When is a press release not a press release?

Is this a press release? Ironically, this piece of puff for a potato puff arrived unsolicited in my email. It is from PWR New Media and as it instructs me to READ FULL RELEASE HERE >>> – I presume this company believes it to be a release.

Perhaps it is one of those SMNR things – the Social Media News Release – that Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications heralded back in 2006, as it contains links to social media and supplementary potato puff information.

The future of the press release (or media release if you prefer) – including its death or metamorphosis – isn’t normally something that I’m too concerned about. I do despair when teaching press release writing (let alone marking press release assignments) that the majority of examples lack any real evidence of news. My personal view is that I would not mind if I never had to write another one, but I realise that there is a need for a document of some sort to use for announcements, and particularly, for legal compliance, such as for financial results.

I’m yet to be convinced that most media, including bloggers and other online influencers, are that thrilled to receive an SMNR version, particularly when the big issue with the majority of releases churned out every day is that they are largely vacuous, poorly written, and badly targeted.

So it doesn’t really matter if it is easy to scan, includes elements that are easy to share and offers access to multimedia material (to paraphrase PR Newswire). That is all peripheral packaging if there is nothing of value inside the wrapping.

This is the main problem with probably 99.999999% of the releases sent out today – the content is increasingly viewed as less important than the drive to promote and seek SEO benefits. Indeed, a post on socialmedia today in March, states that “publishing news releases plays numerous other marketing roles” – most of which have nothing to do with the traditional role of a media release. Today the release is little more than a ruse to chase SEO and online ‘real estate’ – indeed the socialmedia today article claims the release creates “a visual sales page for your company”.

Also back in 2006, Tom Foremski stated: Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! – spitting: “Press releases are nearly useless”, whilst arguing for a deconstructed version. In 2010, Advertising Age ran a piece by Simon Dumenco: RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) – and Long Live the Tweet.

In February 2011, Mark Borkowski marked the rise of churnalism with a belief that “the press release is an endangered species, thanks to misuse”. Also in 2011, the opportunity for companies to break their own news was touted as another reason for killing the press release in an interview by CorpComms magazine with Nissan’s Dan Sloan.

By January 2012, we had Econsultancy discussing: The death of press release distribution services with “smarter ways to engage influencers online, such as social media newsrooms, multimedia content and real-time interaction enabled by social listening” argued as the choice of communicators.

In 2013, all these views seem to have been premature. But still the death knells sound – in February, the Irish Examiner reported a Social Newsmakers conference (no I don’t know what a newsmaker is either) with a quote:

“As a communications tool, the press release has become a garish neon light whose only objective is to interrupt and distract to gain attention”

Rather than a realistic assessment of fact, this was really another plug for social media as “a more direct and targeted avenue by which we can all work together to spread the message of what, where, why and how we are doing what we do.”

So the millions of pointless traditional releases, being sent out by email and news wires these days, are supplemented by millions more variants of interactive releases available through push and pull channels, as well as millions of tweets and other micro-announcements.

It could be viewed that the press release has finally morphed into a form of marketing – but actually, it always was. Despite the legend that Ivy Lee created the release in 1906 with his Declaration of Principles as an open, honourable form of communications, the release was at that time firmly entrenched as a publicity or advertising device – and the majority remained so.

So is this piece of puff a press release? Sadly, yes it is. It may look more like a marketing email – not surprising as it is from a “creative digital design and development shop”, and there is a distinct lack of news in its contents – again not surprising as the “shop” claims to “create digital assets”.

So perhaps it is time to give up on any virtuous claims for a press release – indeed, perhaps the only time when a press release is not a press release is when it genuinely has news or something of value to impart.

Die press release? Not a chance of it.

Give me some credit – how to avoid plagiarism and scraping

Have you read the book I co-authored? Or my journal papers in Public Relations Review? Or the chapters I have written in edited texts? What about my blog posts? If you have and judge my writing worthy of using, reviewing or criticising in your own work, then you’d better give me some credit.

If you’re producing online content, and I find you have reproduced my work without permission, I WILL get you to remove it. I am happy for you to quote me or link within your own work, but expect a reference to be evident with a hat tip. If you’re a bot scraping this post, well you won’t understand it anyway – and I won’t be posting your nonsense link-baiting comments either.

If you’re a student writing academic assignments, and you’re planning to use my work, then I deserve a citation with a full reference so that it is clear to your reader that the points you are making originated with me. Besides, you’ll gain credit for referencing sources – whereas plagiarism can get you kicked off your course.

If I sound frustrated, angry even, well I am. I put a huge amount of time and effort into my published work (largely for little, if any, financial return). I expect others to do the same with their work. Stealing and passing off in my view are crimes that rob the originator of their due credit, and deny the writer the intellectual pleasure of crafting their own informed thoughts.

