Green PR

Ever wonder how much energy you use every time you google something? Of course you have, says Greg Menken, VP of Sustainability at Beckerman PR. Google reports that the energy used by the company (not your computer) per average search is about 1kJ (0.0003 kWh). To put this in perspective, Google says the CO2 emissions of a newspaper is the equivalent of 850 searches, that of a glass of orange juice, 1,050 searches, and so on. But multiply that 1kJ by hundreds of billions, and you need a lot of energy.

In response to growing scrutiny of such high energy use by the tech sector, many companies are looking to economize their data center operations, hoping to save cash, ease criticism, and win customers. While it is true that an online search is greener than a trip to the library, it is also true that many technology companies, and their data centers, have developed reputations as energy hogs. Reports indicate that data center electricity use more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, and is expected to double again by 2011, climbing to as much as 10% of all energy use in the U.S. by 2020.

According to Greenpeace, if considered as a country, global telecommunications and data centers would have ranked fifth in the world for energy use in 2007, behind the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Kent Garber of U.S. News and World Report says that with increasing concern about greenhouse gases, server farms are attracting the same kind of "furrowed-eyebrow" examination as other major energy users. Environmental groups are applying pressure on data center-heavy technology companies to make their data centers as green as possible. Even Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to study private and federal data center energy usage.

As reported in Distributed Energy, the industry is trying to improve its energy consumption reputation. Eaton, a power management company to data centers, has recognized that its customers are increasingly demanding that their centers be designed with maximum energy efficiency. Fairly or not, "Data centers have gained such a reputation as energy hogs. That's not a good thing to have, PR-wise," says Ed Spears of Eaton.

Greenpeace v. Facebook is a good example. Whatever your opinion of Greenpeace, this year it launched a "Facebook loves coal" type of campaign to pressure the company to use renewables to power its new data centers. The group claims that 500,000 of its own Facebook friends engaged in the campaign. True, Mark Zuckerberg is no poorer, but the company has been forced to address the issue.

Partly in response to consumer interest in green, many companies are beginning to green-up their data center operations, often as part as an overall sustainability strategy. Yahoo's new data center near Buffalo, N.Y., for example, is designed to maximize air circulation (important for cooling) and will get energy from hydroelectric facilities. Microsoft is using retrofitted shipping containers to house servers at its new Chicago data center. The container architecture requires much less energy to cool the systems. HP, ranked among the most sustainable companies in the U.S., recently built a data center in the U.K. in a cold climate that uses outside air to reduce cooling costs.

More than good PR, these innovations are being driven by economics. According to Eaton, energy costs for cooling and operating a data center have gone from about 10% to as much as 60% of some companies' entire operating budgets. Microsoft saves 30% in operating costs at its Chicago center and HP's U.K. center saves the company $8 million a year -- critical cash flow in a down economy.

Whether it's PR or economics that drive green, both will continue to play an important role in the energy and environmental decisions that technology companies make. Says Bill Kosik of HP, "The business case for green could just as easily include increasing market share by taking an aggressive stance on minimizing the impact on the environment as it could include tactical upgrades to optimize energy use." Sustainability will always be driven first and foremost by economics but, as Kosik says, tech companies would be mistaken not to realize the PR and marketing value of sustainability as well.

How To Do PR without Looking like You're Selling Something

Valeria Maltoni writes on her blog:
People flee sellers, especially in a bad economy. Public relations was born and thrived for many years on the wave of mass media - newspapers, television news, and magazines, for example. It's quite logical to think that if you get someone else to talk about how great your company is, then you are much more likely to gain public trust. Gaining trust helps you sell your products better.

In a connected world, citizen journalists will also begin and continue to gain credibility and trust. While the demands for news of so many online communities continues to grow, we're already seeing many start to view certain bloggers and peers as filters.

By definition, public relations is the art and science of establishing relationships between your organization and its key audiences. You gain exposure to groups and individuals by using useful topics and timely content directly and through third parties, while no money exchanges hands.

