Check out this article, Andrew Cohen on CBS News Sunday Morning reports on the White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan debacle and ultimately claims in the article that all PR people are liars.  Mr. Cohen says, “show me a PR person who is “accurate” and “truthful” and I will show you a PR person who is unemployed. 

I suppose we could say the same about reporters but I wouldn’t go there because to make a generalization is a sibling to lying and not telling the whole story based on facts.

I don’t believe this anyway.  Social media (blogs, videos, social networks, twitter….) has transformed how we do business and keeps most of the untruths hidden for only a short time.  The consumer now has access to facts and history like never before and with our global community available as fact checkers, “liars” have a short life.

Just for the record, Creative Concepts is far from unemployed.  Ethical behavior, as mentioned in our mission statement, is our first value and our clients love it!

You know I want to like PRSA! I want to support what they do and be proud of being a member but I just can’t do it!! From the local meetings of elders who are unfriendly at the door to the guy (no names) who plans most of the speakers, it is one of the most unfriendly and inflexible groups of people I have ever met…this is “Public Relations?” Crazy!

I have heard many say these kinds of things before. One great speaker who I came to see (kudos for getting a smart well versed PR/Social Media expert) said that he has spoken at thousands of venues around the U.S. (and the world) and that the PRSA members as a whole are lacking zeal, to say the least, in trying to understand how the internet can help them do their jobs better even though social media is a natural extention to what I call traditional PR.

So no news here that PRSA does not comprise creative out of the box thinkers, so why am I writing today? Because of their next speaker, Andrew (first names only), who will be showing up at our local meeting. This is a guy I know well. He claims to love social media and understand it and he was a sponsor of the Business Smart Tools conference where he worked on the website and he was a speaker. Besides the fact that I don’t think he is an ethical person, he has minimal working knowledge of social media but claims to be a “world renown expert” which PRSA is supporting. This is a guy who doesn’t know how to set up blogs for his clients, has no blog of his own, and has a profile on facebook but no friends, no picture and no content….he isn’t even on Linkedin which is barely a social media tool in my mind.

You know that a trend (social media) has made it when “experts” like Andrew are bubbling to the surface and speaking about their “knowledge.” Watch out for people like this but celebrate the fact that the PR industry and business as a whole has a new yet solid communication channel that works for our clients and ourselves!

Five years ago, I knew that I wanted to run my own company and do PR, Marketing and Events….and so I did it. Four years ago, I had a feeling about blogs, knew nothing, went to a seminar, knew a tad more, and worked until I understood the blog world and how business could fit in. With the fun and the effectiveness of blogs, I knew we needed to expand into social networking (myspace, facebook and others) and online videos…and so we did it and have helped our clients increase sales and win awards.

This is a great story but the question to ask today is, with all that Creative Concepts offers, can we withstand a recession…more importantly can we help our clients through a period of flat or declining sales. The first answer is we are in great shape and the second answer is yes, we can help our clients not only muster through a possible recession but we can help them come out on top by using PR and social media as a way to reach new customers.

Taking the recession element away for the moment, there have been many studies that say advertising is not as effective as it once was. ZenithOptmedia says that ad spend growth is predicted to be up by 2.5% only for 2008 compared to 3.3% in 2007. Traditional PR still works but based on who you are trying to reach, you need to hit many channels before you get a customer’s attention. Channels would include print, radio and TV, events, and the word of mouth (WOM) sectors. WOM spending which includes social networks, blogs, videos and more is expected to increase 30.4% annually through 2011 to $3.70 billion as noted by Keller Fay Group which means that the corporate world has recognized that working the internet is an effective and successful way to reach your present and new customers.

Now putting the possibility of a recession back into the mix, the next question is where do you, a business, put your money so you get the biggest bang for the buck? Well I can give you the answer but you probably have already figured it out. Talking and sharing information within the online social networks or creating a new community for your customer is easier on the budget than paying for a TV spot or a glossy ad in a magazine!

Common sense will guide you (and so will Forrester Research as reported by Mark Walsh here) to wise spending for future PR and Marketing campaigns…a recession may just force the hand sooner rather than later.

I didn’t know Paul Beyer, really. We lived in the same community, our kids ran into each other often, never met his wife, yet Paul Beyer is all I have been thinking about this week. From the limited knowledge I have, Paul Beyer worked in the software industry in CA. and then moved to CT. where he worked for a company in the NY metro area (I only know this because of Linkedin) Not sure why he made the move…could have been his wife’s family was here….it’s a nice place to live…a new job brought him. Whatever the reasons were, they all ended abruptly last week when Paul Beyer died suddenly leaving his son, his step daughter, his wife and extended family and his job behind him.

Oh yes, his job. He worked for Comosoft who I have never heard of but seem to be a solid company who’s technology aids and supports the catalog and fashion industries. I noticed that at one point this company had Paul mentioned in their management team page on their website but as abruptly as Paul died, they stripped all of his information away. No mention of him, no memorial of any kind. While Paul did not die from natural causes and some would say with a little controversy, Comosoft could have handled the passing of a good man with much more grace and empathy!

