PR 101

I’d like wish all of my readers a joyous and peaceful holiday season. I feel honored and bless that thousands of you have chosen to read and comment on PR 101. I am very grateful for your support and readership. May 2011 be your best year yet.

My special thanks to Heather Ayisanbi for superb editing.

Peace  Pace  سلام שלום     Hasîtî     शान्ति      Barış     和平     Мир 

It is no secret right now there are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs to be filled. Job-hunting has become a survival of those able to stand out. These might not have the best qualifications, but they know to market themselves.

Most job hunters also know that LinkedIn is now the place recruiters look first when trying to fill a position. So, people do everything they can to punch up their profiles to make themselves stand out. Job hunters want to be unique, knowing unique is what gets one hired. They also want to use those words and phrases that will make a recruiter jump at the chance to hire them.

However, for a lot of people, they are not as unique as they think they might be.  LinkedIn recently compiled a list of the 10 most overused terms and phrases within the profiles of its 85 million members. Here they are:

1. Extensive experience

2. Innovative

3. Motivated

4. Results-oriented

5. Dynamic

6. Proven track record

7. Team player

8. Fast-paced

9. Problem solver

10. Entrepreneurial

“We wanted to reveal insights that help professionals make better choices about how to position themselves online,” DJ Patil, LinkedIn’s lead data analyst, said in a statement to CNN.

Look, selling yourself is no different than selling a product. Just as potential customers respond better to a unique message, potential employers respond better to a unique profile. Using any of those phrases listed above is the equivalent of saying “this product is the best.”

As we all know, phrases like that accomplish nothing. The same is true of saying you have extensive experience. It just doesn’t work.

Let me put it another way. As many of you may or may not know, I am writing a novel. Because I was news writer for over two decades, I knew I had to change my writing style. So I went to classes at a wonderful place in Milwaukee called Redbird Studios. There I took a course called “Shut Up and Write” taught by Judy Bridges, one of the finest writers I ever worked with.

One of Judy’s most important rules about writing was “show it, don’t say it.”  Basically that means be descriptive. Don’t say your character was breathing hard. Say something such as the character was so winded his lungs couldn’t handle his body’s demands for oxygen.

The same holds true for a profile, a resume or a business pitch. Don’t say you are innovative. Give examples of how you were innovative in your last job. Showing it, not saying it, might be the difference between effectively marketing yourself and seeing your resume placed in the electronic circular file.

This piece’s headline is my professional mantra. I operate in three complimentary, and often overlapping, areas: social media, public relations and marketing. It is my firm rule when working in any of those areas that I am there to further my clients aims, not my own.

Too often I see other companies that operate in the same areas who don’t adhere to that rule. That bothers me. I think they’ve forgotten that they there to serve the clients, not themselves. I am not going to name any names. It just isn’t right. It gives my entire profession a bad name.

Let me tell you how I view the relationship between client and agency.

When a client hires me, the first thing I tell them is they are going to be their company’s face. The reason is simple – they are the best representatives. Since the person is usually a senior executive, they are going to know far more about the place that I will. Plus hopefully the enthusiasm they have for their employer will show through. If they don’t have that kind of enthusiasm, perhaps they should think about working someplace else.

The primary objection to that idea that I hear from clients about that is “well, I don’t how to handle myself in front of the news media and public.” This is where many agency types trip. They take the executive’s words at face value and make themselves the spokesman. Now it is as much about them as it is the client.

It is very frustrating to most journalists when the subject doesn’t know the answer. When I was a reporter, I would make it point to go around some public relations people. I needed information and I knew that the public relations person would have to ask someone for it. Most of the time that process took too long. So I identified who had the information I needed and called them.

That does not apply, by the way, to in-house public relations counsel. They are almost always very knowledgeable.

When a client tells me they are nervous about being out front that to me I reply: “don’t worry, I can train you to handle yourself.” I spent over two decades as a working journalist. I know how interviews go. I can take an executive through just about every scenario that will be encountered. I know them all because I use to create them all.

Where I do step in is arranging coverage. As I said, I worked a reporter for a long time. I know how to approach a reporter in a way that gives the client best chance at coverage.

That’s another thing that bothers me – agencies that guarantee coverage. No one should ever do that. What a lot of agencies don’t seem to understand is that media outlets have different needs and agendas than their clients. It is much easier to make a client’s needs conform to the media outlet than the other way around. What I mean by that it’s better to pitch a story in a format that the outlet use rather than conforming to the client’s outline.

The bottom line is agencies should realize they are planners and counselors. They should stay out of the spotlight. It is their job to make the client look good, not to pump themselves up.