I associate PR closely with branding, they're both about behavior and reputation, sort of the organization infrastructure on top of which sit applications like sales and product development. In that light, then, how do you do PR without looking like you're selling something?

What do you want from PR?
Decide what kinds of relationships you're looking to develop and also what kind of behaviors you're willing to exhibit. When people talk about transparency, what they're really looking for is if you'll do what you say you'll do. That will be the starting point for a strategy.

What resources are you willing to commit?
I find by far the greatest challenge organizations face today is that of committing resources to developing relationships at the Grail of leads. The biggest opportunity companies are missing is internal. Do you have a network inside your organization? Whenever I ask this question at events where I speak, no hands go up. Why? Something that is seen as long term with (potentially) no fast results in the short term.

People answer that it's not their goal to chat up someone in development, for example. Let's not kid ourselves, people, a) if you want to become valued, you need to make the time to mingle with many in the organization at different levels to gain insights into what they know and what your role could be, and b) if you want to build relationships, you need to be in it for the long haul.

Set goals
How are you going to get there? Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. If you set them up that way, you'll be able to track how you're doing achieving them. To help with goal setting, start with understanding the people you're trying to reach. What are they looking to learn?

Execute
This is usually where the best laid out plans fall apart. If you run a search, you will find that the terms business strategy give you 7.9MM entries (I use inverted commas) and business execution only a little more than 88k. Why the disparity? Everyone likes to be a strategist, yet the money is in the execution - and that's where the hard work is, too. Execution is not making lame pitches on Twitter.

Re-evaluate goals in light of interim progress
Since we're talking about a long term strategy, it's a good idea to check in on goals frequently so you can adjust your aim and activity mix. I find deltas helpful - two columns, a) What did we do well? b) What could be done better? In much new media the feedback is instantaneous, and public. You'll be able to capture it, if you're listening.

Execute some more
When you deal with the community in a new media space, thus mostly public, demonstrating you learn from feedback gives you major props at the moment. There will come a time when etiquette will be understood, and you'll be held to much closer scrutiny over not respecting the time and attention people and their communities give you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Web presence of the future is composed in thirds - community building, marketing, and editorial impact. This diagram will hopefully help you see the intersections.

On demand means as pulled by the community or people, when they decide they want it, which doesn't necessarily mean real time. The other two are fairly self-explanatory.

And let's not ever forget that just because we may be trying all these new technologies and adopting them, our customers or the people we're working to build relationships with are, too.

How to Use Publicity to your Advantage

Publicity is like any other form of marketing: You can’t expect immediate results out of the gate. Sure, it can and does happen, but a better approach is to keep it part of a long term marketing plan for the best results. Your plan must include your target market (what motivates them to buy your product or service, what media outlets they engage with to get their information, etc.) a message crafted for both your target market and the media (your message must answer two questions: what’s in it for your target market, and why should the media care) and a proper channel to deliver your message to the media. It is best to establish your short and long-term goals so you don’t chew more than you can swallow.
You may have been marketing for awhile with ok results; might have even tried social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to build relationships, gain visibility and build a client list. Now you and your business may be ready for an infusion of publicity from the mass media to start the sales rolling. Whatever your goals are (and whatever kind of business you have) learning the tools to effectively use the media will make all your marketing efforts much easier.

But before you infuse massive publicity for your business, you need to be prepared to fill out all the orders, that is, you have to be business ready. Imagine you launch a media campaign for your online business and you get 27,000 visitors only to have your website crash under the weight of the avalanche. Or you don’t have your product ready to ship when the order comes in. You get the point.

There are some publicity-getting tricks you can use for your business. If you are launching a product, write press releases that journalists will be interested in. Produce a webinar (a video that is seen on the Internet) explaining how your product works. Contact your local television and radio station and offer to be a guest on a show pertaining to your industry. Send an introductory letter to your contacts on the social media sites.