Scraping content, or plagiarising others’ work is an increasing problem – thanks in large part to the easy access offered by the internet. If you can ‘cut and paste’ then you can simply lift someone else’s work, or stitch together your own piece and who is to know? The surfed answer is all too common among students these days – using search engines, skimming what you find, lifting the interesting parts and hey presto, a few hundred or thousand words ready for grading. However, with online search facilities and anti-plagiarism software, there’s a strong chance you’ll get caught.

Turnitin named last week as Plagiarism week with the theme Originality Matters (ironically a not very original promotional PR idea) – and it published various academic videos and other online resources.  This is a hot topic in academia and professional education – and taken as a very serious offence.

I appreciate that sometimes the etiquette of online linking or academic referencing can be confusing, complex or simply time-consuming. But that’s no excuse. There are some excellent online resources that you can draw on (links in green):

• Plagiarism.or – this is a great site that doesn’t look like boring academic or legal stuff. I love the descriptions for the Types of Plagiarism

• WriteCheck (which sponsors Plagiarim.or) is a paid plagiarism checker run using Turnitin. Many Universities and other academic bodies use Turnitin to check for plagiarism and some offer students the chance to run their work through the system first to avoid silly mistakes.

• Purdue Online Writing Lab – has really detailed advice on using APA, MLA and Chicago style of referencing. Many Universities have open online access to their guides to using the Harvard style – I recommend the Bournemouth University guide.

• Microsoft Word includes a feature enabling you to reference as you write. How-to-Geek has a guide to using it as does the Microsoft site. There are other online referencing systems, such as Endnote, that enable you to build up a personal reference list which you can draw on repeatedly. This is helpful for anyone completing a series of academic assignments.

• Bookmarks – are a great way to record sites that you visit when researching a piece of work, which you can then check when it comes to adding links or including references. Of course, you could use Google Bookmarks – and Mozilla support has a guide to using bookmarks in Firefox. You could use goodreads or a similar online resource (even a Pinterest board) to note the texts you have found for an assignment with a personal – or shared – list.

Or just ask – yes, that old-fashioned concept of seeking clarification from your tutor or the person you are citing how best to reference the source. If you are unsure or don’t know, ignorance isn’t a defence.

You can apply some of these ideas to avoid scraping online content – although that is often done with intent rather than ignorance. There are methods that can be used to prevent scraping – you can find advice e.g. via Sentor or a post written by Amanda DiSilvestro. But if you don’t know if you are web or data scraping (as if) – check out the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping (which also lists some measures to stop the bots).

It may sound old-fashioned in a world where newspapers use Tweets as if they’ve spoken to someone, or lift information directly from a Facebook page as background information. A world where politicians infamously relied on a ‘dodgy dossier’ of poor quality student work. A world where it is easy to check facts and also find lies and damned lies amongst the statistics. But that’s the very reason why referencing, citations and credit is important. If you can’t, don’t or won’t substantiate your points, arguments and opinion with reference to sources and evidence, what veracity does your work have in a world full of lies and half-truths?  And why should anyone give it credit?

[Picture via Microsoft Clipart]

A story of superhumans – inspiring a PR generation

Today I met the 2012 intake of public relations students at Bournemouth University. To use the vision of the London 2012 games, this is the next generation that we need to inspire to lead our occupation. A quick poll (well asking them to put up their hands) revealed pretty much all use Facebook, but perhaps a quarter have a Twitter presence and a handful can be found in LinkedIn or Pinterest. So are they a digital generation – who live an always-on, hyper connected lifestyle, ruled by apps and online news?

If they are not, then they will soon need to address this gap in their competencies as they look to engage fully with the world of public relations, and indeed, modern University education. Rather than Google and Wikipedia (which undoubtedly have become their primary sources of information at school), we expect them to engage with online learning resources, electronic journals and ebooks, web and mobile based communications, respected blogs (such as PR Conversations) and social media based professional networks.

Their future careers need to be about more than getting to grips with the tools of digital communications however. We need to inspire them to change perceptions and become highly regarded strategic managers. This aim requires the practice of PR also to change its perception of students and not see them only in terms of craft skills destined to follow a career that relies on time-served and step by step promotion up the agency or corporate ladder.

In the new world of work, you need to create your own opportunities – this was the message from the final year students who came along to share experiences of their placement years. If you want to be recognised and have a great personal reputation, this takes superhuman effort rather than floating along waiting for chances to come your way.

