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Many, many moons ago, when I was svelter around the waist and with less gray in my beard, I wanted to be an EMT. (emergency medical technician… you know, a dude in an ambulance) My interest developed after taking a first responder class in college, and I wanted to carry on my studies, possibly even working my way through school as an EMT.

(Thankfully, I passed the class but didn’t go on with becoming an EMT. It was fascinating and fun, but not for me.)

One of the first, and most important lessons I learned as an EMT were that the two most important words to an EMT were “It Depends.”

As my instructors drilled into my brain repeatedly throughout class, it was difficult understanding with certainty what was happening to a patient, because symptoms for a problem (i.e. a stroke) could manifest one way in one person, and a slightly different way in another person. Just enough to leave you wondering for sure what the problem was.

(There you go, you’ve just spared yourself 6 months of EMT classwork. You’re welcome. )

So what does this have to do with business, communications and social media?

I’m glad you asked.

Businesses, like people, are multifaceted. Large or small, Fortune 100 or Mom-and-Pop shops, they are all different entities mostly looking for the same goal – profit. Some consultants want to tell you that all businesses should act like the small, family-owned business, listening attentively to each customer. While that works for the small business, it’s harder to change the culture ingrained into larger companies into acting like a small business.

That doesn’t mean that larger businesses shouldn’t engage in social media. Hell, many large companies have great social programs. It does mean that each company has a different way to achieve social media nirvana, locating what works for them. It means that cookie cutter social media programs won’t necessarily work. You don’t just add water, mix and cook at 400 degrees for a successful program or strategy.

Each company, large or small, single people (athletes and celebrities?) or Japanese Zaibatsu conglomerates, needs to sit down and assess their communications and interaction goals, work on a pre-program audit – looking at their needs, the audiences they want to reach, how best to interact with those audiences. Developing lists of Twitter handles to engage with that make sense (why would a college need to interact with a 30-something professional, non-alumni with no kids? Is there a reason? There might be. What would it be? NOTE: I work at a university, and this is just an example that popped in my head and is not indicative of anything in that university’s strategy)

In short, you need to do your research. Do your homework! Conduct your communications, social media and other audits, ask questions. Make sure any social media company you work with knows how to do this, ask for definable and measurable goals.

Will the same social media strategy that works so well for Dell work for you? Remember…

“It Depends”

This weekend the city of Indianapolis once again found itself host to the annual extravaganza of athletic prowess and skill, a chance for some to move one step closer to their dreams, and others to move two steps away from it. That’s right; it was time for the 2012 NFL Combine.

I had followed some of the Combine news on my favorite sports site, Bleacher Report. Something that stood out to me, that I had never noticed before, were reports on how the top two NFL prospects (Andrew Luck and Robert Griffith III) reacted to questions from the media and that got me thinking.

One of the things that potential NFL players rarely seem to understand is the importance of interview preparation, before they ever sit down with their potential coaches, or they go in front of the podium to address the press. The hoped-for end result of each interview is the same – the desire to leave a positive impression in the minds of those they are talking with. With stories of NFL players causing problems repeatedly popping up in the headlines, teams (and let’s face it, the league) are craving those “high character” players – the ones who go out and play, maintain their composure in stressful times, and who are relaxed when they are dealing with reporters.

Successful athletes tend to be hounded by the media, after games and especially when there are changes of some kind on the team (new coach, star player is traded away, new ownership group, etc). Reporters look for people they have relatively easy access to, and those who they know will be willing to talk with them. In this 24-7 digital media age reporters don’t have time to wait around for athletes who might be interested in talking to them to make up their mind. They need someone “RIGHT NOW!”

That’s where pre-interview preparation comes into play.

When you decide you want more time in front of the camera, you need to contact your agent (or your community’s local Public Relations Society of America chapter) to start investigating who would be a good fit to prepare you, or your clients, for time in front of the blaring media lens. There are a lot of great media experts out there, but you need to find a professional who won’t put up with being “one of the boys,” and who will be willing to be firm with the athletes they work with. As a professional athlete, and a professional “brand” (for lack of a better word) which many athletes are in this day and age of free agency, it is important to not feel too comfortable with your PR professional. It’s their job to focus on the long-term success of your reputation, how you are seen by the majority of fans and front office leaders.

