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On blogs, advertising, buying coverage, independence (and CTIA)

I’m off to CTIA this Saturday.   I’ve had hundreds upon hundreds of invitations to meet … strangely, precious few PR companies were up for paying for my time in order to do a decent profile of their client/s services.  There’s a few evaluating the offer but I suspect, in the end, $500 is quite steep when it comes to a preallocated budget that the PR is expecting to receive in full.
Here’s what I was offering to all the companies whose pitches were relevant to the SMS Text News audience:

– A guaranteed interview/profile on SMS Text News
– 1 hour interview with executive(s) focusing on the company’s key story or news piece
– 2-3 minute video interview published on the site during the CTIA week
– The ability for me to take up to half a day to sit down, analyse and then write up a profile/interview and publish on SMS Text News

Total cost? $500.  250 quid.

I thought that was reasonable.  As predicted by a few readers when I published a week or so ago, almost every public relations professional has politely declined my offer.   I actually, in the end, only sent the offer to about 15 who were requesting interviews.

When I talk to companies directly — in particularly their marketing managers — and explain that I don’t have a multimillion pound expense budget behind me, they’ve been very receptive, indicating that a $300-500 fee to cover costs is no issue, as it will  enable me to take the time to sit down with their executives and deliver you, the reader, what I consider to be an excellent piece of coverage.  Rather than a knocked-up quickie post.

What’s quite fascinating is that many companies, especially some of the bigger players, really like qualified, independent coverage from sites such as SMS Text News.  I regularly do blog consultancy and awareness training for many companies — and from these face to face events, I see quite a dichotomy beginning to arise.  Companies want coverage.  They can’t buy coverage.  At least, that’s what the public relations industry tells them.  You need to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 a month to a PR professional who will do their best to reach out and get ‘free’ coverage on your behalf.  Still accurate when it comes to mainstream media (or is it? If you switched off the PR industry tomorrow, mainstream media would fall over immediately), however when it comes to blogs — independent blogs such as SMS Text News — there’s a different model available that most companies, and their PRs, aren’t aware of.  Pay for it.

I most certainly don’t mean pay for editorial coverage.  Absolutely not.  Pay for coverage and pay for attention. If you understand and recognise that blogs fronted by humans (i.e. like me and SMS Text News) rely highly on the reputation of the main contributors, then the question of ‘paying for coverage’ vs editorial independence becomes irrelevant.  I can’t write rubbish.  I can’t write tosh.  I can’t cut and paste public relations material and pass it off as my own work.  I can’t publish advertiser written tosh.  Quickly, the audience would disappear.  You’d just stop reading if you thought this site was delivering a bunch of bollocks each morning.   Therefore I have to be particularly careful what I write because it’s my own personal reputation (archived by Google for years to come… hello kids!) that’s on the line.  Most readers recognise this when it comes to the question of funding.  If a company is willing to support SMS Text News — whether through advertising, at one of the unlimited drinks events and so on, clearly there’s a quid pro quo.  That company wants my attention — but I’m just the gateway — it’s your attention they want.  They’d also most probably like your business.  And if you’re well disposed to SMS Text News, you’re more likely to give ‘X’ a call to discuss possibilities, right?  Hopefully.

The challenge is recognising that paying a public relations professional to interact with me is, actually, not required.  Far sighted, forward thinking marketing managers get it.  I talk to many on a regular basis.

As for getting coverage, simply send me an email and provided I’ve got time to read it, I’ll do my best to post up your news.  If you’d like to guarantee a ‘service level’, if you’d like to reach the niche audience of this on a regular basis, advertise with me.  It is that simple.  This comes as a surprise for many marketing managers spending $10,000 per month with PR agencies.

“But you’re independent, you have to be independent!  You can’t be independent if people are paying you!” some cry, when we discuss this subject.

