Do We Still Need Press Releases?

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: February 26, 2010

It is a question I get now and then from start-ups (note that it doesn’t happen too often, which probably means that in most of the execs’ minds, press releases are still an important part of their PR tool set). Then, of course, the next question is: how many should we write every month?

While press releases are definitely not as “powerfu”l as they were a few years ago, they are still used by all of our clients. Also some editors still ask for them in order to make a decision of either taking or not taking a vendor call, and some even use them as a starting point for articles, following up with questions while writing it. I advise clients not to spam their Twitter or Facebook  followers with links to their press releases. I see both PR agencies and vendors doing that all the time and I know that it is frustrating to see these coming up in your Twitter stream.

Regarding how many press releases a month a start-up should issue, I say that 1-2 a month – if needed – would probably suffice.  Of course, I advise against sending “fluff” or press releases “made up” when things seem quiet. Things are rarely quiet in a start-up’s life (well, unless they run out of money, and we have seen quite a few of those this year), so instead of focusing on how many press releases they send out, companies should be looking at how many conversations they have been engaging in with editors, analysts, bloggers, and users.

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How Can I Justify PR Expenses to My CEO and Investors?

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: January 22, 2010

Most startups will invest in PR, because they know that it is the fastest and most trusted way to send information about a company and its products/services out to the world awaiting to try and buy that product/service. For some though, PR is still an abstract term and they do not know if they need to invest in it. I talk to prospect clients every week, and, from what I have seen in the enterprise space, most startups would benefit from PR. First of all, they don’t have the budget to advertise and the resources to measure ROI from their advertising efforts. PR and social media will generate immediate results and the marketing executives will not be worried that the board of directors will miss that banner or print ad about the company, because each investor has Google Alerts set up on his/her portfolio companies and will see the PR results right away.

Also, as social media is a big piece of the PR strategy these days, it is a quick way to engage in conversations with partners, media, and users. Google Alerts will track your Twitter conversations, showing the executive team and the board of directors that the world is interested in what their company has to say. In a lot of situations – depending on the product they are selling – companies get quality leads from their social media and PR efforts. Somebody took the time to read an article or Twitter post, and is contacting them back. They remember the company, what the product does, and want to know more. That is a hot lead.

Another option some startups consider is hiring somebody in-house to do both PR and Marcom. If the startup is lucky to find somebody with both PR and Marcom experience, who worked in the same industry and has strong relationships with both the media and publishers, it may make sense, but the startup has to be ready to spend more money on the PR tools needed to help the person do his/her job (news monitoring systems, databases of editors, awards and speaking opportunities, etc.). Most startups I know will not do that, because they will end up paying much more than hiring an agency. So, they do exactly that: hire an agency.

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FTC Rules for Bloggers Effective Today

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: December 1, 2009

As most of us know, starting today, the blogosphere will be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which requires bloggers to disclose free products or payments they have received from companies they are mentioning in their reviews or blog posts. If they fail to do so, the fine could be up to $11,000. From mommy bloggers to tech bloggers, everybody will have to disclose, disclose, and disclose. It’s fair after all, but I expect some chaos in the beginning, as people are trying to figure out what and how to disclose. If some think that it doesn’t apply to them, think more, because it does. The best way to find an answer is to talk to an attorney.

The reaction the readers will have is certainly interesting to watch. Will they respect these bloggers more or will they stop reading some blogs, thinking that, because they received something in return, the bloggers may not portray the product or service accurately? In the end, knowing the relationship of the writer with the respective company/person helps readers make an informed decision. For us, as a PR agency, it’s easy to comply. All our current client names are on our website. Some agencies do not post them while others have a list of current and past clients – all together – making it impossible to know which ones are still paying for their services. At Silicon Valley PR, our Portfolio page has two separate categories of current and past clients. Knowing that we can’t sign up two competitors at the same time, this page shows prospective clients what companies we are currently working with, so they can make an informed decision when contacting us. Also, when we post something on our blog about a product or a company, it’s clear if they are or are not a client.

This is a new era for both PR and the media, a challenging, but a great time to be on either side. As in any business, the strong ones will find a way to make things work and keep their (brand) name untainted. For more information about these new regulations, go to the FTC site at http://bit.ly/9KMWI.

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The Role the PR Agency Plays in Your Social Media Strategy

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: October 15, 2009

The PR agency should get involved in your social media efforts; that could include designing and executing your strategy. From identifying the best places your audience “hangs out” to content creation, it is your PR agency’s job to get you going down that path. An agency with expertise in your market is vital here, because if it supports clients in different industries, what works for one may not work for another one, and you do not want to waste time and money, trying to get connected with an audience that is really not interested in what you have to say and sell.

