B2B public relations, like all PR, has evolved quickly over the last few years. Key decision makers at the companies you’re reaching out to are probably a lot like you. They don’t want a lot of clutter around things they don’t need, especially from people who don’t really understand the nuances of their business. And they don’t want to be interrupted by aggressive, self-involved strangers.

Social media has made more intelligent, targeted communication not only possible, but necessary. Some of what used to be essential in the old PR mix is barely a blip on today’s map. Meanwhile, the line between other departments and Public Affairs seems more blurred than ever.

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No, this is not a slag fest. It is simply a helpful exercise in getting you outside of your own eyes and into those of the primary audience you want to reach.

Want an example? Once, we were helping out a retirement home that no one really knew about. When I looked more closely at what they offered, it became clear that they offered one thing that literally nobody else in the country offered. They were a veterans home that also accepted the spouse of the veteran. When other homes accepted veterans, their wives (or husbands – and yes, that scenario did come up) could not live with them. Those facilities were for veterans only. Effectively, very long standing marriages were in a way ended when the veteran moved in for care.

Now, funnily enough, in our research, we found out that for some couples, this was just fine. Wives particularly felt they’d done their marital duties and retirement meant a break not just from house wifery but also from the man they’d married. But for many couples, the separation was very hard. And the home we were helping, at least at that time, provided that one unique service that let married couples transition to their lives in a care facility together.

So sharing the story of couples became important for all of our PR work with them. It wasn’t that we bashed anyone else, but thinking through what it was that users of elder care homes really hated about other homes lead us to one of the points that let us connect the story of our home with the media and the public.

It’s a very helpful exercise. Of course, never put down the competition to make yourself look better.  But understanding the holes and gaps in your competition’s services may well lead you to a strength or a differentiating point you didn’t even know you had.

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It feels counterintuitive but it is essential. Innovation and growth are not comfortable. They are not meant to be. They fluctuate between feeling like excitement and pure terror. Which is normal. But it’s only when we step outside what we believe, when we try to see our world, our brand, our lives through the eyes of someone else that we are truly capable of achieving something new and great in ourselves.

There is a wonderful story about the long serving CEO of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, who reigned at the company through much of the early/mid Twentieth Century. This is not a blanket endorsement of the man who certainly had his faults. But he did believe in the importance of dissent.

In one high level meeting when consensus had apparently been reached he said: “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here…Then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

Public push back is dissent. And the public should always have a seat at any brand’s decision table. When they don’t, or when they feel they don’t, if you are important enough, they will push back. If you are unimportant, they simply won’t engage in the first place.

It may not be at the time of your choosing, or in a way that you like, but it is an opportunity to better connect with the very people you are serving or could be serving. Ask yourself the hard questions. Even if you disagree with everything your most dissatissfied customer is saying, carve out some time to see your business through their unhappy eyes.  You will discover something, whether it’s a flaw in the product or a failure to communicate something properly, or a decision you made about your customer and his or her needs in the first place.

It’s not an easy process. But it is valuable. It doesn’t come naturally to most. It doesn’t come naturally to me but it’s something I work on, inspired by my partner in crime, Mike Erskine-Kellie. A writer for television, he gets notes on what he’s written back from producers, broadcasters, story editors, etc. Some of the notes are seriously flawed. Some of them reflect a hasty read or something the note giver doesn’t understand about the series itself.

But Mike has a simple philosphy. He won’t fight any note. He will work VERY hard to see if he can make absolutely every note work. He takes it on as some kind of exciting game that allows him to stretch himself in new ways. And only when he has tried everything he can think of and it still fails will he give up on the note. But in the process, he has almost always learned something new about the show, about a character, and even about himself.

Public criticism doesn’t usually feel good. And sometimes it’s completely off base. But no matter what, it’s always an opportunity for growth for those who are willing.

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And with the wide variety of tools now available that let people connect their message to others including the media, you accept that some – even many – will go off and try and engage the media and the rest of the world in their issue, brand or story before they’ve done the work, even before they understand the real lay of the land.

