The Cost of Copy Editors

by Dan Ward

It’s not enough to say that the Internet and social media are killing newspapers.  Newspapers are also killing themselves by neglecting the quality of their product.

When copy editors are shown the door in increasing numbers, how can any newspaper expect to publish a quality product … a product that not only contains accurate and useful information, but is also free of glaring errors and typos that affect the readers’ experience?

Not to bash the Orlando Sentinel, but since it’s my hometown paper it’s the most convenient example.  The Oct. 29 “Sports Daily” section contained a number of errors:

•  From an article on the Orlando Magic:  “Fans hated to see Lee traded after his promising rookie season, but Carter, an eight-time all-star authored a solid, if not spectacular, in his homecoming at Lee’s old shooting-guard position.”  Huh?
• A Mike Bianchi column stated that Rashard Lewis had been suspended for the “first10 games.”  Might be a space-bar mishap there.
• The next paragraph in that column ended without a period.
• The same column asks us to “just as” instead of “just ask” the team’s biggest fan.
• An AP story about the tragic murder of a UConn football player was so strong that the Sentinel chose to run two differently edited versions of it, on the same page, under different headlines.

Mistakes are always going to happen, and not every typo will be caught.  But when newspapers cut their editing staff to the point that quality suffers, their demise can no longer be blamed solely on the Internet.  The cost is evident in the latest Editor & Publisher report on circulation, which shows yet more double-digit declines.  Quality always matters, no matter the product.

The Power of Suggestion

by Kim Taylor

I often stop for coffee at my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts. And, while I like their coffee and the people are friendly, I wonder if this simple suggestion hasn’t had something to do with my repeat visits.

It’s an effortless sign located at eye level right near the exit, and somehow its suggestion stuck with me like a warm hug goodbye.

What subtle marketing tactics do you implement in your business to keep your customers coming back for more?

How a Facebook Group Grew Into a $1 Million Annual Business

by Ashley Pinder

One year ago I saw fast-talking Peter Shankman speak in Orlando. He told a story about being jobless several years earlier in Manhattan and relying on creative methods to get his resume in front of employers. He had recently started distributing a free e-mail service to PR folks and doing all the work himself. That was then and this is now.

Shankman is responsible for the wildly popular Help A Reporter Out service, commonly known as HARO, which now boasts a subscriber base of more than 90,000 business and communications professionals. Created as a way to connect journalists with quotable sources and ideas for stories, HARO is a must-use service for those in PR. HARO e-mails have an unheard of average 90 percent open rate, which Shankman’s advertising team proudly proclaims as “e-mail crack.”

I remember that day hearing Shankman say he might begin to allow companies to sponsor his e-mails through paid advertising. Here in late 2009, not only does HARO accept paid sponsors for its three-times-a-day e-mails, it also allows companies to pay to place job postings and giveaways, all the while generating thousands of dollars of revenue five days a week with little overhead.

Peter Shankman struck me as unique, and as successful as HARO has become, something about the service he created is just as unique as him.

Maybe it’s the fact that Shankman’s team does the write-up of the sponsored company in “his voice;” or that HARO continually threatens to blacklist subscribers if they SPAM others or pitch journalists off-topic; or even that HARO’s plain text rate card (an important tool for ad-generating businesses) includes too many exclamation points and three “P.S.” thoughts after the closing; whatever it is, these attributes combine to make this successful business venture that much more surprising.

I sent an e-mail this morning to advertise and received a reply in less than two minutes … ads are booked through February 2010. I bet Shankman isn’t on the street corner in Manhattan any longer looking for work.

Do you think your company can benefit from HARO? C&P frequently identifies opportunities for our clients monitoring this service each day.

Marshall McLuhan is Still Wrong

by Dan Ward

Another day, another article discussing how social media makes traditional PR less relevant.   The latest comes from Chris Hogg at Digital Journal, who opines that “social media relations is more important than good PR.”

            Chris’ article, which continues to advance the stereotype of public relations as a “let’s pitch the news media” business, suffers from a serious disconnect. 

He correctly notes that “forward-thinking companies should have conversations with their audience and customers rather than talking at them,” but seems to believe that this is somehow separate from “good PR.” 

Connecting with the audiences that are important to your success is the essence of good public relations.           

