Word Clouds
Word clouds are visual depictions of a site's keywords or tags. They give a quick snapshot of a site's content because greater prominence is given to words that appear more frequently. They can be useful on news sites, competitor sites, or individual documents.
Using a free service like Wordle, users can enter an RSS feed or blocks of text. Here's the word cloud for this site; click to enlarge.
Communicating Climate Change
The July/August 2008 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review examines climate change and asserts that "media coverage of climate change is at a crossroads." Essentially, the article is saying that we're [moving] "beyond the science of global warming into the broader arena of what governments, entrepeneurs, and ordinary citizens are doing about it." Hence…
"Journalists will play a key role in shaping the information that opinion leaders and the public use to judge the urgency of climate change, what needs to be done about it, when and at what costs. It is a vast, multifaceted story whose complexity does not fit well with journalism’s tendency to shy away from issues with high levels of uncertainty and a time-frame of decades, rather than days or months.
How does this affect the communications professional? Media relations is all about building helpful, supportive relationships with those that cover our subject area. Better understanding reporters' challenges will enable us to better serve our clients.
The article goes on to discuss how climate change coverage might be sharpened in the year ahead in the broad areas of science, politics, and business.
Science and Technology
Scientists will continue to publish studies examining the "why, where, how fast, and with what impact climate change might occur." As is typical with science, some of these studies will likely be contradictory. Journalists should avoid “yo-yo” coverage with each new study and try to put the latest findings in context. Also, journalists will be increasingly wary of techno-energy fixes as well as conflicts of interests. Communicators should be prepared to not oversell stories.
Politics and Policy
Whether examining the policy nuances (e.g., cap and trade, nuclear power, emerging nations, etc) of the presidential candidates or analyzing those measures enacted by cities and counties, reporters will be especially a tune to how policy makers and politicians confront climate change. Communicators, especially those with large advocacy organizations as clients, can examine how member organizations are influencing decision makers.
Business and Commerce
The article wisely points out that "evaluating economic forecasts is even tougher than evaluating the science." Is climate change good or bad for the economy? Interface Corporation, the poster child of sustainability reporting is once again discussed with its often-told story of cutting waste, lowering energy use and reducing emissions, which in turn saved money. While it's vogue to set emission targets, how are governments and corporations performing?
No doubt, climate change reporting has the potential to touch on virtually all aspects of contemporary life. Reporters will need to "tell the story on their watch." The schools editor could examine changes to curriculum and how the climate change debate is affecting text book publishers. The garden editor should examine planet hardiness zones and how both home gardeners and seed producers are affected. Will shifting food production impact the quality and selection of the local farmers market?
Communicators have a responsibility to help the media place climate change in a context in which readers will feel compelled to act.
Combating ‘Green Noise’
A recent article by Alex Williams of the NYTimes, discussed how consumers are feeling overwhelmed with the "urgent, sometimes vexing or even contradictory information played at too high a volume for too long" about environmental issues.
For businesses and organizations wondering how best to overcome this consumer fatigue, I suggest that they reexamine and narrow their audience. Rather than jumping on the green bandwagon — which is increasingly becoming a congested freeway — and widely broadcasting their environmental achievements (which are oftentimes inconsequential) in hopes that the media will cover their efforts, I suggest carefully targeting their communications to very select constituencies.
- Corporate sustainability efforts should be reexamined and explained from a recruiting perspective. As talent becomes more difficult to find, a good corporate citizen has the advantage in the recruiting pool.
- Less packaging, high recycling rates, and reusable materials should be presented to business analysts as examples of efficient manufacturing and sound business practices. Benefits to the environment are a perk.
- Analyzing one's carbon footprint and taking proactive steps to reduce carbon emissions across the board from employee trips to raw material use to finished product packaging demonstrates to potential investors that the company is well prepared to adjust to a carbon-regulated future.
The era of 'broad-brush green' is over.
PR Advice from Justice Antonin Scalia
There's always much debate within certain companies about whether to talk with the press. Why risk getting misquoted or facilitating a story that from the onset is slanted to portray the company unfavorably. Recently, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, and provided some excellent PR advice.
"The reality is, that in these modern times …where there's all this space to be filled on radio, TV, and print… I will be a public spectacle. The important question is whether the public will get a second hand picture of me or will they have a chance to assess first hand who I really am?"
