Every industry has their “experts.”  None are more dominant than in the PR world, however.  There are branding experts, social media experts, publicity experts, etc.  The list goes on and on.  They seem to be springing up at conventions, seminars and PRSA meetings across the country.  As people continue looking for the “next big thing” in their industry, companies are noticing who’s stealing the spotlight and who’s shaping opinions.

Now, the big question is, can one or even a few of these “influencers” help a company connect with the correct target audience?  Companies who hire PR firms want one thing: to tell their story, in a way that resonates, whether it’s to a niche community or global business leaders.

Traditional brand building creates attention through ads, publicity, appearances and articles.  Working with key influencers can create buzz about your client in specific circles of interest.

Which method is worth the time and money?   The best answer is a combination of both.

Traditional brand building is good for reaching the masses.  This means that you spend your money sprinkling your message over a massive group of citizens.  The good news is that this method can make a huge impact quickly.  What is the downside?  You must hope that the message gets to the one or two consumers who will buy or use your product/service, and then hopefully, they will spread the word further to their friends.

Today, it’s critical to take the next step.  An influencer could be the new game changer your organization needs.  The influencer, whether it is a small group of people or just one expert can hit your immediate target audience to penetrate any confusion created in a mass audience.  This targeted approach can get the job done that traditional brand building can’t do alone.

A good influencer not only has credibility, but has a creative spark.  They look for trends and spread the news to their wide bandwidth of followers.  People rely on these influencers for things that will be hot the next couple of years.  They are experts in building a brand and creating interest in a particular product or service.

For example, a popular social media influencer is Peter Shankman.  He is the founder of HARO (Help a Reporter Out).  His expertise is prominent through media interviews, as well as seminars across the country.  And the tech world wouldn’t have made such fantastic strides over the past decade without Apple’s Steve Jobs or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.  These people see the next big thing and go after it.  This in turn builds brand identity for their company, stimulates innovation and creates real value.

No matter how a company chooses its course of action, one thing is certain; influencers should be embraced along with traditional PR tactics.  They could be the ultimate weapon in building and selling a concept, idea or even a brand.

Putting members of the media behind the wheel of your new car is undeniably the most cost-effective way of getting widespread, unbiased coverage. Over time, your budget might allow for certain selected journalists to have the opportunity to sample your new model for an extended evaluation, but a short term first look is likely going to involve a number of people in one location.

But not leveraging such an event can prove disastrous for everyone involved, since those initial reviews can be the most important ones your car will ever get.

A media drive is a major undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be expensive or burdensome. Let’s first examine the best way to get started.

Place and Time
Picking the location and timing of your media drive is essential. Too many have made the mistake of offering a drive opportunity at the same time as another major event in an entirely different location. Since many outlets are limited in the amount of coverage they can take on at one time, you don’t want to lose potential journalists just because they are attending a new car show on the other side of the country, or they’re at a major vintage event overseas.

Consult any calendar that might apply to your audience – you will be able to find dates that work well for everyone.

With a date selected, your next decision will probably revolve around a location. The most budget-friendly option is to hold your media ride and drive where your audience will already be. With journalists scattered around the country – and across the globe – the only time you’ll find them all in the same place is around a major auto show like SEMA in Las Vegas or the Los Angeles Auto Show. If your intended audience will be in tune with classic cars or enthusiast-oriented events, consider taking advantage of an afternoon during the Monterey week in August or even the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit. Or, you could run your snowmobile ride and drive during the Detroit show in January!

If you choose to piggyback and adjacent show or major event, you don’t want to intrude on the event, or else you’ll risk losing essential coverage. As exciting as your product is, journalists are in town first and foremost for the major event, which probably offers lots of exciting news worth covering. That doesn’t mean that they don’t want to drive your car, but you have to be careful with timing. The days leading to and following a major event are prime driving time, but you’ll want to give journalists plenty of notice ahead of time.

Even if you don’t have all of your details carefully arranged, a simple “save the date” e-mail will alert reporters about an upcoming drive. It’s amazing how few major automakers even bother with this small effort, which serves as a convenience for all involved.

As the NFL cools down from the excitement of the Super Bowl in North Texas, another storm is brewing over the league. A walk-out looms in the distance as players, coaches, managers, team owners and NFL officials can’t seem to come to agreement on just what constitutes solid pay. To viewers, who watch players gallantly parade around with their multi-million dollar paychecks (and that’s just for a single game for many of them), the walk-out seems positively ludicrous.

If it occurs, it will undoubtedly be difficult for Americans to sympathize with either side – the well-off players or the downright rich owners. It’s a classic struggle between workers and management, only magnified with several extra zeros.

