Winning PR in the Wired World: Powerful Communications Strategies for the Noisy Digital Space by Don Middleberg

From the Publisher

No industry has been affected more permanently and positively by the digital revolution than public relations. The speed and reach of the Internet have forever transformed the communications landscape, altering the practice of public relations and magnifying its power. But to many PR professionals, the Internet remains uncharted territory. The destination may be clear, but the coordinates for reaching it are not.

In Winning PR in the Wired World, Internet PR guru Don Middleberg charts the course for getting the most from this ultimate communications tool. By detailing the evolution of the digital communications era, analyzing his original research, and examining some high-profile PR successes and failures, Middleberg offers a hard-hitting and informative guide to what’s new, what works, and what doesn’t in communications today.

Readers will gain insight into the benefits of combining online and offline tactics and get a tutorial in Middleberg’s four fast "rules" of successful PR: (1) Speed Wins, (2) Everyone is Now an Entrepreneur, (3) The World Ends Every 120 Days, and (4) Buzz Is Everything. Through Middleberg’s analysis, everyone from dot-com CEOs and marketing VPs to PR agency pros will get a comprehensive and thought-provoking education in PR’s new guiding principles. Written by one of the country’s most renowned leaders of digital public relations, Winning PR in the Wired World brings readers up to cyberspeed on the new demands and opportunities for public relations in the wired world.

About the Author:
Don Middleberg is the chairman and CEO of Middleberg Euro, the fastest-growing public relations agency in the country for the past two years, with offices in New York, San Francisco, and Boston. A leader in public relations and marketing, Middleberg is widely considered to be among the elite communications professionals in digital public relations. A noted author and lecturer, he is coauthor of the groundbreaking Middleberg/Ross Media in Cyberspace Study. Middleberg is regularly called upon for commentary by numerous magazines and newspapers and has appeared on CNBC, C/Net, CNN, and National Public Radio.

Internet Book Watch

The Internet has radically changed the world of communications, and author Middleberg provides insights on this new communications realm in a book packed with real strategies used by top public relations professionals working online. From blends of online and offline campaigns to innovative methods of reaching new customers and investors, Winning PR in the Wired World is packed with reality-based ideas.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

1. Public Relations: You've Come a Long Way, Baby

He was trying to figure out how in the world he could compete against the public relations giants of the world, the Burson Marstellers and the Hill & Knowltons. They were killing him every time he went out for a pitch.

This executive was not landing the accounts because his staff wasn't as good as the staffs at the giants or because his ideas for campaigns weren't innovative and cost-effective.

They were beating him because many CEOs didn't want to take any risks. Many potential clients said to him, "I'm not taking any chances. I'm hiring the biggest firm. I don't care what they cost."

That wasn't necessarily the best decision. But, admittedly, there was less risk in deciding bigger was better.

So this same executive was sitting around his office one day in 1993 when he received a call from J. P. Donlon, who was in charge of Chief Executive magazine. Donlon asked to have a manuscript that the executive was writing for a client sent over. But instead of sending it over on paper, Donlon asked that the executive put it on a disk.

At the time, the executive had one 286-megahertz computer in his office. So he put his 5 V4-inch floppy disk in the drive, copied the story onto the disk, and delivered the floppy by messenger to Donlon, who was, by now, thinking he was the coolest editor in the country.

Shortly after that, the executive received a phone call from another fellow named Andy Glueck, who was a senior editor of Worth magazine. Glueck was calling to cancel aluncheon to be held that day. He was going to come into New York City from Long Island, but told the executive that he was no longer coming into Manhattan.

The guy with the 10-person agency asked, facetiously, "You mean, ever?"

Glueck came right back at him. "Right. I am never coming into Manhattan again. I am going to do all my interviews over the phone or online. Then I'm typing my stories online and sending them in online." It seems Worth magazine had wired his house for him.

It was at that point that the lightbulb went off and the public relations executive realized that something significant was happening. He realized that if he came to understand how journalists were now using the Internet as a way to do their jobs, and could develop new ways to reach these journalists, he might have a way to finally compete against the Burson Marstellers of the world.

