Author: Martin Keller

A quick show of hands: Who knows what an Editorial Calendar is?

Thought so. Nearly every magazine and many business newspapers produce an editorial calendar each year, targeting subjects that they will cover generally in any given week or month for the entire year— from regularly scheduled standing features and shorter stories to columns and other editorial content. Plus many, like the weekly Business Journals that are in many major cities, also feature a Special Focus section each week in which stories are assigned on the pre-selected topics. These can range from banking to health care to Human Resources to technology to green companies to minority-owned businesses to you name it.

The calendars are generally available as early as November and sometimes earlier in any current year. So, for example, for those reading this over the clang, sprits and gossip of your local coffee hang and having a hard time following my direction here, if you wanted to start planning for 2011 coverage, you could start it well before the new year rolls around.

These “edit cals,” as many of us call them in our breathless PR-speak (BPRS), present any company or PR practitioner a precise road map to follow. Follow it. Editors are always in search of companies to profile, experts to quote, or ideas to share about the many topics listed in the edit cal for any week or month. Pitching your story or expert two-to-four months in advance is recommended (although some magazines have lead times as long as six months or more!).

Most publications will post their edit cals online. But sometimes the myopic minions who post these magnificently helpful tools (MMWPTMHT) will place them NOT in or under any editorial section online, but in the Advertising section. Maybe they like to make a “Where’s Waldo?” sport of it, Where’s That Edit Cal?! Other publications will solicit your email address for you to obtain it. Go ahead, give it to them. You need the calendar more than you don’t want the aggravation of having your email sucked up by another online entity and having it bought and sold like so much college student information.

Edit Cals can be of great value as you execute your public relations line of duty. It is the print world’s way of saying, as the monster plant in “Little Shop of Horrors” says over and over again,” “FEED ME” (I prefer the 1960 Roger Corman-directed black-and-white movie version, featuring a very young Jack Nicholson as the masochist), if you’re following me here…

The first major summer holiday, Memorial Day, has come and gone. Only two more such long weekends will be here and vanished before you know it. Long Live Summer!

In deference to the nice weather in most parts of the country today (okay, threats are out there but so are comfy highs) — and to give my dear readers a break from my incessant PR expertise, informed rantings and sidetracked observations — this media savant would like to share another voice about “How to Manage Your Own PR: Ten tips for running a successful public-relations campaign.” I found these to be ideal for start-up or small companies that cannot at this early stage shell out for professional services yet.

Direct from the recent pages of Inc. magazine, these 10 pointers you are sure to find helpful (granted I have touched on some of them already but it’s nice for you to know, based on these tips from a big deal business source, that I am not a professional PR gasbag with absolutely no grasp of the basics).

In the future, meaning before fall is in the air, It would be great to address any questions you have about public or media relations, so feel free to email me at mkeller@mediasavantcom.com, or leave a Comment at the bottom of this blog and I’ll try to answer your questions in a future posting, when the grill (or is it another weekend kids’ soccer tournament?) is not calling under a blue sky with light winds, low humidity and few mosquitoes.

Enjoy the article!

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100501/how-to-manage-your-own-pr.html

Does your company have a crisis communications plan?

Regardless of size, every organization should have one for many reasons. First, you owe it to your constituents whether they are stakeholders, or users of the service you provide or the wiki you sell. Second, the public at large — and most definitely the news media — will demand to see responsible and swift action on your part to properly inform what is happening should a crisis ensue.

It’s hard not to think about what a good crisis communications plan could do for a company like Beyond Petroleum, which for the moment is deeply mired in its own PR oil slick down in the Gulf of Mexico. Undoubtedly they have such a plan, so why did it fail? Or why is it fialing? And it’s failing every hour that its underwater video footage runs parallel to the talking heads on TV and online at pick-any-site. Or is this simply a case where no amount of crisis planning can stem the petro tide of this really bad news?

Moreover this environmental tragedy has now become a PR problem all the way to the Obama White House and will spill into the fall elections most likely (although note here how the use of “spill” is appropriately used; if BP were more forthcoming, it would never have issued such a dainty word as “spill” to describe the rupturing, spewing, unrelenting gusher of oil that is flooding the gulf like a Biblical plague, and the news media would not keep re-enforcing its use by repeating it like a bad sheep mantra —“Ba Ram Spill” time and time again).

Let’s just skim the slimy surface of this issue for a moment and count five of the subtle and not-subtle ways the alleged crisis communications platforms splintered and fell into the goo:

1) Get the facts right, right away. The number of gallons of oil spewing into the gulf changed ridiculously in the first weeks of the event, soiling BP’s oily credibility right out of the pipe. Start with a bigger number, it’s easier to peel back to a smaller one once you have figured out the accurate amount blowing out of this voilcano.

