Via Valleywag, a great collection of tips here for working with popular tech media and influencers. The tips come from Sam Whitemore’s Media Survey, a kick ass service and resource for tech communicators. Get it.
Technorati Tags: influencers, media, pr, silicon valley, technology
Josh Kopelman, Redeye VC, fired a few shots at the current crop of internet startups in his post “53,651” this past week.
Among other things, he challenged the insular thinking he’s increasingly observing within young companies, particularly their focus on building products and services that appeal to the TechCrunch readers of the world, but then, sadly, fall terribly short of achieving any sort of broader consumer interest outside of this early adopter community:
“As more and more entrepreneurs start building what Fred Wilson referred to as second derivative companies, I think they run a big risk of designing a product/service that is targeted at too small of an audience. Too many companies are targeting an audience of 53,651. That’s how many people subscribe to Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog feed. I’m a big fan of Techcrunch – and read it every day. However, the Techcrunch audience is NOT a mainstream America audience.”
Now, from a PR and marketing perspective, there’s a couple of ways you could slice up Kopelman’s post, one way is to simply ask:
Could a web startup, today, achieve mass consumer interest *without* support of the TechCrunch/Web 2.0 “influencer” community?
Like it or not, popular opinion isn’t born, it’s built, and it still starts with the early adopters and the tech enthusiasts. Thank you Mr. Moore. I think now, probably more than ever, the influence that this group collectively wields is dangerously intoxicating, especially for startups just coming out of the gates (one of Kopelman’s main points). For the lucky ones, the nod of approval from an influential source, like TechCrunch, means so many things, not least of which is customer leads — thousands of them.
And from a PR standpoint, the word-of-mouth effect of influencer chatter can definitely carry a company’s story/message to a broader media community, also potential investors, partners, recruits, and more. In fact, you could argue that influencer WOM is often the best inroad to industry attention and the fast track ticket to big media stories.
This being said, I think the new, new media gatekeepers are taking shape, be that by design or not, and it’s hard to fault younger companies for marketing to them, especially when so much of their business can be propelled or punished by the opinions these sources make. One thing’s for certain, whether you’re selling a product for geeks, grads or grandmas, industry influencers *have* to be a factor in a startup’s marketing plan, and yes, for some companies, 53,651 matters — a lot.
Technorati Tags: Influencers, startups, 53,651, Marketing, PR, WOM, Redeye+VC
Technorati Tags: 53,651, Influencers, Marketing, PR, Redeye VC, Startups, WOM
If nothing else, this piece in the WSJ underscores the argument that bloggers are not journalists, or as Brian Oberkirch rightly puts it, “personal blogs are not media.” Unlike the MSM, disclosure standards and practices in the blogosphere are uniquely defined by each and every blogger, so trust is the only capital that can be built or dissolved, based on how we each *choose* to share or conceal our conflicts of interests when they surface.
Technorati Tags: Blog, Ethics, Media, Transparency
The WSJ has an interesting story that’s bouncing around the blogosphere. It’s yesterday’s Portals column by Lee Gomes (“Tech Blogs Produce New Elite to Help Track The Industry’s Issues”).
I know I’m chiming in a little late on this one so I won’t re-hash all the points of this piece here other than to say its a good read and that it hits on some bigger trends taking shape right now in the media sausage making business, especially in the tech industry. One trend in particular that’s worth calling out revolves around the idea of “corporate access” and how it relates to influencers, big media and public relations.
Now, I’m not going to get into the “blogger vs. journalist” debate here, see Angela Gunn’s post today for smarter thoughts on that, but I will say that there’s a bigger trend afoot within a small, but growing group of tech companies right now that realize keeping a tight kung-foo grip on corporate content and more importantly, “who” has access to that content is no longer the only, err best, way to handle communications.
As a result, industry influencers (be they bloggers, podcasters or otherwise) are increasingly being approached and invited inside corporate walls to preview products and receive pre-briefings on announcements, and are quickly finding that the once exclusive privilege of big media — access — is increasingly being offered to them too. They are also quickly finding themselves going toe-to-toe (for better or worse) with their big media counterparts, and THAT creates all sorts of interesting dynamics for the influencers and the media and the tech PR pro who needs to maintain relationships with both.
Ultimately, I think the savvy companies, the ones embracing PR 2.0, are the ones that are willing to experiment with access and broaden their scope and definition of who the stake holders really are within an industry and how best to go about engaging in a conversation with them.
Technorati Tags: Influencers, Journalism, PR, PR 2.0, Silicon Valley, Technology
A few weeks ago, Andrew Gordon wrote a feature piece for PR Week on how companies should engage with influencers (read: “Managing the new breed of influencers”). Today, Christie Casalino shares a similar piece titled, “Working with the top echelon of bloggers,” (available today only, then closed to non-PR Week subscribers).