So right then and there that executive-yours truly-decided to plunge headlong into the wired world, becoming one of the first agencies to embrace the digital space.

It worked.

Diving into the world of the Internet's convergence with established media wasn't easy. For one, there was no real roadmap at that time on how the changing climate was affecting the public relations business.

So one of the initial ways my public relations agency and some other public relations specialists began to take the first baby steps toward adapting to journalists like Donlon and Glueck was to ask whether they were reflecting a trend.

My own experiences with a handful of media in the early 1990s indicated that the ways of researching and writing a story, as well as publishing the results, were starting to change.

Sure, it was interesting that a handful of young, savvy technology journalists in New York were using "the information superhighway." But what was going on in the rest of the country?

Unfortunately, there was no body of research that looked at these developing practices on a national scale. Even at the renowned Columbia University Graduate School of journalism, no formal studies had been conducted in the area of online journalism.

In fact, in 1994, only one Columbia professor thought this was an area even worth looking into.

His name was Steven Sanders Ross.

Ross was a long-time technology addict, electronic bulletin board user, and proponent of introducing his students to the newest trends in computer-assisted reporting. When he was contacted for research on the developing world of online journalism, he admitted that little existed. But he quickly agreed to move forward on conducting the first formal investigation.

Thus, the Middleberg/Ross Media in Cyberspace Study was founded in 1994 not only to educate my own 10-person firm but also to begin educating the public relations industry as to how savvy professionals could do their jobs more effectively by incorporating the Internet into everything they did.

The first results were released in the spring of that year at a Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference, and became an instant sensation.

Remember, at that time, the commercial Internet barely existed, and was still largely regarded as the province of scientists, the military, and hobbyists.

So the PRSA audience at that 1994 conference was shocked to discover that as many as 17 percent of journalists at that moment admitted to using the Internet as a research tool.

For the first time, there was information available that showed public relations professionals and the companies they represented how critical the Internet was becoming for the way they did business. The Internet was not only for academics and geeks. It was rapidly transforming into an essential business tool.

From that moment forward, there was a greater understanding among public relations firms and others of the challenges and opportunities facing the emerging community of online entrepreneurs.

Such understanding was greatly needed. Many of the early Internet pioneers-particularly people such as Andy Klein of Wit Capital, SonicNet founder Tim Nye, and AdOne founder Steve Brotman-felt that many public relations agencies of that time period did not understand the urgency of the Internet as well as they did.

With organizations beginning to spring up, such as the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium (WWWAC) and Aliza Sherman's Webgrrls, and journalists beginning to emerge, such as Lisa Napoli at Cybertimes and Mo Krochmal at TechWeb, an energy bigger than anyone imagined was being created-a force, a driving focus, that was going to change public relations forever. Some agency veterans will tell you they were asleep at the wheel during the Internet revolution. While these individuals continued to conduct business as usual, they let a whole new generation of public relations practitioners emerge as the true powers of the profession. Times changed fast, too fast for many senior executives who were used to conducting business as usual. After all, until the Internet came into being, public relations was arguably a pretty sleepy business.

In the old days, public relations was consigned to a list of priorities that ranked somewhere around having the executive washroom fully stocked with paper and making sure "the boys" had a fully stocked bar at night. That's particularly hard to believe for many young public relations executives, many of whom have never lived through a recession. But public relations can partly blame itself for such perceptions.

It is easy to see why it was not highly regarded when its early practices are examined. The profession previously relied a great deal on the type of bombast that appeals to a less-than-highbrow audience...

Read a Sample Chapter

There was once a public relations executive who was running a very small, 10-person public relations firm that had maybe a half-dozen clients. He was trying to figure out how in the world he could compete against the public relations giants of the world, the Burson Marstellers and the Hill & Knowltons. They were killing him every time he went out for a pitch.

This executive was not landing the accounts because his staff wasn't as good as the staffs at the giants or because his ideas for campaigns weren't innovative and cost-effective.

