I remember attending a course on digital marketing at which the presenter in his first slide cheerfully confessed that he had no experience in PR and knew little about it. The day long presentation was a great overview of the widgets of digital marketing and there is no doubt that the excellent presenter knew his RSS from his elbow.

However, I left with a feeling of unease about the explosion of digital marketing agencies with little or no experience of PR purporting to offer digital marketing communications campaigns. My concern was escalated more recently with a major supplement in IMJ on digital marketing which never once made reference to online PR.

In one sense this is astonishing in view of the power of online PR. In another sense it is understandable as many of the digital marketing agencies freely confess to their lack of PR experience. Especially in the B2B space, to consider online marketing in the absence of an integrated online PR element is unthinkable. We know this because we have solid Irish client examples demonstrating the power of online PR in driving web traffic both globally and locally.

Now a new report has predicted that digital agencies will disappear. The Holmes Report 2010 (http://www.holmesreport.com/) in its top ten trends says that the process of clients coming to agencies looking for digital campaigns already seems “quaint and old fashioned”. Paul Holmes says that this is, “…indicative of a fascination with (and ignorance of) the shiny new toys available to communicators rather than a grasp of how they can be used as part of a comprehensive, multimedia campaign”.

Holmes says that clients are coming to realise that integrated campaigns that leverage the power of new and traditional channels are more effective than those that rely on one or the other.

Secondly he adds, “Mainstream public relations firms have learned pretty quickly that their process (telling a story to someone with influence and credibility, relying on that person to retell the story to a wider audience) and their skill set (building relationships based on dialogue) are just as applicable – indeed more applicable – to the new media as they are to the old.”

He points out, “At the very least, mainstream PR firms are learning digital faster than specialist digital agencies are learning how to deal with traditional media.”

Matthew  Freud of Freud Communications, admittedly a PR guy, said in a recent rare interview* with PR Week, “Ten or 15 years ago CEOs used to know the head of their advertising agency, but now our peer group (PR) has emerged as the strategic advisers of choice in marcoms.”

Freud points out, “We (PR) apply more rigour than any other marketing discipline; we can provide creative solutions based on truth. It is because every day we have to operate through the editorial filter. Every idea that comes out of our building is scrutinised by sceptical journalists.”
Holmes agrees, “If ever there was a time for public relations professionals – both in house and on the agency side of the business – to take the lead rather than merely providing support to the marketing function, this is it.”

Holmes believes that digital agencies will evolve into creative studios – useful for developing widgets and viral videos. “But strategy will be developed by agencies with a broader understanding of all media, not just a single medium.”

I personally don’t believe that digital agencies will disappear. On the contrary we work with a number of them and believe that they are an integral part of the new rules of marketing and PR.

However, just because they have the shiniest new toys in the pram, does not mean that they should be pushing it.

Ends

* http://toppragencies.prweek.co.uk/Freud-Supremacy.aspx

Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology Public Relations which won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media. He was one of the first Irish PR bloggers. (ronnie@simpsonftpr.ie).

It’s a bit like the blues harp (or ten hole harmonica to you non blues folk). It looks enticingly easy to play but it is very hard to play well.

Many businesses are only now thinking about jumping in. But when it comes to Social Media you should paddle about before you dive. The best piece of Social Media advice for business that I have come across in a long time is contained in a new posting from the Washington Post*. Basically, you should not do too much at once.

I was that soldier. I am on LinkedIn. At the beginning, like a junkie in a headshop, I joined every group that was relevant from Social Media and PR to technology and cloud computing. Guess what? My email in box became swamped with so many discussions that I ended up ignoring them all.

It is much better to join one or MAXIMUM two that interest you and participate fully by starting and joining in discussions. Assign other members of your firm to follow one or two relevant groups and participate.

Similarly with blogs. Blogs have a key role to play in boosting your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and thought leadership. However, blogs are notoriously easy to initiate but hard to maintain. But you can start by contributing to others. One good example for B2B firms is our client’s O2’s Business Blog, The Ideas Room at www.O2.ie/ideasroom

 
 * Source: Washington Post (free to subscribe) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062504382.html?sub=AR

 
This is a great tribute to our staff and clients. PR is a little easier when you work with great people and clients. And no, we don’t mind being described as a small agency. (See my previous blog Small is Beautiful in Financial and Tech PR).

