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Thoughts on Social Media Press Release

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The big news last week was Edelman’s social media press release tool. If you aren’t familiar with the details, check out these posts.

As usual, the PR blogosphere erupted.

Not all the commentary was critical, but clearly some of the criticisms were spurred by antipathy toward the firm itself, rather than any real issue with what they announced. Robert French had some of the best comments I’ve read; I agree with him on pretty much all points. When a "big name" screws up, whether Edelman or any other, by all means call them on it. But don’t call them on everything they do just "because." It’s childish and silly. The Edelman tool, called StoryCrafter, seems like a decent effort and they gave ample credit to prior efforts like the "open source" new media press release developed by SHIFT PR.

The more germane question, and Robert brings this up in his post as well, is do we really need a social media press release? Don’t misunderstand — I think the work folks are doing to integrate social media tools into the practice of public relations is extremely worthwhile. But I am often concerned that we spend far too much time debating the tools, and not nearly enough time discussing the more fundamental issues. Things like does the story actually have any news value? Is the press release, whatever format it is in, well-written? Are we reaching out — to media and to bloggers — in an ethical, honest manner? Todd Defren of SHIFT PR answers some of these questions in a follow-up post; he says that he’s not suggesting the social media press release discussion should replace the discussion of these other issues, merely sit alongside. Knowing Todd, I am certain that is true. But  I still think we are missing the point.

A focus on public relations automation risks turning us into public relations automatons.

If the most valued PR skill set becomes whether someone understands metadata or can navigate social bookmarking, we will have fundamentally changed, and not for the better, the practice of public relations. The most important skill in this field shouldn’t be how well you automate. It should be how well you relate. Isn’t that why it is called public relations?

So let’s keep our eyes on the prize, and make sure we are clearly and honestly communicating the news to any and all interested parties. Whether they be intermediaries like journalists or participants like bloggers. Whether we use a social media press release, a newswire, the telephone or a tom-tom drum.

In fact, if your story is good, and you are telling it to the right people, it shouldn’t matter what tools you use to spread the word. Unless of course you happen to be reaching out to Tom Foremski. In which case I highly recommend a social media press release 🙂

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Filed Under: PR

Blogs and SEC Disclosure

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Interesting developments recently on the public company material disclosure front.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has been pretty vocal that he believes blogs and Web sites are better than "anachronistic" vehicles like press releases and conference calls to broadly disseminate material information.  He recently wrote a letter to SEC Chair Christopher Cox asking for clarification of Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), the rule that requires disclosure methods to be "reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."

Cox’s  reply, posted in a comment to another post on Schwartz’s blog a little over a week ago, indicates that the SEC is open to the idea:

"The Commission encourages the use of websites as a source of information to the market and investors, and we welcome your offer to further discuss with us your views in this area. Assuming that the Commission were to embrace your suggestion that the "widespread dissemination" requirement of Regulation FD can be satisfied through web disclosure, among the questions that would need to be addressed is whether there exist effective means to guarantee that a corporation uses its website in ways that assure broad non-exclusionary access, and the extent to which a determination that particular methods are effective in that regard depends on the particular facts." (emphasis mine)

In other words, does the site have a broad reach? Is it open to all? And most importantly, is it GENERALLY true, not just specifically true in certain instances.

This last is the key one, in my opinion. Sure, Sun’s site and Jonathan’s blog are widely read, and would likely qualify under the FD Regulation. But in order for web disclosure to become a rule, it would have to be generally and broadly true for all public companies, not just some. That’s the much harder test.

So, don’t cancel your PR Newswire or BusinessWire accounts just yet, folks. I suspect we are going to need the old, beleagured press release for a bit longer.

Thanks to John Cass and Robert French. Also, more details in this AP article.

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Today’s trivia:

  • Schwartz is a fellow alum of Wesleyan University.

  • Today is the 2d birthday (anniversary) of this blog.

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The Ethics Lesson from the Wal-Mart/Edelman flog fiasco

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You know, we all learned pretty much everything we need to know to avoid a similar ethical foul up by the time we reached first grade.

It’s simple.

Tell the truth.

And here’s the truth. The failure in the Wal-Mart Edelman fiasco wasn’t simply a lack of understanding of how blogs and social media worked. That may have been part of it, but it wasn’t the root problem.

It was an ethical failure, full stop.

Here’s the lesson, and let’s be crystal clear. It is not okay to cloak your interests or advocate without honesty. Sure, people do it all the time. We call them liars. It doesn’t matter whether it is explicit or by omission. It is still a lie.

And here’s the other part of today’s lesson: this mess does not mean that companies shouldn’t blog, or sponsor blogs, or reach out to bloggers. The Wal-Gate mess was a lapse of ethics, not an indictment of social media.  Social media can be excellent vehicles for reaching out to and talking with customers, but we have to do it honestly. Your customer knows you have an agenda. EVERYONE has an agenda of some sort. Be honest about your goals, disclose your interests, tell the truth,

It may not set you free, but when you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you told the last person.

