Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I feel sorry for PR professionals. Mix a huge new field of influencers (bloggers and socially connected content producers of all kinds) with incredibly easy, instant access to published information (RSS readers and persistent searches), and it amazes me that the debate rages:

How do you succeed at generating buzz about your company?

Take Guy Kawasaki’s “How to Change the World” blog recently, for example.

Salvo 1 - Margie Sable Fisher of The PR Site wrote a post on May 24 - giving us the Top 10 Reasons Why PR Doesn’t Work.

Blame it on the client.

Salvo 2 - Glenn Kelman of RedFin wrote back on May 29 with his DIY PR post.

Who needs an agency? Do it yourself.

Frankly, I think we should all be taking a hard look at ourselves and asking: Are we stuck in this endless debate because we’re afraid to try something new?

The opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience in your market niche is here. The tools to reach them are here. Just put them together and use them.

How to Build Buzz: An Enterprise 2.0 PR Primer:

Link your PR efforts with your Search Engine Marketing efforts (SEMPR).

It seems extraordinarily obvious to me. Use your search engine marketing savvy to feed your public relations efforts. These two disciplines may live in two or more different people in your organization, but put them together now! My bet is the PR team will learn a lot from the SEM team.

And here’s a 30,000 foot overview as to why:

The three pillars of search are – relevant keywords, quality links and fresh content.

Relevant keywords:

Use your knowledge of what people are looking for online (find search terms that are performing well for you in your Pay Per Click campaigns) – to create relevant keyword phrases, and feed those relevant keyword phrases into your press releases and blog posts as well as your web site.

People looking for your product or service are more likely to find your ‘news’ or news coverage interesting because the phrases they’re looking for are suddenly called out for them.

Quality links:

There are two ways to gain links online. First, link to your site from your press releases. I’m amazed at how few people do. Second, find people who blog about your industry and comment on their posts. It’s likely you’ll be able to link to quality reference material on your own site to back up your comment – if you’re being thoughtful about your references. Quality is key to this activity. Make a good point and back it up with good data.

Suddenly you’ll be engaged in conversations about your market all over the web, and every link back to your site will help your ‘buzz.’ As your site gets links, it gains awareness from the search engines. As you speak about your market, you and your company will gain awareness.If you then write about your conversations on your own blog, you’ll be perceived as a knowledgeable, engaged participant in your industry, not just your company. And it’s probably good for you to get out once in awhile.

Fresh Content

All of this activity will infuse your web sites with fresh content, naturally. And the more often your web site is updated with fresh, relevant content, the more the search engine spiders will love to crawl and index your site. The more they index your site, the more you’ll show up when people (editors, analysts, prospects and potential buyers) search for information using (you guessed it) those keyword phrases you’ve optimized for.

It’s a compelling circle of love, and it really works.

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You have my absolute continuous partial attention. No, really, you do. And that’s a problem. Because any second now, it’s going to be swept away.

In 2006 Linda Stone (technology visionary, ex-Microsoft and Apple executive) coined the phrase ‘continuous partial attention’ and defines it this way:

“Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We’re often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch — we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive.

To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.”

True confession: I sometimes check my email while on conference calls (everyone does… don’t they?), go online while watching TV, and take calls while driving. I read and respond to email while I’m going through the tunnel on the train, never one to ‘waste time’ (although the latter behavior is probably considered multitasking). But it’s not to be busy, be recognized or to matter.

It’s simply to keep up - which is why I’ve taken up yoga as an antidote.

In a post today titled Dumbing Down and Smartening Up via the Internet, InfoWorld blogger Ephraim Schwartz noted the vast impact technology is beginning to have on our attention - whether it be continuous partial attention or full-on attention.

And, he notes, that ‘digital natives’ (DN’s - people born into the digital world) have shorter attention spans than ‘digital immigrants’ (DI’s - people who’ve become fascinated by technology at some later point in their lives).

“Capturing and holding the attention of a viewer, not a reader, started with television. Sociologists have long been commenting on the fact that American television programming jumps from scene to scene far more rapidly than British programs do. It both appeals to and, I think, helps create viewers with shorter attention spans.

