Let’s face it, while the money and perks that come with the job are nice, it’s no picnic being a CEO, let alone of a leader of a public company in the much-maligned financial space. Just ask Citigroup’s ex-chief executive Vikram Pandit, who, on Oct. 16, left his job quite unexpectedly. That morning,

employees read an e-mail from Pandit that stated: “After five extraordinary years, I have decided to step down . . . Only you can understand the effort and hard work that was put in to get our company where it is today.”

It was reported that Pandit’s ouster after clashing with Citi’s board of directors came as a shock to most senior execu-tives at Citi. But the act itself isn’t that shocking. In fact, it’s

all too common, particularly these days when the economy is down and company leaders are vulnerable to dissatisfied boards and disgruntled share-holders.

Consider this: The typical career span of a CEO in the U.S. and Canada is 41 months, according to an average of calculations by several of the most reputable placement agen-cies. Forty-one months equals 3.42 years—not a long average

tenure when you think about it. Challenger Gray & Christmas reports that in the 1990s, the average tenure was about 10 years. So the chances are good that as a communicator, you’ll have to deal with such a sce-nario at one point or another.

How does PR handle such a shock to the corporate system? Is there anything that can be done in advance to prepare for the unexpected? Given

Page 6 ▶

At Three Tech Giants, Cutting Edge PR and Relationship Building Go Hand-in-Hand Jonny Thaw has been on both sides of the communications fence. In a former life, Thaw was a well-respected tech reporter for publications like Business 2.0, Red Herring and later Bloomberg News before he moved over to the mes-saging side two years ago.

He now is manager of tech-nology and engineering com-munications at Facebook, one of the cornerstone tech com-panies that dot the Bay Area’s famous environ of Silicon Valley.

There’s a certain caché that envelops the Valley: Entrepreneurs from around the globe come to realize their ideas and dreams, and to work in an environment that oozes innovation. These aspirations

are no different for communi-cations professionals who come to Silicon Valley looking to be on the cutting edge of their profession.

That’s why all eyes and ears were on Thaw, Karen Wickre, editorial director at Twitter and Demetra Kavadeles, global consumer public relations manager at Skype, in a session titled “PR Inside a Technology Leader” at the recent PRSA International Conference in San Francisco. In his opening remarks, Thaw didn’t say any-thing to let down the rapt audi-ence, admitting that it’s never a dull moment at the now-public company. “There have been many ups and downs,” he told the packed room. But you could tell from his enthusiasm

for the Facebook brand that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

TECH CHALLENGESThaw landed at Facebook when the company had 1,500 people (currently 3,500), and the com-munications staff was small. It has since been built out to a team of 40, divided into corpo-rate, international, product and policy/privacy groups. There’s also a sizable public policy team working the Beltway.

As the head of technology and engineering communica-tions, Thaw says he faces a couple of challenges, both related to the nature of tech. In the non-tech world, products are normally launched with a big splash in one fell swoop.

Speed, Stability Critical After Unexpected Leadership Change

Page 7 ▶

Internal Communications Corporate Communications

Media Relations Digital PRCorporate Communications

©2012 Access Intelligence LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $100,000 for violations.

Seven Things You WillLearn in This Week’s

Issue of PR News 1. Be ready for change: The typical career span of a CEO is 41 months, or 3.4 years. (p. 1)

2. Nearly 50% of consumers have no specific brand in mind when they search on their desktop or smartphone. (p. 2)

3. To get inspiration on what to buy, people prefer Pinterest over Facebook, 70% to 17% respec-tively. (p. 3)

4. Subway and Dunkin’ Donuts are the “simplest” brands in a Brand Simplicity Index. (p. 3)

5. MassMutual’s biggest PR challenge after a tornado hit its hometown: Striking a balance between sensitivity and brand messaging. (p. 5)

6. Twitter has a team of three communicators that works on content and storytelling. (p. 7)

7. Informative posts and lively conversation has made Facebook’s Engineering Page a recruiting juggernaut, with 700,000+ likes.

(DID YOU KNOW?)

