When I get excited about something, I have to write about it. Today, I just had to write about this blog called TruthDig because of Robert Scheer’s column entitled, “Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax.” It dawned on me that I check this site pretty regularly. I took a few notes to list the reasons why.

Here are seven reasons why I enjoy TruthDig:

• Email Updates. Call me old-fashioned, but the first thing I check when I log into my computer is my email. (It’s my main form of communication with my clients. It’s also where my mom scans and sends me print articles, because she no longer mails them to me.) Truthdig sends me a weekly review of its blogposts with catchy—and sometimes sensational—headlines, and when I’m in the mood to procrastinate on my ever-growing to-do list, I click on one and get caught up in the conversation.

• Setting Up The Argument. Scheer, Chris Hedges and others on the team can set up a good argument. They get to the point in the first paragraph and they lay it out in sequence with smooth and entertaining transitions throughout the rest of the story. (This style of writing has been poopooed by bloggers as “uninspired and artless”, but I still feel that it’s quite effective for getting to (and making) the point with its core readership.) It’s the upside-down pyramid style typically used by journalists and it incorporates other tools that have historically earned journalists their accolades. Take a look at this great lede:

“It’s now clear that health care ‘reform’ is a bonanza for the insurance companies. But these acquisitive businesses want even more. Their efforts to increase their profits are at the center of the clandestine Senate and House negotiations currently shaping the health bill.” – Bill Boyarski, “Healthcare Reform Insurance Companies Can Believe In.” Oct. 19, 2009.

• Research & Sourcing Additional Voices. In my (own unresearched) opinion, many print journalists started to cut corners on their reporting as they were forced to compete with the internet’s rolling (in contrast to, say, daily) deadlines. TruthDig and similar newsblogs shifted from covering breaking-news to reporting on context–the backbone of a story. TruthDig.com created a new platform for reasoned discussion with its simple mantra to “respect the story and present it in a clear way.” How’s this for context:

“Other than the United States, Turkey has been probably the most important of Israel’s allies, informal or otherwise. It is Muslim; it possesses the most democratic government of all the present-day Muslim states. Its major military and political links are with NATO, the United States and Western Europe. It has provided an important market for Israeli goods and a source of useful military exchanges. It sees itself as a modernizing state, allied with the West.” – William Pfaff, “Turkish Cooperation—and Coffee—in Short Supply for Israel,” Oct. 20, 2009.

• Passion. Sometimes, passion can get in the way of presenting a story in a clear way. But these folks are not afraid to show disgust, shock and astonishment without compromising the integrity of their voice, their position, and the information they share. Here’s an example:

“[The ‘Balloon Boy’ drama] was enough to push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with far less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon themselves for ripping off our economy.” – Robert Scheer, “Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax,” Oct. 20, 2009.

• Guts. The folks who write for TruthDig aren’t afraid to be placed in the middle of the news to get close enough to the real story. Take Amy Goodman, news anchor for Democracy Now! (who contributes regularly to TruthDig). She and some other members of the Democracy Now! team were arrested while covering the Republican National Convention:

“I said, ‘Sir, I just want to speak to a commanding officer. My reporters are inside.’ They’ve got their ID. I mean, we’ve done this in New York, as well, when there is confusion about a reporter. They immediately grabbed me, handcuffed me—and as you haven’t quite talked about, those plastic handcuffs cut right into your wrist, and they make those tight—pushed me to the ground.” Amy Goodman, “Amy Goodman & Two Democracy Now! Producers Arrested at RNC Protest.” Sept. 2, 2008. (TruthDig shared the news with its readers.)

• Comments. I love reading blog readers’ comments. TruthDig’s readers’ commentary range from the wild and ruthless, to reasonable and revolutionary.

• Length of Story & Variety. TruthDig’s columns are on the lengthy side, even for some print publications, who will probably give talented writers as Scheer, Goodman and Pfaff enough space for 800 words, but still prefer for opinion pieces to stay closer to the 700-word range. This all relates to being true to the integrity of the story. But I recently learned at a bloggers’ conference that most blog readers tend not to read past the first 300 words. For those folks who still like their news on the run, TruthDig offers up summary opinions on other news, too. Take the “Studios to Stars: No Twitter for You,” (Oct. 19, 2009) summary by Kasia Anderson, which clocks in at less than 100 words.

Call me old-fashioned but I still read a good story from beginning to end. In my humble opinion, TruthDig can break the silly 300-word rule all it wants.

