Media | Schmidtcomm's Blog

Courage to be Dan Rather

This post is for all you under 40 PR/comm types out there. When I was growing up, the Vietnam War played nightly on Walter Cronkite. Then, Watergate was the top story that consumed the national discussion. Through it all, Dan Rather was on location or in the anchor chair. Remember this was before cell phones and the internet gave us a 24/7 news cycle and people actually stopped what they were doing to watch the evening news.

For those of you who live and die by the feed on your cell phones, this was important because what happened on the evening news was a shared experience. It’s how we were updated on that day’s news, then we read the details in the next days’ newspaper (remember newspapers?). No Twitter postings* from un-vetted “news sources” or opinion leaders who might or might not have all the facts. It was widely regarded as objective reporting from trained journalists.

So why care? Do yourself a favor and watch the documentary Rather. Go ahead and make fun of Dan Rather for his good looks, his stupid sign off (Courage), or his epic mistake and departure from CBS…but this was the peak of TV journalism. And the guy is 92 and still in the game posting coherent comments on Twitter and other platforms. I love a second act.

Watergate, Woodward/Bernstein, and the aftermath made me want to be a journalist. Dan Rather’s documentary shows how TV journalism was before cell phones made everyone an alleged reporter. Watch it.

*I will NEVER call Twitter “X” because it’s just stupid.

SALE! Your next elected official

What’s the biggest sale you can think of?

Black Friday? No.

Day after Christmas? Nope.

Back to School? Wrong.

It’s elections.

Candidates and special interest groups have only one day to determine who wins the big prize (Ok, there is advance voting, but you get the picture). In the lead up to that one day, there are more ads running than any of the aforementioned retail sales and the biggest platform is television. Based on recent reports, Wisconsin races have spent more money than any other state to get you to take action on November 8.

A new study by the Wesleyan Media Project, shows the races for governor and U.S. Senate have resulted in 24,000 ad airings statewide in just two weeks. It’s estimated Gov. Tony Evers and challenger Tim Michels have spent $55 million to get their next job. In the senate race both Ron Johnson and Mandela Barnes have dropped $89 million since the August primary.

And it all comes down to a federal law from 1934.

TV stations cannot refuse political advertising and must allow “reasonable access” to legally qualified candidates. If they refuse the ads, they run the risk of losing their broadcast licenses. Further, stations have to give the candidates the lowest rates on their advertising rate cards, but as commercial availability tightens the closer we get to elections, the volume of the ads climbs.

The Communications Act of 1934 lays this all out if you’re interested. In 1934 it focused on radio, but the Federal Communications Commission fleshed out the rules for television, then cable, then satellite.

For everyone who says legacy media is dead and digital platforms are dealing the fatal blow, just turn on the TV. Television still delivers a high-volume, broad-based audience and local news can still be considered “appointment viewing.” So suck it up and stay tuned until November 9 when the ads may stop, but the revenues keep rolling in for the local market stations.

Do this before you jump into social media

At the risk of getting flamed on my Twitter account, I’m going to utter social media blasphemy: I’m not completely convinced social media is the communications messiah for some businesses. I’ve worked with a lot of business-to-business clients over the years, and in the rush to set up a Twitter account, many forget to take care of the basics of communications.

If your business targets a consumer market, then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube are must-haves. But if you are selling parts to a manufacturer, or if you’re selling services to an industrial client, first take a good, hard look at some communications basics.

For most industrial & manufacturing busineses, trade associations, trade magazines/websites, and professional organizations are still the basics of communications. Fundamental tools like sell sheets, case studies and testimonials are the first tools you need to tell your story.

So before you open up an Instagram account, consider these pointers for online communications in the B2B world.

Know how your customer consumes information. If your customer is like a normal professional, they have a full in-box, a full voice mail, and they spend their day putting out fires. There’s a stack of professional journals flagged for review on an airplane while they’re traveling to a customer location. Facebook is not on their agenda and, if they are checking websites, its likely on their smartphone.

Triage your website content. Assuming you have a website (and you should), review your content and make sure you’re communicating in an understandable voice. If your only customer is a materials engineer, I’ll give you a free pass to write on a professorial level. But if you’re communicating with a range of customers in an industry, be sure your message is clear—which means limiting jargon, abbreviations and acronyms. Clearly explain how your product/service is different from competitors and the benefits you will provide your customers.

Tell a story. We are bombarded by thousands of messages daily and the best way to grab someone’s attention is to tell a story about your business. Perhaps it’s a case study of how you solved a problem for a customer or why you started your business, but communicate something beyond listing your products.

Make your website mobile. Most industrial and manufacturing professionals are running their business off of their smart phones and if your website is not optimized for that platform, you’re losing business.