An Aside: Recently GQ featured a story with Terrell Owens, talking about the trials and tribulations he has recently had to deal with – from his “friends” taking his money like he was an ATM, to the children he has fathered with multiple women, to his rebuilt knee, and finally to the lack of interest he received by NFL teams across the country. Coaches and GMs discussed his “bad attitude” or some kind of “character problems” and dismissed his attempt to return to the NFL outright.

There is no way that Owens couldn’t play an important role on the majority of NFL teams in 2011 and 2012, as a secondary receiver, and a mentor to younger wide receivers. But because he, or more importantly, his agent and publicists, didn’t address the concerns his actions were raising towards his long-term reputation when they happened, he is in the situation he is now, playing minor league football in Texas to make enough money to pay his bills.

Spending some time with a media trainer can help players maintain their composure under a different kind of stressful situation. It may be easy for a star NFL quarterback to avoid a blitzing linebacker, but 60 seconds into an interview with a reporter is a type of stress they may not be ready for. It’s the job of a good public relations professional to have their client ready for these interviews. Plus being a ready interview subject, especially a professional and composed interviewee when your team loses, is a good way to get the one thing that most athletes want – extra TV time on ESPN or Fox Sports.

A quick note: Speaking of those locker room interviews…

One thing that people notice immediately is when an athlete is on “cruise control” in their interviews.  You’ve all seen it, the overly used cliches (“We gave it our all”, “They really brought their ‘A-game’ today”, “I want to thank God for this win”, etc.), the thousand-yard stare that tells us they would rather be showering than talking to a reporter. Reporters don’t look for these interviews, they plead with the gods of journalism to not have these kinds of interviews, but all too often they end up quoting someone saying “we gave it our all.”

Do you or your client want additional TV time? Do you want to start attracting the media attention that might lead to endorsements, or after-career gigs? Then start putting some time in with your PR professional, or ask your agent to hire a PR pro (we’re called “pros” for a reason) to work with you on how to answer the media’s questions. PR professionals are used to putting executives, athletes, government officials and others through what’s called “media training,” which helps you get more comfortable in front of reporters.

Take some time every few days and try to think of quick, non-cliche answers to potential game winning and game losing questions. Sit down with a PR pro and ask how they can be used to help you work with the media to cultivate your image. After a game, take a few minutes to compose yourself, keep them on note cards or someplace in your locker, look at them before you try talking to the media, then remember what you’ve been taught by your PR professional and go out there and have a kick ass interview!

Is it hard? Yes it will be at first. But if you can memorize a three-inch thick playbook, pick up a late blitzing weakside linebacker, read the quarterback’s eyes and still get into coverage for the interception, cross the middle for a first-down pass before getting knocked on your ass, or beat a triple-team block to sack the QB in the end zone then by God you can master talking with the media.

After all, this isn’t the impression any athlete wants to leave with coaches or the media:

A quick note to PR pros and publicists out there. If you work with a very high profile client, and your client is announcing a new product at a trade show – don’t schedule the hour-long autograph session before the event announcement, unless you want a lot of pissed-off reporters at the end of the event.  I was at CES for a couple of days this week, and a friend and co-worker of mine got stuck in the cluster around a Justin Bieber “technology” announcement, and all I can say is the Biebs’ PR team really needs to learn some actual PR and basic event planing principles.

Don’t overthink how you connect and help develop community with people, especially your online community. This is a card I received in the mail today from Artbeats, a company that sells royalty-free video footage. I’ve written about them before on Twitter and Facebook when they were giving away free weekly video clips last year.

Unlike most cards, it wasn’t a preprinted message. It was handwritten by one of Artbeats’ employees, thanking me for picking up a piece of footage that was insanely cheap and asked me if I enjoyed using the footage and to provide them with any feedback, with the letter writer’s card inside.

Now I know they might have people writing these cards every so often to customers, but to hit me up with a personal note, someone who might only pick up one or two pieces of video a year, depending on how much cash I have to spend, that gave me a warm fuzzy the rest of the afternoon. And someone who has never spoken with an Artbeats rep on the phone, much less ever met one face to face.