Words to live by.

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Bye the bye, the latest word from Edelman on this — 

He recently gave an interview to IT World (Japan). When asked what happened, he says: "We were insufficiently transparent about the identity of one of the two bloggers who went on that RV tour. And in a certain way, it’s not a failure of new media; it was a failure in all media. Which is to say, if they were talking to you in your IDG mainstream media hat, you would want to know the name of the spokesperson and what his background was and what his credentials were and we failed that basic test." He goes on to once again accept full responsibility as the boss and reiterate what they intend to do to prevent future occurences. I wish them luck.  Thanks to Shel Holtz for the link.

UPDATE 11/3/06: Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) puts Edelman membership under 90-day review. See also WOMMA’s 20 Ethics Questions and discussion draft of guidelines for contacting bloggers.

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Pay-per-post

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I hadn’t really given much thought to the OTHER cause celebre of the past few weeks, pay per post, because I was so embroiled in the fandango of the large chain store and the big PR agency (I’m going for three posts in a row without using their names. No promises after that.) It had a faint odor of "not quite right" but I couldn’t put my finger exactly on why.

It came up in another context last weekend and in part due to comments from Jeneane Sessum, I decided to take a closer look. Here’s my take:

The arguments being made by some of the big A-list bloggers (Calcanis, Arrington) seem a little weird, given their reliance on advertising/sponsor support. Provided the pay per post blog entries clearly state that the post was a work for hire, I don’t see anything terribly wrong with the model. It really isn’t that different from freelance writing. You have to disclose your interests, including whether you are being compensated in any way for your words, but assuming that’s done, what’s the harm? Readers can make up their own minds.

One of the best things about the ‘net is the wisdom of crowds.

However, I think it would be very difficult to make a living under their model, given the prices being paid for this freelance work (can you spell sweatshop?), so I am a wee bit interested in following the money. Who is making the serious money here? I’m betting it is not the bloggers.

My other concern is that I would not want to see companies replace blogger relations efforts with pay per post. Pay per post is an article about your company. Blogger engagement begets viral marketing. We shouldn’t confuse the two.

There is a real, tangible and long term benefit from active engagement with bloggers who care about what the company cares about, whether it be issues, products or both, and this cannot be replaced by pay per post. I’d hate to see companies take this shortcut, thinking they were going viral.

And ending up just sick.

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Wrapping up loose threads — things remembered and wal-gate

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My posts on the Wal-Gate fiasco and the gift chain Things Remembered have both gotten a fair number of comments, so before I move on to my next topic, I wanted to wrap up the loose ends on both of these threads.

First, Things Remembered. A number of commenters wrote about their great experiences at the chain and thought I was perhaps too harsh, expected too much. Perhaps, but that is one of my points. Sometimes you do only get one chance with a potential customer. We should always strive to make every customer service moment a great moment. The day I was there, there was one clerk to wait on about four potential customers. He clearly didn’t want to be bothered with my oddball request. For all I really know, they DID have something that might have worked just fine, but he didn’t want to bother. It was too hard. Much easier to sell an engraved pen.

The other point, and you are welcome to disagree with me, is that companies should strive to deliver extraordinary customer service. That means meeting the customer’s needs, and helping them out even when the customer might end up buying from someone else on that day. It is all about recognizing the lifetime value of that customer, and recognizing those moments when extraordinary service is possible. Things Remembered has an opportunity to deliver extraordinary service by referring customers with oddball requests to other vendors. It won’t happen very often, but when it does, it will be a defining moment for the customer, as it was for me. Can a company be successful without delivering extraordinary service? Sure, but why settle?

To the company’s credit, a vp from Things Remembered did leave a comment on the original post. Will I shop there?  I am more likely to now, knowing that at least they are paying attention.

Final thoughts on the specific incidents in Wal-Gate: late Friday, both Richard Edelman’s and Steve Rubel’s blogs had news of the agency’s initiatives to fix the ethical problems surfaced during the whole nasty episode. They’re going to do an audit around the world to make sure they are applying best practices, everyone at the agency is going to have to attend an ethics in social media class, and the me2revolution team is going to be available in some fashion 24/7 to consult anyone in the agency on social media projects.

Umm. Why weren’t they doing these things already? And will it really be enough to change the agency culture? While it doesn’t seem like enough, I’ll reserve judgment on what they’ve said until we see what they do next. And I don’t mean whether they do the "Edelman University" or what great external experts they get to speak.

Let’s hope the next time we hear about a social media project driven by Edelman, we hear about a project that met everyone’s expectations: the client, the customers, the community and the agency’s PR colleagues and peers. For Edelman’s sake.

Because I do think they are now out of chances. They have got to get it right or get out.

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