October 22, 2012 prnewsonline.com Issue 41 Vol. 68 Contents▶▶How To Master SEO—By the Numbers 2

▶Quick Study Consumers Yearn for Simple Brands 3

▶Case Study Company Helps Hometown in Crisis 4

▶Tip Sheet Avoid the Squirrel Syndrome 8

More premium content at PR News’ Subscriber Resource Center

Social Media

Today “content creation” is the latest, greatest phrase heard ‘round the digital world. But much like a tree that falls in the forest, does content that social media users never see really exist? Well, it should exist and it should be seen—and communicators working in the digital age must recognize the inter-connectivity between social media and search engine optimization (SEO).

Understanding this relation-ship and building integrated strategies into digital program-ming ensures that consumers find your content, which must happen before any social engagement can take place. Here are the five things you need to know about SEO, social media and content:

1. Not all search engines are created equal: As of September 2012, Google continues to reign supreme, attracting 900 million unique monthly visitors. Bing is a distant second with 165 mil-lion, and Yahoo! is close behind in third at 160 million uniques per month (eBizMBA). To put the power of Google into better context, a study from Slingshot SEO shows that 18% of organic clicks on Google go to the first position. On Bing, less than 10% of organic clicks go to No. 1 (see chart for details).

2. Strong SEO increases pur-chasing power: It cannot be overstated that search results drive sales. In fact, half of consumers use a combination of search and social media to make purchasing decisions. Another 46% of shoppers use search throughout the entire buying cycle.

It is important to make sure your social media content reflects search keywords, as 40% of users that start with search then turn to social media (Barn Raisers). And if you think everyone that turns

to search already knows what he or she is buying—and where they’re buying it—think again. Nearly 50% of consumers have no specific brand or busi-ness in mind when they begin searching on their desktop or smartphone (GroupM).

4. An active (and branded) presence on social networks can boost your SEO: Social media users are twice as likely to click on an organic listing after seeing branded social media content (comScore). Socially successful brands such as Starbucks and EasyJet know this well and create social and search campaigns that enhance one another. For instance, a user might search for “a cheap cup of coffee in Queens.” While the results will include organic listings to Starbucks at retail, a sponsored listing for the Starbucks Facebook page might also turn up and encourage the user to further engage with the brand there.

5. The evolution of the meta tag: A crucial key to SEO suc-cess is meta tagging. When a user searches with keywords that match your meta tags, preview text is delivered to that user on search engines, increasing the likelihood that they will click over to your content. But be careful. If the search that delivered your site as a result isn’t among your meta tags, engines will pull copy from your site to populate this “preview” section.

For a visual guide to SEO, check out the infographic by RiseInteractive (www.instant-shift.com/2012/07/13/seo-101-beginners-guide-to-seo-info-graphic/). PRN

CONTACT:This article was written by Michael Lamp, social and digital media strategist at Hunter Public Relations in New York City. He can be reached at mlamp@hunterpr.com.

2 prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12

Play the SEO Game—By the Numbers▶How To... Digital PRSEO

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PR News ADVISORY BOARD Paul A. Argenti - Tuck School of BusinessNed Barnett - Barnett Marketing CommunicationsNeal Cohen - APCO Carol Cone - Edelman Peter Debreceny - Gagen MacDonaldMike Herman - Communication SciencesLaura Kane - AflacMichael McDougall - McDougall Travers CollinsLarry Parnell - George Washington University Mike Paul - MGP & Associates PR Deborah Radman - Senior PR ConsultantBrenda C. Siler - Best Communication StrategiesHelene Solomon - Solomon McCown & Co.Mark Weiner - PRIME Research

PR News BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORSDave Armon - Critical MentionAndy Gilman - CommCore Consulting Bruce Jeffries-Fox - Jeffries-Fox Associates Angela Jeffrey - Member, IPR CommissionRichard Laermer - RLM Public RelationsRichard Levick - Levick Strategic Comms Ian Lipner - Lewis PR/YoungPRpros Katie Paine - KDPaine & Partners Rodger Roeser - The Eisen Agency Lou Thompson - Kalorama Partners Reid Walker - T-Mobile Tom Martin - College of Charleston