The question I get from a lot of companies is to what extent the agency will get involved, and they pretty much want to know if the agency would blog, tweet, or maintain the corporate Facebook Fan Page on their behalf. If needed, yes, we would do it. It is not ideal though, because I still believe that it’s something that should be done in-house, especially when it comes to conversations such as the ones on Twitter, but if the PR person chosen to do that is familiar with the industry and the company, he/she can become the voice of the company. For startups, unless they are lucky to have somebody in-house who is social media-savvy, and wants to take this task on, bringing an “outside voice” may be the best way to go. Lack of resources or ”fear” of the unknown when it comes to social media may be some of the reasons why a startup may not be ready to execute a social media strategy on its own. On the other hand, it is natural for some corporate execs to try to control the social media efforts as much as they can, approve copy, etc., and it’s not easy to find the right voice either. It helps if, for example, the person chosen to “do” social media on behalf of the company (under the company’s Twitter ID) has a strong and very targeted follower list on Twitter, because it is easier to get the same followers interested in their client’s tweets.  Also, it is easier to engage in conversations if he/she knows the right followers and  the right topics.

As with any information that is disseminated to the public, the PR agency should also advise on what can and what can not be said, because there are things such as roadmaps that you do not want revealed on Twitter.

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Tweeting on Behalf of Your Company/Employer

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: September 29, 2009

By now, most high-tech marketing and PR professionals have figured out Twitter or, at least, have heard of it. We all approached it differently though. I don’t claim to be a social media expert (and a lot of the ones doing so should not), but I am involved in it, I read a lot about it, and I participate in many seminars/webinars covering social media topics. In this post, I will share a few well-researched  and tested steps with you, the startup founder or VP of marketing, or the larger company employee trying to get acquainted with Twitter. 

So, you understand that a corporate presence on Twitter is vital for the company; you sign up and create a corporate account. The problem is that if you don’t have a social media strategy in place and you are not interested in social media (by that, I mean that you do it because it’s “trendy,” or your boss asked you to get involved, but you wouldn’t do it otherwise), you will discover in only a few weeks that your number of followers is not increasing even though your posts are.  Here are a few ideas to create a voice for your corporate account on Twitter and get things going:

1. In your profile, provide basic info about you/your company and add a link to your website, because people are more likely to follow you if they know more about you and/or your company. Use keywords to make your bio appealing to the right people, who will eventually become your followers. If you are the only person behind your Twitter account, sooner or later, the account will acquire your personality, and it’s best that you show more of your professional side, and less of your personal side in your tweets. Your tweeps will know about you as much as you want to share with them. You control your tweets. You can’t control though the way they are shared or interpreted, and, also, keep in mind that vendors have more work to do in order to get people to listen to them, because, oh, well, they are biased. This takes us to #2.

2. Engage in conversations to increase credibility and get your (corporate) name out more. Yes, we know how tempting it is to post links to your own press releases, but, if you are planning to do so, please tweet only major news (by that, I mean, “newsworthy” information). Also, tweeting or retweeting industry news can be a good start. Let’s say that you sell a storage virtualization solution; you may want to tweet links to recent press articles, analyst findings, or partner announcements in this space. Retweet what other people are saying, assuming it’s interesting to you, the business person.

3. Follow the right people. Twitter may seem like a popularity contest, but, for you, it is a marketing tool, which , like any marketing tool, will give you the the best results if you are able to reach your target audience - industry influencers and potential customers or partners - and disseminate the right message to this audience. Search for people in your industry, follow them and some will follow you back. If others don’t, don’t take it personally. Show them you bring value and once you start tweeting more, posting interesting content for the Twitter community, they may start following you.

4. Know how to tweet. Hashtags (so people can find you when searching), keywords (so the right people can find you), referencing people already on Twitter, and adding links that you can later track to see how many people opened them should be part of your tweets. “I am having lunch” is not interesting, but “I am having lunch at #vmworld with @leecaswell of @pivot3inc, talking about #virtualization in #surveillance implementations and LINK TO ARTICLE” may be for some.

5. Nothing confidential should make it on Twitter. Share only public info, so please keep the roadmap or the next press release to yourself.

6. Promote your Twitter account. Have links on your website, in your newsletter, and maybe in your email signature. I have also seen it on business cards lately. Talk to people about being on Twitter. Attend tweetups if you want to go a step further.

Keep tweeting.

