Here’s a list of 10 New Year’s Resolutions you should put into place for the new year. Download 10_pr_news_years_resolutions_for_2008.pdf
You can download the white paper here:
If you have any others, send them along to me – alan@weinkrantz.com
Steve Rubel has a great post as he articulates so well: The Future of PR is Participation, Not Pitching.
Worth Reading....
Do you have a blogging outreach strategy in place?
If not, you should.
Start thinking about a blogging strategy as you begin to enter the second half of 2007.
Download this free white paper to learn more.
Computerworld's new Tech Dispenser is billing itself as a human powered technology blog network and news aggregator.
Tech Dispenser is different from the bot-run landscape of news aggregators because every site in their network is hand selected by real human beings and every piece of content that appears on techdispenser.com is categorized and prioritized by Computerworld's editors.
What appears to be a rather daunting task is a very good approach to add the human touch to a constantly growing network of relevant technology blogs representing some of the brightest and creative minds in technology.
Techdispenser.com filters these partners' content to bring you the best of the best the technology world has to offer.
If you have a technology blog and would like to join the network, apply now.
I've submitted my blog, 3Screens and am waiting for a confirmation that they have accepted it for the network.
Working with industry analysts is one of the more complicated tasks of product marketing and public communications. It is also one of the most elemental requirements for refining and focusing your product and company positioning and keeping the strategic side of your business moving forward and in synch with industry trends.
I've just come back from a major trade show where we had several industry analyst briefings. Here's a white paper you can download which outlines working with this important public in your communications outreach.
Download working_with_industry_analysts.pdf
Usually, the first thing we are asked from a prospective client is this: "do you have the right connections and contacts in the media in order to get our story out?"
Good question, but not the right one to start off with.
Are we connected? Yes. But if your message isn't right, it's not going to matter.
Do we know a lot of analysts, bloggers and journalists? Of course. But we are only as good as our last contact with them.
Oh...and with thousands of possible candidates to work with, it's a huge universe, and no agency no matter how large or small is going to have relationships with every possible person who may cover your company.
And one more issue: journalists, analysts and bloggers are deluged with pitches, requests, story ideas, and proposals to look at the next big thing.
But "knowing" someone does not always make us successful. What matters is this:
1. Be patient. Journalists, analysts and bloggers are busy and backlogged. You are better off cultivating the relationship and helping the journalist write something interesting, relevant, timely and perhaps even exclusive.
2. Be timely. Send out news on the day you announce something and it's old news. In other words, send your news out early, before its live, under embargo to selected journalists.
3. Sustain. Counting on one announcement to make you famous is not going to happen. We find that on-going outreach results in longer-term and media coverage of substance.
4. Populate your newsroom with timely and interesting content. Have a newsroom with screen shots, white papers, executive bios, and of course your most recent news releases. Also, don't forget to have media contacts listed with contact info so you can be found when they need you.
5. Consider blogging. This is a great way to have journalists find your company's human face and quote your executives who are blogging.
Photo copyright (C) 2007 by Alan Weinkrantz. All Rights Reserved.
So we are off to a new year.
Don’t forget that your business deserves some attention and follow up to your New Year’s resolutions.
One of the most important things to do as we move forward in this new year is examine the core messages of your business: your purpose and mission, your marketing slogans, your PR boilerplate — all your statements about who you are, what business you’re in, what you stand for, and how you relate to your various publics.
Here are a few questions to which you should seriously ask and if need be, update and refresh your message:
1. Has your market broadened or differentiated over the past year?
2. Do the words — especially any jargon — you use in your messages still mean what
they did when you first used them?
3. Has your target customer changed or have the applications for your products shifted to new uses?
4. Are the data in your boilerplate still accurate and complete?
5. Have you re-read your “current” materials to be certain they still make sense and
reflect your products in an appropriate light for today’s market?
6. Do your print materials and your website look like they represent the same company?
7. Is there a consistent thread or theme throughout the components of your public image?
8. Would your customers recognize your company and products from your PR,
advertising, packaging, and sales presentations? Would their reaction be positive?
9. Do your employees know the company’s purpose, mission, etc.? Would they agree it is accurate?
10. Do industry analysts, the media and bloggers have a mental image of your company that is coherent with your own?
And there are more relevant questions, as you might imagine.
While businesses should engage in this type of self-evaluation on an ongoing basis, there’s no better time as we approach the beginning of the year to schedule such a review.