The first thing I point out is that I am not independent.  Absolutely not!  If anything, I’m far worse than a journalist.  I do what I want.  I often follow whatever’s on my mind at a particular point.  I have, for example, been giving Nokia a particularly hard time over the last few days because when I ‘updated’ by E90, the restore didn’t work very well at all.  I suppose I’m free to choose what I write about and in that context I’m independent.  However if you’re advertising, I’m most probably going to be well disposed to covering your activities.  Interesting point: If Nokia were an anchor advertiser here, would I have written the diatribes I’ve done recently?  I think so.  But I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t have used the words ‘bollocks’, ‘shit’ or ‘crap’.  It’s just not polite if someone’s paying, is it?  To be clear, they’d be paying me.  Not some multimillion pound publishing house.  So I would certainly moderate my editorial a little bit — a bit less sharp, I reckon.  But I couldn’t avoid writing what I am thinking and feeling.  I have my own issues.  I think RAZRs are ridiculous.  I think it’s a total crime to use a stylus or wear your mobile phone on a belt clip.  Your average New York Times journalist can’t be so opinionated.  They have a duty to be truly independent and objective.  I, on the other hand, am free to express whatever whim I wish — provided it’s entertaining, informative or relevant to the audience.

If I get an email from Clickatell, the chief advertiser here at SMS Text News, I shove everything else out the way and give priority to them.  If there’s a story there, I’ll write one.  I don’t give them editorial control at all.  But I’ll definitely give them attention.  Similarly if I see Clickatell on the caller-id, I answer.  Everybody else goes to voicemail  (or, er, SpinVox).

I don’t think I’d have a problem describing a Clickatell service as ‘ridiculous’ or crazy, crap or stupid (as I’ve been doing with Nokia recently).  I’ve never come across a situation where that’s been remotely relevant though.  And since I have direct access to Clickatell, I can get straight to one of their executives and resolve the matter — or at least find out if there’s a fix planned — very quickly. I think it’s probably of more value for all concerned to have me publish a problem or an issue, and then publish a resolution when one appears.

Anyway back to CTIA.

I have income from other sources, yet I more or less qualify myself as a professional blogger.  That is, I generally do ‘this’ — blog — full time and I’m not backed by a big company paying the expenses.  So when I fly out to CTIA this week, it’s me who’s paying for the privilege.

When I hundreds of requests for interview, I was quite disheartened because each and every one that I’ve glanced over is relevant in some way to SMS Text News.  There’s a time issue though.  I can’t meet everyone.  At one point, when I had 25 interview requests, I thought ‘Wicked!’ and reckoned I could do some sort of live-blog kind of coverage with them all, one hour after each.  Then I got more and more offers — as most (real) journalists do I suspect.  I began to get a little disappointed, then hugely disappointed.  I feel for each of the companies that have emailed.  Unfortunately I can’t cover them all.  How disappointing.

What have I found myself doing?

Well, since I’m paying for this trip, I need to guarantee success.  I can’t risk spending a few hours with a company that I don’t quite know.  Instead I’ve done as we all do, and focused on the big players.  Why?  Well, I know their brands.  I know there will be something to report.  I’ve confirmed my reservation for the Yahoo Mobile launch, the Microsoft one and the Accel Ventures one.  I’m off to ShowStoppers and the Sprint event.  Aaaand that’s more or less it.

Disappointing.  I’m disappointed with myself.   But then I want to watch the keynotes, I want to make sure I can deliver some good coverage for the site and I don’t want to be swamped with hour upon hour of meetings.  I’m paying therefore I’m choosing.

I thought it would be good (and certainly and interesting exercise) to offer some companies guaranteed attention in return for money that would help me a) offset the expense of the trip and b) contribute toward keeping the lights on here at SMS Text News.  No takers so far so I’m going to sprinkle my attention as I see fit.  If you’ve got any recommendations for companies I should meet, let me know — whack me an email and I’ll certainly do my best to meet them.

