Sherry Namburi

I recently went to a conference in College Park, Md. called Power Shift 2007. This conference was suppose to get the attention of our noble members of Congress by uniting more than 5,000 students for the first youth summit on a national scale. Power Shift’s website is now filled with multimedia gathered from this past weekend.

In Scott’s book, he talks about the online media room and providing content for consumers of the news. Bloggers, such as myself, gather information from places like Power Shift and spread the word to our readers (though I am probably the sole reader of my own blog, besides my professor).

Indeed, Power Shift does have a newsroom tab at the top. It contains two press kits/packets and about seven different sizes of flyers. Also included is a small logo of the conference. Below those press items are links to where Power Shift was seen in the news.

Included is an organization blog that is sadly lacking in personal opinion and experiences. It’s pretty much just like the main page except with more detailed information of the group’s agenda.

Video equipment was provided to some attendees of the conference to record various activities during the weekend. These videos can be found on the main page of Power Shift, as well as on YouTube.

I think they need to provide an RSS feed for bloggers who want to stay updated on news about legislation and the media affected by Power Shift. Overall, they have most of the components of a successful newsroom according to Scott.

I understand the importance of using whatever resources and advantages the Web has to offer. If it’s there, why not? Right? Before Robert’s class, I had never heard of these social media networking and tagging sites like Technorati, digg, del.icio.us, and Twitter. Many of my classmates, though some will not admit it, were unfamiliar with those names, too.

After some exposure to those social media sites, I still don’t regularly use them. I’m uncertain whether it’s just because I’m not getting the total picture about why these sites are useful or if they’re just used to monitor client exposure. The latter doesn’t apply to me. I don’t have a client, so I don’t care how many “diggs” I get.

However, if I were to engage in Scott’s methods of  marketing and public relations, I think I would have to finally start paying attention to these new fangled sites. Scott certainly seems to think a lot of them, and Robert certainly always makes a point to mention them in class.

The final project seems to loom over our heads as we get closer to the end of the semester.  I’d have to meticulously come up with tags and constantly check digg for ratings. After that, I’d have to tweak the tagging and digg ratings to make people find my client more easily.  Oh- I just realized that it’s a full time job to get people’s attention. No wonder marketing and pr people have jobs.

We recently had a test where we had to explain our views for or against whether social media releases were going to replace traditional releases. I gather from the book that Scott seems to think this will happen eventually.

As I wrote on my test, I think that social media will simply be another of the multitude of methods needed to reach different audiences. It works on the younger, more Web- savvy audiences. The traditional releases get more attention from the older, more conventional journalists. Yes, journalists because that is the primary audience for the traditionally formatted releases.

Sending out a a variety of types of releases will only help to increase the amount of people who will be reached by your company’s message. Although, as Scott mentions, reaching the right people is very important as not to waste time, money and effort.

Nevertheless, sometimes it is necessary or better to have an extensive method than an exclusive or selective method. For example, the release of a revolutionary robotic toy could interests all sects of the population. Kids, teens, parents and older adults could all be potential consumers of the toy.  A national roll-out would probably be best for this type of product and goals.

Niche products or services, however, are a different story. Finding out exactly who wants that specialty product and how they are getting their information would be crucial to avoid wasting resources.  In this case, social media releases would prove to be most beneficial because you can target the audience in a more precise manner.

So,  the traditional method  combined with the new media method could be a potent combination in helping organizations reach who they want and how they want. To say that the traditional method is dying is faulty, but I would agree that it will eventually shrivel. You have to keep in mind that most of the PR practitioners out there are still using traditional methods. In fact, only a small percentage even know what social media means.

In Ch. 12 “How to Write for Your Buyers”, Scott said that we need to stop using “gobbledygook adjectives.” I was surprised to find his lists of useless adjectives included words and phrases like leading, we’re excited about…, solutions, industry standard, and flexible.

What else could we use for these basic words that have evolved, obviously, from a need to describe something? Other words for flexible are adaptable, adjustable, alterable, changeable, elastic, fluid, malleable, modifiable, and variable (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). I’d rather just stick with flexible because it seems to be the most dumbed-down version of what I originally intended, compared to the synonyms.