It is, simply, a public relations nightmare to have two sides so visible in the media fighting over an enormous sum of money in a recession.

That’s not to say that we haven’t been here before; walk-outs in hockey and baseball undoubtedly dented the image of both leagues so much that it took years to recover fan bases. Some stalwarts still cringe at the thought of their childhood heroes begging for more and more money.

There is no way that an NFL walk-out will be pretty, but it could end somewhat cleanly with a little more PR finagling than normal. Minimizing media impact is impossible with such a high-profile fight – after all, the most popular section in your local paper and a highly-rated cable program are dedicated to strictly reporting on sports – but that doesn’t mean that viewers can be steered away from the ugliness.

For many, however, just sitting back and watching a walk-out take place will be as exciting as most of the season.

A revolution is underway and you may not even know it. What’s more, you might even be complicit in helping to change status quo.

No, it is not a violent upheaval, but it is changing the way we do business faster than almost any technological boom has ever done and its evolution might never end. It is the arrival and sudden dominance of tablets and e-readers, which are rapidly replacing mobile phones, laptops and desktops as the go-to source for information and entertainment for millions of readers. Inevitably, we, as promoters of a product or a service, must adapt our ways.

Apple’s iPad began the revolution, but Android-powered tablets are gaining ground, as we have discussed before. iPads have been graced by Apple’s magic touch, but the Google-developed Android operating system is available on a wide variety of devices. We cannot predict who will win this battle, but we know who will lose: Computers and mobile phones, not to mention print.

No longer is the tablet simply a fun gadget. Their flexibility makes them computer replacements, especially for those on the go.

Changing ways
This new form of contact with an audience causes us to entirely rethink our interaction. We’re still focusing on .mobi websites optimized for mobile phones, but an increasingly large number of users are jumping ship to tablets.

Transitioning mobile-platform applications and websites to a tablet is the easy solution, but why not take this opportunity to think out of the box for this new type of media distribution?

For starters, the horizontal format and far larger screen offers a wider level of flexibility, although it is still limited compared to a full function computer with a mouse, a keyboard and an advanced processor.

The best way to leverage a tablet depends on what you want to do. The print industry has stumbled to adapt to Apple’s strict policies that limit subscriber information and don’t allow for free access for some and paid access for others. In fact, Apple has just informed a number of European newspapers that paid print subscribers will not be able to have special free access to apps that non-subscribers have to pay for.

Just as everyone was starting to understand what it takes to succeed with a tablet, the rules have been rewritten. That does not mean we should give up.

Further proof – as if you needed it
You might have heard that just this last holiday season, virtual books – e-books – outsold their hard and soft cover counterparts. We’re not quite ready to call physical books “relics” or “vintage” just yet, so don’t expect to sell your paperback collection to finance a new kitchen.

But this transition is obvious proof that consumers are warming up to getting their information from a screen, especially one designed with eye-friendly viewing in mind.

The tablet revolution is on. Now it is time to figure out what to make of it.

Of all the fierce battles in history, few have been as decisive as when Sony’s Betamax took on JVC’s VHS tapes. Sure, the battle was hardly bloody – although some conference room discussions in Japan might have made Custer’s tent at Little Bighorn positively tranquil – but the outcome saw the VHS victor totally obliterate its well-heeled, generally superior competitor with one fell swoop.

It seems that history is repeating itself as we watch Apple’s iPad take on an increasingly large number of rivals touting the Android operating system. The comparisons are easy, but their eventual outcome is our focal point and our take-home lesson. As marketers attempt to reach increasingly wide audiences over a vast array of media, tablets could play a massive role in the near future.

VHS won out over Betamax not because it was better – most historians and technophiles will agree that Sony’s system was vastly more advanced – but because JVC was willing to share its technology.

Sony assumed that the video recording market would remain relatively small and the company assumed that domination would come easy. The Japanese giant had created a fast, high resolution recording system that it wasn’t eager to share with anyone else.

Meanwhile, JVC developed the VHS tape, which wasn’t as sophisticated, but could be produced at a marginally lower cost. Forward-thinking JVC was also much smaller than Sony and it realized that, in order to be successful, it would need some outside help. JVC licensed its VHS technology to nearly every major electronics manufacturer, which meant that VHS recorders quickly became readily available – at competition-driven low prices.

Sony assumed that its high-end, high-quality Betamax would win, but consumers elected to go after the cheaper offering, even as they acknowledged that it was inferior.

