Looking at PitchEngine from Afar

Looking through my Twitter feed I came across a post that turned me on to PitchEngine.com. As someone who works in public affairs and has to pitch traditional media more often than I’d like (rather than helping clients publish themselves), I’m interested in ways that make traditional PR pitching a better process.

PitchEngine is trying to bring together PR pros, brands, and journalists.  The PitchEngine software then allows these groups to build their personal profiles and manage contacts, just like in any other online community.  PitchEngine goes a step further though by simplifying the process of sending the release with various attached media (pics, video, etc.) and has a well-organized, simple interface.

Oh, and the PR pros and brands (not sure about journalists) have to pay a fee for joining and using the services.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a fee based network, I just question PitchEngine’s ability to truly make PR pitching a better process.

I’m quickly finding out in public affairs that the strength of any good pitch has more to do with the story being pitched than any other factor.  In other words, if the story’s good, interesting and timely, it will get play.  Does it help to have relationships with journalists to help get published?  Of course.  But, then again, good relationships don’t guarantee publishing, it just increases the likelihood that your pitch gets read.

That’s why I look at PitchEngine and caution against PR pros looking to sign up and think their pitching will be that much more effective.  The same basics that would make someone successful using PitchEngine makes that PR pro a success without it.  Traits like, telling a good story (even when it’s uninteresting), knowing the audience you’re pitching to and brevity, are still foundational to good pitching.

I think handling media relations is best done through the PR person’s personal contacts and through social media activity.  Using email, Twit pitching, building relationships via Facebook and LinkedIn, and following/commenting on blogs are the right set of tools for an effective PR pro in today’s media environment.

We have the social media tools to allow us to succeed.  We just have to use them well and remember that there are no shortcuts.  It’s an old adage but true.

I’m skeptical of PitchEngine.  If anyone else can prove to me otherwise, I don’t see the benefit in it.

New Data on Social Media Sites

Here’s MediaPost reporting on the most recent social media site traffic:

News Brief

Twitter Fastest-Growing Social Networking Site

Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 11:11 PM ET

Twitter, Tagged and Ning were the fastest-growing social networking sites in September, according to Nielsen Online. Starting from a base of less than 1 million visitors a year ago, each has at least tripled U.S. traffic since then. Micro-blogging site Twitter has grown almost fourfold from 533,000 to 2.4 million visitors. Among more established social networks, LinkedIn was the fastest-growing–nearly tripling its audience to 11.9 million. That growth rate helped the site for professionals this week close another $22.7 million in venture capital. In June, it raised $53 million. Facebook continued to grow at a healthy clip, more than doubling its traffic from 18 million a year ago to 39 million. MySpace remained the largest social network with an audience of 59.3 million, but its traffic has been essentially flat, increasing only 1%.–Mark Walsh

Facebook or LinkedIn for Public Affairs?

When sitting down with clients to evaluate which social network to get going on, people are starting to ask whether to go with Facebook or LinkedIn.  The very question represents a defining moment in social networking and marketing.  It signifies that the very social networks themselves are becoming differentiated enough to draw very distinctive utilities between each other.  These sort of differences might be the start of social networking fragmentation.  But, let’s leave that to a later post.

Instead, when looking at Facebook vs. LinkedIn, I find it helpful to ask the right questions and quickly size up the client’s intent when using social networks.

When working on a state political race, it become very clear to me that using LinkedIn was great at reaching out to specific audiences.  For example, older audiences or potential supporters we met at professional events, made a lot of sense to reach out to them using LinkedIn.  In fact, I always thought of LinkedIn as an entre to the candidate to develop deeper connections.

To me, LinkedIn is more like a static webpage.  That’s because the content is pretty static.  A person’s profile is basically their resume with a few other facts about a person.  CIO points this out in a recent article.  They explain people using LinkedIn can aggregate lots of loose connections with people, some they don’t even know, and still feel safe.   This is because LinkedIn doesn’t allow for people in a person’s network to find out a whole lot about them.

Facebook is much more interactive.  It shows peoples actions and is so transparent, one can learn a lot about people simply from observing them (of course privacy settings can alter this).  For events, sharing info and speaking directly with supporters, no doubt Facebook provides an advantage over LinkedIn.

At the end of the day, these different social networks are brands, like in any other category.  Think of LinkedIn as Polo (older, classic, experienced) and Facebook like Kenneth Cole (younger, hipper, stylish).  Inherently, these different brands attract users with different qualities or users of each site have adapted to the culture of these respective social networks.

It’s a good lesson when planning which networks to become active and how best to use them.

Social Network Audiences Self-Segmenting

One of the most interesting microtrends occurring in the social media marketing world is the self-segmentation of audiences. Yes, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn get most of the attention (as they should, since their numbers are so big). However, Nick de Klerk at the Pixel 8 Studios blog reports that there are over 700 online social networking sites.

This growing fragmentation is reminiscent of what has happened to TV with the advent of cable and satellite. Smaller audiences become aggregated around content that correspond directly to audiences’ behavioral patterns. For public affairs professionals seeking to engage folks who care about issues, this is a trend that we must stay on top of.

Reaching our target markets, engaging in conversation on our issues and finding advocates will become highly targetable in this fragmented social media marketplace.

Like anything else though, genuine engagement in these social networking sites is what is needed. Social media is great at building trust and conversation. However, it is also easier to weed out those who are just using the online space for self-serving purposes. We always have to be genuine when working with online communities. Bottom line, it takes time and patience – just like any relationship.