Uncategorized Archives - Eric Fischgrund

Thoughts on COP 28

I try to avoid airing dirty industry laundry but today will make an exception. With COP 28 being hosted in Dubai, we knew we were going to get fed some hearty bullshit, but these last few weeks’ events are truly unpalatable.

Edelman – the biggest PR firm in the world, and one that would gladly market bags of glass to small children were the retainer high enough – featured prominently at COP 28, repping the UAE itself and several oil and gas players. This comes as no surprise from the firm that worked hard to repair MBS’ reputation following the murder of The Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, an American. The hypocrisy reached a greenwashing apex when COP 28 President Sultan Al Jaber said there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C.

As the world’s leaders (a status many have inherited, not earned) hop on private jets to fly to an oil-rich country and make promises they never intend to keep, the line between us and them has never been more clear. The institutions have failed us once again, and you can expect certain governments, big PR firms and those born into wealth to continue to pull the strings for as long as we let them. In the end, it will be up to the pioneers, including the many well-meaning participants at COP 28, and the public to correct course and aid Mother Earth.

But, there is good news amid the bad. Per the HEATED article (link below) there were 2,456 fossil fuel interests at this year’s U.N. climate summit, nearly four times more than any past year. They know the clean energy transition has arrived, and they’re running scared, holding fiercely onto the power and wealth they feel they’re entitled to. This and the many innovators working tirelessly to create climate solutions are what give me hope for the road ahead! As the great Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, it’s time to nail these bastards to their own front door.

Read up! This is the news the real climate tech PR firms out there are reading.

https://www.adweek.com/agencies/how-pr-firms-greenwashed-the-uns-biggest-climate-talks/ from Kathryn Lundstrom

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/25/cop28-uae-oil-climate-sultan-al-jaber/ from Ben Stockton and Amy Westervelt

https://heated.world/p/its-official-cop28-has-more-fossil? from Arielle Samuelson

Book Review: Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America’s Opioid Crisis

“Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America’s Opioid Crisis” by Jack Riley, is more than just a book about a young DEA agent who helped chase the famed Pablo Escobar, before using decades of experience to capture Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the most influential drug lord of all time, in 2016. It’s a story about impact – how a drug kingpin in Mexico can dramatically alter a US city’s fate for years and decades, but also how big picture mentality and collaboration can help people rise to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

It’s the 1980s, and Jack Riley is a young DEA agent working in Chicago. By his own admission, he’s running tough with a Tony, a fellow agent and best friend, busting small time drug dealers in street arrests with low fanfare. Soon he comes to a realization about these drug dealers – they are each just a drop in the bucket, replaceable within a week. Riley understands that to really make an impact, they need to start moving up the ladder and busting the bigger distributors.

Soon, Riley and Tony are given the go-ahead to focus less on arrest numbers and more on arrest impact. Others in the DEA take note of this big picture mentality, and soon Riley is invited to D.C. to work on a few related government projects. Riley can’t go into much detail at this point, but this is where he works to provide research on Pablo Escobar, who only a few years later will be gunned down by police forces in Colombia.

At this point in his career, Riley has developed an ethos: everybody needs to communicate and share information. Everybody, meaning DEA, regional police, FBI, CIA, international law enforcement, and any other group of good guys holding information. It is this exchange of information that is so critical, and his emphasis on teamwork and open communications becomes a recurring theme throughout the book.

As he is promoted to new positions within various DEA units throughout the US, it becomes increasingly clear that Jack Riley is on a collision course with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a violent and influential Mexican drug lord and head of the Sinaloa Cartel. It is this El Chapo whose drugs are landing in American’s heartland, consuming entire communities with addiction and violence. Have you ever wondered what connection El Chapo has to the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, or immigration, or gang violence? I didn’t until I read this book.

While Riley is open about his hatred for El Chapo, he does effuse compliments about the drug lord’s brilliance when it comes to marketing, distribution and forward thinking. El Chapo was always a few steps ahead, clearly understanding the big picture about American’s consumption for drugs and lack of awareness for how to combat it. In his own country, he starts at the top, using fear and bribery to essentially move about uninhibited throughout Mexico.

It would take more than busting low-level drug dealers in the US to bring down El Chapo, and Riley’s impressive focus on steady process and collaboration is ultimately the program that led to his arrest in 2016. During a coordinated raid, US and Mexican forces descended on El Chapo and – despite the best (or worst) efforts of edgy journalist wannabe Sean Penn – finally captured him for good.

It was a fitting end to the book, as Riley publicly stated his refusal to retire until El Chapo’s capture. “Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America’s Opioid Crisis” provides historical context surrounding infamous drug dealers and some of the woes that plague the US, but it’s also inspiring in telling the story of how so many can come together and move mountains. It’s a fast, non-political read that explains the root of the incredible drug problem America has today, as well as the detriments of shortsighted approaches to fixing it.

Has Public Relations and Content Marketing Replaced SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is defined by Webopedia as the methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and others.

Many early SEO tactics are often referred to as the Wild West of internet marketing. Those of us in the business ten years ago recall black text on black backgrounds, duplicate websites, a barrage of low quality press releases, keyword stuffing, and many other tactics that quite honestly, worked.

That is, until Google the sheriffs of internet search decided to change their algorithms and penalize websites (and the companies, organizations, and individuals who built them) for executing “black hat SEO” tactics designed to manipulate search engine results.

As such, many SEO firms and internet marketing professionals have disappeared, and a new crop of digital marketing professionals and firms have emerged.

