A Slice of SHIFT – Amy Lyons

On a Slice of SHIFT this week, we chat with Boston Managing Director Amy Lyons.

Name: Amy Lyons

SHIFT office: Boston

Client focus/title: Managing Director

Hometown: Charlestown

What is the best part of your job? As the Managing Director of the Boston office, I get to work very close with our amazing staff and I’m continually blown away by how creative, talented and committed everyone is.  From our Account Coordinators all the way up to our Vice Presidents, there’s just a sincerity in the work everyone is doing and a real desire to knock it out of the park for our clients and our team.

What is your PR shining moment? When a client reaches out to me to give kudos to someone on their team. Whether it’s for a great hit or a stellar press release, there’s nothing like getting that email from a happy client – it’s truly the best feeling.  Everyone works so hard and sometimes in the grind of the day, you can lose sight of what you’re working towards.  Having a client send a personal note just to let me know that someone on their team did a great job – that’s the best!

What brought you to SHIFT? After 6+ years working in politics down South, I decided it was not only time to return home, but it was also time to take the skills I had learned working with press secretaries, politicians and constituent lobby groups to a new arena.  Truthfully, I fell into technology as a PR focus, but SHIFT just felt like a great place to build a career.  I was impressed that at the time I applied, many of the senior managers had started out where I was starting, and I’m proud to look around now and see that’s still the case.

Whose Tweets/Blog could you not do without? Well, besides Todd Defren’s PRSquared of course (wink, wink ), I’m a fan of Seth Godin and each week I find myself checking stuff out on Mashable and TechCrunch. On the personal side, I am addicted to Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and his Crew Blog is a great read – the behind the scenes look at all the great places they visit and food they eat, not to mention the quirks of Bourdain himself, is a trip. If you love to travel, you should definitely check it out!

Embargoes Get No Love from Reporters

By Colleen Wickwire

Per Wikipedia, an embargo is described as “a request by a source that the information or news provided not be published until a certain date or certain conditions have been met. The understanding is that if the embargo is broken by reporting it before then, the source will retaliate by restricting access to further information by that journalist or his publication, giving them a long-term disadvantage relative to more cooperative outlets.” (see full entry here).

This past Thursday night I attended a roundtable event titled “Embargo 2010: An Industry Discussion on Future Rules of Media Engagement,” that was hosted by Waggener Edstrom and held in downtown San Francisco at the Varnish Gallery. Sam Whitmore moderated the panel of reporters that included Mark Glaser of PBS’ MediaShift blog, Damon Darlin of The New York Times, Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher and Dylan Tweney of Wired (a replacement for TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who canceled last-minute). The session lasted for an hour, but could have gone on all night because I walked away realizing two things:

(1) no other subject seems to provoke such passionate discussion from a reporter; and

(2) we’re still a long way off from finding a symbiotic solution that will resolve the complications embargoes can produce.

The general consensus from the panel was that the embargo does serve a purpose. It allows time to further investigate into a story so that there’s more in-depth and thoughtful reporting. By the same token, embargoes are not welcomed with open arms, but rather as something that is tolerated because they are a necessity for some reporters (e.g., those writing product reviews). The biggest issue with embargoes is that they are often broken by competing journalists. One perspective that I thought should be repeated is from VentureBeat’s Paul Boutin (who was in the audience). He explained that once a story has been reported on, there’s no opportunity for follow up stories since the competition for page views is essentially over at that point. For instance, if TechCrunch posts a story before VentureBeat does (or vice versa) people aren’t going to read it again somewhere else. He believes that embargoes do work since they essentially line up reporters “like horses at the racetrack.” {see Paul’s take on embargoes here}

In terms of solutions, the panel addressed some interesting suggestions. Tom Foremski brought up the idea of announcing news via a press conference (virtual or otherwise) so that it levels the playing field by allowing everyone to learn the news at once. {see video here}

Others said that issuing news via a company blog (à la Google News blog) or via Twitter are the preferred alternatives. From a PR perspective, these both seem like great channels for issuing news if you are Google, but I question the effectiveness for Startup Company X, which has yet to develop its own “watchers” or “followers.” Not to mention the disservice it does to a reporter who may not be as familiar with the space, something more commonplace as newsrooms shrink everyday.