Which brings me to my point that even though we’re constantly faced with advances in technology, we seem to want to make everything dumber or more user-friendly. As technology grows, we spend less time advancing our intelligence and using our gray matter. We spend more time figuring out ways to let a machine do a task then we sometimes do actually performing it.

Case in point- look what calculators have done to my generation in this country. How many college students can do simple arithmetic mentally in a reasonable amount of time? Hmm…maybe our fingers will continue to evolve into longer, more agile instruments for button pushing. Maybe that’s why aliens are always depicted with freakishly long digits.

I guess one could argue that since the accessibility of the Internet is increasing, more of population without advanced education can now be reached. Thus, we need to stop using the language of the elite if we want to reach vast audiences.

Formal English is being debauched and butchered anyways. Case in point- it’s becoming more acceptable to use improper sentence structures, especially in ethnic communities, even if you’re not of that ethnicity. Songs titles like “Way I Are” and phrases like “what it is?” have crept surreptitiously into our vocabulary. It’s no wonder we have to dumb everything down.

I do understand the point Scott is making in this chapter. Sometimes, corporate and industry talk is like political talk. A lot of fancy words that go nowhere and end up back at the starting line. You’re left asking yourself “what did he mean?” Nevertheless, don’t discard a word just because you’re afraid it’s too sophisticated if it adequately describes what you intended.

People can tell if you’re talking down to them or making it too simple. There’s nothing more annoying or insulting than someone that thinks you’re too dumb to comprehend the words used by an industry. Also trying to be too hip/trendy usually backfires. A company that is condescending by those methods usually gets the boomerang effect of message rejection. So until next week, peace out.

Another chapter in the book…

According to Scott, some tips for getting a company’s “thought leadership” content into the “marketplace of ideas” are:

• writing solutions to problems without advertising
• understanding your audience
• determining registration requirements
• figuring out you goal
• writing specific information for target audience
• getting an eye-catching title
• promoting the content
• trying to make it go viral

This all sounds like a great idea (if somewhat redundant with other chapters, but then again, this book reminds me of the self-help type manuals). I would, however, like to add something to this section. Every Web site, whether it’s just a personal blog or a company site, needs some aura of credibility.

From experience I know that I look for some mark of credibility or credentials before I even seriously consider the information on a Web site. This is especially important for companies that aren’t already established as household names. I would get a third-party expert, testing facility, or related credentials in the content as much as possible.

My passion is culinary arts, and I visit a lot of Web sites related to food and food culture. Let’s say I would like to promote my new bakery. I attempt to become a thought leader by writing e-mail newsletters, as well as putting up content on my site, about solutions to common baking problems and techniques for better baked goods. I’m a nobody in the industry! Who’s going to trust me enough to take my information?

I would need some credentials, like maybe a diploma from culinary school. I would also try to get my information reviewed by as many people as possible. I could send it out to testers or a test audience who’d be willing to try my techniques or recipes. Then I could use this information in statistics like “95 of the 100 who tried this found it to be effective.” Getting it reviewed and published by a credible source like Cook’s Illustrated or Food Network would really be effective in establishing thought leadership.

Only after the audience perceives the information as credible will they accept your company as a thought leader. Not just anyone with helpful information can get the audience to accept the message. I guess this all goes back around to my communication class…

Scott mentions that a sprinkling of fairy dust is that little something special and indescribable in making a Web site just right (pg. 108). He goes on to say that the fairy dust is the key to understanding your audience and putting up content built for their needs and interests. After reading his glowing praises of the National Resources Defense Council’s Web site, I decided to check it out for myself.

I have to admit I was skeptical of all the content mentioned such as the numerous widgets of facebook, digg, del.icio.us and “badges”. How would these social tools work alongside the other multimedia content without looking busy and tacky?

I thought of Myspace.com. I cringe every time I think of the graphical layout of the pages, all cramped and amateurish. It is a site run by teens who try to fit everything onto one page. Just think of the indiscriminate scrolling requirements- not only vertically but horizontally! Ick!

The NRDC’s Web site impressed me with it’s clean layout. The graphical design aspects were pleasing. Most impressive was how the NRDC managed to fit so much information so neatly into each corner. Navigation was a breeze. There’s even a search engine box displayed in the upper right hand corner of each page. Press releases line the right margin on almost every page.