Almost daily, I see similar posts and tweets declaring that social media makes public relations less important than ever, but as my colleague Roger Pynn wrote on this blog more than a year ago, the opposite is true.

Sure, social media allows companies to talk instantly and interactively with their customers and communities.  But does that mean they know what to say, when to say it and how to say it effectively in order to drive action?  Access to a medium of communication does not guarantee understanding of its use. 

And yes, traditional publicity has become less important as the media landscape changes.  But “good” PR pros have been advising clients for years to look beyond publicity to connect with their audiences.  We advocated such strategies long before Facebook and Twitter were invented, and will continue to advise clients to pursue a multi-pronged approach to communication.

Social media has changed everything, but Marshall McLuhan’s famous statement is still wrong.  The medium is NOT the message.  Message must always come first, no matter whether the medium is a hand-written letter or a 140-character tweet.  Crafting the right message and choosing the right medium to influence opinion and motivate action (and sometimes deciding when not to speak at all) … that’s “good PR.”

Experts. Or Not?

by Roger Pynn

A while back I wrote about invective and how the volume of online conversation is making life in the digisphere more and more unpleasant.

Just as interesting as the volume of passionate advocates and combative opponents alike is the tendency to anoint themselves as experts … whether they are talking about fried shrimp dinners, health care reform, their favorite martini bar or least liked public official.

And, because so many people are talking on almost every topic imaginable, both the proponents and their foes seem to be claiming the collective voice as being on “their side.”

Seth Godin suggests in “True Believers (and the truth)” that the Internet is what has amplified the volume of debate and that the loudest voices may not be the best point of reference when making the case for or against something, suggesting “they’re wrong far more than they are right.”

Coming as I do from a background in the dying art of journalism, I’m tempted to say “yes, Seth … I think you’re right. In fact, you’ve proven your point because you have failed to quote anything – statistical evidence from research, anecdotal evidence, etc. – that proves how right or wrong the voices really are.”

It strikes me – but I have nothing to back up my position – that the Internet isn’t to blame for the decibel level. Rather access has provided us all with an endless roll of free paper on which to write, ALL TO OFTEN IN SHOUTING CAPITAL LETTERS, whatever we believe to be true as if it were of biblical veracity.

Whatever happened to judgment? When did we stop questioning things before we started preaching them as gospel? Where did we lose our collective ability to study things before proclaiming ourselves experts?

When Direct Mail becomes Junk Mail

by Kim Taylor

I know what you’re thinking—all direct mail is junk mail.  But, for years, companies have subscribed to the notion that direct mail marketing works … even if the statistics show that the average response rate can be as low as a half percent.  Those stats also show that some campaigns can garner a much higher response … maybe even double-digits.

What creates that vast response variation?  Many things, from content to design, but perhaps most importantly, how targeted (read: appropriate) your list is. 

If you buy one of those canned lists and blanket thousands with your message, it’s no longer direct mail, it’s junk mail. 

If you know your audience and your intended target, but you opt to address your piece generically to “Resident” or “John Doe or Current Resident,” it’s no longer direct mail, it’s junk mail.

So, if you’ve taken the time to develop a custom piece for John Doe thanking John Doe for his contribution to your organization and then include return address labels specifically for John Doe as a part of the “thank you,” why not go all the way and mail it to John Doe rather than “Joe Doe or Current Resident” as was the case with a piece that arrived in yesterday’s mail.

Do you think the charity will ‘get it’ when the piece is mailed back to them using one of those personalized return address labels?

On Saying “No”

by Roger Pynn

It is easy to understand that the economy is causing many companies to do things differently.

We’ve certainly changed a bit. We find ourselves taking on new types of clients and work that in the past we might not have gone for … and by choosing carefully, we’re finding challenging and profitable opportunities.

But that doesn’t mean a “take it all” mentality is justified, as I was reminded this morning when a voice from the past surfaced on the phone. I’ve told this fellow twice before that what he is trying to do doesn’t have market value.

“This time, I’ve finally got it,” he told me.  “This is breakthrough, game-changing stuff.”   So I listened to the same old story all over again.

When a prospect becomes like a bad penny and just keeps coming back, what should you do?

We’re in the business of giving people honest, candid advice.  If someone doesn’t want to hear it, we’re not really in business.  And we’re not in the business of debating with bad pennies and wasting valuable, billable time.

