Influential Marketing Blog

The Personality Project: Women of Personality

There are generally three kinds of ideas. The most popular two are the ones that you act on right away and those that you never do anything about. Those are the majority. Most of us love the third kind. Those are the ideas that are too big or complex or important to do quickly, but that you simply cannot let die because of how you feel about them. Today I finally launched that kind of idea. Since Personality Not Included came out about a year ago - I have been getting emails from people sharing their experience with the book and how they felt about it's main premise that businesses (like people) need to have a strong and authentic personality.

Soon after the book launched, I noticed that many of these emails were coming from women working in professional roles and those that had started their own businesses. These female entrepreneurs were responding to the message of personality in a way that I didn't expect. So since that moment I started thinking about bringing those voices together. Of course, part of the reason would be to promote my book ... but like most authors the important thing for me was for my idea to find a home and actually help people change their careers or make their business more successful.

So today, you can download a free ebook called "The Personality Project: Women of Personality." It is an extension of a site that I launched some time ago with a similar mission - to get visionary people in many industries to talk about why personality matters. This ebook features 20 business women that I respect and admire who each agreed to share their story as part of the ebook. These include founders and CEOs, best selling authors, popular bloggers and online personalities and even the first woman to ever row solo across the Atlantic Ocean (and she's now making her way across the Pacific).

See the ebook embedded below and click on it to download a free PDF copy:

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Books marketing blogs

Once you get a chance to read it, please visit each of the contributors sites and blogs, buy their books and support their efforts. The best thing you can do is to validate their ideas and use their examples to improve your own business and your career. And then let them know they made a difference.

PS - If you mention this ebook on your blog or twitter or facebook or anywhere else online, use the tag #wop (on Twitter) or "WOP" (anywhere else) as this is the one that all the contributors will be watching and responding to.

6 Ways Ford Is Finding Its Own Voice

Yesterday evening I co-hosted a tweetup in New York City where Ford was unveiling the new Ford Fiesta and a brilliantly conceived social media program to get 100 influencers to take the car on an extended test drive for 6 months as part of the Ford Fiesta Movement. The event was a gathering designed to help put a more human face on Ford and talk about a new Ford car that many of the 20 and 30 somethings who showed up (and are the target market for the Fiesta) may not have known about.

The effort is just one example of a greater shift that has been taking place at Ford over the past year as the company has worked to not only reshape its image in the eyes of the American public, but also to change the way that they tell the story of Ford. It is a rich story to tell, one that is linked to the history of America in a way that few companies can authentically claim. And despite being in the maligned automotive industry that seems a permanent fixture in the negative news cycle, things are changing at Ford. How are they managing to do it? Here are six elements to consider:

1. Having a strong story to tell. In the midst of all the scrutiny, Ford is (and has been) shifting their image from stodgy truck maker to a more forward thinking company making cars that the American public actually want to drive. The relaunched Taurus was a hit, winning top safety ratings - the Flex has had rave reviews, and other cars like the Fusion and Focus are winning many fans.
2. Tapping the passion of employees. Ford has always described itself as a family, and employees often demonstrate a stunning loyalty to the company ... even describing themselves in terms of the cars they have always driven. The old mode of communications would be to keep all these voices silent, and instead only authorize a small group of people to speak on behalf of Ford. Today many of these voices are being encouraged to speak and share their thoughts and experiences online.
3. Making a commitment to social media. Social media has played a big part in this evolution to using the voices of "accidental spokespeople." Scott Monty was hired nearly a year ago as the Head of Social Media for Ford and has actively been offering a voice to the brand and adding social media as a core element of all their communications.
4. Getting out of Detroit. One of the most powerful effects of this shift has been a willingness for even the most senior members of the management team at Ford to get out of Detroit and meet customers. Ford's President of the Americas, Mark Fields and Ray Day (the VP of Communications) even came to the Tweetup last night. Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford showed up to a blogger event during the Consumer Electronics Show (in a sweatshirt instead of a suit and tie!) and stayed graciously for nearly an hour answering questions and doing podcast interviews.
5. Capitalizing on being Ford. There are not many companies that are as visibly at the epicenter of the American economy as Ford is. Like it or not, the success or failure of Ford is seen by many as a symbol of the success or failure of America. From a communications point of view, this is a major positive ... for the simple reason that the fate of Ford matters to people in a way that AIG or Enron just don't (unless you're a shareholder, of course)
6. Overcoming the American ego. One of the most interesting things for me has been Ford's recent willingness to take cars that have been huge commercial successes overseas and introduce them to the United States market (like the Fiesta and the Transit Connect). For many years, most of Detroit would never have considered taking these foreign cars and allowing them to be revised and sold in America. Finally ego and turf wars are taking a back seat to solid business decisions and introducing cars best suited to succeed.