Use your website as a publishing platform. Your website should not be a static document—it should be a content hub. This means you need to update information regularly and the most common way to do that is through a blog. Once you develop topical blog content, you can drive target consumers and trade journalists to learn more about your company, products and services through a judicious use of social media.

If you do nothing else, do LinkedIn. I used to dismiss LinkedIn as a boring version of Facebook but changed my tune once I invested time into it. That’s the key—you only get out of LinkedIn what you put in. Individuals must participate and that means you or key team members in your organization must take the time to develop a robust profile, then start interacting on the platform. Many industries are surprised by the professional groups, alumni organizations, events and discussions that can be found on LinkedIn—but only if you participate.

One more reality of LinkedIn—this is a platform that is based on the individual, not an organization. People link to people first and through those personal connections build a network. Often the biggest hurdle is to convince your team members they need to take time for LinkedIn, but you don’t need to invest an hour a day; start with investing one hour a week.

Before you rush into social media because your competitor is tweeting, stop and consider if you’ve done the basic blocking & tackling of talking to your customers. If all of this gives you a massive headache, drop me a line at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com and we’ll talk. Or tweet.

Attention PR Skeptics: read this!

If you think PR is a warm, fuzzy effort that you can do without, read what just happened this morning.

My brother is a partner in Healthcare Bluebook, a company founded on transparency. It functions much like the Kelly Bluebook used by car buyers for decades: the firm combines cost and quality data to provide consumers with price ranges for typical health costs by market. Want to know the going rate for a laparoscopic hysterectomy in Green Bay? The website healthcarebluebook.com will give you an average fair price and allow you to drill down into the details. Finally, consumers know what a medical adventure could cost.

This morning, the TODAY Show did a segment on “knowing your health care costs” and mentioned Healthcare Bluebook. It was about 15 seconds of content and was wrapped in with other consumer information, but it was succinct and informational. I stopped my workout and applauded my brother’s PR team, then immediately texted him.

His response: they didn’t know why there was a huge spike in traffic on their website. The segment ran just before 8 am, but the spike continued.

For those of you who think PR has no bottom line value, this 15 second mention drove consumers to his website to learn more. Consumers made the decision to seek out valuable content and hopefully engaged with the website for a period of time. Did this happen overnight? No. Meaningful press coverage is the result of a great idea, tailoring an existing message to a journalist’s audience, connecting with producers to pitch a relevant story and follow up, follow up, follow up. That 15 seconds could drive more eyeballs to your website than any one ad, but it requires planning and establishing relationships with real journalists.

My brother’s firm has an excellent PR team that has been with them since their inception. They are part of the strategic group and have developed a communications strategy hand in hand with the business strategy. This is a critical element of success because it allows the PR team to be responsive and flexible with the media, yet manintain a consistent message that upholds the organization’s mission. As a result, Healthcare Bluebook has been featured in national business publications, major U.S. daily newspapers and the holy grail of business journalism, the Wall St. Journal. For millenials out there, the content was also on the digital platforms!

Meet my brother, Bill Kampine. He is co-founder and senior vice president for Healthcare Bluebook and I am off the charts proud of him!

If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.

Be resolved: really communicate with media

Most of you will forecast sales, expenses, product introductions, and budgets for 2016, but let me ask you to spend some time on your communications planning. Most of the businesses I have worked with want more favorable or more impactful relationships with the press, yet they are often victims of their own (bad) habits. If public relations is part of your marketing objectives in the coming year, take a moment to review this list of New Year’s resolutions for communicating successfully with the media.

Resolve to create clear messages. Communicate in plain language that is easily understood by everyone, not just corporate leadership. Use language that is concrete rather than abstract thoughts and business speak that cloaks the real meaning. Rather than saying “We are committed to our employees…” try “Our benefits package and internal promotions show we invest in our employees.” Put more meat in your message and commit yourself to creating emails and press releases that present factual information supported by your in-house experts. Above all, eliminate jargon and business cliches that only have meaning for industry insiders or your operations team and communicate how your products and services will impact your customer’s life.

Resolve to end wordsmithing. In the interest of full disclosure, I hate that term. If you typically revise a press release ten times, you’re over complicating the process (see above). In most cases, journalists will not copy and paste your press release or email directly into their stories. That press release you labored over will be paraphrased, rewritten, or even used only for reference, so edit for clarity not pontification.

Resolve to end spin. Spin is dead thanks to the transparency of the internet.

Good journalists can sniff out spin and get to the truth of an issue simply by doing a Google search, so don’t throw a towel over the truth.

That doesn’t mean you need to reveal proprietary information, financial or strategic plans, or employees’ personal information—but you should present reliable information. A good friend of mine is an excellent, experienced reporter who will go the extra mile to re-state or paraphrase information just to get to the core of an issue, and she is rightfully proud of her ability to identify spin.

