Traditional PR - 3 Things You Can Still Do Better posted by Ray George at Tuesday, March 24, 2009

While I'm not a fan of reading blogs about PR best practices from PR professionals, I wanted to give a shout out to three good friends from the old world of traditional PR that you don't want to overlook in the mad rush to embrace all things social media.

So, my credentials. I've promoted everything from Kinkos and McDonald's to hot high-tech startups and even the BodPod on Good Morning America. PR for me is all about results. Whatever it takes to get results as long as you don't burn bridges - that's how I see it. Be smart, be useful, show restraint, add value.

Specifically, there are three things from the old media world of PR that I think every practitioner still needs to understand and do better.

1) Contributed articles - typically, these are pieces written by a vendor for a publication that provides a series of criteria for acceptance (vendor neutrality is usually #1 requirement). While there are reputable publications that accept contributed articles (eWeek and Network World come to mind), there is an order of magnitude greater number of online publications that are suspect. In other words, their filter for excellence is porous at best. Now, I'm not talking about professional trade journals published quarterly by associations with peer review. I'm talking about contributed 'cons.' If you're counting client clips at the end of the month, you know what I'm talking about - begins with an S and ends with 'con.' Don't con your clients. Takeaway - go big or go home. A clip in a publication no one has ever heard of is a waste of your time and your client's retainer.

2) Product reviews - tread carefully as bad reviews live forever on Google searches. First, do NOT submit your product for a review if you can't find the time to make sure to prepare a reviewer's guide. Assuming you have at least a basic reviewer's guide, there are many types of reviews with varying degrees of depth you can consider. There are competitive bake-off reviews. There are reviews written from demos alone (if even that). There are reviews by established labs (unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer every day) under the supervision of eWeek, InfoWorld, Informationweek or CRN, for example. But, even some of these pubs "outsource" their reviews to freelancers. Some advice - avoid bake-off reviews whenever your product is more expensive. I've seen a number of examples where cost influenced the reviewer over functionality. It's not too surprising since they have to crank out a lot of reviews and can't spend too much time on each product. If you do get a standalone review with a reputable source - I've always felt Cameron Sturdevandt stood out here - drop everything and be available for them. Send a competent body to help with configuration who can answer all questions on the spot (even if you have to put them on a plane). Answer email and phone questions within an hour. Make it as easy on the reviewer as possible. Lastly, don't try to get reviews if your product is not ready - you can't fool all of the people any of the time.

3) Company mention - this is where your company, along with a string of other companies, is mentioned in an article. I see these types of mentions as mush. Tapioca pudding. Cream of Wheat. Sure, you want to make sure you're included in the discussion - it is bad if you're not included - but it will hardly move the results meter. Frankly, I think it's mostly unscrupulous PR firms who rely on these drive-by mentions to pad their monthly client reports.

Here's a bigger idea to chew on - people sell PR short by thinking of media opportunities as a 1:1 ratio. That is, client briefs reporter - reporter writes story - it goes live - it is listed under client news section. Instead, focus on using media opportunities and successes and discussion to breed other media opportunities and successes and discussion.

There's a reason Twitter is exploding and newspapers are going out of business.

Ray George

EMAIL: ray@pageonepr.com

TWITTER: @rgeorge28