Any other lessons you think Ford has learned which are contributing to their growing reputation?  Or if you think one (or all) of my points are completely off base, leave a comment and share that point of view too.

Disclaimer: I currently work for Ogilvy and Ford is a client of our team. The Ford Fiesta Tweetup was an official party organized as part of our efforts with Ford and I was on the team that helped organize these events. I have NOT been paid or compensated by Ford to write this blog post, though - and the opinions I share in this post are my personal views only and don't represent what Ogilvy, WPP or Team Detroit thinks about Ford.

What Journalists Should Know About PR People

Yesterday I wrote a post about what all PR people should know about journalists.  One of the most frequent comments to that post was a request from many readers that I take the opposite approach and share what journalists and the media should know about PR people. So here's a starting list of what media should know about PR people:

1. Our own client's time isn't always ours. Often we would like nothing more than to have our client's entire rolodex at our disposal so we can accomodate any window you give us ... but sometimes it doesn't work that way.  Often, the person you most want to talk to for your story is also the busiest and hardest person to schedule. So give us a break if we can't always make it happen for you.
2. Sometimes we have to dump you for a better offer too. Admit it, if you found a better and more on point quote or source for your story, you'd dump us and our client to use it in a second. Just remember that sometimes we have the same situation. If a bigger or more relevant media outlet comes along and wants to do a story, we have to take it. Remember, we're all professionals trying to do the best job we can.
3. Cancellations are worse for us than for you. We hate to cancel a meeting or phone interview as much as you. Actually, we probably hate it even more than you ... because we know that not only are we reducing our credibility with you, but we're also making it harder for us to get future media for that client and it means we'll have to do twice the work.
4. The angle you're looking for isn't obvious. You may have a very clear idea of the story you want to write and feel that you have been forthcoming with it, but sometimes we don't get that picture as clearly as you think we do. So when we pitch a client or a story angle, sometimes it's not because we're trying to spam you, but because we are not quite sure how you'll write your story and think that we're on target.
5. Your promises become our promises. We know we shouldn't do this, but in a world of tight deadlines and clients demanding constant updates, often what you promise to us becomes our promise to the client. So if you don't follow through or decide to take a different angle, we're the ones that look bad. The best thing you can do is either avoid making a promise, or follow through.
6. Remember all the great stuff we do for you. We offer you writing that you can lift and claim as your own. We share new story ideas with you to make your job easier. We invite you to great press events, give you bags of schwag and treat you like royalty. In return, we have our ideas taken and used with no credit, are often treated poorly by clients and media alike and blasted as being "masters of spin" or "flacks." It's no wonder the PR industry as a whole has an inferiority complex. Just remember that it is often PR people that offer the infrastructure to let you do what you do. We don't need hugs or anything, but at least remember that the next time you want to "out" a PR person on your blog for sending you something that wasn't exactly on target.

NOTE: This post is a response to comments from many readers on my last post about "What PR People Should Know About Journalists." Before I was able to post this, Thomas Lee at 451 Marketing also wrote a similar response post worth checking out.

What All PR People Should Know About Journalists

There was a movie released several years ago where Mel Gibson played a character that was struck by lightning and all of a sudden was able to hear women's thoughts. His character was an ad agency executive (the unfortunate default Hollywood stereotype of choice to signify that he was a bit of an ass), and with his new power he uncovered many truths about women he would never have otherwise known. What does this have to do with PR you ask? Over the past several months, I've had the opportunity to attend several events registered as a member of the media as a result of my blogging and contributions to online publications. Being part of the media at these events, and having my blog has given me the chance to see hundreds of pitches and experience PR as a "target."

In those times, I've started to realize many things about the world of public relations that most journalists know and many PR professionals are blissfully unaware of. Though I typically describe myself first as a marketer and second as working in a large PR agency ... this education has been invaluable for me to understand the world of PR and how to work with my teammates better, as well as how to be more effective in a PR environment. Here are a few of the lessons I've learned that I'd like to share:

1. Your BS is obvious. Many journalists would describe their roles are professional truth-seekers. In this capacity, they are naturally skeptical and this combination means that their bullsh*t meters are higher than most. So don't bother with the press releases about hiring your new VP of Sales that no one has ever heard of. Not only don't they care, they can smell it coming from a mile away.
2. Timing trumps all. Journalists work with tight and sometimes unreasonable deadlines. As a result, they may not care about what you're pitching until they are right in the middle of it. Then they care a lot. What this means is that sometimes you need to focus less on what your message is, and more on when you deliver it. The good news is that as more journalists use tools like Twitter or Facebook to update their status, it is easier to know when is a good time to connect with them and when you might want to hold off on sending that email.
3. Reputation matters. Delivering the right source for a story or failing to deliver is something that members of the press will usually remember. Having interviews fall through at the last minute can cause big problems for journalists on tight deadlines, so you need to manage your reputation and relationships extremely well. Burn a reporter once and you'll be fighting an uphill battle the next time. Have it happen twice and you may as well give up any hope of placing a future story.
4. Features are not as important as an angle. This may seem obvious, but it's amazing how many pitches focus on all the great features of a new product or service. Or all the things it can do for its customers. Journalists are trying to build a story. So give them one to report about your product instead of just offering the facts. This often means giving context to those features and sharing the backstory behind them.
5. Speed and contactability can make the difference. Another thing that social media tools can offer you is the ability to be "always on" for people to connect with you. Sometimes that's not a good thing and unplugging is a necessity for all of us ... but giving journalists multiple ways to contact you and being available when they need a question answered is critical to getting your story included.
6. Peer pitching works. It is much easier to "pitch" a story if a member of the media could consider you a peer instead of a hired flack selling a story. I have often called this concept "circular media" - the idea that each of us can be part of the media for the content we create, and it is easier to relate to one another on this level. Not only is this good for relationships, but it also helps you to sympathize with journalists if you yourself are on the receiving end of more than a few clueless pitches.

Update - Read a post from the opposite point of view ... What Journalists Should Know About PR People

The Rise Of The Shadow Media

Several weeks ago, BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine shared a term in one of his predictions for 2009 that was intriguing because of how it describes a growing phenomenon in media today … the rise of the shadow media. The shadow media are the professional journalists, writers, editors and thought leaders who have been displaced either by choice or necessity as part of the upheaval that traditional media has been going through over the past few years. While before, these content creators may have just moved to a new role within traditional media (as Josh Quittner did when Business2.0 magazine folded) - but today more and more they are branching out on their own.

The result is a big trend that may start to redefine social media as we currently see it: namely that blogs, social networks and other forms of “new media” aren’t just for amateurs anymore. For some time now, respected journalists like Om Malik, Kara Swisher, Erick Schonfeld and dozens of others have been actively blogging. Engadget is the official media source for the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, and arguably will be the defacto media source of coverage for the event though there are many traditional publications attending as well.

It may seem like a stretch to refer to all of this as “shadow media” - and indeed some of these classifications are artificial to start with. But regardless of what you call these new sources of news and information, the indisputable fact is that in 2009 there will be many social media examples to point to where the quality is as good if not better than traditional media sources. So if you’re working in a communications role and you’re not yet focusing on social media … consider the shadow media phenomenon your wake up call to start in 2009.

NOTE: This blog post is reposted from the original on Ogilvy's 360 Digital Influence blog.

Buy My Second Book Today (And Save The World)

Ok, before I get into too much trouble - let me explain. Today is the release of a project that I am honored to be involved in, and you could arguably call my second book, though I am sharing author credit with 236 other authors I highly respect. The book is called Age of Conversation 2, and is an exploration of social media and its impact on business. Engagingly subtitled "Why don't they get it?" the book is broken down into 8 key topics:

    * Manifestos
    * Keeping Secrets in the Age of Conversation
    * Moving from Conversation to Action?
    * The Accidental Marketer
    * A New Brand of Creative
    * My Marketing Tragedy
    * Business Model Evolution
    * Life in the Conversation Lane

I chose the "Manifestos" topic for my contribution, because it seemed like a big idea, and also because I knew it would come first in the book so my contribution would be earlier in the mix of over 200 others. That plan clearly worked, because my article titled "The Control Myth: An Inside Look At The Worst Advice In Marketing Today" is on page 5 (I can't help it, I'm a marketer even in a room full of marketers!).

Though I was not part of the first edition of Age of Conversation, that was also a great compilation, and this time around the project is twice the size and has contributions from many authors, bloggers and others that you will definitely recognize. No matter if you are a pro and already understand much of this world, or someone trying to figure it out, I guarantee you will find lots to learn from in this book. And you'll also help a worthy cause as all the proceeds from the book go to benefit Variety, the Children's Charity.