Don’t forget your website is the best place to showcase all the tricks mentioned above; and if all fails, contact us for help at http://www.jd-anderson.com target= "_blank"

Weinergate The Musical: How NOT to Respond to a Sex Scandal

He resigned. Finally. After nearly three weeks of the Anthony Weiner crash and burn tour, in which he broke every rule of good crisis communications, the Congressman from New York is leaving office, and the news cycle, too. His bizarre odyssey will be a new chapter in crisis communications textbooks on how NOT to respond, according to PR specialist Ashley McCown. Before he fades from view, here is a musical review of the latest and perhaps most bizarre implosion of a politician.

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

And Twitter and Facebook … Let’s start with how social media works. Did Congressman Weiner really not understand that by posting his pictures on Twitter and Facebook he was not exactly having a private conversation? Hubris trumps ignorance I guess, but his sexting does fall into the category of “did you really think you could get away with it?” Every sex scandal is incredible in its own way, but the public nature of this one takes the cake.

Yesterday

“All my troubles seemed so far away, now I know that they are here to stay …” A cardinal rule in crisis communications is when you get caught, come clean. Don’t lie or cover-up. Acknowledge what you did, accept responsibility and apologize. Perhaps Weiner missed that session in his Congressional orientation. Incredibly, when the story broke on June 1, he claimed in an interview that his Twitter account had been hacked and said, “I can’t say with certainty very much about where the photograph came from.” It was great theater and the networks played that interview over and over again. #weinergate was born. His answers were so ludicrous and the details so ripe for the picking (and joking) given his name that Twitter exploded with a litany of angry, lewd and hysterical tweets. #weiner and #weinergate trended high for days. There was no escaping it.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Apparently, the Congressman didn’t want to escape the notoriety. He has been described as a publicity seeker. It seems that applies even when he is at the center of a sex scandal. How else do you explain sticking to that ridiculous story for five days. He led or was near the top of the news cycle all day, every day. The woman he sexted was interviewed and he still didn’t come clean- until June 6 when he finally told the truth. He could have chosen to admit the truth when the story first broke in a single interview or series of one-on-one interviews. He would have defined what happened on his own terms and that would have been the clip that got played over and over again. Instead, he stood on a stage in front of hundreds of reporters and cameras, under hot lights, perspiring as he admitted to it all. All publicity is not good publicity, Congressman.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

But something was missing: his resignation. Apparently the Congressman thought it was enough to apologize, pledge to seek treatment, and then he could hold on to his job. Not so. He spent the next 10 days being hounded by the media everywhere he went. His Democratic colleagues kept hoping he would do the right thing. When they could keep silent no more, some began calling for him to step down.

Stand by Your Man

Kudos to Huma Abedin. She has responded to her husband’s embarrassing transgressions with dignity and silence. Unlike so many other aggrieved wives of politicians, she was not standing by his side on June 6 when he confessed or when he resigned on June 16. Good for her.

Walk this Way

I certainly won’t hold up Eliot Spitzer as the poster boy for good behavior, but from a crisis communications standpoint, he did the right thing. Spitzer resigned 48 hours after the New York Times broke the story about his involvement with prostitutes, and he left public life to focus on his family. Two years later, CNN gave him a show on which he has commented on Weinergate.

I Will Survive

If Congressman Weiner can stay out of the limelight for a while, he too can stage a comeback. In his resignation speech (complete with a heckler calling him a pervert), he said, “I got into politics to help give voice to the many who simply did not have one.” Here’s hoping the next time Mr. Weiner finds himself in the press it’s because he did just that.

With apologies to Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Tammy Wynette, Aerosmith and Gloria Gaynor.

Hasta La Vista, Baby! Arnold’s Next Act Gives PR Lessons for Scandal

“I’ll be back.” Given the disgust and anger (yet no one seems surprised) spewing across the Twitosphere, there are plenty of people who would prefer that Arnold Schwarzenegger said “hasta la vista, baby,” says Ashley McCown, President Solomon McCown & Co.

