Some thoughts

I mentioned in a past post, that people see social media as an alternative to traditional media. Then and now I have to contradict this point. Social media is not that developed now in order to compete with broadcast, let’s say, on the other hand print starts suffering from the recession and it disappears, it becomes thinner or it starts to have only paid content. The solution would be to combine the two channels, find the perfect equilibrium for your objectives.
On the other hand, it is very interesting to see that at European level, communication professionals see as being the two most important media categories to help reach their goals: print (38%) and broadcast (24%).
Pitching stories, on the other hand, has become more difficult. We have to change the approach – maybe in format closer to the social media approach. Social media is also important when we prepare an interview: search on google about the topic and find out what possible background the journalist has on the specific subject. The journalists definitely used google for its research.
Print, broadcast, social media, viral…you have to decide for the channels that best reaches the target and achieves the objectives.

Objectives and evaluation

When developing a campaign – corporate or brand – it is important to understand the objectives of the CEO, experts say: “do management audits on expectations”. A recent PR News/BurrellesLuce survey identified the following as management’s view of the purpose of PR:
· Getting the name of the organization/brand in the media – 23%
· Maintain and rebuild reputation – 22%
· passing on the organization story to the media – 21%
· generate sales – 16%

When PR people were asked how they would like their job to be perceived:
· Maintain and rebuild reputation – 22%
· passing on the organization story to the media – 20%
· offering strategic advice to top management – 20%
· Getting the name of the organization/brand in the media – 19%

Similar priorities, different order. Thus, when you start a campaign, ask for the objectives of the top management – because they will be different. Not necessary realist or measurable, but at least you know from the beginning what the expectations are and you can then try to adjustment and make them feasible for a PR campaign – and then explain why.

If we reached the objectives, only a proper evaluation can confirm this. Let’s make an overview on the measuring tactics, and as I talk about “change”, let’s see on online. The KPI’s for online include awareness, consideration, action, loyalty and engagement.
· For awareness: share of voice for competitors, search visibility, monthly traffic, page views
· For engagement: conversation topics and trends, time spend on site, comments, ratings, forwards
· Action: signs-up, contest entries, content submitted, downloads, purchases
· Loyalty: followers, fans, RSS subscribers, e-mail subscriber, bookmarks, recommendations

Green Conference

I was at the Green Conference, a conference organized for CSR people and all those in communication dealing with responsibility. NGO’s where also invited.
The sessions were ok, let’s say…not necessary a news, but interesting to hear about different strategies and positioning.

The most dynamic session was the one about CSR and social media, especially bloggers. Buddha was annoyed by the fact that he accepts the invitations of NGO’s or companies to participate at different CSR projects, but the results remain a mystery for him. Nobody tells him how the campaign ended…and this is an important part of any collaboration. We know this….”tank you for getting involved, these are the results you helped reached”…. So he said that it is a win-win situation “I do not need money, not always, but do not make me lose face in front of my community”. It is true, they trust him, and they click on the link for him…so, at least he can tell everybody what they achieved.

The conference ended with two interesting speeches. One of the guys, Adrian Soare, asked the question of the day: “Why are you here?” Nobody felt the need of such a question…but the room was expecting it. Expectations of the participants were reached at the end of the conference….which could be a bed sign for the organizers. Speakers should have asked this question at the very beginning.

Another speaker, Adrian Ciubotaru, had also some very interesting facts to talk about. He is a very social person, CSR is in his blood. He says that social media is the shortest way from the desire to interact with others to the desire to change the world in which we all live.
In conclusion “social media is the nicest place where passion can replace the budget” – thus the perfect place to do CSR.

Energy Forum, Gala Dinner

I was two nights ago at the Energy Forum Gala Dinner, event organized by Forum Invest. I was together with Laura Florea, Managing Partner Point PA. We were sitting next representatives from Alpha Bank, KLC, STX Europe, AECOM and White&Case. A sitting dinner as any other, but a moment caught my interest. It was a CSR moment, as a call it, a moment of giving to the less fortunate. People in the room donated money for 6 children in Bucharest to go to the circus, because they never have seen one. I imagine that there are a lot of children in Romania which have not seen a circus show. Anyway, all participants entered a “lottery”, having the chance to win a voucher with a discount of 20.000 euro or 40.000 euro for an apartment in one of the most luxurious new build quarters in Bucharest. Interesting…what can I say. If the apartment costs 2 mil euro, a 40.000 discount is like peanuts. Anyway, it was an interesting approach; I only hope that the health ministry does not close the Circus until the next show – because of the flu. I think that this worked because of the children, and because the audience was one willing to share, and not because of the vouchers – I found them inappropriate.