Other opinions reinforced the importance of relationships and how leveraging them (based on relevance and audience influence) for exclusive reporting is preferable.  While this certainly benefits some reporters by allowing them time for in-depth reporting, by design it greatly reduces the opportunity for clients to receive wide spread coverage of their news and definitely does not benefit the smaller outlets that likely won’t make the cut. While there wasn’t one single solution that seemed to appease everyone, there are two main takeaways – addressed as pet peeves – that should be reiterated here (although they are likely a no-brainer for most everyone reading this):

• NEVER send or discuss the news before the reporter has agreed to the embargo, otherwise it’s fair game for them to publish it
• ALWAYS alert reporters to a leak – if the embargo has been broken, make sure you let everyone who agreed to it that they are free to publish their stories as well

Are there any other ideas that haven’t been mentioned? How can PR teams and agencies issue news in a way that benefits not only the client and reporter, but ultimately the audience the story is intended for?

Hands on Small Business Comes to SHIFT

The challenges that small businesses hurdle can sometimes be even larger than those of the corporate giants—especially when time and available resources are taken into consideration.    To help today’s small businesses and entrepreneurs tackle these challenges, the folks at Hands on Small Business are kick-starting a series of in-person classes all over the US and Canada.  The hands-on sessions will offer practical advice, direct instruction, and application tips for free online and social media solutions.

On Thursday, November 5^th at 7:00 p.m., SHIFT will be hosting one of these sessions in our Brighton, MA office.  Christine Koh, founder of Boston Mamas, will be teaching the class.  The event is free and open to the public, so come join us to learn about the online platforms and social networks that not only make life easier, but can help entrepreneurs reach their business objectives.

More details are below, we hope you can make it!

Thursday, November 5th, 7:00pm-9:00pm

• Location: SHIFT Communications
• 20 Guest Street, Suite 200 Brighton, MA 02135
• (617) 779-1800

Additional information on registration can be viewed here:  http://www.handsonsmallbusiness.com/events/boston/

Register here: http://bostonnov5hosb.eventbrite.com/

A Slice of SHIFT – Alex Kirschner

This week on a slice of SHIFT, we talk to SF Sr. Account Executive & Operations Manager Alex.

Alex Kirschner (@AKirschner)

SHIFT office: Boston, NYC, or San Fran:

San Francisco

Client focus/title: Consumer, Security, B2B or Admin

My focus has been in B2B technology, particularly security, storage, email marketing and events/conferences. I’ve also had the opportunity to pitch cheese that was shaped in interesting forms – thrilling stuff. But I have a hybrid role here in SF, where half my time is spent on PR and the other half as the office manager. This allows me to have flexibility with my schedule so I can focus on my passion: acting! I’m pretty lucky to get to do both.

Hometown:

Seattle, which I think is way cooler than wherever you grew up

What is the best part of your job?

I thrive on media relations, so the best part of my job is having a good story to pitch, going out with it, getting results and fortifying relationships with journalists in the process. But then again, it’s also gratifying when the story isn’t so good, but the team still gets results! Seeing something go from a pitch, to an interview, to coverage is addictive (okay, now I sound like a dork).

What is your PR shining moment?

This summer I was named to PRSourceCode’s Top Tech Communicators list based on a survey of 800 journalists from the IT and business press – the people I’m paid to pitch every day. Getting that kind of validation was the tops, and without a doubt the best day of my career thus far. Shameless plug: read about it here.

What brought you to SHIFT?

My friend Craig – his last name is “List” in case you haven’t heard of him. No…really! My road in finding PR was a little bumpy, with stops in the restaurant industry and recruiting along the way. But I knew from my college studies that PR was an interesting field that could keep me on my toes, so when I saw an ad for an internship at SHIFT, I crossed my fingers and hit “send.” Its reputation in the field was very attractive, and the staff I met while interviewing sold me. It has seriously been rainbows and butterflies since then and I couldn’t be happier.

Whose Tweets/Blog could you not do without?

I guess you can call me a headline chaser, so I don’t tend to read one particular blog or Twitter feed with any type of religious fervor, but instead read stories that have interesting topics. Three of my morning newsletters that I can’t live without, however, are the CNET News Daily Dispatch, eWEEK.com Securing the Enterprise and Network World Security Alert. The exception, of course, is PR Squared.

PR Lessons Carved from Halloween Horror

A deluge of villains was one problem that deterred Spider-Man 3 from the series’ previous successes. Although three antagonists were no match for Spidey, the audience was waiving the white flag by the third act and fanboys world-wide started to question the film’s director and horror icon Sam Raimi.

No doubt that Raimi’s experience on Spider-Man 3 influenced his next film Drag Me to Hell. For Raimi, this project was a flash back to the basics. See before the several hundred million dollar summer blockbuster budgets, Raimi made a name for himself by helming no-budget cult favorites The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.

