Don’t kill the press releases, just change the messenge(r)

I am preparing for webinar that I will do next week on how PR professionals should think about Web 2.0. Here are some basic ideas / suggestions they should think about (today’s Key Plays):

1. Web 2.0 technologies are evolving and changing daily. So make sure to dedicate a little time every day at the office to surf the web and see what’s out there. A year ago, we would not even be talking about YouTube or video on the web, for example. At Intuit, the Online Community team try and do demos for our PR and Corporate Communications group as well as send them updates on what is happening on the Web. At the end of the day, however, it is just like school. You/They have to do your research.
2. Collaborate with your coworkers and agency — make sure you have shared vision and are aligned about what the company’s position is towards Web 2.0 and what the company is currently doing. (don’t forget, employees could be working on skunk projects and agencies could be off on their own). Get out of the building and talk to your product marketers and managers who actually ‘live the web’ on a day to day basis.
3. Treat Bloggers, etc. to how you treat a Wall Street Journal reporter — get to know them, understand how they operate, understand what they wrote about in the past, know their hot buttons, know what they are passionate about (Old schoolers, this is what you got to do because bloggers can be loud). The Online Community Team monitors the Web and prepares a list of these influencers for our friends in marketing.
4. Welcome a different pace – you know longer have the luxury to prepare 3 months in advance for an article NOR 3 months to respond. A key executive will say something on Monday am and within a few hours it will be on the web — and not just in blog, but in an Information Week type of article
5. Don’t pay people to talk about you — Some word of mouthers believe this is ok, but it will come back to haunt you if people think you pay for your PR. This is a bit controversial. Almost every time I speak at a conference, I am asked this question. We do not pay people to talk about us. And this is an important point for several reasons. First of all, the difference between Word of Mouth and Community is one is ‘explicitly’ trying to influence people to talk about them and the other is ‘implicitly’ trying to get users to talk about them. How can I manage a community website, where there is no solicitation allowed, no selling or marketing allowed, and then pay people to talk about us. Instead, we focus on building the infrastructure to faciliate interaction. We focus on building product / services that people will want to talk about.
6. Embrace product marketing managers (we are not that bad) cause they can be your guides to learning about new technologies. (I might be repeating myself here). Just be like my friend Ms. G, who visits me in building 5 and asks me a lot of questions about ‘what gives with this web stuff.’ She is the consomate learner.
7. Learn the tools – make your press releases RSS enabled (it is amazing how many corporations do not do this) or easy to subscribe to. These tools should be in your bag of tricks. I spend a lot of time reminding our corp friends that RSS is here to stay and is a good way to play. We have a nice little partnership with SimpleFeed who makes it real easy for the end users in our community and little old me to use RSS
8. You can drive traffic to the site — optimize your words of wisdom for search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc.
9. Track the conversation

If you manage a community, work closely with PR (share with them your learnings, help them find your evangilists, and learn from them). Don’t fear them.

I forget where I saw the following quote, but it resonated with me “Don’t kill the press release. Instead, change the messenger”

(special thanks to Ms. G for helping provide these tips)

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