Cynthia Thomet is the founder of Cyn PR, LLC, a communications consultancy for nonprofit organizations that advance positive change, including Akaku: Maui Community Television. She learned about TruthDig and met Robert Scheer, who was the keynote speaker, at the 2009 Media Justice Conference in Hawaii.

It’s no secret that I am of mixed ethnic background. I was born in the islands to a Caribbean father and a European mother, but I grew up for the most part in “chocolate city”—Washington D.C.

I was lucky to have the opportunity to learn several languages and travel with my mother back to Europe every summer. My brother and I spoke German and French along with our daily English, and we would quickly make friends by the public pool in our grandparents’ neighborhood. As brown-skinned children with brown-sugar hair, we were often approached by the locals who were curious about the texture of our hair, how tan we already were, and also of our American-ness.

Our up-bringing prepared us to expect the unexpected in future travels. But it also prepared us to navigate new territories: geographic, cultural, linguistic and even culinary with a certain amount of ease. Not much was surprising, even if it was out of the ordinary for my brother and me.

BlackAtlas.com Shines Light on Ethnic Experience in Travel

Expected to launch online today, American Airlines’ BlackAtlas.com is a 21^st Century tool that will help connect people who have contributed so much to world culture.

BlackAtlas.com has assigned Nelson George, Travel Expert-at-large, to “anchor” the interactive site with little-known highlights from select destinations around the world. Through text and video posts, George will share tidbits of seldom-reported facts African-American and contributions to a place.

In one example, George sheds light on the largely “unknown” or “under-seen” aspect of Los Angeles history. Through a brief video post about the late Paul R. Williams, an African-American architect who designed a number of public buildings as The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hollywood YMCA, and numerous private homes to such celebrities as Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball.

George, also a chief editor of BlackAtlas.com, offers us a new lens through which to see and visit the city of angels. With the collaboration and blog contributions of other accomplished bloggers, aspiring travelers who wish for a fresh twist on their travel experience can build and share online their unique itineraries.

Personally, I’m really excited about this new website. It was one of the first sites I punched into my browser when I logged on today (its scheduled launch date). At the time of posting to my own blog, BlackAtlas.com was still “currently down for maintenance.” I look forward to when it goes live. This is one interactive site that I’ll definitely key into and write about. Stay tuned…

In five words it’s: “I am the only me”. Allow me a moment to elaborate.

After a discussion-packed day of brilliance at Blogalicious 2009, I came away with one over-arching thought that’s been rattling around in my head for many months—if not a couple years. It is this: every blogger wears two hats:

1) Product Developer

2) Marketer

As someone who has ghost-blogged and helped develop website concepts for nonprofit organizations (here’s a recent example) and their leaders for many years, I always approached blogs with a clear mission to advance an issue, an appeal, an announcement, or a germane comment. And while I appreciated some powerful blogs by writers, such as yesterday’s inspirational Karen Walrond (whose blog is Chookooloonks), I sometimes thought “I could see some of my friends appreciating my thoughts on such-and-such topic,” but I never really gelled with one specific topic. 

I think the main reason for this is because I always approached blogs (for my clients) as a marketer. They had a product that they want to extend to the market, and my job is to work with that product and take it to the market–identify goals and audiences and devise strategies for getting the word out!

Since I started this blog (my blog) about six months ago, I have always been a little shy and embarrassed about the content that I want to put here. I always felt like I had to be on some pioneering mission. I had to be the first and the best on a message or a blog post, but I realized yesterday that I don’t have to. In that moment that I click “publish,” I am the only me who wrote that very blog post.

And that is what motivates bloggers. It’s wonderful in its own right.

But I’m realizing that I’m still developing my product. I’m still researching and developing the things that make me tick… that inspire me to sit down and “be consistent” as so many inspiring and accomplished (Veronica Arreola, Shameeka Ayers, Heather Barmore, Cheryl Mayberry McKissack) and professional (like Xochitl Gonzalez,  Terri Holley and Jennifer James) bloggers  advised yesterday.

And I’m okay with being a product developer.

So, in conclusion, all I know is that the common thread on this blog is me. And I know that my blogging and non-blogging friends read it. Goodbye shyness! Hello, fun!

I think I was dissed yesterday by this accomplished social media strategist (who is currently launching his own company, Everywhere). He was suggesting that public relations is, well, passe.

As a PR professional, I was initially shocked by his honesty, but I’d have to say that I have found myself thinking that on not just a few occasions. But at the core, I have remind myself that I fell in love with PR for its name.

