This one isn’t just for professional PR people. It’s for people who have to do their own PR for their website, their mobile app, their charity, their hobby project, or whatever. I don’t know why people find this PR stuff hard, it really isn’t. It’s thinking about the other person instead of you and following some very simple rules. Mike Butcher of Techcrunch Europe fame has nailed it with this slideshare and video of the presentation he did of it at Startup Week 2011 – and it’s relevant for all media and PR, not just technology. Read it, watch it, absorb it and share it.
And if you’re looking at this on a device that can’t read slideshare, here are my tips…
1. Assume your recipient has no time and communicate accordingly
2. Make sure you have news. No-one really cares about your company/charity/project in and of itself. You have to create the story and the reason for them to care. An iphone app launching is definitely not news. A business starting is not news. A new hire is unlikely to be news unless it’s an absolute coup that you got them working for you in the first place or you stole them from under the nose of a competitor.
3. Embargoes are pretty much worthless.
4. Don’t send attachments. Definitely don’t attach large pdfs or image files. You know busy people read their mail on their phone a lot of the time, don’t you? Adjust your style accordingly.
5. Plain text emails please with key messages up front. Bullet points make it easier to digest. Especially on a small screen.
6. Don’t bug the recipient about writing the post about you. They’ll either do it or they won’t. There are 100s of reasons why they might not write about you. The main one being they probably don’t have time with everything else on the to do list. Bugging them probably won’t help you.
7. Getting press coverage isn’t the only goal and it isn’t the only way to get visibility. Relationships and active participation in relevant communities of interest, be that face to face or online, will probably get you further in the long-run
8. Sending everyone the same press release isn’t interesting. You need a personalised approach – especially with mainstream media and larger blogs.
Any tips to add here?
Update: Here's a great slide deck from Mike Maney from Alcatel Lucent with his tips on influencing the influencers. Well worth a look too while we're on the topic of PR.
Showing posts with label top tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label top tips. Show all posts
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Blogging can damage your wealth
...or so say a couple of lawyers who specialise in matters blogging. They've put together a list of top tips to keep bloggers within the law when it comes to writing blogs and pretty much writing anything online. The best tip being to avoid 'blog rage'. I concur. If I'm ever suffering blog rage, the way round it is to still write something but never ever ever publish it and never ever let anyone else see it!
Some very good commonsense advice there so worth a read if you ever comment or write anything online, and that's a lot of us these days.
Some very good commonsense advice there so worth a read if you ever comment or write anything online, and that's a lot of us these days.
Mobile Marketing Principles - Permission
I was just reading about Mark Logan's thoughts on mobile marketing principles over at bemomobi. He breaks it down into 4 categories:
1. Embrace User Control
2. Get Personal
3. Optimise for Mobile
4. Provide Value
These are not dissimilar to my 'Key Success Factors' slide that I use in training and seminars. However, Mark has missed a critical point - getting personal isn't enough. What Mark has missed on his list is the fundamental "Permission". He talks about 'embracing user control' but this isn't quite the same thing so I'll elaborate as to what I mean...
You need permission before you do anything mobile. The assumption is generally that you need a list of mobile numbers to begin with but this isn't necessarily the case. Yes, a list can be useful, if it's opted in (that's the law) and has a close link between what customers signed up for and what you want to tell them (ideally being your own list as many, although not all, third party lists are dubious in their effectiveness). Permission is also when a customer texts back in response to having seen an advert on the TV, in print or heard it on the radio or seen something on a packet of crisps or can of drink. In texting in, the customer gives permission for you to reply back, thus starting the conversation.
Mobiles were designed for communication and so it's a two-way street. No longer can you send out one-way text messages - you must allow the customer to reply - not least so they can unsubscribe. (Lakeside, when are you going to do something about this? - I'm *still* getting SMS from you with no reply path). Not all customers will reply to you, but some will. Some will say thank you, some will have another question, some will just want to give you feedback (both negative and positive) and a fair few will tell you to s*d off (you can take that as an unsubscribe request). Indeed, in my ZagMe days, one chap texted in to tell us he'd dedicated a record to us on Capital FM - praise indeed.
So, don't do anything without permission (although on it's own, it's not enough) and keep the lines of communication open so that people can reply to you.
1. Embrace User Control
2. Get Personal
3. Optimise for Mobile
4. Provide Value
These are not dissimilar to my 'Key Success Factors' slide that I use in training and seminars. However, Mark has missed a critical point - getting personal isn't enough. What Mark has missed on his list is the fundamental "Permission". He talks about 'embracing user control' but this isn't quite the same thing so I'll elaborate as to what I mean...
You need permission before you do anything mobile. The assumption is generally that you need a list of mobile numbers to begin with but this isn't necessarily the case. Yes, a list can be useful, if it's opted in (that's the law) and has a close link between what customers signed up for and what you want to tell them (ideally being your own list as many, although not all, third party lists are dubious in their effectiveness). Permission is also when a customer texts back in response to having seen an advert on the TV, in print or heard it on the radio or seen something on a packet of crisps or can of drink. In texting in, the customer gives permission for you to reply back, thus starting the conversation.
Mobiles were designed for communication and so it's a two-way street. No longer can you send out one-way text messages - you must allow the customer to reply - not least so they can unsubscribe. (Lakeside, when are you going to do something about this? - I'm *still* getting SMS from you with no reply path). Not all customers will reply to you, but some will. Some will say thank you, some will have another question, some will just want to give you feedback (both negative and positive) and a fair few will tell you to s*d off (you can take that as an unsubscribe request). Indeed, in my ZagMe days, one chap texted in to tell us he'd dedicated a record to us on Capital FM - praise indeed.
So, don't do anything without permission (although on it's own, it's not enough) and keep the lines of communication open so that people can reply to you.
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