Source: Slingshot SEO

Google vs. Bing: Not All Search Sites are Created Equal

A study by Slingshot SEO found clickthrough rates significantly lower for Bing on search engine results pages (SERPS). The rates are ranked by positions 1-10 on the search page.

google vs bing click-through rAte

1

4%

0%

8%

12%

16%

20%

CLIC

K-TH

RO

UGH

RAT

E

ORGANIC POSITION IN SERP

2 4 6 7 8 9 105

18.20%

1.04%

3

7.22%

4.81%

2.78%1.75%

1.52%

10.05%

3.09%

1.88%

9.66%

0.45%

2.74%

1.88% 1.67%0.65% 0.57%

5.51%

1.85% 1.34%

google

bing

▶Quick Study

Public Negativity Is Big Roadblock for Financial Industry; Consumers Willing to Pay More for ‘Simpler’ Brands▶ Financial Industry Still Faces Negativity: The Wall Street Reputation Study, launched by Makovsky and released in Oct. 2012, surveyed communications and marketing executives at financial services companies to determine the challenges they face and the solutions needed to rebuilding reputation. And those chal-lenges are high, with 78% of executives saying negative public perception is the biggest roadblock in rebuilding reputa-tion. Other highlights include:

• 96%ofexecutivesinvitednegative public perceptions because of their actions or inactions during the financial crisis.

• Atleast8in10commu-nications and marketing executives are worried about negative public reaction to executive compensation in the financial industry.

• 53%ofrespondentssaythe“Occupy Wall Street” move-ment had an impact on their business.

• 74%sayincreasedregulationwill help improve trust and reputation.Source: Makovsky/Echo Research

▶ Is Simple “In” for Brands? Across all industries, con-sumers are willing to pay more than $30 billion for simpler

products and experiences with brands, finds Siegel+Gale’s third annual Global Brand Simplicity Index, released Oct. 2012. The Index surveyed more than 6,000 consumers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America to uncover the perceived points of complexity and simplicity in people’s lives, and ranked the top brands con-sumers deemed the simplest. Other find-ings include: • 80%ofconsumers

are more likely to recommend a brand because it provides simpler experiences and communications.

• Thehealthinsur-ance and banking industries stand to gain the most with U.S. consumers, saying they would pay up to $5 bil-lion or $3.3 billion more, respectively, for simpler prod-ucts and experi-ence.

• Rankingallinthetop 10, Subway (#1), Dunkin’ Donuts (#2), McDonald’s (#8) and Starbucks (#9)

prove that the quick-service industry continues to win when it comes to simplicity.

• Whenaskedtoranksocialmedia on the simplicity scale, consumers ranked the platform higher than several industries already deemed very complex, including banking, utilities and tele-communications.

• Intermsofprovidingcus-tomers with simple interac-tions and communications in Internet search, Internet retail and electronics, Google (#3), Amazon (#4), Netflix (#5), Apple (#7) and Zappos (#10) are among the leaders. PRN

Source: Siegel+Gale

@

Find PR, Communications and Social Media Professionals’ Twitter HandlesAdd Your Own Twitter Handle

www.prnewsonline.com/twitterdirectory

Twitter handles include:

19619

prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12 3

Source: Bizrate

Pinterest Beats Facebook on Several Consumer Fronts—But Not So Fast

A Bizrate study of U.S. shoppers who made online purchases in August shows that people like Pinterest for a number of reasons. Keep in mind, however, the study also found that 55% of Facebook’s audience followed a brand or retailer, versus 26% on Pinterest.

June 1, 2011, 4:30 p.m.—As another Massachusetts spring day winded to a close, Nick Fyntrilakis, VP of community responsibility at financial ser-vices company MassMutual, sat in a meeting with a col-league from HR when the sky turned black. Within minutes, a funnel cloud—visible from MassMutual’s downtown Springfield office—touched down less than half a mile away.

The tornado spun residents, businesses and community organizations into a world of chaos. Four people were killed, thousands of homes were damaged, lives were upturned and much of the city was in shambles.

Although the MassMutual headquarters wasn’t directly hit it was, of course, a signifi-cant event for employees and the community, and one that

required a strong response from MassMutual. Since 1861, the company has been corner-stone of the community, and is now the largest for-profit employer in the region, with 5,000 employees. Fyntrilakis knew MassMutual would have to help the community recover.