2) Don’t toss the blame around. While BP has said it will do all that it can to contain the mess and compensate its victims (at least the human ones), they should have made some attempt to assume some overall responsibility for the problem in front of the congress and out in the gulf communities rather than saying or implying the other companies working on the rig should share the blame. Of course they should. But show some leadership, it has merit and demonstrates good faith, such as it is.

3) Make sure your short-term remedy is not worse than the long-term problem. A few stories generally outside of the mainstream media have covered the dispersants used to break up the oil and how it is allegedly sickening workers who have been exposed to it. Here again is another part of the PR disaster, a second head of the hydra, which could well expand in the days ahead, causing more trouble for company execs who just want their life back.

4) Don’t get punked online. Have you heard about the fake BP Twitter Feeds that have been polluting the cybergulf? Where were the company’s viral watchdogs to prevent these from even being up more than 20 minutes or more?

5) Work the crisis plan —and if the plan isn’t working, begin anew. Immediately. I’ve heard a variety of adjectives and expressions used to describe the PR effort and the people behind it and they range from “Neandrathals” to “a PR disaster” to “end of its PR rope” to “staining BP’s reputation” and many, many more. I have also read that the company is buying full-page ads as part of its PR plan. But the public, growing more cynical by the gallon of BP gas they don’t pump into their vehicles, is wise to paid media. They know and expect these mea culpa ads to appear but they are not in the end an effective way to handle the many challenges this crisis demands.

So what would you do?

It’s well established in Dr. John Gray’s best-selling book, Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, that males and females communicate differently when trying to relate to each other on different levels. While it’s a slippery slope in the universe of communications to equate this gender-based metaphor to the public relations arena, slide with me for a moment as we slip into the Twilight Zone where what you say to the public or your target market may not be heard the way you intended it to be…..

You may have hammered out your message for your latest news release on Thor’s mighty anvil, or poured over it with your PR contact until you were both soaked in sweat (sorry it’s summer — and I am out of old Greek god references). You might have trained to handle the tough questions on TV with smart sound bytes until you broke the retainer budget for the month. But something went wrong: You were not heard right.

Maybe a nuance was missed. Maybe you used a word or expression that doesn’t play well in one part of the country but works just fine in your backyard. Maybe you simply mis-framed what your message was and now you are force to play the “I misspoke” card, or resort to “let me try and rephrase that” line. And that’s okay…. happens all the time. But it doesn’t have to.

It wasn’t what you really said that made your bucket bottom fall out, it was how you were heard. Language is tricky. Communicating is a highly dynamic and fluid situation. Always consider your word choices wisely. Make your verbs the right ones, the verbiest, you might say. Can you pen something differently so that it gets heard right the first time?

Turn the tables and consider how your message will fall across that greater distance — and it is a kind of Twilight Zone — between you and the object of your communications. Your choice of words might suit the aims and intentions of whatever it is you are trying to convey. But how people hear it and more importantly, how they relate to it, is ultimately what counts.

You have sent out your news release. Now what? Get back to what you do best? Take a walk? Sit by the phone and wait? Most people who don’t have a public relations person in their company, or don’t use a PR advisor or agency often make the mistake of thinking that just because the news release went out that it will get “picked up.”

It might if the news is compelling, or it aligns with other stories like it in news cycle, and/or you have some history with the news organizations that you sent the release to. In my career I’ve met many people who have let a release fly but never once made a callback to follow up. “Media Relations” are all about following up, but there are some basic rules to follow when making “The Call.”

Rule 1

Never call and ask if the news release was received. What you are really calling about is why your story is important or plays off something making headlines that day. Or your story has a strong local angle to something occurring nationally or internationally.

Rule 2

Be succinct. If you’re lucky enough to get someone live on the phone, you have precious seconds to convince the other party that it merits their attention and coverage. Create a script if you need to that includes your key message. Rehearse. Call a colleague and practice it. But sound natural and not like you’re reading the ingredients off a can of soup.

Rule 3

Put on your Telemarketer Hat. The next time an annoying telemarketer calls you, rather than saying, “No thank you, you idiot, you are calling me during dinner yet again and there are laws to prevent these calls if only I wasn’t so lazy to call the number and be registered as part of the no-call zone, I would not have to listen to your sorry spiel, you must be really hard up for work, or lazier than I am. Goodbye!” Instead, listen to how they pitch whatever it is they’re selling, a politician, a new product, or service. Whatever it is, most likely the person has their message down and is ready to engage.