Drag Me to Hell provided an opportunity for Raimi to scale down and focus – which was impossible during the overwhelming Spider-Man 3. Hell was just what Raimi needed. After watching the film, it’s clear that Raimi enjoyed working on this project – it appears that Drag Me to Hell rekindled Raimi’s love for his craft and his scale back paid off. The movie was lauded by critics and is currently listed as 92% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.

During a recent interview, Raimi discussed what he learned from his experience with Drag Me to Hell and how it will shape Spider-Man 4:

“I think I’ve learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I’m hoping to take that into a production where I’m actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendour.

“I hope I don’t lose that edge that I’ve just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics.”

What does Raimi’s experience have to teach PR professionals? Over the past year, the economy has us juggling a larger workload that is at least as cunning and deadly as Sandman, Venom and New Goblin combined. We need to remember that taking the time to work on the aspects of our profession that we enjoy the most, whether it be pitching, writing, researching, networking, etc. will elevate our excitement, help us from becoming overwhelmed and provide us with our own Drag Me to Hell opportunity.

Remember: with great power, comes great responsibility.

Being Halloween week, I recommend that you check out Drag Me to Hell. In a genre full of rehashes, Japanese horror rip-offs and sequels that would make Sylvester Stallone blush, Raimi managed to do something different: be original

Here’s a long story short plot synopsis: girl denies gypsy an extension on her home loan, girl shames gypsy, gypsy curses girl, goat demon torments girl and could very well drag her to Hell in three days, awesomeness – like a possessed talking goat – ensues. Do yourself a favor and rent this movie.

For perspective, Drag Me to Hell reminds me of a few horror favorites including the ending of A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Evil Dead (naturally) and the hilariously goofy Thinner, which features one Joe Mantegna (playing a gangster) as well as a gypsy curse, an excellent weight-loss program and a race to beat the clock. If you want to watch a bad movie and can’t find Leprechaun in the Hood, pickup Thinner – it’s More Terror, Less Filling!

Enjoy Halloween and for your own good – leave the gypsies alone!

Bonus Halloween treat: The L.A. Times’ The Big Picture blog has a great post on movie poster marketing that you should check out, ‘Drag Me to Hell’s’ poster: Is it really scary … or really sexy?

No tricks are included in this link!

By

Mike Fearon, SHIFT Communications

A Slice of SHIFT – Ariel Sasso

You might know SHIFT as a Company, but what about the faces behind the scenes?  Join us Fridays as we give you a candid profile of one of our PR stars.  This week, we talk to SHIFT Boston Account Executive Ariel Sasso.

Ariel Sasso (@aksasso)

SHIFT office:

Boston

Client focus/Area:

Everything! – B2B, B2C, start-ups, e-commerce, mobile apps, online video, social media, security; you name it, I’ve done it!

What is the best part of your job?

Meeting and working with so many smart people.  Not just my coworkers, but all the client companies creating innovative and unique products and services.  And the reporters and bloggers that work so diligently to understand their industry and its key players and then spend the time to dig into each individual trend and news story.  It really makes you want to do your job that much better when you are surrounded with so many driven and dedicated people.

What is your PR shining moment?

When a friend or family member tells me that they read about, heard or saw a clip about one of my clients in the news.  It’s great to be able to prove that what you do is real!

What brought you to SHIFT?

I grew up north of Boston, but went to college to in Virginia.  I always knew I wanted to go back to New England, the land of Dunkin Donuts.

As I was wrapping up my senior year and starting to look for PR jobs in the Boston area, I realized that none of my professors were in any way connected to the PR scene in Boston.  They had connections in VA, DC, MD, but nothing in Boston.  So I dug up the Boston Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work” issue and went through the list for PR firms, researching each firm and figuring out what I liked.  I think SHIFT was 11 on the list of 20, 11 is my lucky number.

Whose Tweets/Blog could you not do without?

I’m not sure if I couldn’t do without these, I probably could, but I’m going to take this opportunity to pimp them out…In terms of celebrity tweeters, I can’t get enough of Questlove (@questlove) from The Roots.  He’s a smart guy and it’s just so cool to get a glimpse into a world that you would not otherwise be able to see.  For example, when he was tweeting from the Grammys and I was watching the show live, it was interesting to be getting his real-time/real-life commentary while watching the shiny broadcast version. I also love the Amazon MP3 daily deals (@amazonmp3).  I’m proud to say that I buy all of my music and thus getting those daily deals is HUGE for my wallet.