 
From our foundation in July 1995 our strategy was to be a specialist, boutique PR agency focusing on technology PR, financial services PR and B2B PR. 15 years later, this strategy appears to be working.

 
Many thanks to the judging panel and to the PRCA, PRII and CIPR (not forgetting Leonie Brennan who over the years has had the task of reading through every entry and has not yet been carried away to the funny farm).

The Da wanted to know if we were comfortable being projected as a ‘small’ PR agency. It was a good question and indeed we had hesitated before entering this category. Ego driven PR folk like to believe that they punch more than their weight.

We work with large clients like O2, Cisco, salesforce.com and our 15 years’ experience suggests that clients appreciate the fact that we are small. Benefits include the fact that clients are managed at a senior level. Our top three senior executives have a combined (if a little frightening) 65 years of PR consultancy experience so there is little we have not seen before.

Doctors bury their mistakes but it is worse for PR people who publish them. So experience and senior day to day level account management, advice and judgement is a valued commodity.

We are also an ideal size to manage small technology companies or start ups more cost effectively than the big agencies. We have no high cost layers of local or international management or show case, expensive city centre premises that the client pays for. IT (an excellent consulting and support service from CMGi) and accounting are outsourced.

In a small agency the founder is also much more involved in client service. I was formerly managing director of the Irish office of a very good international PR agency. But in a larger agency you are often less directly involved in client work and more wrapped up in management, staff issues, new business and (not to be underestimated in terms of time) reporting into your international parent.

Neither does a small agency lack international clout. As Simpson FT PR we can offer cost effective global reach through our membership of Eurocom Worldwide – the Global PR Network. Eurocom is a B2B specialist with a focus on technology and sister independent PR firms across 60 cities – larger than most international PR agencies.

A few years ago I remember a technology editor, who worked as a journalist in both London and Dublin, saying that in his experience the quality of the service he received was in indirect  proportion to the size of the PR agency. As a working specialist journalist, small was more beautiful in terms of PR agencies.

And certainly, most technology companies don’t seem to have an issue with size. When we started with just two people 15 years ago, our first clients included industry giants HP and Oracle. Remember, HP itself began with two people in a garage.

On the financial services side as well, size has not been an issue. In the past we have implemented programmes for Ulster Bank and Standard Life – hardly minnows.

In the industry jargon we would be known as a “boutique” PR agency and are proud of that. We don’t claim to do everything. We specialise in technology, financial services and online PR.

So Dad, a great and relevant question, which I hope I have answered.

P.S. Of course you do realise that if we are ever acquired by an international agency, I am going to have to rewrite this.

Now, through your own and other websites, wire services etc your opus magnum can be displayed to the world forever in all its glory, warts and all.

In the words of Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge: “This means that you can publish a release riddled with hyperbole, spin, buzz words and hype that will not only dissuade your customers from doing business with you – it will send them to your competition.” *

In order to help overcome the most common pitfalls in press release writing I have written a blog for the O2 ideas room entitled: “10 Ways to Write Great Press Releases”.

Sunday Business Post journalist Adrian Weckler also has some great advice in this area. His (more modestly) entitled blog is: “How to Write a Competent Press Release”.

* “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR” published by FT Press.

Despite public sector denials, the private sector fears and in many cases has suffered job losses, wage cuts, extra unpaid hours and stress over job insecurity. It has little sympathy for the current go-slow by a protected sector of the workforce which is guaranteed secure employment.

Public sector unions want restoration of pay cuts including the 7.5% pension levy. The average private sector employee would gladly contribute 7.5% of his or her salary if it provided anywhere near the same generous, index linked pension. Such a pension in the private sector would cost 20-30% of salary per month.

The lack of PR nous is most obvious in the Passport Office debacle. The go-slow is denying ordinary workers (not ‘fat cat’ bankers, builders, developers or politicians) passports for themselves and their children.

For any dispute to succeed it must have a modicum of public support. Private sector workers outnumber public sector. Passport Office debacles (and there will be more) that directly hurt the vulnerable will kill off any lingering support and respect for the public sector.

What is more significant, as the Vegetables look for an exit strategy that does not result in them being boiled to mulch, is that the unions could throw a General Election lifeline to Fianna Fail. The Government only has to wait until go-slow sclerosis causes the machinery of State to grind to a halt – further putting everyone’s job at risk.

