My favorite PR word: Integration

Alright, alright. My word is totally selfish. After all, Geoff Livingston and I have an entire book coming out in May on the topic. But integration is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a necessity.

I moved to Chicago in 2000 to join an advertising agency that was thinking ahead and wanted to integrate public relations into their overall strategies. They decided the best way to do that was to build a PR department within their four walls.

It was a difficult transition. The creative directors thought our jobs were to “tell the media about the newest client advertising campaign.” It wasn’t real integration as we felt like we were the redheaded stepchildren and they felt like we were imposing on their turf.

Then the 9/11 tragedy enveloped the United States, the tech bubble burst, and everyone retreated to their separate discipline corners.

Now, some 11 years and the worst economy our country has seen since the Great Depression, it’s time to break down the silos once and for all.

Following is my definition.

Integration

(ˌintiˈgrāSHən)

noun

To develop the art of integration, you have to break down the silos; give up the budget fights, turf wars, control, and stop holding on to knowledge for perceived power.

The only way to succeed in the future – to best serve your customers, to become an investment in the company’s growth – is to integrate the marketing and communication disciplines.

Integration looks like a wheel instead of a typical hierarchy. Marketing is the hub. The spokes are made up of the marketing and communication disciplines. They circle simultaneously.

Example

Typically, the chief marketing officer is the link among all the disciplines; he or she hires specialists from each field and weaves them together, ensuring they are acting to achieve the company’s larger objectives of sales, brand reputation, hiring, employee retention, and more.

Job security is in short supply for chief marketing officers because companies aren’t measuring the right results – they’re seeing the department as an expense instead of an investment

The chief marketing officer typically stays on the job for 29 months. In 2010, 42 months was the longest tenure recorded in six years, when Spencer Stuart began monitoring for this role. But just more than two years is typical. Which is why breaking down the silos is so difficult.

The chief marketing officer will hire web, public relations, corporate communication, search, and advertising professionals, but rarely do they interact with one other. They each are comfortable in silos, doing what they know best.

Because of the lack of integration across disciplines, the advertising professional may think public relations only does media relations. The public relations professional may think search is all black hat. And search may think direct mail is old, stodgy, and ineffective. The disciplines don’t know what the others are doing, which don’t work in integration.

Integration at your company may mean the death of the title of “chief marketing officer.” There will be a leader, but who that person is will change, based on the campaign or company goal you’re focused on.

What do you think? Is integration going to happen and forever break down the silos?

He writes a blog, myPALETTE, is one of the hosts of the Inside PR podcast and can be found on Twitter @martinwaxman.

My favourite PR word: Publicist

Sure, it’s a little out of date – though not enough to become retro. It reminds me of my first days in PR. I started as an arts and entertainment publicist and was proud of it. I was a media junkie who pored over newspapers in the morning, listened to radio talk shows, flipped through endless magazines, tuned into TV. And I always got a thrill when I saw a story I helped place in the news.

But there was a darker side of the job some of our less than above-board colleagues practiced; synonymous with manipulation, backroom deals and spin. To counter that, many corporate people
took to calling publicity media relations and there’s merit to that as it brings in the importance of relationships. Personally, I’ve always preferred the term publicist because it’s a clearer description of the role. Now it’s time we dust off the word, polish it up and reposition it. Here’s my definition.

Publicist

(ˈpəbləsist)
noun

1. A person who pitches stories to reporters, morning, noon and night. See ‘no news is always bad news’; buzz.
2. A man who stoops to unbelievable lows to get his client mentioned in the press. See Sweet Smell of Success; press agent.
3. A woman or man working in communications who helps create and develop stories, understands who is going to be interested in them and why and presents them to the public in an engaging, ethical and transparent way. See media relations, PR, social media.

Example

With social media, the publicist’s role can evolve everything from push to two-way as they focus on a customized approach to taking stories public. They can help content creators refine their stories. They should have the kinds of trusted relationships with influencers (or know how to make them) so that when they share an idea, the influencer will consider it. They should be polite and never spam a person by sending them something they don’t want to receive.

Let’s say you have a new product you’d like to introduce to your fans. A publicist could be the catalyst and spark word of mouth.

What do you think? Can the word publicist be saved?

This week, I thought I would share with you, my favourite PR word, as well as kick off an exciting “My favourite PR word” series.

It is not always easy to explain our industry. We are often behind the scenes of the big campaigns and big brand names. No one remembers the PR firm; they remember the event, the campaign, or the crisis.