Take what you learn and design a program to address the elements systematically. Your goal should be to have a message and image that are fresh, dynamic, and reflective of your market and your position within it, and that honor the core values and purposes of your company.
Refresh this new year’s resolution annually and you will maintain an accurate, exciting, and dynamic message and culture in your organization.
If you are reading my blog, and you care about blogging, buy Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble. Click here to order from Amazon.
I had ordered my copy after seeing Shel at two industry blogging conferences, but Amazon somehow screwed up the orders due to some ordering snafu which I caught.
I'll be doing a boook review soon, but in the mean time, just order it.
If you it doesn't set you straight on corporate blogging, send me an email to: alan at weinkrantz.com and I will send you a check to reimburse you. You don't have to send me your book.
Yes, it's that good.
Highly Recommended
One sure way to get a speaking gig at an industry tradeshow or conference is to see if the show promoter is issuing a call for papers - that is a way to submit your ideas on why you should speak. Here is an example of a Call for Papers for the Digital Home Conference and Showcase to be held in May of 2006.
Here are a few hints:
1. Make the deadline - this is pretty obvious. Either you do or your don't. Don't ask for an extension.
2. Be forward thinking - don't talk about what you are working on now. Talk about where your company is going and where your vision is as an industry leader.
3. Submit a candidate with expertise - make sure the person you propose to speak really knows what he or she is talking about.
4. Don't make this a marketing and sales pitch - this is not about why you are so smart and why your product is so cool. Think bigger. Think about industry issues. Think about how you are helping to lead the industry. How you solve customer issues. Help your partners make more money. Get to market faster. Add more value.
These suggestions speak to the obvious, but they are the basics in helping you succeed in getting the speaking gigs you are after.
Today's edition of the Washington Post has a great story in which our client, IP Communications pioneer, Jeff Pulver is quoted in the context of a background story on the FCC.
Here is the text.
"At a conference of VOIP executives in September, Jeff Pulver, who helped found the company that later became Internet phone provider Vonage Holdings Corp., suggested that the FCC was being run like the KGB, according to a Pulver aide. Martin made light of the comment at an industry dinner earlier this month, joking that "the KGB-like atmosphere grows on you after a while."
Today, we issued a media advisory for our client, VoiP pioneer, Jeff Pulver, pointing the media to today's blog entry on what he called a "new communications war." Today's blog entry highlighted what he saw as a battle between Internet Access Provider and Internet Application Provider.
The idea here is to try to get the media to come to Pulver's blog as a source for expert opinion, insight and "virtual quotes" that they media can use for story development ideas.
Our client, SecureLogix, is part of a very good story in Computerworld debating the vulnerability of VoIP security. In this case, we all agree to disagree. And that's ok. The beauty of an open debate like this is that we can take opposing views - as long as it's done with substance.
Here at The Ranch, we are big believers in contributed articles. Above and beyond news releases and the general noise that goes out in the world of tech PR, a contributed article demonstrates your thought leadership, technical prowness, and makes for great sales collateral.
In representing our client, AudioCodes, we are fortunate to have a wealth of experts on staff who can contribute stories such as the one that was just published on TMC Net: "When Will VoIP Be Open?"
In this case, the writer is the Director of Channel Marketing for the company and points to the fact the company has a speaker at an industry event. This enables you to tie your contributed article to a speaking opportunity - another means for broadcasting your vision and message.
This Thursday is our client, pulvermedia's Second “Peripheral Visionaries’ IP-Based Communications Summit” - one day after the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet holds its first Hearing on draft legislation to create a statutory framework for Internet Protocol and Broadband Services.
Given the timing of the hearings, today we broadcasted a media advisory with a statement from Jeff Pulver and pulvermedia's legal counsel, Jonathan Askin stating: “The Committee Hearing will quite likely serve as the impetus to move for a Committee markup of a major communications reform bill,” noted Jeff Pulver, Founder and Chairman of pulvermedia. “While legislation is unlikely to be enacted this term, this bill will likely serve as the template and frame the debate for whatever Congress does next term. This legislation could prove to be the most dramatic reform in communications law in 10 years, if not 70 years, if not ever. As such, the Peripheral Visionaries’ IP-based Communications Summit could not have occurred at a more auspicious moment in the history of communications policy. The Hearing will certainly give us a lot of fuel for discussion at the Peripheral Visionaries Summit.”
