The Future of Media Round Up features the top articles and blogs curated by Bateman Group on issues and events related to the convergence of technology, media and communications.

Here’s our take on the most disruptive news, commentary and insights about PR and media from the months of November and December 2011. Please share links to other must-read articles in the comments below if you think we missed anything.

Required Reading:

Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media, The New York Times – From Nov.21 to Dec. 2, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) sought submissions from public relations professionals, academics, and students and the public to help redefine what “public relations” means. The role of public relations has been significantly transformed by the Internet and social media. PR is no longer about solely managing the message. It has evolved to focus on facilitating the conversation between entities and their audiences. This why PRSA’s “Public Relations Defined” effort is calling for a “modern definition for the new era of public relations.” The last time PRSA updated its definition was in 1982. Interested folks can visit prdefinition.prsa.org to share their definitions.

Social Media Help Bosses Tell Their Story, Financial Times – More than three-quarters of the leaders of the 100 biggest US corporations do not have a Facebook page and only two CEOs use Twitter. But among twenty-something entrepreneurs running online companies, 100 percent are fully involved in the scene. The pros and cons aside, a strong reason to use social media is that can be the ideal platform for disclosing compelling stories that aren’t readily accessible to the public. “More practitioners in business should be out there describing their experiences and giving their opinions. It might help correct some of the misinformation promulgated by anti-capitalists, and the general skepticism about wealth creators expressed by much of the media.”

Occupy Movement Pushes CSR to the Tipping Point, CSRHub – The Occupy Movement is forcing banks to examine whether current  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts like philanthropy are enough. Facing the movement’s disastrous effects on client and employee loyalty as well as recruitment, financial firms are being pushed to seriously reconsider going beyond old-school deeds to show true leadership in “doing well by doing the right thing.”

Public Relations Won’t Fix Penn State’s Crisis, PRSAY (PRSA) – The multilayered Penn state crisis has raised a lot of questions and challenges around the university’s reputation. From a PR standpoint, “one thing public relations professionals cannot help people understand, and should never have to, are an organization’s moral and legal failings.”  PRSA’s own Keith Trivitt and Arthur Yann give their PR perspectives on the crisis and make the distinction that the crisis is a management issue and not a public relations issue.

Charlie Miller’s Punishment by Apple Tests a Complex Relationship, Huffington Post – Earlier in November, white hat hacker Charlie Miller’s relationship with Apple was damaged when the company said he violated the terms of his agreement after disguising an app to reveal a security flaw in Apple’s App Store. This incident reflects the tension in the partnership between companies and their security experts. Should flaws be disclosed privately to developers or publically? Bruce Schneier, a security expert, thinks that “if researchers don’t go public, things don’t get fixed…Companies don’t see it as a security problem; they see it as a PR problem. And if there’s no PR problem, it’ll never be a priority.”

Follow @BatemanGroupPR for more opinions on breaking news and issues.

Earlier this month, Bateman Group, along with fellow boutique PR agencies Mindshare PR, LewisPulse, Borders + Gratehouse, Kulesa Faul and Eastwick Communications co-hosted a panel discussion on the evolving forces impacting the marketing leader and how PR can improve the way it works with the broader marketing organization. Moderated by Bateman Group’s Bill Bourdon, the panel included Anurag Wadehra, CMO at Baynote; Darby Williams, VP of Marketing at Sociable Labs; and Michelle Cox, VP of Marketing at Metacafe. All of the panelists offered a unique point of view that made for a very lively discussion. Here are the highlights:

Biggest disruptors to marketers in the past decade: All of the panelists agreed that social media has been the biggest disruptor to the marketer over the last decade. Anurag explained that social media has forced marketers to take on a new role of establishing credibility, and Michelle added that the direct brand-consumer conversation has led marketers to shift their goals from pure customer acquisition to creating brand ambassadors in their customers. This new socially-driven climate has empowered consumers to speak directly with each other continuously, so rather than just push messaging to their customers, marketers need to inform their audience so they can make the right decision.