I love “relating publics”. It’s the relationships, and relationship potential that get me jazzed about the profession. The other aspect I love about PR, is being a part of the story telling process. And here I am in a room in Atlanta with a room full of storytellers.

I’m going to keep this post short, because I want to listen to the new panelists, but I want to remind people about the special thing that’s happening at Blogalicious 09, which is having a roomful of voices who are passionate about sharing their opinions, stories, tips and techniques for building… relationships.

(So, James Andrews, I hear you. Really, I do. But don’t forget that your real-time, real-world relationships (even perceived) cement the important work you’re doing virtually.)

As I have mentioned, one of my clients recently launched a bilingual children’s book, Luna Needs a Miracle! Luna Necesita un Milagro! (Disclaimer: he’s also my fiance, and much of the work I do for him is pro bono). No launch is complete without a special event, a ceremony to inaugurate the special moment and get the word out about this major accomplishment. Below, I outline a few rules of thumb that I always abide by in announcing events, so that you might  launch the release of a children’s book seamlessly and successfully:

1) Establish One Goal To Identify the Best Venue. It’s easy to be prone to thinking of all the things you want to accomplish with the release of your kids’ book–you want to get the word out about it, you want to get the word out about you, you want kids to know about it, you want parents to know about it. Honestly, the list can go on and on. My client and I decided on one goal, based on our campaign’s message that “a celebrated chef–who is local to the area–recently published a bilingual children’s book, and it isn’t about food!”

This helped establish certain parameters, because otherwise the possibilities would have been endless. We also had some objectives:

• Ensure an attendance of between 30 – 90, so we needed a space to accommodate that. We wanted at least a third of attendees to be children.
• Sell at least 20 books. (We actually exceeded our goal!)
• Connect with new audiences. In this case we wanted to connect with local teachers, who might want to find ways of connecting with their Spanish-speaking students. (We did that too!)

2) Establish Your Audience. We knew we wanted to expose the books to local kids–particularly those who are exposed on a daily basis to dual-language (Spanish-English) circumstances. In so doing, we wanted to connect with those kids’ parents and teachers, to show them how bilingual books can help create a “safe space for conversation” between adult and child–one of the author’s primary objectives in writing the book.

Knowing that kids exposed to dual-language circumstances were our main focus, we had to come up with an event that would cater to them, while also catering to their guests of honor (their parents and teachers).

3) Give Yourself Time. We gave ourselves about 60 days to pull the whole event together. Most of that time wasn’t spent in actually executing the event; rather, much of our time was spent writing, creating marketing materials, and reaching out to people.

• Writing a press release & a calendar release. Personally, I like to start with writing a press release, because that’s the document that begs all the questions you need to have answers for. It helps you communicate your plan in a simple manner. The press release also establishes copy for your calendar release, which is the second document I write. The calendar release should be a 50 word (or less) summary of your event and its intent.
• Get the word out to print media, online media and social media. Distribute your press release to media outlets, distribute your calendar release to all online and print calendars. (Many of the print publications only accept calendar releases through their online partners. For example, Metro Silicon Valley and its family of independent newspapers, has partnered with SanJose.com, post your release in the latter and the former will likely publish it in print in the week previous to your event.) We also posted the announcement on my client’s website, his facebook account, my own, and asked our close friends to share it with their close friends. At this stage, any and all buzz helps.
• Create marketing materials. Always plan to have a “leave-behind”. We went to www.overnightprints.com, designed business cards and post-cards, featuring the cover of the book on the front, and some basic information on the back, with enough blank space for writing any messages that could be useful.

4) Get Buzz. We talked about the event, the book, the chef/author, whenever we had a chance. But more importantly, we always had our “leave-behinds” with us. We pasted labels announcing the event to the back of the postcard, so folks would remember the conversation, consider the invitation, visit our website–any of the above!

5) Don’t Rinse — Just Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. A couple times, we offered a postcard and they would say, “Oh! We already have one!” Don’t dilute your goals and message, by saying okay and walk away. Instead, we’d say, “You already have a postcard? That’s great! Maybe you know a friend who’d be interested in joining us!” And we’d add another postcard to the offering. Funny thing is that people would say, “Oh, yeah! Go ahead and give me a couple more.” … Sure thing! With a launch event, the more the merrier.

Our work with the calendar release and the press release, resulted in several online mentions, a mention in a widely read column of a local newspaper, as well as a calendar blurb in the family section of the local independent newspaper. While we had about 30 RSVPs based on our own word-of-mouth buzz-making, the media mentions ended up doubling RSVPs and attendance. (Yes, we had some 60 attendees at our opening, about 18 of which were young kids.)

