As an adjunct professor, this subject is near and dear to my heart. Higher education is in a crisis because there are not enough Ph.D’s in the country to support the growing number of students enrolling in college. The Educators Academy stresses the need for qualified professionals to transition into teaching our next generation of PR professionals. Without qualified professionals to teach the next wave of professionals, our industry will be in a crisis.

Key take-aways from this session:

Continue reading " Making an Educated Decision to Become an Educator "

The rules have definitely changed. Digital content is easy to share, but even the most well-intentioned sharing of press clips may violate copyright law. Steve Shannon, executive vice president of BurrellesLuce discussed how to best share media clips social media, online news and video. Publishers are nervous right now. Monetizing content has risen to the forefront. Publishers realize PR professionals want to comply with the law, but do not want sharing of media relations results to interfere with their livelihoods.

Key take-aways from this session:

• Copyright protections first put into place in Britain in 1710.
• Business always outpaces the law. There is very little case law regarding social media and online works, but there are several settlements and informal agreements in place.
• Information yearns to be free, but it still costs money to produce content.
• Content producers permit news monitoring, but want to be assured the value of their property is acknowledged and protected. Publishers like link love.
• Use monitoring/clipping suppliers who have secured permissions to distribute content.
• Know how to share and measure media relations results without violating copyright.
• Violators will be subject to penalties.
  1. SIIA (Software and Information Industry Association) has launched campaign to educate PR professionals and induce proper use of news clips.
  2. SIIA settled first case August 16, 2007: $300,000 “content piracy” settlement.
  3. SIIA Op-Ed in PR Week

Continue reading " What Every PR Professional Must Know About Copyright Compliance in the Digital World "

“Thinking in the future tense.”

One slip of the tongue can be disastrous to an organization. A seemingly innocent comment is someone else’s sensitivity. During a crisis having diverse implications, the dos and don’ts are key to communicating to a diverse audience.

What stage of diversity is your company?

1. Affirmative Action (Compliance)
2. Valuing Diversity (Celebration/Training)
3. Managing Diversity (Changing Culture)
4. Inclusive (Team Building/Measurement)

Continue reading " Diversity in the Hot Seat "

The 2008 PRSA International Conference got off to a swinging start today—literally—with a gospel choir (befitting a Sunday) energizing the attendees before Craig Newmark’s keynote session began. Yes, “that” Craig, i.e. Craig of Craig’s List. Suitably revved up, I then moved on to Jeffrey Graham’s Word-of-Mouth Online and Off session this afternoon. It was packed—no surprise, given the resurgence that WOM is enjoying, and the increasing attention being paid to results-based, influential communications.

In fact, there seemed to be a common thread running through many of the sessions I attended today: from Craig Newmark’s emphasis on “continuous engagement,” to Katie Paine’s emphasis on measuring relationships in the session I co-presented with her. As a discipline, we seem to be remembering the importance of the “relations” part of “public relations.” You might say attending Jeff’s session was a natural progression for me.

Jeff had enough data to satisfy the biggest quant-geeks among us, beginning his presentation with a brief history of WOM (no, it’s not new) and the fact that it is the single-most influential contact point one can incorporate in communications planning. So why is it, then, that it receives the least investment when putting a marketing plan together?

True to the title of his presentation, Jeff went through the differences between On- and Offline WOM Marketing, illustrating that most WOM occurs offline (about 73%). Online WOM occurs most among the young, and is most important for the entertainment, sports, telecom and technology sectors. In addition, most online WOM is fueled by marketing; 70% of online chatter comprises bloggers reacting to what they have read or seen in the media and marketing. At the end of the day, offline WOM tends to be more positive than online, and it’s also offline WOM that is perceived as more credible, leading to a purchase intent (and that, at the end of the day, is what marketers are concerned with, right?).

Continue reading " From Word-of-Mouth to Word-of-Mouse "

One of the more intimate and personal of the session formats, the Public Relations Research Showcase Presentations, allowed participants to sit at eight-person tables with each presenter. After a brief discussion of the topic, participants could interact and discuss the topic with the speakers. However, after 20 minutes you had to move on to the next table. So you got a lot of information and fast, but direct contact with the presenter.

The key takeaways from four of the five tables are outlined below as well as could be gathered in 20 minutes.

Are We Engaged Yet? A proposed framework for measuring engagement in social networks.

Katie Delahaye Paine of KDPaine and Partners

Because traditional web metrics (hits, visits, trackbacks) have little to do with what people want to know about their efforts in social media, social media and public relations measurement professionals have to find ways to dig deeper into the numbers. Ultimately, there are three fundamental things companies use social media for:

1. To Sell Something
   These metrics are easy. How many conversions, downloads, leads from email opt-ins, etc., did I get
2. To enhance branding or build buzz
   This is essentially measured by traditional Website metrics since what you’re ultimately looking for is an increased number of eyeballs exposed to your messaging or Website.
3. To influence an agenda or position the company as a thought leader
   Measurement for this can include traditional metrics, like those listed in No. 2, but is more stealthy measured in the results of the agenda influence and surveys of the target audience using traditional research methods.

The most important measurement in the later two is influence which is most clearly represented in engagement. The most clear representation of engagement in social media is the number and quality of comments on a given piece of content. This is even more accurate than influencer scores.

Continue reading " Public Relations Research Showcase Presentations "