcome, engagement. These are other levels of measurement in PR, similar to the ones above. Exposure is what has most people excited because of the record number of views and media coverage. Outcome can broken down into the 3 As mentioned above--what was the result of the exposure? Lots of people saw the video, but so what? Engagement has to do with feedback and longevity. Is the city--it's government, businesses, institutions etc.--having on-going dialogue with publics with whom it has not previously interacted, through social media and other means.
Tone, accuracy. Most of the coverage I have seen has been positive. National media figures give kudos to Grand Rapids for responding to Newsweek calling it a 'dying city' and forcing the magazine to concede it erred. It's a good narrative. Others just liked the video and thought Grand Rapids looked like a great city. But it's always good to not just count clippings--you have to see what all that media is actually saying. Accuracy is another issue--Roger Ebert paid a great compliment to the video but referred to CEDAR Rapids--he corrected his error later. But it shows how messages don't always penetrate intact. Speaking of which, what was the message? Did it get through? To whom?
Lasting effect, brand. Research shows us that attitudes are fickle, subject to change from positive to negative. They are also short-lived, receding to a latent or unconscious state quickly. Sure, we're all the rage now. But in a week or a month the views of the video and the media reports about it will dwindle, and talk will move quickly to dogs dining in a restaurant or some other meme or amusement. That's why many say initial publicity helps build a brand but ongoing public relations activity is needed to maintain it, whether that be more videos, links from existing on-line presence, social media continuity, or a paid advertising campaign that piggybacks off the lip dub attention. But then you have to wonder what the brand is: "Grand Rapids = American Pie"? "Grand Rapids = The City That Did a Lip Dub"? A strategy is needed to integrate this video with ArtPrize, the entrepreneurial business environment, the medical mile and other aspects of the city's brand.

The last scene in the video was "Experience Grand Rapids" spelled out on the lawn of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum as viewed from a helicopter. I wouldn't be surprised if the staff over there will dovetail measuring the effect of the lip dub with all their other efforts to promote the city.

Enhancing the Profession Means Educating Journos About PR

2011-05-06T14:22:00.001-04:00

I think it started when I was president of the West Michigan Chapter of PRSA back in 2004. Among the broader goals for the organization from the national level was one to advocate for the profession of public relations, or, to take a line from the PRSA Code of Ethics, to "enhance the profession."

I took that seriously, not just because I was in local chapter leadership at the time, but because I think the issue of the perception of the PR profession is important. So I took action that year, including have a joint WMPRSA-Grand Rapids Economics Club meeting which featured a speaker on Corporate Social Responsibility. The idea was to show that PR is something more than what is typically demonized as intentional deception or minimized as mere publicity.

Since then I've tried to respond whenever possible when PR is mischaracterized. This could mean speaking up in a faculty meeting with my beloved colleagues from other majors in the GVSU School of Communications. It has also included commenting on specific media portrayals of PR such as a recent article in TIME magazine that I discussed in an earlier post on this blog. I've also traced the origins of media portrayals of PR in an article in the Journal of Communication Management. In August I will participate in a panel discussion about the media image of PR at the annual convention of the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

So this week, when I read an article in Columbia Journalism Review, a collaboration with ProPublica, purporting to give yet another investigative insight into the profession, I had to respond with a comment. That was noticed by a few people, one of whom is an editor at PR Daily who asked me to edit the comment as an op-ed for today's edition, which I gladly did. You can read that comment here.

I was most delighted to read additional comments from other PR practitioners and professors. PR is a diverse profession, with an impressive array of talents and perspectives. But if there's anything that is in common among the majority, it is that the media, while right to point out bad apples, do a disservice to the profession and the public when they focus ONLY on that and insinuate that PR is defined by the few. It's akin to pointing out pornography and saying "that's photography."

Part of "enhancing the profession" means we all have to make sure our own work is honest, ethical and a service to society as well as the organizations we serve. The more positive examples of PR there are, the better reflection on the profession. But when so much good work is ignored in favor of sensational discussion of a few episodes of bad practice, we all must speak out not just for ourselves, but the profession as a whole. I hope to see even more PR pros engaging the media and public not just for their clients, but for the profession. And while academics don't get many points for publishing in non-academic periodicals, I am happy to see an increase in the number of professors engaging trade publications and mainstream media to offer an honest perspective on public relations.

When TV Stations Do PR

2011-04-22T10:09:00.000-04:00

The whole episode of the sudden departure of longtime WOOD TV 8 anchor Suzanne Geha from the air this week is interesting for several reasons. But mostly, its interesting because of the hilarious hypocrisy and bad form of a local TV station handling public relations so badly.

People forget that while they know TV 8 and other media entities as "the media" and consider them a special institution in society, they are nothing more than another business. Their product is news, or actually, a platform for advertisers to reach potential customers--news is just the hook to draw viewers to entice advertisers.

So, as in many other cases, it all boils down to the money. Geha and the off-camera managers couldn't agree on a contract, and she was sent to the curb with the recycling.

But what is most interesting is how badly WOOD TV 8 managed the public relations of what is a significant event for any business--the loss of a high profile face of the organization, a significant part of their "brand". You would think a business that trades in public communication would have been ready for this. But instead they exhibited the same type of reticent corporate behavior that the news staff at WOOD TV 8 complains about and fights against every day to bring news--First! Best! Live!--to the community.

But their own news generates only a terse and insincere statement covered by competing media, namely the Grand Rapids Press. Had this been any other business in town WOOD TV 8 would have been all over it, and Suzie herself would have intoned the details, breathlessly, at 11 pm.

Less than a month ago my wife and I and a small crowd of Spring Lake residents heard Geha speak at the local library as part of a series of speeches by prominent local women. How ironic to think back now of how she complained in her stump speech about corporate executives who try to 'manage the news' and avoid being accountable to public interest.

So now her former employer trots out the lawyers to say the public curiosity does not translate into a right to know. Get that? A TV station using a lawyer for media relations with another media outlet! If you read the comment in the Press, be sure to scroll down and see the comments. Local media consumers are not stupid people. They see the irony, hypocrisy, and the dents in the WOOD TV 8 brand.

In fact, the day the news hit the streets, I noted on Twitter that it was Geha's own Facebook page that provided her the civil farewell that WOOD TV 8 seemed incapable of doing. She had 229 new friends that day. The Press--which has a Geha desk now I think--reports that her Facebook page now has more than 3500 friends. She may use this platform to compete with EightWest.

Several years ago I went to Washington D.C. to teach a certification course to a group of people who are part of NBACA--the National Broadcast Association for Community Affairs. As I told the group, they were basically the PR staff for their respective stations. I've had several of my own PR students intern in the Community Affairs department at WOOD TV 8, something they call "Connect With Community." The station has invested lots of time and resources to getting their on-air personalities out there between broadcasts to meet people at events.

Too bad that in this case when they lose a personality who has been with the station for 30 years that they inexplicably cut that connection.

West Michigan Represented in 2011 Bulldog Awards

2011-04-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

Hot off the press release, Bulldog Reporter announced the winners of its 2011 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media and Public Relations Campaigns.

Among the winners is Grand Rapids PR and investor relations firm Lambert Edwards & Associates (LEA). The firm won gold in the category "Best Integration of PR and IR in a Business Campaign" for its campaign for SNAK-ing Success.

There are a variety of categories with winners representing large and small agencies as well as in-house PR departments. LEA appears to be the only winner from Michigan.

You can see the full list of 2011 winners here.

Young Creatives and Workplace Needs

2011-03-29T18:41:00.000-04:00

Grand Rapids advertising firm Hanon-McKendry recently invited a group of professors to come in and discuss what the local professionals are seeing in the workplace in terms of skills needed from recent college grads seeking employment.

I was invited but couldn't attend because the meeting took place during one of my class meeting times. But the gist of the meeting is that advertising agencies need the communication and story-telling skills of "digital natives" again, after several years of looking to hire only people with several years of experience. You can read an article about it in MiBiz (free registration required).

The timing of this meeting was coincidental with a broader national discussion about how universities should be preparing aspiring advertising and public relations professionals.

In the "Firm Voice", the blog of the Council of PR Firms, a recent post summarized the views of a panel of educators and professionals. Essentially, PR students need more experiential "hands-on" learning (which is why we have real class clients and require an internship at GVSU) and professors need to continue to keep up with technology and the changes and needs of the workplace.

An article in the Autumn/Winter 2010 issue of Journalism and Mass Communication Educator notes that advertising management--which includes the subjects of strategy, branding, positioning, research, planning, teamwork, agency structure and operations etc--is viewed by professionals and professors as an important part of an undergraduate curriculum. Nationally, 60% of programs in advertising or advertising/pr have a required advertising management course, and the remainder offer such coursework as an elective.

An article in the Fall 2010 Journal of Advertising Education stressed the following after depth interviews with a dozen senior creative directors from across the country: agencies need "hybrid" creatives with a broad understanding of interactive and traditional media; young professionals must have a better appreciation of strategy than ever before; conceptual ability as well as craft (i.e. skills) are important; familiarity with technology is expected but expertise is not; portfolios should be online or many in the position to hire won't bother looking at a resume.

There are lots of interesting changes in the advertising and PR professions. It's important that educators and practitioners continue to listen to each other. It's even more important that students pay attention to what professors and professionals are saying about the requirements for entry into the profession.

WMU Gift: A "Good Crisis"?

2011-03-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week Western Michigan University announced an anonymous $100 million gift to support a new medical school.

If you are in public relations, you might be thinking this is a great day to be in the profession. Such a positive announcement to make. A day of "good" news. The coverage was great, including stories in the national media such as the Wall Street Journal as well as the obvious local stories on MLive.com (including both the Kalamazoo Gazette and Grand Rapids Press) and the higher education trade publication Chronicle of Higher Education.

It's all good, right?

Sure. But it also could be considered a case of crisis communications. We always assume crises are related to negative and dangerous situations, such as natural disasters or tragic criminal activity. They get most of the attention and are labeled as crises. But a "crisis" has been defined as instability, a turning point, a sudden change. That could be good or bad. In public relations terms, crises are defined for the purposes of crisis communications as sudden scrutiny by the public and/or the media.

By those definitions, even a sudden GOOD event or turning point could be a "crisis." As evidenced by the swift coverage from local to national media, WMU had to deal with sudden scrutiny. That meant having a good plan to unveil the announcement on their schedule, and being ready to handle the inevitable follow-up conversations, such as speculation about who the donors are, the impact on other medical schools, the need and capacity in Kalamazoo for a medical school.

WMU has been handling it all well. But this episode is a good reminder that PR people can't sit back and enjoy after releasing "good" news. We need to always be in "crisis" mode in terms of planning communications, monitoring response, and being ready to follow up, even when the news is good.

Michigan Gains First Nationally Recognized Student-Run PR Firm

2011-03-24T16:19:00.001-04:00

ALLENDALE, Mich., March 23, 2011 - GrandPR, a public relations firm of Grand Valley State University students, is the first nationally affiliated, student-run firm in Michigan, as of Monday March 21st, 2011.

 While there are more than 100 student-run public relations firms nationwide, only the elite are nationally recognized by the Public Relations Student Society of America’s (PRSSA) national board. Being nationally affiliated ensures high standards in three segments: a strong connection with PRSSA and the parent chapter, Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), an advanced level of professionalism and a solid organizational structure.

In April of 2010, GrandPR consisted of two staff members, zero clients and was in the process of creating a new brand and structure. “Our goals for the school year were to become established, reputable and nationally recognized,” said Sarah Myles, GrandPR CEO.

In addition to meeting national-level expectations, GrandPR set high standards to ensure results for its clients. The current staff of 23 has worked with ten clients in the past seven months, including Erb Thai, Boardwalk Subs and the Allendale Area Chamber of Commerce.

Teams of an account executive and account associates researched, created and executed campaigns from start to finish. Results included media placements, social media interaction and overall brand awareness.

“We have met all the national standards on paper, but what makes GrandPR stand out is the journey we have experienced in the last seven months,” said Myles. “Endless hours and sleepless nights fueled by a passion for the public relations industry was the driving forces behind our recent success.”

“National affiliation was one of our wildest dreams,” said Myles. “Our wildest dream has become the sweetest reality.”

###

About GrandPR
GrandPR is a full-service public relations firm of young professionals. GrandPR is a firm within Grand Valley State University’s Public Relations Student Society of America chapter. All GrandPR staff members are full-time college students and national PRSSA members. GrandPR commits to providing strategic public relations counsel with innovative communication tactics from a fresh, young perspective.
grandpr.org

About Public Relations Student Society of America
Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) is the student chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA.) PRSSA allows members to network with other public relations students and professionals, educate about the public relations industry outside of classroom lessons and help launch careers. PRSSA follows PRSA’s footsteps in ethics, diversity and business cases.
gvsuprssa.org

What I Learned at the International PR Research Conference

2011-03-17T14:00:00.000-04:00

I attended the 14^th International Public Relations Research Conference in Miami March 9-12. The conference is coordinated by faculty and graduate students at the University of Miami and is associated with the Institute for Public Relations. Check out the web site if you never have before—it’s a great resource for PR practitioners and scholars alike, especially the archived research. See this recent IPR blog interview with BYU Professor Brad Rawlins about the importance of research.

At this year's conference there were PR faculty and students, as well as PR practitioners, from the U.S. as well as other countries, including England, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Brazil, Japan and Korea. More than 100 presentations were given in roundtable format, also called the “speed dating” version of academic research presentations. Each hour participants can visit four of six tables to hear and briefly discuss current research in public relations.

I’m giving a rapid fire, bullet list rundown of only some of the key research reported. I would hope this is interesting for my PR students as well as PR professors and professionals who may be interested. You can check for the proceedings of the conference—i.e. full copies of all papers presented—on IPR’s web site in a few months.

Evaluation

A representative from Determinus explained their Metric Model for measuring engagement and influence on a simple 1-5 scale;
Work is being done to automate trust and relationship measurement, but more refinement is needed and it only works for organizations with lots of social media conversations;
Practitioners have very vague and mixed notions of what ROI (return on investment) means for PR. Writing guidelines for ROI measurement standards supported by best practice models was suggested;
Katie Delahaye Paine was present with her new book “Measure What Matters” which is infused with social media concepts.

