How to Find Solid Online Communications Counsel
Even though many are terrific people, I am stunned by how few leaders of PR firms have credible working experience in the online world and the digital era in which we are living and working. Hey, people! You are talented … get with it!
"The online conversation" by Brian Solis
Here are some practical and forward-looking thoughts that I’ve lifted from my new book – Making News in the Digital Era
- Ask who in agency leadership is active on Twitter, and whether are they engaging in conversations or just promoting/selling the agency? Get on Twitter yourself and check them out. Do they actually demonstrate understanding of social media or just talk about it?
- Visit an agency’s blogs. Are they one-way sales promotions, or are they engaging people in conversations and listening?
- Ask if any of them have personally gone through the process to register a domain name and launched a blog. If they answer, yes, ask for details because knowing such information is important for competently providing online communications counsel.
- Visit the agency’s YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Are they sharing good information, and are they reaching out to authentically connect?
- As thought leaders, what books or articles have agency leaders written, especially on today’s seismic shifts in communications? (This helps to cull out the talkers from the doers.)
Notice how most of the questions center around whether agencies themselves are engaging in the digital revolution. Anyone can create a blog today. A blog is no longer unique but the technical process of knowing how to get online is important.
You don’t need an agency to send out a press release into oblivion through a costly blast e-mail spam service. Just hire an intern.
What is really important is top-level strategic thinking focused on how technology is used to carry forward messages, image and reputation in order to successfully connect with audiences in this new world of communications.
But that is not necessarily the direction or the business model of most agencies today. Rather, it’s about money, and how much an agency can bill a client without being accused of larceny.
“I reviewed three PR agency proposals lately, and all seemed — though from very big agencies — archaic,” Steve Kayser shared with me. Kayser manages the online reputation of Cincom, a respected business software company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kayser is well known in the online world.
Steve Kayser (Twitter: @SteveKayser)
“They wanted about $400,000 per year to build a Web presence, strengthen the brand and introduce the company to social media. The first three months were to be spent on ‘immersing themselves in our business,’ or learning. Thereafter, the agencies said they would start building a Web site and one blog. Yet, their Web site concepts were dated and one-dimensional,” Kayser observed.
Prior to making their proposals, the three agencies had failed to discover that Kayser himself is a respected visionary and opinion leader in the blogging and online social media world. He is one of the best. Yet the agencies apparently were not active online, or had not bothered to find out. Clearly, they hadn’t done their homework.
“That immersing stuff is good work — if you can get it,” Kayser said with a chuckle. Incidentally, he solved his company’s online challenge by building the online sites himself at a fraction of the cost.
What Kayser experienced is common: Senior members of an agency, whose primary job is to find new clients, recycled old-school ideas, sometimes amateurishly wrapped in contemporary jargon. For professionals more knowledgeable about the digital revolution, such as Kayser and his company, the proposals from PR agencies do seem to be “archaic.”
Related posts:
- How-To Hire Online Communications Expertise
- Crisis Communications: It’s Online
- Great Online Communications: WP-Vybe
- Why Big PR Lacks Online Leadership/Expertise
- Online Newsroom vs. Online Cemetery
Category: Featured, Reputation management
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Dear David:
Thanks for the mention in your article. You provide an excellent checklist for doing due diligence (did I just use 3 “d” words in a row?) on a company offering online communications counsel.
One thing I think is under-mentioned and under-valued in this mix is the corporate newsroom. But not the stodgy dustbin repository of corporate gobbledygook that gets updated once every 2 years … but a social media newsroom like the one you put together for ISCnews.com — full of professional pictures and visuals, valuable information, ideas, insights and inspirational stories. And … all connected via social networks. The social media newsroom of the future will be driven by the quality of content – text – audio – video – in whatever format – told in an authentic storytelling style.
Sounds simple.
It isn’t.
Breaking the ingrained habit of publishing flim-flam-flummery (content with no value except company puffery) is a hard one to break. Just go to any website really. It seeps in. Is insidious. A good communications adviser will also help you break that corporate gobbledygook mindet
I like to point to ISCnews.com as a great example of what can be done — vs what is typically done.
Best
Steve
Thanks, Steve. You are absolutely correct about this new model for an actual working online newsroom. It’s a game changer for any company or organization wanting to get a competitive leap and one of today’s best ways to enhance brand trust and awareness.
Is that iscnewsroom.com which you’ve cited as a good example, Steve?