Convention of Media Organizations

I was today invited at the Convention of Media Organizations, a seminar talking about how the crisis is affecting mass media. The same issues came into discussion, the one that we have all felt from the beginning of the year.

Some numbers were mentioned:

• Advertising dropped with 35% in TV, 53% in print media and 40% in radio
• 1500 journalists were laid off (I heard that in the UK the number reached this year 3000 people)
• Salaries decries by 50% in some editorial offices
• Around 20 law suits were started, journalists against media groups

Some journalists present at the conference talked about how the Government can help in this situation, other, more pessimistic or if I may say, more realistic, said that media most not search for help from the Government, because the Government at this point has no interest to help.

The discussion turned also to the Internet, as a solution for media, and an intervention of Ciprian Stoianovici (head of news department at Radio 21 and member of The Association of Romanian Journalists) I found very intriguing. He said that the Internet will never reach the informational level as the print media reached last year, not event in 50 years. The motives are technology problems and penetration of the Internet – few use Internet in comparison with media.

Another subject Ciprian talked about was in relation with the “morgue of the Romanian media” (interesting description). Everybody expected from the crisis to divide good media from bad media (the publications with unsound involvement) – after the crisis good media would have survived. Unfortunately things look a little bit different = good media is slowly dying. He said that spring will come and find half of the media existing now. If we look at what recently happened in media, I am more than willing to believe him.

All these effects of the crisis on media have direct impact on PR. And when I say direct impact, I am thinking about the day to day communications activities but also about “media campaigns” that have as main objectives blackmail – as a tool for survival. The freedom of expression and the freedom for information have nowadays new meanings.

We are facing sad times here. Journalist are put in the impossibility to practice objective journalism (either they are forced to act in the economical advantage of the media owner or they are forced to search for other jobs), PR people must find alternative communication channels and tools to fight off hungry media and the population has less and less access to real information.

Effect of crisis on media

It started at the beginning of the year, or at least at that point it was noticeable. It got worse in summer and it continues ... the crisis has strong effects on mass media. After publications started to reduce the editorial staff, cut down salaries and any other bonuses, reduced the number of pages and focused more on online...now, mass media owners are using a management buyout solution in order for publications to survive. The discussion is more like “dear editor in chief, if you don’t buy this publication I will close it”...interesting approach, at least this is what happens now with all lifestyle publications of Realitatea Catavencu. It seems that Tabu would be difficult to save...Anyway, crisis strikes again!

The effect of the crisis on media is intensively felt by PR people as well. Now we have fewer publications to pitch our stories to, and in addition, journalists are more focused on advertising than on finding the story. It is said that 20% of journalists today are involved in signing advertising contracts. This is depressing! We see it every day, it is harder to put our story into the media, but as I told one of my colleagues yesterday: we are the lucky ones, we witness first hand these changes, we face them, and we get ahead of them.

PR in Romania is now maturing, PR people learn to be more in touch with journalists needs (or at least they should), they become more creative (because the first hand story is no longer of interest for media) and they need to find alternatives to print media, if they want coverage. Interesting times we are facing! :)

My PR bucket list

I broke the first rule of blogging – writing constantly :) I was in holiday for two weeks, and the weeks before I had no time to do this….so, as it turns out, I am not a professional blogger :)

Why am I writing in English? Because I want to talk to you about a professional bucket list, and one point on my list is “my blog to be a point for reference for students”...why not international PR students :) ?!

So, let’s talk about my PR bucket list, like in the movie with Jack Nicolson, interesting movie

1. To coordinate the communication strategy of multiple countries, inside a global company or a global PR agency
2. The be on speed dial on CEOs cell phones when it comes to crisis management
3. My blog to become a helpful support for PR students
4. To pitch a story that will be picked up by international media
5. To be the initiator of a TV show for one of my clients
6. To manage the PR for my own spa hotel

That’s it, until now. The list will probably change in time, new items will be added, and old ones will be deleted. How does your list look like? Regardless of the profession you are in...