But, he is walking in the well-worn steps of other cheating pols and celebrities who have made it back on the main stage. Cheating on your wife and even fathering an illegitimate child is no death sentence for our public figures. Just ask Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich who is now married to the woman he had an affair with or Eliot Spitzer. CNN gave him his own show just two years after his scandal went public and he left his office in shame.

Like it or not, Arnold will be back.

What matters, from a crisis communications perspective, is what he does in the immediate days and weeks to come. So let me offer up a three-act script …

TRUE LIES

Everyone is marveling at how Arnold managed to keep this under wraps for 10 years, but now that it is out, the odds of other allegations surfacing just went up. Way up. There have been rumors of affairs and groping for years, which he always dismissed. He won’t be able to do that any more. One of the principles of crisis communications is to put the bad news out before others do it for you and take responsibility. Looks like Arnold did that or was forced to do that over the weekend.

The media will be on a search and destroy mission. If there are other skeletons in the closet, they will find them. Or other women who kept silent all these years will feel emboldened or will be enticed to come forward. Remember all the other women Tiger Woods slept with? Arnold needs to get out of the media cycle as soon as he can, so if there is more, he should: Put the bad news out there himself.

By doing so, he would avoid a slow drip of more salacious allegations that will keep “Arnold” at the top of Google searches for weeks to come.

John Edwards can hardly be considered the poster boy for good behavior, but he has managed to stay out of the limelight since Elizabeth’s death and focused on his family. Out of respect for his wife and family, who he has deeply hurt, the newest member of the Bad Boys’ Club should: Keep a low profile.

That’s not easy in Hollywood, but he is an actor after all. Every public outing he makes will be scrutinized. If he smiles, he will be criticized for being callous while his family suffers. If he looks serious, inferences will be drawn about how he is coping.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The reality is there are plenty of people and organizations that may want to keep their distance. Top of the list: the Republican Party. Fathering a love child with the housekeeper is not exactly in keeping with the party’s family values so he won’t be headlining fundraisers any time soon.

Arnold should weigh each public appearance carefully before stepping out, first and foremost for how it impacts his family. Secondarily, he needs to consider the impact his presence may have on charities and other organizations that in happier times thought he would be a draw. Now, he is more likely to draw a media scrum. As a result, he should: Bow out of public appearances for charities and others.

And what about the Hollywood movie machine? Arnold is starring in two upcoming films and producers have been quick to say the scandal will have no impact on filming or release dates (even though Arnold apparently queried his agency, CAA, about the possibility of putting these projects on hold late Thursday). For the long term, “Cry Macho” producer Albert Ruddy put it this way: “This is not gonna be a black eye for a guy with an astounding career.” He’s probably right.

ERASER

The Arnold scandal may lead the news for now, but barring any further revelations, the story will recede. There will be the obligatory “bare all” interviews with the housekeeper and at some point Arnold will do his own mea culpa interview. While we may not forgive or entirely forget, at some point, we won’t care anymore. And sadly, there will be another celebrity scandal to take its place.

Steelers PR headache: Star running back sends controversial bin Laden tweets

The NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers are no strangers to off-field controversy. (See: Ben Roethlisberger, Jeff Reed, Santonio Holmes.) So, it may come as little surprise that in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. special forces, the team’s star running back Rashard Mendenhall is in hot water.

Let’s go to the highlights.

On Monday, Mendenhall tweeted:

“What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”

Then he outed himself as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist:

“I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

That tweet was removed.

The Steelers jumped all over this, hoping to distance itself from Mendenhall’s comments. Team president Art Rooney II had this to say on the team’s website:

“I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments. The entire Steelers’ organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon.”

We’re reminded once again that timing is everything, and you’ve got to know your audience. Players say controversial things all the time. They also take stances on political issues that don’t necessarily jibe with the mainstream.

With the national fervor over bin Laden’s death—an event that provides a sense of closure for many in the nation, particularly the families of 9/11 victims—right now would be a good time for Mendenhall to keep his mouth shut.