Fianna Fail then calls a General Election on the single issue of who runs the country – the elected Government or public sector unions? The alternative coalition, with a union appeasing Labour Party, would have no credibility compared to Brian Lenihan’s brave stand to do the right thing by the country.

There are now exciting opportunities for your stories and news releases to be found on the web. The downside of this is that if your releases are badly written, sloppy and full of jargon you will turn off potential customers and investors.

With this in mind IrishDev.com has asked me to present a seminar on writing good technology press releases this Wednesday. Registration is at: http://irishdev.com/Home/Events/Article.html?id=401

So what you might say. It’s not the Irish Times. That rather misses the point. Apart from boosting Search Engine Optimisation, Online PR has reach far beyond the local market. As a result of a story used by top site siliconrepublic.com last year, the client had a serious call from a potential venture capital investor in Paris.

For example, while 55% of IrishDev.com technology readers are from Ireland, 25% are located in the US and UK. The site is a content source for numerous online partners including Google News (Ireland and world editions) and is optimised for search engines.

I have to say that it has been a great year for us on the Online PR front as we also won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media for an international campaign for Irish web analytics company StatCounter. (See latest market analysis story from StatCounter on Google’s threat to leave China).

The business of Public Relations and marketing communications has been transformed by New Media. It represents a huge opportunity for Irish technology companies to cost effectively market themselves both globally and locally.

IrishDev.com’s top read story of 2009 was a Sogeti Ireland release announcing a drive to boost skill levels in the Irish software industry through a collaboration with the Irish Software Association sponsored Software Skillnet. Saaspoint’s announcement that it had sold Irish developed cloud computing applications to over 40 companies in three continents was the third most read story on the site.

Ends

Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology Public Relations which won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media. He was one of the first Irish PR bloggers. (ronnie@simpsonftpr.ie).

Jonnie Cahill, Head of Communications & Sponsorship at Telefónica O2 Ireland comments, “With the O2 ideas room we are enabling businesses to connect with each other and to share comments and ideas on how to be successful. It is also an easy way for SMEs to start to try out Social Media marketing tools. We are looking for business blog contributions and many of our contributors are first time bloggers.”

Why should you consider this? Corporate blogging is part of the New Media revolution that can help SMEs boost profile at low cost. A blog or “Web log” is a regular online opinion or educational piece which used correctly can increase your company’s searchability.

A regular blog attracts the interest of search engines. As Debbie Weil points out in ‘The Corporate Blogging Book’, “That’s because a blog is constantly being refreshed with new content. “

She adds, “Blogging is a powerful, low cost way to get found by the search engines. Get found in Internet search results and your voice will count. Be absent online and your company, product or service practically doesn’t exist.”

The primary reason for corporate blogging is best summarised by Internet analyst Rick Bruner, research director of DoubleClick.net, who is credited with coming up with the mnemonic: “BLOG = Better Listings on Google”.

In researching this article the author utilised LinkedIn (another social media tool) to generate views on corporate blogging. Niall Devitt, founder of sales training consultancy Beyond the Boardroom, went so far as to comment, “My blog is my main business development tool. With social media becoming increasingly important I rarely do cold calling any more.”

Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology Public Relations which won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media. He was one of the first Irish PR bloggers. (www.simpsonftpr.ie).

This blog is an edited version of an article “Blog Standard” which appeared in August 2009 edition of “The Market” and may be accessed at http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/NR/rdonlyres/74D2561C-A84A-4FD0-9371-27B03E206B4F/0/Blogstandard.pdf

Some have suggested that the immediacy and minimal effort required with Twitter will impact on the role of corporate blogging. I doubt that.

As early blogger Maryrose Lyons of Brightspark Consulting points out, “Blogs are most certainly not being replaced by Twitter! The blog is still the key ingredient in the pie. Content is still king. If you want engagement, you’ve got to be saying something and not just making idle banter (via Twitter, etc). Far too many are making idle chat.”

I agree. There continue to be fundamental PR reasons for corporate blogging from SEO to thought leadership that are difficult to achieve within 140 characters and the glorious clutter and (sometimes) banality of Twitter. In reality, Twitter can be another valuable link to your blog but will not replace it.

For more information on the case for corporate blogging have a look at “The Business Case for SME Blogging (and how to dip your toe in the water)” on O2’s new business blogging site O2ideasroom. (Disclaimer: O2 is a client).

Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology Public Relations which won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media. He was one of the first Irish PR bloggers. (www.simpsonftpr.ie).