They were beating him because many CEOs didn't want to take any risks. Many potential clients said to him, "I'm not taking any chances. I'm hiring the biggest firm. I don't care what they cost."

That wasn't necessarily the best decision. But, admittedly, there was less risk in deciding bigger was better.

So this same executive was sitting around his office one day in 1993 when he received a call from J. P. Donlon, who was in charge of Chief Executive magazine. Donlon asked to have a manuscript that the executive was writing for a client sent over. But instead of sending it over on paper, Donlon asked that the executive put it on a disk.

At the time, the executive had one 286-megahertz computer in his office. So he put his 51/4-inch floppy disk in the drive, copied the story onto the disk, and delivered the floppy by messenger to Donlon, who was, by now, thinking he was the coolest editor in the country.

Shortly after that, the executive received a phone call from another fellow named Andy Glueck, who was a senior editor of Worth magazine. Glueck was calling to cancel a luncheon to be held that day. He was going to come into New York City from Long Island, but told the executive that he was no longer coming into Manhattan.

The guy with the 10-person agency asked, facetiously, "You mean, ever?" Glueck came right back at him. "Right. I am never coming into Manhattan again. I am going to do all my interviews over the phone or online. Then I'm typing my stories online and sending them in online." It seems Worth magazine had wired his house for him.

It was at that point that the lightbulb went off and the public relations executive realized that something significant was happening. He realized that if he came to understand how journalists were now using the Internet as a way to do their jobs, and could develop new ways to reach these journalists, he might have a way to finally compete against the Burson Marstellers of the world. So right then and there that executive-yours truly-decided to plunge headlong into the wired world, becoming one of the first agencies to embrace the digital space.

It worked.

Diving into the world of the Internet's convergence with established media wasn't easy. For one, there was no real roadmap at that time on how the changing climate was affecting the public relations business.

So one of the initial ways my public relations agency and some other public relations specialists began to take the first baby steps toward adapting to journalists like Donlon and Glueck was to ask whether they were reflecting a trend.

My own experiences with a handful of media in the early 1990s indicated that the ways of researching and writing a story, as well as publishing the results, were starting to change.

Sure, it was interesting that a handful of young, savvy technology journalists in New York were using "the information superhighway." But what was going on in the rest of the country?

Unfortunately, there was no body of research that looked at these developing practices on a national scale. Even at the renowned Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, no formal studies had been conducted in the area of online journalism.

In fact, in 1994, only one Columbia professor thought this was an area even worth looking into.

His name was Steven Sanders Ross.

Ross was a long-time technology addict, electronic bulletin board user, and proponent of introducing his students to the newest trends in computer-assisted reporting. When he was contacted for research on the developing world of online journalism, he admitted that little existed. But he quickly agreed to move forward on conducting the first formal investigation.

Thus, the Middleberg/Ross Media in Cyberspace Study was founded in 1994 not only to educate my own 10-person firm but also to begin educating the public relations industry as to how savvy professionals could do their jobs more effectively by incorporating the Internet into everything they did.

The first results were released in the spring of that year at a Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference, and became an instant sensation. Remember, at that time, the commercial Internet barely existed, and was still largely regarded as the province of scientists, the military, and hobbyists. So the PRSA audience at that 1994 conference was shocked to discover that as many as 17 percent of journalists at that moment admitted to using the Internet as a research tool.

For the first time, there was information available that showed public relations professionals and the companies they represented how critical the Internet was becoming for the way they did business. The Internet was not only for academics and geeks. It was rapidly transforming into an essential business tool.

From that moment forward, there was a greater understanding among public relations firms and others of the challenges and opportunities facing the emerging community of online entrepreneurs.

Such understanding was greatly needed. Many of the early Internet pioneers-particularly people such as Andy Klein of Wit Capital, SonicNet founder Tim Nye, and AdOne founder Steve Brotman-felt that many public relations agencies of that time period did not understand the urgency of the Internet as well as they did.

