Mike Maney

Tag: PR

  • On “getting press” and metrics

    Getting “press,” as this job ad I saw on HackerNews claims to want, is more than measurement. It’s about relationships, news, an eye for tying a company’s story into wider trends, and having an experienced gut feel for when a story is worthy of press and when it’s better suited for some other type of marketing channel. It’s a long game made up of moves that often go unseen because they aren’t on a plan or directly and tactically measurable.

    So, please startups, if you are hiring for PR or searching for an agency to help with your marketing efforts, dig deep to understand what exactly you want them to do..and why. Not doing so wastes your time, wastes theirs and, worse, wastes the media’s.

    By all means, measure what you can. But recognize the value of the unseen that makes the measurable possible.

  • The Do’s and Don’ts of Evangelism

    A good friend of mine who runs enterprise marketing for a top tech company recently asked me for advice to help counsel one of his executives on the differences between marketing and evangelism. The list below includes some of the top-of-mind tips I provided based on my experience:

    DO

    • Be human. Nobody wants to engage with a marketing droid. Be yourself. Don’t worry if a few warts show.
    • Educate and inform. Be a good source for people who may eventually buy or recommend your product to turn to.
    • Have a point of view. Make people pay attention and engage with you.
    • Know your stuff. Your community will smell fluff from a mile away.
    • Pick up the tab if you can. You’ll be surprised how far $200 at the bar or picking up pizzas for a hackathon or meetup goes.

     

    DON’T

    • Sell. Selling is the job of your sales team. Your job is to be an engaging human.
    • Overly worry about being loyal to your brand. Great evangelists help their community first, even if it means saying a nice thing or two about your competition.
    • Engage only when you need something. Influence is a two-way street.
    • Attend conferences only if you’re invited to speak. It’s not only conceited, but you’ll also miss out on great content and relationship building.
    • Expect anything of your community. Earn it.

    This is by no stretch of the imagination a comprehensive list. What do’s and don’ts would you include? Add them to the comments.

    (For more, check out my Influencing the Influencers deck on Slideshare.)

     

  • Starting out and standing out

    I’ve been very, very lucky throughout my career to study under some really smart people. But more than smart, they were generous. They took young flacks like me under their wings and taught us how to do PR right. They are a big part of the reason I try hard to pass down what I’ve learned to those just starting out in this profession.

    I’ve been an annual speaker at Rutgers and Trenton State (the college, not the penitentiary). And at the end of each talk, I make an offer to the students: send me your resume and I’ll comment on it before you send it off into the big, bad hiring world. It’s a way to help those who take advantage of the offer to stand out in a highly competitive and crowded field.

    This past week, Nicholas Intelisano reached out to interview me for a class project. He’s a student at Southern New Hampshire University taking my friend Jon Boroshok’s communications class (a decorated professor at that). The interview touched on what it was like starting out in the industry. Great questions and an engaging conversation. And, like always, I told Nick to send me his resume.

    He did. And it was a good one. Straightforward, clean, relevant background that showed me he wanted into this profession…despite what I told him I went through when I entered it 😉

    Nicholas Intelisano resume

    But there was something in Nick’s resume that made me wonder if it wouldn’t also work in a more creative, personal format. Yes, he’d still need the straight forward resume to submit to the HR and keyword bots, but…what about trying something like this:

    “My name is Nick Intelisano. I’m about to graduate from the prestigious SNHU school of communications this May — on the good side of the Dean’s list (and President’s list), not the Animal House side.

    Come May, I’d like to turn my vast years of experience as a professional PR intern into a full-time, ramen-flush gig. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. What I really want is a foot in the door to start what I hope will be a long and successful career in PR. That’s where you come in.

    Over the past two years, I’ve gotten my feet wet at places like Regan Communications, Millennium Integrated Marketing and The Good Men Project. I’ve had hands on experience pitching stories, building social media calendars, monitoring and fetching multiple gallons of coffee (I waited tables to help pay for college, so that last one wasn’t that foreign). I’ve coached 4-6 year old children in pee wee soccer, so I’m well-prepared for the rigors of client relations. I’ve seen things. Things I won’t soon forget. Things that will come in handy should you give me a shot.

    Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? What self-respecting PR rookie isn’t steeply versed in navigating those communities? How about the requisite Microsoft Office skills and a dollop of Adobe Illusatrator? I’ve got them, too. Nouns and verbs? You can check out how I’ve used them as a staff writer for the Penmen Press student newspaper on my blog. Leadership? Bam! Founding member of the SNHU chapter of the PRSSA (though I’m less of a Bam! and more of hey-we-started-something-cool leader).