6) Bonus Tip… Make Sure You Incorporate the Plan to Document The Event! Most folks are so focused on pulling off the launch event that they really don’t focus on having it documented in a real way. They hand a camera over to a lackluster guest (or coordinator) who is more interested in being part of the event, than stepping to its outskirts to record it. We were lucky on two fronts: One of our guests volunteered of her own accord, and she took fantastic photographs at the event. We also were approached by a professional photographer about a week before the event. He offered to document the event for a nominal fee. We immediately obliged–and couldn’t be happier with the results!

I watched this online video because a friend used one of my buzz words, “journalism”.

I’m not sure she actually instructed citizens on how to make journalism–or new journalism—survive, as much as she instructed citizens on the new way to cozy up to journalists.

In my humble opinion, it seemed more instructive to encourage journalists to be more popular in the “open newsroom” setting, lest they fall prey to Darwinian forces: only the one who can cope with constant questioning, conversation and heckling will survive. (But how to survive as a journalist if only “trolls” post comments?!)

What I got from her five-minute presentation was that only those who demonstrate and ability to lead a conversation before many matter. To illustrate: Reporter writes an article and posts it on the website, thousands read it, dozens comment. Half of those comments are useless troll-submissions, and the other half can inspire a new article to write for thousands of readers sometime in the future. Reporter upholds one-to-many (leader to readers) one-way communications model.

As we have seen with the demise of many papers across the country, some reporters were left without jobs and moved to other papers, jobs, fields. While others were able to redirect their readers to their blog, and cultivate a readership in an area of expertise, passion, etc. Many even managed to build a following. The latter could do so on the merits of their social ability to engage in a leader-to-readers relationship.

So, again, do commenters really need to “learn” how to write comments or do journalists have to get used to the hecklers?

As Guzman intimates, trolls will be trolls and will do troll-like things, like posting troll-like comments. My guess is that trolls aren’t interested in cozying up to the journalist, they’re just interested in setting the conversation off-balance.

While Guzman might not find the comments from “trolls” particularly useful for her next story, their engagement is still better than none at all. (I vaguely remember a time when journalists would complain about whether anybody read their articles at all.) Maybe in pre-internet days, they were the folks who bought the paper and used it to line the bottoms of their birdcages, caught the headline of her story, picked up the phone and harassed the letters editor.

Then again, “trolls” might be blowing off some cynicism. Their useless comments might be a good weather vane that the “good journalism” model of yore (designed to ignore all sorts of people) needs to adapt.

I just found out about a really well-written blog post called “Who Shot the Paperboy?“  by PR maven, Renne Blodgett–brought to me by a NextNewsroom blog post by Chris O’Brien, called “How Passion for Newspapers Points To a Way Forward.”

The long-winded introduction to my own blog post is to serve as an indication as to the way we avail ourselves to news in the digital age. Working out of my house (as a PR professional) I access all my news and updates online. Searching those things that will have an impact on my clients and tripping on the actual news that may not have a direct bearing on my clients, my work, my day — but still reading headlines that catch my eye along the way.

It’s how I still read print newspapers on some level. As Blodgett describes, I’d walk to some form of public transport (the “T” in Boston, the “metro” in Washington D.C.)  and pick up the local/national papers to peruse on my ride downtown. I would scan the headlines for news that might change my clients’ PR plans for the day and I’d make mental notes about things that I would want to spend time reading (usually, they were features, in-depth investigative stories about issues I knew little about before opening the paper that morning). If I had extra time on my commute I’d start actually reading, starting from the A-section backwards.

I couldn’t miss the Boston Globe’s or the Washington Post’s editorials and opinion pieces. Pundits are talking, and in the news (content/context-creation) business, you’re either part of the action, talking about the things people are talking about–or you’re missing it. (This reminds me of an old Washington Post marketing campaign slogan that said something like, “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it”.)

What it boils down to–at least for me–is that newspapers are an expression of a person’s identity as well as the identity of the community it serves. (And I mean “community” in the strictly geographical sense as well as in the “common ground” sense.) In Washington, if you relied on the Washington Times for your news, you were sending a message to Washington Post readers. (And, if you recently moved to Washington, and said you read “The Times” this morning, most everybody would automatically assume you meant The New York Times!) Same story went for the Boston Globe versus Boston Herald readership. This argument can be made for other media forms too, Fox has managed to forge clear dividing lines with America’s population as the “alternative” to “left-wing” mainstream news media.