With organizations beginning to spring up, such as the World Wide Web Artists' Consortium (WWWAC) and Aliza Sherman's Webgrrls, and journalists beginning to emerge, such as Lisa Napoli at Cybertimes and Mo Krochmal at TechWeb, an energy bigger than anyone imagined was being created-a force, a driving focus, that was going to change public relations forever. Some agency veterans will tell you they were asleep at the wheel during the Internet revolution. While these individuals continued to conduct business as usual, they let a whole new generation of public relations practitioners emerge as the true powers of the profession. Times changed fast, too fast for many senior executives who were used to conducting business as usual. After all, until the Internet came into being, public relations was arguably a pretty sleepy business.

In the old days, public relations was consigned to a list of priorities that ranked somewhere around having the executive washroom fully stocked with paper and making sure "the boys" had a fully stocked bar at night. That's particularly hard to believe for many young public relations executives, many of whom have never lived through a recession. But public relations can partly blame itself for such perceptions.

It is easy to see why it was not highly regarded when its early practices are examined. The profession previously relied a great deal on the type of bombast that appeals to a less-than-highbrow audience.

Public relations, as an industry, started in entertainment, in movies, and on Broadway. Theater producers would put a bikini-clad model in a leopard-skin Cadillac and have her go down Broadway and give out theater tickets. And, oh yes, call the papers and get a photo-op. It was hucksterism, trying to get people to stick their nose into the circus tent to take a look. It was a hard hustle, done by men who sat elbow to elbow in the saloons with the writers. That's why many of them were referred to as press agents, because that's literally what they did, selling items to columnists.

Of course, that led to a definite lack of respect and certainly very low fees. Professionalism was something the other guy did.

The notion that public relations was more than flackery began to change as the rise of the multinational corporation made it part of the business world. That was the era of excruciatingly slow communications.

A client would call and say, "I'd like to go over this press release now." The public relations executive, again yours truly, would reply, "I'm sorry. It didn't come in today's mail. I'm sure it will come tomorrow."

And then he and his buddies at the agency would hang up and go back to playing darts. Today's young professionals can't even imagine a world so slow paced and leisurely. Before the Internet, there was also a certain mentality that existed that insisted it was okay to do anything to get a story. That's not to say everyone in public relations didn't have ethics. But the mentality was different because the world of the saloon-bred press agent allowed them to play around with their events. There was more scheming and plotting. Yes, it was fun. But it certainly wasn't much of a profession.

Today, the marketplace depends upon credibility. You have to be truthful, or you get flamed out of business.

Even as it gradually moved from hucksterism and press stunts, public relations still wasn't attuned to anything close to the world of today.

When agencies used to get involved with strategic research in the 1980s and early 1990s, the approach was different. We'd sit around a room and say, "Here is the problem. What do we do about it?"

Everyone, inevitably, would say, "Let's do a study."

The Japanese were notoriously successful at this. They'd go out and conduct research and they would study a problem for several months at a clip, covering every little nuance. They would then come back with a document 4 inches thick, get the group together again, analyze it, and put together a public relations plan, also 4 inches thick, covering every conceivable event and action to take place over the next 3 years.

No one does strategic planning that way anymore, if they do it at all. Now it's all about speed. You don't have to be first to market, but if you do it better than your competitors and get their first, that's what it takes to win.

So the very nature of business has fundamentally changed because of the Internet, including public relations. Those firms and companies that understand are the winners. Technology makes forecasting impossible. Technology has changed public relations forever and for the better.

The early pioneers of the Internet grasped that. For those early companies, the Internet wasn't just another way to communicate-it was their mantra, their reason for being. And they needed public relations people who could adjust strategies on the fly, adopt new methodologies into their core business practices, and understand the language of technology.

A new medium that would become a part of the mainstream faster than any one that had come before was being created. There was no holding it back, and the public relations companies who realized that would quickly become the leaders of this emerging business.

This is truly the golden age of public relations, particularly for public relations practitioners who understand that, in the digital world that has emerged in the last 5 years, there has never been more opportunity. But great opportunity never comes without great risk.