And something else it did was help convince me that when I finally start shooting my first documentary, any budget we get for extra footage might end up in their bank account.

People too often end up forgetting about the small things that touch people. Writing this card might have taken a few minutes more than sending out a quick email or hitting me up on Twitter, but you know something? This handwritten note made an impact on me, more than any email or Facebook hit. Don’t put too much thought into how to reach potential customers only online, sometimes something as simple as a note will have more of an impact.

Some of the online discussion has recently asked who is the best to represent your organization in social media. Your PR or marketing agency? Or your in-house experts and communicators?

I’m going to go with your in house people. Having your social media team (which needs to be made up of people in your company from many disciplines – marketing, PR, sales, operations, development, programming, etc) spearheaded by your own employees allows your company to tap into a much deeper knowledge of the products, services, issues, etc. Much more in depth than your PR firm working 40 hours a month on your account.

This isn’t to denigrate the work that firms do for a client – it actually promotes a firewall separating the strengths of a firm and the company in question.  The primary social media content and creation needs should come from your company’s evangelists while your firm can bring the team important insights about your company or a new idea for social media tools (for example). Sometimes that outside viewpoint can give your firm the great ideas to move your organization into a new communications phase.

When you start a communications team/Firm partnership, you need to establish the ground rules for what each side of the equation will do. Be careful to not let the line blur too much, each team will work to their strengths, and the people on each team can hold the other team accountable to working to those strengths.

Note: This is an edited transcript of a Google Wave exchange between Will Reichard of CrossCut Communications (http://will.crosscutcommunications.com) and Benson Hendrix, author of Net News 54 (http://bensonhendrix.com/about/), a blog about new media. It is being cross-posted on both sites.

Several times in the last couple of years, we’ve been asked to present to budding communications students to give them an overview of the world of public relations. We have both been struck that their perception seems to be that public relations as an industry is equivalent to “spin.” We’re not naive. We know there’s a reason that PR people have been called “flaks,” and we know there’s a reason that shows like “Mad Men” continue to capture the popular imagination. Still, we thought we were past all that. We’re both huge fans of PRSA’s code of ethics, and in our experience, the PR industry is conscientious about doing the right thing. We’re both former passionate journalists who believe that PR has a vital role to play in modern organizations. Here’s part of the conversation we’ve been having on the subject.

Will: My theory is that PR is like legal representation–we’re all entitled to a vigorous defense within ethical bounds. That’s our system. But many of the people I talk with seem to feel the world exists in black and white, as though each situation has one “right” and one “wrong” answer. When I try to explain that situations are intricate and that the best PR people work to ensure that organizations are communicating everything they should be to their multiple publics, I see blank faces. I try to point out that all of us, every one, makes choices about how to present him or herself each day. We choose our words, our clothes, what to post on our Facebook pages, how to sit in a class or walk down the street. We are constantly choosing what to communicate. People seem to have a very hard time separating conscious communication from malicious manipulation. They tend to forget we’re all using these techniques every day.

Benson: One of my greatest concerns about public relations is that we as PR professionals are all too often seen as “spinners” by members of the C-Suite. This is a view that has been perpetuated on the profession not only by members of the media, including some memorable rants from Rachel Maddow – comparing one PR firm to “The PR Firm Hell Would Hire” – but also by a minority of public relations professionals who are beyond willing to please their bosses. There are firms willing to do what is necessary, and usually those same firms specialize in taking on clients whose public personas are seen as less than positive (see Wal-Mart, oil industry, nuclear industry, etc.). (And now to contradict myself, this isn’t exactly a bad thing. These companies can stand behind a record of providing jobs, bringing in money, etc., to a local community–if it’s true. When they get into problems is when they say these things without actually doing it, in the hope that the PR team can “spin the facts.”)

One of the main tenets of Edward Bernays’ book “Propaganda” is to not sell a product, but to sell the need for a product. Following up on that idea, good public relations professionals try to sell causes, ideas and concepts that might impact a person’s beliefs, instead of selling a group, or just a cause, etc.