WHEELS IN MOTIONIt was the company’s media relations, strategic communica-tions and community responsi-bility teams’ job to get the word out to employees and the com-munity that MassMutual was there to help, as it had been for the last 160 years. Their objec-tives were to:• Providesolidsupportto

employees, policyholders, the city of Springfield and surrounding communities through information, finan-cial assistance and leadership.

• Strengthenpublicawarenessof MassMutual’s dedication to its employees, the commu-nity and helping Springfield rebuild.

• UnderscoreMassMutual’sfirm commitment to its core Community Responsibility initiatives, including eco-nomic development and community vitality.

MassMutual had always been quick to offer disaster assistance—in 2010 it pledged monetary support to the tsu-nami relief effort in Japan and the earthquake relief effort in Haiti—but rarely did a disaster strike on its own turf.

“We take natural disasters case by case and examine how we’re going to respond, so we didn’t have a script for exactly how we would handle this,” says Fyntrilakis.

But handle it they did. Fyntrilakis immediately got on the phone with the president of Red Cross’ Pioneer Valley chapter and offered the com-pany’s financial support and services. A similar conversa-tion was held with Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno. By 7:00 p.m., Fyntrilakis and other company leaders decided that MassMutual would announce a $100,000 donation to its local Red Cross chapter.

EARNING ACCESSThanks to MassMutual’s long-standing relationship with local leadership, Fyntrilakis and the team were able to quickly get to the table with the city’s emergency meeting team. MassMutual is a perennial funder of education, arts and economic development, so it is always engaged with city lead-ership on issues in Springfield.

“You gain access and cred-ibility by being there before-hand, so that when issues arise you can be part of the conver-sation to help the community, your employees and your company’s reputation,” says Fyntrilakis.

Within 24-hours, the team distributed a press release stating that all MassMutual employees were safe and accounted for; the company endured no business outages; and news of the donation to help rebuild Springfield. Additional releases were cre-ated as MassMutual continued to provide support, such as lending its own head of com-munity responsibility to the city to aid in developing a strategy

Company: Massachusetts Mutual

Life Insurance Company

Timeframe: June - October 2011

▶Case Study

4 prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12

After a tornado ravaged Springfield, Mass. on June 1, 2011, MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall is interviewed at the company-sponsored Rebuilding Fair.

No Stranger to Disasters, MassMutual Expertly Aids Its Hometown—and Employees—After a Deadly Tornado

Photo courtesy of M

assMutual

Internal CommunicationsCommunity RelationsCrisis Communications

Tornado Lessons Help MassMutual Cope with a Halloween Snowstorm A late October 2011, a blizzard dumped more than a foot of snow on the Springfield, Mass. and the greater New England region, which caused transportation problems and left most of the region without power for several days. However, MassMutual remained open for its policy owners and customers, thanks to lessons learned from the June 2011 tornado that touched down in its own backyard. Mark Cybulski, media relations director at MassMutual, provides three business continuity communication actions stemming from the tor-nado.

1. “We improved our process for gathering and disseminating infor-mation quickly to all employees by identifying key stakeholders and subject matter experts in advance,” says Cybulski.

2. MassMutual’s existing technology enabled many employees to work from remote locations, which demonstrated great flexibility as an organization and was critical to business continuity.

3. After the tornado, “we anticipated common threads of questions and developed thorough and thoughtful responses about our con-tinuity efforts in the event we were queried on our ability to stay open for business,” says Cybulski.

prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12 5

to rebuild Springfield. Mark Cybulski, media rela-

tions director at MassMutual, says that while the media was busy covering the devasta-tion of the tornado, news of MassMutual’s donation and dedication to the city were (tastefully) covered by three major TV stations and the leading local newspaper, at a time when the public was thirsty for disaster information.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONIn communicating with employees, Fyntrilakis says the team was trying to take into account the personal issues that MassMutual workers were facing. “We had employees that were significantly impacted—people’s homes were literally destroyed—we tried to deal with the acute issues,” says Fyntrilakis.