Resolve to tailor your messages. What you say to a business journalist may be very different from your message to a broadcast reporter. Understand the differences in financial media, trade press, social media and broadcast media and present information accordingly. Doing so will allow you to present different facets of a story to reporters and, hopefully, get more of your message out to your target audience. Not every press interaction needs to focus on your product or service—find a sliver of content that you think might interest a specific medium and contact that journalist.

Resolve to treat journalists like real people. Just like you, they’re doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Provide thorough, vetted information and interviews with interesting experts who can add dimension to an issue. Understand their deadlines and provide information they can use in a follow-up report. Follow the reporters on social media and comment on their stories—maybe even say thank you. However, if a reporter gets information wrong or presents a misleading story, it is fair to contact them and discuss the issue. Most journalists want to present accurate information and will update a report on a website or run a clarification.

Resolve to read/follow media outlets. Now you’re asking “how can I fit one more thing into my day?” If your business is considering a public relations or community relations program, it’s a good idea to read the media outlets you wish to target. I know this sounds obvious, but many businesses don’t follow their industry trades or associations. Stay on top of news feeds, trends, and look at the stories covered in print, on websites, and on social media to determine if you also have information that’s worthwhile for the reporters and editors.

Business communications are no longer in a push environment where companies issue dozens of press releases and push information out to the media. Today we operate in a pull environment where compelling stories and two-way conversations engage the media in informative and impactful stories. Clarity, brevity and authenticity are the cornerstones of communicating with the press and building relevancy with journalists in the new year.

If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.

Copy. Paste. Now your info is mine.

So what do you do when a competitor uses your proprietary information?

Usually, I would tell a client to make sure information has a copyright © sign or they contact their attorneys. However, today everyone’s a publisher thanks to WordPress and everyone’s a journalist thanks to the internet. So “garage journalists” who don’t give a hoot about objectivity, attributing information to sources or vetting the facts will easily copy and paste your proprietary info into their blogs, Facebook pages or tweets.

Recently, we discussed exactly this situation at a business training program with entrepreneurs who have been in business 5-10 years. One businessman (we’ll call him Larry) publishes his own industry information and a competitor has been “borrowing” it liberally for his business without attributing it. Larry’s customers depend on his information and look forward to it in his emails and newsletters. Being a direct guy, Larry has personally asked the guy to stop taking his info.

Does he call a lawyer?

Perhaps. But our solution was to inform his customers and social networks of the situation and have the network get to work. Larry’s customers are fiercely loyal to him—because they are so deeply involved in his lifestyle, products and services they are likely to take this action personally. Larry’s a hard-working guy who lives and breathes his business—his passion attracts equally passionate customers.

You can do everything to protect your information, but often the best weapon is an engaged and committed customer base. Remember to involve your customer in your personal story so they become as dedicated to your product/business as you are. Get your customer involved by regularly communicating with them, presenting a compelling story and providing information that matters to their lifestyles.

I can’t wait to see what happens when his fans find out an interloper is falsely trading on Larry’s sweat-equity.

If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.

So how are those staff cuts working for ya?

My network of reporter/editor friends got some great chuckles out of recent gaffes in regional papers. Nothing entertains a bunch of journalists like implied (or actual) swear words in 36 point type. When you traffic in the printed or spoken word, mistakes are part of the landscape.

Usually an editor reviews final copy before it hits production or the air. Veteran journalists are fairly trustworthy when writing copy or headlines. But that’s just the problem—there aren’t many veteran journalists left.

In the last months, print newsrooms across the country have been slashed to the bone with budget cuts. Staffers with seniority and higher wages based on experience and ability have been trimmed from the balance sheet—along with their institutional knowledge. We can argue the failing business model of newspapers all day long and blame everything on the internet, but there’s a bigger issue here.

Trust me on this: you WANT experienced journalists on the job if only to perform their most important function as a watchdog. That’s an old-fashioned term that has a lot of modern implications.

In your busy life, will you ever attend a city council meeting? Do you have time to sit through floor debate at the legislature? Do you know your elected officials, your zoning committee or your school board personally?

You want a reporter at these meetings questioning why legislation is being proposed. You want a reporter asking why a zoning variance is being granted to a developer. You need a reporter following policy changes that could affect your childrens’ schools.

Journalists are trained to be the fourth estate—the unofficial branch of the government that monitors the political process to ensure the players don’t abuse the democratic process. That means they watch, they listen, they ask questions. But now there are fewer on the street asking those questions.

Journalists are also bound by a code of ethics in their newsroom and answer to editors who verify sources, strive for objectivity and hold them accountable. Sure, you can always find out more on the internet, but it’s caveat emptor. How do you know the author has checked sources or even if the author is a real person? And with a nod to history, most web-based content is only slightly better than the yellow journalism of 1900.

