Review – Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

Putting the Public Back In Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge

First, don’t be put off by the “PR” aspect of the book.

Believe me, this is not another Public Relations theory book. Though Solis and Breakenridge do discuss the history and traditional practices of the industry, it’s more of a planning and practical guidebook for using new PR 2.0 strategies to build trust and credibility.

This book doesn’t just put the “public” back in public relations, it puts the human back into community relations and business promotion. Forget about automation and accumulating media hits, and think about creating a plan encourages others to continue to be interested in, and involved with, your company.

“Fusing marketing, PR, community relations, product marketing, and customer service in an entirely new, socially aware role.” -PPBPR

Solis and Breakenridge address the real problems with PR, and how the industry’s reputation has declined over the years. The internet has put a spotlight on PR’s worst-practices and blunders, and the authors identify how conscientious PR practitioners can begin to change the way others see the industry as a whole.

PR 2.0 is not about the taking advantage of services that provide automated tools to cast spam in the broadest directions with the least amount of effort and emotional investment. It’s about finding and establishing person-to-person interactions.

“Social Media requires respect and intelligence.” -PPBPR

As Solis and Breakenridge point out, Social Media and the new PR are about creating better conversations and nurturing mutually-beneficial relationships.  Eliminate barriers, identify psychographics and establish connections with the people who could help to build your company’s public profile – the customers, evangelists, partners, journalists, bloggers, or whoever else fits into your business story.

Throughout the book they discuss:

1. The History of PR
2. PR Ethics & Blogger Relations
3. The Language of New PR
4. Traditional PR tools vs. New PR tools
5. Creating social content, not just for PR, but for all aspects of your business
6. How to get the best response when contacting influencers
7. Which tools to use for the best results, and which ones leave you looking like an uninformed spammer

By far, my favorite parts are the examples of good PR strategies that went terribly wrong. This information is extremely helpful for planning client events and launches. I haven’t put this book back on the shelf since I purchased it back in March.  It’s the most comprehensive book about social media tools and PR planning I’ve read so far.

The book also features an appendix of online tools – listed by their specific uses – so you can understand how they will fit into your overall strategy.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations has even spawned a Social Media Book Club chat on Twitter. Check out how this book is already affecting the way people think about and practice Public Relations: #smbookclub

Thinking of doing your own PR or hiring a Public Relations or Marketing firm to handle it for you? Read this book first.

Arming yourself with the knowledge of what PR was, where it is right now, how the tools have changed, and what bad PR can do to your company, will really help you to determine if the tools or strategies are right for you.

It’s not an “anyone can do it, get out there, buy a media list and push, push, push” kind of Public Relations book. It’s an “anyone can do it if they’re dedicated, do the proper research, understand the new rules and respect the people they want to reach” kind of business book.

“Humanize your intent and story, learn how, where and why to participate.” -PPBPR

I’m recommending this book to everyone.

How to Raise the Bar in Your Own Company

Every once in a while, we stumble on something that truly resonates with our own ideas about how to run a successful small business.

I can’t remember where I found the link  for this video. Most likely, it originated in a tweet and I clicked through to find Jason Fried’s post “The Bar for Success in Our Industry is Too Low” featuring David Heinemeier Hannsson’s talk at Startup School 2008.

All I know is that I’ve watched the video several times over the last few days. Though there are many differences between our industries, the problems we face are quite similar. When it comes to working online, there are so many expectations that act as obstacles to our success. We live in a new media world of “free,” “instant success,” and the work week that’s over before lunch hour every Monday. It’s creating high expectations with little commitment from our clients and ourselves.

The most important points:

1. If you want to make money, put a price on your product. I know that right now everyone is talking about “free, free, free.” Don’t get me wrong, free is great. Sometimes it can help you get the word out and help you reach more people, but too much free will put you out of business fast. There’s nothing wrong with asking for compensation for your products or knowledge. In bankruptcy, nobody wins.
2. Be in the work for the work. Because the fairytale buy-out, partnership or government contract you are wishing for may never happen. Care about the work because you’ll be doing it every day for a long time before anyone notices. If they ever do.
3. Plan to set aside time to work on your business. If you don’t plan for specific blocks of time, they won’t happen. I know this from first hand experience. Allotting time means you’re more focused on getting the work done. If you only had 5 hours a week to work on your business instead of “in it,” what would you do?
4. Scale it down. Instead of thinking of income in thousands, millions or billions, think about how much money you need to make each month to turn a profit. How many people do you need to buy your products, or pay for your services, to make your business successful?

The bottom line – and the reason I love this video - just focus on solving people’s problems. Once you do that, you’re guaranteed to have a product people love. Stop thinking about how much it’s worth, and focus on creating a product or service that helps to make people’s lives easier. The people who are willing to pay for it are the people you want as customers.

If you have to work too hard for little money and you start resenting the work, you’re doing it wrong.

Honestly, there are so many great points in the video you should just watch it.