MassMutual communica-tions specialist Melissa Pelletier says internally, MassMutual’s Intranet was used to provide regular updates to employees about the tornado aftermath and MassMutual’s efforts both in the community and in the office (see chart).

Employees were also encouraged to blog about their experiences during and after the tornado hit, which were then shared on the Intranet and through the company’s employee network.

COMMUNITY HELPFyntrilakis’ role shifted, as he dedicated two days per week to pro-bono work, helping the city develop a plan to rebuild. In communicating with the local community, Fyntrilakis says the strategy was to address the community’s long-term needs through the Red Cross partnership and a Rebuilding Fair. MassMutual’s long-term approach was a more public facing: with press releases and pitches to the media, inviting them to participate in and cover post-tornado events.

REBUILDINGAs the tornado victims began to rebuild their homes and lives, MassMutual coordinated a Rebuilding Fair on Sept. 28 to help citizens learn about the resources available to them in getting back on their feet. The event was attended by more than 100 Springfield residents.

For an added media hook, MassMutual CEO Roger Crendell announced a $1.6 million plan to redevelop the city, aligning the effort with MassMutual’s 160th anni-versary. To show a strong executive presence at the event, Crendell did newspaper and TV interviews, with messaging geared towards reiterating MassMutual’s community responsibility.

SENSITIVE CHALLENGEFor Fyntrilakis, the most challenging aspect of the crisis response was getting MassMutual’s messaging out while keeping in mind the fact that people were really hurting. “You need to be sensitive to the issues people are facing—some hadn’t been in their homes for months,” says Fyntrilakis “For us to talk about the more strategic and reputa-tional issues would be very insulting to them.”

If given a second chance, Fyntrilakis says he would have hosted the commu-nity event earlier in the year to be more timely and match people up with the issues they were facing. Cybulski says that MassMutual’s digital community manager wasn’t hired yet full time, which led to a few shortcomings on the social media side.

Even without that component, the team

still nailed each of its objec-tives:

Objective 1: • PRaroundMassMutual’s

donations totaling $1.7 mil-lion were covered extensively by four local papers and the Boston Herald.

• TheBostonCollegeCenterfor Corporate Citizenship published an entry on its blog highlighting MassMutual’s Rebuilding Fair as a strong example of community responsibility.

Objective 2: • Thecompanyearnedpraise

from the community’s largest daily paper, The Republican, with an editorial thanking MassMutual for its generosity and urging other companies to follow suit.

• MassMutual’semployeesexpressed how grateful and proud of the company they were. “As you can imagine, the things MassMutual did to help out the associates affected by the tornado were most welcome,” says Patti

Burnett, communications specialist at MassMutual.

Objective 3: • Fyntrilakis’pro-bonowork

to help Springfield develop a rebuilding plan garnered significant media attention, including an article in the Boston Globe.

• Fyntrilakis’andMassMutual’sPR team became the “go to” sources for the media to learn about the city’s rebuilding plans.

Both Cybulski and Fyntrilakis say that from this crisis they learned the impor-tance of getting involved imme-diately in the conversation to discover the needs of the com-munity and, ultimately, how to best position the organization at a very sensitive time. PRN

CONTACT:Mark Cybulski, mcybulski@massmutual.com; Melissa Pelletier, melissapelletier@massmutual.com; Nick Fyntrilakis, nFyntrilakis@massmutual.com.

Source: MassMutual

Post-Tornado Article Draws Thousands Of MassMutual Employee Views

An article published internally on June 2, 2011 (the day after a deadly tornado hit Springfield, Mass.) gave MassMutual employees valuable information. Updated throughout the week, the piece drew close to 10,000 views.

6 prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12

Leadership Change▶ Page 6

Pandit’s experience, as well as other recent high-profile CEO ousters—like Yahoo’s Scott Thompson (for padding his resume) and Best Buy’s Brian Dunn (for an ethics violation), PR News decided to explore communications during such events, and the transition to new leadership afterwards.

In the case of Citi, when much of the company was caught unaware of the change, how key stakeholders like employees, customers and the media are communicated to in the hours after the news breaks is critical, says Lisa Rose, senior managing director at PR agency Dix & Eaton.