Will: Perhaps it’s that our society is gravitating as a whole toward polarizing platforms. A world of “American Idol,” a world communicated in 140-character bursts, doesn’t have a lot of room for acknowledging that nuance is essential, that the “truth” is an intersection of multiple viewpoints, each of which must be clear and critical.

Or maybe it’s that we’re all so conscious of the controlled and mediated nature of communications that we want to dislike anyone who acknowledges it and calls attention to the fact. Maybe PR–as, ironically, one of the most upfront institutions when it comes to its motivations–occupies an important space as something we can point to and say, “We are not that.” We’re not so hyperattentive to our personas that almost any image we can project is by definition manufactured and, thus, largely impersonal.

Benson: Another reason could be that most people don’t realize the impact that public relations efforts have had in their day-to-day lives. Have you ever signed a petition for a politician? What about called in to a talk radio show on behalf of a cause? These are but two tactics that PR pros helped craft into the effective tools you see today. Many non-profits, especially non-profits that advocate, have taken cues and clues for effective communications strategy from public relations efforts of the past. In fact, later this month there will be a big communications conference for progressive non-profits (some of which don’t really realize how PR has impacted their groups).

How the public personally views each of these industries should be less of a concern for PR people (because for every person opposing a site like WIPP, there’s another in favor of the jobs it brings to the area). What should be a bigger concern for PR professionals is the ongoing view that we are nothing more than cleanup. Perhaps a future role for PR professionals is to go beyond PR and into Corporate Social Management, looking at the best moves for a company to make before they make them.

Will: Great points, Benson. In the executive MBA program at UNM, we spent a fair part of the program studying corporate social responsibility, which is heartening. Cultures change very slowly, but at least things are changing. Communications as a management objective is creeping closer to the C-suite. And fortunately, part of what managers are learning now is to look for a certain level of professionalism when they’re hiring public and community relations staff. I know you had mentioned recently that we’re seeing a lot of unskilled agents creeping onto the scene.

Benson: That really is another problem we in PR have been dealing with–the tendency for anyone to say “I’m a publicist” after watching 4 episodes of Entourage or Arliss, and the unwillingness of people who represent PR (either in PRSA or “stand-up guy” PR practitioners) to call out these faux-publicists when they do something wrong. I’ve heard stories about PRSA wanting to institute a “licensure” test for people to conduct PR professionally, but I don’t see that happening. Because unlike practicing law or medicine, you can’t stop people from getting in front of a camera and talking, regardless of how they sound.

Conclusion: What do you think of when you think of public relations? What does the industry do well, and what could it do better? Thank you for reading.

Social media is more about social interaction and being online as another means of message distribution than it is about “blogger relations.”

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that we in public relations should not be focused as much on blogger relations in our social media planning and usage, we should instead be focused on creating cool content and building relationships with other bloggers/podcasters/etc. It involves being engaged with people on a smaller level, much the same way as the mainstream outlets are fragmenting more and more. But interpersonal relationships are like that, you can’t be best buds with thousands of people.

It’s the argument of the “cool kids” vs. the “popular kids.” The “cool kids” are too busy creating content to worry about whether or not you are hanging out with the “popular kids.” If you have to choose, you should pick the road less traveled – the one of creating content to attract an audience of interested people who want to listen to what you have to say, and then developing your online connections.

Take Twitter (please! Just kidding) for instance.  You can have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, but is that anything more than just a status symbol? It’s especially telling for people like Ashton Kutcher, or other celebs on Twitter – those people with millions of followers, but are only connected to a couple of dozen themselves. In cases like this, these accounts are used as purely broadcast platforms for people who want to “see a part of the life” or “catch of a slice of AK.”

This is not a bad model, in and of itself, and it leverages the popularity of these celebrities quite well. But for average companies or people, it’s not really a model that works. Remember, people are interested in connecting with people, not with companies. It’s the uncommon company that can get away with having a fierce group who just want to be part of the brand (i.e. sports teams, Apple, etc)

In the meantime, it might be better for people to focus more on developing the content that will interest and attract people to their “brand” and produce enough content to keep them interested in returning. Believe it or not, the content might not be directly related to their work or product. If the people keep coming to check it out, your personal brand might achieve that “top of mind awareness,” or to put it another way, might stick in their mind.

