I was recently reminded of the challenging and difficult decisions that we must make in the business world…especially those that cause many sleepless nights and constant second guessing. As a business owner I’m often faced with such decisions yet I rarely find myself losing sleep or second guessing myself. I’ve been raised to follow your heart and do what I know is right…even if it hurts.

Without naming names or getting into too much detail, several months ago I was faced with such a rare situation – in the first year of my business. Even though the end result was one of the most important decisions I’ve made in my young career as the owner of my company, it didn’t make the situation any easier to deal with at the time.

Several months back we had just started working with a new client who had an amazing new technology. After several months of sharing ideas and swapping business philosophies, we were eager to get started on this new client. Surprisingly, our first task was to support a decision they had made to litigate against a competitor infringing on their technology patent instead of leading with the various positive story angles around their innovative technology. We agreed to support such an announcement but advised that we shouldn’t be proactive with our outreach as with any litigation, they couldn’t get into details about the lawsuit at the end of the day. A story came out in a popular technology blog that the client viewed as unfavorable and ironically, this blog also happened to have a partnership with the competitor they had just named in a lawsuit. Here is the kicker…the very next day this blog was added to the lawsuit despite the hundreds of other partners this competitor had…the blog was the only partner added. That’s when my ethical radar kicked in.

To make a long story shorter, I made the decision to let that client go. Not because I didn’t agree that fighting for your patented technology was the right thing to do, but because they were leveraging litigation to get back at an unfavorable blog post. Not to mention my name & my firm’s name was on the release.

The reason I’m sharing this story with each of you is not to discuss if it was right or wrong to make this decision (I am at peace of mind today about my decision), but to remind each one of you to follow your heart and above all else…make the right decision, no matter how wrong it might feel at the time.

Have you ever looked back on a decision you made in business (or life) and no matter how hard it was to stomach at the time, felt refreshed that you truly did the right thing?

I’ll leave you with the words of the wise and crafty Mark Twain…”Always do right – - this will gratify some and astonish the rest.”

Before networking events, business luncheons, after-hours socials and our beloved social media platforms…there were three-martini lunches. I remember a story my grandfather told me soon after I first entered the business world. He talked about when he was an executive at WGN and would take a prospective client out to lunch. By the time they wrapped things up…several cocktails and stories later…they would undoubtedly have a new client (not to mention a killer buzz).

This story recently popped up in my memory this week as I was trying to pinpoint my feelings about why the “doubters” (specifically business folks) should join the social media party. I’d like to make a claim that social media can be a lot like three-martini lunches for the following 3 reasons:

• Let’s Just Talk: (Three-martini lunch) Grab a drink, relax, kick back and let’s get to know each other. We can talk about anything from sports & family to passions & interests. Ultimately, we hope to find a common ground. (Social media) We share many great conversations on Twitter, become friends on Facebook & find out that we have many things in common.
• Loosen Up A Little: (Three-martini lunch) After a drink or two we’ve loosened our tie, let down our business facet & seemed to forgetten that we were even here to talk business…and that’s okay. (Social Media) Although we all have information about our respective professions on our Twitter bios, blogs and LinkedIn pages, we find ourselves connecting with others because of who they are…not where they work.
• I’m Glad We Got To Know Each Other: (Three-martini lunch) When “lunch” is through, we’ve shared stories & laughes, advice & perspective, and stumble out of the restaurant with a new level of comfort and understanding for each other. (Social Media) We’ve shared pictures & links, posts & comments and at the end of the day we shut down our computers having made new connections…and friends.

So the next time you have someone poo-poo social media as a “new fangled technology” or any of the other “10 Most Common Social Media Myths,” just invite them to pull up a stool and allow you to pour them a drink:).

Do you have a good analogy that you use when educating the “doubters” or “skeptics” about this social media experience I like to call the world’s largest cocktail party? Cheers!

Today, TIME published a story by Jay Newton-Small called, “Congress’s New Love Affair with Twitter, for Better or Worse.”