Turn Your Business Resolution into a PR Revolution

As eyes look forward to a new business year, many small business owners and entrepreneurs are hoping that this year will be the one that catapults them into success. But businesses often overlook a key element when making their business plans and resolutions.

Most new businesses fail within three years – and it’s often due to the fact that many business owners think that simply hanging up an OPEN sign and placing an ad in the yellow pages will attract customers.

What it takes is a marketing strategy that’s effective – and in the case of many small business owners – on a limited budget. They need public relations to turn the resolutions into revolutions.

Public relations and publicity are some of the most cost-effective methods of marketing available today.

Besides the fact that it’s low cost or no cost, publicity can help establish your credibility. It can position you as the expert in your field, building you a powerful presence.

The key is to include your public relations and publicity efforts as part of a year-long, strategic business plan.

As you’re looking toward what you’re going to accomplish in the future, make sure you incorporate different public relations efforts as part of your complete plan. That way you’ll be sure to schedule it in, just like any other business task.

Shannon Cherry, publicist, recommends these low-cost public relations strategies to help revolutionize small businesses:

1. Write articles. Articles don’t have to be long; they just need to be informative. Submitting online, as well as offline, provides a good chance to get your name in print at no cost.
2. Write press releases. Reporters everywhere are looking for stories, and a press release gives them the information to write that story. Just make sure it’s newsworthy, not just an advertisement.
3. Use social media. I cannot stress enough that social media including Twitter and Facebook are publicity tools, not your complete marketing effort.  Make sure you include content valuable to your target market, as well as promote your products and services.
4. Use your business cards. Think of your business card as a mini billboard and start handing them out everywhere. Include them in all your correspondence and put them in places that they’ll be seen.
5. Start speaking. Speaking in front of an audience usually makes you an expert. People like to buy from experts. Speaking is free, and it’s just like making a sales call to many people at one time.

Successful companies make public relations a priority. Whether selling direct, through distribution channels or via e-commerce, a successful company must achieve and maintain a strong market presence through a continuous and effective public relations program.

PR Challenge: Consumers Use Different Media for Different News

According to a yearlong Pew Excellence in Journalism study, consumers are showing different preferences for where they get different kinds of news. The study also found that for news consumers, the news has become a social medium, with nearly half saying they receive recommendations and referrals from friends, co-workers and relatives.
For instance, the breakdown of the percentage of the news hole dedicated by traditional press follows: politics/government, 15 percent; foreign events, 9 percent; economy, 10 percent; technology, 1 percent, and health and medicine, 11 percent.
Blogs and traditional media share a similar focus on politics/government (17 percent) and foreign events (12 percent). Twitter only devotes 6 percent of its news hole to politics/government, but YouTube is the highest, at 21 percent with 26 percent dedicated to foreign events. One might not ordinarily think of YouTube as a news resource, but we have seen its rise in importance over the past year, with amateur video becoming the only medium for receiving news of the Iran riots.
YouTube only dedicates 1 percent of its capacity to technology, probably because tech does not lend itself to viral video. Twitter, on the other hand, devoted 43 percent of its news hole to tech news — much of it about Twitter itself.
So what does this mean for your public relations strategy?
It means the traditional means of distributing news to consumers is obsolete. Besides the fact that the number of journalists has shrunk dramatically in the past several years, social media enables P.R. practitioners to bypass that intermediate layer and go directly to consumers with their news.
The PEJ study provides a more detailed set of guidelines about where we can direct the different kinds of news to the appropriate medium for dissemination.

Get S.M.A.R.T. When Setting PR Objectives

Before you can effectively measure the results or return on investment (ROI) of your public relations programs, you have to know what you’re measuring, says blogger Jeremy Porter. Review a lot of PR plans and you’ll see a consistent them – great-sounding goals and objectives, that upon further inspection are a little better than loosey-goosey guesses at program outcomes.

I f you really want to improve the performance of your public relations programs you must work harder on getting S.M.A.R.T. with your objective definition. If you haven’t heard of the S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym (and a pretty nifty mnemonic device) used in project management for setting objectives for the project. It’s more than relevant and applicable to public relations strategy and planning.