QUELL UNCERTAINTYDue to this surprise factor, having messaging ready in advance to reach those stake-holders is the optimal strategy, says Barbara Lezotte, presi-dent of Lezotte Miller Public Relations. More often than not, the PR team isn’t privy to leadership changes involving strife—unless they have an ear in the boardroom—and getting those messages out quickly is paramount.

And a good chunk of your messaging should be internally focused, says Lezotte. “During a CEO change, executives and board members can be so focused on handling the

media—and if they’re a pubic company, shareholders—that they forget about employees and other internal audiences,” she says. “Clueing employees in

and helping them reduce their anxiety translates to job secu-rity for them and a smoother transition for the organization.”

Uncertainty is the Achilles’ heel in these instances. Lezotte recalls a situation with a client whose CEO was let go after a crisis. The board first took a week to appoint an interim CEO, and then installed interim No. 2 a month later. “A permanent CEO wasn’t brought in until six months later,” says Lezotte. That’s an awful long period of uncertainty—both internally and externally.

MOVE QUICKLYCitigroup, on the other hand, kept the uncertainty to a minimum after Pandit was gone. It quickly named 52-year-old Michael Corbat, who has worked at the company for all his career, as the new chief executive.

He deftly said all the right things upon his appointment, calling himself a “true believer in this Company” in a memo to employees. He added that he plans on taking several weeks to examine the business and review chains of command.

According to crisis PR and corporate leadership expert Jim Lukaszewski, president of The Lukaszewski Group, urgent actions that a new CEO takes immediately can assure suc-cess. “Focusing on these actions will help a CEO move through

the first few months and speed their mental transition to the post,” says Lukaszewski. The actions include:

1. Get local help: Find a peer, fellow CEO or senior level counselor of whom you can ask those embarrassing and sometimes silly questions all new CEOs have.

2. Be visible in the community and the countryside: Even though you may be uncom-fortable with a reasonably high profile, this is expected of you.

3. Change expectations: Exercise the discipline of the strategist. Effective strate-gies are time-sensitive, brief, stated positively, understand-able and clearly achievable. If you can combine your goals with your strategies, your odds of success go up dramatically. Two of the best models are:

•JackWelchrebuiltGE with: Be #1 in your category, or #2 going for #1, or be preparing an exit strategy for leaving GE.

•FedEx: Absolutely, posi-tively overnight.

Whether your leader is step-ping down after 35 years on the job, or is booted out unexpect-edly, Rose says it’s not only up to the new CEO to set a new tone, but to the communica-tions leader as well. In the case of Citigroup, “Corbet has an opportunity to create energy that may not have been there before,” says Rose.

And PR should be well posi-tioned to help lead that charge. PRN

CONTACT:Lisa Rose, lrose@dix-eaton.com; Barbara Lezotte, barbl@lezottemiller.com; Jim Lukaszewski, jel@e911.com.

“During a CEO change, executives and board members can be so focused on handling the media, they forget about employees and other internal audiences.”Barbara Lezotte Lezotte Miller PR

Dear New CEO: 5 Pieces of Advice For Job SecurityJim Lukaszewski, crisis and leadership expert and president of The Lukaszewski Group, has counseled many a new CEO. Here’s some words of wisdom he specifically offered to a recent client—advice that PR pros should think about during a CEO transition.

1. The Resistance is Formidable. The prime directive of all cultures is to preserve and defend yesterday by detecting and preventing any signs of tomorrow from surviving. When there are doubts about our direction, hesitation or timidity, yesterday will win, every time.

2. People Expect Action from Day One. They expect, hope and fear that when you walk in the door you’ll begin making changes and making things happen.

3. People Expect Change Even Though They Fear It. Everyone is well aware of the tension during transition. Tension increases apprehension. Employees cannot understand why the people at the top of the mountain can’t work everything out. They actually believe there is a plan.

4. Change is Continuous. From your perspective and strategic view, the organization will change significantly about every 100 days during your first three years, even if everything goes smoothly. Change will occur more easily at first. Later, change gets harder and harder.