I encourage you to read the story for yourself, but here is a quick summary…the story begins by sharing a story about Representative Pete Hoekstra from Michigan (@petehoekstra) and how sent tweets about his recent trip to Baghdad. Congratulations Rep. Hoekstra! Here’s to a new generation of political leaders truly engaging with their constituents – transparent, engaged in conversation & readily available!

Following this pattern (next generation of politicians), the story leads into President Obama’s remarkable use of social media during his presidential campaign. Surprisingly, the story suggests that there are a total of 65 Representatives on Twitter but most have various staffers managing these profiles (perhaps more of a one-way conversation than preferred).

The story continues on to share the various ways that Twitter is being used by various political entities and politicians. During the recent closed meetings with President Obama & Congress to discuss our nation’s stimulus package to the recent Alfalfa Club Dinner attended by Gov. Sarah Palin, President Obama & SC Chief Justice John Roberts. Such a great story concluded by this paragraph:

“Of course, if you’ve ever spent any time on Facebook or Twitter, you know that much of what people post is simply the boring minutia of daily life. Did we really need to know what Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was doing for New Year’s? (“I didn’t stay up to see Ball drop. I will watch Hawkeyw ftball. Otherwise read. Not a very exciting new year celebration but tradition for me.”) Or that McCaskill broke her diet on Saturday and had a chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce? Probably not, but if Americans really want an unvarnished look at their elected Representatives, perhaps such mundane details are the price of admission.”

I applaud each politician actually leveraging Twitter & encourage each of your to ask your Representatives to join the party:)

Every since jumping on the Twitter train (my first tweet) the one ongoing question I’ve continued to hear is, “how do I leverage Twitter for my business?” In fact I recently wrote, “Mixing Twitter & Business – Congrats Dell!” Also, here is an awesome post from Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan) entitled, “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business.”

Like with any other business initiative, I would always recommend that you define your goals – in this case how you will be using Twitter or social media in general. In the spirit of being transparent, here’s why I’m here:

1. Engage in the social media experience to increase my knowledge and understanding of each platform;
2. Establish and foster relationships with individuals who might be able to add value to myself and my business;
3. Assist others and their business or clients in any way I can.

As a result of this ongoing question, I’ve spent some time asking many of my friends and followers which businesses they admire on Twitter. I’m following each and I plan on pulling this conversation into this blog and other social media platforms as I see great examples of businesses using Twitter (and other SM). Here is my shortlist:

@Zappos
@ComcastCares
@1800Flowers
@TheHomeDepot
@Threadless
@JetBlue
@Nordstrom
@CarlsJr

Also, Chris Pitre (@ChrisPitre) provided me with this awesome site that is an index for all different businesses and resources on Twitter – http://www.socialbrandindex.com/ (NOTE: just because a business is on this list it doesn’t mean they are doing a good job utilizing Twitter – i.e., following 6 with 20,000 following them).

Which businesses might you add to this shortlist? How do YOU leverage Twitter for your business or clients? I’m looking forward to your input as I’m treating this as a little side project/experiment:) Thanks!

I’ve constantly been impressed with President Obama’s marketing and PR savvy.  From David Axelrod to his new Commerce Secretary, Senator Judd Gregg, President Obama has coined a new term in marketing called, “poli-marketing” (or at least the first time I’ve heard of the term).

FOX News (The FOX Forum Blog) & John Tantillo came out with a great story yesterday about just this topic entitled, “THE FIRST 100 DAYS: Look Out, Washington, There’s a New Brand In Town.”

I’m continuing to read more on his various marketing tactics but I’ve really been enamored by his leverage of social media techniques throughout his campaign and now the various other marketing/PR moves he’s made in his role as President of the United States.

Proud to be an American. Proud to be a marketer:)

Ever since I’ve been participating in the Twitter arena, I’ve seen numerous questions (tweets) from corporate marketing teams, agencies, and business owners about how to leverage Twitter for your business.

So I’m reading through my news headlines today and I see 20+ stories about Dell (@DellOutlet) offering exclusive deals to their Twitter followers. Here is a story on CNET today entitled, “Dell cozies up to its Twitter followers.”