Finally: If you’d like sustained blog coverage and attention, call up the relevant blogger and ask them what you can do to support them.  Make it clear to the blogger that you’d like them to guarantee some editorial attention on a regular basis in return.  Some will decline.  Others will readily accept provided you don’t demand editorial control.

15 COMMENTS

  1. Sorry to hear this – SMSTN has been regular reading for me for more than a year now. And, when I say regular I mean I check out what is happening 4 or 5 times a day- sometimes more – and I am a proper normob. The real techies must hang onto every word.

    I don’t really do newspapers/magazines anymore or at least not in the way I used to – blogs like this have replaced all of that. Blogs are more direct and more personal and I think this is the future of publishing. It is for me anyway and I suspect a lot of other people feel the same.

    More importantly, a recommendation from a blog means something. As an example I tried Spinvox directly as a result of a post on this site and have been a loyal customer ever since (it is a lifesaver). Another example – I was sitting on the fence as far as the iphone was concerned until I read a review here. I went with 3uk’s xseries for the same reason and never regretted it. If you started recommending rubbish for the sake of a sponsor I think it would be quite transparent and the trust would break down. This is the unwritten rule of blogging. But I have never even come close to feeling this is an issue. I may not always follow a recommendation but I really dig the fact that there is someone out there who knows about these things, can test out new products/services and deliver an opinion in a way that I can trust and rely upon and provide some entertainment along the way. Long may it continue.

    Anyway good luck and keep up the good work. I hope it all works out.

  2. I’m rather speechless. I mean, I didn’t expect you to get lots of companies to pay for your time, but none? This makes a very interesting point, in my opinion. PR needs to grow up. Companies need to open their eyes and realize it’s 2008. I think they will, eventually (hopefully while it’s still 2008). And those who are able to do it first will definitely get bonus points from me.

    Vlad’s last blog post..The black Nokia N82 has been officially announced. And it really is a beauty

  3. Superb post Ewan, really I think you’re offering the PR teams a mutually beneficial deal – and it has to be said a much more honest declaration of interest this way.

    Very much looking forward to your coverage next week. Incredibly jealous of both you and Whatley!

    Enjoy yourself, and maybe swing by the Nokia stand with your busted E90! Now that’s a video interview I would like to see…

  4. Well articulated and extremely timely.

    I applaud you for being up front about it, (especially given the stick you from some of your readers got for wanting to charge for your time).

    Make a note of this post folks; in the months ahead the relevance of this subject will only increase.

    Transparency at its best.

    Good work Ewan. Bloody good work.

  5. I still find it astounding how much companies pay for PR, which surprises me even more that you didn’t get ANY offers. $500 for some coverage on SMSTextNews is a bargain! Goes to show where we are now in terms of realism and companies actually knowing the “game” they’re in.
    As Vlad says above, they need to quickly realise where they are now. “Real” bloggers opinions count more than most established websites covering the same thing, as we all know they are getting paid to review something, which in my opinion is close to being useless.

    Adonis’s last blog post..N95 V21.0.016 Firmware Available via NUS

  6. You’re my friend so I’m going to tell it like it is, this post is rubbish and brilliant at the same time.

    Let’s talk about the bad first before talking about the good.

    First of all companies who makes products worth talking about will get free publicity regardless of how little they spend on public relations. Companies should spend their money not paying bloggers like you or me or Zach or Ricky or Adonis for coverage, but instead on film crews and camcorders and professional editors to throw tons of rich multimedia out there for everyone to consume instead of the typical press release and handful of press shots we’ve been so used to since … well since forever.

    On the other side of the token:

    Conferences are not the venue to launch products anymore. I’m firmly convinced of this after going to so many of them. Conferences are like high school reunions where all the hacks, cranks and PR people get together to get boozed up and talk about how much has happened since the last conference. It’s a vicious cycle and we’re not going to escape it because it is too much fun. If companies start paying for coverage to increase their signal in relation to all the other noise at a conference then good for them, but in the long term that is not a strategy worth pursing, that is paying people to talk about you.