The layout of the Web site makes me want to go back and explore the information tucked into the NRDC. I know you shouldn’t judge something on it’s appearances, but looks are the first thing you see. If a site had an unpleasing, boring appearance, usually I won’t try too hard to venture into its content. The design of a Web site is important in grabbing attention. The content is what holds them there.

Wikis are great in helping people find information that might not be available in formal ways or sources. Although I find them very useful as a starting place for research, I know some professionals and teachers who advocate against using them. Their number one complaint is that wikis can be created and edited by any no name user. Traditionally, experts were the only people who could write about subjects or topics. There were too many gatekeepers for someone like me, for example, to write extensively about a topic.

This argument can also be used against the opponents of wikis. Since wikis can be edited by anyone, the ease of challenging or correcting any obvious errors works to keeps information pretty accurate. Peer review works at its best in Wikipedia. At the time of publication, Scott said that there are over 1.3 million entries in Wikipedia. Now, there are 2,015,383 entries.

There are some levels of control at Wikipedia. Wikipedia says,”A variety of software assisted systems and automated programs help several hundred editors to watch for problematic edits and editors. An arbitration committee sits at the top of all editorial and editor conduct disputes.”Also, as mentioned above, peer review is essential in helping them keep up the high quality in articles.

Blogs are a little less organized and more informal. As with everything, you should be skeptical of all information. There is nothing wrong with using blogs as a starting point for research. I remember doing some research on the relatively new concept of social media news releases and being flustered by the lack on information from standard sources. I found a wealth of information, however, on blogs.

As long as there is a place for readers to comment and challenge a blogger’s or wiki user’s infopinions, I think these two mediums are fantastic and indispensable veins of information.

In Ch. 5 of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Colin Smith of WebEx told David Meerman Scott that AP Style guidelines sometimes take a back seat to keywords and phrases as they become more crucial in searches. I never completely understood the need for such strict, overly picky AP Style rules myself, and knowing that it is ok to bypass that rigid structure in online news releases pleases me immensely. After all, what regular Joe end user of the direct-to-consumer releases is going to care and know about AP Style?

Consumers want keywords and phrases that are relevant to their search, and the more specific the keywords, the better a company’s chances of grabbing that user’s attention. These online direct-to-consumer news releases are great methods to immediately alert the world of whatever information you want to disseminate. Why wait for the old press releases to reach the newsroom, get picked up by a journalist who decides to pursue the matter, and then for the printing? Scott essentially says the Internet allows us to bypass these traditional gatekeepers so that companies can reach groups with specialized interests.

Everyone is pulling information now instead of the old push method of information dissemination. So companies are realizing the new tactic of reaching consumers directly is by communicating with them directly via their websites.  Whether it be obscure bands wanting to hook new fans by using podcasts like Scott mentions, or these new medical websites where physicians diagnose symptoms without ever seeing the patient, the Internet definitely has changed the way we’re living and processing information.

In The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott highlights some of the observations he and many others have seen in recent years with marketing tactics. Quite simply, no one is paying attention to traditional marketing, especially people in my age range. Sure, an expensive catchy ad might capture our attention for a second or two, but that doesn’t translate to us buying the product.

The rules have changed due to the increased usage of the Internet and availability of online content that helps consumers find out information faster and easier. The new consumers don’t want to be bombarded with random ads for products and services they don’t want or need. Like others, I already know what I’m looking for when I start looking on the internet, or I know generally what I’m trying to find.

I agree completely with Scott that marketing and PR are now integrated fields. Both have overlapping functions that can help benefit the consumers and company. Good marketing is good PR, and good PR is good marketing. Both are essential to the survival and growth of a company.

There is no doubt that with globalization and countries like China growing stronger economically, the Internet is only going to be more crucial to new and established companies in helping market their products worldwide. Their online presence could hold the key to whether they make it in a worldwide economy. With that in mind, they need to keep consumers’ needs as the main focus to distinguish themselves from all the others. And that is where good PR comes into the spotlight.

David Meerman Scott’s Website can be found at http://www.davidmeermanscott.com and his blog is at http://www.webinknow.com.