All that to say that the papers I collected and chose to read said something about me as they were saying something to me. Not only is reading the paper a professional imperative, but it’s also a cultural imperative. When I move to a new location, I find that if I feel comfortable and able to hold a conversation with the newspaper of the region–if that paper somehow includes my voice–I can identify with the culture of the place.

When I moved to Maui a few years ago (I’m in Silicon Valley these days), the Washington Post and the New York Times were papers I missed terribly. I visited their websites to catch up on what was happening 5,000-plus miles away, but somehow I was desperately behind on the action. Indeed, when I read what happened on the streets where I lived, among the people I had known (personally, professionally, or simply by name recognition in the media), I realized that the subjects of the stories I hungrily read about had already “moved on”. I was reading the “news” at 10 am Hawaii time, and it was already 4 pm East Coast time. New news had already been created and I was in no way a part of the action–I wouldn’t find out about it until tomorrow, too late to get a word in edgewise. In short, I no longer “got it”.

Over time, I began developing “relationships” with the news I read in the Maui News. After understanding the “cultural” and experiential differences between South Maui, Lahaina, Hana, etc., the news of a local resident being bitten by a shark southside conjured a different implications than if it happened on the east side.

Now, in Silicon Valley, I read the Mercury News, and I identify with its news “more” than with the San Francisco Chronicle. Still, I read both. But my identity has a vested interest in the conversations directly concerning what’s happening in the South Bay.

Of course, I’m glad for the digital technologies that make possible easy and (still) free access to news of all the places in which I have developed my multicultural (by birth) identity. And I love the ability to read the opinions of others in any corner of the world from them directly through blogs, without the gatekeeping effect of editors and editorial boards. But there’s something to be said about the content-creation of solid reporting, the context-creation of journalism and the physicality of the paper that also defines the identity of the macrocosm, isn’t there?

Those are my two cents anyway. I might change my mind tomorrow.

Following last week’s Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Conference in Portland, my co-presenter and I were asked to provide a summation of points we covered during the marketing panel. We were both aware that the 7 Ms of Marketing covered a lot of ground, but we also knew that the range of marketing experience in the room would be wide-reaching. For some, we covered familiar ground and for others we didn’t quite measure up to very high expectations!

Today, I would like to provide a quick overview of the “Pyramid of Audience Engagement” so folks can get a sense of where I start when developing a marketing plan? (Basically, the question I ask is: Am I developing a marketing plan to address audiences who don’t know about our organization at all, or are we addressing audiences who know us? If the latter, to what extent do they know us?)

Marketing – or I like to use the term Public Relations – is something we do all the time with everybody – whether we know it or not. The point of marketing, whether we employ advertising, publicity, direct mail, word-of-mouth, etc. is to connect with audiences with a strategy that will move your audiences up through a pyramid of engagement.

A typical “pyramid of engagement” has five levels through which your organization’s marketing strategy seeks to engage its audiences. The five levels are:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration/Understanding
3. Intent to Engage
4. Comparison
5. Closing the Deal

Below, I will list marketing tactics (actions) employed to help move audiences from one level of engagement to a higher tier of engagement.

1)    Awareness:

This is the broadest level on the pyramid. Marketing efforts are targeted to those who have no awareness of your organization’s existence. “Building awareness of your organization/mission” is usually the primary goal when you’re reaching out to new audiences.

• Advertising (“paid media”) is usually employed in this area as it communicates a very simple message to the broadest possible audience. But it can be costly.
• Print Publicity (“earned media”). Pitching and landing articles in your local and regional print outlets is the most cost-effective way of getting through to large audiences. Negotiating a column with your local paper is a useful venue to communicate basic messages about your organization and/or issue-area with the broadest audiences. My client, a community access television station on Maui, distributes press releases at least once a week and follows up with a phone call for those events they feel would be of particular interest to community readers. We are sure to direct readers to our other channels (website, brick-and-mortar location, TV channels, radio station, etc.) so they can learn more about us if they like. The costs involved usually are salary/wage expenditures, based on the time spent by a staff member thinking up and writing up a press release – and following up with media. In the past, I have also enlisted interns from j-school to support the “creative writing” efforts of our organization to develop profiles about the expertise of our staff, and sniff out interesting stories. Managing interns can be time-consuming, but the experience is rewarding on both ends.