This is especially true in the social entrepreneur and not for profit space and anywhere where big-hearted people are tackling important issues, issues they can’t imagine anyone not seeing the value of.

And that’s when things go terribly wrong.

It pains me to see really good people going off on bad PR campaigns simply because they don’t know what they’re doing. “How hard could it be?,” they ask. And then they find out when not only do they not get any traction but they’ve made themselves dismissible with the very people who could have helped them. That’s when they start throwing out words like “conspiracy” and think the media is too scared to touch the story.

Nope. The truth is a whole lot more simple. A hyperbole filled blog laced with emotional slings and arrows but lacking factual evidence will get you labled as a crank, not turn you into a local hero.  A credibly presented, evidence based argument with dignified spokespeople who have poignant stories and can tell them well? That works. It’s harder to create. But well worth it in the end.

The first approach is easy, lazy even. It’s also damaging to your brand. The second takes a lot more work. But it’s effective. And authentic. And that should be the jumping off point, not where you hope to get to after you’ve burned your bridges and have to rebuild a campaign that lies in ruins.

It breaks my heart when bad PR happens to good people. It happens because they usually don’t know any better. And it can end up costing them everything they were fighting for in the first place.

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News is a very competitive business and getting more so every day. Reporters are doing more with less and each news outlet is anxious to distinguish themselves from every other news channel out there. And in a world of citizen journalism, there are a huge number of channels, including blogs and social media outlets.

If a reporter asks you for an exclusive, think before you respond. It can be a very good thing, or it can kill your story. The higher the profile the outlet, the more likely they are to ask you for an exclusive. But there is no guarantee that they will actually run with your story. And in fact, there have been some very embarrassing public fights between outlets, including morning shows, over who had an exclusive and who had rights to what interview when.

The word “exclusive” has been used all over the place with Charlie Sheen’s appearances around his dismissal from his show Two and a Half Men. Are any of the interviews that were billed as exclusive really exclusive? Not so much. Not really.

But most of us are not the stars of a hit show whose lives have taken on reality show qualities and status. And that means, when we’re asked to give an exclusive, you need to consider the following.

How likely is the news outlet asking for an exclusive to cover it? If you have a finite amount of time, you have to weigh the trade-off. For example, if your story must run in a particular month – like a health observance month, say Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, try and negotiate for the outlet to cover the story early in the month. If they tell you can’t do anything until the month, you have a hard decision to make. Do you take your chances and go after others who may or may not come on board? Or do you hold out for an interested news outlet and not reach out to others, maybe losing your whole window of opportunity if they don’t run with the story.

Yes, it’s evil. But it’s the business as it is, not as it should be.

To make your decision, you need to assess how invested are they in the story. Do they get it? Are they asking the right questions about the story and the people involved? The worst thing for you is to surrender your story to one organization that either doesn’t get it, or will simply sit on it, preventing anyone else from doing it even though they do nothing with it themselves.

Does someone on the team seem personally invested? Do they have some kind of history with your topic that gives you the assurance they’re fighting for you? Do they return your calls and emails promptly? What does your gut tell you about this person?

This is not an exact science, and hard news could bump you in a heartbeat, even when an outlet has committed to you. No one predicted September 11th or the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster. Real life can change a news outlet’s focus on a moment’s notice, and you need to keep in mind that even if a news outlet as committed to the story, something can still get it off the rails.

But then again, the right media outlet telling the right story about your product or event can make all the difference in the world. Waiting for that story teller can be more than worth it, but it comes with risks, so go in with your eyes open.

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A great PR campaign includes a killer media pitch that make a story newsworthy. A media pitch is a short written or verbal piece that you use to entice the media to feature you positively in a story. It’s not rocket science, but it is an art. It makes all the difference between getting media coverage and not.