Ethics

PR professionals fall into three main groups in terms of their views about their role in handling ethics: managers of organizational values, autonomous and principled decision makers, advisors on the public interest.
In Brazil, where practitioners must be licensed to do what is defined as “public relations,” those with a license were no more ethical than those without a license. Personal standards and the organization where they work were larger influencers of ethics.
An examination of the government response to the BP oil spill crisis shows government communicators perceive ethical responsibilities in terms of accountability, reciprocity and social responsibility.

Crisis Communications

There is a natural tension and paradox of organizations wanting to be autonomous but also being dependent on their publics for success. Organizations should be authentic in their relationships—especially in crises when that tension is heightened--to recognize and understand this paradox rather than seek to suppress it.
An examination of the Toyota crisis found that blog coverage was more negative, less civil, and tended to blame Toyota more than newspaper coverage.
A positive reputation prior to a crisis, defensive response to the crisis, and CEO visibility in first response to a crisis led to the best stakeholder attitudes and purchase intentions.
Another study found that an initially negative reputation was actually improved during a crisis, which may be explained by sympathy (if not human error caused) and is called a “crisis bounce” in reputation.
Several studies called for more research and refined practice in international and multicultural aspects of crises.
A review of Robert Gibbs statements to the press show that the role of press secretary has evolved from journalistic/public information approach to one of continuous image maintenance or repair.

Social Media

One study identified five “tribes” of PR professionals in terms of how and why they are using social media: information gatherers, information promoters, social networkers, organizational outreachers, internal communicators.
Communal (vs exchange) relationships are more likely to increase the behavioral communication intentions of a public toward an organization. Interactivity also had a positive effect.
Corporations often want social media separate from corporate site because they fear complaints and open dialogue on their site. Also, they see staff time and capacity for required dialogue to be limited.
Most corporations talk about importance of social media measurement but only one-third do and it is mostly output vs outcomes measurement.
A PR pro’s years of experience in PR, years with an employer, a manager role, and being top level all lead to more relational vs promotional content in organizational blogs.

Sports PR

Attitudes toward a team and behavioral intentions (ie game attendance) were not affected by severity of a crisis or exposure to negative media coverage. This is especially true for those with high initial team identification.
The success of global team brands such as Real Madrid come from players creating content, segmenting publics, and turning regular events into massive spectacles.

International PR

Cross-border product PR requires intercultural thinking, local knowledge, and contextualized strategies.
Teaching international PR is enhanced when using a virtual model of learning (VMOL) in which classes from two countries collaborate to do campaigns for organizations in each others’ countries.

PR Education

A study of employers and young professionals largely confirms that we are teaching what should be taught in PR programs—more than tactics, criticial thinking, writing, video, research, knowledge of the workplace (business, nonprofit, or government), hands-on experiences as well as deep theoretical understanding.
Entrepreneurship is a “missing chapter” in fundamental PR courses. PR students need to know how to help entrepreneurs and also how to be entrepreneurs.
Teamwork needs to be formally taught within classes, particularly upper level campaigns courses.
Employers expect it, and there is ample literature on teamwork and small group communication.

'Churnalism', 'Information Subsidy,' or Good PR?

2011-03-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

Stop the presses--journalists are using press releases. It's happening from GR to the UK, from citizen journalism to mainstream media (which is also, ironically, practiced by citizens).

Fellow Grand Rapids PR practitioner and blogger Derek DeVries pointed out on his Imprudent Loquaciousness blog that hyper local citizen journalism site The Rapidian had done a complete copy and paste of a news release about local banker Jim Dunlap receiving an award. But this may not be about unprofessionalism of citizen journalists: the Grand Rapids Press ran an article largely spoon fed by the same release.

DeVries points out that if someone is going to copy and paste from a news release, at least they could eliminate the hastags (###) that indicate the end of a news release so the "article" looks legitimate. In the case of the Rapidian, the Center for Community Leadership is clearly identified as the source of the article and is registered on the Rapidian site as a nonprofit. At least they are somewhat transparent about the source.

As for the Press and other media, the issue seems to be whether or not it's ok for journalists to run news releases verbatim. In the UK this has recently been called "churnalism," based on the notion that PR pros churn out press releases and feed the media. There is even a web site by that name that allows people to paste text from a news release and compare it with articles in British newspapers and the BBC.

What's interesting about this "issue" is that it indicts both journalists and PR pros. Journalists for being lazy and unsceptical tools; PR pros for taking advantage of and manipulating the media.

But I have a couple of other thoughts about this--this is neither new nor terrible.

It's not new because way back in 1982 Oscar Gandy wrote a book "Beyond Agenda Setting" in which he introduced the concept of "information subsidy," which basically describes the reality that journalists can't always meet the burden of information gathering so they accept information in the form of press releases and other materials from public relations professionals. Obviously, there is potential for harm since the "subsidizers" are not always objective.

But PR professionals are not necessarily manipulative either. In fact, if a news release is run verbatim it may not indicate a lazy journalist, but rather a good PR professional who wrote objective facts in appropriate news style. Just because copy is not changed does not mean it is not verified.

Also, PR professionals seem to be damned if they do and if they don't. People complain about unethical influence on the news if we offer news releases, but if governments and businesses say nothing we are chided for being unresponsive to the public's right to know.

I know from my experience as a practitioner and research as a professor that often people turn to news releases instead of mainstream media for information. They are reasonably confident in their ability to tell fact from bluster and genuine news from sensationalism.

So instead of laying blame on a simple communication tactic, the news release, or vilifying the entire profession of public relations, we should let truth be the guide. There are plenty of good journalists and PR pros who honestly want to serve the public good with accurate information. The bad eggs will be found out. As John Milton wrote in 1644 when fighting government censorship in the Aereopagitica: "Let truth and falsehood grapple; whoever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"

Branding Grand Haven an Interesting Challenge

2011-03-10T14:53:00.002-05:00

(Cross posted from my other blog: Pier Points and also from the March 10, 2011 issue of the Grand Haven Tribune)

So what is Grand Haven’s downtown brand? Or should I say, what is Brand Haven?

Last week the Grand Haven Tribune reported that Grand Haven is one of four cities chosen to be part of a new downtown branding program run by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). This is interesting because I would not associate MSHDA with downtown branding—a little branding irony there. I also couldn’t find anything about this pilot program on their web site, possibly because it’s still so new. Anyway, the other cities are Boyne City, Clare and Niles. In 16-20 weeks, downtown Grand Haven will have a brand new brand.

So, you’re asking, what does this mean? Well, often branding is little more than a logo. It started years ago when ranchers used hot “brands”—metal shaped into a unique design, such as a “circle T” or a “triple R”—to sear a mark into their cattle to indicate they belonged to their ranch. I don’t think we’ll see hot metal rods or smell the burning flesh of downtown merchants, but we’ll probably be exposed to some unique Grand Haven logo by the time the first summer tourist rolls into town.

Logos can’t be taken lightly. Think of McDonalds’ “golden arches” or the Nike “swoosh.” People see those iconic symbols and associate them immediately with the intoxicating aroma of French fries or athletic prowess. None of the branding literature I’ve read points out that you should not think of French fries while exerting yourself in sports. For that you need common sense.

Common sense helps in branding too. Because you need more than merely a logo to really be successful. This is especially true when branding a city, or a destination. You probably have never overheard anyone say something like this: “If you have to ask me why I’m going to Podunk, you obviously haven’t seen their logo!” This is why highly paid consultants usually recommend... a slogan!

Slogans are short phrases that capture the essence of a brand. Nike made a lot of hay with their “Just do it” campaign. I should know. I just did it. So Grand Haven needs more than a big GH inside a circle or something. It needs a slogan. Something like “Just come here!” Or maybe, “Grand Haven: Between Holland and Muskegon.” I could offer something really compelling, but I am not being highly paid for this column.

I will tell you what some of our neighbor cities did recently, to give you an idea. Zeeland garnered a lot of attention with its “Feel the Zeel” campaign. You can see how that’s going on their blog. Downtown Grand Rapids launched a campaign with a counter-intuitive, reverse psychology slogan of “Keep it a Secret.” If you never heard of it you can see how fabulously successful it has been!

But if brands are only a logo and a slogan, they can really backfire. If McDonalds’ food was overpriced or unsatisfying, if Nike’s products were cheaply made, their logos and slogans would be the source of laughter and not positive association. It’s what those of us who teach and practice ethical advertising and PR call “putting lipstick on the pig.”

So Grand Haven needs more than a logo and slogan. It needs to ensure that the experience people have when they come to downtown Grand Haven is unique, special and positive. It has to be so positive and unique that they tell others about it. This is why the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention and Visitors Bureau recently renamed themselves “Experience Grand Rapids.”

Grand Haven does have some unique characteristics. There already are people who choose to come from Grand Rapids and places farther away to enjoy the area, including downtown. But while logos and slogans are fun and creative, the most important part of branding is often a combination of a unique offering and some very routine basics that will help meet and exceed visitors’ expectations. That means downtown merchants who offer things that people want and they can’t get anywhere else. It means a unique environment, such as the new streetscape and the proximity to the channel and Lake Michigan. But it also means adequate parking, stores that stay open past 6 p.m. and free coffee for college professors. I threw that last one in to see if you’re paying attention. But, it could be a unique part of the brand.

Even more important than all of the above is that everyone in downtown Grand Haven “lives” the brand. That means actually believing in and working to deliver the experience that the final brand proposes to offer. We’re between the windy city and the motor city. We can’t ask people to “feel the zeel” or experience Grand Rapids. But we are who we are.

I’m eager to see and hear what that is exactly.

More Social Media for Small Business

2011-03-01T17:16:00.001-05:00

If you read the article offering social media tips for small business in this week's Grand Rapids Business Journal (subscription required), you should know two things.

One, the lead says four local people who are social media savvy offer tips, but five people--including yours truly--are pictured. Since I appear last, I will assume I am the one of the five who is not savvy:-)

Two, GRBJ reporter Elizabeth Slowik only had room for some of what each of us said. So, even given the realities of my first point, I offer the rest of my quick thoughts in response to her query for the article.

Listen first

The usual process of getting into social media is: listen to conversations, respond, and then initiate and host conversations. Again, the metaphor is like going to a meeting or social gathering where it’s bad form to jump into a small group without first understanding what those who were there before you were talking about.

It’s about the quality of relationships, not the number of followers.

Having a lot of followers on Twitter and “likes” on Facebook can be an impressive metric. But some research shows large percentages of people retreat from social media after an initial experience. Or they follow or like you but your messages are competing with a lot of other clutter in their feed or stream. So you have to measure “engagement,” or how often people are talking to you and your company, re-tweeting or sharing what you say, complimenting you and recommending you to their networks.

Understand the unique nature of each channel.

A common mistake for newcomers to social media happens when they figure out they can connect their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Soon they send all their tweets to Facebook and LinkedIn. Next they stop checking Facebook and LinkedIn and responding to people who engage them there. Sure, this is convenient for you. But you should cultivate different networks, and different types of conversations in each social medium. A good metaphor is that Twitter is like a party, Facebook is like a reunion, and LinkedIn is a business conference. When you have the exact same message in all three it can not only lead to "inappropriate" messages, but it is tantamount to shouting loudly and boorishly in a restaurant so you are heard not only where you are, but in every other booth in the joint. If you are a guru maybe people won’t mind that you shout through all networks. But there’s a better chance you’ll look like a narcissist.

Think “distributed PR.”

Some businesses have one person or department in charge of all social media engagement. Another option is to empower all employees to tweet and engage on behalf of the business. This makes a lot of sense because more people equates to more conversations and impressions in the social space. Also, the nature of the conversations can be better; a product engineer will have a different way of engaging, with specific information and perspective, as compared to a customer service representative. This requires a good social media policy and training for employees, as well as a solid internal organizational culture. Services like co-tweet and Facebook pages with multiple administrators enable sharing the social media conversations among employees.

Try-It-Local Joins Local Coupon Craze in Grand Haven

2011-02-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

There's a new player in the hyper-local social media coupon craze. If you are already familiar with Daily Deals or Groupon, take a look at another local deal vendor, with a slight twist.

Try-It-Local has just been launched by the Chamber of Grand Haven, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg (interesting that the tryitlocal.com site read my IP address and took me directly to the Grand Haven portion of the site). The chamber involvement is the added feature in this case, and it works like this:

The Chamber features an offer from a member business that has a discount of 40% off or more for a product or service.
The offer is delivered to Try It Local subscribers via email, the Chamber's Facebook page, Twitter page and TryItLocal.com
The featured member business collects 70% of each day's total sales and is charged no fees for the promotion.

The video tutorial does a nice job of explaining the details. Looks like a win-win for the chamber, member businesses, and customers.

Notes from GVSU PRSSA Tour of Chicago

2011-02-14T11:39:00.000-05:00

I accompanied 21 GVSU PRSSA students last Friday on a trip to Chicago to visit some PR firms. In each case we were grateful for the generosity of the PR professionals who took time for us. Here's a run-down of what we discussed.

Cision
This visit was arranged with the help of GVSU alumnus Leah Burns. Cision of course is the company that provides media contact lists and many other tools for PR professions. The most exciting aspect of this visit for me was learning more about the university program that will allow students access to CisionPoint to do assignments in our media relations class. The company has an impressive outreach with resources for professionals and students alike. They go well beyond databases to provide everything from analytics to industry knowledge on the latest trends. Among the things their staff discussed with students is the need to look not just at media outlets but the social capital of individual journalists--in other words, in addition to the column they write for a newspaper, they have a Twitter following, a blog, and likely are influential in Facebook, Quora and other forums as well. As an example of that, check out JournalistTweets.com to see Cision's aggregated list of journalists on twitter. We also had a good conversation about the right way to approach journalists. Just having their contact info is not enough. You want to make sure you don't get placed on a PR blacklist.