Parallels to Apple’s iPad are obvious. Apple has made its operating system open source – meaning that anyone capable can develop applications – but it won’t provide a license to other electronics manufacturers. Apple wants to control hardware, just like Sony did. Android – purchased by Google in 2005 – has been distributed to licensees since 2007. As a result, it’s hard not to find an Android-powered device at any electronics store (other than at an Apple Store, of course).

That’s not to say that the iPad isn’t a great device. It is highly capable and its integration with Apple’s other products makes it truly impressive. But the cheapest iPad will set buyers back $500, about the price of three low-end Android-powered tablets.

Without a time-traveling app, we can’t tell who will win this battle. But as we continue to develop applications and look for unique ways to reach consumers, we can’t ignore the potential of these two devices.

Don’t be the electronics store that stocked up on Betamax tapes only to be stuck with dusty, unsold merchandise years later.

You’ve had hours, days or even weeks to prepare for an interview. You’re up to date on your company’s operations and products. If you’re lucky, the interviewer has even provided you with some hints on what to expect from the discussion.

Then the interview comes along and you stumble, never fully getting your point across and not knowing the answers to every question. It happens to the best of us, even those who think they are well prepared.

The basics

Look at an interview with a member of the media in much the same way you’d want to interview for a new job. You want to go beyond answering questions – you want to present a compelling, but not overly boastful, case for you and your company. You want to sell your message.

Your answer needs to be more than just words. It needs to be believable, not only because it needs to be accurate and truthful, but it also needs to be something you genuinely take as fact. Be comfortable and try to be yourself.

Anticipate questions ahead of time by working with your public relations team. Collect your thoughts ahead of time; only in certain circumstances should you agree to an on-the-spot interview.

On track

The rapid-fire, “report first, ask later” nature of online and TV media makes it imperative that you keep control of the interview. Don’t let the interviewer take you off track – unless you want to go there.

Answering questions that might move the conversation in the wrong direction with a simple, “That’s a great question for another time; let’s revisit it soon” will endear reporters and lead to what could be a mutually beneficial follow-up interview. It’s a smart answer that can be effective if used sparingly.

Additionally, you must keep control of yourself during the interview. A flustered answer will bomb on more levels than you want to think about – your clear answer, your facts and your credibility are all on the line during the interview.

Tailor-made

Help the reporter by giving answers that can easily be put in context in an article or clip; think of your answers as sound bytes. Your answers should be concise, accurate and, perhaps most importantly, they need to be natural. A short and simple answer that tells the basics is easy for a reporter to use; if they want to dig deeper, that’s their prerogative.

You can’t assume that a reporter will know what you’re talking about, so you might need to build up your answer with background basics. This varies by outlet, so be careful not to oversimplify to an industry trade journal, for example.

Simple answers don’t mean misleading answers; if you’re intentionally glossing over the details or ignoring certain elements, they’ll track down the facts. Ultimately, this tactic will backfire and destroy your credibility.

A timely example

For months, General Motors told reporters that the innovative Chevrolet Volt’s gasoline engine never directly powered its drive wheels. Then, closer to the Volt’s on-sale date, GM revealed that, under certain unusual circumstances, the gasoline engine could indeed bypass its electric counterpart to motivate the vehicle on its own.

It’s a difference that buyers won’t notice because, simply, it doesn’t matter in day-to-day driving. But it betrayed many reporters’ trust in GM and its public relations team, whom the media decried as misleading and engaging in evasion tactics. Not only did the gaffe dent GM among reporters, it made journalists look as though they had been reporting false stories.

The drama that ensued could have been avoided in one of two ways. The simplest answer would be for GM to have told the truth initially, which would have prevented reporters from being misled.  Conversely, GM could have chosen not to reveal the information until it was ready.

To understand the enemy, you must think like the enemy – so the military strategy goes. True, journalists are certainly not enemies, so the comparison isn’t quite valid. But the point remains: to truly understand how a journalist reports the news and understands what you’re trying to tell them, you must look at the process from their angle.

Online journalism might look like traditional print, radio or television media, but it’s vastly different. It benefits from the reader’s ability to quickly verify facts. Cable news viewers can delve further into a subject after seeing a report, but that usually requires a move from the couch to the computer – even an iPad isn’t motivation enough. When a reader sees something reported on an online news site, a blog or even a social media outlet, it doesn’t take much more than a visit to Google to dig deeper.

Readers know everything. And anything they don’t already know, they will within 10 minutes, even if their facts might be stretched to fit a point or an agenda.

Dissecting the media

Let’s look at a few ways an entry or an article might make its way online, starting with the simplest approach – social media.