As the Summer of superhuman efforts in the Olympics and Paralympics fades into our memories, it is worth reflecting on how perceptions were changed during a few weeks of inspirational sporting endeavours. At least for a while, our opinions of being British changed. We felt a vicarious satisfaction in delivering a world-class games, that reflected our unique culture and showed the rest of the planet that we are more than the impressions often left by our politicians and drunken holidaymakers.

One legacy that it is hoped will have longevity is a new view of those with disabilities – thanks in part to the Meet the Superhumans campaign by Channel 4. This involved more than a short promotional video however, as Channel 4 had invested in getting to know the Paralympic athletes over a two year period. But the phrase, superhuman, was inspired and helped reposition the Paralympic games, and its competitors, as people who demonstrated superhuman abilities rather than disabilities.

But without the achievements – and genuine personalities – of those who participated in the games, no creative communications campaign would have altered perceptions. What challenged our opinions, beliefs and attitudes was the realisation that the athletes were, to an extent, just like us. Well, in reality, they aren’t like us, as most of us never aspire to, let alone achieve, the pinnacle of our potential. Whether that’s being a medal winner, or delivering a personal best, it means striving and sacrificing to realise dreams.

That also means being better than the previous generation – I genuinely want to be inspired by those entering public relations. Yes, as an educator, I can help them on their career paths. I can introduce them to the theory and practice involved in public relations, and encourage them to engage fully with digital communications and future trends. But what inspires me most is when they push this further and show what they can achieve. Only they can change the future perception and opinion of public relations.

Olympic lessons for public relations

As the Paralympic games get underway in London, it is hard not to be inspired by the achievement of athletes who have overcome considerable personal challenges to be the best in their field. This commitment to excellence (something I wrote about recently at PR Conversations), which we also witnessed in the London 2012 Olympics just a few weeks ago, offers a number of lessons for public relations.

Planning – we see the end result of years of planning, along with its limitations, as the games play out. Most of the steps that PR practitioners should apply in their work can be found in sports – setting goals, developing a strategy and detailed tactics, considering available resources and measuring results – on an ongoing basis, but with a clear end achievement in mind.  The limitations of planning (for example of the Team GB mens’ road cycling team) can be seen when flexibility – or a plan B – isn’t present.  As I advocate in The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit, planning needs to allow for changing circumstances, which is often reflected in adaptive athletic performances.

Team work – this is evident not only in sports where players have to work together to achieve the ultimate prize of a medal, but how athletes support each other at a national and a discipline level. The merits of this can raise the performance of the individual to higher levels as they seek to emulate the success that others achieve – and when things don’t go to plan, the team can help provide counsel and motivation to try again. In PR, we often hear people talk about being a team-player, but there seems little focus on how a team spirit is cultivated and how different competencies can work together with the sum of the parts resulting in a better performance.

The appliance of science – the consequences of investing in analysing performance and making improvements on the basis of sound data have been emphasised by a scientific approach to sport. The ‘marginal gains‘ ethos of the Team GB cycling team (also behind the team Sky Tour de France success) emphasises the cumulative effect of making 1% improvements across your entire modus operandi. This links to the Japanese idea of kaizen (continuous improvement) and also demonstrates that there is rarely a single magic solution to improving performance. How many of us working in public relations take a close look at our processes and procedures and eliminate what isn’t efficient? Do we look at where we can make marginal gains? I often ask students who submit planning assignments whether they could achieve the same (or better) results in different ways as it seems in PR we are often guilty of going with a good idea (or sometimes a poor one) without examining in detail alternative approaches, or how a plan could be tweaked to be executed to maximum effect – or improved year on year when an event is repeated for example.

Coaching – most of the athletes who picked up Olympic medals praised their coaches; the people often behind the scenes who focus on supporting and motivating those who physically reach for gold. I’ve rarely met anyone in PR who has a coach in their lives – whether in their organisation or professional network. Why not? We may have mentors or supportive bosses, but what about the role of a coach who is there to challenge and give guidance on training and development in the way we see in sports?

Talent spotting – alongside the coaches – and psychologists, sports scientists and so forth – many sports have invested in talent scouts. This is about identifying those with potential and pro-actively investing in their development. In public relations we have got better at encouraging young people to enter the field – although debates around paying interns and dismissing the value of degree courses continue to reflect barriers to real understanding of talent development in my view. I also think that talent spotting and development is something that should be done at all stages of a career. Let’s champion, mentor and invest in the best talent we can attract and retain to work in public relations – and stop tolerating the mediocre and those who propagate poor practices.

Building a narrative – part of the psychology of sports can be seen in visioning success. This is a mental process of building a story of what winning will be like and recalling the steps that lead to this result from previous experience. It can sound a bit fluffy, but as story-tellers in public relations, we are used to crafting narratives that present a particular position or perspective of information. I’m not advocating self-delusion or minimising the importance of the hard work that is required to reach the end point, but emphasising how there needs to be a strong narrative thread drawing together the dream and the potential outcome.