After a short visit to a colleague at DePaul University's College of Communications, I caught up with the students for an obligatory lunch of Chicago pizza. Then our busy day continued...

Leo Burnett

Students at Leo Burnett hear from
alumna Lynseey Roumell and colleagues

Yes, Leo Burnett is an ad agency. But former student Lynsey Roumell works there in a new internal team that essentially does PR for the agency. They work on promoting Leo's creative reputation, thought leadership, touting its client work, and working with "people and talent" (the HR department) to keep the legions of global employees in the loop and on brand message. We had fun viewing some of the agency's recent work, such as the Mayhem ads, and also talked about the new HumanKind book by CEO Tom Bernardin and Chief Creative Officer Mark Tutssel.

Ruder Finn
The Chicago office of this PR firm is smaller, and senior account executive Joseph Tateoka said he likes the family feeling of the office. They do a lot of consumer, tech and B2B work in Chicago, but often work with people in other RF offices on various types of PR. Tateoka (@jtat) on Twitter, is passionate about reaching out to young professionals. He is a professional advisor for the DePaul PRSSA chapter, and welcomes questions from any PR students. Among his gems of good advice: do multiple internships. This was a recurring theme all day.

Kurman Communications
We ended the day with a visit to this boutique firm. Cindy Kurman started working for the auto industry more than 25 years ago and now specializes in the restaurant industry, although she and her husband and two staffers work with other clients as well. The informal chat enlightened students on the need to think versus just waiting for instructions (something I stress in classes). They shared one fun example of using an events calendar to tag several restaurant clients in a feature style round-up pitch letter about national margarita day. You can see it yourself, along with all their media work, on the agency's "got buzz" blog.

On PR and Business Education

2011-02-10T10:12:00.002-05:00

I hear quite often that "PR students should study business." It is uttered as an obvious truth. Certainly it makes some sense that PR people who will be working with counterparts in marketing and finance should be able to read a balance sheet and be conversant in typical business lingo. That's one of the assertions of a recent post on Ragan.com about PR pros getting MBAs. However, if you read the comments to that post, you'll see there are other advanced degree options.

I also have an alternative view. I wouldn't discourage an undergrad from taking courses or minoring in business to supplement their PR degree, nor would I stand in the way of a PR professional getting an MBA. But I would raise a few points for consideration:

What if you don't end up doing PR for a business? A shock, I know. Most people who work for businesses can't fathom that the PR jobs in the OTHER TWO THIRDS of the labor sector--i.e. nonprofits and government--outnumber them. For an aspiring PR pro who wants to work in a nonprofit setting, or for a government agency, taking other classes in public administration, political science or some other discipline would likely make more sense. Don't get me started on the "round-peg-in-the-square-hole" that "this nonprofit/government should be run like a business." (If only more businesses were run like some outstanding nonprofits I know....)
Do you fear co-option? If you start talking the business language, and feeling compelled to prove your business chops and demonstrate your business thinking, is the PR perspective you bring going to be drowned out? Too often PR is tucked under marketing and seen only as a tactic to accomplish marketing objectives. Is getting a business degree a way of "selling out" to the narrow view that all publics are customers and the only objective is sales? Do you want to be relinquishing your unique and broader PR perspective?
Throw the flag for "encroachment." Encroachment is a term in academic literature that describes the phenomenon where a person from one discipline "encroaches" on the responsibilities of another discipline. For example, when the lawyer insists on being the spokesperson instead of the PR professional, or when the marketing director turns a decent news release into a product literature brochure. Similar to the above point, if you try too much to talk and think like your business co-workers, they will see that as a sign that your job needs to be done their way too.
Groupthink. I first learned about this phenomenon, developed by Irving Janus, in a communication class. It describes situations in which groups make faulty decisions because of a perceived consensus and ignoring alternatives. I don't know if they discuss it in business classes or not. But it seems likely that a management team in a business that stresses a business perspective would perceive unanimity and possibly ignore some good alternatives that, oh I don't know, someone with a PR and communication background and perspective could raise. Better decisions are made when all options and viewpoints are freely expressed to inform the decision making process. PR people think about mutual understanding, conversations, relationships, with all stakeholders. Businesses exist to make a legitimate profit, strive for efficiency, and manage for quarterly goals. But a PR perspective, which may seem like a warm, fuzzy tangent to a business mind, can lead to "outside the box" strategy, prevent crises, strengthen repeat business, put word of mouth outreach on legs and yield many other benefits.

It seems that some in the business education community have come around to realizing that hard core business goals of maximizing profit and efficiency are not the only priority or perspective. Just last week Harvard Business School announced it is changing its B-school curriculum to add an increased focus on ethics and teamwork (Wall Street Journal, subscription may be required).

That's a good start. Another idea, which never comes up when people tell me with rock solid confidence (and arrogance to match) that PR people need to study business, is this: maybe business people should study PR! Most marketing texts treat it in a paragraph in chapter 20. A fundamental problem in many businesses is the limited view of PR as merely media relations. But PR is not a tactic, it's a way of thinking. It is--I'll say it again--broader than marketing in terms of publics and objectives considered. Marketing runs deeper with regard to customers to include everything from product packaging to pricing to channels of distribution.

So, yes, PR people who happen to work in business might benefit from studying business. But business people have an equal incentive to expand their understanding and respect for what public relations is all about. There needs to be what we in PR call a "mutual relationship." If there are any business people who don't understand that, I can recommend some good programs where you can get a master's in communications.

Rockford Man, GR Studio Star in SuperBowl Chrysler Ad

2011-02-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of buzz in West Michigan about the Chrysler ad that aired during the SuperBowl. It made people proud of Detroit and Michigan.

However, some skeptics, including yours truly, wonder how the ad would resonate nationally. The scenes were of cold, industrial Detroit. There was an unmistakable sense of pride but co-mingled with self-pity. It seemed to be a city from the past, especially juxtaposed with another SuperBowl ad from BMW about their Spartanburg, South Carolina manufacturing center. While it had more conventional production values and less drama, it was about America--"designed in America, built in America"--and was bright, clean, and warm.

But if we are going for localized pride, at least we can be proud that the Chrysler ad, although produced by Portland, Oregon based Wieden+Kennedy, had some local talent. That included the voice over by Rockford resident Kevin Yon, as the Freep reports. And at least Wieden+Kennedy partnered with Grand Rapids based Sound Post for the audio recording.

Consumers around the country won't likely know or care about the source of the V.O. and audio work, any more than they'll be moved to buy a car because a city cries out in painful pride. But the ad community knows, and that's a score.

My PR Students Don't Waste First Two Years of College

2011-01-18T17:24:00.000-05:00

I was a little conflicted, and a little upset.

I read this morning's USA Today article about a report that claims students gain very little from their first two years of college. The same article made the rounds of Chronicle of Higher Education and other trade and mainstream media.

Of course, criticism of higher education is not new, and in many ways it's appropriate given the importance of a college education in today's market and the fact that many colleges are funded at least in part by taxpayers. Indeed, the report's results showing a lack of rigor, both in terms of student attitudes and from some professors more interested in research than teaching, is consistent with an observed problem on some campuses.

But the danger is that people will generalize too much from this report. I know that here at Grand Valley State University, the message is loud, clear and frequent that teaching is paramount. That "rigor" word comes up often in meetings with faculty colleagues and deans.

I also know from my own experience that while some students may not apply themselves in their first two years on campus, many are beyond precocious in taking every opportunity to learn and grow.

Witness an event I attended last Friday night. It was an awards/kick-off banquet for GrandPR, the student-run PR firm associated with the GVSU Chapter of PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America. Let me emphasize, this was an event planned and executed entirely by students. This was all extracurricular and voluntary. This was evidence of their passion for their profession on a Friday night when many students might have been looking for more social activities. I was only invited as their advisor.

But I was glad I went. In fact, I have not often been more proud in my 10 years of teaching full time. They gave awards to individuals and teams of students for their public relations work with clients in the community--restaurants, a housing complex, a chamber of commerce, and more. They did research, media relations, web work, social media, events--again, all of this was outside of class requirements.

Student Stephanie Rice speaks
at the GVSU PRSSA GrandPR event.

As for not making gains in their first two years of college, consider this passage from the group's president, Stephanie Rice, that night:

"I first joined PRSSA 4 years ago as a little Freshman, new to GVSU. Charlotte Sasinowski was the President then and during my sophomore year. Doug Clements was the Treasurer. I still remember the first day I heard about GrandPR… at a PRSSA meeting. Charlotte and Doug stood at the front of Kirkhof 2266, and Doug said: “If you are interested in working for GrandPR, stay after the meeting.” Now, at that time, I had NO clue what GrandPR even meant. But of course, I stayed anyways. Fast forward a bit and I was sitting in a GrandPR team meeting as an Account Associate on Leah’s team. This was the first night I met Stacey Nardozzi – yes – Stacey was a Freshman Account Associate. Our client was Lakeview Financial, and we had to write a news release and create direct mail pieces. And I heard Leah talk about client meetings and collecting payment. (It was pretty legit ;) To be completely honest, I can’t say I contributed anything meaningful to that account. But I was a darn good sponge. Fast forward to last year and Sarah Myles is chosen as the new GrandPR Firm Director. The same night I am elected President of PRSSA. Leading up to that night, the two of us talked forever about what we wanted to do if we got these positions. Well, you are all here and you are all a part of them. So how are we doing?"

I know what I think. They're doing very well. It's a very different story than what you might get if you believed studies reported on in USA Today are reflective of all young people.

'PR in Practice' Video Interviews With Practitioners

2011-01-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

My fall 2010 semester sabbatical project was to produce a series of eight videos to show my “Fundamentals of Public Relations” classes. The idea is that, while guest speakers are great, they are standing in front of a white board. It’s also a hassle for them to find parking on campus ☺ By comparison, a series of video interviews, with b-roll footage, is a way to get students inside the offices and environments of PR practitioners.

I selected interview subjects who were recent graduates of the Grand Valley State University Advertising/Public Relations major program or who were seasoned veterans with unique experience in their particular area of the diverse public relations industry. The younger professionals will be interesting to students who can get an idea of where they might be in just a year or two. The veterans provided savvy insights based on years of experience. Collectively the videos are very educational.

The topics for each interview are aligned with a popular textbook in introductory public relations courses: “Public Relations Strategies and Tactics” by Dennis Wilcox and Glen Cameron. An early chapter explains the differences between agency work as opposed to working in-house in a PR department, so I have an video featuring the president and a staff member of an agency. The remaining videos feature practitioners in corporate, nonprofit, international, government, education, sports, and travel.

Originally, I had planned to burn an instructional DVD with each video being chapter. But with a nod to the emerging social media distribution model, I posted each video to this blog as they were finished. They are also all on my YouTube channel. But I thought I would post the master list with direct links here for anyone who’s interested to view and share:

•    Agency PR. Featuring Jeff Lambert and Jeremy Bakkan, APR, of Lambert, Edwards, and Associates. PRWeek Small Agency of the Year 2010.
•    Corporate PR. Featuring Sarah Heins at Shape Corporation.
•    Nonprofit PR. Featuring Keri Kujala at St. Mary’s Hospital and its Doran Foundation.
•    Government PR. Featuring Kevan Chapman of (former) US Representative Vern Ehler’s office.
•    International PR. Featuring several staff members of Amway Global.
•    Education PR. Featuring Ron Koehler, APR, of the Kent Intermediate School District and current president of the National Schools Public Relations Association.
•    Sports PR. Featuring Randy Rice of the Grand Rapids Griffins hockey team.
•    Travel PR. Featuring Janet Korn of Experience Grand Rapids.

'PR in Practice': Agency PR

2010-12-03T18:54:00.000-05:00

In this edition of the 'PR in Practice' video series, I focus on agency PR, as opposed to working in an in-house PR department.

The featured agency is Lambert, Edwards and Associates, the 2010 PR Week "Small Agency of the Year." Small is a relative term, however, given that LEA has 40 employees in three offices serving more than 100 clients in 20 states and five countries.

The video features the macro agency perspective from President Jeff Lambert. Jeremy Bakken, one of the LEAs directors, answers questions about the day-to-day work of serving multiple clients.

You can view the video below. Once again, all videos in the 'PR in Practice' series are on my YouTube channel (click the icon at right).

'PR in Practice': Sports PR

2010-11-18T09:02:00.003-05:00

Lots of students want to go into sports PR. They think it would be fun to have a job where you are around pro athletes and get to see games for free. Well, nothing wrong with that. But as Randy Rice, PR Manager for the Grand Rapids Griffins hockey team, will tell you, there's also a lot of basic PR work involved.

You need to know how to write, just like in any other PR job. And the media coverage is not automatic, even for a popular team like the Griffins. They compete with other sports, major league sports, and popular high school sports for attention in the media. So, a lot of what Randy and his co-workers do is provide their own coverage on their GriffinsHockey.com web site.

Learn more about a typical job in sports PR from Randy either on my YouTube channel or by viewing the video embedded below.

Remember, other videos in the 'PR in Practice' series are on my YouTube channel as well.

TIME Review of 'Deadly Spin' is ... Spin

2010-11-16T10:52:00.003-05:00

As a PR professor and practitioner, books about PR always jump out at me. But after reading a recent TIME Magazine "The Skimmer" review (subscription required) of Wendell Potter's "Deadly Spin," I nearly jumped out of my chair.

Wendell Potter used to work in public relations for insurance giant Cigna. His book is a whistleblower's account of how companies in that industry tout misleading studies, form front groups and engage in other misdeeds to deny coverage to premium-paying customers.

All of which sounds like the examples of improper practice in the PRSA Code of Ethics.

Which is why I find TIME's review so troubling for its pedestrian writing and lazy, gleeful perpetuation of bad stereotypes about the public relations professions. It leads with "Great P.R. flacks are as talented with misdirection as they are with the truth." At the end, after Potter points out that his conscience led him to testify to Congress about insurers favoring profits over patients, the review writes "there's not a p.r. person alive who can put a positive spin on that."