Not sure what goes into a great media pitch? Here’s the skinny:

Target the right media with the right pitch

Imagine if day in, day out, you picked up the phone or checked your email only to get a constant barrage of messages relating to subjects that had nothing to do with you. Welcome to the world of journalism, where people try and pitch you stories with winning opening lines like: “I don’t read your paper but I have this great product that you should tell your readers about.”

A great media pitch reflects the audience that reads, watches or listens to the media outlet and the journalist it is tailored for. A winning media pitch has been tweaked or even crafted with the end audience in mind. If it’s going to a specific journalist, it references what they’ve had to say on the subject and how or why your angle furthers the conversation or adds a dimension of value to his or her readers.

A strong media pitch adds additional insight or solves a problem that the journalist you are targeting has put on the public agenda. It may also introduce something that will be of concern to their audience. Your best shot at getting coverage is to help the journalist by giving them a new angle, or way of looking at a story or topic that matters to them and to their audience. If you do, you will have a much better chance of securing their interest.

Keep it short and don’t bury the lede

You have only a few words before the journalist reading or hearing your pitch decides if they want more or it’s game over. At the top outlets, like The View, if you haven’t grabbed them within about 10 seconds, the call is done. A good pitch starts with the most interesting element first and immediately delivers the “what’s in it for the audience” moment. A rambling pitch that packs a great punch at the end probably won’t get seen or heard in its entirety.

Make it newsworthy

Because you’ve lived, breathed and eaten your story as you’ve researched it, targeted the right media and created great art and video to go with it, you have to remind yourself as you develop your angles for your pitches (different pitches for different media) that the media is not the PR arm of your company. It is not their job to help you sell product or ellicit new donations.

Media need to tell a good story.  And a good cause  or a good product isn’t in and of itself a good story. A good story offers insight into the human condition, or highlights an injustice, or raises an issue of importance, or helps the audience solve a problem, or in some way fulfills a need specific to their audience. Your angle needs to further the discussion on something topical or draw attention to a new problem and how your product or service is the solution.

Give it legs

Think like  a producer or editor. As you flesh out your story and how you’d like the media to tell it, think in 3D. What digital assets do you have or can you create (art/pictures, video/B-roll, podcasts) that you can give them or suggest that will give the story added punch? Don’t just think about your story in one medium. Think about it through out all media channels possible, and get your, um, storytelling assets in gear.

Don’t Take Rejection Personally

No matter how much planning or work you’ve done, your story may just not be a fit for a journalist or an outlet you were SURE would cover it but didn’t. It happens. Move on. Thank them for their time, be friendly and warm, and work just as hard or harder to get their interest with a new product or angle next time. Don’t let your disappointment say or do anything that will cost you a shot at that next time.

It takes a lot of work to land a great feature, but it’s worth it in the end. A good pitch is deceptively short but carries with it all kinds of additional resources ready to be pulled out on a moment’s notice and is the culmination of a tremendous amount of research. But once you’ve delvered a story that engages an outlet’s audience, you will be on the A-list, and the outlet will be more inclined to welcome pitches from you.

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The time to create a Crisis Communications Plan is before you need it, not in the height of a crisis. Every critical person in your company and all of the C-suite should have a copy, have reviewed it at least once in the last six months, and feel free to offer suggestions to improve upon it as time goes on.

Here are five essentials of a good Crisis Communications Plan:

1. Keep it brief. It does not need to cover off every possible crisis but be a manageable, readily accessible and actionable document that gives you strategies and concrete plans for handling likely types of scenarios your company might encounter, including, such as injury of a customer, death of a key employee, charges against an executive, legal challenge, accusations of impropriety, product tampering, and illness or death of customer amongst a whole host of other possibilities.

2. Nurture your relationships. In a time of crisis, you will need to reach out to key people who can help you figure out what you’re up against and mitigate the damage. Figure out who you friendlies are, including community leaders, fans in the media and influential bloggers who might help you tell your side of the story. Don’t just reach out only when you need something. It’s ill-mannered, and you’ll turn off the very people you may need in your corner in times of trouble.

