Here are a few “spring cleaning” questions to ask yourself:

Look back at your objectives. Are you on track to meet them? If not, it’s important to figure out why.  Now is the perfect time to make a change in the campaign if necessary, while you still have time to execute and see results.

Has anything worked extremely well so far? If so, can you make it happen again? If you were able to produce great results from executing an element of your marketing plan, why not try it again?

Has something NOT worked well? Can it be changed? If not, drop it.  Thought that monthly newsletter was going to be a great idea, but turned out to be a flop? See if some elements can be changed to turn it into a success. If that’s not possible, ditch it and strategize on other ways to reach that targeted audience. The longer you let something that’s failing go, the harder it will be to pick up the pieces and start over.

Has the marketplace changed? The marketing plan you solidified at the beginning of the year may have been perfect at that time, but things change. If your strategies don’t match the current marketplace, determine what changes you can make so that you’re again on target to be successful.

Are the growth goals of the company the same? Just as markets can change quickly, so can the goals of a company. You may have developed your plan with the objective of gaining more customers, but now leadership is more interested in positioning the company to be sold. It’s important that the goals of the marketing plan are closely aligned with those of the company for it to be successful.

It’s important to think of a marketing plan as a working document, not something set in stone. Building flexibility into it will allow you to easily enhance successful elements and eliminate those that are not, which makes it much easier to meet your goals.

Don’t wait until the year starts to come to a close to look back at your marketing plan. If adjustments need to be made, it will be too late. Do it now and you’ll be happy you did.

So where do we turn to find PR news and trends? The options and outlets are endless, but here are three of my absolutely-all-time-favorites websites to keep tabs on new PR trends, tips, analytics and tools of the trade (the following all are completely free too):

         #1 – Ragan.com: PR News & Resources -  Ragan.com delivers practical advice, real-world solutions and field-tested strategies for today’s corporate communicator. This is where I can always find myself surfing five hours after I set out to fact-check something simple because the articles are strategically short, straightforward and smart. S much so that you find yourself thinking, just one more – you have been warned!

         #2 – HubSpot: Marketing Resources – This is mecca for any PR pro looking for a site to which to turn those begging beginners, aka those friends who what you to help them launch a Facebook page or explain what a blog is. They have awesome resources for advanced lessons in the dark arts of in-bound marketing, but the best base of basic webinars, guides and how-tos I have found let.

         #3 – Mashable – Follow the topics Public Relations & Social PR Guide Series – If you have never heard of Mashable, you have been living under a rock. However, to narrow down the infinite articles, follow the suggested topics to find PR content.

Don’t forget you can find updates, case studies, newsletters and whitepapers directly from Maven on www.mavenagency.com.

Advent of Social Media

The wide adoption of social media has fundamentally changed how people communicate and share information, and how brands communicate with their customers. When we started the company, Twitter was a relatively new tool that no one really knew what to do with. Most companies did not have a Facebook page yet – in fact, many people didn’t have a Facebook page yet. And LinkedIn was for recruiters.

Today it’s a given that companies and brands will have a social media presence. It’s also a given that journalists and bloggers can access company information and news easily online. It is now essential for up to the minute information to be at people’s fingertips.

It’s About the Journey, Not the Destination

Sorry to quote Aerosmith, but they have it right (in this instance at least). It used to be that a PR campaign would build and build and build until, WHAM – the big story in (insert your dream publication here). But that’s not how it works anymore. A mention on small blog X results in a Tweet by person Y, which results in a retweet by more influential person Z, which results in a guest column request by online publication A, which results in multiple “likes” on Facebook, which results in a link in blog B… which may or may not ever lead to national broadcast or big-time print. But that’s okay, because that’s probably not where you need to be. It’s nice to get your company name in an Old Guard publication, but that mostly likely won’t impact your business as much as a mention in one of the smaller, but very targeted outlets will.

Infographics

Who has time for words anymore? Based on the proliferation of infographics, not many! With the speed of content generation, it’s nearly impossible to get the attention of your target audiences. Infographics get your message across in an efficient and effective manner.