It’s a good read peppered with salient quotes from some top voices in the industry (journalists and PR folks alike). There is, however, an underlying theme with this story that bugs me and it’s simply the notion that the “top echelon,” “the alpha bloggers,” the “big voices in the long tail,” however you want to label this group, are all that matter when it comes to PR’s involvement with the blogosphere. Are these folks influential? Absolutely. Is it smart to look for ways to engage with them? Of course. Do you *need* to? Not really.
Why? Because blogging (really, social media) is flipping the old PR model on its head. Dozens of markets of millions is PR 1.0 – it’s the WSJ and TIME and TODAY, and yes, if you follow the logic, it’s the blogging elite too. It’s a controlled media environment where only a few receive access and info, and PR resources are concentrated accordingly in the interest of getting “the biggest bang for your buck.” PR 2.0 is about changing the game. It’s about approaching the blogosphere as millions of markets of dozens where PR’s preoccupation with circulation and reach takes a back seat to blogs and other forms of social media that demonstrate concentrated doses of trust and influence – be it for an audience of 5 or 500.
Related posts:
Marketers, Get to Know Joe Blog
The Blogosphere: Concentric Circles of Influence
Insane. That’s probably the best word I can use to describe this week.
The second annual Web 2.0 conference has reached its close and while hanging out at the conference and “related events” the last few days has been very cool, I have to admit blogger frustration set in pretty quickly as a slew of juicy info bits and bytes fell on my lap and flew across the blogosphere and I just didn’t have the wherewithal (or the time) to add my own two cents to the conversation. That said, I’m using this post to scratch an itch on all sorts of subjects and observations that shook out of this week — some related to the conference, some not.
I’ll aim to share a little more substance on some of these when I can resurface from my Web 2.0 stupor.
Technorati/Edelman Blogger Survey – Phil takes an initial stab at analyzing the results and shares some highlights. It sounds like he’ll be digging deeper on the data and sharing more shortly. IMO, I think the results are interesting and insightful and “trust” is obviously the big underlying theme here – one that has huge implications for how PR will successfully fit in the blogosphere in the long run. Steve’s right to argue that we need to balance analysis like this with training and application, but the industry needs some guideposts too and I think this survey is providing that.
Yahoo RSS White Paper – This was presented last night at an after-hours party here in SF. It’s a good read with some interesting stats, download it here (PDF). Surprisingly, while RSS adoption is growing rather steadily, the average consumer doesn’t know they’re using it. It’s hard to say what the implications of these stats are for companies that are dabbling with syndicated content, although I suppose if nothing else, the stats show RSS is finding its way into people’s info consumption patterns – whether they know it or not. And some would argue that’s enough to justify further experimentation.
Pushing Forward the PR Meme – I need to grok this and share something more substantial later, but generally speaking I think the spirit of what Steve, Jeremy and others are considering is good and where I and those I work with can share our insight and experience – in the interest of pushing industry know-how a little further forward — we should and I’m game. Period.
Following On-Line Conversations is Hard Work! – When I first read this, my reaction was something like, “yeah, no shit.” Jeremy captures a pain that cuts to the very core of present day social media monitoring and participation, especially for corporations. This is the very messy and very *real* part of PR 2.0 that I and many others deal with every day. Workarounds exist, but man, it could all be so much more efficient..
DIY PR — I’m going to post something separate on this topic, I need some distance from this week’s discussions to get a clearer take on this one, but the question goes: in a Web 2.0 era, where a DIY business mentality has permeated across a crop of new companies, is the importance and need for a dedicated PR program disappearing?
Social Media Policies — I’ve been toying with this one for a while now, but I think companies need to broaden their thinking when it comes to employee policy making. An industry push toward "blog policies" is moving awareness in the right direction, but it’s tragically shortsighted too. I’ll have to drivel more on this later.
The Flock Has Landed – Lastly (at least for this post), I want to simply say congrats to my Voce cohorts on the launch of Flock this week. The coverage, the buzz and the party was amazing. A few of us are toying with the idea of podcasting some Voce case studies in the near future, this will hopefully be one of them. Flock on guys…
Steven Levy has done an amazing job profiling Tim O’Reilly in this piece for Wired titled, "The Trend Spotter."
Ken Norton shares some sound advice on how best to listen to and work with a mix of customers to help with the product development process. A brief excerpt:
So how do you hone in on what users really
need? You talk to people who represent a heterogeneous
cross-section of your target population, consider their built-in biases
and perspectives and triangulate from there. In my experience,
I’ve found it helpful to talk to users who represent the leading,
middle and trailing adoption populations in my market as well as
influential observers.
It’s interesting to look at Norton’s post from a marketing
perspective. Personally, I think there tends to be too much emphasis
on the two categories Norton identifies as influential observers and
leading adopters, and certainly not enough on the middle and late
adopters. Why? Because for marketers, the head’s sexier
than the tail (more here
and wow, that last sentence is just rife with innuendo). Anyway,
long story short: You can’t expect to create buzz, build
enthusiasm and drive interest in a product with the middle and late
adopters. But, to Norton’s point, you can’t expect to create a great
product without them. The best companies and the best products
are those that can balance the needs and desires of a broader customer
cross section.