Again with the "spin." If the columnist, who is mercifully not given a byline for this formulaic drivel, favors truth over misdirection, he/she might have tried some actual reporting. The review then might have pointed out that the principles Potter obtained better late than never are in fact taught in most all public relations courses, based on my meeting with other educators and reviewing preferred curriculum for PR courses. More importantly, my own research shows that if an organization has a PR officer with a degree in the field and the respect of top management, ethical practice is more likely to prevail. The misdeeds of corporations are often labeled "PR" even if management ignored the counsel of a PR person, or if no one on staff had an actual degree in the field.

Rather than lean on the synecdoche of using "PR" as a blanket reference for all dishonest communication, the reviewer could have provided a great service to readers by pointing out that the PR community has praised Potter and his book more than anyone else. Potter was a keynote speaker at the PRSA annual conference last year in San Diego, which I attended with 10 students. He was also featured in an article in PRSA Tactics, the organization's monthly newspaper.

In short, rather than seeking occasion to misdirect readers that PR by definition is deceptive, the reviewer could have explained that the majority of the PR industry advocates ethical practice characterized by dialogic communication and mutual benefit. Instead, the reviewer chose to spin.

'PR in Practice': Education PR

2010-11-04T11:40:00.002-04:00

The next episode in the "PR in Practice" series is education PR. I interview Ron Koehler, APR, who is assistant superintendent for organizational and community initiatives at the Kent ISD. He's also the current president of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), something I wrote about in an earlier post on this blog.

One of the most interesting parts of this interview is Koehler's emphasis on research underlying all the work he does to provide communication services to 20 school districts. As part of that, he points out that treating students as stakeholders and not as passive publics is an emerging trend in this segment of the PR profession.

While the NSPRA is the organization for PR professionals in K-12, PRSA has a special section called Counselors to Higher Education for practitioners working at colleges and universities.

Enjoy the video. Again, all "PR in Practice" videos are on my YouTube channel.

'PR in Practice': Government PR

2010-11-02T11:11:00.003-04:00

Just in time for election day, the latest chapter in the "PR in Practice" project is out and the focus is government PR.

In this episode, I chat with Kevan Chapman, Communications Director for U.S. Congressman Vernon Ehlers. Ehlers is retiring at the end of this term--his replacement will be decided today. But the comments from Chapman about the PR role are broadly applicable to all professionals and students aspiring to have a PR job working for a politician.

Among the interesting things I learned is that many PR pros specialize on either the political campaigns or serving once in an official is in office. Some cross over, but I'm told that's rare. Also, while campaigns use polls almost constantly as part of their research and fuel for strategy, congressional offices are not allowed to do broad scientific polls beyond a feedback poll in a constituent newsletter. It has to do with time and expense for a public office. See what Kevan Chapman says they do for research and evaluation instead.

You can see the video on my YouTube channel (or click icon at right), where other videos in the 'PR in Practice' series are uploaded. Or watch it right here below:

'PR in Practice': International PR

2010-10-26T13:36:00.002-04:00

In this episode of the "PR in Practice" project, I spend some time with PR professionals at Amway.

The global corporation with headquarters in Ada, Michigan does business in 58 countries. PR professionals at headquarters work with colleagues in each of the various markets around the world to better relate to media, government officials and other publics in each country and culture.

The video features interviews with two of the U.S.-based PR pros as well as one of their colleagues from China who happened to be in the US for a six-month opportunity to get to know and represent corporate headquarters better. Students will appreciate his advice to them at the end of the video.

If you are interested in learning more about international PR, see the PRSA International Special Interest Section.

A reminder that all "PR in Practice" videos are on my YouTube Channel, always accessible by clicking on the icon at right. Subscribe to the channel if you want to catch future episodes.

Twitter Papers -- Multiple Applications

2010-10-21T09:48:00.003-04:00

I've recently started using a free service called paper.li that allows users to create "newspapers" by aggregating content from Twitter. Papers can be created for any user, list, or #tag.

Here's an example of my paper, the Penning Ink Daily.

I set it up to take content from my users. I follow a lot of nationally known PR gurus, West Michigan PR pros, PR professors from around the country I've met at conferences and through social media, and a wide variety of news organizations. So my daily is useful as an aggregator of my Twitter content, in newspaper format. But, it is an aggregator--i.e. using a formula that grabs what appears to be the most interesting and relevant of the tweets that had links to text, photos, or video. So, I am surprised sometimes at the content of my own paper.

But, it certainly has its uses. I can scan quickly the days "top stories" with links to key hashtags, such as #pr, which opens up another whole range of stories tagged as such. If I don't have time to be on Twitter frequently on a given day, this is a great way to review things quickly, and in an online paper format.

I also have the ability to promote it, which I do in the hopes that students and colleagues might find it an interesting read. Although, in time, everyone may have their own paper and only the ones who have taken the time to curate the right people to follow or targeted lists or hashtags will have many users besides themselves.

To that end, here are some good uses of paper.li that I have seen or thought of that go beyond a personal aggregator:

Education--Dawn Gilpin, a PR professor in Arizona, built a Twitter list of her students and has them post with links. Her daily paper is a project for her 'JMC 310' class;
Conferences--make a paper.li daily of the official hastag of a professional conference. It automates the "if you missed the conference" web site and crowd sources blogs and other commentary and recap of the best sessions;
Businesses--make a list of key employees, managers, vendors, industry thought leaders and be the focal point of commentary on your industry on Twitter (note: not all about you);
PR Firms--make a list of clients, media you work with regularly, a hashtag of issues you are working on, or a list of key industry trades etc. PR Firms are increasingly becoming "publishers"; this is another way to do it;;
Newspapers--duh. Yes, newspapers and other "mainstream" media have web sites, apps, and reporters on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. But here is another way to aggregate content and serve readers and potential readers in another channel and method.

When TIME magazine was started in 1923, founders Britton Hadden and Henry Luce said in their prospectus that people were overwhelmed with information and there was a need for a weekly summary of news content, a news magazine. At the time people were "overwhelmed" with newspapers, tabloids, magazines, and a new technology called "radio."

Today, the case that people are overwhelmed is even more obvious. Paper.li is just another way to handle the flood of info. Only this time, it will not only be journalists who can do so.

'PR in Practice' : Travel PR

2010-10-19T13:12:00.002-04:00

In this installment of "PR in Practice" I talk to Janet Korn, VP of Marketing for Experience Grand Rapids.

My interview with her happened the same week as the former Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention and Visitors Bureau rebranded itself "Experience Grand Rapids" with its "GR Tweet Elite" event and launch of its new Web site.

Learn about the reason for the rebrand, how social media is a key aspect of "destination" PR, and other aspects of this special category of PR. Students and professionals alike can also learn about travel PR from PRSA's Travel & Tourism Professional Interest Section.

Remember: all "PR in Practice" videos will be on my Penning Ink You Tube channel. Click on the YouTube icon at right to go to the channel, see other videos, and subscribe.

TIME List Won't Be Major Help to Amash

2010-10-15T13:00:00.002-04:00

It is no doubt a publicity coup to be named to TIME Magazine's list of 40 under 40 civic leaders, which is the case for West Michigan's Justin Amash. The question is, from a political PR standpoint, will it move numbers for the young congressional candidate a few weeks before the election.

The answer is, yes and no. You can see what I mean just by looking at the comments accompanying the Grand Rapids Press article about the list. The publicity didn't affect the partisans. Amash supporters utter praise, detractors make accusations. Neither positive or negative comments are really about the TIME list, because that list merely points out youth; it does not address political ideology or issues.

The publicity splash does help in some ways. Just like a yard sign, it helps with name recognition in the district. It adds some national credibility to a candidate who some may have been seen by potential West Michigan voters as just a young local man. In that sense, it may excite some who were on the fence about going to the polls, and it may move some independents to consider Amash.

It is true that elections are won in the middle, not on the margins where hard-core beliefs are rarely changed. But in this election season in particular, being on a national list is far less important than addressing the list of local issues and being consonant with the political worldview of the majority of constituents in Amash's district. There's an old adage attributed to former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill: "all politics is local." That's something to keep in mind when weighing the value of national publicity for a candidate whose public is entirely local.

'PR in Practice' -- Corporate PR

2010-10-04T10:17:00.004-04:00

In this installment of the 'PR in Practice' project, see what recent graduate Sara Heins does in her job as marketing and communications specialist at Shape Corporation in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Her work has her handling everything from internal communications to creating collateral materials for international trade shows. She also developed the company's first social media plan. Be sure to listen to her good advice for students aspiring to jobs in corporate PR at the end of the video.

You can see the video embedded below. Also, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel (click on logo at right) to see future installments in the 'PR in Practice' series.

Mediamorphosis

2010-09-27T15:24:00.003-04:00

I was reading a bunch of articles about the changing newspaper industry as well as the emergence of the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other readers. All of a sudden it hit me--this isn't all as new as it seems.

Sure enough, on a far corner of a bookshelf in my office, there was a book copyrighted in 1997 that I had used years ago when I taught a "Media and Society" class. The book is Roger Fidler's "Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media." I grin now reading that title. "New media" has a different connotation now than it did more than a decade ago.

I recalled having a discussion with students based on an exercise in the book called "Scenario for 2010: The mobile digital document reader." It was intended to be a forward-looking, imaginative exercise in which students thought critically about the influence of technology on media use. I remember the students being fairly mixed as to the plausibility of the scenario's prognostications. And even if all the foreseen new technology did emerge, some of these young people still said it's nice to just read a newspaper on paper with a cup of coffee.

Regardless of our classroom discussion back then, the book's scenario was prescient. Now IS 2010, and we DO have mobile digital document readers. The book even called them "tablets," and anticipated touch screens, digital cash, speak text, photo and video embedded in articles, and advertising relevant to content and matching personal profiles of readers. There's even a monetization method that involves paid subscription and buying archived material an article at a time for instant electronic delivery. About the only thing the book didn't foresee was wireless--a person in the scenario describes a person going with their reader to an ATM-like machine to withdraw that day's content onto a memory card.

The book did not come anywhere close to anticipating 'social media.' Others might have. There also has not been an updated version of this book, so far as I know. I have not taught "Media and Society" again since I started to focus exclusively on public relations shortly after teaching that class more than a decade ago.

But I wonder, what is the scenario for 2020? Will the tablet be replaced? With what? How will it affect public relations, advertising, journalism...human beings?

It's fun to think about, over a cup of coffee.

'VP' does not equal 'PR'

2010-09-22T10:21:00.002-04:00

We teach that public relations is a management function. That means a lot of things. But among them is the fact that someone with PR education, savvy, knowledge and experience should be counseling the executive suite. In other words, just because you have CEO or VP behind your name doesn't mean you understand PR.

While media relations is only one aspect of PR these days, it's in that arena that I heard of an example yesterday that illustrates my point. A local business reporter with more than two decades of experience forwarded an email to me and said he had never encountered anything like this before. (I have, actually).

A story had run in this reporter's paper, and a VP emailed him to say thanks but to suggest changes for the online version. I'll let you see it for yourself (with names redacted to protect the ridiculous from further embarrassment):

Thanks again for your interest in and coverage of the ### announcement. In skimming the story today, we noted a couple of quotes by ### that are not as clean and clear as he typically delivers. I¹m wondering if you can clean up the online version a bit?

The person then goes on to restate "current" and "proposed" quotes from said executive.

Making matters worse, the "proposed" statements were not any more "clean and clear."

What is particularly "unclean" is when people try to dictate exact wording to reporters, as if they were employees, as if there were no such thing as journalistic integrity. What is clear to me is that for all the brilliance in the executive suite, there is a colossal misunderstanding of media, communications, human relationships, public perception and the variety of publics and the ways they interact with your organization.

If this organization could not have proactively had its message points clear on the subject, there were better ways to handle it after the fact. As one example, why not link to the article on the organization's Twitter, Facebook and other social media/online vehicles and offer additional commentary there? The VP and CEO could even have direct conversations with their publics--what a concept.

It's clear that media training, speechwriting, communications counsel and social media alternatives--the expertise of PR professionals--will continue to be necessary. I just hope they will be in increasing demand from the C-suite. It would be nice to see more people with PR in their veins having VP behind their names.

The 'PR in Practice' Project--Nonprofit PR

2010-09-21T19:20:00.004-04:00

I am on sabbatical this fall to work on an instructional DVD for use in my "Fundamentals of PR" course. I am interviewing public relations practitioners in a variety of settings to show students that PR is a broad field, practiced in a variety of contexts. Hence the name of the DVD: "PR in Practice."

As I complete sections of the DVD, I will be posting them to YouTube, with links and embeds on this blog. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel (penningink) or at any time click on the YouTube button at right. Alerts will also go out via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

First up is Keri Larsen (now Kujala--got married after filming). A GVSU alumna, she works at St. Mary's Hospital and its fundraising arm, the Doran Foundation. Her title is Coordinator of Special Events and Donor Relations. Her job has her doing lots of different types of PR work, but the emphasis on events makes her a popular target for PR students who want to do internships with her.

Sudden crisis interrupts big events for GR PR firm

2010-09-17T11:19:00.003-04:00

An interesting perspective blog post by the Grand Rapids Press' Troy Reimink shows that there is no typical day in a PR firm.

He writes about SeyferthPR showing its event-planning prowess with ArtPrize and the West Michigan Regional Policy Forum and then having to deal with an inconvenient crisis with another client: reports of maggots in McDonald's coffee machines.

Reimink makes a snarky referral to the prepared response of the franchise owner referring to safety but not the allegation that the manager of the store in question (near Lansing) told employees to keep the machine on after learning of the maggot infestation. It's "what you might expect" he says.

Well, we might expect a journalist to be snarky about PR. In their defense, they do have to deal with bureaucratic boilerplate statements and what seems to be purposely vague deflections. But they also need to realize that in many crises facts emerge slowly, allegations need to be confirmed or refuted, and business owners and their PR counsel need to manage reputation ruining rumor delicately and with patience.

Even the comments to Reimink's blog treat the incident with more humor than shock, and one even suggests that this could be the case of a disgruntled employee staging the episode and not a real safety or health issue. (Fast food crises in recent memory seem to follow this pattern: Domino's booger pizza comes to mind).