5. Cultures are Modified in Only One Way. Changing cultures is hard and takes time. I usually think in terms of 40 quarters of time with persistence to start significant culture change progress. The recipe for culture modification has four crucial ingredients:

• Astrong,positiveleader(avisionary).

• Verballydrivenmanagementstyles.

• Goalseveryonecanunderstand,acceptandachieve.

• Constantdirection,clarification,validationandrepetition.

Jim Lukaszewski

At Facebook, however, most products are rolled out slowly, marked by extensive beta testing.

The ultra-competitive tech landscape also presents a recruiting challenge, says Thaw. “The hunt for talent is fierce,” he says. Thus, Thaw and

his team work hard to reach the engineering audience—encouraging them to post on the Facebook Engineering page (www.facebook.com/Engineering, 700,000 likes, see image) and pitching their sto-ries to the media.

STORIED TWEETSWhile Facebook’s Thaw made the jump from journalist to PR pro, Karen Wickre, editorial director at Twitter, has stayed with the professional confines of editor-writer. Starting as a content strategist at Google in 2002, she recommended to leadership that Google start a blog, which became a model for the industry.

After nine years at Google, Wickre took her content exper-tise to another Valley giant—Twitter. As a writer, she’s always thinking of stories to tell, and does so through a variety of platforms: the @twitterstories page (see image); a Pinterest page; a Facebook fan page (nearly 10 million likes) and numerous other blogs and cor-porate Twitter accounts. A team of three helps with the content, complementing the 15-person communications staff—mostly in media relations.

“There is so much mate-rial that a company can publish other than product specs,” says

Wickre. “It just takes some thinking and attention over time.” Of course, being able to choose stories among Twitter’s 140 million users does have its advantages.

TRADITIONAL OUTREACHMeanwhile, Demetra Airaudi’s tech communications career demonstrates the industry’s potential for big change. Joining Skype a year-and-a-half ago as global PR manager for consumers, she was on her honeymoon when she found out the global communication service was purchased for $8.5 billion by Microsoft.

Before that, Airaudi spent seven years promoting LG mobile devices—ironic because Skype is heavily into optimizing its services for Android and Apple mobile operating sys-tems.

Skype’s PR outreach has a traditional media relations side, but there’s also a focus on blog-gers, monitoring what they are writing about. “That’s where a lot of our consumer campaign ideas come from—user-gener-ated content,” says Airaudi.

Airaudi warns not to dis-regard the traditional forms of PR. Skype “consumerizes” its product launches and works with partners like Samsung and Logitech to get the word out that Skype can be used on a variety of devices.

TIPS FROM TECHThaw, Wickre and Airaudi all offered advice that all PR pros can take to heart, including these nuggets:

• Let your employees tell their stories: Wickre says a Twitter engineer might talk about their favorite apps, or how to get away from the screen. “We encourage this. These aren’t stories that reporters might write, but they may

spark ideas,” she says.• Continuallygetinfrontof

media and find creative and unique ways to talk to them. “I constantly think of what consumers want to know about Skype in using it every day,” says Airaudi.

• Segment your audiences. “There was a time when we just had one Facebook page, with every announcement up there,” says Thaw. “We real-ized that we weren’t serving each audience well.”

• Use an editorial eye. Recognize good stories, and make sure you cross-pro-mote, cross-tweet and pitch those stories to the media, says Wickre.

We’ve often heard PR pros marvel at the top tech compa-nies and their seemingly effort-

less ability to draw massive attention and coverage. Who needs PR, anyway? Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, told the press at the PRSA event that in Twitter’s early days, he didn’t see much need for formal PR. “I did the PR myself, until one day a reporter e-mailed me and wrote, ‘Look, my job is to cover Twitter. If I can’t get a comment on a story, I can’t cover your company.’” Thus, a PR team was born.

Which just goes to show—whether it’s tech, CPG or nonprofit—the PR pillar of establishing relationships is what counts the most. PRN

CONTACT:Jonny Thaw, @jonnyjt; Karen Wickre, @kvox; Demetra Kavadeles @metersd.

prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12 7

PR Lessons Learned from Tech ▶ Page 1

“Posts by bloggers are the source for a lot of our consumer campaign ideas.”Demetria Kavadeles Skype

Two Silicon Valley titans, Facebook and Twitter, use their own platforms to create awareness and conversation. Facebook’s Engineering page (top) has more than 700,000 likes, while @TwitterStories tells the inspir-ing tales of some of the platform’s 140 million users.