There are many different versions of this acronym that have popped up since the early 80s when it first surfaced (according to Wikipedia), but here’s the one most used over the years for PR planning:

• Specific - Clearly define your objective so that everybody will know exactly what you are trying to accomplish, rather than “double coverage among A-level trade publications,” your goal might be securing one placement in the New York Times’ Bits Blog each quarter. It could also be as simple as distribute two news releases per month on the first and second Monday of the month.

• Measurable – Can you measure your progress against the objective with relative ease? In the examples above you can, though you may want to be more specific and report on activity specific to the objective (e.g. what activity is directly tied to that objective?) If you don’t know how you will measure your objective, you need more definition.

• Actionable – You should be able to complete your objectives within a reasonable amount of time. If your objective is too far in the future or too complex, break it down into a shorter-term objective. In the two press releases per month objective for example, your first specific, measurable and actionable step might be to create and share a press release calendar with your team by Friday. Step two might be to conduct interviews for the first release and so on. Writing two press releases per month is NOT actionable, because it’s too broad a task. You could check it off at the end of the year, but you need to break it down into bite-sized pieces to be more effective.

• Realistic – Be honest with your objective setting. While you want to be aggressive, you also need to be realistic about what you can achieve by your project deadline. If your organization has historically sent out one press release a quarter, is it realistic to believe you can do two a month? Do you have enough news to maintain that pace? Are your sources able to provide information quickly? Does your legal department need more than a week to approve releases? These are all important questions to ask when setting an objective. Don’t just trust your gut for objective setting – if you have available data on current or past performance, use that as a guide. If you increased website traffic by 50% last year, can you increase by 60% this year? If you set and measure against S.M.A.R.T. objectives, you’ll get more accurate with your forecasting in the future. You may be way off on your projections the first time you do it, but you should also nail it next quarter.

• Time-Based – Your objective should be tied to a date (or time). The more specific you can be with this deadline, the better. This has always been the biggest wake-up call for professionals. There is often a big gap between when they think they can complete a task and when it actually gets done. Use any task or project management system that encourages you to set deadlines for tasks and shows you overdue tasks. Basecamp and ActionMethod are two favorites because they enable you to track tasks associated with project components or milestones (rolling up to your objectives). There are free versions of both tools you can play with if you’re not familiar already.

Getting Started

Review your current goals for Q1 or 2011 – do you have them defined? How do they hold up to the S.M.A.R.T. test? Will you have a hard time justifying your bonus or a raise based on the objectives? It’s not too late to revise them to be more specific, measurable, actionable (attainable), realistic and time-based.

What do you think? Is the S.M.A.R.T. approach to objective-setting helpful for PR professionals? How do you currently set goals and objectives for your PR programs? Do you measure ongoing campaign performance against these objectives? Do you think some campaign goals are too loosey-goosey? Please share your thoughts.

Public Relations Nightmares: Lessons Learned

The story about Toyota Motor Corp.'s problems with the "unintended acceleration" story made history in the Public Relations arena in 2010. Toyota now joins rank with other big companies that have impaired the public interest by ignoring or mishandling information. Here's a look at the PR Walk of Shame:

Toyota, 2010: The most disturbing aspect of the Toyota story is that the company appears to have dismissed early questions about the unintended acceleration problem. "Toyota either ignored or minimized reports of sudden acceleration," Representative Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York, told company chief Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company founder, during a congressional hearing in February. So far, five deaths have been linked to the accelerator problem, and 29 more fatalities are under investigation. Toyota faces a criminal inquiry as well as untold civil penalties and lasting damage to its reputation and to its business.

Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.: On August 9, 2000, the U.S. government announced that Bridgestone/Firestone would "voluntary" recall 6.5 million radial tires, at a cost of about $350 million. But the recall came two years after the first complaints that tires were coming apart at the seams and after a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pointed a finger at the company. Almost 200 deaths were linked to the recalled tires.