Pharma’s Shift to Corporate Branding

The traditional model for pharmaceutical public relations is to focus on the product brand, not the corporate brand.  Healthcare consumers tend to identify more closely with product brand names rather than the company that controls that brand.

Case in point: how many average consumers do you think realize that Wyeth makes Advil, that Johnson and Johnson makes Motrin and that McNeil makes Sudafed?  I’d be willing to bet it’s well less than half.  Why?  A brand crisis in the past could have huge ramifications across the product portfolio of a pharma company.  The philosophy is similar to how firefighters attack a blaze—containment is key.

But that model is slowly but surely changing and pharma companies are showing a willingness to engage and invest more heavily in PR and social media that enhances the corporate brand.  Take a look at Johnson and Johnson as a prime example.  J&J is a highly decentralized corporation that controls hundreds of operating companies around the globe.  Because of this model, it would seem logical that the company would prefer brand PR over corporate PR.  But that’s not entirely the case.  J&J has been lauded for its foray into social media.  But a closer inspection of its efforts shows that they are aimed at enhancing the corporate brand—not a specific product brand.

And J&J is not alone. ePharmaRx recently posted a list of pharmaceutical companies that have established a presence on Twitter.  The list includes names like Bayer, Glaxo Smith Kline, Pfizer and Astra Zeneca to name a few.  Of course, the argument could be made that some of the aforementioned companies are not truly engaging at this stage of the game.  But hey, baby steps.

So why the shift to corporate branding efforts in the pharmaceutical industry?  It comes back to what Sally Suzman, Pfizer’s Chief Communications Officer, recently termed return on reputation.  It has become apparent to pharmaceutical companies across a broader spectrum that the corporate brand can create a halo effect that enhances the product brand.  If as a company you are viewed as compassionate, honest, responsive and accommodating to the consumer voice it will ultimately lead to product loyalty.

There is also the issue of regulatory concerns when it comes to social media for pharma companies.  The reporting of adverse events and FDA regulations are commonly seen as huge hurdles to social media focused on a brand.  But when you move to a corporate level, you have effectively mitigated some of those challenges.  That is not to say they go out the window entirely, but they are infinitely more manageable.

Brand PR and even social media will always be an important part of the pharmaceutical communications mix.  To think that corporate branding efforts will suddenly supplant brand-specific efforts is naïve.  However, the tide is clearly shifting, and pharmaceutical companies need to decide whether to go with it, or risk being washed away.

Please note: this post was also published at: www.prforpharma.com

BlogWorld Expo: Digital Symbiosis: How Bloggers Can Benefit from PR and Vice-Versa

By Doug Haslam

I had the good fortune of attending BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas this past weekend, and the honor of taking over a “Lightning Round” session for SHIFT’s principal, Todd Defren, who was unable to attend.

The session was titled “Digital Symbiosis: How Bloggers Can Benefit from PR and Vice-Versa.” I hoped to learn as much as or more than the audience, as there is no way I can presume to be inside the heads of more successful bloggers, and there were some really bright PR practitioners in attendance.

The author practices blogger relations with ZDNet's Jennifer Leggio. Photo by Aaron Strout (a SHIFT client)

I was not disappointed, as early in the session, as I tried to explain that PR agencies should not be selling on their relationships alone, and opened the idea of whether relationships work well as temporary ones based on the story at hand, or as ongoing, well-tended back-and-forths. A blogger in the audience made it very clear that his preference is not to hear from PR people only when they have news to pitch, but constantly, as a relationship.

The tug of war for PR people occurs in scale; how is it possible to have close relationships with the hundreds of bloggers an agency person may be asked to pitch across a number of clients? That question was echoed by, among others, my good friend Alexa Scordato (who now works for Porter Novelli). Part of the answer is: bloggers don’t care, nor should they. A blogger will only care about the one relationship, not the many others the PR person may be trying to maintain.

This thinking dovetailed nicely with a thought from Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang in a previous session that day, when he said a company’s customers don’t care if they are speaking online with someone from product, marketing, or another department. To them, it’s customer service and they want their problem solved. That turns the customer relations process on its head, and so it goes for blogger relations as well.

In preparing for the session, I made many notes, even lists of possible benefits for both sides in the PR-blogger relationship. Rather than using the notes, I was happy to boil things down as the conversation went: PR should focus on story telling rather than “selling” their idea, and bloggers should see PR as a resource from which they should squeeze every bit of information and connection they can. Is that too simple? Perhaps not.