So what are you waiting for? Visit http://stores.lulu.com/ageofconversation and get your copy of Age of Conversation 2 in digital or print format. And flip to page 5 to see my counterintuitive contribution about control and branding. I'll give you a hint ... the future is NOT about giving up control. That's the control myth and in my piece I share the perception shift required to get past it.

Full Author List For Age of Conversation 2:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

 

7 Ways To Publish A Book For Marketing

I love books. Not just for the power of conveying an idea through a printed form, but also for the emotional significance of actually holding a book in your hands. More and more recently I have been books become a brilliant marketing tool for everyone, from political candidates to technology companies. Along the way, there are several ideas that I have collected for how using a book could be an effective part of a marketing strategy. Here are a few:

1. Explain a complex idea - Some businesses or product lines are based on something complex that is not easily understood. One example of using a book to explain a concept like this was a book Microsoft was handing out earlier this year at CES about their Windows Home Server product. It was called "Mommy, Why Is There a Server in the House?" and took a kids book approach to explaining why anyone would want a server in their home.
2. Commission an existing author or writer - This can be a great way to build on an existing author's profile and audience by working with him or her to commission a new piece. Hilton Hotels used this strategy as part of their Olympic marketing effort when they commissioned an award-winning kids author named Todd Parr to create a new book for them around their marketing tagline "Be Hospitable." Johnson & Johnson used a similar strategy back in 2002 with Understanding Children, a book they supported the creation of from Richard Saul Wurman (well known author and creator of the TED conference).
3. Partner with a "co-author" - There are two types of situations to use a co-author - the first is if you are actually a team and share similar ideas that you want to publish together. The second is to get someone who will do the actual writing while you help to provide direction and content. This second method is the one usually preferred by politician or famous person when they get a writer to help them create a "tell-all" biography of their lives.
4. Offer a book template - Though in a very different category, the Disease Control Priorities Project has an interesting way of distributing their content in a book form. You can go online, select various chapters from a group of publications and create your own book. The model of offering a template and letting people assemble their own books with your branding/message integrated is one that could work in many other industries.
5. Commemorate an experience - Art galleries use this technique often, creating limited edition books that commemorate their exhibits and the artwork contained in them. They work well because the art is so visual and many of these exhibits can be gatherings of work that will be dispersed after the exhibit and never again brought together - so the book seems very archival and worthwhile.
6. Organize a collaboration - There are some great examples of this technique - from Seth Godin's The Big Moo collaborative book a few years ago, to the Age of Conversation parts 1 and 2 (Disclaimer - I am a contributing author to Part II) which gathered together lots of contributors and invited them to write on a related theme to bring all these pieces together into a book. The resulting publication is often something that has built in marketing support as all the contributors will promote it to their networks.
7. Sponsor a branded printing - This may be the simplest way to use a book for marketing as you are basically using a book that has already been published which aligns to your product or brand in some way and reprinting a branded edition. Pretty much any book ever published can be reprinted in a branded version, usually with a new custom foreword or different cover depending on the number of units purchased.

The Recycled News Effect: United Declares Bankruptcy ... Again

News doesn't really go away ever, it just gets pushed further down search results. If you had to single out one of the greatest impacts of the Internet on the traditional news media, it would likely be that now just about anyone has access to an instant archive of information from just about any time. Forget microfiche, or library archives, or any other outmoded form of archiving you may have known before ... if I want to find a piece on online promotion that I published in Australia 8 years ago, I would go online and find it. Along with this instant archive, however, comes a dangerous side effect that United Airlines (and the entire news media and financial industry) learned about yesterday.

It turns out that yesterday for some unknown reason, an old story that ran in the Chicago Tribune on December 12, 2002 was picked up by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and run on their homepage as "news." A reporter at an investor information service did a Google search, saw the story and assuming it was current, he posted it with the headline "United Airlines: Files for Ch. 11, to cut costs by 20%" and posted it to subscribers of the Income Securities Advisor, and through Bloomberg terminals. Within an hour, the story spread across the financial industry, setting off a selling frenzy of UAL stock. As Forbes Online reports, "in the span of 10 minutes, 24 million shares changed hands. The stock, trading at $12.45, crashed to $3, according to Nasdaq. So severe was the market's response that Nasdaq halted trading from 11:06 a.m. to 12:30 p.m."

All this because a single reporter in Florida took an old story from a credible source, assumed it was recent without fact checking and posted it. Though ironic that in this case it happened to be a reporter, you could just as easily imagine this situation coming from a blogger posting an old piece of content as new. What's the lesson in all this? Perhaps that in today's world of instant access to news archives, it's no longer enough to pay attention to what people are saying about your brand today ... you need to also focus on what they said yesterday that might be getting recycled so you can correct it before something bad happens to your stock or your business.