My favourite PR word and the one word that helps me explain our industry and our job is…

Communicate

(kəˈmyo͞oniˌkāt)
verb

1. Share or exchange information, news, or ideas
2. Impart or pass on (information, news, or ideas)
3. Convey or transmit (an emotion or feeling) in a nonverbal way
4. Succeed in conveying one’s ideas or in evoking understanding in others
5. Be able to share and understand each other’s thoughts and feelings

Example

“To communicate” briefly explains everything we do in our industry. We help organizations communicate with their audiences. This includes:

• to communicate with journalists in order to increase an organizations profile in the public eye;
• to communicate with an organization’s employees to ensure employees are happy and productive;
• to communicate with government officials to encourage policy changes that will help an organization’s mission or vision; etc.

The act of communicating also comes in many forms: writing, broadcasting, social media, strategic planning, etc. All aspects included in the average day of a PR or communications professional.

So the next time someone asks you, what do you do? You can say: I help organizations communicate.

Stay tuned for the next month and a bit, where I will be asking other public relations and communications experts as well as young PR professionals to define their favourite PR word.

I would love to hear from you. What is your favourite PR word? Share your ideas and opinions by leaving me a comment below.

I have been making resolutions since I was a little kid. I have done them all: go on a diet, lose 10 pounds, exercise every day, learn a new instrument, learn a new dance, stop eating chocolate (that of course ended with an epic fail), and the list goes on.

This year, I have decided to focus my energy on a resolution that is attainable and incorporates my love for one of my hobbies, podcasting. My New Year’s resolution for 2012 is to start my very own podcast.

As you may know already, I have been producing the Inside PR podcast for just under a year now. Every week, I get to listen to the wonderful voices of Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley as I mix their discussion in to one great sounding show. Inside PR has been the highlight of my week since I have started as producer.

Currently, I am part of the background and behind the scenes of podcasting. I now want to broaden my horizon and experience the front end of podcasting, but hosting my very own podcast.

As a young PR professional myself, there is no surprise that I will be hosting a podcast for the young and young at heart PR pros looking for tips and advice on how to advance their careers. I hope to interview the wisest of the wise PR experts and get their tips for young PR pros looking to advance their careers.

However, before I embark on this new podcasting journey, I need a friend, I need someone who is passionate about podcasting who wants to join me on this journey as a co-host.

So, have you decided on a you New Year’s resolution? Are you passionate about podcasting? Are you a young PR professional? Maybe being a co-host is the resolution or the new hobby you have been looking for. If so, please leave me a comment on why you want to be a co-host of a podcast.

As a business, before you invest a significant amount of money in to something – such as PR or communications – you need to make sure you are going to get something in return, which, in most cases, means profit. And as communications professionals, we are always trying to convince upper management of the value and importance of PR and communications, we are just not using the right words.

PR and communications professionals have to stop using words like “X journalist wrote about you in their column”. Great. What does that mean to a business professional?

What they need to know is the ROI.

ROI – Return on investment

(riˈtərn än inˈves’mənt)
noun

According to Investopedia, ROI is:

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.

Example

Therefore, instead of saying “X journalist wrote about you in their column”, say “X journalist, with a following of 12,345, wrote a positive article about your new product and suggested to his followers where they can get your new product”. Now the business man is interested. He or she hears “12,345 potential customers”.

The business professional now sees the value in keeping you around, because you are assisting in bringing in more potential customers/consumers.

To impress the business professional even more, do periodic analysis of the companies profit in relation to the work you have done. If there is an increase in profit since you have been around, they will really want to keep you around.

Remember, business and communications professionals speak a different language, as the communicators, it is our duty to learn their language.

I would love to hear from you? Please share your opinion on my definition of ROI. Leave a comment below.

In public relations and communications, those “pesky” rules are also referred to as CP Style.

This week’s PR Word of the Week describes why a public relations professionals starts to get a tick when they see you write “7” and not seven.

CP Style

(sē-pē stīl)
noun

The standards that guide the use of punctuation, capitalization and other grammatical elements, as well as specific style guidance on every topic from Aboriginal People to weather. Also includes a tricky words and pronunciation guide for Canadian place names. And finally, a guide on writing and editing pointers for those trying to makes news.

The various rules and guidelines are found in the Canadian Press Stylebook.

Example

The Canadian Press Stylebook is the bible of a public relations and communications professional. Some of the rules and guidelines I continuously flip to include:

• Capitalization: with over 25 pages of rules on words that should and should not be capitalized, I refer to this section to help me figure out if president should capitalized (note: only if you are referring to the big cheese, also know as Mt. Obama).
• Abbreviations and acronyms: with about nine pages of rules on whether or not the CBC, UFO or the U.S. takes a period or not.
• Numbers: five pages of seven, 7UP and 0.7 centimetres, how to properly write numbers from one to infinity and beyond.

