We’ve all heard the complaint before: Why doesn’t my Web page appear when I Google [fill in the blank]? To paraphrase George Berkeley: If a Web page is published but can’t be indexed, is it still published?
Let’s face it: If you don’t show up in a search engine’s first 10 results, you don’t exist. Indeed, that Google has made predictive search the default setting only hardens this race to the top. (According to the latest report from comScore, Google continues to process two out of every three queries in the U.S.)
Fortunately, this is a solvable problem—especially if your content contains a unique word or phrase.
Consider this article from S&T Snapshots, an e-zine I once edited. Its subject is something called SportEvac. As the below screen shots show, simply by adding this word to (1) the Web page’s title (“DHS | SportEvac: Choreographing a Stadium Stampede”) and (2) its in-body header (“SportEvac: Choreographing a Stadium Stampede”), we ensured that Google would find it and rank it highly—in fact, first.
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Earlier in the week, AdWeek published a piece I wrote about the impending death of the newspaper. I was responding to an earlier article, in which Ross Dawson predicts the global demise of the newspaper industry in a country-by-country timeline. But while Dawson believes that the news industry will survive in a transformed state, it’s my opinion that the newspaper business model is simply unsustainable. Let me know what you think.
Cross-posted from Ad Week
Newspaper Business Model: Unsustainable in Any Form
The ‘newspapers are dying’ story line is hardly novel
U.S. newspapers as we know them will be extinct by 2017.
So says Ross Dawson, a self-proclaimed “futurist” from Australia who released a global newspaper extinction time line in October. Dawson’s latest time line makes country-by-country predictions based on factors including a nation’s demographics, consumer behaviors and technological capacities. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. newspaper empire is predicted to crumble first, given Americans’ widespread adoption of handheld technology and the declining state of the nation’s newspaper industry. The newspaper will apparently endure a slow and painful death around the globe, spanning from 2017 to 2040—and, perhaps, beyond. (He predicted that Australian newspapers would meet their demise by 2022.)
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For most PR professionals, continuing education means learning about the latest communications tactics.
Over the past year, Adfero Group and the National Press Club have sponsored the Get PR Smart series to focus on exactly these sorts of tactics: how to use the latest social media tools, how to connect more directly with a target audience, and how to effectively engage in media monitoring.
The next event – scheduled for Friday, December 10 – will take a different approach. The seminar will address one of the most important, but often overlooked, subjects for both PR professionals and clients: Establishing a Meaningful Client/Agency Relationship.
An effective communications strategy requires a healthy, productive collaboration between a client and its agency. Yet, too often, critical mistakes are made early in the formation of the agency-client relationship.
For clients, the approach used to select an agency can be problematic down the road. It is natural to choose a PR firm based on its past experience, its expertise in a particular issue, and its general reputation. But if the criteria end there, clients never evaluate a firm on traits like responsiveness and thoughtfulness – two keys to a successful relationship and a successful campaign.
Particularly here in D.C., where the need for communications support can come up unexpectedly, a client’s chemistry with a prospective agency is often a nonfactor. But fit matters – no matter how good an end product may be, an agency should be enjoyable to work with. Clients should take the time to evaluate a potential firm from all angles.
Agencies also make early missteps by overpromising to win a client’s business. Optimism is great, but an agency must be realistic about its own capabilities and what is actually possible to achieve with a given campaign. In the professional services industry, it is widely accepted that client satisfaction is equal to the perceived results minus the client’s original expectations. Overly lofty predictions by the agency will ultimately lead to a dissatisfied client (and probably the end of the relationship).
To avoid disappointment on both ends, it is crucial for clients and agencies to set reasonable expectations at the beginning of a relationship or project.
At the Get PR Smart event in December, my colleague Shellie Edge and I will focus on what sorts of expectations should be set for a client-agency relationship to be productive. Here is a preview:
- Communicating: The agency needs to receive clear expectations about how to communicate with the client. For example, are standing meetings necessary? Is email or phone preferable? Establishing these protocols at the outset will prevent conflict down the road.
- Tracking Progress: The agency should establish how to update the client on a project’s progress. For example, depending on the nature of a project, it might be appropriate to give the client access to a collaborative account management tool. In other cases, clients may not want or need that level of access.
- Measuring Results: Any communications campaign should have measurable metrics for success. The agency needs to establish corresponding reporting protocols that allow a client to see how those metrics are being met.
To learn more about how to establish and nurture a productive and health client-agency relationship, register today for the next Get PR Smart event.
Originally published on the PR Week Insider Blog
A reporter for Roll Call interviewed White House senior adviser David Axelrod last Thursday about the upcoming elections.
Facing a likely historic number of losses for Democrats, Axelrod indicated that the Obama Administration didn’t do enough to explain its accomplishments to the American people.
“President Barack Obama ‘didn’t have time’ to focus on messaging as he tackled major issues that ‘came in rapid fire’ as soon as he got to office,” Axelrod said in the interview.
It’s honorable for Axelrod to admit a mistake. But I am hard-pressed to believe that better messaging would have a big impact on these mid-term elections. Even the best communications strategy would not have stopped the tide of voter dissatisfaction headed for the polls next week.
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Cross-posted on Adfero.com
A recent study found that the majority of businesses now have a social media strategy. Really? A true social media strategy? I’m not buying it.
The study I am referring to found, when interviewing 450 senior management and marketing professionals, that 72% of the respondents claimed to have a social media strategy.
I have two beefs with this study. The first is with the methodology. Who are the 450 executives? Are they from large or small businesses? How were they selected? In order to find out, one must give their contact information to the sponsoring firm so they can download the report. No thank you.
The second problem with the study is that many confuse strategy and tactics. I have no doubt, based on experience working with organizations large and small, that many have adopted social media tactics. But tactics are very different than strategy.
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Posted by: K Street Cafe Editor
Kicking Up Our Action Efforts: Email List (Daily Kos)
Daily Kos launches email activism program, aiming to become an “activist powerhouse.”
Don Draper’s View on Focus Groups: Ignore Them
(PR Week)
Do focus groups give a true portrayal of audience reaction to a new idea?
Now that the first two months of the new year are behind us, I thought K Street Café readers would be interested in some articles on the outlook for the Public Relations, Advertising and Public Affairs industry in 2010. Some of the articles survey the PR or advertising industry nationwide, while others are focused on the DC market specifically. All the articles are helpful for understanding the state of affairs for the specific corner of the world we operate in. (more…)
I’m Maddie Grant, an association/nonprofit industry blogger on social media and online community building. I’m very happy to have been invited to be a regular poster on K Street Cafe.
This is my first post here, so I’m still getting the lay of the land as to what kinds of topics will interest K Street readers. I am an avid blog reader and definitely consider myself a “content curator”; Here’s the kind of stuff I read and write about on my blog.
So I thought I’d do two things. First, I want point you to a few PR/Public Affairs/Advocacy related blog posts I’ve found very interesting recently – and ask you to tell me if these float your boat or not. Check ‘em out.
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It took a recession, but resumes finally are receiving renewed scrutiny. The ability to embellish and obscure shrinks when one out of every six workers is under or unemployed. More than ever, recruiters want to see accomplishments, not responsibilities; numbers, not adverbs. (more…)
Posted by: K Street Cafe Editor
Can the law keep up with technology? (CNN Tech)
As technology lurches forward at an astounding speed, legal issues are emerging just as fast. A legal system at least five years behind developing technology is at a loss for how to handle issues such as lawsuits derived from posts on social networking sites.
Census Turns to Kids for Help (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Census Bureau is running an interesting campaign targeted towards children in immigrant neighborhoods as a way to reach adults who don’t speak English.