Rule 4

Set a callback limit. As a general rule I go by the three strikes and you’re out limit — meaning, I’ve tried three times and left three messages. Depending on the client or the urgency, I may not leave a message at all but just keep calling until I get a live one on the line. If I’m using email, once or twice is enough. If I haven’t made my case but feel I really need to push — and this story is really worth being told by a TV station or section of the newspaper — I’ll keep trying and maybe reposition my pitch.

Rule 5

Be discreet. There’s a fine line between being persistent and being a pest. It doesn’t take much to land on somebody’s black list if you’ve breached their tolerance level or filled up their email with the same message over and over again. To paraphrase the great Joe South song, “walk a mile in their shoes,” and make The Call confidently, expecting only good results.

A longtime client asked me to post a news release to the media last Friday. I gulped and said to myself, “Where have I gone wrong? How many times I have I told them, ‘Any day but Friday?’ Am I totally not communicating clearly in my media savant communications capacity?” Gulp, and gulp again…. “Can I home go home yet?”

But, being of service, I obliged.

Today said client emailed and said there seemed to be no action on the release. I promised to look into it, which means calling the usual suspects and most likely resending the news release to a handful of them.

Why is Friday such a bad day to send a news release? Simply because it is the end of the work week. Unless you have breaking news that can’t wait, it’s a day better left to other endeavors. Ditto for Monday, when people are just getting back into the work week and also getting inundated with news releases, plus taking the regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting while jumping onto a bunch of other multitasks.

On the other hand, plenty of organizations do freely send out releases on Friday, late Friday, too — news that is rarely “good.” These parties are usually large corporations that misfired (the recall of Motrin story broke Saturday so I’m guessing — only guessing — this was a Friday release — see the story link here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6401AK20100501). Or a branch of the federal government that screwed up or was slow to react to other news (notice how Obama arrived over the weekend to visit the growing Oil catastrophe in the gulf). Or a tarnished political org (pick an org, any org), hoping this news goes unnoticed. Ha!

I’m guessing no one in media — especially at the big news media outlets — has ever missed a “bad news” news release that was sent on Friday afternoon when most people’s thoughts are turning to what the weekend has in store for them. While the press and broadcast media all staff for the weekend, the available resources are usually thin. And getting thinner.

Over the past two years, the lousy economy has decimated the ranks of those working in media — yet another reason to consider what day of the week to send your news release. Of course, PR is about much more than just sending a news release.

But you knew that already. Didn’t you?

Gulp.

In my PR career, I’ve heard some unbelievable things people have said about “The Media.” Things that made “The Media” out to be some kind of monolithic machine, the political equivalent of the Teabagger viewpoint about “The Government” (as if “The Government” were one entity. Seriously, are they mad at the Department of Agriculture, or The Business Transformation Office over at the Department of Defense?!)

Still, the big bad “Media” is there to report news and if you have bad news, it generally will be reported in some fashion. There are ways, however, to diffuse the fear or anxiety of dealing with “The Media.” Some of these true examples hopefully underscore my point:

1) “Are they going to look for skeletons?” asked one worried small business owner who was going to be profiled. If the business desk is assigning an Investigative Reporter to your story, yes. However General Assignment reporters are not there to dig up the dirt and look for bones, they simply want your story. They don’t have another agenda. Having a good media kit and key messages in place to hand off to someone in the media puts up guardrails to help focus your business or issues on what’s important and positive.

2) “Can I review the story before it’s written?” Hardly ever, although sometimes the rare reporter who gets really want to get it right, or is challenged by a complex issue about something your company does, or something you did, will let you review for accuracy but not content changes. That’s why media training in advance of interviews with “The Media” to stay on message is a good thing to do.

3) “I have an event on Friday night that I would love to get some coverage of before that, can it happen?” asked someone once in a cold call two days before the event. Unless you’ve got the president of the US or Leonardo DiCaprio at your shindig — or have truly invented a whizbang device that no one has ever seen before — chances are almost nil.

Even with a news cycle that turns over 10 times a day or more on the internet, sufficient lead times are important to adhere to. Give yourself — or your PR person a few weeks in advance of when you want your story “out there” to contact the right person in “The Media” (Note: Magazines are often working 4-6 months ahead of real time.) Breaking News is one thing that gets instant coverage, but that is usually a tragedy of some sort unfolding or a national or international incident (although these days, a celebrity marriage break up or drug bust, or even a car chase in Oklahoma, unfortunately qualify). Investor Relations is a whole other universe, and we won’t go there today.

4) “The Media” will make my company famous. Well, it could. Overall, a few stories well placed will increase your visibility, hopefully help drive sales and/or achieve some of the objectives you set forth once you engaged a PR company or put your PR strategy into motion.