    If you’re looking for someone who wants into this business badly, I’m your guy. And I’m reachable at Nicholas.intelisano@snhu.edu.”

    So I ask you, my PR friends, any advice to give Nick as he tries to break into our ranks? Sound off in the comments.

  • Do what’s right

    This morning, CVS/pharmacy announced it would take a $2b hit as a result of a decision to stop selling tobacco products in its stores. It’s a triumph for consumer health and a huge win for corporate public relations teams across industries.

    “We’ve come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered,” he said. “Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health.”

    Why is it a PR win?

    Not for the obvious goodwill and media coverage (though it didn’t hurt). It’s a win because this is the kind of business strategy that goes against the conventional wisdom of every other division inside a company. It’s a win because it highlights the shift in today’s business environment.

    Companies are beginning to see that their customers expect more from the brands they do business with. They expect them to be and act bigger than the products they sell. Today, CVS/pharmacy did just that. It took a long term stand at the expense of short term profit.

    “Great companies take on the important challenges facing society.” – Richard Edelman

    People have asked me, “What is it, exactly, that PR does?” What I tell them is, despite its general perception, PR advocates for common sense.

     

  • 5 Tips: Starting out in PR

    5 Tips: Starting out in PR

    Paradigm Staffing’s Lindsay Olson recently posted a great question to Facebook:

    What is the best piece of advice you could give a new grad/entry-level looking to enter the PR profession? What do you wish you would have known when you started your career?

    I was lucky enough to start my career at one of the best shops and with one of the smartest teams in the industry: the corporate/issues team at Ogilvy & Mather (for those younger than me, that’s Ogilvy as in the David Ogilvy). Here are five of the nuggets of advice I contributed to Lindsay’s thread:

    1. Just get in the door. I started as an admin assistant for a top EVP at Ogilvy. You will see everything and be able to learn from it. Check your diploma at the door.
    2. If you aren’t a media junkie, become one. Everything from TechCrunch to WSJ to Politico to The Superficial. Make sure your knowledge of inane current events is a thousand miles wide.
    3. Blog. Get active on Twitter. Your peers — competitors — most likely aren’t. Companies hire humans, not resumes.
    4. Once you’re inside, take every opportunity that’s available to you. You can sleep* after you’ve made a name for yourself as a hard-working, get-it-done, creative team player.
    5. Make a list of all the free food, half-price drink happy hours around your new office. Trust me on this one. They money will come later.

    * I’m still waiting on the sleep part. Realize that the best in this business are always on.

    (Huge thanks to people like Henry Gomez, Steve Goodman, Ken Jacobs, David Tager, Russell Cheek ,Lisa Dimino and Brian Maloney for teaching me well.)

  • Awareness is not what you think it is

    Smart words by Seth Godin. Too often, companies get mired in a narrow mindset that awareness equals press. That may have been true in the heyday of trade and product media, but today awareness is so much more. It’s a powerful blog post that gets shared across multiple media and marketing channels, it’s the reach and immediacy of a single tweet from someone who sets the tone in an industry, it’s a library of content that influencers and customers use and share amongst those who don’t buy ink by the barrel or bits by the bucket.

  • LEGO Does It Right

    One of the things I advise companies is that sometimes the best marketing is not marketing at all…it’s simply a matter of doing what is right. LEGO is now my poster child for that advice.

    And a spot-on post by B.L. Ochman -> “Lego: a company that doesn’t have to force customers to Like them on Facebook“

  • Damn You Nate Silver

    Slides from my closing keynote at The Social Business Future Conference yesterday.

  • Don’t Be a PR Fluffer

    Video of my talk closing out day one of Monktoberfest 2012.

  • Recap: Monktoberfest 2012

    Redmonk founder Stephen O’Grady posted a great recap of Monktoberfest 2012 (complete with the list of amazing, impossible-to-find beers they served). I’m slightly partial to this paragraph:

    Mike Maney, a longtime Friend of RedMonk, arranged and shot the video for the conference on his own. He and his colleague Matt Helmke turned their travel to the Monktoberfest into an epic 7 state roadtrip, featuring stops at craft breweries all the way from Delaware to Maine. From Riverhorse to Olde Burnside to Harpoon, they went from brewery to brewery, collecting stories and – thanks to some very gracious donations – beer.

    Crazy un-marketing ideas like this — the kind where you do what is right for the communities you do business in — aren’t possible without the support of forward-thinking executives like Laura Merling and the sure-what-the-hell-why-not participation of great pros like Matt Helmke and Justin Tormey.