A few weeks back I shared some thoughts on the DEMO conference and its producer extraordinaire, Chris Shipley. Over this past weekend, Sam Diaz at the Mercury News ran a rather comprehensive profile piece on Shipley, touching on everything from the post-bubble conference scene to the state of tech start-ups to a pet dog named “Mojita del Medio del Noche.” It’s a good read.
It’s also nice to see Voce clients and DEMO alumni like Stata Labs (recently scooped up by Yahoo!) and Orb Networks (formerly BravoBrava!) mentioned in the mix.
Concentric circles. I think that’s one way of thinking about online communication programs, especially the blogosphere.
At the center of every program exists a small core group of influencers who are the most passionate and vocal about a technology or an industry. These are the Alpha bloggers or the A-listers, the folks who shape early opinions and attitudes about a variety of news items and really serve as the catalysts for spreading news online.
Securing the interest of your A-listers is a key part of achieving success, but I think the real momentum and awareness generating power of the blogosphere comes from the myriad of connectors who exist in the areas or rings outside the core influencers. These are the bloggers who typically link to the influencers, attach their own opinions and sentiment to news and ultimately are the ones accelerating the outward-pushing momentum generated by the core. PR Machine in a recent review of Hugh Hewitt’s new book nails this idea on the head:
Companies that want to leverage the blogosphere don’t necessarily need to gain the attention of the short list of heavily-trafficked blogs. Rather, they can leverage "the tail" — the 95 to 99 percent of blogs that are low-or medium-traffic generators. The main benefits of this approach, says Hewitt, are (1) the potential to reach the huge collective audience that is the tail and (2) the potential for greater impact than the major blogs can offer — since smaller blogs tend to be visited by people who know the author (and therefore place a high degree of trust in the content).
The ability to secure the interest of this outer ring of connectors is a challenge, but it’s also where the real momentum-generating power of the blogosphere resides. With that said, I think companies need to be increasingly thinking about how they can tier or bifurcate their online programs so that they have strategies in place to touch their A-list influencers while effectively reaching out to (or at very least tracking) their most popular connectors when announcements are made. Lots more to share on this subject in the weeks to come…
Jeremy Pepper recently profiled Chris Shipley, the exec producer for the DEMO Conferences, in his special series of interviews he’s calling PR Face2Face. Personally, I think one of the biggest reasons that the DEMO Conferences remain today one of the few exceptional event brands in the tech industry is because Chris Shipley has continually gone to great personal lengths to maintain the integrity and the spirit of what people have come to expect from these events.
Case in point, she literally "screens" every vendor interested in participating in the conferences and hand-picks and personally invites the best ones to present. In fact, funny story, I was meeting with Chris and one of my other clients (JotSpot) earlier this year when the CEO (Joe Kraus) noticed Chris had this big fat red notebook with what seemed like hundreds of colored tags protruding out from it — the thing was thick. When Joe proceeded to ask what it was for, Chris casually explained that each tag represented a section of her notes for every company she had screened for DEMO thus far…
DEMO aside, I also think what Chris and her business partner Mike Sigal are doing with their new media venture, Guidewire Group, is interesting in its own right. Last year Guidewire brought us BlogOn, which kicked ass, and from what I hear, that will happen again later this year, but I think Guidewire also has some "other" interesting things in the works and while that remains to be shared, the combination of all these forward-thinking events underscores the industry respect and industry influence that Chris Shipley rightfully deserves and rightfully wields.
Auren Hoffman, founder of the Stonebrick Group, has been publishing a series of interesting posts (here, here and most recently, here) on the factors behind personal influence.
His latest post discusses how personal networks form and expand based on what he calls “network enhancing events.” Essentially, these are major life milestones that expose people to new relationships and thus new networks. College or a new job for example, might be considered traditional network enhancing events. According to Hoffman, the average person may only experience a couple of these events in their lifetime.
A "network enhancing event" could be a variety of things. for an
academic, it might be writing a well-received paper or book. it might
be a job change that forces you to interact w/ tons of people. it might
even be gaining a new good friend or significant other that is more
social or has access to a different set of people. it might be moving
to a new town.
This got me thinking…college was hands-down a network enhancing event for me – both socially and professionally. I graduated from Chico State and I was fortunate enough to build a network of friends back then that continues to pay dividends today, especially in Silicon Valley PR circles. In fact, one of the factors that eventually led me to my current employer (Voce) was that a college friend happened to be one of the founders.
With that said, as much as college connections have played a role in my personal network, I think there is another network enhancing event that’s taking place right now that potentially has far more significant implications for individual networking – and that’s blogging.
I’ve been actively blogging for nearly a year now and while that’s insignificant when compared to some, it takes nothing away from the fact that in this short amount of time I’ve been able to form relationships and build a virtual network of friends and peers that far exceeds any previous network building event in my life. And the real beauty of it is that every day it grows, every day new doors are opened, new people are introduced and new relationships are formed. Every day is a network enhancing event in the blogosphere….