CourtV
Michigan
- 26 comments
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Account Executive @Identity. PR Pro, MSU alumni, dance enthusiast, had an awesome stint in Boston. Love making new connections!
@ginidietrich @martinwaxman Yes! I think that's exactly what PR courses need to be - constantly integrating with the changes in the industry lead by people that are living it. I would have signed up!
You know what really boggles my mind? Where are these people getting their target outreach list from? I think it'd be interesting to know how much time they put into not only finding the people, but also aimlessly pitching all of them and if they ever see any results at all. The best part is that there are sooo many tools out there to help you target better (and are much easier than Bacon's), which obviously equals much better results. If you check out traackrone.com there are hundreds of top 50 influencer lists done for you (yes, I do work for Traackr, but just couldn't see a way around mentioning this)! Subscribe to a list and voila, you actually have RELEVANT and engaged influencers at your fingertips. Aside from Traackr One there are a ton of other tools out there as well - just find one that works and utilize it. Now, the process of engagement with the people that come up on these lists is up to the professional...and I suppose a good starting point would be to read this blog post again ;)
@ginidietrich I agree! The industry has changed so much just within the last 3 years. If college programs don't change just as quickly, there is going to be a huge gap between what employers need in new graduates and what skills they've actually acquired and can bring to the table (yet another reason why internships are SO important!) Personally, most of what I learned in college isn't really useful to me in my profession anymore and I've definitely taken crash courses in a ton of things I think I should have had base knowledge of. It's a shame.
Thanks for this article, Arik! It lays out some great points.
I know this comment is coming a bit late, but I just stumbled upon it and had to mention that not too long ago I was talking to an in-house brand PR director who was telling me how they had recently transitioned from having one agency of record to just having multiple independent consultant that specialized in different pieces of their business. He said he found it was not only much more cost-effective based on the somewhat limited budget they had for outsourcing their PR efforts, but also dramatically helped improve their bottom line. It was an interesting conversation and I think really compliments what Kellye is talking about here.
Thanks for sharing this, @HeatherWhaling ! From the discussion going on here, it seems like in addition to what you wrote, the keys to avoiding burnout is trust, knowing when to take a break and most importantly, wine! Sounds about right, I'll definitely keep this in mind. :)
Congrats to you and Geoff! I really look forward to checking it out.
I see the value in this for all parties, but also see why there is so much controversy around it. Blogging started as a totally transparent way to simply share your thoughts and experiences and connect with people. I completely understand that as the Internet has evolved, these bloggers have gotten very smart in building a brand for themselves by accident or on purpose - which requires a ton of work and deserves compensation. However, I worry that as more and more people begin to blog, it will be for the wrong reasons. It will definitely be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Thanks for the @traackr mention, @Shonali ! Also have to say this is a great post - I'm really enjoying the discussions going on. In addition to all the points mentioned on here, I also find it helpful personally to just remember media contacts are people and if you treat them as such, they'll usually do the same in return. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes I feel like pitching puts you in a different mindset and interactions can be much more dry and unpleasant on both ends.
Shonalipierreloic Ha! Great idea. Although dskaletsky will be going instead of me, so we'll have to make sure it is at least recorded because I can't miss that.
Thanks so much for the Traackr shoutout, Shonali! We are among some great companies there, and are truly honored. And I really loved your Valentine's spirit - well done! Next career for Shonali Burke? Songwriter! ;) Happy Valentine's day!
Well said, ginidietrich and well done to FedEx. It's nice to see large corporations learning from other's mistakes and successes. Also nice to see PR perhaps getting some credit for these positive things ;)
Great topic, Shonali ! I'm always curious whether situations I'm in would be different based on the people I'm with. My guess is yes because other people's reactions would have been different. Either way I think as a business owner you need to be really careful to put any of your personal biases or racial notions aside because it's just simply not good business practice to treat your customers different merely based on their race, gender, height, weight, etc.
Thanks for the Traackr mention Jeff! Like you mentioned, there is no way a machine will ever be able to understand human sarcasm - sometimes I don't even understand it! The important piece for us with this release is that we give our users a manageable amount of data to work with, so the manual piece is actually possible.
Aside from that, thanks for this really great round-up of posts here. @ginidietrich is one of my favorites. She put another post up earlier this week around integrating marketing and sales, it's a worthwhile read as well. Looking forward to reading everything else. Happy Halloween!
Great post Shonali! Love the tips - especially the one about not scheduling anything the week you get back. I've made that mistake as well. Now all I have to do is find the time to make for a vacation! ;)
These are really great points Justin, but I can't help but add to your first point that if you have the budget there are tools that will help you cut out a lot of time and money spent on compiling this data. One of my colleagues from Traackr actually recently wrote a post on manual influencer discovery and how costly it can become. You can check it out here - http://traackr.com/blog/2011/06/manual-influencer-discovery/.
I also appreciate how thorough you are in finding out who these people really are. Whether it's a mom or a 20-something single guy I totally agree that this kind of research needs to happen before reaching out.
cjstem ginidietrich Definitely, wasn't trying to keep that a secret - I'm an Account Manager with Traackr. I'm really sorry to hear about your experience with the tool. Unfortunately it is a bit difficult to be notified of things like this online, so while we do try to look out for them, they may get past us at times. We would never say we're perfect, but the approach we've been taking to influence as a contextual and dynamic idea has been one that others have caught on to and it has helped us get closer and closer to developing the most useful tool available for the space. I'd really like to hear the rest of your experience with the tool - we are always trying to find ways to improve. Please DM if you'd like.
cjstem ginidietrich Completely agree. There is no tool that will ever be able to completely replace human interaction (and shouldn't), but a good one will decrease the amount of time someone has to invest into finding the right people. Money and time saved in this process can be extremely significant.
Thanks for sharing these thoughts Gini!
A lot of the companies that claim to find influencers don't take context and relevance into consideration, which is really the most important piece of someone's influence. As you pointed out, the wild science adventure camp wasn't at all relevant to your client, but they showed up because in the very broad context of one keyword that you put in, they matched. It takes a lot more than putting in one keyword to come up with a full list of relevant influencers. If want to find people with more than high numbers and that are truly influential in a certain space, you have to find a tool that is much more comprehensive and be prepared to put some work into developing that list.
http://traackr.com
Thanks for the reference, Shonali. Here's the post - Influencers Can't Cure Suck http://traackr.com/blog/2011/03/influencers-cant-cure-suck/. On a side note, this a perfect post to share on a blog titled, "Spin Sucks" ;) Shonali Neicolec Howie Goldfarb
What a great post by Kary with some really great points! Defining goals is so important. You can have a great list of people, but if you don't appropriately interact with them, your campaign will be pointless. Making sure the list of influencers you have truly fit the campaign you're running is a great point too. What's the point of doing anything if the people aren't relevant to your campaign??
In the end whatever you end up doing, one thing is for sure - it doesn't just come down to a simple phone call and a follow-up e-mail anymore. A colleague of mine recently wrote about the importance of sharing an experience, not news, when it comes to influencer engagement. It was actually inspired from the very same SXSW panel as this one was. You can check it out here - http://traackr.com/blog/2011/03/influencer-engagement/
http://traackr.com