Virtual Events – New Opportunity for Public Relations

Note: This has been cross-posted on my company’s blog. Furthermore, my company offers virtual events solutions.

Over the past year, virtual events (e.g. virtual conference, virtual tradeshow, etc.) have gained in popularity due to the economic recession and budget restrictions. As more conferences consider a virtual companion to a physical conference or even going virtual all together, this represents a new arena for public relations professionals:

• No longer can you stand outside the press room and grab journalists for an impromptu interview
• You don’t have to walk or run a mile to get from one meeting to another with your client close behind
• What? – no late night cocktails with the reporter listening to a band from the 80’s?

How Public Relations Can Take Advantage of a Virtual Event

All kidding aside, I think this is something that will become more commonplace. Here are my recommendations the next time your client attends an event with a virtual component:

•  Staff the Booth: In a virtual world, there are no limitations on the number of booth staff. Your team can now staff a virtual booth alongside your customer. You will get to read what customers and prospects are seeking, which will make you more informed about your customer’s business. When a media or analyst comes to the booth, you would be the go-to person.
• Include Media-Ready Content in the Booth: Depending on the virtual event, the client will have 3-5 tabs for content. Recommend that one tab includes information that would be valuable to press and analysts, such as fact sheets, company backgrounder, link to the corporate blog, link to your online newsroom, and other resources.
• Participate in the Networking Lounge and Auditorium Chats: Most of the participants are in these two locations. Participate in these discussions as reporters may be asking questions of attendees, seeking resources, or participating in a subject-matter discussion. If the topic discusses your company or product, consider inviting the reporter to a private chat or to come by the booth to learn more. As everything, just make sure to be relevant to the reporter.  
• Hold a “Virtual Press Conference” in Your Booth: Like a physical event, you can schedule time to have a “virtual press conference” for an announcement and Q&A with your executives. The benefit is that you can potentially drive more participants as there are not travel requirements. The Q&A would take place via the group chat, recognizing that this is visible to everyone.  And remember, this takes the same amount of preparation as a normal press conference!
• Invite Press/Analyst to the Virtual Event: Virtual conference and tradeshows are fairly uncommon. If this is one of the first events in your industry, then press and analysts may be curious to learn more. Take this opportunity to invite them to the virtual event and discuss why your company is participating in the virtual trade show. Just be aware that registration is required to attend. Since most of this is free, consider setting up email aliases, e.g. reportername@yourcompany.com, to manage reminders directly with the reporter. Otherwise, have the reporter sign up directly.

Conclusions

In the end, a virtual conference or trade show represents an opportunity for public relations. I’ve heard of a few instances where press and analysts have been invited to invitation-only events online, I do anticipate this to increase as larger, more public conferences consider virtual components. When this happens, will you be prepared?

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: November 15, 2007

My apologies – I am having the damndest time getting the links to work. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues:

Share and Share Alike – Todd Defren of PR-Squared brings up a good point that sharing information is integral part of social media.

Best Buy and Customer Service in the Same Sentence? – MarketingPilgrim writes about a good customer experience. The tons of comments seems to indicate that the typical experience is less than stellar. But who knows, maybe Best Buy will start with business customers, which may slowly invade the in-store experience… Nahhh – I was just kidding!

Where’s the Short Cut to Timbuktu – inmedia Public Relations Blog has an interesting post about media list building. As I’ve said before, don’t rely solely on the media databases. Augment the research by reading the publications online or in print. 

LinkedIn for the Unconnected? – CenterNetworks posted this article by Drama 2.0 regarding the value of social networks, specifically LinkedIn. Interesting piece about the value of social networks and who’s truly participating.

You’re Invited But… – Robert Scoble has an interesting point about attending the Google announcement of Android. When looking at early adopters and tech geeks, I think blogs like Scobleizer and TechCrunch should be given equal weight with the “big guys.” It’s about knowing your influencers…

Google’s PR comes across as “only caring about big bangs.” Last week I was in the Open Social press conference. Everyone else in the room worked for a big-name media outlet. Business Week. Wall Street Journal. Los Angeles Times. CNET. Barrons. etc. etc. Even TechCrunch was relegated to a phone-based seat and wasn’t in the room. That tells me that Google’s PR doesn’t get the value of small people. In fact, if you were tracking the mentions of that press call you’d have seen my use of Twitter during it got mentioned many times on blogs. Google’s PR didn’t seem to even understand why Twitter was important. They also kept me from using my video camera during the press call (the only reason I got video is cause I carried a cell phone with me — they asked me to leave my professional camera out in the car). Compare that to presidential candidate John Edwards who let me film, even on his plane during “off times.” And he has a Twitter account too. 

Listen to Me Now! – Paul Dunay posted an interesting podcast between Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer at Cymfony, and Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president at Nielsen Online Strategic Services. Jim and Pete discuss what conversational marketing truly is – it’s more than just surveying people or putting up a blog. It’s about how to “engage” and “sustain” conversation beyond just the dollars and cents. 

Being Social Does Help – I’ve gotten to know Tom Pick through his blog and he consistently provides actionable counsel for B2B marketing. In this most recent post, he outlines his experience with social tagging. I’ve used some of his tips for my personal blog and I’ve seen some modest results as well. And if you’ve wondered about the effectiveness of social media, check out this post from Mack Collier of The Viral Garden.

To Be Ethical Or Not is the Question – Shel Horowitz authored a guest post on the IAOCblog about a Blogger Code of Ethics. Hmmm, what disclosures should I be making now?? =P

Technorati Tags: Best Buy, blog ethics, conversational marketing, Customer Service, inmedia, media lists, LinkedIn, Paul Dunay, press conference, Scoble, social media, social networks, tagging, Todd Defren 

FEMA Screws up Again

Wow, FEMA does it again. According to the Associated Press through SF Chronicle online, FEMA called a press conference that included FEMA employees as reporters: 

“The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency’s deputy director.”

 Here are six things that they did wrong:

1. Had employees imitate reporters
2. Called a press conference with 15 minutes notice
3. Provided an 800 number to listen to the press conference but not participate (Hello – note to FEMA – participation is in. One-way dialogue is out) 
4. Positioned this as a way to “get information out as soon as possible”
5. Asked softball questions to position FEMA in a positive light
6. Still haven’t punished anyone for this “stunt” 

Here are five simples things that they could’ve done differently:

1. Hold a one-hour daily morning briefing to provide status updates on the most important issues
2. Answer questions after the FEMA update and limit each reporter to one question
3. Media brief your spokesperson on how to handle the Q&A and practice with questions that will be asked by the media
4. Create a FAQ document on the FEMA website to answer the most commonly asked questions
5. Provide an 800 number that allows two-way conversation

 Technorati tags: FEMA press conference PR marketing crisis management