Totenberg notes that Scalia has abandoned his onetime reticense about talking to the press. She also points out that, unlike other Justices, Scalia does not only talk to friendly audiences. He's participated in public debates with fellow Justices and even alongside the head of the ACLU at a national ACLU meeting.
From a PR perspective, it's better to engage your stakeholders by providing facts and correcting misconceptions. While you may not convince your strident opponents, you will help balance the conversation.
Press Perspective
Information overload. That's the best way to describe my trip to the EcoCity World Summit in San Francisco as a member of the press. As I write for Jetson Green, a green building blog, I was able to secure a press pass thanks to help from Amy Senn who handles media relations for Sensible City, the conference's pr firm. Speakers discussed global environmental problems and limitations on resource consumption, which demand a restructuring of cities and transportation systems worldwide for long-term energy efficiency and conservation.
I attended three separate sessions, with speakers coming from China, India, Senegal, Washington DC, and more. Knowing in advance the sessions that I was attending allowed me to formulate a plan for posting (coming soon) to Jetson Green. The speakers each helped shape what I knew I was already going to write. I didn't come with a blank slate waiting for an exhibitor to feed me stories.
That's an important point for businesses hoping to attract press attention at conferences. Most likely, the press have stories already formulated (in their heads) and are looking to round it out with perspectives. Talking to a reporter or blogger for 5 minutes at a conference and then being disappointed that nothing (yet) materializes leads to unrealistic expectations. Despite the 24/7 world we live, PR can be a slow process because the press are pulled in so many directions.
On behalf of one client, I spoke to a radio interviewer while at the conference. She knew of my client, knew everyone that worked on the project, was very excited to cover them, and was even geographically close. She just hadn't gotten to it yet because she was just plain busy. That's a press reality.
Website Optimization for PR Value
There's value in preparing regular announcements about company activities and feeding them on to the web via online newswire services like PRWeb to increase search engine ranking. As customers, prospects, potential hires, and reporters seek out 'background' information about your company, search engines can provide a virtual storehouse of information. Special emphasis is added because while your website may look great and have cool animation, search engine spiders/crawlers/bots may not fully capture your information if it's not structured in the best possible manner.
I recently discovered Hubspot's Website Grader, which is a free search engine optimization (SEO) tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. By entering your website, the Grader analyzes data across several broad categories including: On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Blogosphere, Social Mediasphere, Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads, and Competitive Intelligence. Hubspot's algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.
Not surprisingly, my website scored a very mediocre 59/100 (full report here). For comparison purposes, Toronto communications professional and blogger Dave Fleet scored a 92/100.
The value in Hubspot's Website Grader is that it pointed out some very easy fixes for me to help improve my ranking. Recommended areas included adding 'Meta Page Descriptions', an important SEO tactic, and setting up a permanent redirect between www.planetrelations.com and planetrelations.com to combine the incoming links. Another interesting area I never thought about was the time until renewal for my domain (planetrelations.com). It's set to expire in 4 months. Of course I'll renew it as it gets closer but Hubspot points out that some search engines like Google penalize sites set to expire soon (because spam sites are short lived). Good advice.
While larger companies have full web teams focusing on search engine optimization, small- and medium-sized businesses do not. Services like Hubspot's Website Grader can help others find you quicker.
Blogging in 140 Characters or Less
One of the biggest (legitimate) concerns about business blogging is the time commitment. "I'm already overextended, how can I possibly start writing meaningful posts that discuss the future of my industry? Rest assured, you don't need to solve the world's problems with your blog; you just need to initiate a conversation that resonates with your core audience (customers, prospects, suppliers, etc).
BusinessWeek recently updated a previous article about blogs and social media, which now concludes…"Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later."
But what happens if you really don't have the time (or staff) to write 2-3 posts per week? You may want to consider micro-blogging (or tumblelogs). According to Wikipedia, micro-blogging is 'a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.' The most popular service is called Twitter (check out my Twitter account), although there are others like Jaiku (acquired by Google), Cromple, or Tumblr. Think that micro-blogging is a teenage fad. Just the opposite.
NYTimes reporter Michelle Slatalla wrote an interesting piece about her struggles to convince her teenage daughters that Twitter was an easy way to stay connected. At least with teenagers, the experiment didn't go as planned (they preferred text messages).
Using services like Twitter, or something like Tumblr, you're able to initiate conversations with your friends/customers/prospects in 140 characters or less. Think about a series of posts over several days that go something like this:
"Off to visit supplier x to see if quality meets our standards" "Good visit with supplier X, think we may carry their product" "Started shipping product from new supplier, let me know what you think". "Thanks for feedback, we'll stock more next week".
