BREAKING THE CHAIN A "How To" Guide for Examining PR…

               BREAKING THE CHAIN
A "How To" Guide for Examining PR Next Opportunities
Don't know if your traditional PR is working? Do know but don't know where to begin to exit
the old world and enter the next online opportunities? This whitepaper offers a blueprint for
people who want to start evaluating and testing the new possibilities for real message traction.

Let's assume you work at a company you think is well-managed and has a great idea but is
finding it more and more difficult to get third party validation and overall market traction. Your
organization's visibility could be declining because your company is declining in ways outside
your control. But your company could be declining because its visibility programs just aren't
getting more than three inches off the ground. If you find yourself in the former situation, dust
off the resume. If in the latter situation, read on.

Media Malnutrition
This is a chief cause of your malaise. There's just not the same level of nutritional value in the
old media food chain. Fewer targets, shrinking pages, more companies all seeking the same
dwindling amount of real estate and you end up hungrier for attention. Your biggest competitors
have much larger budgets. When food gets scarce, they don't go hungry. You do. This isn't your
fault. But you need to alter your diet of favorite foods.

Addiction to News Releases
Nobody puts really big news in a news release. If you had really big news, a news release would
likely be your last option for letting people know. Stop thinking of them as a quick fix. In
moderation and in combination with other things, news releases still have their role... but it is
vastly diminished over what it once was.

Trade Event Fever
Trade events just don't work like they used to. For small and medium sized companies it's
debatable if trade events ever worked that well. If nothing else, few mid-size exhibitors have
been very willing or able to master a very good ROI model. Big companies don't have to have an
ROI model. They've got plenty of money. That's why the trade show system works for them so
well. They can outspend you, out booth you, out keynote you.

Webbed Feet
Website redesigns, recalibrations, reworkings of the sequence of words solves nothing because
none of it speaks to the real problem. Web sites are static broadcast centers with the same basic
song being played over and over. Yes, you have to have a web site. But thinking the web site
constitutes your best and only online option for real presence is a huge mistake.

PRx: A Prescription for Improved PR Vitality, Visibility & Vision
Number one, don't quit your job. Two, don't shut down everything you're doing. Three, unplug
everything that's on auto-pilot and start questioning everything on the basis of measurable
benefits. If your advertising program isn't generating leads at an appropriate ROI, kill it, stash
the money and start examining the potentially enormous benefits of alternatives itemized below.
Used appropriately, and done well, they can bring a tremendous level of new energy to your
current effort.



Find Your Online Communities


                  21 Eliot Street  Natick, MA 01760  508.647.0044  www.agencynextpr.com
                                                                                                     2
Fasten your seat belt and go here. This is an advanced search function courtesy of Google. It will
reveal things to you about your company's market presence you have never known before unless
you're very familiar with the online world. Specifically, by plugging in your company's name in
that top box, you will know immediately if anyone in the real world is writing about you via their
online blog. Not familiar with blogs? Here's the definition from Wikipedia.

For more insight, plug in words or expressions in that top box that describe your market, your
technology or your value proposition.

What you're actually doing is identifying online communities of people interested in the same
things you and you're company are interested in. These people in fact are so interested in it that
they write about it routinely and generate an ongoing dialogue among themselves. Chances are
you may not have known about them if your communications focus has been exclusively on the
media. Sure, you'll find some media types here as well, but for the most part the blogosphere is
dominated by non-media types. Of these, the best among them are career experts and as such
offer very authentic comments about their subject matter of interest. Also, the best among them
have tremendous readership. Influencing these influencers ­ participating in their dialogue as
well as creating your own ­ can do more for your company's visibility, reputation, and
credibility than a hundred non-news releases.

Examine Your Relative Visibility
While you're still in Google, go here next. This is a word trends, traction and relevancy tool, also
from Google. Using commas to separate word entries in the Search Trends box, type in your
company's name and the name of your closest competitor. Fun, isn't it? Now try using your
keywords and expressions. This is a great online tool for making sure you are using keywords
with maximum appeal and power in all your communications. It's a great tool for proving once
and for all to your CEO that the positioning you've been using is or is not working. See? Not
everything in PR has to be so subjective. Now some analytics are available that simply can't be
ignored or denied.

Expand Your News Release Distribution List
"What?" you're saying, "I thought you said news releases are a waste of time." For the most part,
that's true, especially if the mainstream media, trade contacts, and the elite industry analyst firms
are your exclusive target. But if you are going to keep writing and distributing news releases, at
least put someone on your distribution list you know will care about your news: your customers
and prospects for starters ­ and then some bloggers if you can find ones appropriate to your
subject and if you've determined the blogger is approachable as well as open to receiving your
communication.

Caution: don't send a blogger a hyped news release full of indefensible gibberish and
corporate-speak. Whereas a media type will ignore it, a blogger will delight in exposing your
ignorance or irrelevance or both. It'll happen fast and it'll make you wince. Make sure you
know who you're talking to and make sure you're talking straight.