To be successful using the Internet, it's important to know what the Internet is about and what it takes. It's more than just a lot of promises and a lot of hype. This is an expensive ballgame. It requires great management in addition to a solid business plan. And because it is so expensive, now is when people are at the greatest risk of losing it all if they make the wrong moves.

Essentially, public relations has been impacted by five important business communications trends catalyzed by the growth of the Internet: speed, access, new rules of interaction, brand redefinition, and business partners as currency. Public relations ability to respond instantly to these trends has embedded its status as business-critical-essential to companies that move quickly and need to maximize the impact of their cash outlays.

Let's examine each of those factors in public relations driving role in Internet business building. While they are distinct categories of measure, they combine to form an overall picture of today's Internet economy.

SPEED AND AGILITY

We live in an age where change comes at the click of a mouse, and requires companies to often react within hours to challenges that arise, both in the real world and from the sometimes anonymous world of the Internet. That's where public relations has a distinct advantage. It can react instantly, shifting to accommodate any schedule or news cycle. For public relations executives, the luxury of sitting back and planning a response over time is no longer possible. In fact, every minute that goes by can often make a problem worse or an opportunity disappear. Slow response practices can even allow false rumors and inaccuracies in stories to gain momentum, growing like kudzu and building upon bad or false information, to the point where a company is faced with answering questions about perceptions and bad information, in the process losing its focus and being perceived as evasive. Any response that isn't immediate and focused gives opponents-real and imagined-an advantage that can damage a company's image. We now live in a global information age, with Internet news outlets, worldwide broadcasting, and instant analysis. If something happens on a Saturday night at 10 p.m. pacific time, an eastern time zone company has to respond as rapidly and effectively as if the incident had happened on a Tuesday afternoon. That's almost unthinkable from what the situation would have been like even 5 years ago.

Strategic planning is dead. Now, this is an uncomfortable notion for the old guard. Many veteran business leaders were used to a much different process. The methodology they use is from a kinder, gentler age, one where contemplation and thoughtful reflection were the hallmarks of good business practice. If businesses take that approach in the wired world, they're going to find themselves thoughtfully planning how they'll spend their retirement. Traditional strategic planning, rife with three-ring binders and 6 months of research, doesn't work in times of great change because it is too slow. Public relations plans used to be 6 inches thick, weigh 8 pounds, and project 3 to 5 years out. Today, that would be a ludicrous approach. Plans are revised weekly, often daily.

Today's successful companies put communications strategy center stage. This is a change that started subtly within the last 10 years. The need for speed began, like most trends, at a very grassroots level, primarily by teenagers and particularly college students, who grew used to the hyper-speed connections available at most universities.

But even outside of the rarified atmosphere of the collegiate world, in the homes that relied on relatively slow dial-up connections, the Internet became the fastest mass medium by household penetration rate in history. It was instant, a communication tool that allowed bright young minds to do three things at once. It's not uncommon to see a teenager sitting at the computer, communicating with friends online while listening to music and watching television. That's the way they grew up, and they're very comfortable with processing information at that pace.

All of this has led to the birth of a notion known as Internet time, a euphemism for change that happens at a pace that guardians of the traditional standards of society find astonishing. Internet time is something that most of today's senior business executives in the traditional world have not yet experienced. As a result, many who dismissed the Internet as a fad, or perhaps didn't notice it at all, are now scrambling to catch up. They're just starting to realize that the Internet is not CB radio. This is a permanent part of the cultural and business landscape.

Because public relations requires an ear to the ground, close contact with tastemakers, and a deep appreciation for society's trends, it is one of the first industries to adapt to this new world, and it now leads the way. The leaders of the public relations industry understand that the need to make an immediate impact in a cost-effective manner is of the highest priority in a world that moves on Internet time, where everything is compressed and attention spans are limited. Agility was something that the twenty-somethings who founded most of the dot coms now dominating the landscape instinctively realized and, today, agility is being adopted by smart companies, large and small.