A final note: I just want to thank Chris Brogan and Chris Pirillo, who encouraged me not to use my slides when I mentioned I wasn’t sure I should. I took that as gospel from two people who should know, and it worked.

Final final note: I had the chance to talk with ZDNet blogger Jennifer Leggio (“Mediaphyter”) about the session on the “Quick-n-Dirty” podcast she co-hosts with SHIFT client Aaron Strout. You can link through to the podcast (which covers a bunch of other related topics as well) from here.

Yes, We Had a Cabana

Effective PR in a Social World; from Integrated Marketing Summit

Cross-posted from DougHaslam.com

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Kansas City. First of all, thank you to Shawn Elledge and the crew for putting on a great event and being such gracious hosts.

One thing that was refreshing about this event is that I was among a lot of new people. As vibrant, exciting and knowledgeable as the Boston social media crowd is, it was really great to see people who weren’t drinking from the same water fountain (or bubbler, as we call it here in Boston) all the time.

I presented a session near and dear to the hearts of all SHIFTers, “Effective PR in a Social World.” I took a broad approach, looking at PR as I have known it for the last 11 years, how social media is changing it- and what it doesn’t change. I also make the case for not “ghetto-izing” social media but integrating with the traditional ways of doing PR (or marketing, sales, internal communications, etc.).

I managed to record the session with a line-in to my Zoom H2 recorder, and synced it to the slides (which are thankfully few and wordless). If you feel the urge, give it a listen and tell me what you think of the topic below.

I tightened up the Q&A section since you can’t hear the questions anyway– in most cases there is enough context to follow along.

One note: near the end, in a discussion of proper grammar and usage, I quipped “Twitter is kinda like the ‘rough draft’ of the universe.” That wasn’t part of the planned part of the talk, but it’s interesting that it’s the bit that stuck in my mind. What I meant by that was that the community corrects errors and bad behavior- but we have to live with seeing that rough draft and read critically.

Doug Haslam

Phone Calls—So 10 Years Ago?

By Megan Lane

Boston, 1999:

As a PR intern at the New England Aquarium, I spent my days faxing press releases to the Aquarium’s media list.  Amid busy signals, failed transmissions and paper jams, the news finally gets out.

I follow up with phone calls and try to create relationships with that voice connection.  Some coverage appears (in print) in local papers.

My friends and I have a phone tree of sorts, and use it to figure out plans for that evening.

On the way home, I fire up my Walkman and listen to the day’s news on terrestrial radio.

Out on the town that night, there’s no danger of embarrassing, drunken communications because I don’t have a cell phone or ready access to an email account.  With no digital camera, we have to wait for prints to come back from the photo shop, rather than immediately upload them.

Sound like the dark ages?  In reality, it wasn’t that long ago. Technologically speaking, it seems like a lifetime, and the way we conduct our personal lives—as well as our business lives as PR folks—has changed significantly.

Boston, 2009:

As an account manager at SHIFT Communications, I now spend my days pitching tailored stories to reporters with whom I’ve developed relationships.  A thought can move from an idea to an interview to the Internet in a matter of hours, sometimes less.  I’m not even sure where the fax machine is in our office.

My friends and I keep in touch on Facebook, and that’s where the majority of our plans are made.

Throughout the day, I get my news from Twitter, CNN.com and Sirius satellite radio.

Out on the town, I have to forcibly disconnect from my BlackBerry to keep from reading emails, texts and breaking news because everything’s at my fingertips.  You can’t be social if you’re obsessed with your phone.

So what’s the common thread here?  Technology is completely different than it was 10 years ago, as is the way we consume media and execute our jobs as savvy, creative, informed PR pros.  But the one thing that PR hinges upon—indeed, the one thing that business hinges upon—is relationships.  And this is where I like to party like it’s 1999, get on the phone and really make a connection with the person on the other end.  Emails, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all great tools for opening the door and getting a reporter’s attention, but it’s face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact that cements a relationship, and an opportunity.  It’s easy to overlook this basic tool in this age of instant high tech.

We’re beyond the days of “smile and dial” at least when it comes to banging out a blanket pitch to an untargeted media list (well, we are, at least).  But research, rehearsal, smiling and then dialing is the right way not only to pick up interest in your current story, but to find out what makes reporters tick as individuals.  Know your reporter’s work.  Have your pitch down cold.  Be friendly and confident.  And if you get hung up on, try again next time.  It really does pay off.

So when you’re pitching, as tempting as it is to point and click, try this instead: Think. Breathe. Smile. Dial. Succeed. It still works.