When I spoke a little bit about this on the video linked below, I didn’t realize that the Godfather of Social Media, Chris Brogan had given a different take at his site.  This is just my humble two-cents.

Are We Focusing Too Much on Blogger Relations? from Benson on Vimeo.

I love working in social media – blogging, podcasting, video work, social networking and more.  All of them give you ample opportunity to interact with others. Sometime for good, and other times you’ll find you or your organization getting blasted by a blogger, content creator or just a plain old curmudgeon.

While many people in social media, a lot of whom are incredibly knowledgeable, and many communications officers feel that your organization should “rise above” any kind of crossing swords with people online who are attacking you, I wish to disagree. There is a line in the sand where you should be willing to kill any detractors with kindness (always remember to be understanding and offer the honey-laden olive branch as much as possible) but once that line is crossed you should be able to respond factually, forcefully and passionately.

Many social media peeps, especially when looking at business social media, will tell you to keep your statements and content as even-keel as possible. You never want to engage in mud throwing or flame wars. I agree with them on this, but where we might diverge a little bit is my opinion that when your organization is being attacked, possibly unfairly, by online peeps who are unwilling to look at facts, or try to skew facts to match a caricature they created to attack your organization.  Then these are the times when you will need to stand up, use the facts as your sword and shield, and call out your detractors.

This isn’t an open call to start flame wars and a rousing round of “nanny nanny boo boo.” Keep your responses slightly snarky (maybe a little more. Remember that you want to keep a little bit of a bite to them). They need to be classy, but sharp as a razor’s edge. You want to remind your opposition that if they want to misquote you, or tweak facts to match a false claim, that you are going to repeatedly respond by throwing high and inside.

Look at how various political campaigns ran their social media outlets during the 2008 and upcoming 2010 campaigns. They brought in bloggers who already had followers, but more importantly were passionate about their candidate’s stands (or, let’s be honest, became passionate about their positions once they started receiving a check) and were willing to stand up for them. In addition, Barack Obama’s campaign built online tools from scratch to help foster their community of supporters.

Balancing the Playing Field

If your organization is going to have “what it takes” to respond to online attacks this way, you need to have a CEO who has the spine to understand that for a short while, the attacks might intensify as your opposition tries to determine how far you will go before folding.  In order for this to work, you have to be willing to repeatedly defend your position with this idea of “classy passion.” Again, humor is one of your best weapons here.

Look at what the Obama White House is doing right now with FOX News, they are repeatedly responding to FOX News when they believe facts are in error.   For a while the peeps on FOX News were calling it the “War on Fox,” or some such thing.

There used to be a saying that you never go to war with people who buy ink by the barrel or tape by the yard.  Meaning it was never in your best interest to cross swords with people who run the media, because they can come after you day after day for any perceived slight.  That used to be true, but with the advances in social media, social networking (for audience building) and online communications you suddenly have the tools to create your own media outlet to respond, “balancing the playing field” more in your favor.

Being the old rugger I am, I’ll leave you with this analogy. While you want to play cleanly as much as possible, and give people the benefit of the doubt, I’ve found that one of the best ways to stop someone from throwing punches in the ruck is a good, old-fashioned cleat rake every so often.

With all of the talk of social media and public relations, something I haven’t seen much talk about is the importance of community building and coalition relations. Not “community building” in the sense of using a Facebook group or Ning site to connect online, but a real, face-to-face community relations ground game – one of the big pillars of a communications program.

A lot of public relations is seen as how to spin the media – what are we going to tell the press to get them off of our backs, or give our side of the story out of some kind of “fairness”? But if you look at the two root words of PR, public and relations, how can PR not be about working with members of the general public, which is the foundation for community relations.

Community relations is about developing connections with people who agree, and sometimes more importantly, disagree with your organization. It’s about building coalitions with people and groups that feel a connection to your organization, whether it’s a school (like UNM), a company (like Apple or Microsoft), a candidate (Barack Obama, anyone?), and creating a community with them.