Reasonable questions the public, if not snarky reporters, should ask would include the following:

was this an actual safety/health issue or an employee hoax?
is this isolated to one restaurant or is it widespread?

If there is a real safety issue, the PR counsel should be to determine the cause, eliminate it, change the coffee machine cleaning policy and communicate that to the public immediately in a contrite fashion. If it can be determined that this was an employee prank, said employee(s) should be fired and that should be communicated immediately as well. Also, some attention should be paid to internal/employee communication and what led to the morale problem that encouraged such a prank.

If the incident is isolated, local communication in Lansing may be enough. But the news has spread to Grand Rapids and the client runs McDonalds statewide, so a broad reach may be in order. However, as of this post, mentions of McDonalds on Twitter are almost entirely positive, with no mention of this incident. (I decline to comment on the Twittersphere discussion of maggots).

Personally, given the fact that an employee emailed a reporter and that maggots are larvae that usually grow in garbage and not frequently heated machines, I am skeptical as to the truth of this story. As always, I hope the public keeps an open mind and doesn't jump to conclusions about this story, McDonalds, or the PR profession. As I tell my PR students, your reaction to such situations are remembered more than the situations themselves.

Net Neutrality Background

2010-09-03T14:37:00.003-04:00

Network, or net, neutrality is a complicated communications technology issue that has significant legal and regulatory implications for all telecommunications and media companies. At issue is what can and cannot be regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At odds in this issue are protection of consumers on the one hand (i.e. maintaining fully open access on the Internet) and protection of investment and assets by telecom companies (i.e. allowing competitors access to a company’s network, or charging more for video downloads than simple email). Google and Verizon, as explained recently in the New York Times, have proposed a form of compromise, but the issue is still hotly debated. The FCC is currently hearing more input before making a new statement or policy on net neutrality. The issue is also of interest to any communications professional because of the impact on the distribution and consumption of many forms of media and information. The following is a background on the legal and regulatory environment related to net neutrality that leads up to this point.

Definition of Net Neutrality

Net neutrality emerged as a term around 2003 as part of Internet policy debates. Some communication lawyers describe it by its core issue of negotiating how Internet traffic originating on one broadband network can transmit and terminate on another network.[1] Communication law scholars describe the concept of net neutrality more conceptually, such as a condition in which the infrastructure of the Internet is separate from its content, and wherein all data or content is treated as equal by the various Internet access providers or carriers.[2] Some put it more simply and call net neutrality a form of open access on the Internet.[3]

All are correct definitions. But as a legal concern, it boils down to whether or not the government can and should enforce net neutrality as an issue of Internet public access. It is easier to understand this after a review of the legal and regulatory environment surrounding net neutrality.

Telecommunications vs. Information Distinction

Central to the issue of whether or not the government can regulate Internet access providers is the legal distinction between whether or not a company is providing “telecommunication” services or “information” services. This distinction is best understood by following a chronology of legal actions.

The Communications Act of 1934

Under Title I of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ancillary jurisdiction over all interstate and foreign communications.[4] However, the Act did not address specifics relating to the Internet.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996

This update to the 1934 Act recognized the need to further develop the Internet[5], This update made the distinction between “telecommunications” service and “information” service. The distinction was made to loosen regulation on the Internet and thus allow it to grow and develop faster. By this distinction, “telecommunications” services could be regulated under Title II of the 1934 Act, but “information” services would be subject to minimal regulations under Title I of the 1934 Act. But it did not provide clarity as to what exactly would be an example of telecommunications as opposed to information.[6]

Federal Communication Commission Determination

In March of 2002, the FCC added specificity to the telecommunications or information distinction when they declared that cable modems were information. Their rationale was that ancillary use of telecommunication facilities are inseparable from transporting digital information. They reasoned that cable operators provide information services to customers via telecommunications.[7]

Ninth Circuit Appeals Court

This decision was appealed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a landmark case in 2005 that determined cable providers should open their Internet service to competitor ISPs (Internet Service Providers) on a “common carrier” basis.[8] The appellate court based this decision stare decisis on a previous case[9] which determined the transmission of Internet service over cable broadband is telecommunication service and thus subject to regulation.

Supreme Court

However, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed this decision. They affirmed the FCC decision that cable modems are information. The Court’s rationale was that the FCC was reasonable in determining the telecommunication/information distinction on the basis of whether a customer believed they were purchasing high-speed Internet access (telecommunications) or the stand-alone capacity to send and receive “ordinary language” messages (information).[10]

Resulting FCC Policy Statement

Following the Supreme Court decision, the FCC expanded its determination of cable modems as information to DSL (digital subscriber lines). Foley argues that in addition to coaxial cable and copper telephone wires, the nascent Internet access technology of BPL (broadband over power lines) will also enjoy “information” classification and thus minimal net neutrality regulation.[11]

The FCC in 2005 adopted a policy statement that outlines four principles that they will use to guide future regulation: “1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; 2) consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement; 3) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; 4) consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.”[12]

It is important to note that these are principles, not enforceable rules yet. In fact, former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin noted in the same release that the marketplace will ensure these principles are met, and thus foresees no new regulation necessary.[13]

Future Net Neutrality Regulation

The previous FCC chairman stressed the importance of allowing competition to advance the growth of internet communication infrastructure and devices. This assertion is also supported by the stated purpose of the 1996 Telecommunications Act: “To promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.”[14]

Others argue that current laws will ensure that net neutrality generally and the FCC’s four principles specifically will be met. Laxton points out that the Sherman Antitrust Act applies generally to providers of broadband access, application, and content. He adds that the “essential facilities doctrine” specifically applies to broadband providers under both Sections I and II of the Sherman Act, which allow for punishment of collusion in an oligopoly market or harmful business practices by a monopoly, respectively. An antitrust claim may be made under the essential facilities doctrine by meeting four conditions: 1) a company has control of an essential facility, 2) competitors are unable to practically or reasonably duplicate the facility, 3) competitors are denied use of the facility, 4) it is feasible to provide use of the facility to competitors.[15]

Also, former FCC commissioner, chairman and general counsel Richard Wiley, who currently practices communications law, contends that any update to the 1996 Telecommunications Act should actually be shorter and less restrictive[16]. He stresses that telecommunications “silos” and segments are irrelevant, with cable companies offering telephone service, phone companies offering television, and more blending emerging rapidly. This point seems even more obvious now with this week’s announcement about Apple TV.

However, contrary to the above arguments, the current FCC chairman is opposed to allowing companies the freedom to offer tiered pricing for different uses of the Internet, as expressed in a New York Times article last month. The mood of the FCC seems to have shifted to favor consumer protection, and therefore regulation on service and content providers.

The debate continues. PR professionals should watch and even participate with an informed background on the issue.

[1] Del Bianco, Mark C. (2006) “Voices Past: The Present and Future of VoIP Regulation.” CommLaw Conspectus. (14) 365.

[2] Laxton, William G. Jr. (2006) “The End of Net Neutrality.” Duke Law & Technology Review. 15.

[3] Foley, Paula W. (2006) “Untangling the Third Wire: Broadband Over Power Lines, Open Access, and Net Neutrality.” Journal of High Technology Law. (6). 194.

[4] Laxton.

[5] Foley.

[6] Laxton

[7] Foley.

[8] National Cable and Telecommunication Association v. Brand X Internet Services. 125 S. Ct. 2688 (2005).

[9] AT&T Corp. v. City of Portland. 216 F.3d 871, 880 (9^th Cir. 2000).

[10] Foley.

[11] Foley.

[12] Federal Communications Commission. Press Release. “FCC Adopts Policy Statement: New Principles Preserve and Promote the Open and Interconnected Nature of the Internet.” (August 5, 2005).

[13] FCC Press Release.

[14] Telecommunications Act of 1996.

[15] Laxton.

[16] Wiley, Richard E. (2006) “A New Telecom Act: Remarks.” Southern Illinois University Law Journal. (31) 17.

Lambert Named to National '40 Under 40' List

2010-08-11T11:17:00.003-04:00

Jeff Lambert, president and managing partner of Lambert, Edwards & Associates, was named to PR Week's list of 40 "early influencers" (subscription required for full article), or practitioners under 40 years old.

Lambert was the only one on the list from Michigan. He and LEA, which serves 100 clients in 11 states, represent West Michigan well on a list that includes some of the biggest agencies and organizations in the world.

West Michigan Man Heads National School PR Group

2010-08-11T10:39:00.003-04:00

Ron Koehler, APR, assistant superintendent for organizational and community initiatives at the Kent Intermediate School District, has been named president of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA).

Koehler officially took the reins last month at an NSPRA meeting. You can see his acceptance speech if you wish.

Among Koehler's goals will be to make communication skills a track in education leadership programs at colleges around the country. He also wants to instill the importance of public relations to the management of education at all levels. His article in the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal of School Public Relations presents a local case study to prove his point. "Kent Intermediate School District: From Invisible Agency to Power Player" walks through the steps the ISD took to improve public opinion of public education and understanding of the work of the ISD. The article is nicely organized along the popular RACE process--research, action planning, communication implementation, and evaluation. As he concludes in the article:

Embracing the fundamental components of public relations practice inspired behavioral change in the organization and its stakeholders. Today, Kent ISD enjoys the same two-way dialogue with the broader community that it developed in its close relationship with public schools. This dialogue has created a richer relationship between Kent ISD and other units of government, the business community, and the philanthropic community. It has truly moved Kent ISD from invisible agency to power player within the state and the region.

Koehler is a subject in an instructional DVD about public relations that I will be working on this fall. The point of the DVD is to show PR practitioners in a variety of settings, from agency to in-house, and including business, international, government, non-profit, education, health, sports, travel and other specific settings. His article will be a companion reading for students who see the DVD in class.

Congratulations to Koehler on his success at the ISD and his leadership of the NSPRA this coming year. The West Michigan PR community is fortunate to be represented on the national level by another of our outstanding local practitioners.

Press Health Interest Coincides with PR Specialty Area

2010-08-09T16:02:00.003-04:00

Paul Keep's editorial in yesterday's Grand Rapids Press about increasing health care coverage caught my eye.

The Press has covered health with dedicated beat reporters for years. But this increased emphasis in what appears to be a health section is interesting for several reasons. First, as newspapers struggle for survival, this looks to be a good response to providing increased coverage of an important subject that helps readers make informed decisions. That's the essence of the journalism role, not more pandering to fluffy entertainment. Also, the Press is responding to the local health care industry and related topics. As everyone knows, wire stories about basic health information is easy to have from WebMD and numerous other online sources.

The Press emphasis on health care affirms the growth of "health communications" as a speciality practice within PR during the past two decades. GVSU has had an undergraduate health communications major for decades (we are finally ramping it up with a dedicated PhD faculty member this fall), other colleges have master's and PhD programs in health communications, and there are several journals dedicated to research in the subject that ranges from doctor-patient relationships, to public health campaign strategies, to direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Additionally, PRSA has a Health Academy for health care professionals to network and continue their professional development.

So, since the Press and the PR industry have embraced the importance of health care, how will the two work together locally? How might the Press work with local health care organizations to better inform local residents on health topics? It would be interesting if this could go beyond pitching stories. For example, could there be some online linking of objective medical info between the Press at MLive.com and the wealth of health information at Spectrum Health's Web site? The Press could still do objective reporting, but supplement it with the health communications from area professionals. It's a win for the Press, the health organizations, and the public.

It also would be interesting to see the Press do a story on the growth of health communications as a profession of interest to many current and future PR practitioners.

WZZM One of 10 Gannett Markets to Go 'Hyper-Local'

2010-06-16T09:39:00.002-04:00

Grand Rapids is one of 10 Gannett markets that will soon have hyper-local web-based coverage, according to an article in Washington Business Journal.

WZZM TV 13 is the Gannett station in Grand Rapids.

Gannett says the "community web sites", which will include user-generated content from viewers, will be integrated with current TV station web sites and be attractive to advertisers who want to reach specific audiences within a broader coverage area.

There are not a lot more details at this time. But I do wonder a few things, such as:

will this new effort work with or compete with the Rapidian, Grand Rapids' year-old 'citizen journalism' and neighborhood news effort?'
will there be scope and scale for advertisers to reach more specific demos within the community (i.e. what will they be willing to pay and will that be enough, and will there be enough advertisers, to make this effort really pay for the TV station?)
will others follow suit and make reaching hyper-local markets more hyper than local?
how will this affect PR people in terms of pitching hyper-local stories, to whom should the story ideas be pitched if user-generated, will the station accept a well crafted user-generated story from a PR professional (so long as it's legitimate news I would hope so), will PR professionals adapt and learn to shoot and post online video?

One thing is for sure--this new media environment is interesting and ever-changing.

LEA Wins Silver Anvil for 'Bible Across America'

2010-06-08T15:04:00.003-04:00

Grand Rapids PR firm Lambert, Edwards and Associates (LE&A) won the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil for the Bible Across America campaign for Christian publisher Zondervan. The Silver Anvil Award is regarded as the “Oscar” in the public relations industry.

LE&A created and executed Bible Across America, a nine-month nationwide mobile tour for Zondervan, the world’s leading Christian publisher, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. The Bible bus tour visited more than 100 cities and 31,173 Americans contributed a handwritten verse that was published in a special edition NIV Bible.

LEA previously earned other awards for this campaign, including a PRoof Award from the West Michigan PRSA Chapter and a Gold PR Innovation Award from Bulldog Reporter.

Recent PR Research Summaries

2010-06-07T17:36:00.002-04:00

I had some good feedback from PR professionals last time I summarized academic journal articles about PR issues and topics. So, now that summer is here and I’ve caught up on some reading, here are some very abbreviated summaries of findings from academic journals that would be interesting to PR practitioners. Articles are listed in APA reference list style, with comments below. You can get full articles via your local academic library online or in person.

Seungahn, Nah (2010). “Media Publicity and Civil Society: Nonprofit Organizations, Local Newspapers and the Internet in a Midwestern Community.” Mass Communication & Society, 13(1), pp. 3-29.