3. Be proactive. Break bad news yourself so you can ensure your side of the story is heard. Waiting for someone else to tell it means you will only be responding and not able to contextualize the issue in the most helpful way. Reach out to the media and make your website a destination by updating it with the information the media and the public want, including the bad news.

4. Be truthful. It is imperative the public trust that you are doing everything in your power to make the situation right and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. If you are caught in a lie or have bent the truth, your credibility will be shot. And you won’t have a leg to stand on.

5. Ready your CEO in advance. When something goes terribly wrong, people want to hear from the person in charge. Make sure the CEO is media trained and able to explain the situation and the company’s side of the story simply, with humility and authenticity. Arrogance and self interest will only make the problem worse.

Your Crisis Communications Plan should be critically reviewed frequently and never considered to be set in stone. Your list of friendlies, the most likely possible threats, and channels to get your side of the story out should be revised as needed and as you go to ensure that should a crisis strike, your company is ready to face it.

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Social Media is a game changer.

Social media has taken off because it fits more with how we interact with the world around us, our friends, and it dovetails with how we make decisions.

We know that ads don’t always tell us the truth, that we can’t believe everything we read in the paper or see on tv. But we are interested in the experiences of our friends, what they recommend and why. And we want immediate access to information without interpreters, intermediaries and marketing hype. We care about some of the things our friends care about and we want them to care about what we care about.

Social media lets us change the world one friend at a time. And sometimes many, many more. It is word of mouth in action.

David Meerman Scott, one of the thought leaders in the space of Social Media, suggests thinking of social media like a cocktail party. Many of the same social niceties apply:

• Manners are important
• Don’t be too self promotional
• Be interested in others
• Be interesting
• Be helpful to others if you can be
• Show up, engage and be engaging.

Don’t think social media is important?

Think again. Your customers, clients and donors have already joined the conversation. What are they saying about you? Don’t know? That’s a problem. And it could be a big one.  Take a look at Dominoes Pizza. They’re a firm that had to get their social media act together in a big hurry after workers posted video of themselves on YouTube doing disgusting things to food in a Dominoes Kitchen.

Past that hurdle, Dominoes realized they had an even bigger  problem. Their pizza sucked and everyone was talking about how bad it was through social media.

In the past, poor customer service and bad products were in the realm of “buyer beware.” But in a world where everyone is talking, a lot of with a shared bad experience or shared dislike of a product or service is a very dangerous thing for a brand.

The old adage used to be that a happy customer told only a few people but an unhappy customer shared his or her negative experience with at least 10 people. Social media means your reach can extend exponentially, and often with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Faced with just such a scenario, Dominoes did something radical. They changed their recipe. They came out and essentially said, “we know our pizza isn’t good. And we’re changing it.” It had been the same recipe for almost fifty years. Why did they do something so radical? Watching the comments from bloggers and those on sites like Twitter, they knew they couldn’t pretend that nothing was wrong. And their very survival depended on changing the core of their business. The end result?   Dominoes doubled its profits.

Dell is another company that uses Social Media to help with customer service. And they directly attribute $3 million dollars in sales to one Twitter account. They firmly recognize that social media is NOT the place to push messages out but to solve problems before they escalate. And they jumped into the space, specifically to address the deteriorating customer service their clients had identified. Now they have 40 bloggers and are leaders in the social media space.

But there is more to social media than customer service. It is one of the best places for market research possible. It provides an immediate source for information, news, opinion – and even feedback on products, services, trends, both current and emerging. It is a place to see if and where the world is shifting, moving, and headed.  Those new to the space are anxious to talk. Those who have been there for a while are just as interested, if not more, in listening.

Various social media channels provide fertile research ground to get an advance look at upcoming trends and emerging conversations amongst key social and economic demographics. In short, you’d pay a lot of money for this research from a marketing firm – but it’s something you can do yourself and be better informed about your clients, customers and donors, and the people that matter to them.

This article is an excerpt from the White Paper called “What is Social Media, ” available for free download by signup on any Babble On webpage half way down on the right side of the site.