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What Comes after Newspapers?

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: August 31, 2009

newspaper

I posted my latest blog entry titled “Reading or Ripping Print” and, only a few days after, I attended an event called “The Next Journalism – What Comes after Newspapers” with Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher and Carolyn Pritchard of Gigaom. The discussion made me think even more about what the future holds and if my very young kids will ever be interested in reading my precious books.

The topic was the coexistence of traditional and social media, which is the situation we are confronting with right now, with two very different tools trying to achieve the same goal: getting information to the readers in the fastest and most accurate way possible. Most journalists have adapted and are now blogging, tweeting, and getting in touch with their online audience in different ways, but offering similar stories they used to have in print. So, in the end, the quality of their work and their efforts to keep journalism alive are what we should all appreciate, because some are still doing great investigative reporting, which includes in-depth interviews with company executives, their customers,  partners, and industry analysts while looking closely at competitors and other events happening in the same market. That takes a lot of work and knowledge of the subject they are covering.

Going back to the topic ,”What comes after newspapers,” we don’t have to work in PR or media to know that newspapers and magazines are barely keeping their print editions alive, and we have digital books now. Also, we are all trying to save trees and fight for a green world. At the same time, we don’t have money for print advertising, so, even if we didn’t care about the environment, we would not be able to help print publications survive. On the other hand, print publications are finding ways to consolidate the digital and print worlds. Entertainment Weekly magazine will include a video-chip ad embedded in its September issue. As hip as it can get… today.

But what if at some point in the future, print will come back, somehow like radio did in various forms throughout the years: AM, FM, satellite, or Internet?

Tom Foremski made a comment that “we still have the old (media) world influencing the new world and that is going to be true for a while.” I think that is a good thing and if we could bring the magic, accuracy, and elegance of some of those print pieces to the online world, we should welcome the coexistence of the two or even the transition.

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Ripping or Reading Print?

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: July 28, 2009

The Future of Print?

We see it happening more and more. Print publications move to online versions, they go from monthly to weekly issues, and those who don’t abandon print versions certainly get “skinnier” with every issue. The smaller vendor marketing budgets affect advertising first, and the first area hit by that is print. It’s expensive, difficult to measure, and it will not bring results (e.g. leads) right away, requiring a long-term investment, although it certainly is still a good way to reach the company’s target audience. I personally think that advertising complements PR, and doesn’t compete with it, but,  if the company has to spend its limited budget money in one area, it will be PR.

While I still like the feeling of reading a magazine or a newspaper, and I subscribe to a few tech print magazines, as well as some parenting ones, I can’t stop wondering if by the time my toddler and my baby are teenagers, print will become obsolote. Governor Schwarzenegger’s digital textbook initiative certainly seems to take the new generation that way, and it provides undeniable benefits. Maybe that is good news for the storage world as well, both for vendors and IT administrators, because that information has to be stored somehow somewhere by somebody.

As PR pros, we always talk about where print will be in a few years, and while the “old-fashioned” ones want to see it stick around for longer, others are way too involved in the digital, virtual world to care. Time will tell, but, before then, I will continue to read to my children and enjoy the smell of paper books, something that the digital books do not have.

Although, wait, I read the other day that there is a spray out there that gives you the old-book smell while you read your e-books. Interesting idea, but I refuse to think that there is a market for that…

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The Tradeshow Season Is Almost Here

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: July 14, 2009

With a smaller budget and smaller teams, a lot of startups selling to the enterprise market face a difficult decision this year when it comes to attending the right tradeshows.  Some startups may only have the budget for 2-3 shows per year, which makes it even more difficult to choose. As a side note, the tradeshow budget includes much more than the tradeshow fee; it includes the booth and everything that comes with it (electricity, carpet, etc.), shipping, travel, giveaways, and while the days of fancy vendor parties are almost gone, for a small company, a tradeshow can be a significant expense (that’s why virtual tradeshows are not cheap, but cheaper than the real ones, although they don’t give you the face-to-face time).

I have attended my share of tradeshows and conferences, and, while I can say that what works for one company may not work for another one, all vendors are pretty much looking for what social media, which we all love and experiment these days, can’t bring: face-to-face time with end-users, press, and analysts (and yes, I include bloggers in the “press” category).