Some things to consider are:

Are you looking beyond your “borders?” Too often we consider the people right next to us to be our neighbors or peers, without looking past them to other community or civic groups who you influence. They might be more understanding of your needs, should your immediate neighbors be unduly aggressive towards you.

Do you have any boots on the ground? By “boots on the ground,” do you have any organizations or groups in the community who are willing to lend support to your cause? People who are willing to advocate for you, work phone banks if necessary, hold or attend town hall meetings to speak on your behalf or share ideas? This starts to develop like a political campaign – who are your most important generals in the field? Who can you depend on to promote your story?

Remember to listen carefully. The old saying goes, “we all have two ears and one mouth in order to listen twice as much as we talk.” Listen to what your constituents have to say, and take it to heart. It might not be easy for you to hear, especially if you have upset your neighbors, but it’s important to look at things from their point of view. More often than not, these groups want to be listened to, to know that you are taking their views into consideration. (also, actively listen – take notes, take pictures if necessary, post them all online with your initial thoughts and ask the same people you spoke with to provide their input)

Who are you listening to? This usually comes up when you spend too much time dealing with your peers, whether you’re a PR person commiserating with others at the bar, or a CEO or board president listening only to your vice presidents or fellow CEOs. One of your most important community relations weapons is the old “Town Hall” meeting. (which we’ve all heard too much about over the summer) But not all Town Hall meetings are like the ones being stormed over by activists. You want to take the opportunity to meet your constituents, detractors and potential supporters and give them the chance to talk face-to-face with you.

Public relations and community relations really work hand in hand, without one the other becomes much harder. If you take the time to develop good relationships with your community – whoever that is – you may be able to develop better public relations than any standard “PR Plan” can come up with. What about you, dear readers? What advice do you have for people (candidates?) who want to improve their relationship with the local community? Like they ask in the World of Warcraft commercials, “What’s your game?”

(Picture is Church, Pie Town, New Mexico, courtesy of the Library of Congress and taken by Russell Lee)

Just a quick thought or two before crashing for the night. (hopefully they make sense) For a while I’ve been pondering the future of public relations and advertising/marketing firms in this new media world. (Why wait until now to share this with y’all? What can I say, I’m shy.) While many people have been talking about the future of the mass media in this world, I don’t know how many people have pondered the other side of the coin. I was talking with Crosscut Communications‘ guru, Will Reichard, about this after the Social Media NM meetup last week and we bounced some ideas off of each other about the potential future for PR firms.  So up front I’d like to thank Will for letting me bend his ear and giving me some really good pointers.

In this New Media Age the majority of businesses need to not only be in business, but also be media outlets. While news outlets are shuttering, laying people off or switching to three days per week publishing schedules, businesses need to be able to present their own talking points/communication starters online, circumventing the mainstream media to a certain extent.

But what is the impact on PR firms? Those who are used to sending out press releases and newsletters, and creating plans based around getting more “earned media” from an ever shrinking news universe. Are they going to go out of business?

Of course not. There will still be a need for PR firms to work on getting “earned media” despite the shrinking newshole, but savvy PR firms will shift their focus. In my previous post I talked about PR professionals (working for organizations, I don’t think I made that clear) serving as diplomat-facilitator-community relations.  Communications firms should be on the cutting edge of new media, social networking and content creation. They should take over the role of teacher, leading their clients through the basics of new media/social media, and building social networks (whether on Facebook or Ning, or checking out what Pursuant is doing and trying to match that) and let their clients go on developing messages, creating content and developing outside evangelists.

This won’t lead to the clients dropping the firms, far from it. Clients will need these firms to develop online infrastructure and create/manage video pieces, podcasts and other new media projects for their clients. And there will be a big need for these services, as many companies, especially smaller companies, won’t have the facilities to make high quality video or audio podcasts, and won’t have the connections with regional or industry bloggers.

(Now’s probably a good time to point out that people working in PR firms should already be blogging and connecting with others in the industry their clients work in. Or at least monitoring the chatter.)

Just my two cents to mull over tonight as we drift off.  G’night y’all.