Merck, 2004: The pharmaceuticals giant faced questions as early as 2000 about the safety of Vioxx. The painkiller, once prescribed to 80 million people worldwide, had been associated with heart-related health risks and the risk of stroke. It was recalled in 2004, and Merck set aside $970 million to cover legal costs. According to some estimates, the drug may have contributed to nearly 28,000 deaths.

Wyeth, 1997: Faced with a crisis over a potentially lethal antiobesity drug combo known as Fen-Phen, American Home Products decided to address the problem by changing its name to Wyeth. In retrospect, the name change has an air of black comedy about it. AHP marketed fenfluromine and phentermine, which were taken together as an obesity treatment. Fenfluromine was linked to lung and heart problems and government and private researchers examined 100 deaths among users. The liabilities in the case hit about $13 billion. Wyeth was eventually sold to Pfizer.

General Motors, 1963: In his groundbreaking book on the U.S. auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed, consumer advocate Ralph Nader used one of his eight chapters to address concerns with the Chevrolet Corvair, a sporty compact car. The chapter famously asserts that the 1960-63 models were accident prone, and that GM ignored the advice of a Chevy mechanic, George Caramagna, who advised that an anti-roll bar be incorporated into the design. The company decided to address the situation by developing special tire pressures, which weren't well communicated to salespeople and owners. And GM hired detectives to dig up dirt on Nader.

How Small Business Can Use Free Public Relations

“PR plants the seed. Advertising harvests the crop”. Al Ries

A small business’s reputation, profitability, and even its continued existence can depend on the degree to which its targeted "publics" (audiences) support it.  Using public relations (PR) is often missed by small business, says blogger Doug Hay.

Public relations is the tool to shape public opinion-both inside and outside the business. This often calls for "telling the story of the business" and forwarding its positioning. For example, a local restaurant with great food will get more new business from a positive review in a local newspaper (print and website) or magazine than paid ads. A company with a new software program for small business can get great publicity from an article in a magazine targeted to small biz.

PR is free and is much more believable than advertising.

This starts with a press release that will go to the media (e.g. local newspaper, magazine, etc).  Here are the steps to get a review or article or press release published:

1. The target public (audience) is determined i.e. who do you want to communicate to and what is the purpose of the communication.  E.g. A dentist opens who an office with a specialty of children’s services would want to reach local Moms (target audience). So what publications in print and online do moms read?

2. Research is undertaken on the subject of the press release. Get the facts as reporters may call with questions or to get additional information.

3. The release is written keeping in mind it must be newsworthy:

• It should have a strong news angle such as an event, important information, new discovery, drama, human interest or local angle.  e.g. the children's dentist release, there could be new information about fighting cavities.

• It must have a broad, wide-ranging interest to the target audience

• The release needs to be written in a journalistic style—not a marketing piece. It must be objective. The release needs to educate and inform not just SELL a product.  Give them the who, what, where and why.

4. Distribute the press release:

• Broad distribution using a press release service such as Market Wire who can get the release out to regional, national or international media outlets. This type of distribution is utilized to get the release picked up by as many newspapers (both print and online) and other media as possible. This is the most expensive option and would only be used if the release needs to get out to large numbers of people in several areas.

• Targeted distribution such as an industry trade magazine. In this case, the media is typically contacted in advance to find out what type of material they are looking for and other details.

• Local distribution – email it to your local newspapers, magazines, radio stations and TV.

5. Add the release to the company web site section called Media Room or  News Room i.e. an on-line media kit. This allows journalists to get more information on the company, the business owners and your products.

The media room should also have a summary of the company, bios of the owners, product details, pictures, etc.

6. Follow up in person to get the editors to publish the release as an article. You can easily search the Internet to see if it got published in an online edition.  You can set up a Google alert to track mentions of your business, product names and managers. As needed call the journalist to see if they need additional information but don’t be pushy—reporters hate that.

Once the press release is published, you can add links to your press room on the website.

Using public relations as a tool for small business marketing is often overlooked but could be the best promotion you could do.