I never thought I would see the day when a local TV newsroom has more feet on the ground than the local paper. But that day is here.

If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.

Why stormageddon is a bust

It’s tempting to blame the national weather hysteria on Al Gore or the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” but there’s a less fictional cause. Local news markets have been engulfed in the weather as news vortex for years, but now the national networks are catching up.

Why? Because when the companies that own local TV stations pay for expensive research, the results show one of the top reasons why people watch TV news is weather. They want to know if storms will disrupt the work week, vacation plans or the Friday golf game. So any weather event, no matter how insignificant, instantly becomes a live shot.

One of the best sources of credible information in the changing media landscape is the Pew Research Center on Journalism & the Media. Checking one of their most recent reports shows that between 2005 and 2013…

“…the airtime devoted to weather, traffic and sports had risen from 32% of the local newscast studied to 40% —a 25% increase. Indeed, Pew Research’s examination of 48 evening and morning newscasts in late 2012 and early 2013 found that 20 of them led with a weather report or story.”

Just another symptom of the nanny state—citizens can’t be trusted to source information on their own, so we will barrage them with the obvious. My favorite are the national morning “news” programs that feature a breathless, over-the-top reporter lamenting cars in a ditch, or zero visibility, or the chore of plowing. Obviously a reporter/producer team that has never been west of Philly.

The true tragedy is not that hyper reporters over-deliver the obvious—all of us have lost something far more dear. We have lost the opportunity to learn about stories that have more lasting impact in favor of 5 minutes of live shots from weather non-stories. Certainly proposed congressional legislation is “boring,” but truly creative journalists can find a way to make a budget or committee action compelling.

If you don’t like what you see, don’t remain silent and flip the channel. Send an email to your local news director or station manager/owner and tell him or her what you want to learn from their programs. If enough of you do that, you might save us from stormageddon.

TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT

The happy morning news anchors greeted me with this headline: “Shots fired in Green Bay.” Now that’ll make you sit up. Where? Who? Was it a school? I flipped to another station and got the grave headline: “Shooting on campus.” Which campus? Spousal Unit tuned the kitchen radio into the all-news station but all we got was “Shooting in Green Bay.”

The anchors reported that information was still coming in, police reports were not updated, reporters were en route to the scene, more information would be available shortly, we’ll keep you informed, and on and on…

Several hours later I learned the “shooting” was actually three shots fired. The incident was not on a school campus but on the east side of the city near the University campus. As for the immediacy, it happened overnight.

The producers and writers did their jobs well this morning. The headline “Shots fired in Green Bay” made my heart beat faster. Had they used the more accurate headline “Shots fired near University overnight,” I would have realized the incident was not ongoing,

When there’s breaking news at your business or organization, keep this in mind.

It might be a dumpster fire but it could be reported like this: “Rescue units and a tanker truck were called out overnight to a fire at XYZ Company…”

Is this wrong or misleading? Nope—and I would do the same thing if I were still working in a newsroom.

You owe it to yourself, your employees and your customers to learn how news is communicated and why reporters and editors do what they do. Before you see it posted on Facebook.

If you’re interested, find me at mkathrynschmidt@gmail.com.

MARCH MADNESS: I take Renee Fleming in the final four

I can’t help thinking: what would happen if we treated the arts like March Madness? Imagine picking brackets that have symphony orchestras facing off against each other. Imagine televising opera casts in a sing-off to determine who performs with the most heart, talent and skill? Would Vegas run the odds on ballet dancers who can jump higher or twirl faster? In your fantasy league, would you draft a team with Cecelia Bartoli, Renee Fleming and Maria Callas?

This year, ad spending on the Final Four will generate $1.15 billion (BILLION) which is higher than NFL Football or NBA Basketball (yawn). This year, nationally televised arts will generate this much in advertising revenue: (crickets).

I’m not dissing organized sports or the Final Four. I’m a Badger alumnus and rooted for Wisconsin to win. But I’m a singer, I love the classical arts and happen to think the lessons learned in a practice room or in a band concert are just as important as those learned on a field.

As a culture, we worship the warrior in sweat socks. If we paid even half the homage to the artist mastering Mozart, what would be the outcome?

In this weekend’s contest, we will see the product of organized and well-funded high school sports playing at a very high level with organized and well-funded college athletics. I think of my friends who teach high school music and how their booster clubs scratch to find money to repair uniforms, repair old instruments and send kids to state ensemble competitions. Take that up a notch and think of the local arts groups that operate on budgets that wouldn’t keep sports teams in shoe laces.

When you don your red and white this weekend, please take 10 minutes and think about what the world would be like if we devoted this much time and money to the arts. A sustainable world needs both sporting competition and artistic expression, but we are far from parity when funding the arts.