    Your PR experiment failed because you stumped the marketing people. They think you need them and their content to get hits to your website, when in reality without people like you talking about them then there wouldn’t be funding to create a product to talk about, period.

    Press, blogging, journalism, I’m not the guru of the current social media revolution that is going on, but I can say this, between friends, what we tell each other and talk about both online and off is worth one thousand times more than any press release from any of the big name companies out there.

    Take it as you will.

    Stefan Constantinescu’s last blog post..UIQ 3.3 announced

  7. I think you’ve highlighted a real problem for near ‘professional’ bloggers. On the one hand 180,000 industry executives and interested parties want your bright, articulate, biased (being your personal choice) view but on the other hand no one wants to actually pay for it.

    This we know. But, here’s the problem for excellent bloggers, how do they dedicate their days to a service that doesn’t generate revenues? And, if you spend a quarter of your time on this (because the 9-5pm existence to make money needs priority) will it be spontaneous, instant and as insightful as it is now? Would it lose viewers?

    Ewan, you and others are in a hard place. I applaud you for stepping up and talking to us about it and keeping that fantastic transparency in your blog that keeps us all coming back for more…

  8. Ewan, as a PR person I’d like to comment on this post.

    Firstly, I want to point out that PR is about more than just generating media coverage. A good PR agency will also help out its client with the marketing strategy; the messaging and presentation of the company/products/services/ and even people; reputation management; agenda setting; crisis management; analyst relations; speaking at events (like CTIA or MWC); winning awards; and a host of other activities. It’s true that for most PR campaigns the ultimate measurement will be the quantity (and quality) of media coverage, but it’s not the be all and end all.

    But after that mini-rant, I think that this situation just shows that a number of PR agencies just don’t get it. I think that no-one has responded for two main reasons (which are probably combined in most cases): 1 – they don’t understand the world of bloggers; 2 – they are scared of being open with their clients and are reluctant to recommend paying someone else other than themselves.

    Many agencies now make great claims about ‘blog relations’ but can’t always deliver. Dealing with bloggers, for a PR agency, should follow the same rules as dealing with [regular] journalists i.e. to offer them something that they want that will help you gain coverage for your client. Simple really. The difference is that bloggers want different things. As you have pointed out Ewan, that is often just to keep afloat and to stay in business. So getting a paid interview, or committing to advertising is always going to help out.

    For many agencies however, they want to make PR a black art. They want the client to pay money and by magic results and coverage appears. Too many agencies cannot be open with clients because they are scared of doing so. The best client-agency relationship is always going to be one that is a partnership and is based on openness. So the PR agency should be able to explain your request to the client and leave it with them. Instead, I suspect that they all wanted to create interviews at CTIA ‘by magic’ for their client and were too scared to ask for extra budget.

    I think what you have done here is highlight the inadequacies of the agencies that you have spoken to about the issue of payment. You have also highlighted an important issue that happens in the mainstream media too – that is advertisers get more attention from the editorial team. Of course they do it’s human nature and it is these revenues that help pay the mortgage.

    If PR agencies stopped being so scared and a bit more open maybe things would improve for everyone.

  9. @Patrick: I witnessed this “black art” methodology so many times its not even funny. Blogs are a part of teh ream that is changing how people want to consume media. I made the argument in my undergrad studies (2002, BA in Speech Comm., Pbulic Relations) that in order for PR to make te best use of the online enablement that will happen, that PR companies will have to move from thinking of themselves as commnity creators and move to being community engagers. Those that make that move will find that people relating to their publics will be an easier endavor than in times past beause the technology makes marketing active, instead of passive as other media has.

    This post, and the resulting comments, sseem to follow in line with that. But then again, even with the advent of scientists saying that the earth is round, there were still wizards that wanted you to believe that walking towards the horizon meant certain death. There is safety in the status quo, even if it is not even relevant to the attending audience.

    Antoine of MMM/Brighthand’s last blog post..Transforming Mindsets from Tools to Lifestyle

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