The relationship between sales and marketing: There was a resounding agreement that marketing is all about driving sales. Anurag provided a great analogy for this relationship: marketing lays down the tracks and sales runs on them. In the end, sales is the most important customer of marketing, he said. On the consumer side, Michelle said sales depends on marketing to recruit new customers, but more challenging is the expectation that marketers will maintain customers through engaging digital experiences so they will return again and again,  ultimately acting as brand ambassadors.

Web content: It used to be that the website was one channel for marketers to deliver their marketing message to customers. Now it’s not just a channel, but a necessary component of an organization that serves as the digital hub for all forms of communication, from sales, to internal communications to outbound marketing. From an outbound marketing perspective, marketers today are acutely focused on influencing the influencers, which means they are talking directly to a highly sophisticated audience that demands direct access, brand transparency and content that speaks directly to them. Content needs to speak to pain points of the customer, and provide tools that the customer can put to use immediately.

Where PR fits into the marketing mix: This portion of the panel was particularly insightful for the agency representatives in the audience, and each panelist offered unique points of view that served as an excellent reminder of what in-house marketers expect of their agencies, and how we can improve our client service.

The key takeaway was that all companies need to tell a story, and PR agencies serve as the amplifier. The best PR agencies fight for a good story and prevent a company from fading into the background. A PR agency does its best work when it has deep knowledge of its client, but can also step back and offer a valuable outside perspective.

It’s was also interesting to hear the panelists say that it’s common for companies to use their agencies inappropriately – while it’s up to the agency to be proactive and driven to deliver results, in-house marketers need to be savvy consumers and recognize the strengths of their PR agencies and give them what they need to be successful – that could be a clear product roadmap, corporate vision, or data like customer references or industry surveys.

I’d like to thank Anurg, Darby and Michelle for being straightforward and honest in their responses – it’s not often that you get an opportunity to hear in-house marketing executives explain their pain points and issues that keep them up at night, and I learned a lot!

The online media landscape today is largely driven by a “break the news first” mentality. Page views, search rankings and publication speed are the new currency for journalists and publishers as they race against time to gain reader eyeballs and click-throughs.

As PR professionals, it’s critical that we adapt our clients’ media strategy to fit this pace. To gain mindshare and the ever-coveted “share of voice,” how can we run in this race? While it’s certainly a sprint, not a marathon, there are many steps you can take on the back end to position your client to seize the opportunity to be included in a story when relevant news breaks. It takes advance planning, combined with a smart blend of social media and traditional media/blogger outreach.

Here are some best practices and strategies for getting your client’s voice included in breaking news stories:

1) Create a trove of pre-approved “Point of Views.” When industry news breaks, time is your enemy. It’s critical that you pitch your clients’ perspective early and quickly to increase the odds of inclusion. Enter the dreaded time killer: the approval process. In the time it takes to draft a viewpoint AND secure client approvals, your media contact has likely already written the story. There’s an easy way to circumvent this – work with your client to pinpoint their industry’s top five issues (e.g., industry consolidation, the new iPhone, mobile payments, etc.) Secure approval for these points of view from the executives. When news breaks, you are now empowered to send out the pre-approved content without a time-consuming approval process.

2) Make it easy for the journalist. In this new media landscape, reporters and bloggers are under pressure to spot and publish original stories on breaking news quickly. Some U.S. outlets have even moved their staff to London in order to get a jump on the U.S. workday. By dipping into your handy trove of pre-approved points of view, you can help out a journalist facing a tight deadline. Also in this email, provide them with everything else they could need to include your client in their story –your spokesperson’s availability for further comment that day, his/her credentials and links to relevant images and background documents. Do this and you’ll quickly establish yourself as a go-to PR contact for sources and commentary.

3) Social media is your friend. Corporate blogs and Twitter are ideal vehicles for broadcasting your client’s perspective, as it not only reaches media but also customers, prospects and other industry influencers in one shot. If your client has a blog, post their breaking news viewpoint and share this link with media. This may even lead a reporter to include a link back to your client’s blog post in their story – goldmine! To maximize exposure, tweet the blog post and invite others to share their perspective on Twitter or by commenting on the post. To reach more reporters, consider direct messaging the ones you follow on Twitter with the link to your client’s post and ask if they are covering the story.