FischTank has received an influx of requests from B2C and B2B companies, non-profits, individuals, and other organizations that are looking for the right way to increase not only their position in online search within their respective industries, but to also find ways to strengthen their online reputation (ORM). These companies are slowly moving away from “quick fixes” and old SEO/ORM tactics, and seeking efforts that generate long-term, high quality results for their brand. A few effective strategies to review include:

Media relations, the practice of engaging editorial, third-party media entities, represents an effective tactic for driving SEO results. The reason is simple — media sites generally receive significant online traffic. A business themselves, media platforms via publishers, advertisers, and journalists do their best to publish strong content (with even stronger headlines) that drive users to their website. By sharing announcements and providing expert commentary, companies are able to gain inclusion in these stories, often with a hyperlink, which builds their respective positions with search engines.
Content marketing appears in many forms. The easiest first step is to develop a content calendar for self-published content such as press releases, blog posts, white papers, and case studies. Sharing these pieces on social media and within networks relevant to one’s industry often results in click-throughs to the website, increasing site traffic and rankings for the URL of which it’s hosted. A more advanced form of content marketing is creating content to be published elsewhere, generally by third-party media or affiliated websites. For example, a company could draft a 500-700 article on something relevant to their sector, then share it with a trade publication within that industry. 99% of the time, that third-party media platform (or affiliated organization) will publish the article as a byline and attribute it with a URL to the individual and company that created it.
Social media. Perhaps the easiest of these three ideas to execute, creating social platforms and posting on a regular basis are almost guarantees to rank on the first page of search engine results. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram are all high quality platforms that, when content is published to and receives even minimal engagement, easily outrank mundane online results for a search for a company, organization, or individual.

Yes, these ideas may be easier said than done. In order to execute, companies seeking improvements to their online search results must identify marketing/PR firms or individuals that understand quality content. It is wise to seek firms that possess existing relationships with journalists, are strong writers themselves, and can execute social media tactics on a regular basis, not some “set it and forget it” approach.

Avoid anyone who promises a quick fix, and create a long-term strategy that ensures online searches for you and/or your brand reflect and present the best of what you do.

Original Post: http://bit.ly/2sm2qyz

What Is Public Relations?

In 2011-2012, The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conducted a crowdsourcing campaign to effectively boil down the definition of public relations into a clear, modern message:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

Really?

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing incorrect or outdated about the message you just read. It’s much better than I, or most, can do, and I consider it to be very accurate.

However – how many PR professionals would echo this sentiment? The same question must be asked of potential new clients – how do they define PR? Intuition and experience tell me that they wouldn’t come up with something so accurate either.

Let’s start with those working within the PR business, we all know there are quite many of us. Short of conducting a survey, I’ll just have to use my imagination:

“It’s getting my clients in the media.”

“Media exposure so people are aware of my client and their expertise/services.”

“Sharing my client’s story with the public.”

“Improving my client’s image and reputation.”

I stopped after four because it was repetitive, but I believe one could go on for another 20 minutes and a) use the word media several times as I did; b) continue to be repetitive; and c) still not fully comprehend the difference between action and objectives.

This, finally, brings me to my point. Public relations service, one I consider to fall within and be a function of overarching marketing and communications practices, misses the boat when it comes to aligning a client’s goals and its own PR strategy. Instead, we’re left with many PR professionals (misguided by leadership) that are looking to force client inclusion in stories that don’t benefit (a key buzzword from the PRSA definition) the company they are paid to effectively represent. Most call this fitting a square peg into a round hole – many PR pros just call it a Thursday. This is why we see articles from reporters up in arms over misguided and mass-blasted media outreach, as noted here, here, and here.

But no, this is not another article blasting PR professionals. Perhaps there are two sides to this issue, and the other is the client only articulating the outcome they want from PR efforts, and believing PR and PR alone will get it done. Will PR boost their stock price? Generate new leads? Maintain brand equity? Improve recruiting efforts?

These are all possible! If a company hires a firm who immediately generates media results in some of the right publications, how can you fault the relationship? Easy – the job isn’t done. Re-read the definition once more, and if you have time – read the entire short page of content. The word “media” doesn’t appear once. That’s because media outreach is in fact only a component of an effective public relations campaign.

In my humble opinion, there are many boxes that need to be checked in a sound PR strategy, including but not limited to:

Messaging. First and foremost, defining a message is key. Take the time to do it early, and do it right.

Delivery. It is time for PR firms to embrace digital marketing efforts. No, I’m not just talking about social. E-mail campaigns customized to each client’s needs are paramount. While most of a client’s audience will actually miss that awesome WSJ mention, anywhere from 20%-40% will catch it if you take the time to cultivate e-mail lists and send a timely, professional e-mail following the media relations coup.

Event attendance. Many companies struggle to pinpoint where to find their audience. Tradeshows, conferences, etc. are a good place to start. Forget sponsorship, purchase two passes and fight for the attendee contact list (see bullet two).

Web analytics. Please tell me you are paying attention to where your customers are coming from, and where they’re leaving your website?

Content is king. Yes, old saying but it still rings true. Write good content, attract smart people.

There are many more, but remember – they are resources and options, not requirements, for every campaign. The takeaway here is short and simple. To strengthen “relationships between organizations and their publics” – both the PR industry and their clients need to stop believing media relations and public relations are one in the same, and start building a more encompassing marketing and communications strategy.

Original post: http://bit.ly/1ZuSXke