“It is serendipitous that the very stakeholders most directly implicated by the Telecom Subcommittee Hearing on IP and broadband are the very same parties who should participate at the Peripheral Visionaries’ IP-based Communications Summit,” noted Jonathan Askin, General Counsel to pulvermedia. “The Summit will include the leading academics, analysts, innovators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries experimenting with the limits of IP technology, who are coming to DC to cross-pollinate with the leading advocates and decision-makers building the policies that will shape the IP-enabled future. It is essential that these disparate groups – the technologists and the policymakers – come together to understand one another’s respective visions and goals, so that policy and technology might evolve together in a mutually virtuous cycle.”
Media advisories such as these help support our client's events, enable the media to easily pick up quotes for comments, and further reinforce thought leadership and industry knowledge.
I suppose I am getting to sound like a broken record (or a broken blogger?), but here is another example of a contributed story that we placed for our client, SecureLogix.
In this case, our client's CTO, Mark Collier's Voice over IP Security story on TMCNet, pragmatically lists multiple reasons in an easy to read format why enterprises need to seriously address security in the context of enterpreise VoIP deployments.
Check the story out and see if you can develop your own contributed stories that reflects your expertise and thought leadership in your respective space.
Yesterday's announcement regarding a coalition of public interest and business groups today asking a federal appeals court to overturn a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring that broadband Internet and interconnected voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services be designed to make government wiretapping easier has started to yield some very good media coverage.
We've had stories in ZDNet, InternetNews.com, Wired, and CMP's Networking Pipeline appear citing our client, pulver.com as an expert source on the subject. We provide quotes in the form of a media advisory which journalists may select from. This is a very good and effective way to make our client available without the need for playing phone tag.
Today, a coalition of public interest and business groups- including our client, pulver.com, asked a federal appeals court to overturn a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring that broadband Internet and interconnected voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services be designed to make government wiretapping easier.
In a ruling finalized Oct. 13, the FCC ordered distributors of broadband and certain VOIP services to comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994. CALEA requires telephone companies to design their systems to ensure a baseline level of government wiretapping capability. When Congress passed CALEA in 1994 it specifically exempted the Internet from its reach.
The civil liberties, privacy and high-tech industry advocates opposing the FCC ruling warn that it extends the wiretapping rules to technologies it was never intended to cover, imposes a burdensome government mandate on innovators and threatens the privacy rights of individuals who use the Internet and other new communications technologies.
We helped support the Center for Democracy and Technology , along with COMPTEL, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Sun Microsystems in distributiing news about filing the appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Congress realized in 1994 that the Internet was fundamentally different from the telephone system, and specifically refrained from applying CALEA to the Internet and "information services" carried over it. Although ISPs and Internet application providers must (and do) comply with interception orders under the wiretap laws, they have not until now been burdened with FBI-imposed design mandates.
We pitch our clients as experts in their field to demonstrate thought leadership. Here is a a good example of a contributed article to VoIP Magazine by Mark Collier, CTO of SecureLogix. In this case, the article, entitled "Wireless VoIP Security Fundamentals," was pitched on the basis of our client's expertise in VoIP security.
I am an early riser out of habit- and economic necessity. Our clients in Israel need real time support and I check wire stories for breaking news that are specific to our client's respective spaces.
This morning, when I learned that eBay had bought Skype, we jumped into action with a plan to submit commentaries and observations for the media needing a third-party commentary and observations on the significance of this deal.
The end result: 
Reuters did a follow on story and later this afternoon, The New York Times and International Herald Tribune's story also picked up a quote from our client, VoIP thought leader, Jeff Pulver.
Continue reading "When News Breaks, Media Seeks Insight and Observations From Thought Leaders" »
Today, our client, pulver.com, commented on the FCC’s adoption of an order imposing E911 obligations on VoIP providers within 120 days.
When using a wire service you can buy specific regional or subject related circuits. We sent the news release via PR Newswire to the Washington, DC regional media.
Breaking news on today's ruling included coverage on Bloomberg, PhonePlus, and National Journal's Insider Update. This type of coverage in the context of articles like these distinguishes you as a thought leader and knowledgable insider on industry issues.
Continue reading "Pulver.com Blasts FCC E911 Order For Discouraging Innovation and Hampering" »
BusinessWire offers a very good service to its members called ExpertSource, which provides you with the opportunity to promote and position company experts and spokespeople as sources on topics in today's news to deadline-driven journalists worldwide.