218 nonprofits in a Midwestern community were analyzed by survey, news archive analysis and other methods to learn that more newspaper coverage of a nonprofit is likely when the organization is financially well-off, locally embedded, and has a larger number of directors and volunteers.

Wirth, Werner; Schermer, Chrisitian; & Matthes, Jorg (2010). “Trivializing the News? Affective Context Effects of Commercials in the Perception of Television News.” Mass Communication and Society, 13(2), pp. 139-156.

An experiment showed that if TV commercials put people in a positive mood, they will perceive news stories viewed either before or after the commercial as more entertaining, realistic and credible.

Kelly, Kathleen; Laskin, Alexander; Rosenstein, Gregory (2010). “Investor Relations: Two-Way Symmetrical Practice.” Journal of Public Relations Research, 22(2), 182-208.

A national survey showed that IR professionals practice two-way symmetrical communications, and this is regardless of whether the practitioner is oriented more toward finance or public relations.

Yan, Changmin; Dillard, James Price; Shen, Fuyuan (2010). “The Effects of Mood, Message Framing, and Behavioral Advocacy on Persuasion.” Journal of Communication, 60 (2), 344-363.

Experimental studies showed that framing a message as something to gain or lose made a difference in persuading people to adopt health behaviors, particularly when combined with a associated moods. A message framed as something to gain was most effective when coupled with positive mood and advocating something to do. A message framed as potential loss was most effective when coupled with a sad mood and a advocating personal restraint.

LaRose, Robert (2010). “The Problem of Media Habits.” Communication Theory. 20 (2), 194-222.

The article is a review of media theory that posits media consumption is largely a result of habit, which occurs after repeated behavior that is initially goal-directed. Over time media consumption may be only habitual and not associated with a particular outcome expected. This has implications for the proliferation of social and mobile media technologies as professionals consider reaching and engaging publics through these new media. However, while media consumption may be habitual, individuals may exert conscious control over media use at any time based on needs, personal experiences, and contexts. The article proposes more research to determine when media consumption is habitual and when goal-directed.

Cool Things West Michigan PR People Do

2010-05-17T10:35:00.004-04:00

One of the fun aspects of social media for me is hearing about what PR people are up to. So one day last week I asked two West Michigan PR pros to email me some more details based on tweets about cool things they were working on. There are probably many cool things going on among PR people in West Michigan, but here are two that I just heard about.

Craig Clark of Clark Communications mused on Twitter (@ClarkCom) that his day was interesting, ranging from routine to emailing the White House. When I asked him why, he said he was trying to encourage President Obama to use one of his health care clients as a backdrop for a possible healthcare speech during an upcoming visit to Kalamazoo. "It's surprisingly easy to access the White House communications team," Clark told me. Also, ironically, he said he "had to contact some Republican friends to get Democrat contact information." Good to know bi-partisanship works in public relations.

Meanwhile, Derek DeVries of Grand Rapids Community College tweeted (@DerekDeVries) about potential PR work in Lyon, France. GRCC, known for its culinary arts program, hosted tryouts for the U.S. team to compete in the "Le Coupe do Monde de la Patisserie" international pastry competition to be held in Lyon next January. DeVries did a stellar job promoting the event here in Grand Rapids, including media relations and social media. Now he is working with GRCC faculty member Chef Gilles Renusson (who is also the president of the nonprofit organization that manages the international competition) to get grant funding so he can go to Lyon and take photos and post updates of the competition via social media.

Public relations can involve tedium and stress. But you have to admit, it can also be pretty cool.

LEA Wins Bulldog for 'Bible Across America'

2010-05-13T11:18:00.002-04:00

As if raking in 5 gold PRoof Awards and having founding partner Jeff Lambert named PR Professional of the Year at the West Michigan PRSA wasn't enough, Grand Rapids firm Lambert, Edwards, and Associates has now won the Gold PR Innovation of the Year Award from Bulldog Reporter for the "Bible Across America" campaign it did for Zondervan.

The firm was also named 2010 PRWeek "Small Agency of the Year" last month.

LE&A created and executed ‘Bible Across America,’ a 9-month nationwide mobile tour for Zondervan, the world’s leading Christian publisher, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. The tour visited more than 100 cities and 31,173 Americans contributed a handwritten verse that was published in a special edition NIV Bible.

The Bulldog Awards are the only awards program judged exclusively by journalists and bloggers. LE&A will be recognized in the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog online trade journal and on June 28-29 at the Media Relations Summit 2010 in New York City.

GVSU Ad Team Takes 3rd in Regionals

2010-04-26T13:36:00.002-04:00

The GVSU National Schools Advertising Competition (NSAC) team finished third in its track this year at the District 6 competition. The competition is held each year by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). The client this year was State Farm Insurance.

My colleague Dr. Roy Winegar gave the play by play:

Butler took the track by a landslide — must be their year! We finished right behind second-place Ball State and just ahead of Miriam. Northwood placed third in its track too and between us, we were the only two schools from Michigan to place. Other Michigan schools included Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State, Central, Western, Eastern, and Ferris.

There are 15 districts in the US. The winning team from each district plus one wildcard team advances to the national competition at the AAF conference in June. So GVSU won't go to the nationals but they should be congratulated for putting on a good show at districts.

Actually, Charles, the Church DOES Need PR

2010-04-12T11:36:00.003-04:00

The headline for Charles Honey's Grand Rapids Press religion column last Saturday was "Church needs a pastor, not PR." There is a slightly different headline in the online version, but the text of the column is the same.

I mostly agree with the sentiments in the column, but I take issue with one line that characterizes the Vatican "trying to put PR spin on a crisis that calls for humble pastoral candor from the pope."

In fact, the line is ironic given that Honey chastises the church for using PR and then devotes the entire remainder of the column proposing that the church do....PR. He mentions speaking with candor, honestly, directly to the people.

These are the very things that public relations practitioners--the good ones--counsel their clients and coworkers to do.

The problem is clear. Mr. Honey has a wonderful grasp of religious history and issues, but falls into a trap of seeing a bad example of PR and associating it as the essence of a profession.

In fact, it is ironic that I have in the past used a church metaphor to defend public relations. "Not all priests are pedophiles, and not all PR practitioners are spinners," I would explain. I often have to defend the public relations profession from broad-brush stereotype among other faculty members. PR is used as a pejorative adjective, as in "PR stunt" or "PR spin," or it is a preceded by a diminutive adjective, as in "just PR." Either way, it lends the impression that PR--by definition--is deceptive. In fact, some practitioners, as in any field, don't practice public relations responsibly. But they can't define the entire field. All PR educators and most practitioners I have met teach and practice PR as a form of mutual relationship building.

The problem is that too many people confuse PR as image crafting, as opposed to relationship and reputation building. An image is illusive and based on words and symbols alone. A relationship and reputation are earned and understood through experience. Words can never undo behavior. Nothing the church says can change what some people experienced--the people are waiting for action.

Another problem is that in many organizations people other than the public relations professionals do the communicating and engage in behavior that gets called "PR" even if the actual public relations person gave counsel to do otherwise and was ignored. That may be the case with the Vatican currently. Time Magazine points out that Father Federico Lombadi, the Vatican spokesman responsible for getting the Vatican on Twitter and YouTube, has not spoken directly to the Pope more than once regarding this current crisis. This is largely because of a rigid structure and chain-of-command in the Vatican.

So, is the Vatican handling this crisis effectively by referring to criticism as "gossip"? No. But, their bad response should not be equated with PR; it should be held out as a bad form of it.

What the church really needs is some legitimate PR, in the form of two-way, open dialog that fosters and heals relationships. If you think about it, that is what public relations and the church should have most in common.

Nominations Sought for Sustainability Efforts

2010-03-19T13:05:00.002-04:00

I have long argued that public relations professionals should lead the charge on sustainability issues. Sustainability is often summarized as the "three Es" of measuring an organization's success--in terms of equity, environment, and economic indicators. That means that sustainability is consistent with Corporate Social Responsibility, mutually beneficial relationships, two-way symmetrical communication and other aspects of what is considered ethical public relations.

Well, now West Michigan PR pros have a chance to step up and show how sustainable your organization, or your clients' organizations, are.

The West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC) is accepting nominations from now til April 1 for their Second Annual Triple Top Line Awards. The awards, a play on the phrase "triple bottom line" that normally refers to the three sustainability measures, will be given in three categories: Sustainable Business Leadership, Community-Based Achievements toward Sustainability and Governments Implementing Sustainable Change.

Nomination forms are available at WMEAC's Web site.

Finalists will be announced April 8 and the winner will be determined by an online public voting process hosted by Rapid Growth. Voting will close April 15.

The winner will be announced as part of WMEAC’s 2010 Earth Week EcoAction Expo, a showcase for local non-profits and businesses with an environmental focus, at Fountain Street Church in downtown Grand Rapids on April 16th at 8 p.m. Businesses and organizations interested in exhibiting at the expo can download a booth and/or sponsorship form at www.wmeac.org/index.php/events/.

Let's see if PR can be prominently equated with sustainability this year.

LEA Wins 'Small Agency of Year' in PR Week Awards

2010-03-12T10:15:00.003-05:00

Grand Rapids based public relations firm Lambert, Edwards and Associates was named "Small Agency of the Year 2010" at the PR Week Awards held yesterday in New York City. Read more about LEA's award and other PR Week awards here.

You can also read more about LEA's submission for the award in my previous post.

Kudos to LEA for this prestigious award. It looks great not only for them but for the West Michigan PR community.

GVSU Bateman Team Featured in Rapid Growth

2010-03-11T14:04:00.002-05:00

My GVSU PRSSA students who are participating in this year's Bateman PR Campaign Competition were featured as part of a larger story on Census 2010 in this week's Rapid Growth.

(If any competing teams are reading this, don't worry--the story is running in March but it was pitched in February in keeping with contest rules.)

The story gives you an idea of the caliber of work of PR students these days. These five students who are mere months away from being professionals put in hours of work this year. And, it is quality work. In developing a PR campaign plan book they do what all students would do in our campaigns class. But they go further by implementing and evaluating the campaign.

They have to get everything in to the judges by the end of this month. Then we'll here if they placed among the 100-plus other teams across the country in mid-April. If they are in the top three, we all go to DC for them to present to judges. If they win that, there is a cash prize and a nice presentation at the next PRSA Conference this fall in DC.

As I tell them, there really are no losers among Bateman competitors. It is a very good learning opportunity. It's also something to show and discuss in job interviews regardless of how they place. It's all about the experience.

If they do win, this amounts to a national championship. I'll be bidding for as much salary as our football coach.

West Michigan Companies Fare Well on 'Most Admired' List

2010-03-04T10:16:00.003-05:00

Of the five Michigan companies that made the Fortune Magazine list of "World's Most Admired Companies," three are from West Michigan. In order to make the list of most admired, companies had to be ranked in the top half of their industries. 1,400 companies were considered, and 346 companies made the cut. None of the Michigan companies are in the top 50.

Herman Miller of Zeeland held its number 1 ranking in the Home Equipment, Furnishings industry. In the same industry, Steelcase of Grand Rapids was ranked 6th, slipping from number 2 a year ago. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, moved up from 6th last year to 5th in the Consumer Food Products industry.

Pulte Homes of Bloomfield Hills and Dow Chemical of Midland were the other two Michigan companies to make the most admired list.

Let's hope the positive reputation of these West Michigan companies enhances the reputation of the West Michigan region as well.

The list is determined by a survey of executives and analysts who rate companies in their industry on nine criteria, from investment value to social responsibility. However, the consumer and other publics are not consulted. So it becomes difficult to conclude that this list is of full public relations value in terms of reputation--it's an 'insiders' view. However, once the list is published in the March 22 issue of Fortune, those external publics of investors, consumers and others will no doubt take notice.

One interesting observation. Apple topped the list again for one primary reason: products. That's a good reminder to PR pros who get too carried away with messaging. Reputation is not based on image, but experience.

West Michigan Addys 2010

2010-02-26T07:29:00.002-05:00

The AAF West Michigan held its annual ADDY Awards event last night at the Intersection. Professionals walked away with 23 Gold and 58 Silver awards; students earned 5 Gold and 19 Silver. (I believe the U.S. leads the medal count, but the Germans and South Koreans were gaining as my deadline for this blog post approached).

Here's a recap straight from the AAF West Michigan news release:

---------------

2010 Best of Show ADDY® Award winners are:

Professional – Sales Promotion, Audio/Visual Sales Presentation: Fairly Painless Advertising for Herman Miller, Inc.

Student – Interactive Media, Online Advertising (Pop-Up/Banner/Email/Other): Elizabeth Zimmerman, Kendall College of Art and Design

Student – Print – Collateral Material, Poster: Gina Caratelli, Grand Valley State University

2010 Judges’ Choice ADDY® Award winners are:

Professional – Collateral Material, Four-color Brochure: Wolverine World Wide for Wolverine

Professional – Elements of Advertising, Photography, Campaign: Highland Group for the Grand Rapids Marathon

Professional – Public Service, Broadcast/Electronic, TV: Greenlight Marketing for Goodwill Inn

Student – Sales Promotion, Packaging: Sarah Vanderson, Kendall College of Art and Design

Entrants earning the largest number of ADDY® Awards this year are:

kantorwassink – 11 awards: 3 Gold and 8 Silver ADDY® Awards
Highland Group – 10 awards: 5 Gold and 5 Silver ADDY® Awards
AUXILIARY Advertising & Design – 9 awards: 3 Gold and 6 Silver ADDY® Awards
Fairly Painless Advertising – 8 awards: 3 Gold and 5 Silver ADDY® Awards

---------------------

The release also mentions that a full list of award winners, with images and descriptions of the work, is available online. As of posting time, that list still includes previous year's winners, which is interesting to peruse for background, but not to be confused with the 2010 winners. (Apparently there is no award this year in the category of making sure the Web site has what the news release promises). But, this sort of thing happens to the best of us, and these people are certainly the best of us. I'd check back to see when the 2010 list is up--it's a great review of best practice in West Michigan for students and pros alike.