ACCESS TO TOP DECISION MAKERS

Public relations professionals have access to the CEO as never before. Smart PR practitioners insist on it. That's a big switch. Why is this happening? Well, there is a new reality, which CEOs now understand. Public relations consistently plays a greater role in branding their companies, and their products, than any other communications tool, including advertising. The simple fact is that the top PR firms in this space have a stronger understanding of how value is articulated than an old-fashioned ad shop. And because the CEOs sometimes need to gain a greater understanding of the new rules and lexicon of Internet business, their dependence on public relations advisers becomes enormous. Just as the typical Internet business plan is rarely without an ample sprinkling of market size forecasts from Internet research firms, such as Jupiter and Forrester, it is also rarely completed without a heavy hand of influence from public relations advisors. The result is that public relations advisors have tremendous influence, counseling on greater business decisions than ever before. Now, public relations practitioners are often advising lawyers in many situations, such as initial public offerings (IPOs) and crisis communications, and counseling the CEOs on what they have to do to be successful. Today, the boardroom is calling the communications counselor.

PR INTERACTS IN NEW WAYS WITH NEW AUDIENCES

Public relations deals with the constituencies that matter most to a rapidly changing business. Apart from the media, the public relations world provides influence in circles involving industry analysts, venture capitalists, individual investors, and the financial community. These audiences are the foundation for building awareness and credibility among the Internet business "digerati" and for accomplishing important business objectives, such as customer loyalty and employee retention.

These new audiences demand to be a part of and, at times, guide the communications cycle-not merely act as recipients of corporate news and official statements. Communicators must reach out to these audiences online and off, develop interactive relationships with all constituencies, and embrace honest, responsive, and informal communications practices.

Yes, it is still called public relations-but it is much more than a mere conduit to the media. Public relations helps clients grow their businesses and improve their bottom lines. We do strategic counseling, special projects, research, press conferences, seminars, and create networking and partnering relationships. This change hasn't been gradual. It's arrived at Internet speed, warping and woofing the nature of business relationships with the media as quickly as it has affected society in general.

NEW ERA OF BRANDING

Successful Internet branding is based on a shared belief that technology is aspirational and represents education, a feeling of youth and coolness, and a path to enhanced status. The new reality that CEOs now understand is that the new era of branding demands greater context, an abundance of information, and great adherence to the evolution of Internet business. Branding today is often better communicated through demonstrating market demand and clear competitive differentiation than with flashy, clever graphics and hip, smart one-liners. The simple fact is that public relations firms in this period have a better opportunity to implement this new breed of branding and positioning and how value is articulated than traditional ad agencies.

Originally, the emerging brands of the Internet, the dot coms whose very reason for existence has been fueled by the medium's rise, immediately understood the tremendous change that was happening. Now that change continues to evolve by the traditional companies moving into the digital space big-time. That audience is less familiar with the old way of doing things, and is moving much more quickly. That's, in part, because they have different challenges. The challenge for a very traditional brand is to create cachet, an emotional change that needs to happen in their perception for employees, the media, and the public.

For both dot coms and reemerging enterprises, public relations is about creating integrity and credibility in a brand. A June 1999 survey by M Booth & Associates, a research firm, asked brand managers about how they worked. The study, based on responses of more than 100 brand managers, provides new evidence that public relations is the most effective way to establish brand credibility, to surround a brand in a particular editorial context, and provides the best return for the marketing dollar spent.

The majority of brand managers polled-51 percent-believe that public relations, when compared to advertising, sales promotion, and new media, is critical ("very important") for establishing brand credibility. In comparison, 44 percent characterized advertising as "very important," 21 percent said sales promotion, and 17 percent reported new media. Public relations also led the way as the most effective marketing communications discipline when editorial context is important. Fifty-one percent of brand managers said public relations was "very important" in targeting editorial context; 30 percent said advertising was "very important," 15 percent said sales promotion, and 14 percent picked new media. Furthermore, brand managers felt that public relations is the best way to garner third-party endorsement: 39 percent said public relations was "very important," compared to 17 percent for advertising, 13 percent for sales promotion, and 10 percent for new media. Many fast movers understand this. And gradually, the rest of the world is catching on to the notion.