2)    Consideration/ Understanding:

Marketing efforts in this stage focus on audiences who have a very basic awareness of your organization/mission. Your primary goal is to drive an understanding of your mission and how your organization and the audience can relate. For many nonprofits, the marketing materials used here are:

• Your Website: Usually visitors to your website were directed there through some other means, such as a mention in an article, which led to a Google search. But at the most basic level, your organization’s website should round out a person’s understanding of your mission. In the ideal scenario, it should reflect the essence of your mission.

My client seeks to project itself as a community-service organization with a staff-wide expertise in “media”. Some of us have strong marketing skills, others have great graphics skills, we also showcase our video productions. But we’re a nonprofit first. (Nothing says nonprofit louder than a prominent “Donate” button.)

Everybody wants to know how to drive more visitors to their website. Well, the easy answer is that there is no easy answer. Whole marketing campaigns can be focused on increasing website visitor traffic. However, understanding what type of audience you want to visit your website will strongly shape the direction of your marketing efforts. My two-cent strategy in a nutshell: Develop incentives and reasons for people to move from offline and other online realms to visit your organization’s website, and then deliver on those incentives and reasons once they get there. (Then, try to get them to “pledge” to return to your site by hosting an e-newsletter sign-up form.)

Obviously, websites are invaluable to an organization, and they can be changed pretty quickly. Integrating your website (your organization’s online presence) is critical for your marketing efforts at every level. Even though my client has only one webmaster whose responsibility is to ensure the structure and stability of our site, several on-staff individuals have access to develop and post updates to the website. This is critical to keep homepage content from going stale:

• As a consultant with strong writing skills, I have a log-in access to develop site updates to the blog posts. The in-house administrative assistant does too. Blog posts can include:
  • Appropriate press releases, re-worded to address website visitors – not members of the press.
  • Updates on new technologies and staff that will enhance the user experience with our organization.
  • Guest appearances, contests and other fun activities.

• An individual who heads up Productions Services can upload video segments – particularly the in-house productions.

• My client’s programming department has incorporated Synergy Broadcast Systems so visitors can pull up the “TV Guide” of its channels. They can also program TV Channel 54 through their website.

Costs of developing and maintaining a website will vary from organization to organization; however, you can see that (perhaps unknowingly) several of my client’s departments are engaged in marketing the organization and its activities through the website.

• Marketing Materials: Your brochure, annual reports, training curricula, newsletters (online and offline). I won’t go into too much detail with this. Just a couple insights:
  • Repetition, Repetition, Repetition. Please don’t forget to mention your channels, your website address, your phone number, your normal address. Printed materials are left behind, given away, pass along. You don’t know if the next person who reads it doesn’t know some basic information.
  • Mission Statement. Same thing. Include it on your print materials (as well as your website).

Some organizations cut all print materials out of their marketing budget. I don’t necessarily advise this, but budgets are budgets. If you can, try to use print monies for one ever-green piece. My client has a tri-fold brochure with a tear-off section that turns into a mailer for checks. (Nothing says “nonprofit” like “Donate”.) We printed 5,000 of them.

• Social Networking. This is quickly becoming the cheapest most effective means of getting the word out about your organization to people in your immediate communities and beyond. Resources like Facebook, Ning and other networks that link people together are free. Please assign somebody to consult the online networks and post announcements there on a regular basis. Oftentimes, people just like to chat through these sites and they appreciate that staffers have a moment to drop a line in return.

3)    Intent to Engage:

You want to elevate your marketing efforts for those audiences who have an understanding of your organization’s campaign or raison d’etre to this stage: the “Intent to Engage” stage. This is where things get interesting, because at this stage the organization is usually engaged in a two-way conversation with its audiences. One of the goals you want to set up with audiences you’re reaching out to in this category is obtaining feedback.

From a Marketing Communications Stand-point, this is the stage where you can get quantitative and qualitative information from your audience to great use. Some effective marketing tactics used at this stage are:

• Email: Even with the effectiveness of Social Networks, email continues to be a great way to engage with your audiences. There are several web-based email management and distribution channels you can use where you can track readership and clicks. Some people enjoy ConstantContact, others use iContact and MailChimp. Most of them have Survey software as well. Cost varies depending how many email addresses you have in your outreach databases.I have been able to view reading trends to our organization’s email outreach correspondence and determine which “stories” (or announcements) are of interest to our email subscribers, and which are less interesting.

• Surveys: Keep your surveys and questionnaires short and sweet. I have found that (most of the time) online surveys of more than five questions tend to get ignored. Also, be aware that in this audience category you are reaching out to people who know about your organization on some level. So, it’s not a survey that likely reflects a random sample of the general population. Just be aware that the population you’re reaching out to is interested in your organization for the perceptions they have already developed about your organization. Your goal is to better understand their perceptions.