4) Track rumors and speculation. Regularly scan industry blogs that comment on rumors and big pending industry announcements like Engadget and TechCrunch. If you spot something relevant that may bubble up to the surface soon, work with your client to get ahead of the eight ball and get their perspective ready.

These are just a few easy tactics you can use to stay ahead of breaking news. Would love to hear other tried and true tricks!

It’s not a text book, but it should be. Going into my fourth and final year at the University of Oregon, I’ve read my share of textbooks, not all of them good. Famed blogger, speaker and marketing strategist, David Meerman Scott, wrote The New Rules of Marketing & PR which I have to say would be a great supplement to marketing or PR instruction.

For those of us who have grown up immersed in social media, some of what he encourages is intuitive, but a lot of it isn’t. We see public figures misuse social media on a daily basis, and we see our friends do it too. From marketing ourselves in pursuit of a job, to managing a corporation’s reputation, to communicating with consumers, Scott explains what’s necessary to be successful with PR and social media in today’s market (job or otherwise).

Without further ado, here are my impressions on Scott’s new book – from my perspective as a journalism student and two-time summer intern at the Bateman Group…

Favorite Part: “Social Media is a Cocktail Party.”

Growing up in social media is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it’s familiar and second nature; it’s a curse because it’s easy to forget the power of a tweet, status update or post. Scott presents a simple set of rules, a mindset really, to think about. He says that the social rules of a cocktail party are the same as those of social media. Some of the things he urges people to consider:

• Do you go into a large crowd of people, most of whom you don’t know, and shout, “BUY MY PRODUCT!”?
• Do you ask everyone for their business card?
• Do you listen more than speak?
• Do you try to meet every single person, or do you have a few great conversations?
• Do you avoid interaction altogether?

I find this are helpful things to keep in mind for those trying to dip their toes in the social media pool (a little late in the game) and those who forget about the power of social media.

One of my teachers last year surprised us all on the first day of class by presenting a slideshow of everything she could find about us online – one slide per student! Some were good, some were embarrassing and some were downright horrifying. If a few of these students had thought about Scott’s cocktail party analogy, our professor may have respected them a little more for the rest of the term. Then again, I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a classy cocktail party in college.

What’s Missing: Cross-Platform Strategies?

One thing that I learned in one if my strategic public relations writing classes at the University of Oregon was how to write a Twitter pitch and search engine optimize a press release. While Scott does give tips to make press releases more visible to the average consumer and internet browser, he doesn’t address how to leverage press releases through social media channels and what the rules for doing so are. Since press releases are no longer meant just for the press (according to Scott), distributing them to consumers is that much more important. Scott espouses the importance for brands to participate where their consumers are participating, but didn’t offer enough practical guidance on how to make press releases more visible to consumers where they read news most, online.

I was also looking for Scott to provide a little instruction on how to make social media presence most productive. There’s not a PR or marketing professional in the world who doesn’t understand – at least on some level – the importance of social media. But with so many marketers still misusing Twitter, for example, what are some proven ways to improve engagement? Contrary to what some may think, you can’t just post a link on Twitter to draw followers in. A good percentage of tweets coming from organizations include a link; and not everyone clicks on every link. Creating an attractive pitch that tells your followers the news, why it’s important and lures them to click in 140 characters or less is no easy task, especially if you have complex news.

Overall Grade: A-

It was a great read. A little long, but Scott’s blogger-esque voice made it more entertaining than the typical run-of-the-mill textbook. Although he covers most of his bases, there are some things missing. I would definitely recommend this book to any professor, grad student or entry level coworker.

Recently, I stumbled upon a fun feature in AdAge on the most interesting summer jobs from big name advertising executives. Knowing the characters we have at the Bateman Group, I knew we could come up with some pretty compelling summer jobs and reflect on how our experiences as pimple-faced teenagers still carry weight in today’s PR industry and business world.

This is Part 1 of 3 profiling the most interesting summer jobs of the Bateman Group

Young Amy

Amy Ziari

Senior Associate

Job: Hoagie Maker/Espresso Slinger/Drive-Thru Money Taker Maven/Delivery Gal

Lesson Learned: Take pride in what you do no matter how big or small of a part you play

Following a string of summers working for my dad, after my senior year of high school I decided it was time for something different. So I applied to a sub sandwich/espresso place in my itty bitty small town and spent that summer making meatball hoagies and preparing no foam double lattes for the locals. I also did deliveries.