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The answer is yes. And here’s why. To blog is an excellent way of engaging your core audience in what you do. To blog is to give your audience insight into your opinions, your productions, your company. To blog is to connect — if you do it right.

To blog, and to blog well, establishes you as a “thought leader” in your field and connects your audience to you. Remember, people don’t buy from companies. They buy from people.

So let’s say you’re sold. Now what?

A good question. And one that is inevitably followed by the Hamlet-lode of blogging to-be-or-not-to-be’s: “How’s anyone ever gonna find my blog? What’s the point? Should I just pack it in now? When did I start talking to myself? Is there cake and beer in the fridge?”

Forget the cake and beer (for now).  And don’t worry. It’s a blog, not subatomic physics (come back next week).

In fact, the news is good: To blog effectively enough to drive traffic and repeat visits to your page isn’t that difficult.  Honest.

“My blog went from getting around 10 visits and 0 comments a day to getting 1,000 visits and 50 comments a day in just under three months. And without going to the gym or dieting.”

Me (written a few seconds ago)

My writing partner, John, and I managed to drive lots of traffic and loyal readers to our humour blogs Crabby Old Fart and Sick Days by making sure we covered some basic guidelines. There’s nothing new or revelatory here, people, just four basic rules that can really help new bloggers, regardless of your topic…

1. Content…

…Is king.  Always has been. Always will be.

If your blog content is strong, you will get regular visitors and decent traffic. If it isn’t, then you may as well start all your blog entries with “Dear diary” because you’ll be the only person reading it…

Whether you’re going to blog about health or a new business venture, it’s important to remember the following:

• Pick a single topic or theme and stay on it. Assume your readers are looking for something specific and not a meandering wander through a series of subjects. Think about what topics will have relevance to your target audience, and write about that.
• Readers tend to scan blogs. They want to be able to get information quickly. How can you help them?
• Keep your sentences short. And punchy. Don’t use sub-clauses and consider bullet points to lessen the amount of work your readers must do to read your blog.
• Try and keep your blog postings in the 200-500 word range. You can write a longer post if you have to, but try and make this the exception, not the rule. Also, ensure your post isn’t rambling or repetitive. Only leave in what you need to.
• Make sure your writing has a conversational feel to it. Blogging calls for a more familiar form of writing. Use of both the first person (ex. “I”)and  second person (“you”) are generally acceptable in a blog and usually preferable. Save third person writing (ex., “one should…”) for white papers, business proposals and other more formal forms of communication.
• Write well. The words on your blog page need to be compelling and tight so that your reader becomes engaged.
• Think of blogging as having a conversation. Engage your readers. Let them get to know you.   So if you’re a budding author this means you don’t have to blog exclusively about promoting your book. You want to win readers with your sparkling personality and exceptional writing style.
• Never try and sell your reader anything. They won’t buy it. Engage them, build trust, offer them advice, lift their spirits, move them, touch them, anger them, provoke them, but never try and sell them…Offering someone advice on how to use the products you sell, for example, provides excellent value to your consumer, shows your company to have excellent customer service and generally tells your community you care about their experience. Telling them to buy your product does not.
• Post regularly. If you have time to go to events, you have time to blog. Think of it as an online networking opportunity. Most sane bloggers aim for two or three posts a week and still have time to live full and fascinating lives. Of course, the more often you post, the more likely it is your blog will grow. Frequent posts keep readers coming back. It also gives them a reason to subscribe to your RSS feed and/or email subscription.  Regular posting also moves you up in online search results. And that makes it easier for new readers to find you.
• Oh, and watch out for typos and grammatical errors. They drive some readers totally batty.

2. Leave Comments that further the conversation at Other Blogs.

Building an audience takes time – and strategy. An effective way to attract new readers is by visiting similar themed blogs to yours. And after you’ve read some posts don’t forget to leave comments. Bloggers love comments.