Whenever a company is faced with any kind of crisis whether it be large or small, the best way always to move forward is with complete honesty and openess. Did Comosoft need to go into detail about their relationship with Paul and how he died? Absolutely not (we could leave that to the Fairfield Minuteman who used no discretion or empathy for a grieving family!). A simple statement from Comosoft’s CEO would have worked…words that revealed that Paul worked for Comosoft…thoughts that showed they were sorry for the loss.

A human voice behind a company that shows compassion for another human being should be simple and should be necessary for any business to succeed!

Thanks Constantin for including Creative Concepts on the newly updated international PR Blog List!

Just an interesting note.  PR Newswire: while they claim to be on the forefront of technology (great people? yes, ahead with technology? no), I have seen no evidence of it.  They made an accounting error which began in June 2006…they still have the same accounting error happening even though my rep and her boss are lovely and claim it has been resolved.  Should they be worried?  Just a little but they no doubt don’t read blogs so they may never know about this entry.

On a marketing blog note, Todd And’s Power 150 Top Marketing blogs has put Creative Concepts on the honorable mention’s list.

And a final note, we at Creative Concepts have a couple of great blogs we are creating for our clients.  Our latest is Cruise Resort & World Travel, Inc. which has just broken out of the gate.  Stay tuned for more updates and check the links in our client section for new blogs!

 

Just to finish up on the Disney story, Spocko, the guy who reported that Disney’s super right wing radio affiliate KSFO condoned torture and murder, was supported and given a big hurrah from the blogging world. 

Once the blogoshpere learned about Spocko’s site being taken down because of uploading audio files from the radio station, other bloggers (both national and international)  posted the audio files on their sites and different hosts offered their services to bring Spocko back up.

What are Disney’s lawyers going to do now?  It’s only a short time before mainstream media picks up the story.

This is what I love about blogging, the internet, and consumer generated content: the truth has an easier and faster way of bubbling up to the surface.  The big guns like Disney can’t beat the small guys into submission any longer because there is no controlling the messaging.  This scares some (and many Public Relations people fall into this category of fearing the uncontrollable) but to me it brings total satisfaction.  The blogosphere can bring down the bad but at the same time it can boost up the good ones (and the bold ones)  :)

So what is a flog? It is a fake blog (writers from PR firms who pretend to be blogging honestly about a product or company in order to start a buzz) created by the geniuses at marketing and pr firms. Just kidding about the genius part. Edelman PR, one of the largest firms in the world and most recently Zipatoni have mislead their clients into believing that they know the best way to get exposure and get new clients and they know what is going on with emerging technology and viral marketing…for this Wal-Mart and Sony pay the big bucks.

Well if any of these men and women from these firms took the time to truly learn about blogging and its effectiveness within its communities and if these men and women were clear about doing business ethically, then the word flog would never exist.

Corporate blogging is a highly effective communication and marketing tool. eHobbies is a toy site. Once they created a blog, sales increased by 2-4% which is the trend for retail sites with blogs. There are many reasons to blog for business: increased search engine rankings, new clients get a feel for the business, reaching out to past and present customers…the list goes on and on. And yes PR and Marketing firms can be involved but only if there is full disclosure!!

As with everything else in life, there is no shortcut. Success comes from honest hard work.

Read about Sony’s flog debacle here.

This is a day that is truly exciting in the PR and Marketing arena!

Heading down to Greenwich shortly to the Greenwich Chamber’s Redman Hall to hear Jim Zebora speak. He is the Business Editor for The Advocate/Greenwich Time newspapers. I have pitched everything from blogging to a new business featuring a Greenwich resident who provides a community calendar for the area, Vivapop.com, and he seemed interested but the stories never took off. I was grateful though when he sent a reporter to our Business Smart Tools Conference in Stamford. In person “meetups” are always good and so I am heading in his direction to shake his hand.

Speaking of “meetups”…after Greenwich I am then heading into NYC to BEDNY for the Techcrunch Meetup where we are one of the sponsors and event managers. This party is the first of its kind in New York! It is a wild scene with people scratching and clawing to get in any which way they can…one AOL employee had to complain on Vallyewag in order to get attention from the infamous Mike Arrington.

For those who will make it up the elevator and past the check in desk, they will encounter very cool sponsors, live demos, food and drink, videos and music, a speech or two, and lots of networking…see you all there and look for the scoop tomorrow!

Well, I have done it again…I have had a gap with the entries but I don’t want to write unless I have some news or some interesting thoughts so today I am writing about news and I am writing about Creative Concepts.

Constantin Basturea’s blog reports a list called PR meets WWW.  This is a fully detailed list of pr agencies and consultants worldwide and their blogs along with some interesting entries.  Creative Concepts was mentioned so thank you for that!

Also take note, Techcrunch is coming to town (NYC) for a Meetup and Creative Concepts is their communications sponsor.  While the event is already sold out, I am looking forward to meeting all of those who are ready to party in bed in nyc with techcrunch!!

And for those of you out at the blog business summit in Seattle, look for Sabine Kirsten, Emerging Tech Director for Creative Concepts.  She is enjoying the conference and will be attending the Blogher meetup tonight.  Ask her about all of our corporate blogging projects…we have lots to share!