It certainly wasn’t a glamorous job – delivering roast beef sandwiches in 105-degree desert heat IS NOT something I’d recommend to anyone – but I gave it my all. I cleaned the tables with a vengeance. I greeted everyone who came through the drive-thru with a huge smile and panache. I tried to perfect my sandwich making abilities by watching my manager. It felt awesome to know that I was giving something my all, even if that all was in fact not anything that “important” in the scheme of things. Through the job, I still had a chance to make a positive impact – even if it was a small one – on someone’s day.

So here’s my Reddit-esque TL-DR (too long/didn’t read): If someone’s paying you to do a job and you do it halfway, you’re not only cheating your employer but yourself. No matter how big or small a job you have, no matter how “important” by society’s standards, it’s an opportunity for you to take control and do something you’re proud of. Same thing goes with PR… even if you’re just getting started in the industry, you have an opportunity to make an impact at your agency or company. Go the extra mile and not only will you be noticed by management, but you’ll feel damn good about yourself, too.

Elissa with her daughter Haley

Elissa Ehrlich

Account Director

Job: Summer Camp Counselor

Lesson Learned: Everyone wants attention and validation, from the loner in the corner to the outspoken popular kid

When I was in high school, I took a job as a counselor at a local summer camp. I decided to work with the camp’s older kids (4th and 5th graders), as I felt like it would be the most fun and engaging route. The job proved to be one of the most physically and emotionally demanding jobs I’ve ever held. My memory was quickly refreshed on how cruel school children can be – but also how sweet, funny and smart they could simultaneously be.

Looking back over 15 years later, I realize that my groups of summer campers primed me for helping interface with many types of clients, colleagues and bosses. Everyone has a distinct personality and drivers, and it’s about tweaking your own management style or approach to get the best work out of an employee or make the client feel like they’re getting the best counsel and results. Ultimately, everyone (whether or not the camper/client/employee seems outwardly confident) needs regular validation that they are smart, capable and needed. Unfortunately, the insecurity never goes away, whether you are 11 or 30!

Jeana Tahnk

Jeana Tahnk

Senior Consultant

Job: Snack bar line cook at a haughty swim club

Lesson Learned: Manners matter – all the time

In high school, I worked as line cook/snack bar attendant at the pool of a very exclusive golf club. Every day, kids would come in hordes to the snack bar and order to their heart’s content and simply charge the bill to their parents’ accounts. Even with this privilege and sense of entitlement, most of the kids were well-mannered and said their “pleases” and “thank yous.” Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the adults. It was often the moms who would come and say, “get me this” or “I want this” without any manners to speak of.

Manners go a long way in every facet of life and it doesn’t take much to thank someone for a job well done. In business, a simple nod of recognition or appreciation for hard work goes a long way.

Laura working hard

Laura Moen

Associate

Job: Truck Rental Agent

Lesson learned: Never be afraid to step outside your comfort zone

During my first summer back from college, I went to an employment agency in search of some seasonal, full-time employment. As soon as I sat down, the agent exclaimed he had the PERFECT job for me. The next day I found myself driving to one of the industrial areas of Buffalo – a decaying shell of its former self as a major port on the Great Lakes – and was told I needed steel-toe boots and to learn to drive standard…on a twin axle tractor with a double clutch meant to pull 53-foot trailers. For someone who had never even driven an SUV in their entire life, this seemed like a bit of a leap. Oh and how did I feel about driving 4-10 hours a day to pick up trucks throughout New York State and Pennsylvania on occasion? Sure why not. That’s how I became a residential and commercial truck rental agent and part time transfer driver for Ryder Inc. during my “off seasons” as a college student.

I was the youngest person and only female working at my Ryder location. I worked most closely with a man they called “The Do” (the old-timers thought he had a snazzy hairdo), who liked unfiltered cigarettes, country music and motorcycles. We had absolutely nothing in common, but he turned out to be one of the best people I’ve ever worked with. He patiently taught me how to drive stick on a tractor and forced me to just go for it. From his guidance, I managed and scheduled an entire fleet of trucks across multiple locations. I priced truck rentals on the fly based on market demand. I quickly learned how to get my trucks washed and ready by making friends with the right guys in the maintenance department. And I relished my time squeezed into a pickup truck with 4-5 old school truck drivers in their 70s who swapped stories about serving in World War II and the best diners along any highway in the country.