This last point about the importance of narrative was evident in the Olympic opening ceremony (bonkers and brilliant) crafted by Danny Boyle. He had a vision – which may have been as simple as putting on a performance that his late father would have loved – and carried that through. The narrative was captivating overall (in my view) but of course it took time, money and dedication of a cast of thousands to realise. But the story helped keep all the parts together. In marketing plans this is often viewed as a creative concept, and again, I don’t often see this approach underpinning PR plans, where there is huge potential to go beyond thinking of simple key messages and crafting a compelling narrative.

I am sure these points will be evident as the Paralympics unfold over the next couple of weeks. There will be times when plans go awry, when team support helps athletes cope with success, and failure, when less than 1% will separate the gold from the silver, from the bronze, from the rest, when final words of coaches provide the necessary uplift of confidence and motivation, when talent comes to the fore and when we all discover engaging new stories.

Let the games begin…

Plotting a personal path to PR career success

PR Academy is looking to document how studying a PR qualification has helped in developing careers. The “Your Learning Journey” concept involves posting a comment on its blog in no more than 140 words relating the influence and path taken as a result of gaining a qualification. As well as potentially winning a Trailfinders gift card to the value of £250, there’s an opportunity to feature in its campaign to encourage continuous learning. You don’t have to be a PR Academy student to take part (and you are encouraged to Tweet using the #learningjourney hashtag).

This initiative is interesting to me, not only because I’ve spend over a decade working with many students of public relations (including those enrolled with PR Academy), but for the connections it has to my own PhD studies into career strategies in PR.

If you are thinking about your next move in public relations, there are three concepts I’ve found running as threads through my research into the historical context of career strategies in the field.

PR is about action not procrastination

PR time – balancing urgency and importance (after Stephen Covey)

One of those silly PR surveys yesterday made me think – it was about procrastination and the time we waste in putting things off. I am very familiar with the idea with students – and PR practitioners – who are deadline-oriented creatures and expert also at displacement behaviour where you focus on other tasks rather than knuckling down to the priority at hand.

I also advocate Stephen Covey‘s notion of ‘first things first’ and include an adaptation of his urgent-important matrix in the forthcoming Public Relations Strategic Toolkit.

Feminization of public relations

I’ve produced this infographic as part of my presentation at next week’s International History of Public Relations Conference. My paper aims to foreground the career experiences of women working in public relations in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. As well as reviewing the existing historical literature (where the presence of women is largely missing) and conducting qualitative interviews, I wanted to put the story into some statistical context.

Although the veracity of any data is impossible to verify, it does provide heuristic knowledge of the increased feminization of the field of public relations over the past four decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, the data indicates the percentage of women in PR in the UK increased from around 10% to 40% – from one to four in every ten practitioners. This has risen further in the last twenty years to almost seven in ten practitioners.

David and Goliath – narrative of the PR ban

The PR ban is often the core plot of a classic David and Goliath narrative. The key elements of such a fantasy theme are simple:

• a likeable central character (individual, group or organisation) who represents positive values
• a challenge or opposing force that has to be overcome
• supporting characters who offer positive or negative reactions
• the plot of how the problem emerged and will be resolved
• similarity of the story to similar ones which can reinforce the message

My PR narrative model draws out three aspects:

• Subject – what is being said
• Mode – how the narration is expressed
• Means – the way in which the narration is conveyed

The recent story of Martha Payne, the nine-year old girl who faced a ban on taking photographs of her school meals for her NeverSeconds blog is a clear example. A cute child who reflects a positive attitude towards healthy eating, facing opposition to her articulate posts from the bureaucratic forces of Argyll and Bute Council. The supporting characters include an army of bloggers and Twitterites, plus the heroic school-dinner warrior, celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver. The story evolved quickly, with the help of social and traditional media who turned on the evil council, forcing its leader to apologise live on the serious BBC Radio 4 news programme, The World at One.

Can’t get no PR satisfaction?

In PR one of our guiding principles ought to be:

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

That would appear to be the case with the Susan G Koman vs Planned Parenthood crisis this past week.  Or the issue of bankers’ bonuses in the UK.  In fact we increasingly live in a world – fuelled by the ease of expression offered by social media – in which publics can be outraged about everything and anything at the click of a Tweet.

From the valley of despair to the slope of hope

Did you start 2012 with one or more resolutions?  Did you get up this morning with the intention to achieve particular tasks?  Have you leapt into February with new goals?  Or have you resolved to change your attitude or behaviour?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines resolution as a firmness of purpose, with intention reflecting the determination required to achieve this end goal.