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PR2.0 Research Librarian

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The PR person has a new and important role.  At my company, PFS Marketwyse, the PR department is comprised of PR people who take on the role of Research Librarians to aid in monitoring and measurement.  Brian and I mention in our book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations that PR professionals take on many roles in the new social economy.  However, one of the most important roles is the Research Librarian, who actively listens, observes and dissects the conversations that take place with customers, media, bloggers, and other stakeholders in web communities.

From the insight and information gathered through engagement, the Research Librarian then helps to turn the feedback from dialog into action based initiatives for the brand. It’s critical that all of this rich information is shared with other areas within the company including sales, marketing, R&D, product development, customer service, etc. In some cases, the Research Librarian at the agency works with the Community Manager or Social Media Manager at the client company to filter the information into the appropriate business silos.

Research has always been a key focus in PR.  Beginning a campaign or program starts with the audit; a research approach to public communication that allows you to properly measure benchmarks of public communication with stakeholders and gauge opinions throughout an initiative.  However, in the social media landscape with the rate of the communication or conversations in numerous communities across the Conversation Prism, research must be at the forefront of communications at all times.  Long gone are the days of reactive PR, but rather, today, we embark on a proactive, outbound customer service communication approach that will prove successful in image and reputation management, relationship building, and even crisis communications.

If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know that I love to use comparisons.  I wrote a post regarding the responsibilities of a PR person 15 years ago versus today.  Well, I’d like to add to that post.  Here’s an updated look at a day in the life of a PR person (Jacqueline Dodd) as a Research Librarian.  Jacqueline’s work feeds our company with ongoing information so that we are able to engage in conversations, build relationships with influencers and provide better and more useful communication in our communities.

Here’s how Jacqueline describes role as a Research Librarian:

Approximately 50-60% of a typical 8 hour work day is spent researching and reporting on my findings in order to develop highly targeted strategies for both PFS clients and PFS as a brand.

Below are some bullet points on the research I conduct though out the day

  • Industry trends, tools and news
    • Peruse online media industry websites and blogs for news and updates
      to identify industry trends or anticipate them. Topics include technology
      news, company financial statistics, movement in company management, mergers
      and acquisitions, product launches, etc.
    • Based on this information, I research the people, companies, technology,
      and products being discussed in the news. I then sign up for webinars,
      demos, search for related case studies and white papers, and any additional
      research that seems pertinent.
    • Peruse social networking platforms, Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc.,
      for news and updates from industry people, colleagues, and other related
      media outlets
    • Read email newsletters from industry publications and web properties
  • Research blogs/bloggers relevant to industry
    • Read blog posts based on relevant keyword searches
    • Develop/maintain media lists of targeted blogs & bloggers
    • Develop/maintain spreadsheet of related blog posts with interesting
      topics and share with team for commenting/blogger relations
  • Editors/Journalists
    • Cision search to produce a list of targeted publications
    • Visit the list of publications’ websites and do keyword searches on
      related topics and read previously written articles to find most suitable
      contact
    • Once I have the right editor/journalist I go back to Cision for contact
      info should it not be provided on the publication website
    • Develop/maintain media list based on findings

In addition to what I’ve already covered, I also research industry events and industry awards.  This research would require visiting the event/award website, obtaining the submission requirements, and also a good tip is to grab the agenda from the previous year to avoid duplicating content, which can also typically be found on the event/award website.

The Research Librarian serves a valuable function in your company.  Is your PR department filled with Research Librarians?  If so, what are they doing?

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, The Day after the Official Launch

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PR back into PR coverYesterday was the official launch of my 4th book published by Pearson, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, co-authored by Brian Solis.  This is the first time that I worked on a year-long writing project with Brian, who is not only a pleasure to work with but he enriched the process and made this a wonderful and thought-provoking experience for me (Thank you, Brian).  Every page of this book illustrates our passion for public relations, social media and technology, and how PR 2.0 is reshaping a well established, century-old industry.

In the past, keeping in mind my first book was published in 2001, it was much more time consuming to track the coverage of prior book launches and measure the benefits of the relationships I developed with audiences, even in terms of sales.  Even then, we were able to see the Web analytics, for instance, web visits, page views and time spent on the site, but still relied on the IT department to deliver those stats to us.  However, today, we are directly involved in the conversations and also can manage the measurement portion, as there are so many more tools and resources that allow us to review the results of our efforts within seconds.  There is nothing more gratifying than hearing the direct feedback from your network and seeing how social media communications create excitement and dynamic conversations in Web communities. Through social media, you can ignite passion in others; passion that leads to action.

For the official launch of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, we posted our SMR on PitchEngine, distributed a traditional news release, created blog posts, sent out social network updates, participated in a blogtalkradio interview, shot video clips, etc. As a result, we saw the conversation grow and increase between yesterday and today.  In 24 hours, here are a few ways that we measured our efforts.  The views on the SMR were close to 200 at the time this article was published.  There were comments on the SMR, numerous comments on Brian’s blog as a result of his Putting the Public Back in Public Relations post and we also noted many of tweets and retweets about the book (via tweet replies and search.twitter.com). On the PFS website, there was a notable increase of 800% website traffic as compared to the average number of page visits in the month of March.  And, best of all our ranking in terms of PR books went from #5 to #3 in our category (also increasing the book sales cycle) on Amazon.com.

I want to thank everyone for their good wishes, feedback and participation.  We hope you enjoy the book and keep the conversation going!