Drew B's take on tech PR

The future of PR, according to The Economist (it's not pretty)

"Ever since [the early 1900's] public-relations officers have been locked in an antagonistic, symbiotic relationship with journalists, with mutual contempt tempered by mutual dependency." - The Economist, December 2010 

It's tough reading this article in the Economist. Try sifting through the comments to see what other readers think about the article. It's not pretty. Reading the article compels me to put some points across too, as the commenters have done under the article.

I'm lucky to be in a spot where, as someone who has worked in PR since the 90s, I remember the picture The Economist paints, but I do not recognise it now. For me, and our clients at 33 Digital, digital comms and social media have changed everything about relationships, audiences, engagement, skills, how we listen, who we work with, and our dependence on old-fashioned media. 

I'm someone who started in PR in the dot com boom. I've only ever known a time when people and PR professionals have come to terms with the fact that the internet is allowing companies to talk direct to the audience, not always through the journalist any more. Sadly for the reader of this Economist article, the last 11 years seem to have taken place on the far side of the moon. 

To give the anonymous writer of the article their fair dues, they have acknowledged fleetingly that digital and social is the future of PR. Here's the bit you might want to read, you might miss it, it's near the end:

"...social networking, with its cacophony of bloggers, Facebookers and tweeters, is becoming more influential. It is also confusing and hard to control. The public is becoming deafened and confused by a barrage of contradictory messages. Bernays’s maxim about the public needing trusted “influencers” to tell them what to buy and think is therefore becoming truer than ever. ...it is clear that another century of spin, perhaps greater than the one gone by, is in prospect." 

However, crucially, the writer believes most online 'influencers' are influenced by 'old fashioned' media, and so are 'most powerful and influential people'. The key thing to ask is not how to reach 'most' with 'old fashioned', but to have the right set-up to reach more, and the best tools to reach further than the competition in ways that make you #win.  

5 Twitter tips for @British_Airways in their Snow Moment. And 3 for stranded passengers

British Airways is on the brink of being another case study of a brand that could not control its own communications strategy in a crisis. Customers are claiming this morning on Twitter that BA's website and phone lines are both down, and this is while BA is announcing on Twitter that all flights from Heathrow and from Gatwick from 10am-5pm today are cancelled. See some of the customer tweets here, here and here. 

Problem is, when someone's flights are cancelled, the passengers are either in limbo or at worst stranded. When phones and the website are all down but Twitter is actually being used and operated as a comms channel and it is working, Twitter should be staffed up and run as a customer comms channel on steroids. Fair play to BA, someone is on it. But why not do more?

Not that BA needs our help (but email or DM if you want a chat, this is what we try to do for a day job at 33). So here are a few things I thought might help the situation: 

BA customers: 

• BA is tweeting a lot. Not enough, but a lot. Use their Twitter address in your tweets and chances are you'll get an answer. Don't say "British Airways" or BA, say @British_Airways. They will see your tweet more easily
• Be specific in your tweet. You'll get a quicker answer. Think about how the BA people are coping - at the moment about five tweets per minute are coming in
• Follow BA and you might get a follow back, then you can do DMs. Some brands like DMs as the crisis can be dealt with in private

Some ideas for BA's comms people:

• Do a throrough Twitter search, don't just rely on replies. Here's a suggestion. Keep the tab open to track live alerts. Then subscribe to the RSS feed in Google Reader and this will give you a permanent log
• Follow everyone that mentions you. You can then have DM conversations
• Work across teams. Have someone who could have all the answers to people's questions on the phone or with you, then stream the answers over Twitter to incoming questions
• Use hash tags for specifics, like flight numbers. Customers can then track conversations and self-serve better
• To let everyone see @replies as well as your recipient, don't put the @ as the first character of the tweet. This will help cut down on tweet volume

That's just a few quick thoughts, hopefully they're of some interest of use to some people out there. 

Iain Dale announces he will be blogging less often (but not quitting) like us all...

One of the UK's most widely-read bloggers, Iain Dale, announced this morning that he will 'stop blogging'. This is a big moment for 'the blogosphere' as a number of commentators are putting it. What I find interesting is the real announcement and the real motivations, according to Iain. 

Iain says that he doesn't have time to do four to five blog posts each day. Well, who can argue with that! But he says that he will continue to post some content to a schedule that suits him better.

That sounds perfect to me. And it's a pattern I'm seeing more broadly as people diversify not only their online interests but their related real-worls  To quote a passage near the bottom of Iain's announcement: 

"In the new year I'll be launching a new website which will replace this blog and my current personal site. It's been in the 'building' stage for some time, but should be ready to go during January."

So long Iain, you did a great service to all. Here's looking forward to the new site. 

33 Digital's 10 social media trends for 2011 report: whitewalling, crisis fire drills and mission control

This week at 33 Digital we launched our second annual social media trends report, looking at the year ahead and forecasting the 10 trends that will impact PR and marketing. The full report is on the 33 Digital site for you to view, download and share.

I've researched and written this for two years running now. So feel free to drop me a line or comment if you have any thoughts on the themes covered.