A few words are all it takes for an amateur reporter to disseminate fact (or fiction). In this case, it’s usually based on something they’ve read elsewhere – a press release, a company website or an article. These quick reports engage their followers, who might spread the word digitally or verbally. No, a social media user isn’t a journalist per se, but they’re saying something to an audience that, in one way or another, views them as authoritative. They listen. They repeat.

A step up from this is the blogger. Closely related to a social media user, a blogger is, in many ways, simply a more verbose Tweeter or Facebooker. Yes, blogs came well before either of those sites, but their worlds are closely intertwined.

For example, a connected blogger gathers information from Twitter, relying as much on official accounts as word-of-mouth Tweets from nearly anyone. Sometimes it’s as simple as reporting on an announcement, while other times an inconveniently leaked message to an exposed situation. They’re opposite ends, but they represent the different ways a blogger might work. To get more connected to this unique reporting manner, follow a celebrity’s Tweets for the day and then check out one of the countless celebrity-tracking blogs. Suddenly, you’re a few words away from being a blogger.

What separates most bloggers from most reporters is the level of research put into crafting a story. Broadly speaking, most bloggers are looking to get a story up quickly – they’ll check their sources later and post an update. It’s modern sensationalism, but this ever-faster-moving world can’t be satisfied any other way.

Traditional reporting is hardly dead, although bloggers might suggest otherwise. Websites affiliated with print outlets follow their parent groups’ standards, even though they usually have a reasonably well-researched blog section written by traditional reporters.

These blog sections offer up anything from obscure news stories to short bits that, in the eyes of the editor, don’t merit an in-depth story.

A well-researched piece will have the writer conducting his business in much the same way as a print reporter might. Interviews are required and citing more than one source to verify information or opinion is a given.

The comment paradigm

Instant, visible feedback is almost always the way the online world moves. Few active websites don’t have a section for readers to share their comments. Although most legitimate sites carefully monitor comments, few censor anything other than spam and profanity.

Journalists get instant feedback from their readers, which allows the ability to further craft a piece. Do readers point out incorrect information? A writer can edit the story since it is not set in stone. A new development? The public almost always finds out first, so a reporter often learns as much from the comments as from an official source.

Of course, a good reporter then verifies the information learned – or at least verifies the source. Occasionally, the reporter will directly engage readers to solicit more information or opinions. Sometimes this happens behind the scenes via email, while often a reporter will add to the comments, carefully ensuring that he or she does not reveal a bias.

Moreover, comment sections give readers the opportunity to voice their opinions, which are then read by other readers. While readers might not assign a high level of credibility to these numerous opinions, they certainly pay attention to them.

Taking advantage

Disseminating your information in a fast and efficient process is essential. Thorough, but concise press releases, extensive use of social media and easy availability for on-the-record conversations will ensure a positive relationship with the media.

Resist using a site’s feedback section to engage audiences. A better approach is to directly contact the reporter to discuss a false or concerning comment. Don’t expect the reporter to edit a comment, but sometimes a clarification can be made in the text of the story.

As always, establishing a rapport with the media will produce positive results.

Sensory overload happens every day.  Experiencing “too much” can be as simple as passively sitting through many high-pace commercials during a football game or as active as being forced to make your way through menu after menu after menu, just to change the radio station on a new car’s sophisticated audio system.

This same overload happens every day when working with the media.  Companies want to spread the word about their new product, an upcoming event or a service they provide, but they overwhelm those who they rely on to distribute their information by not selectively targeting the right audience by deciding what is worth sharing.

It’s something journalists do every day by splicing and dicing their notes in an effort to condense their reporting to a few hundred words or a couple of columns.

Just like members of the media, those who distribute the information can learn to read what’s important to their audience to understand what is newsworthy.

Too little, too much

Of course, it’s pretty obvious when you’re not presenting enough information – it’s when everyone is asking those basic questions afterward.  But there’s an increasingly fine line between telling too much and too little.

If you don’t share enough, your audience will miss your points and you risk limited exposure.  More often, we find ourselves sharing too much information that over inundates an audience, risking the same problem of focusing on the wrong news.

But the biggest challenge is deciding what needs to stay and what needs to go.

This is especially prevalent when distributing information to members of the media and the public in a press release, a detailed email, a product or event information packet or even in presentations and discussions.

Selecting what’s newsworthy

Let’s say that you’re introducing a new product.  Ask yourself a simple question: “What’s newsworthy?”

Since you’re invested in the product, it won’t take you long to put together a lengthy list of what you deem important facts.  But the next task is sorting through the information in an effort to present a concise and accurate summary of facts easily dissected by your target audience.