I think this is a great example showing how B2C companies can really benefit and leverage Twitter for actual sales and customer interaction. My only slam on Dell is they aren’t following customers back which means they are stuck in a one-way dialog…which isn’t ideal for the customer. Nonetheless, they see value in this channel if for no other reason but to offer great deals to consumers.

Other great examples of companies using Twitter for the good include:

Zappos – @Zappos - This is actually Zappos CEO…great move!

Comcast – @ComcastCares - Frank responds to upset customers faster than their customer service line…

Whole Foods – @WholeFoods – Very active and following almost 42K on Twitter…

I would love to hear other great examples of companies effectively using Twitter & to get your feedback and thoughts on this subject.  Thanks!

There has been much dialog this past week about the tactical aspects of working with the media or media relations. A PR colleague, David Mullen sparked some debate with his calculated title to a post called, “Relationships Don’t Matter MOST in Media Relations.” Although David’s point was very well understood in his post, many seemed to react as if David was suggesting that relationships don’t matter.  As you can see from his post today, “Five Tips for Media Relations Success,” David clearly makes his point.

This also triggered me to share with each of you a tactic that falls into the category I like to talk a lot about, “Commonsense PR” called the “Reverse Pitch.”

Within the worlds of PR and media relations we get so caught up in the traditional pitch process or taking a story idea or resource to our trusted or sometimes unknown media contacts. Please don’t misunderstand me; I have generated hundreds of articles for clients and companies I’ve worked with as a result of this traditional pitch process. 

I would ask that each of you reading this post to humor me for a minute and take off your PR or marketing hat and look at the traditional media relations process:

1. Your client/company has a message they would like to communicate to a group or groups of respective targets…via the media;

2. You identify the media outlets and contacts to target with these messages;

3. You target these media contacts with a pitch and/or press release telling them why they should care about your messages;

4. You can repeat and tweak steps 2 & 3 but at this point your “pitch” is in the hands of these media contacts.

As you can see, the traditional pitching process is dependent on an uncontrolled variable (not to be too technical) – the media being convinced that the story or resources you’ve pitched are worth moving forward on as a story.

Without elaborating this “reverse pitch” approach in great detail. I would strongly suggest that steps 1 & 2 of this process consist of asking the following two questions before you get into your tradition pitch mode:

1. What types of stories or resources are you currently looking for given the beat (or beats) you are currently interested in covering?

2. How can I be of assistance in helping you accomplish those stories?

Granted, this is more of a formality than anything else as they may immediately respond with, “Why? What do you have for me?” But my point here is that we must start this process by first assessing the needs of the individuals (the media) that control the outcome of our efforts. By doing so, I can guarentee each of you will see far greater success generating coverage for your client or company.

This said I’d love to hear from you about this “reverse pitch” method or perhaps the “ask before you pitch” process. Do you agree? Do you feel differently about these initial steps? As always, I look forward to the conversation!

I’m not sure how you are, but whenever I’m traveling to a new market, representing a new industry or even curious about a new technique, I typically read up on the subject at hand as much as possible. After sticking my toe into the social media pool several times over the past 2-3 years, I finally hurled myself into a cannonball and I’m now immersed in this pool!

As I’m sure to do with most things new and based on a number of recommendations, last night I started reading “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott (2007). Although I started reading late in the night, I immediately began to realize this was going to be complimentary to my instincts about social media & PR as David says, “In PR, it’s not about clip books. It’s about reaching our buyers…Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on a media relations program that tries to convince a handful of reporters at select magazines, newspapers, and TV stations to cover us, we should be targeting the plugged-in bloggers, online news sites, micro-publications, public speakers, analysts and consultants that reach the targeted audiences that are looking for what we have to offer. Better yet, we no longer even need to wait for someone with a media voice to write about us at all.”

Just to caveat David’s thoughts on these “New Rules”, he does clearly point out throughout the book that there is still value in traditional media relations.