Whether you’re in journalism, communications, publishing or public relations, CP Style helps ensure accuracy and consistency when it comes to abbreviations, hyphenated and compound words, correct names of Canadian corporations and newsmakers, Internet terms, pop culture references and more.

If you aren’t sure if you text message to a smartphone or textmessage to a smart phone, the CP Stylebook is there for you.

Do you use CP Style? Is the CP Stylebook at home, at work and on your phone, just in case you need to ensure your writing log-on and not logon? Please share your opinion on the importance of writing using the CP Style. Leave a comment below.

I am not the only one that has been defining public relations this week, Joseph Thornley, Martin Waxman and Gini Dietrich discussed various definitions last week on Inside PR 2.79.

When I was in school, in the public relations program at Algonquin College, we were given a definition for public relations that has always stuck with me. It is vague enough to encompass all types of PR and communications and it was easy enough to understand for those not in our industry.

Public relations

(ˈpəblik riˈlāSHənz)
noun

Pubic relations is the two way communication between an organization and its audience.

An organization can be a bank, a not-for-profit, an agency communicating with consumers, donors, journalists and clients. This can also include upper management communicating with their audience: employees.

The important word to note in my definition is “two-way” communication. It an important asset to remember when writing up strategies for communicating and connecting with our audience. Long gone are the days of pushing out key messages through advertising and one-way communication. Long gone are the dishonest and secretive companies trying to hide or take advantage of their audience. If your company bases its existance on dishonesty and secrecy you will not last long. Consumers are much smarter today. We don’t just buy anything anymore. We want to know who we are buying from, where it is from and the ethics behind its creation or production, which is why as a responsible organization we must ask our audience their input and opinion on our business practices, services and products.

Our audience is a powerful thing. There are countless examples of audiences changing the set course of a company’s product or service.

Not to mention crowds gathering online and in real life to change the course of another type of organization: government.

1. Egypt and Mubarak
2. Lybia and Gaddafi
3. Occupy Wall Street

What do you think of my definition of PR? Have I missed something? Do you have a suggestion for a different definition of public relations? I would love to hear from you. Please leave your comments and opinions by leaving me a comment below.

We make up words all the time: the verb to tweet, the verb to defriend/unfriend, sexting, etc.

Among the hundreds of social media words emerging in our society daily, publicness very important one.

Publicness

(ˈpəbliknes)
noun

As defined by Jeff Jarvis, the master mind behind the word and a visionary that examines in his most recent book, Public Parts, the tension that exist in our society between privacy and publicness that is transforming how we communicate, do business, and live our lives…

…allow me to define the word: pub∙lic∙ness: 1. The act or condition of sharing information, thoughts, or actions. 2. Gathering people or gathering around people, ideas, causes, needs: “Making a public.” 3. Opening a process so as to make it collaborative. 4. An ethic of openness.

Example

The world watched as thousands of Egyptians gathered on Facebook then took their cause to the streets and demanded Mubarak step down – that is publicness.

Again, we watched as the world turned a simple hashtag #OccupyWallstreet in to a public protest against “institutions”, where people across North America took to the streets and parks of major cities, demanding a change – that is publicness.

More than 750 million people on Facebook and 100 million tweets a day, people share everything from a bad experience at a restaurant to their private lives – that is publicness.

Why should I care about publicness?

We are all a part of it. Whether you talk to friends on Facebook, connect with professionals on LinkedIn or start a revolution on Twitter, we are all a part of an increasingly public society, which in no way should scare anyone, in fact, it should encourage you to share more.

I had the great pleasure of attending Third Tuesday Ottawa on November 18 to hear Jeff Jarvis speak. I have never been so inspired and intrigued before. I couldn’t stop tweeting, he kept saying the most insightful quotes that made me want to share with the world why they should be very jealous they were not listening to one of the great minds of our generation.

Here are some tweets that came out of that night:

• KristineSimpson: Privacy is an ethic. We have an ethicall decision to share+collaborate. Does not mean to share your breakfast on twitter, says @jeffjarvis
• KristineSimpson: Internet architecture is changing our world, our society. There is going to be radical change: good and bad. Embrase it, says @jeffjarvis
• KristineSimpson: No one can put their flag on the net. That is what makes it free. Free of institution. Just for us! Says @jeffjarvis #3tyow
• Karen_C_Wilson: when you diminish what is public, you diminish what the public owns. (referring to Germany’s response to Streetview) #3tyow
• krusk: “if you don’t want to listen to me, unfollow, don’t tell me I can’t say what I want” @jeffjarvis #3tyow
• Karen_C_Wilson: #3tyow Wikileaks shows that it’s going to be harder and harder to keep a secret. @jeffjarvis
• thornley: Privacy is an ethic about knowing something. The responsibility of what use is made of it lies with you. @jeffjarvis #3tyow #publicparts
• TechAlly: The benefits of publicness #1: It allows us to make connections and improve connections @jeffjarvis #3TYOW

Did you have the pleasure of also attending a Third Tuesday to hear Jeff Jarvis? What did you think of his word: “publicness”? Share your insights on publicness versus privacy by leaving a comment below.