Read the full story on Forbes.com >>

Related Story on Mashable: Google Wants To Index Millions Of Old Newspapers >>
 

The Great #080808 Beijing Olympic Twitter Campaign Catches Fire

Anyone who has been to enough events with social media creators knows that it is inevitable that people will find a way to connect and find one another. To a degree, Twitter first caught on from this need a year and a half ago at SXSW in 2007. I have witnessed it over and over, through examples like attendees of four conferences finding one another to share an evening of Korean BBQ in NYC a few months ago, or finding someone to hang out with as you are travelling to a foreign city for business. Social media creators are not just creating content, they are becoming experts at connecting with one another.

So I wasn't surprised to see that the tag 080808 is catching on as a way for all of us in Beijing at the Olympics to find and connect with one another. Started by three Chinese bloggers (Flypig, Webleon and Babechloe) and described on http://tag080808.com/, this campaign is already bringing together not just everyone here in Beijing who is creating social media content, but is also becoming a brilliant way to follow all these live voices of the Games in a real time stream. As the Olympics kicks off tonight, this tag and the resulting conversations on Twitter will accelerate dramatically. For my part, I have already started tagging my content with this and will soon revise my Twitter icon to use the 080808 template created for the campaign (the image below is a compilation of current icons from a post about the campaign on Read Write Web).

In addition, I just sent out a Tweet about a blogger meetup that will be sponsored by Ogilvy and Lenovo where we can try to get some of the many diverse bloggers here in Beijing together for a drink and chat. If you happen to be here, send me a message at @rohitbhargava and let me know if you can make it to The Bookworm in downtown Beijing on Sunday, August 10th at 7pm. And even if you're not in Beijing, you'll want to start using this tag to find the best content and impressions from social media creators here at the Games. This is a case study in the making ...

Official Image from the Tag080808 Site:

PRWeek Blog Competition And 4 Reasons I Love AND Hate PR

My blog was recently chosen among 32 top blogs in the PR profession to be part of the PRWeek Blog Competition. Before I tell you what I love and hate about PR, if you're a consistent reader of this blog, can I shamelessly ask for you to please vote for me here? I sometimes find it a great irony that my blog is placed into the public relations category when everything from it's title (Influential Marketing) to the subjects I talk about usually extend far beyond the domain of PR. Still, when it comes to agencies, I have worked in advertising, marketing and now PR and I have learned to love PR and approaching communications challenges with a PR oriented focus. Still, there are some very pronounced down sides too - so this post is not just meant to ask for your vote, but also to share a few things I love and hate about working in PR.

What I Love About PR:

1. Successes are "earned": Just think about the term "earned media" for a moment. It's a brilliant way to describe the output of any marketing activity, because it is so much more meaningful if you had to actually do something noteworthy to get it. Whether this refers to a great media hit that lands you on the front page of the NY Times, or a word of mouth endorsement from a mom blogger in a product review on her blog ... the idea is that success is sweeter when you earn it.
2. Content/Substance Focused: One of the most interesting developments in PR over the past several years has been just how much the entire industry has started to embrace blogs and social media on a much faster curve than many advertising professionals or agencies. A key reason for this, I believe, is that so much of social media is content focused and PR pros understand this naturally. Whereas many advertising professionals are focused on creating a promotional message or tagline, PR can think bigger than that.

What I Hate About PR:

1. Smaller Budgets: There is no denying that public relations often gets one of the smallest pockets of budget in the marketing mix for many companies. Despite signs in the market that this percentage may be growing, there are often situations where we could do so much more if we had just one twentieth of the budget that is currently spent on television advertising redirected to PR.
2. The PR Inferiority Complex: Relating to this lack of budget issue noted above is the concept of the "PR Inferiority Complex" that I have written about before and feel strongly that PR as an industry needs to get past. If PR is going to continue to get a bigger seat that table, we need to demand more from our clients and offer a stronger point of view. Just about every person working in PR deserves more budget, resources and support than they are currently getting. Let's all stand up and ask for it.

Though this post is entirely meant to be a plea for your vote, I wanted to still stay true to my main goal for this blog to offer useful and actionable content for marketing, communications and PR professionals. If I can do that even in a self serving post like this one, then I feel better about taking up an entire post to ask for your support.

PS - If this is your first time visiting this blog, below are a few other PR oriented posts that you may enjoy. If you have a chance, please also consider picking up a copy of my new book Personality Not Included for lots more ideas on marketing and communications in the age of social media.