So, “honestly,” I told him, “I just don’t think I’ve been able to communicate with you, and if I’m not good at that, I doubt you’d want me to represent you.  You need someone who understands you better than I do.  Best of luck and thanks for thinking of us.”

Add polite to honest and candid.  I’m hoping the third time was a charm.

Off the Record

by Dan Ward

In our Message Matrix^® training sessions, we tell clients that with very few exceptions, there is no such thing as “off the record.”  What you say can, and will, be used against you in the court of public opinion.

The president found this out last night, when his supposedly “off the record” comments in a CNBC interview (calling Kanye West a jackass), were tweeted by ABC News reporter Terry Moran to his more than a million followers, before later being removed.

I can understand exceptions to the no-such-thing-as-off-the-record rule when it comes to the leader of the free world.  There are certain to be times when the president or members of his staff need to brief reporters in off-the-record sessions about matters of national security.  But how does Kanye West fit in?

Is West secretly a spy for the CIA?  Do his outbursts at awards shows contain secret code about troop positions or security parameters?  There must be a reason why a Presidential declaration that West is a jackass is considered a vital matter of national security.

Certainly it can’t be that the administration was embarrassed by the comment, and later asked ABC News to both remove it and apologize.  For one thing, what the president said was correct … Kanye West did act like a jackass.  For another, an administration that has embraced social media like none before surely knows that a tweet, once posted and shared, can never truly be removed. 

Should Moran have posted information from another reporter’s off-the-record interview?  Probably not.  But off-the-record interviews also should be reserved for more serious discussions than those involving the rants of recording artists.

Instead of asking that our comments remain private, perhaps all of us (the president included) need to remember that everything we say has the potential to come back to us … so the old “think before you speak” rule applies no matter who you are.

Could This Be a Trend?

by Roger Pynn

I was happily shocked today to read at E.W. Scripps’ Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches Web site TCPalm.com that the publisher has stopped accepting anonymous reader comments about news articles “because of an onslaught of vile, rude, inappropriate comments.”

“… These pointless, mean-spirited comments originate with just a handful of people. We appreciate the e-mails, phone calls and conversations from many, many readers who are asking us to more closely monitor our anonymous comment sections. We are listening to this majority and we are addressing their concerns.

As always, we welcome public discussion on any issue on our Web site and in our newspapers through letters to the editor. Those letters, with your name and hometown, appear on TCPalm and in our newspapers. To write a letter, follow the link on our letters page.

Newspaper message boards have become the sewer of the Internet. Kudos to Scripps for saying “enough is enough.” We can only hope others will follow.

Interesting Take

by Roger Pynn

Ever wonder how people survive in Washington? Do you sometimes think that people have to be crazy to run for Congress what with all the anger and microscopic media coverage that go with the territory?

Former U.S. Rep. Lou Frey, who ably represented Central Florida in Congress for a decade beginning in 1969, has – along with UCF Political Science Professor Aubrey Jewett – compiled a fascinating book titled “Political Rules of the Road” which contains responses Frey got from asking nearly two hundred former members of the nation’s lawmaking branch to share their rules for success in Congress, politics and life.

Founder of the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at the University of Central Florida and this year was the recipient of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress Distinguished Service award for his passionate efforts to advance civics education. Frey’s own two rules make sense in or out of politics:

1) If you have to explain you are in trouble; and,
2) Don’t get in a fight with someone who buys his ink by the carload.

While many sent rules you would expect, there are some gems in this tome.

In a chapter on Media, Ethics, Speeches and Public Relations, the first President Bush reminded “there is no such thing as ‘off the record,’” something we teach in our Message Matrix® program. Former Congressman Rod Chandler of Oregon suggested “the truth always makes a good story.” Many of today’s politicians would like to know the reporters Chandler knew.

But the gem in this chapter came from a former representative from Minnesota William Frenzel who first advised Congressmen to “never miss any good opportunities to sit down,” which may relate directly to this:

“One hour speeches can be made off-the-cuff; 30 minutes speeches require at least an hour of preparation; speeches of 5 minutes or less require at least a day’s work including several trial deliveries.”

So true, Congressman: It is a determined communicator who captures his thoughts in as few words as possible so as to have time to listen to his audience’s questions.