PR Via Status Updates: The HARO Effect?

The inimitable Peter created a Facebook group earlier this year (as you know) to distribute reporters' requests for interviews. Since then, it's grown into - as Kevin puts it - "a free media source matchmaking service with more than 14,000 members."

So yes, part of this is, Peter's asked for plugs. And if you are or know anyone who is or wants to be an expert in anything, or if you do or know anyone who does ever need to quote an expert in anything, you really should go sign up.

But what's specially interesting is how he's promoting it today. He asked subscribers (free brainstorming) for social-media ways to get attention (free publicity). And the winner - unfortunately I don't have her name, because she deserves credit for a genius idea Laura Ackerman - suggested asking subscribers to put a promotional tagline on their social-network status messages on one day. So, today, you're likely to see, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., “Get sourced. Get quoted. Get famous: http://www.helpareporter.com – putting journalists and sources together, one quote at a time.”

Iit's a fantastic direct social-media PR idea. Simple concept, minimal effort, quantitative results. And so I'm super curious to hear whether it's actually successful. A jump in subscribers today will tell a lot about how strong the connection really is between the influence of networks and actual action.

So, yes, if you want to see who reporters want to talk to, go sign up for the HARO list, and massive props to the anonymous idea girl Laura. Cool stuff: let's see if it works.

Updated to add Laura's name, and to note that with the day not yet over, it's tracking to quadruple the average daily number of new subscribers to the mailing list. Seriously, I love this stuff, don't you?

The Girl Effect

Ian is one of the people I adore knowing: cool as hell as a friend AND fantastically intelligent as a professional. Less filling, tastes great, you know?

Anyway, he just showed this to me, and I not only love the cause, and the execution, but also his pithy commentary on it: "The execution is especially good for PR people. It means our words still have meaning - it's not just about flashy animation."

And seriously. I was looking at orange text, and I got the chills. That's not Flash doing that. (And it's not a plain-Jane press release, either.) It's a narrative done right.

(Deliberately skipping controversy on the Nike Foundation, FYI.)

Post Number Nine Hundred

Well, damn.

When I started this, I never thought I'd have 900 things to write about. (And perhaps some of you think I haven't, ha ha.)

Then, I was desperately trying to figure out the transition from college - what I wanted to do with my life, how I fit into my professional and personal spheres, how they fit me. All I knew was that I wanted to write about it all while I did it.

Six years later, I'm delighted with where I am, both personally and professionally, but - of course - still trying to figure out how the world fits me, and how I fit it. Less desperation, thankfully, but just as much curiosity.

And this place has changed to match.

I can offer useful commentary on my profession - public relations, the pharmaceutical industry, social media, and how they all fit together.

(However, I still like pop music, silly links, pretty things, and shiny bits of technology. Some things won't ever change.)

Thank you for reading. Sincerely. It's an honor to know that you think I'm worth the time. And while it's always a nice place to air out my opinions, it's ever so much better when it's a conversation.

So I'll try to make sure this stays worth its place in your RSS reader. And don't worry. I'll keep talking in the meantime.

With love and appreciation.

Saturday Afternoon Geek-Out: BuzzLogic

(Via KD Paine, via Shel Israel)

BuzzLogic is fantastically cool to me. What Biz360 and Cymphony started 5-10 years ago for media monitoring... this is the next logical step from that. Those companies went beyond "how many mentions of your term are in an article, and how many readers did that article have "to "what did the article say about your term and what did they mean". Now, this is trying to tell you not just what bloggers are saying about your topic, but how much each blogger matters in relation to the others. And therefore, which ones you need to talk to. Which is not 100% of the point of media monitoring, but pretty close.

The thing I really love about this, though, is that they're working with the realization that the most influential people on one topic are not necessarily influencers on any other issue.

This is super obvious to anyone who reads blogs. You're not going to go to Perez for tech news, and you're not going to Gizmodo to see what's up with celebrities. (Oooh, happy birthday, David! But I digress....)

So it's intuitive, but in terms of how media measurement has always functioned, it's groundbreaking. Because if you took an old-school approach, all you'd be able to do is compare two sets of numbers - site statistics - which represented reader populations that had absolutely nothing to do with each other. It wouldn't tell you which people were important to reach at all. Useless.

But here, you see which people are the influencers. That's pretty huge.

Publicis is using them - no surprise there - and I must admit I'm jealous. The drawback of working for a small agency is not having access to fancy megabucks vendors. But we've figured out how to do Biz360 work on a shoestring in-house. We'll just have to figure out how to approximate this, too.