West Michigan and Social Media

2010-02-23T09:23:00.003-05:00

As part of some research I'm doing, I was tracking down organizations that have organizational blogs. I used the West Michigan Business Review list of "Top 100 Companies" as a basis for my search. It's important to note that "companies" included government institutions as well as hospitals, schools and other nonprofits. Also, West Michigan meant having a presence in a 12-county region, but 28 of the 100 were multi-national corporations or other large organizations headquartered elsewhere with an office of plant in the region.

It was interesting to note that only 13 of the 100 had an organizational blog--and I had to search for those with either the on-site search bar or if they didn't have one of those an external search engine. While I was at it, I noted whether or not the organizations' Web sites offered links to some of the more popular social media features, including RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and whether they offered multi-media content, mobile options and apps, or podcasts. (While I didn't record it, a few also had links to LinkedIn, Vimeo, Delicious and other social media sites).

In a nutshell, the largest employers in West Michigan are just getting started with organizational blogs and other social media components, at least so far as they are promoted and linked to their primary Web sites. Here is a breakdown of what I found:

*Org type*	N	*Blog*	*RSS*	FB	*Twit*	*YouT*	*Mult*	*Mob*	*Pod*
Bus	55	9	7	11	10	5	1	5	3
Gov	12	1	2
Hosp	8			3		1		1	1
School	16	2	4	5	7	5	3	2
NPO	9	1	1	2	1	1	1
TOTALS	100	13	14	21	18	12	5	8	4

Citizen PR?

2010-02-17T14:52:00.002-05:00

I was intrigued by Grand Rapids Press editor Paul Keep's Sunday column "The go-to people at The Press."

PR people in the region no doubt took note of the recent newsroom reshuffling, and in turn shuffled their own contact lists to send future news releases and pitches in the right direction.

But the column was not an inside-baseball document to PR pros. It was address directly readers as an invitation for those who "have a story to pitch or a concern to express." Certainly enterprising individuals without a PR job title have been able for some time to notice a byline, look up an address or phone number online, and pitch reporters. But this column was such an open and direct appeal that I got to wondering about the place of PR "professionals" in all of this. Just as journalists are being replaced or supplemented by citizen journalists, are PR professionals entering an era when their pitches compete with "citizen PR practitioners"? Should we envision a cacophony like that illustrated in the Ladders job search commercial when all the people jump on the tennis court?

What Paul Keep is doing is actually a response to the turmoil in journalism. Everyone knows local dailies are struggling, and part of the solution is to "engage" readers (this is also known as public relations, having two-way dialogue with your key public, a point I made to Keep last fall in a meeting when I suggested they have PR as well as journalism interns at the Press). Seeing readers as "customers"--also known as "market journalism"-- has been criticized from a big picture view because there would seem to be pressure to titillate vs inform in order to keep readers and stay financially viable. Some fear editors are as much as saying "screw the First Amendment and the noble notion of the press as an institution of democracy--we need eyeballs or we lose our jobs!" Well, the framers of the Constitution didn't have the people's right to know about the obese food offerings at Whitecaps games in mind when they made a special place for freedom of the press.

On the other hand, the role of journalism has always been to stimulate discussion and facilitate a public sphere in which citizens discuss important issues of the day. By making himself and the newsroom staff so open to readers' views, one could argue Keep is returning the Press to the historical role of journalism in democracy.

But then back to my original question. Where do PR people fit in this milieu of "the great unwashed" pitching their own stories directly to the newsroom? In some ways, journalists have always liked to hear directly from sources and citizens. If they didn't hear about it from a PR professional, they can call it "reporting," or maybe even an "enterprise" story. There is something more genuine about an average Joe calling with a story idea.

On the other hand, there's no guarantee that the common person will not be cluttering newsrooms with all manner of self-promotional, nebulous, non-newsworthy nonsense. Journalists may appreciate a professional public relations person now more than ever.

But the key is "professional." It has always been the case, but now more than ever PR people must demonstrate their merits by only pitching or releasing news that is as much or more in the public interest than their clients' or organizations' private interest. PR professionals will be valued for recognizing legitimate news, disclosing information people have a right to know, sharing information people want to know, providing access to people journalists want to interview, and explaining complex information clearly. We will be respected for advocating a point of view in the arena of public discussion, not for self-promotion and attempts to manipulate public opinion.

Just as "professional" journalists are distinct from and supplemented by citizen journalists, "professional" PR practitioners must distinguish themselves from others who seek audience via the media. Citizens are participating in their own journalism and public relations on their own blogs, Facebook notes, and tweets. For journalists and PR practitioners alike, our worth is not going to be that we can communicate, but how.

FAQ on Ad/PR Education Program

2010-02-04T09:45:00.002-05:00

I get asked a lot of questions, and receive a lot of unsolicited advice, about the Advertising & Public Relations program at Grand Valley State University. If I took to heart all the suggestions and sentences from professionals that begin "You should..." we would keep students here til they're 40. The fact is, our Ad/PR major is the way it is for a reason, or several reasons. I thought I would share them here. Since this is based on questions I get frequently, it is in FAQ format:

Why is Advertising/PR in the School of Communications at Grand Valley?

While some colleges around the country locate advertising and PR in a Journalism Department or a College of Business, in fact the majority of advertising and public relations programs that are complete majors are located in a communication department or school[1]. At GVSU, the Ad/PR major is appropriately located in a School of Communications along with seven other majors: Broadcasting, Communication Studies, Film/Video Production, Health Communication, Journalism, Photography, and Theatre.

Where a program is placed affects how it is taught. With the Ad/PR major in the School of Communications, the emphasis is on communications. Some might argue that people working in advertising and public relations need to have a good understanding of business and thus the major should be part of a college of business. However, many advertising and public relations professionals—including our graduates--do NOT work in businesses or exclusively with business clients. Many work in the non-profit or government sectors. For such students, additional courses in public administration or political science would make more sense, and placing public relations in a business school would in fact limit instruction to a marketing focus. Therefore, we ground our students broadly in advertising and public relations from a communications basis, and encourage them to minor or take electives in business, political science or whatever courses best suit their specific career goals.

Why Integrate Advertising and PR into One Major?

There are a variety of ways that colleges and universities structure their advertising and public relations programs. Of the 185 colleges represented in the 2008 “Where Shall I Go to Study Advertising and Public Relations” brochure, 40 have programs that integrate Advertising/Public Relations. Of those 40, 12 offer a full Advertising/Public Relations major. Others have Advertising/Public Relations as a sequence or emphasis or track as part of a more general communications or other major. Still other schools have a separate advertising major and public relations major.

Some educators are opposed to blending advertising, public relations and marketing programs because of a fear of “encroachment,” in which other disciplines change the nature and focus of what they are trying to teach. The alternate view is that integrated marketing communications (IMC) or integrated communications (IC) is a reality in the workplace and an integrated program better prepares students for their careers. [2]

At GVSU, we share both views. In our Advertising/Public Relations major, the majority of the courses the students take are the same. But they emphasize either advertising or public relations by taking a unique set of three courses. In this way they can emphasize one discipline but understand the other well enough to perform related skills or work with colleagues in an integrated communication context in their careers.

Do You Emphasize Theory or Practical Experience?

The School of Communications at GVSU stresses the integration of liberal and professional education as part of its mission for all of its majors, including Advertising/Public Relations. This integration of theoretical and practical learning experiences is important to prepare students not only with technical communication skills, but also with the ability to engage in critical thinking and to understand that their role as a professional is to contribute positively to the well-being of society. Also, we affirm that "nothing is as practical as a good theory" in the sense that theories explain and predict attitudes and behavior on the basis of generalized empirical study. Understanding theory gives experience legs.

The Advertising/Public Relations major achieves this integration in two ways. One, our faculty includes tenure-track professors who have professional experience in advertising and public relations as well as doctoral degrees. This enables them to teach from a broad theoretical and empirical perspective as well as provide the validity that comes from practice. A variety of visiting, affiliate and adjunct professors enhance the program with their varied professional experiences in different aspects of advertising and public relations work.

But we also believe, to paraphrase Sophocles, "to DO is to learn." So, the Advertising/Public Relations major gives students hands-on learning. In addition to a required internship for all students, four of our courses involve students completing projects for clients in the community. This is consistent with programs across the country, although many only engage students with real clients in the campaigns course.[3]

What is The Curriculum?

The specific courses Advertising/Public Relations majors take are consistent with what is expected by professionals and advised by educators. In fact, the GVSU Advertising/Public Relations major curriculum reflects the recommendations in the 2006 Report of the Commission on Public Relations Education.

Our curriculum is as follows:

School of Communication Core Courses (9 credits)

COM 101—Concepts of Communication

COM 295—Theories of Communication

Plus one of the following:

COM 201—Speech

COM 215—Storymaking

Advertising/Public Relations Major Core (36 credits)

CAP 105—Technology in Advertising and PR

CAP 115—Advertising/PR Research

CJR 256—Newsreporting I

CAP 210—Fundamentals of Advertising

*CAP 220—Fundamentals of Public Relations

PHI 325—Ethics in the Professions

*CAP 400—Advertising/PR Campaigns

CAP 490—Internship

Ad Emphasis must take: PR Emphasis must take:

CAP 310—Advertising Management Cases CAP 320—PR Management Cases

CAP 315—Advertising Copywriting *CAP 321—Media Relations Writing

CAP 413—Media Planning *CAP 423—Corporate Communications

Capstone:

COM 495—Issues in Communication

Electives (6 credits 200 level or above)

* = coursework involves work on project for real client.

Many professionals ask us if we have a course in a specific subject. We keep up with changes in the field by offering “special topics” courses and/or by incorporating social media, design, promotions, branding etc. into the pedagogy and lesson plans of the required courses.

[1] According to “Where Shall I Go to Study Advertising and Public Relations?”, a brochure/directory of U.S. programs edited and updated each year by Billy Ross, Ph.D., of Louisiana State University and Jef I. Richards, Ph.D., of the University of Texas at Austin

[2] Larsen, Phullis V. & Len-Rios, Maria E. (2006). “Integration of Advertising and Public Relations Curricula: A 2005 Status Report of Educator Perceptions.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator. 61(1) pp. 33-47.

[3] Benigni, Vince, Cheng, I-Hui, and Cameron, Glen T. (2004). “The Role of Clients in the Public Relations Campaigns Course.” Journalism & Mass Communications Educator. 59(3) pp.259-277.

West Michigan Firm News

2010-01-30T14:29:00.003-05:00

A few quick notes from West Michigan public relations and advertising firms:

LEA hired Kenneth Zak, former COO of Softech, Inc., as Managing Director and head of the firm's Financial Communication practice;
Wondergem launched a new Web site;
Seyferth and Associates will present the backstory on the public relations efforts for Art Prize at the February 10 meeting of Interchange;
Hanon-McKendry will be hosting its annual SuperAdBowl event on SuperBowl Sunday, this year pitting the ad execs ("ad peeps") against social media personalities ("net tweeps"). The event is invitation only. I'll be one of the tweeps. Stay tuned.

PR Research Roundup (Jan 2010)

2010-01-27T13:56:00.004-05:00

I was talking to a PR professional the other day who said he would read "in a second" a blog post summarizing recent articles relevant to PR from academic journals. I found this a heartening response. Professors need to be in touch with practitioners in the profession; and practitioners should be interested in the research being done relevant to public relations. So, I'm going to offer a quarterly "research roundup" beginning this year. Here's a sampling of what's been studied as reported in recent issues of some journals I peruse:

Democratic Media Reform
"The Search for a Purveyor of News: The Dewey/Lippman Debate in an Internet Age." By Nathan Crick. In Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol 26, issue 5, pp 480-497.

Public relations and the concept of public opinion really took off in the 1920s. In that decade John Dewey and Walter Lippman debated, in several books, what the best form of journalism should be to ensure that democracy has an informed and engaged public. Essentially, Dewey envisioned an interactive process in which matters of public interest are discussed by journalists, artists, and citizens (which sounds like what is emerging today with citizen journalism, blogs, and other Internet platforms that empower citizens to participate in "media"). Lippman worried that the public was not really capable of civic debate without "professional" or "elite" journalists first offering objective information, which the public can then discuss (not far from a criticism today that the Internet is more cacophony of opinion and a fragmented public than democratic information discussed by a common public). Meanwhile, Edward Bernays, a public relations pioneer, argued that the public is best informed by allowing "competing propaganda campaigns." So, even when radio was "new media," there were concerns about making sure that public information was, in the author's words, "more than a tool for corporate profit and individual expression, but also a domain of cooperative public inquiry." That same concern exists today with regard to the Internet. Back then, as now, the idea of using public resources to enable a democratic public was proposed as an alternative to a free "marketplace of ideas." What do you think?

Public Reaction to Video News Releases (VNRs)
Two articles in the fall (volume 24, number 4) edition of Journal of Mass Media Ethics address the public's reaction to video news releases. In "Tragedies of the Broadcast Commons: Consumer Perspectives on the Ethics of Product Placement and Video News Releases," the authors found that consumers who accept of product placements in entertainment programming are more likely to accept video news releases in broadcast news. Meanwhile, consumers have little confidence in the government or marketers "protecting" consumers from "marketing excesses" and tend to see themselves as having the savvy to discern marketing techniques in media.

While an interesting study, I was bothered by the authors alternately labeling VNRs as public relations, marketing, and advertising. They also oddly refer to "the reported on doing the reporting" as "the essence of PR." No. The essence of PR is relationship building, and when most PR professionals do the media relations this article addresses, they most often do so by providing information and expecting reporters to do their jobs. If VNRs are not attributed, that is the fault of TV news directors.

A second article, "Increased Persuasion Knowledge of Video News Releases: Audience Beliefs About News and Support for Source Disclosure," showed that when people are informed about what VNRs are and the source of a VNR is disclosed, they are more likely to believe: a) that VNRs are 'commercializing news' ; b) VNRs without disclosure are unethical; c) news organizations should voluntarily disclose the source of VNRs; and d) government should regulate VNRs.