Journalists are always looking for experts in certain fields. If you have a particular expertise, you may submit your information and post abstracts on your field of expertise.
This is a great way to be found.
Today, our client, pulver.com announced that its Peripheral Visionaries' IP-Based Communications Summit to be held on May 4 in Washington D.C. continues to attract new speakers, attendees and sponsorships.
The Summit, which will run from 9AM to 6:00 PM, followed by a reception, at the Washington Plaza Hotel, brings leading innovators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries experimenting with the limits of IP technology to the nation's capital in order to mix with the leading decision-makers building the policy that will shape the IP-enabled future. The leading associations, advocates and thinkers from all sides of the communications debate will come together to take a hard look at the state of communications technology and policy and where technology and policy might be headed.
The Conference has added several unique outside-the-sandbox visionaries to the line-up in recent weeks, including the following:
* John Perry Barlow, the Founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former lyricist for the Grateful Dead.
* Mark Spencer, the Founder and President of Digium/Asterisk. Asterisk is among the most disruptive technologies in the communications market today, essentially allowing any end-user to download open source software that allows the user to become her own service provider.
* Jonathan Taplin, a Professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communications and the founder and CEO of Intertainer, the pioneer video-on-demand service. In prior incarnations, Taplin was Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band and a noted film producer, whose credits include Mean Streets, the Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For.
Perhaps for the first time, the leading trade associations on every side of the communications debate will join together to hammer out their differences and hear from the technologists, innovators and entrepreneurs pushing the IP envelope. Sponsors include CDT, CEA, CCIA, CompTel/Ascent/ALTS, CompTIA, CTIA, Global IP Alliance, ITAA, ITTA, NCTA, NTCA, OSAIA, Public Knowledge, pulver.com, TIA, VON Coalition, and WBIA.
We broadcasted the news release to Washington, DC area journalists who cover telecom, technology and government policy. We have also managed to attract a core group of journalists who will attend and cover this exciting and thought provoking event.
We've just landed another contributed story in EE Times for our client, AudioCodes. This is a contributed story that not only demonstrates thought leadership, but makes for great article reprints!
Here's 5 tips that will help you sell your contributed story.
1. Read the magazine. Make sure you are aiming for the right audience.
2. Confirm the publication accepts contributed stories.
3. Read previously written contributed stories to get a sense of style and types of
content they publish.
4. Come up with, and submit three story ideas in the form of an abstract.
5. Make sure the story you are pitching is aimed at educating, helping and being
informative to your readers.
Good luck!
Today, I will be sharing the floor with a group of Blogging "experts" on the subject of blogging. BusinessWire's San Antonio office is hosting a luncheon for Marcom, PR and Advertising professionals to learn about this emerging communications medium.
I will be talking about why I blog, and how we are using blogging as a means of doing outreach to tech bloggers and journalists who can be a very valuable part of the communications food chain.
Solution. Migration. Integrated. Scalable. NextGen. After two decades of doing technology PR, I must admit that even I get tired of hearing meaningless buzzwords that have nothing to do with our client's core messages.
My suggestion: kill the buzzwords and focus on your message. And buy a copy of the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to make sure you are talking the right talk.
Today, our client, Pulver.com is hosting the VoIP Consumer Summit, which will be co-located at the CES Show in Las Vegas.
The Consumer VoIP Summit will feature the most influential and visionary industry thought leaders who will share their unique perspectives on trends to watch and developments to note in IP Communications.
Just a friendly reminder....Editorial Calenars for 2005 are now availalbe on most of the publication's web sites. Editorial calendars are listings of articles that are planned to be written. Journalists welcome suggestions for contributed content, industry trends, emerging technology, and expert sources.
If you are going to pitch something for an editorial calendar, make it short and to the point. Pitch why it will be of interest to the publication's readers and how it will benefit them. Don't send attached files- yet. The intent is to create a dialogue with the journalist, identify their need, and to fill it.
We've sold major feature stories based on editorial calendars all through email with never having having a real time phone conversation.
Happy Pitching!
Today, our client, Pulver.com, lead by VoIP thought leader, Jeff Pulver, announced that it was encouraged by the FCC’s acknowledgement that Nomadic VoIP service was not subject to state economic regulation. We issued a news release with a series of quotes that were available to the media to be attributed to Jeff. Read the story on the Forbes magazine web portal by clicking here.
You can reach the Washington Beltway media and policy regulators through specific circuits from PR Newswire or BusinessWire.