In less than a minute per day, you'll be able to start creating an additional channel to gather feedback and insight from your customers by making them feel part of the process.
Once you've mastered micro-blogging, you can go on to have a full-fledged blog that allows readers to add comments directly to your posts. Good luck.
38% Sick of Green PR
But, according to a new study by Allianz Global Investors, 62% think "it's great that companies are publicly making statements about 'going green'." They're not only saying it's great but investing in those types of companies too.
According to the study, investors view the environment as a major long-term investing opportunity. "Of the 1,003 investors surveyed, nearly half (49%) said that over the next 12 months they were likely to invest in a company or mutual fund looking to provide solutions for environmental problems; 17% reported having already made such an investment."
But are companies doing it because there's proven financial value or because there's proven public relations value? At this point, it looks like companies see the benefit to their reputations. Sometimes the hard ROI numbers lag behind commonsense business practices of listening to what your customers think are important business values. Companies exaggerating their green accomplishments will be called to task by competitors, customers, or others.
If nothing else, those in the green field stand to benefit from everyone else talking about 'going green'.
Do Green Blogs Matter?
That's the important question for green building companies and pr professionals. What exactly is the impact that social media and blogs are having on traditional news delivery?
Well, according to a recent survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom group, blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news, but also influence the tone and editorial direction of reporting. The online survey was conducted among a random sample of North American reporters and editors, and was focused on understanding how social media and blogs influence their work. The study found that blogs are a regular source for journalists. Click here for a PDF summary of the survey findings.
In a (green) nutshell: "Over three quarters of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue. Nearly 70 percent of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis. Over one in five (20.9%) reporters said they spend over an hour per day reading blogs. And a total of nearly three in five (57.1%) reporters said they read blogs at least two to three times a week."
What does this mean for you? Stay on top of the green blogosphere.
1. Track the green blogosphere for several weeks to better understand the individual bloggers (and commenters).
2. Add selective, and relevant comments, to existing posts. Avoid overly promotional comments.
3. Link back to your company (or personal) blog to begin developing a relationship with the blogger.
4. Pitch the blogger on a highly targeted story idea.
5. Continue the process all over again. Remember, it's a journey not a sprint.
For a list of relevant green blogs, check out The Best Green Blogs Directory. Good luck.
Sharing Videos to Promote Communication
It seems that almost everyone with an Internet connection has seen at least one video on YouTube. Well not quite, but according to a recently released report (January 9th) from the Pew & American Life Project, roughly 48% of Internet users have been to video sharing sites like YouTube. Last year the figure was 33%.
According to Pew's phone survey, 15% of respondents had used such sites 'yesterday' or the day before they were contacted. Twenty-two percent shoot their own videos and 14% post some of that video online. These figures show that video sharing is becoming more commonplace.
So does this mean that every green project should upload a grainy, camera-phone video to YouTube? No, but you should at least include the option of video in your next project. [UPDATE: to stream live video from your phone, check out Qik]. Your customers, prospects, and job applicants are becoming more familiar with this form of communication.
According to the Pew study, the percentage of Internet users aged 30-49 visiting such sites increased from 35 to 51% (+46%); ages 50-64 increased from 19 to 30% (+58%); and users 65+ increased 11 to 16% (+45%).
How are organizations using video? GreenPeace International has posted 82 separate videos to their YouTube channel including a rather cheeky one called Sunshine making the rounds on the Internet promoting energy efficient lightbulbs. They're also using video to document their hard work intercepting whaling ships.
Grocer retailer H.E.B. created a TV Commercial Contest asking customers to submit videos about their H.E.B. experiences. They established www.myheb.com with a YouTube-like look to post all of the commercials and identified a grand prize winner.
ProTEC Structural Insulated Panel system uploaded a promotional video to YouTube that has 4,181 views. Assuming 5% of viewers contact the company to request more information. That's 20 sales leads for little effort.
One of the best examples of a company using video to communicate with potential customers is Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Check out these two videos: Onslaught and Evolution. For a subtle approach, check out Sony Bravia ads.
Clients with uploaded videos: Chartwell School, Playa Viva, Green Key Real Estate, and Hospitals for a Healthy Environment.
And if you're looking for secret strategies to promote your viral videos, check out Dan Greenberg's article on TechCrunch.