It’s worth it.

If you want to be successful, you have to recognize the value in what you have to offer and put in the work to make it extraordinary.

How do you create a successful business? Spend the time, do the work and create value.

What do you think?

Dawud’s New Miracle & an Insane Website Design Deal

You may have heard that a friend of mine, Dawud Miracle, is expecting his fourth child sometime in the next couple of weeks.

In honor of the new baby, and to get some much needed baby Miracle bonding time, he’s decided to announce his new web design site, The Website Habitat, and offer an amazing introductory deal:

For 3 days, he’s going to sell business-ready, template-based websites for the absolutely insane low price of $350.

That’s a 1/4 of the price of his regular website design services. He wants to sell 100 of these websites over the next few days and have them up and running on your hosting servers within the next couple of weeks.

My first question was, “How are you going to create 100 websites in less than 14 days and not experience ‘total meltdown’?”

He just laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I have a team of developers helping me and we can create about 300 before we need to be concerned. AND, if we pass 300 websites, I’ll either turn it off or call in a few favors. Let’s just see how it goes.”

Still want more info?

Listen to this 8 minute audio where he talks about how and why: http://websitehabitat.com/birth-websites-promo.mp3

This all begins on today – Thursday, August 27 – at 12:00pm EST and runs til 12:01pm Sunday, August 30th. You have 72 hours to decide if this is for you.

So go check out The Website Habitat (http://websitehabitat.com)

How I Rock the Web on John Haydon’s Blog

John Haydon, owner of JohnHaydon.com, invited me to write a guest post on his blog. Please feel free to visit, comment and share: “How I Use Social Media for Business.”

It’s warm and fuzzy. I promise.

Thanks, John!

5 Ways to Conduct Market Research on a Shoestring Budget

Whether you are a big business or small business, market research is always important. Without it, all of your carefully made plans and hours spent creating your service or product will be wasted.

There’s no point in trying to sell a product that no one wants.

And honestly, you don’t need a huge budget to conduct market research. If you wanted to, you could purchase reports from market research agencies; they spend a lot of time and money creating reports that will tell you if it’s worth trying to sell your products in a certain market to a certain kind of person. If you can afford it, that’s great.

But for those of us who don’t have the start-up capital to pay out thousands of dollars to these firms, we have to conduct out own market research.

So here are 5 ways a small business can conduct market research on a budget:

1. Search Amazon.com or Other Retail Store Sites

If you want to sell an ebook or information product, conduct a search on Amazon.com for competition. If the market is already flooded and you can’t provide an add-on or improvement to what you find there, move on. What books are selling and what is buried at the bottom of the list? Why buy from you and not the guy with the Engineering degree or Ph.D?  If you still think you can out-sell the others that you find use all of this information to build a compelling case for your own product.

2. Search Google for News & Blogs

Are thousands of people already selling your product or service? Are their websites new and up to date? Is the first page full of abandoned blogs and old news? If so, these people may have found out the hard way that there was no market for what they were selling. If you can improve what they tried to sell, then great. But just be ready for a tough road ahead.

3. Watch Your Competition

The best way to determine if there is a market for your product is to watch the competition, closely. Not just their website, but their blog, social networks, friends’ websites and other sites linking back to their site. Where is their advertising? What are they doing and how are they delivering it? How are they interacting with people and what’s being said? Have they added or removed anything from their website? What are they missing?

4. Talk to the People

Real people are a valuable resource when it comes to market research. Not just your mom and your best friend, but people that you connect with at networking events, in the grocery store, or even at the off-leash dog park. Find unbiased people – preferably not relatives – who are attending events where you think your product will have the most impact or will be the most valuable to the people who attend. You don’t have to tell people every detail about your product, but ask them what they would be interested in buying.

5. Use Social Media to Conduct a Survey

It may be as simple as asking a question on Twitter or creating a survey page. Either way, some people would be willing to give their opinion about what they like or don’t like about your specific industry or product. Or even suggest improvements to something that they absolutely love. If you put some thought into your survey and present it in a way that adds value to your research, you can collect highly relevant and almost immediate feedback.

Bonus: 6. Use Your Mailing List

If you have a mailing list with active subscribers, ask them what they need and if they would respond to a product that filled that need. You can ask them about price points, features, gaps they see in the market. They are on your list because they like something that you are doing, so ask their opinions and take into account all the good and bad things they say about your ideas.

We all have great ideas, but before you spend a lot of time and energy creating a product that you think the world needs, take some time to connect with the world you want to sell it to. Make sure you think of every aspect and understand your prospects concerns and perception within the market you are trying to reach.

One last thing, it’s hard to compete with free. If you find a market that is saturated with free information, free reports, free articles, and free products, really take the time to consider if you have a chance selling something to people who are used to having everything offered at no charge. Unless you are providing above and beyond value, free is a hard competitor.

Even if you don’t think these methods are right for you, at least do something in the way of research.

What do you think?  Have a missed something?

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