This year, some shows are more popular than others, because they offer exhibitors access to a qualified audience, reducing the sales cycles and maximizing their return on investment. Three of our customers, Pivot3, StorMagic and VirtenSys, will be attending VMworld. VirtenSys will also be speaking at the show if you want to learn about I/O virtualization. Pivot3 will have demos of its Serverless Computing solution, available now for VMware environments (and I didn’t want to use the marketing cliché “award-winning” here, but it really won numerous awards and received industry recognition at other shows, because of its original approach to storage and server virtualization). StorMagic will offer demonstrations and free copies of SvSAN, the StorMagic virtual appliance for ESX environments that allows you to build a high-availability SAN for less than $2,000. The free versions that they are giving away at the show are not trials, but regular licenses, which support up to 2 TB of capacity.

For those trying to save some money and virtualize what is already or what should be in their IT environment, this show certainly brings together small and large vendors, and the focus on virtualization is quite helpful for both vendors and customers. Vendors know that their target customers will be here, while users have the opportunity to attend any virtualization session they can think of, and then see the demos of the vendor solutions that will help them solve real-world problems.

Anyway, there are plenty of other shows this fall (some downsized, but still there), and, from what I hear, a lot of start-ups choose to attend VMworld and maybe another show in the fall. The good news is that these startups still do and believe in PR, they still do some advertising (mostly the online programs that can give them leads right away, such as webinars, white paper promos, etc.), and they still chase their customers for application stories to share with the world.

Our advice to startups looking to maximize their marketing investments: know your target audience, which ranges from potential partners, customers, and investors, to media and analysts, and know where to go in order to reach it. Go back and forth between the real world and the virtual world as long as you attend targeted tradeshows and build targeted Twitter follower lists. You can’t afford to be everywhere and do everything. Also, when ousourcing your marketing functions, such as PR, it will save you time and money if you work with people and agencies who know your market.

It is a tough year for startups, but those knowing where to spend their marketing money in order to reach a qualified audience will get the best ROI. The others will probably end up paying silly money for highway billboards, with no specific targets, but with the pride of having their name up there with the bigger players’. The difference is that those players already have a strong brand name. The billboard only reminds people of it. Building a brand name requires so much more than a billboard, and it can be done in a cost-effective way.

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Only Two Fortune 100 CEOs Have Twitter Accounts

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: June 28, 2009

While some execs are open to using the latest social media tools, even though they are still trying to figure them out, testing them, and looking for the best ways to measure ROI, other execs are not embracing them yet. Research results released only a few days ago by the website UBERCEO reveal that the top 100 CEOs in the country are not too active in the social media community.  The report looks at how and if they are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Wikipedia, and if they have a blog.  It turns out that only two CEOs have Twitter accounts. On LinkedIn, only 13 CEOs have profiles, but out of those, only three have more than 10 connections. Numbers are disappointing on Facebook as well, because 81 percent of CEOs do not have a personal Facebook page. While three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information. On top of that, not even one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog. The sites suspects that the top three reasons CEOs (and probably some consumers and enterprises) aren’t using social media is because of fear (of unknown), lack of (social media) knowledge, and time constraints.

We work directly with CEOs of various startups, and I would say that #1 reason for them would be time constraints. At a startup, you wear many hats and CEOs are no exception. While most of them are looking into starting a blog, I always advise them to keep posts consistent and interesting, rather than start in full force with many posts in the first month and then slow down or even stop posting, as the novelty wears off and they have to focus on other tasks. Another option would be to share the blog with other members of the executive team such as one of the founders, the CTO or other VPs. This way, different people will cover different topics, with unique insights, increasing the quality of the blog and making sure there isn’t a big gap between postings.

The quality of blog posts attracts visitors, who may turn into loyal readers. By providing them with interesting, consistent posts, you know they will read every post, comment on it, tweet it, or simply talk about it with others. If you have something to say in more than 140 Twitter characters, a blog is the perfect place to do it. Even if others have already covered a topic, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write about it anymore. Sharing your opinion with the world can only make it better.

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Should PR Agencies Blog?

By Georgiana Comsa | Published: June 8, 2009

There have been many conversations out there about the validity of a PR agency’s blog. Would anybody trust us, knowing that our clients pay for our services, and we can’t really say anything negative in a blog? So, should we or should we not blog? If we do, should we blog about our clients? Is the PR agency meant to be only an invisible force? (Oh, I just love the word “force” in this context. I had to use it.)

My opinion is that, as any other blogger, we should blog if we have something to say, if we know how to say it, and we understand the commitment we need to make when writing a blog. The blogosphere doesn’t need another blog if it is just a shameless marketing tool, and it is not able to give something back to its readers. Having said that, we will definitely talk about our customers if we think that the information is useful for our target audience; otherwise, we will certainly not discuss it here.

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