(I am unaware of a survey function available in “Google Docs”; however, I have recently learned of this. If anyone has interesting feedback, I’d love to hear it.) My client uses the survey function in iContact. Both these features tabulate respondents’ answers in spreadsheets that can be transferred to beautiful charts.

• Petitions. Online petitions have been a useful tool for our organization. And I think it makes people feel like they have become a part of a social movement. This, by far, has been an effective means of moving people up through the engagement pyramid. In fact, I would argue that it can move your audience into the “Comparison” and “Closing the Deal” levels of engagement pretty quickly.

From a Programmatic Stand-point, this is the stage where your organization is relating with its audiences through your mission-based programming. This is the stage where you’re dialoguing with your audiences about the production process, your training programs, why access centers are better/more convenient/more useful/ etc. than a film school or commercial TV. Much of the dialogue shifts into the comparison stage, and (my client’s numbers reflect) that a loss in audience is minimal between these two audience categories. (I think this might be because we don’t have “geographically-based competition”.)

4)    Comparison Stage:

At this level, your audience has bought into the need for your mission (if only at a rudimentary level). Now, the audience you’re communicating with wants to know if your organization is the one that will serve their needs. Given the fact that franchise agreements are meant to serve clear geographic boundaries, my client’s commitment to making their “channels look good” remained, regardless of the fact that their end-users don’t get to choose their access center.

Marketing tactics with audiences engaged at this level in the pyramid tend to take on a very personal (and should take on a personable) tone. Audiences are making a decision, and you want them to feel good about their decision to ally their voices with yours.
Marketing tactics with audiences in this category have the goal of “closing the deal” with your audiences.. You want members of the audience to feel that they are in partnership with you on an “exclusive” level. Some examples of tactics my client engaged in, included:

• Connecting with Non-profit Executive Directors. We offered opportunities for non-profit EDs to host our weekly news magazine program. (Some nonprofits were more aware of our presence (and offerings) in the community than others; and therefore, some of those audience needed to be escalated through the lower levels of communications while others were “ready” for the comparison stage.)
• Connecting with Traditional and Independent Media Leaders. We set up a monthly community discussion group where we invited media leaders to come in and talk about community media from their perspective—whether print, radio or television. Guests have included mainstream and independent print media outlets, radio, hyper-local print media and state-wide print outlets.
• Connecting with Prominent Opinion Leaders & Decision Makers. My client and I actually travelled to the state legislature with a cameraman so state lawmakers representing our district could have three-minutes of unfettered message time (like a PSA-day with our lawmakers). This really helped open the lines of communication with them when broadband legislation (which would have impacted PEG access negatively) was introduced a year later.
• Connecting with Accomplished Producers Who Started in Access. Sometimes we get lucky. Because of our email blasts announcing our monthly community discussions, I received a call from a young man who had trained and received certification with my client’s organization. He had produced a film, that had been picked up by HBO, and he wanted to screen it for my client’s producers. We were thrilled to have him “talk story” to the community – and even more thrilled that he won a Sundance award weeks later.

5)    Closing the Deal:

With audiences in this category of the pyramid, marketing tactics are pretty much custom-tailored to the moment. You might be surprised to hear that the ones I most commonly use include:

• Personal Phone Call.
• Lunch or an in-office meeting.
• Personal Email.

In short, marketing is a process of constant engagement. You will be repeating and refining your messages (and tactics) to move your audiences into upper echelons of the “pyramid of audience engagement”. As you climb your audiences up through the pyramid, your strategy will address fewer people and be more “targeted”.

copyright (c) 2009, Cynthia Thomet.

The Kid's Book Is Out!

What a week! Actually, it’s been a crazy and exciting month. With the recent launch of bilingual children’s book, Luna Needs a Miracle!, I have been busy with implementing my client’s marketing strategy, which is rooted in public relations and publicity. (Full disclosure: my client is a chef, the book’s author and also my fiancé who asked me to help him self-publish and market the book.)

As anyone who’s in the business knows, promoting something like this is not something that happens overnight. Indeed, it’s something we’ve been planning and refining for several months. Back when this all began, we agreed to partner with the self-publishing company (Xlibris) for marketing assistance, because they claimed to have experience in this area. Given that I am a solo act, I thought having some other folks’ help with legwork couldn’t be a bad thing.

Guess I was wrong.