Again, I'm all in favor of ethical practice of public relations and broadcast journalism. But this study seems to exemplify "priming"--i.e. giving people an attitude of VNRs that may have likely been negative will understandably produce negative opinions about them. Were I to give the same group my view of VNRs as properly produced public information tailored for the television medium, they may see them differently. The public also complains when companies and other organizations offer too little information to meet their civic and consumer interests. Also, if broadcast journalists practiced fundamental source attribution, VNRs would not be an issue. What I tell my PR students is that TV stations are unlikely to run your 90-second VNR verbatim. It's best to provide hard to access interviews with executives and hard to obtain b-roll footage for stations to incorporate into their own independent reporting and story treatment.

Political PR
The autumn issue (volume 83, issue 3) of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly is a special issue on "political knowledge." A summary of the results of some of the articles that are most relevant to PR:

news releases were more effective in building an issue agenda (what is talked about in a political campaign) whereas ads were more effective in "second-level" agenda building (how those issues are framed or talked about);
young people are more interested in politics now than in the past, but that interest was not reflected in the popular magazines they read;
less than 15% of hyperlinks on political blogs were to primary sources; almost half were to mainstream media sources; therefore political blogs are equated with op-ed pages;
when income increases, online news use decreases; in economic terms, online news is an "inferior good" and print newspapers are a "normal good", meaning a positive relationship between income and demand;

There's a roundup for this quarter. PR students and professionals, let me know if you find this interesting, want more, want a different format, or what you think.

GR Firm a Finalist in PRWeek 2010 Awards

2010-01-05T10:37:00.002-05:00

Grand Rapids based PR firm Lambert, Edwards and Associates is a finalist for "Small PR Agency of the Year," one of numerous categories in the PRWeek 2010 Awards.

LEA was one of five firms to make the cut as a finalist and the only representative from West Michigan in this year's awards. I called Jeremy Bakken at LEA and found out the criteria were tough. The firm had to submit information about the following to be considered:

employee turnover and retention
client testimonials
revenue and profitability
different practice areas and specialties
partnerships and innovations in PR practice
a list of long-term clients
account wins and losses
involvement in professional organizations and community activity

While it's an honor to be a finalist, LEA staff is hoping to be named Small PR Agency of the Year. They'll find out in March at the PRWeek Awards dinner in New York City.

West Michigan Man Heads National School PR Association

2009-12-17T09:59:00.002-05:00

Ron Koehler, assistant superintendent of the Kent Intermediate School District, is the president-elect of the National Schools Public Relations Association. He will serve as president in 2010.

Koehler is past president of the Michigan School Public Relations Association and a member of West Michigan Public Relations Society of America.

This is no doubt a great honor for Koehler. It also represents the West Michigan PR community well that one of our local colleagues was chosen to lead the national association.

Here's a recent podcast interview with Inside Michigan Education in which Koehler speaks about school PR in a tough economy.

MDOT Using Online PR Well

2009-12-17T09:46:00.003-05:00

I noticed a good example this morning of a government agency using the latest online technology as part of their public relations efforts.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) posts VNRs to its YouTube channel. This is a no brainer for anyone, but seems especially useful for a government agency. Yeah, there was criticism of government use of VNRs a few years ago, but that was overblown and more the fault of local TV news directors using them without attribution. MDOT's channel is clearly labeled as MDOT, the video news releases have a pre-roll with MDOT clearly identified, and the content is informative to citizens.

The quality is decent as well. It might not work for broadcast (but then again it might). Certainly these VNRs could be mashed and edited by TV stations if there's good (i.e. informative, not boasting) SOT (sound on tape or soundbites) and enough b-roll to edit and localize for use on their own Web sites. I would just stop ending every VNR with an articulation of the MDOT mission statement.

Of course, the MDOT YouTube channel can circumvent news stations altogether for citizens who want to stay informed and subscribe to the channel, or click links from MDOT's Web page, Twitter stream, or Facebook.

GR Creative Circle Closes

2009-12-10T17:45:00.002-05:00

Just a day after I touted the Grand Rapids office of Creative Circle I learn that it is closing. I got this email from the local office's staffer:

I’m Kristen Myers-Chatman – I launched Creative Circle here in Grand Rapids – however after only 2 months or so of servicing this area….CC execs have decided to close the doors feeling it’s not a viable market for the company after all.

Bummer. Looks like the Creative Circle for area communication pros looking for work has become a...wrecked angle.

Grand Rapids Part of "Creative Circle"

2009-12-09T11:02:00.002-05:00

Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and....GRAND RAPIDS?!

Yes. Grand Rapids is one of seven office locations for Creative Circle, billed as an advertising and creative staffing agency. That means they connect creative talent to clients who need all manner of creative help, from animation to writing. Area creatives can register to get freelance gigs and potentially full-time positions.

This is not only a good service for the West Michigan creative community; it's validation that West Michigan has an attractive creative climate.

(Hat tip to GVSU alumna Lisa Travnik)

West Michigan PR Students, Pros Make National Impact

2009-12-08T12:29:00.002-05:00

It's been a good week for West Michigan public relations students and professionals getting national recognition.

First, Derek DeVries, manager of communication technology for Grand Rapids Community College, had an article called "Managing Your College's Online Reputation" published in the Community College Times, a national publication.

Then I learned that Leah Zuber, president of the Grand Valley State University PRSSA chapter, and Angela Hernandez of the Central Michigan University PRSSA chapter, were among 14 recipients of the PRSSA National President's Citation for 2009.

Finally, I noticed that Mikinzie Stuart, a student at Ferris State University, had a nice blog post called "20 Ways PR Students Can Beat the Winter Blues" in the BrazenCareerist blog. The post scored a mention in Ragan's PR Daily.

Kudos to everyone for representing West Michigan and the public relations professional so well!

Michigan Radio's West Side Stories Has GVSU Alumni Story

2009-12-03T12:05:00.002-05:00

Three comments about this item from the current Rapid Growth Media:

1. This new Michigan Radio podcast called "West Side Stories" is an obvious boon to the West Michigan PR community. Not only will the stories--focused on the west side of Michigan--air on Tuesdays on WVGR 104.1, they will also be podcasts that Michigan radio will have on it's Web site and probably push via its Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets. West Michigan PR pros should warm up their pitching arms, since local Michigan radio reporter Dustin Dwyer says he's looking for ideas in the lifestyle genre.

2. Podcasts. Are they on your media lists? They should be. Media isn't just conventional broadcast and print anymore. My advice is to listen before you leap. Make sure the tone and treatment are fair, and that the audience is there, before you start pitching podcasters. Also, PR folks should think about doing their own podcasts--YOU are the media now.

3. Finally, the first episode (which aired November 11) featured a former student of mine--Kelsey Duda. She's the only student I ever had who did internships for both a large PR firm and an African NGO. Now I see how she's put the two together. I've noticed in her tweets that she's been working on a business plan. Turns out it's for Six Stone Jars, a wine business that donates significant proceeds to providing clean water in developing nations. I am so proud.

What My Students Learned at PRSSA

2009-11-16T16:03:00.004-05:00

Thirteen of my students went to San Diego for the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) conference, which happens concurrently with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference I was attending. (One alumna second from right front row in photo; I'm the one with a beard)

I asked them to share the one most important thing they learned at the conference. Here's what they said:

Definitely how to utilize resources and connections to my advantage, whether they are on social media sites, PR professionals, or fellow students. I've been on Twitter non-stop since!
Attending the National Conference reinforced my choice to study public relations. I met outgoing, professional students from across the country, learned countless information about the profession and became close with the girls who went on the trip. The conference increased my motivation to do well in the profession. I hope the information and ideas I take back with me will motivate current Grand Valley PRSSA members to attend next year.
As young PR professionals, we must...
...be lifetime learners.
...be proactive in the workplace and ask for feedback from senior staff members.
...be current, be curious, and be creative.
...actively intern and volunteer at various organizations and companies.
You have to engage people. When your writing, speaking, blogging, tweeting, networking, pitching, messaging and promoting. You have to give your words value in order engage your audience.
Know who you are and stay true to yourself. Be prepared to work your tail off in the early days and don't feel entitled to everything.
I learned that it is okay to start at the bottom of the industry you want to be a part of. The conference reenforced that fact that a student is not going to get their dream job right out of college. Staying focused on the goal and committing to every task assigned (small or large) will set you up for success in the future.
I learned that in some cases, not all PR is good PR and if you want to a make a connection with a professional, the incorrect way is to just hand them your resume and walk away; they will never remember you.

An Email to Make a Professor's Day

2009-11-05T14:11:00.003-05:00

I get a lot of emails from former students. It's always nice to know they actually want to stay in touch even when they are no longer 'required' to communicate with me because they are taking a class. It's also nice to know what happens to students after they move on. I have several years of intense involvement, and then "poof"--they're gone. I like to hear where they ended up getting their first job, where they are living, if they got married, etc.

Public relations is about relationships; so is teaching, and life in general. One of the greatest joys of being a professor is watching young people mature and develop, to go from timid sophomores to passionate and articulate seniors. And then, to going from being a student to being a peer, a colleague, a friend.

So when I received this email this week, it made my day, my week, my semester:

Hi Tim,

I just wanted to tell you thank you. I know it's been six years since I graduated (how can it really be that long?), but a PR class many years ago where you taught us media training has been invaluable this week. In that class, we had to stand in front of class and be prepared for reporters' (our classmates') questions. You taped the interviews and then played them back and we critiqued them.

This week, I am one of a team of eight who is teaching media training to high ranking military officers from 45 different countries. The basic skills I learned in your class I am now teaching to these students.

Thank you for such a great class and such a fantastic undergrad education. I couldn't have done this without you.

Wow. The truth is, I couldn't be a great professor without the validation and encouragement from great students and alumni.

'Smackdown' a Smashing Success

2009-11-04T13:57:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday's Creative Smackdown was another successful event. Frank Blossom, a visiting professor in the Advertising/Public Relations major in GVSU's School of Communications and the organizer of the event, said there was record turnout this year representing 8 area colleges and universities.

Part of that record turnout may have been due to the stellar promotional work of students in Grand PR, the student-run PR firm that is part of the GVSU PRSSA group that I advise. All credit to the students on this one. (And contact them if you need some PR work that you can't handle yourself).

If you didn't take the time to go observe, you missed out on seeing some really creative work in advertising, graphic design, and web design categories. It's unfortunate that only three can win in each category, but the winners were deserving. Here they are:

Ad Finalists
1. Cody Eckert
Kendall College
Advertising
Title: H1NO
2. Jenna Eisma
Kendall
Advertising
“Paper Necessities”
3. Michelle Kozak
Kendall College of Art and Design
Advertising
Bounce

Graphic Design Finalists
1. Erica McCary
School: Kendall College of Art and Design
Graphic Design
Title of work: Shangri-La Annual Report
2. Amanda Adams - a first for Baker College
Baker College Graphic Communications
Graphic design
"Orphic"
3. John Knoerl
GVSU
Graphic Design
Concert Poster
4. Chelsea Chandler
College: Grand Valley State University
Category: Graphic Design
Title of Submission: Poster

Web Design Finalists
1. Abby Peters
Central Michigan University
Web Design
Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival Email Flyer Series
2. Jeremiah Britton
College: Central Michigan University
Category: Web Design
Title of Submission: Bite of Seattle 2010 Web
3. Christa Skelton
College: Grand Valley State University
Category: Web Design
Title of Submission: GVSU American Marketing Association

It always sounds hokey to say that every participant is a winner, but that really is the consensus. As one student who did not place as a finalist told Frank Blossom:

"I want to thank you again for encouraging me to participate. I enjoyed networking with local professionals and being able to get insight into my career. Ultimately, Smackdown takes the doors down off of the biggest agencies in our area and lets us just walk right in and ask for advice. I'm assuming that doesn't happen in Chicago.”

PR FIrm Uses National Ads for Local Visibility

2009-11-03T07:43:00.002-05:00

I was trolling the PRWeek site the other day and noticed an ad placed by Google AdWords. The ad was for Holland, Michigan-based Boileau Communications Management.

I asked myself, is this a case of a local West Michigan firm casting the net wide for some national clients?

Randy Boileau answered me in a phone call yesterday: no.

"We didn't do it (advertise via Google) to stretch out our client base," Boileau said. "We did it because it is effective, low cost, and helps our firm come up higher on the list of search results."

Boileau says 95% of their clients are local or regional, and that the ads have helped raise and maintain the firm's visibility in the region. In fact, the algorithms used by Google have a geographic component, causing the Boileau ads to appear in West Michigan based sites--including GRPR via the AdSense box top right--as well as PR related sites like PRWeek.

Given all this I also asked Boileau why the firm's Web site does not make plain its West Michigan location. Apparently, he has found that the local market recognizes where the firm is based. As for potential national clients, the location is less relevant than the services they offer and the online portfolio demonstrating their talents.

West Michigan Company on CSR Top 50

2009-10-21T19:52:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Benton Harbor-based Whirlpool Corporation for getting national recognition for its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. They came in 23rd on the 2009 list of the 50 top companies for CSR.

I first learned about the honor in MiBiz. The Whirlpool news release adds some more detail (although the release is not in the company's online press room).

Most impressive is that Whirlpool has stressed being a responsible corporation since before CSR was a buzz word in PR. There are still too many corporate CEOs who think CSR is costly and counter to business objectives. In fact, CSR is directly linked with reputation, which pays "dividends" in many tangible ways. The fact that the list is determined jointly by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and its Reputation Institute demonstrates the link.

This particular list is determined by measuring public perceptions of companies in terms of citizenship, governance, and workplace. You can learn more about those criteria and see the full list of the 2009 best CSR companies here.

Meanwhile, I wonder why there are not more West Michigan companies on the list. Maybe they just weren't measured in this study. I know our region's businesses have a pretty good record for CSR and sustainability.

If you are the PR director and want to know more about CSR measurement, here are a few other souces:

CSRWire -- for news about CSR and sustainability
Reputation Quotient (RQ) -- another way of measuring corporate reputation
Dow Jones Sustainability Index
Aquinas College Center for Sustainability -- and we're back to West Michigan!