Just what you select depends on your intended audience.  At first, it comes naturally; would you share intricate details about computer software with your grandmother?  No, you’d carefully select the important facets in an effort to only illustrate what is essential.  On the other hand, would you give a broad overview to the editor of a computer magazine?  Nope.  A detailed description is the way to go.

The difficult part is deciding just what is newsworthy for your audience.  Sometimes, it will require a number of discussions – like additional follow-up press releases or emails distributed at a later date or more in-depth sessions with individual members of the media.

No detail about your product, your service or your event is unimportant.  Everything is crucial, but not everything is necessarily newsworthy to every audience.

Picking and choosing a tailor-made release or discussion might take a little more work in the short term, but it will rapidly reap benefits with your audience.  Otherwise, you risk falling into the dreaded trap of overload.

A media center was once a place for journalists to quickly and conveniently file stories, but that’s hardly the case any longer. Today, media centers are a great place to reach out to media, but doing so requires an entirely different approach than on a show floor or at a private event.

Let’s take a look at what’s different today, as well as ways to work with media both at a major trade show or at your own event.

The Internet has changed everything.

Sure, that might be the single most obvious statement of the 21^st century, but an understanding of how the Internet has reshaped the way the media operates is essential for working in or operating a media center at a trade show or large scale event.

Media centers take many different shapes depending on the venue. At large trade shows, several rooms with hard-wired and wireless connectivity could be available to the media, while smaller events might only require a row of computers and a printer. A private event could only require a small area for interviews or the scale of the event might dictate plenty of room for online journalists and bloggers.

Getting to know your audience

Often, brand representatives aren’t allowed in closely-guarded large media centers thanks primarily to poor past behavior. While it is often helpful to have a presence in a media center, it’s important to be an active, but not overly aggressive brand advocate.

Circulating among members of the media helps establish a rapport and, if done properly, a level of trust with those who can become your best asset. Merely distributing product information, whether it is a printed press release or a full-scale flash drive media kit, simply isn’t enough. Developing a comfortable, easy-going relationship with members of the media is crucial.

But the media center isn’t just a place to catch up with old cronies. It’s also a place to meet new faces in an agreeable and friendly setting. It offers a concentrated environment away from the sales floor-like atmosphere inevitable to many trade shows.

Sometimes, a media center will have separate rooms that can be booked for private discussions or interviews. Taking advantage of these venues can often entirely change a member of the media’s perspective by fostering a more in-depth conversation with a key representative, such as a product designer, engineer or executive.

While some journalists are on tight deadlines, many more have the flexibility to immediately publish their content online, making it all the more important to distribute product information and build relationships in a timely and efficient manner.

Your own media center

A different approach is required for private venues where the media is in attendance specifically to learn information about your product, service or event. These events sometimes require a brand representative to be even more proactive by carefully emphasizing the brand to help facilitate greater understanding.

The design of a media center alone can spur additional productivity for all sides. Some events might require a dedicated room with Internet stations, refreshments and at least one full-time product representative available to answer questions. Other events might dictate a casual environment with comfortable spots available for laid-back interviews. It almost goes without saying that wireless Internet access is a nearly universal requirement.

In addition, at larger events, the media center becomes a central gathering point for journalists. Making sure that product or event information is readily available will help further the brand’s cause.

Regardless of the venue, knowing how to properly disseminate information to gathered members of the media, from traditional print outlets to advanced web publishers to bloggers, is the deciding factor for solid event or product coverage.

From the world’s largest cell phone (15 ft. long, 11 ft. high and three ft. wide) to the largest-ever resistance-band strength-training class, these record-setters are landing in the legendary Guinness Book of World Records through the efforts of public relations experts.  Recently, the Wall Street Journal dove into the high-energy, fast-paced world of PR and came out with an interesting and one-of-a-kind perspective: break a world record and get recognized.

The Guinness Book of World Records, also known as Guinness World Records Ltd., began in 1955 as a division of the company that makes the tasty, dark beer Guinness.  With more than 100 countries and 25 languages publishing the book, landing a corporation into the read could mean huge publicity and major kudos to the PR agency that accomplishes the feat.  The Guinness team is also helping out by offering companies its services, including a judge to approve the record and brainstorming the types of records that remain unbroken, all for the small price of $4,800.

The problem, however, is the more companies that dive into this novelty program, the less appealing and unique the accomplishment is.  With an increase of requests to the Guinness team now up 250 percent, companies are seriously looking into these publicity stunts to increase sales.  A cool idea can go a long way, but not when your neighbor and your neighbor’s neighbor are also dipping their fingers into the Guinness Book cookie jar.