On Thursday, I received an advance-review copy, which incorporated language from a rejected first-draft of a press release. They shared this advance-review copy with select media contacts—including some friends suggested by us.

As soon as I saw the press release words, “… blessing from above…” I knew what happened and my crisis communications skills snapped into action. I called my client in the restaurant kitchen where he works and told him.

“Oh, no!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, yes!” I replied. “But here’s the thing. A couple writers who know about your past have already started writing about you. In fact there’s a blog post out of Atlanta that recalls some of your past antics.”

He knew exactly where we were headed with that one. “Do what you gotta do,” he said and hung up.

So, we wrote a letter of explanation and apology to the reporters and friends who would have received the botched up advance-review copy.

We also got on the phone and called some folks who asked us, “Yeah, what’s that all about?”

Thank goodness for authenticity in relationships. Bottom line: our commitment is to the relationships we have already established with our friends, media, clients, and potential and existing customers. In contrast, the marketing department with the self-publishing company does not share that sense of commitment–at least they didn’t with us…

Now, I’m just curious to learn what they will suggest as a corrective action for their grave error. As I wrote to them on Friday in an unhappy letter following my phone call to them: “While we are very much aware that good marketing can’t guarantee sales, we are more aware how poor marketing can blow sales altogether.”

Public relations—whether customers, clients, friends, family—is everything.

(This is part two of a loose narrative of the evolution of traditional media in the last 10 years. Basically, it’s my opinion dovetailing last week’s commentary.)

A couple months ago, Dave Morgan, CEO of a marketing company in New York City, wrote a blog article for MediaPost called, “The Fourth Estate for the Future“.  (Read my earlier post addressing the blurring of borders between journalists and marketers.) In it, he wonders who is going to fulfill the role of the watchdog? And to this day about how he developed his argument. By the end of his well-written article he declares:

“I think that we should stop mourning the Fourth Estate. I think that we should stop spending so much time and money trying to find new business models to support the outdated, costly and wasteful media distribution methods of old, and focus instead on building a new Fourth Estate that leverages all of these new, amazing, inexpensive and accessible — and, many times, free — Web-based information platforms that can impact a billion people around the world in real time.”

It’s a big concern.

To make a few things clear, let’s break down the question. First, regarding the watchdog. I am reminded of a grad school professor who used to proselytize that there were three types of journalists: bulldogs, watch dogs and lap dogs. I think we have all criticized articles written by reporters who wore any one of these hats—either by being too hard on a source, too hands-off, or just plain cozied up. The point is: all those dogs are writing stories. Stories that will draw eyes to the paper, and sell advertising space right next to their articles. Those stories are essentially the product we don’t want to lose.

Second, is remembering the role of the reporter, which is to write stories that appear next to coupons that Macy’s advertisers can tally to measure ROI. If I’m a savvy reporter who wants to move up the career food chain in a beat of my choosing, I may write a fluff piece that will get noticed by the apples of my eye and their competition. Basically, they produce the product—not the printing press, not the video cameras, not the endless “tubes” connecting one unmanned computer to the other.

Third, is realizing that the channels of distribution are (also) not the product but rather part of the marketing package to get the product out to the marketplace of ideas.

The traditional channels of distribution have their limitations.

Indeed, Morgan is right in calling them “media distribution methods of old”, because the old distribution methods are limited by concerns regarding space (cost of column inch on paper—real estate), production (cost of staff writers’ salaries, cost of paper, cost of ink, capital costs of the printing press, etc.), distribution (getting content before readers’ eyes) etc.

Considering the costs of simply conducting business, one can quickly see the potential for diminishing returns for print. As for broadcast and digital distribution methods, while there are a limited number of seconds and minutes in every day—the airwaves and cyberspace is limitless. (Regarding traditional broadcast, access to the airwaves is controlled by only a few, but the internet has managed to decentralize control, hence the current conundrum and wide potential we face today regarding the business model for the creation and distribution of news.)

As we have seen in countless articles, the traditional, commercial business model of matching content and eyeballs, eyeballs and advertisers through print and broadcast media is losing (or has lost) its stronghold. But that doesn’t mean the core product (the news, the article, the story) is inherently flawed. As long as news is current, fresh and well-reported, there will be people who will want to acquire it. In my opinion, what’s really being challenged here are the other three marketing elements (remember the 4 Ps of marketing) to provide a quality packaging and delivery of this product in the marketplace of ideas.

(Check in next week, as I share my opinion on what it is we’re mourning about the major changes we’re witnessing in traditional news media.)