8 prnewsonline.com | 10.22.12

As the father of 12- and 8-year-old daughters, most of my movie-going time these days is spent either watching some-thing animated or the latest riveting flick featuring Justin Bieber or Katy Perry.

One of my favorite scenes of late is from the movie Up, when Dug, a likeable and seemingly smart talking dog is waxing poetic when, out of the blue, his entire being is suddenly consumed by, you guessed it, a squirrel.

It’s then impossible to get him refocused on his previous train of thought because he is completely consumed with this furry new thing that’s appeared in front of him.

My challenge to today’s communications’ professionals is to not become Dug.

TEMPER THE TOYSWith the seemingly constant onset of new communication channels and tools, it’s easy to become infatuated with the latest, shiniest things. Look, it’s Twitter. Wow, there’s Pinterest. Does anyone remember MySpace? It may be making a comeback, by the way.

It’s more important than ever to have a solid up-front strategy before jumping into tactical execution of any com-munications program. This cer-tainly isn’t rocket science, but here are some quick reminders that are more important

than ever with the increasing number of squirrels running around.

1. Identify your goals—from a business plan perspective. Is your campaign simply about increasing brand awareness or are you trying to more directly influence sales? Are you positioning a company for sale or are the owners in it for the long haul. Thousands of Facebook fans mean nothing if you’re trying to sell a product and those “likes” aren’t really influ-encing sales.

2. Know your most important audience and know where they get information and make decisions. Twitter is great for some brands, but completely useless for others because their audiences simply aren’t using that social tool. The same can be said for any channel—be it new or old media.

We represent clients in rural parts of the country, and often the most effec-tive approach is to find a way to get on local radio or in the weekly community newspaper. We’ve even been known to host good, old-fashioned town-hall meet-ings and barbeques at local American Legion Halls.

3. Content is more important than ever. Regardless of the channel, producing content

that is useful to your audi-ences has never been more important.

Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and deter-mine if the content you’re creating is truly going to serve a need for them. Don’t worry about it being overly promotional for your brand. You’ll get the credit you deserve simply by being asso-ciated with something from which your key stakeholders derive value.

4. Stay up to date on the latest, but don’t allow the “squir-rels” to distract you from the tried and true. Social media and mobile are cer-tainly here to stay, but they’re often not the only solution. We all know the 25-year-old whose life revolves around one social media channel or another.

While their expertise, and that of other specialists, is incredibly important to our clients, it’s important to not let those experts drive the strategy entirely. Ensure the strategists in your organiza-tion can utilize the expertise from your channel experts and then determine the best ways to meaningfully con-nect with your most impor-tant audiences.

5. Measure, adjust, measure. The obvious beauty of many online channels is that there are a variety of ways to mea-

sure whether your efforts are generating results or not. Decide up front the metrics you’re going to use and measure their effectiveness. If something isn’t working, adjust.

ADD VALUEHere’s what’s important: Seemingly everyday, there are new and effective ways to reach your audience. While it’s crit-ical to be aware of the latest and greatest—i.e., the squirrels—and what they can do and can’t do, it’s also important to not be overly distracted by them and let them drive the strategy.

Know who your audiences are, how they’re making deci-sions and ways you can add value to that process.

In other words, be the dog that knows exactly where all of the squirrels are, but is smart enough to not let them com-pletely infatuate you. PRN

CONTACT: Larry Holdren, APR, is a partner at Pure Brand Communications, a Denver-based PR firm. He is a member of Counselors Academy, a group of PR agency counselors within the Public Relations Society of America. He can be reached at lholdren@pure-brand.com.

▶Tip Sheet BY LARRY HOLDREN

Avoid the Squirrel Syndrome: Don’t Be DistractedSocial MediaMeasurementManagement

Entry Deadline: Nov. 9 | Late Deadline: Nov. 16 Finalists and honorable mentions will be recognized at an awards luncheon in spring 2013.

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