Although I haven’t yet finished this book, I thought I’d provide you with David’s “New Rules of Marketing & PR” as I would love to hear your thoughts and to learn about what YOU are doing to address this new channel:

• Marketing is more than just advertising;
• PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience;
• You are what you publish;
• People want authenticity, not spin;
• People want participation, not propaganda;
• Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it;
• Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of undeserved audiences via the Web;
• PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web;
• Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business;
• The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on the media;
• Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content;
• Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly buyers in a form they appreciate;
• On the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

These were all great reminders to me that the way we do media relations, PR or marketing in general have all changed and are currently changing as I write this post. In fact, this book was published in 2007 and I’m sure as I get into the tactical recommendations, they will have already been replaced by something better. Regardless of this evolution, I think these “rules” are still very true today.

Please let me know what you are doing different today and if your answer is “more of the same” I would LOVE to hear why these rules aren’t applicable to your practice of marketing & PR today.  Have a great Monday!

I was inspired today by the cleverly titled, “Relationships Don’t Matter Most in Media Relations” blog post from fellow PR professional David Mullen. The lesson David made was that writing a well-crafted pitch and knowing your media targets was the most effective way to generating media coverage for your company or clients.

I do agree with David’s point that when all is said and done (relationships or not) if you don’t have a pitch or angle that is on-target for each media contact, you won’t likely be successful.  There is however one catch to this overall argument, in particular when working with the national media…if you do have that relationship established your chances of success will greatly increase.

David makes the argument that PR agencies often have multiple clients spanning across many different industries, hence making it impossible to maintain such relationships. While this may be the case when working with industry or trade media, I don’t believe this to be the case when working with regional or national media…and here are some simple steps to follow that explain why:

Create at least one internal champion at every key media outlet.  It could be the technology reporter at the Chicago Tribune, the personal finance reporter at the Wall Street Journal, or the consumer interest producer at the TODAY Show.

Gain the trust and credibility from these champions through establishing yourself as someone knowledgeable of their outlet and audience and most important, someone who can deliver quality resources in a timely fashion.

Lean on these champions to help identify the appropriate contacts within their respective outlet, if not themselves.  This way you’ve now been given the inside track or referral from within (I now have the mobster image in my head…”he’s a friend of ours”) and have a leg up on anyone blindly pitching an unfamiliar contact.  If sending via email, I will often put in the subject line, “[your media champion's name] suggested I contact you.”

Again, I have a ton of respect for David and fully grasp the point he was making on his blog today.  I just felt the need to elaborate on the importance and ability to have such relationships in place before you make that most important relevant pitch.

How do you effectively manage your media (or non-media) relationships? 

For anyone that knows or follows me on Twitter they know how passionate I am about “doing the right thing.”  Most recently you’ve probably seen how frustrated I’ve been about this week’s national media blitz from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

As a business owner and PR professional, I make it a priority to focus on ethics above all else.  In fact, let me share my checklist for any new business opportunity (more for myself vs. a tried & true process):

1. Does the prospect have an amazing story to tell…if not several amazing stories to tell? If yes….
2. Would I feel comfortable representing such a client and introducing them to the media contacts that I cherish? If yes…
3. Do they have a clearly defined need tied into a business goal or goals for our services (i.e., not just wanting to see their face in the WSJ)? If yes…
4. Do they understand the value and process of media relations? If yes…
5. Is there a reciprocating connection between the prospect and our firm (sometimes a gut instinct)? If yes…
6. Do they have $ and time to invest in this process (daddy does have to feed the boys, right?)?

I feel the need to share this with you because I learned that Gov. Blagojevich had hired a firm in Tampa, FL called The Publicity Agency to represent him on this recent media tour.  Glenn Selig, owner of this firm touts right on his homepage that his firm also represnted Drew Peterson, a former Illinois police sergeant who was accused of killing his third & fourth wives.  Was there any ethical decision made when Mr. Selig decided to take on both Blagojevich & Peterson as clients?  Did Mr. Selig apply a similar set of personal requirements when assessing either of these opportunities? 

I would love to hear from others on this topic and specifically on this particular example.  Is it our “duty” as PR professionals to represent these characters (accused criminals)?  Once again, ethics should drive every decision we make…my answer is plain and simply, “no.”