Our best advice: LURK. Read the blog, follow it, and comment on a post if you have something
valid to add. Look, Understand, Read and Know what and who you're dealing with before
barging in the old-fashioned way. Most great bloggers got that way after having firmly
established a healthy skepticism of the media and the companies that feed the media a lot of


                   21 Eliot Street  Natick, MA 01760  508.647.0044  www.agencynextpr.com
                                                                                                     3
nonsense. As a part of that apparatus, it's assumed more often than not that you are part of the
problem until proven otherwise.

Add Online Coverage to your News & Events Website Pulldown
Without getting too long-winded here, in today's world everyone seeking a solution like yours is
looking for it online. Let's assume they find your website. [Note: this touches upon additional
online tools and techniques such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keyword analysis,
organic search etc. which is of such special interest that it will be covered in a separate
whitepaper... or you can call 508.647.0044 or write to info@agencynextpr.com if you just can't
wait another minute.]

Guess what? You could have the best B2B website in the whole wide world, but very, very few
people are going to make a buying decision purely on the basis of what they see and read from
you. Why? Because it's just you talking. People everywhere know web sites are places where
smart companies apply a high gloss to everything. Buyers want to know what real people think...
what users have to say, for example. Most web site visitors are on and off the corporate site in
seconds. Where do they go? Directly to online communities where users and experts share
knowledge and experiences. Therefore, if you manage to gain positive traction for your company
among one or more of these online communities, their writings should appear on your site
alongside that list of news releases you issue and the positive media coverage you post.

Incidentally, a beneficial by-product of this approach is that you further strengthen your positive
relationship with bloggers that may advocate for your company... and you may get more
traditional media attention since the press these days is becoming aware of the fact they are not
the only source of news in town.

Blog?
Whoa! Slow down. Of the 50 million-plus blogs out there somewhere from people in the United
States alone, about 49 million of them or more were started on a whim and ignominiously
abandoned when the reality of blogging set in. Blogging is hard work. Blogs have a voracious
appetite for fresh content. And, the content has to be really, really good. Before you jump in,
consider whether or not you alone or you with the help of others in your organization can sustain
a blog. Obviously, an agency that can't reliably write a news release for you isn't going to be of
any help. Your executive management team may be all for it, but in our experience, well-
intentioned CEOs, CTOs and VPs quickly find they have more important things to do ­ or they
learn they really can't write to save themselves. Next, try spending one whole month of finding
three hot topics a week that you would write about if you had a blog.

There's no rule that says you must get help to do this. On the other hand, the risk of making a
blog debut followed by a hasty exit is pretty high. Here's one approach, however, that minimizes
the risk: get a consultant that not only has blog development experience, and can prove it, but
who knows your industry inside and out and can write about it in context at least twice a week.
That frequency will sustain your presence indefinitely and will build traffic over time. The expert
will know how to cross-link your blog to your website, how to executive track backs, how to
build your blogroll, and how to use a dozen or more other techniques and utilities to maximize
exposure. Then, to this baseline, select members of your internal team can add their submissions,
either unedited (not recommended) or vetted by the expert for style and grammar as well as other
minor things such as libel and slander.


                  21 Eliot Street  Natick, MA 01760  508.647.0044  www.agencynextpr.com
                                                                                                   4
No matter how you decide to proceed, before anything go find and lurk among the existing
communities you hope your blog will help you join. Do not abuse yourself of the notion that
you're going to build your own community from scratch unless your company's product is the
world's first elixir for eternal life.

Podcast Sponsorships
What's a podcast? Here's Wikipedia to the rescue again.

There are two camps of people when it comes to this option. There's a group that has sort of
heard about podcasts and are not at all sure about their value and relevance. I think there are six
people left in that camp. Then there's a group numbering in the millions that have become avid,
hardcore, loyal podcast listeners. If you're in the first group, here's just one of many places you
can go first to see what this phenomenon is all about and why it has people so crazed.

Like most bloggers, podcasters do what they do because they couldn't find what they wanted
over the traditional airwaves. They do what they do because they love the subject matter around
which their podcasts are based. Most don't make any money doing what they do ­ yet ­ and
many have huge listenerships. This means there are emerging opportunities for sponsorships if
you can find a podcast property that fits your corporate message. And guess what? Podcasters are
grateful for the sponsorships; they typically do not have the "take it or leave it" attitude of
traditional media outlets. And, you won't believe the bargains available still. But again, don't
think that a sponsorship here is going to give you any sway over content. It's not, and to even
suggest it would be very ill-advised.

Conclusion:
The whole idea here is that in parallel with traditional public relations tactics that are losing
altitude and momentum fast in this era, there are "go direct" options in the online world that can
deliver traction and torque like you haven't felt in a long, long time. Two, if you're competing
against larger, more established companies, they can continue to outspend and out shout you in
the establishment channels. In the online world, you actually have an advantage over them
because they have everything to lose and you have everything to gain. Big companies don't want
the rules to change. They aren't in favor of edgy communications and real-world community
dialogue as long as they can out-broadcast you with polished messages that countenance no
debate.




                   21 Eliot Street  Natick, MA 01760  508.647.0044  www.agencynextpr.com
                                                                                                      5