While I didn’t get the chance to do a whole lot of writing or apply any of my previous work experience, I learned that taking a chance and stepping outside my comfort zone was more rewarding – and more fun. My experience as a pseudo truck driver prepared me to tackle any unexpected challenge and work with any team to get the job done. Also, if you’re ever in need of a moving truck, I highly recommend picking up the 16-foot Isuzu W-2 from Ryder. It’s a great little city truck to move a small house or apartment.

Now a little over a month since the launch of Google+ and the most buzzed about online service already has 25 million users, estimates ComScore. These stats mean Google+ is growing faster than Facebook and MySpace did in the early days. Further, according to a new survey from Bloomberg/YouGov, Google+ is on track to claim 22 percent of online U.S. adults in a year, which would place it second behind Facebook as the most-used social site – ahead of Twitter and LinkedIn.  Says the survey, Google+ has already snagged 13 percent of U.S. adults and will add 9 percent over the next year.

It’s no wonder why marketers are so excited about Google+, despite the fact that it’s not technically open to brands. Ford is among the shortlist of brands to test the platform, and understandably its audience is relatively small. At the time of this blog, 12,154 people had added Ford to their circles. This compares with 781,899 people following the brand on Facebook and 75,327 on Twitter.

As a marketer, I am personally a little nonplussed by all the hype around Google+. As a shareholder on the other hand, I love it.

I admit Google+ has some shiny new features that certainly hold promise for marketers once consumers sign onto the service en masse and actually stay on it. For example, Ford’s head of social media Scott Monty says the chat capability has potential for webinars, analyst calls, and even customer service uses for people to have a face-to-face experience with the brand. But it’s not clear whether Google+ brand profiles will support the same functionality for individual users. Just think about how powerful features like Circles could be in supporting audience segmentation and message customization. And potential integration with Google Analytics could give brands just the social ROI metrics they have been waiting for.

Like the Bloomberg/YouGov survey, I predict that adoption of Google+ will continue to grow if only because it has the advantage of being pretty seamlessly integrated into the overall Google ecosystem (search page, Google Docs, Chrome, etc.). This integration should conceivably increase the likelihood that Google search users will check in regularly on Google+. But what will it take for the masses to stay there?  Apparently 31 percent of users polled in the Bloomberg/YouGov survey said they have already abandoned their accounts or not written any posts yet on the site.

As a PR practitioner who spends a large part of the day searching for and reading news from my personalized iGoogle news page,  I check in more frequently on Google+ because the icon is an eye’s distance away, but still spend considerably more time on Facebook and Twitter. This is because the content and interactions I have on those sites are more valuable to me. Although truth be told, I use both Facebook and Twitter increasingly less and less. This brings me to the premise of this post.

Drumroll please.

Above all else, when developing their social media strategies, marketers must remember that the quality of the content will always trump the quality of the platform. This holds particularly true in an era of social media fatigue when consumers are growing tired of how brands are communicating to them via social channels. As Tom Fishburne poignantly said in his recent blog about social fatigue, “It’s not enough for communication to be good for the brand. It has to be good for the consumer.”

So, will social media fatigue kill Google+? Given its steady rise, innovative features, and strong base of early adopters who are charting purposeful best practices, the answer is probably not. However, a good platform with a strong following does not a successful social media program make. At Bateman Group we are admittedly still wrapping our heads around Google+ and formulating our ideas on where, if at all right now it should be used with clients. Given the service is still very much in early adoption mode, it’s currently better suited for most of our clients to communicate with and engage their respective industry influencers versus their direct buyers. Hangout, for example, offers a new twist on how we can engage with influencers but only time will tell if the feature poses too big of a cultural shift to become a mainstream anytime soon.

We’d love to hear from other PR and marketing professionals about how they have begun to incorporate Google+ into their mix of social media tools.

Follow Bill Bourdon on Twitter @bbourdon.