Leveraging Customer Service for Public Relations

The consumer voice is the new form of public relations. This next session will be a Q&A session with some the brightest minds in PR.

Up next are HARO’s Peter Shankman and Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone to speak about a powerful public relations tool: trusted recommendation. Moderating this panel is Google’s Adam Singer.

Question: Why is it that most PR people these days are so hideous? 

Peter Shankman: Unfortunately, the industry hasn’t changed in 30 years. The technology to pitch journalists and hit journalists inaccurately has gotten easier and cheaper. I started HARO, which reverses the process. If you can answer the journalists, it takes the PR person out of the process.

The biggest problem we have is that PR people are centered on getting their story in the press.

In recent decades, the sewing circle died. Personal recommendation really went away. It was replaced by press people, telling you what movie to see, what restaurant to go to.

Now,with social circles, the sewing circle is back.

PR people are behind the times. They’re still married to getting the front page. You need to start talking about specific interaction with customers.

Personal recommendation is the new PR, and PR hasn’t gotten this yet.

Sonia Simone: Nobody cares about authority anymore, because everyone wants to know what their friend says on Facebook. That’s valid, in one sense. We don’t care so much about traditional authority figures (doctors, politicians, etc), but people still look for those who know what the hell they’re talking about.

It’s your job to be awesome, and give them something to talk about.

It’s a split role. You will always ask your friends, but you still need someone who knows what they’re doing at the end of the chain.

Question: Because of the web, PR people need to be held to the same type of metics as marketers.  What are your thoughts on this? 

Peter Shankman: The problem is, they said the same thing 30 years ago: “How much is this translating into revenue?”

I’m in the belief that social media is very simple.

When I worked at AOL, it was a simple premise. The internet wasn’t always free. We had one job, “Keep your users online as long as possible” because this is how you generate reveune.

For every dollar you spend, you need to be making two. If you’re not generating reveunue with Social, Marketing, etc. you’re doing it wrong. If you’re pitching 75 people and not getting results, you should be fired.

You need to generate revenue from PR.

The trouble is, the business that continues to accept no results from PR people.

Sonia Simone: What’s being measured is how many bullsh*t pitches you sent this month. If you sent a pitch to a big name, and he says f*ck off, he has a right to do so.

Peter Shankman: Don’t expect a PR person to go and get you on the front page of Tech Crunch if you don’t have a story. The PR agents are at fault for taking on the client without the story. If you don’t have a story at this present time – what is your industry doing?

Reporters love trends. For example, have you had incredible client success that you can turn into a story of customer service?

PR works, if you have the right stuff to talk about.

Sonia Simone: If you want coverage in any media, if you want people to talk about what you’re doing – do something epic.  

What are you doing that’s worth talking about?

Question: PR is more than just pitching. What advice do you have for a good pitch?

Peter Shankman: If you can’t explain your story to 6 year old, and have that kid understand it, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

So help me god, if you send me an attachment, I will call you out on Twitter so fast.

Limit your pitch to three paragraphs:

• First paragraph: Hello, here’s what I’m about
• Second paragraph: Here’s why it’s specific to your readership.
• Third paragraph: Here’s my contact information.
• Anything longer than that … SQUIRREL!

Sonia Simone: I don’t want to know why it’s perfect for me, I want to know why it’s relevant to my readers. Talk to me about stuff my readers want to know about.

Adam Singer: Be brief, and include a link to what you’re talking about.

Question: There’s a war on who owns content. People say PR should own content, some people say marketing should. Should content be a collaborative effort, who should own the content? 

Peter Shankman: Content doesn’t live in a vacuum. There are different divisions of your company. The person who should own the content should be the most passionate about the content, but never let it out the door without it being proofed and clean.

Bad writing is killing America, it will destroy your company.

“The average attention span to gain a new customer is 2.7 – 3 seconds to get them in” – that’s a headline.

Become great headline writers, because we’re a country of headline readers.

There are studies that show the people who bounce within 5 seconds do so because the writing sucks.

Sonia Simone: The department person who owns content should be really good at content. My favorite people are the ones who say, “what do you do?” and they answer, “I don’t know, I do a lot of stuff.”

It depends on the structure of your company.

Where are your really smart creative people, that don’t get along well with any other people in your company, because they’re so weird? Those are the people who should own your content.

Question: What do you think PR people can do to become interesting?

Peter Shankman: Take a writing class for starters. Anyone can call themselves a consultant, with no idea with what they’re doing or how they can benefit.

If you want to increase your ability to provide good content, number one – take a writing class.

See what other people are writing – cut, steal. Don’t plagiarize. Steal the concept of how they’re writing – does it excite you?

Sonia Simone: Don’t talk like corporate robots.

Good content is about your customers. If you want to create seriously good content – you need to listen to what the top ten things you customers are b*tching about. It doesn’t matter if it’s about you, or something unrelated to you.

Declare war on the top ten problems your customers b*tch about in social media, and you will have enough to talk about forever

Peter Shankman: Content doesn’t need to be the written word. If you don’t know how to write, then speak – do a video.

Sonia Simone: Be entertaining, and useful at the same time. If you are entertaining and useful, and you sound like an illiterate ape, you’ll still be okay.

Peter Shankman: Having an audience is a privilege, not a right. Give your audience what they like to hear. Don’t do contests, they bring in visitors that want free stuff, who will immediately leave. The same applies to an audience, they can go anywhere they want without a reason.

Adam Singer: Copy the successful sites. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, look at what’s being done.

Peter Shankman: Top ten lists still work wonders. People love numbers. Give people numbers “Top X ways to do this,” they love it.

Question: What are some of the biggest mistakes that PR people are still making?

Peter Shankman: Not tying something to current events. There is tons of news going on all over. How can you tie into that?

Sonia Simone: It’s useful, I save money, and it’s entertaining. It always works.

Adam Singer: You want to tag onto what’s happening, and be the second paragraph in that story.

Question: What’s your advice for doing PR for things that aren’t as exciting?