How Not to Conduct a Press Conference

When I first saw this on Digg.com, I thought it had to be a joke.

FEMA Apologizes for Fake News Conference on Fires

Not only did a government agency call a news conference 15 minutes before it was to be held, but they planted their own employees as "reporters" and then had them lob softball questions at Harvey Johnson, FEMA's deputy adminstrator.

. . . . But with no reporters on hand and an agency video camera providing a feed carried live by some television networks, FEMA press employees posed the questions for Johnson that included: "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?"

According to Friday's Post account, which Walker confirmed, Johnson replied that he was "very happy with FEMA's response so far." . . . .

And here's another take from Al Kamen of The Washington Post:

FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

". . . . Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.

He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.

FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he'd allow just "two more questions." Later, he called for a "last question.". . . ."

What Can Google Do For Your Business?

On the heels of surpassing the $200 billion mark in market value (which by the way is more than the combined value of News Corp, Disney, Viacom and CBS), Google amassed nearly 4 billion search queries in September, according to the latest report from Nielsen Online.

That's 54 percent of all online queries conducted at the top U.S. search providers. Yahoo! Search is second with 1.4 million (19.5 percent).

So, as Google's influence continues to expand, here are a few practical tips to help your business tap into the wealth of services offered by the search giant:

• Sign up to receive Google News Alerts for your company, competitors and industry.

• Create custom Google Maps of your headquarters to post online, and send in emails.

• Research and monitor discussions and trends in the social media world through Google Blog Search and Google Groups.

• Launch a pay-per-click campaign with Google AdWords.

• Submit your Website to be indexed by Googlebot.
  

To find even more uses for Google in your business, check out the Google Business Solutions site.

Affordable Online Press Release Distribution Services

Traditional PR that only targets mainstream media is a thing of the past. You now have to consider how to increase the reach and impact of your news by publishing to online distribution sites, such as PRzoom.com, PRWeb.com and PR.com.

These sites optimize the effectiveness of your press releases by distributing them to search engines and news sites, which generate links and traffic to your Website.

Getting Started

Major wire services, such as PRNewswire.com and BusinessWire.com offer online distribution as part of their packages, but there are also more affordable, and sometimes free, services available.

From the endless resources of Mashable.com, comes the "20+ Free Press Release Distribution Sites."

Is Social Media More Relevant Than Mainstream Media?

Mainstream media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.) continues to play an essential role in every PR campaign; however, social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, Mashable and Del.icio.us are becoming more relevant and rapidly changing the way people consume news.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) recently released an intriguing report - "The Latest News Headlines - Your Vote Counts" - comparing the news agenda of the mainstream media for one week with the news agenda found on a host of user-news sites for the same period.

Here are a few of the key findings:

• The news agenda of the three user-sites that week was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected did not appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied.
• The sources news sites draw on are strikingly different from the mainstream media. Seven in ten stories on the user sites come either from blogs or Web sites such as YouTube and WebMD that do not focus mostly on news.
• The user-news agenda, at least in this one-week snapshot, was more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory than that of the mainstream news media.
  

The report goes on to conclude that, "For now, the percentage of Americans who rely exclusively on news from user-driven sites is just a fraction of what it is for mainstream news sites. And in this increasingly fragmented era, many who visit Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit may also be reading the online versions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal."

"But whether or not we see further divergence between user-driven sites and mainstream media over the next few years will surely remain a key question for researches, journalists, and of course, citizens."

While the debate continues, one thing is for sure - the PR industry is evolving, and traditional agencies that don't quickly adapt to integrate social media will be left behind.



See what The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the PEJ report:

User-news sites offer diverse stories, some questionable source
The San Francisco Chronicle
By Joe Garofoli - Sept. 12, 2007

. . . The traditional news outlet wants to put a lot of gravitas on their front page. They want the readers to eat their spinach," said Kourosh Karimkhany, general manager of Wired Digital, which owns Reddit. Technology allows users to create their own news "agenda" from multiple online sources, rendering a traditional front page increasingly "irrelevant," he said.

Instead, on these growing sites - Digg welcomed 19.5 million unique visitors last month - consumers rely on the "wisdom of crowds" (other readers) to figure out what are the top stories of the day.

The study found that the news items on these sites are "more diverse, more transitory and often draw on a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources." It found that 40 percent of the stories on user-news sites originated on blogs and 24 percent came from mainstream sites like BBC News. Only 5 percent came from wire services. . . .

15 Things I Learned from "The 4-Hour Workweek"

Eric Clemens, president of Acroment Technologies, and IT consultant extraordinaire, recently sent me a copy of The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.

I have to admit that I was highly skeptical of the title at first, but after devouring the book earlier this week on a trip to Vegas, I am pleased to report it has changed the way I look at success, and given me valuable insight into ways to increase the efficiency and productivity of our PR and marketing agency.

Some of the concepts are a bit far-fetched for service-based businesses like PR 20/20, but there are lessons to be learned for every professional, especially entrepreneurs.

Check out 15 of my favorite excerpts, and then grab a copy for yourself. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised:

1. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain
2. “I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” - Herbert Bayard Swope, American editor & journalist; first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
3. “Having an unusually larger goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal.”
4. “It is easy to get lost in minutiae, and the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities.”
5. “The end product of a shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.”
6. “Don’t ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities.”
7. “If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask. . . . Divided attention will result in more frequent interruptions, lapses in concentration, poorer net results and less gratification.”
8. “Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions.”
9. “An interruption is anything that prevents the start-to-finish completion of a critical task, and there are three principal offenders: time wasters (those things that can be ignored with little or no consequence), time consumers (repetitive tasks or requests that need to be completed but often interrupt high-level work) and empowerment failures (instances where someone needs approval to make something small happened).”
10. “There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to resume a major task that has been interrupted.”
11. “For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.”
12. “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.” - Frank Wilczek, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics
13. “Life is too short to waste, but it is also too long to be a pessimist or nihilist.”
14. “Surround yourself with smiling, positive people. . .”
    
15. [This one is my personal favorite] “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.” - Steve Jobs, Stanford University Commencement, 2005