It goes without saying (but I’m gonna say it anyway) that while self-promotion is important, it’s waaay more important to keep your comments relevant. Don’t just drop in and abuse the comment system to push your blog.  Nobody likes spam.

A common etiquette blunder of trying to drive traffic to your blog is posting off-putting, pointless and self-promoting comments on other people’s blogs. All that will do is turn off readers. Get a load of this one that I received a few months ago: “Yo Mike, I’m really happy for you and I’m gonna let you finish, but my blog is one of the best blogs of all time!”

That’s one doozie of a claim. Oh, and thanks for letting me finish. What the heck, it is my blog.

Comments like this are considered bad form. They aren’t going to win you any friends – let alone readers.

A good comment that’s on theme will not only peak the blogger’s interest but possibly some of his/her readers as well. And that can translate into potential new readers for you.

It’s easy enough to find the blogs that are a good fit for you. You’re trying to promote your awesome cookbook?  A good starting point is to zip over to WordPress and check out the cooking tags… That should lead you to all kinds of like minded chefs – and potential new friends and clients.  While you’re at their blogs, check out their links.

When you comment, remember to fill in the fields that will come up so that your blog is hyperlinked and readers can click back to your blog.

3. Link Up

Now that you’re producing superb posts and leaving thoughtful comments, the time has come to start linking to blogs that you really like. You should be choosing ones that match up thematically with yours. There’s nothing wrong with being choosy. Slapping up hundreds of links is ultimately meaningless and it can slow down the loading time on your blog page.

Figure out who the players are in the blog arena you’re writing for. Seek out like-minded bloggers who already have solid audiences and write a post that was inspired by one of theirs. Be sure to include a link in your post to their blog. Their stats counter will point them to your link and chances are good they’ll drop by to see what you’ve written.

If they like what they see, it may inspire them to point their readers to you, the new kid on the blogosphere.  And now that they’re aware of you (and your awesome blog), it’s very possible they’ll find something on your blog that they want to mention on theirs.

Now you’re in link-back territory. This means that some their readers are going to swing by your place to check you out. And some of them will stick around.

4. Talk With Your Readers

Once your blog has readers, make sure they can participate. Make sure your blog comments are on and respond to the comments left on your blog. Try and avoid just saying “Hey, thanks for visiting!” Get involved. Raise other interesting points. If they have questions, definitely answer them. The comment thread can be a lively place and if people know you’re responding thoughtfully to their comments they will return.

Now that you’ve done all that – isn’t there cake and beer in the fridge?

Mike Erskine-Kellie is a writer for TV and a partner at Babble On Communications. He and his brother, John, write the humour blogs Crabby Old Fart and Sick Days.

Other good sources for blogging tips and info:

Pro Blogger

Copy Blogger

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 It used to be that PR was a one way street. Companies pushed messages out that would encourage consumers to buy their product or services.  

Complaints and suggestions were managed, either dealt with or dismissed, all with an eye to ensuring control over the brand.

Now, of course, whether you like it or not, public relations is a two way street. Everyone is connected, wired — and talking.

At the same time, there is an underlying rage just below the surface of our society, bubbling ever closer to the top with each new Fortune 500 corporate executive perp walked into the limelight for financial evil doing.

Others are handed golden parachutes while customers and staff are left behind on engineless planes.

Of course, many executives at now disgraced former giant companies were honest and hardworking – but far too often, their voices were ignored or worse silenced.

And now we are left with the perfect storm, a public distrustful of business at the very time confidence needs to be restored.  

There is little incentive for vision within companies or governments and the end result is most are scrambling to do what they need to do to get elected or make this quarter’s numbers. Rome wasn’t built in a quarter. But it could fall in one. And it almost did.

I have long thought that sometimes the best thing PR people can do for the companies that employ them is to stop thinking like PR people. Sometimes, we need to forget we are company people too. Sometimes, the best thing PR people can do is to think like the people they serve and design every aspect of their company’s communications and public relations strategies and actions accordingly. 

It will serve your company better in the long run.

It’s time to get back to basics. It’s time to get back to business.

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