But let’s be realistic. Most overnight success stories I know of took 10 years of hard work. PR — as a wise friend once described it — is like drip irrigation in the desert: Droplets of water falling on the plant eventually produce a bloom, and if you’re lucky, fruit.

5) “Can I get the photo/video/radio interview The Media?” Generally no. It becomes the intellectual property of the paper, television or radio station. You can get back copies or links of the paper you need for a price. And there are services to obtain DVD copies or links to something that ran on TV, or a radio interview. Usually all such copies come with legal guidelines about how the material may or may not be used. Always have your own photos on hand (sometimes “The Media” will request it — and maybe even your own b-roll — footage that tells your story in images as background, if appropriate).

Remember, dealing with “The Media” is like dealing with other human beings. Sure, people working in the profession hold a power to magnify what you do. But the last time I checked, those doing it were like you and me, 90% water.

What do the month of May, the 50^th anniversary of the Pill and a pending big bill for rental tuxedos and pretty dresses have in common?

If you guessed the Prom, you’re about half right — and, some would say, maybe a little morally jaded. But if you have a news announcement that can somehow be pegged to the season, or an event in history like The Pill after five decades, you have got a solid news hook to exploit. Maybe you have a similar birth control issue, or a clinic or hospital that does reproductive research of some kind. Maybe you work with an organization or individual that is against the Pill and has published something, or lectured about it.

In any event, the media loves to hang stories on anniversary dates, seasonal occasions and headline trends. The coming month of May is traditionally a big month for weddings. Got a new type of wedding gift or gadget, or maybe you’ve reinvented the perfect wedding ceremony? This is a good month to go to your local media, or if it’s a really hot story, national newspapers and broadcast. The big national magazines that cover this stuff will have already done their wedding and wedding-related stories a few months ago so that these magazines are on newsstands right at the end of April, staring out at you like forlorn single people in search of the perfect mate. But you could see if any of their writers are blogging.

Find your killer PR theme in the procession of seasons and in traditional month-based occasions like The Prom, weddings, and, of course, Mother’s Day. Your chances of coverage will improve greatly. Which reminds me, the bill for my kids’ rental of tuxes and dresses are due about the same time as Mother’s Day, since they’re all in our former babysitter’s big fat wedding. It’s the price one has to pay for the ties that bind.

There are awards for everything and you don’t have too look far to find them. Why just this week there were four award-related pieces of business on Media Savant’s radar. The first was a Media Alert drafted for the news about Token Media (http://www.token.com/shortfilms) and its film-making crew (that extends into the greater Twin Cities community) winning the national 48-Hour short film festival and having another film place first runner-up in the world (out of 3,000 entries). The second was a request from some ad agency pals at Morsekode (www.Moresekode.com) wanting their peeps to vote for them in the annual Webby Awards (come, on, help ‘em out by clicking on Healthcare Lane at: http://webby.aol.com/services/insurance !)

The third was drafting an award announcement for Creative Water Solutions, the coolest natural, greenest water conditioning/treatment company in the world (www.cwsnaturally.com). It recently won two awards for its game-changing use of sphagnum moss to dramatically reduce chemicals loads, maintenance times, and damage to pool and spa equipments and the irritating side effects to pool and spa users like burning eyes, dry scalp and hair, etc.

The fourth was by way of subscribed information from the brilliant and practical minds at Iconoculture (www.iconoculture.com), which sent this notice out along with other newsy, cultural trends and insights:

The AmeriStar competition is billed as the Oscars of the packaging industry by the Institute of Packaging Professionals, the nonprofit org that sponsors the contest. The clothes, hairstyles and gossip aren’t quite as over the top as a Hollywood affair, but the emotions displayed are authentic and the camaraderie among the guests can be inspiring.

The winners — people with titles like packaging engineer, graphic designer and R&D director — finally get recognized for all their hard work.

Should clients seek awards as a way of raising their visibility? It depends on how you leverage them. The entry process can be time-consuming for your PR person and you. Unless you have won a prestigious-plus award like The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, or a similar one, you probably won’t get a feature news story out of it but rather a few sentences in local media publications. So why do it?

A true client experience says it all. A few years ago, the founder and CEO of a leading remodeling company/client that had won literally 30 or 40 awards for its work, warily asked in a meeting if we should enter the XYZ awards again.

“Gee, we’ve won it so often I wonder if it even matters any more,” he sighed.

“How do you customers feel about awards? I asked.

“They like them, they like to see us win them even more.” And there was his answer.

Awards are often critical for building your credibility within your industry and in the public at large, and occasionally you also will get media exposure for it. Now… here are the forms for the next one, due in about three days. Better get crackin’ .