Newsjack

(n(y)o͞ozjak)
verb

Apart from the comedy show on BBC, newsjack is defined as a company or an organization latching on a hot news story to gain media coverage.

Example

When a story breaks, it is easy for a journalist to get the “who, what, where and when” of the first paragraph in a news story, but the “why” is always a little harder to find. Journalists then, tend to turn to the web to find the “why” to fill the second paragraph of a story. Organizations can own the second paragraph by being there for the journalist by offering the organization’s spokesperson as a resource.

Below is a diagram showing the life of a story and where the newsjack should/can occur:

Four ways to newsjack: as I see it

In my short and new life in public relations and communications, I see a few ways organizations can newsjack.

Disclaimer: these are fictitious stories pulled from my wonderful-imagination-filled mind to demonstrate the possibilities of newsjacking.

1. Offer a spokesperson: let’s say your organization develops accessible software for the blind. One day, a story breaks that someone who was visually impaired was unable to use a common government software because it was not properly developed to be accessible. To newsjack this story, you would call the news outlets to find out who is writing the story, and then have a spokesperson from your organization explain how an accessible software can be developed.
2. Share your opinion: you may be able to offer your opinion to a journalist writing a story related to your industry. For example, let’s follow the same example above. You could call the journalist explaining how easy/difficult it is to develop an accessible software. Be careful, sharing an opinion means you may be “taking sides”. Be sure to pick the side you most believe is right and stick with it. An organization may lose public trust if the organization makes one statement agreeing with an issue, and when it gets “messy”, denies the statement or changes it.
3. Share an experience: say your organization had run in to this problem before when a customer came and complained your software was not accessible. Share with the journalist the way you overcame the problem. How did you change the software? Are your policies for software development different now? Or, maybe you started your company because a friend or family member has experience the same problem. This would give you the opportunity to share why you believe accessible software is so important.
4. Offer a solution: your organization could have solved the problem, if only the government had hired you to develop their software. Call the journalist and share your opinion on how the entire problem could have been avoided/solved. This is a little different than point number two. You can offer a solution without offering your opinion on the characters involved in the breaking news story. Simply state the options available to governments, as well as options available to those with visual impairments.

I would love to hear from you. How have you “newsjacked” in the past? Share your opinions by leaving a comment.

I have been using QR codes for a while now, and naturally assumed that everyone was as smart as me (my daily dose of narcissism right there).

What I didn’t realize is QR codes are not as popular and common as I thought, and they are complicated to explain to someone who is not technologically inclined.

Therefore, this week, I have dedicated the PR Word of the Week to explaining the “QR code”.

QR code

(kyo͞o är kōd)
noun

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code). The system has a fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of any kind of data (e.g., binary, alphanumeric, or Kanji symbols).

In other words, A QR code is a barcode designed to be read or “scanned” by a mobile device’s camera application. Once the bar code is scanned you are automatically directed to information about an organization (i.e. a phone number, a website, text, etc.).

Example

Below is a QR code that will redirect you to my blog’s homepage, try it out:

Note: if you don’t have a QR code, simply visit your mobile device’s app world/market/store and search QR code scanner. Pick the highest rated free app. I use ScanLife Barcode Scanner.

QR codes can also display text, rather than a website. Scan the QR code below to see what I have to say:

Where are QR codes going?

It is hard to say whether QR codes are dying or gaining popularity. As an average person in my generation who can easily figure out technology tools, once I learned how to use a QR code it became a popular tool in my every day life, be it scanning other organization’s codes to be directed to a contest/website, or be it to promote my own website in a new and unique fashion.

However, my “type” is not the majority of the population. The baby boomers, i.e. my father who has little patience for technology, has no interest in QR codes, it is a complicated tool trying to replace a simple action of just typing in a URL.

I guess, as with most social media tools, we just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, just in case, I will continue to use QR codes where I believe they may be unique and useful.

What do you think? Do you use QR codes? Do you find them pointless or useful? Share your opinions by leaving a comment.