I have two concerns about this development. One, unless we get DNs to behave more like DIs, future generations will have a harder time developing the study skills they need to master and understand their environment in order to become the kind of professionals — doctors, architects, engineers — that we need to keep a complex society running.

My second fear is political. Unless our future generations learn to analyze content and understand issues by reading deeply, they will be far more susceptible to being manipulated — and not likely for noble goals.”

Where do we go for hope? Ephram noted he gets his from the growth of social networks in businesses - and the information shared among teams and across organizations - and the tools that enable them.

“Companies such as Attensa and ConnectBeam are at the cutting edge, creating enterprise-level social networking technology that allows users to easily exchange information. This in turn allows more people to use information more intelligently.“

People using more information more intelligently… there’s something to hold hope for. I believe I’ll meditate on that this afternoon.

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I volunteered over the weekend to write a messaging document for a non-profit group I’ve been working with; as they’re about to go into major fund-raising mode, and their material has been maturing (read: polite for changing) over months of collection, creation and collaboration.

A messaging document, in my opinion, is the most fundamental piece of the marketing puzzle. The thing from which all communications goodness (clarity, consistency, and brand integrity) flows.

What is it? A critical ’stake in the ground’ for how you describe (position) exactly what you do… For example, I’m positioning exactly what I do as:

I help businesses:

• generate awareness and demand for their products and services
• help them track and manage their reputations
• safely understand and leverage the “web 2.0″ world of communications

Consistency in delivery across all media is critical - and if you’re not being clear about your purpose, you might as well throw your marketing dollars right down the toilet.

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The last thing I need is another web site to check and update manually.

As a blogger AND a communications professional, I’m always looking for new media influencers and tools. So when I came across PitchWire, a new online community, I was all eyes.

From their site:

PitchWire is…for influencers (journalists, bloggers and analysts) and publicists that promotes responsible pitching and transparency. The results are more successful “hits” and a better relationship between influencers and publicists.

So I signed up (as an influencer) to see what it’s all about. After completing my profile setup questions (which took maybe three minutes - not bad so far) I was taken to my new “home page,” at www.pitchwire.com/janetleejohnson and given my own brand new email address, janetleejohnson (at) pitchwire.com.

The welcome email said:

“”I’ve registered, now what?” Glad you asked. You can do any and all of the following:

• A welcome email has been sent to your email address with a link to verify your email address. Please take a moment to verify your email address with us.
• Visit your PitchWire page by clicking on the “My Homepage” tab where you can update your profile information and add the stories (jj’s emphasis) that you’re currently working on.
• Inform your contacts and the various media contact databases of your new PitchWire account by clicking on “Spread the word”
• See your current list of pitches by clicking on the “Pitches” tab. We’ve started you off by providing a demo pitch so you can see what a pitch looks like in the system.”

Nice! They’re offering me some easy tools to ’spread the word’ about my PitchWire account, branding the service in a lovely, viral manner. I’ve got respect for that. And they have a one-click redirect for my new email address to my best email account. Thank you!
Then reality sunk in. In order to use this thoughtful new influencer resource, I’ll need to:

1. update it as regularly as my blog, and
2. (worse yet) check it frequently for updates.

It seems I can’t subscribe via RSS to changes to my personal home page (where all pitches are posted automatically) for immediate updates/alerts. Attensa couldn’t find any relevant feeds on my new home page. (I love it when my Feeds… button is orange! And it was a still, dull gray.)
I’m irritated at PitchWire (possibly irrationally), because I’m completely spoiled by RSS - and have a tough time imagining a new media communications tool that doesn’t (at least on initial review) offer subscription capability to their users.

I wonder two things:

1. whether someone there would let me influence their product road map?
2. who’s got time to use the service as it is?

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Here’s a great answer to the question: What is Enterprise 2.0?

And a great new site discovery, slideshare.net. Where you can share presentations online - I’m signed up!

With thanks to Scott Gavin via Simon Revell, via Scott Niesen. Cheers, gents!

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