The Press Release Survives

Every year I read a new blog entry about the “death of the press release,” but after five years of reading the various reasons it’s no longer relevant – it’s still here. And I have to say, better than ever. Multimedia releases are more informative and useful than their cumbersome predecessors, including instant tweets, hyperlinks, embedded video, quotes, images and various ways to share information socially. Perhaps all the press release needs is a new name.

ROI is King

In the first half of 2007 the economy was still booming and companies were spending big time on marketing. In those heady days, there wasn’t a magnifying glass over marketing budgets like there is today, and much of PR was still unmeasured. Now, decision makers need to see ROI for all services and as a result the PR industry has become much more measurement-focused. Presentation of campaign results to a client must also include metrics and reports that demonstrate how the PR campaign also made the needle move. The old standard clip report no longer makes the cut (and thank goodness for that).

There are numerous other ways that the PR industry has changed over the last five years. I’d love to hear what else you think has been impactful in changing the PR landscape. And I look forward to embracing future tools that come our way in the next five years.

Maven Communications offers our insight and annual list of the top 11 news stories of 2011. These are the stories that captivated and fascinated the nation throughout the year.

#1. Gabrielle Gifford’s Resilience & Recovery (January 8, 2011)

#2. Arab Spring: A Path of Protests Throughout the Middle East (January 25, 2011)  

#4. Great Quake Shakes Japan (March 14, 2011) 

Undoubtedly the most well-known wedding of the year, the Royal Wedding garnered media attention around the world.  An estimated 2 billion people in more than 180 countries around the world were expected to see the Royal Wedding on April 29th.  The event was covered by more than 8,500 journalists in London alone. Facebook calculated that 2.8 million people in Britain and America alone had written status updates about the royal wedding in the 24 hours before the event began.

On May 1 at 11:35 pm, President Obama announced to world that the leader of Al Quada and Public Enemy #1, Osama Bin Ladin, had been killed. Even as traditional news outlets struggled to confirm the reports, the news became global instantaneously, bringing a surge of patriotism among Americans and an outpouring of global support.

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#7. Casey Anthony Trial (July 5, 2011)

Young mother Casey Anthony was charged with first-degree murder when the remains of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee were found in a wooded area near her home in Orlando, Florida. A jury found her not guilty of killing her daughter in a Florida trial that attracted immense media attention and top billing on many year-end search engine rankings.

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#8. 10 Years After 9/11 – Remember, Reflect & Never Forget (September 11, 2011)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 10 years later, the country is still trying to make sense of it. On September 11, 2011 remembrance events were held across the country. It’s clear that we will ‘never forget’ but it’s also clear that we have and will continue to move on.

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#9. The Occupy Movement Monopolizes Wall Street and Cities Across the US (September 17, 2011)

In the last quarter of the year protesters, beginning in New York and then spreading across the country, camped out (literally) in what was dubbed the Occupy Wall Street movement. While their message was foggy at best, the Occupiers maintained a nonpartisan focus on economic inequality and tried to connect a diversity of issues that impact the 99%. The target of their movement was at big banks, foreclosures, evictions, and housing. While they claim the movement is still alive, it’s on life support at best. Most camps have been evicted from their occupy spaces as cities cracked down on the protesters.

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#10. iCon: Steve Jobs’ Legacy (October 5, 2011) 

On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56. Even a long life would seem too short to hold the sum of his successes.  However, with his passing the world recounted and relived his achievements and legacy. As founder of one of the world’s most valuable brands, he revolutionized technology, communications, media, music, education and more. An outpouring of emotion and condolences resounded throughout the media, social media, world leaders, celebrities and Jobs’ peers.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

~ Steve Jobs, 2005

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#11. Penn State Scandal: Litany of Trouble for Nittany Lions  (November 1, 2011)

This will be a story that we will see well into 2012. The allegations are that former Pennsylvania State University football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulted or had inappropriate contact with at least eight underage boys on or near university property. The story hit the media on November 4th and within two days both famed football coach Joe Paterno and University president Graham Spanier were both without jobs. As this shocking and sad story unfolds, we will undoubtedly see more victims emerge.

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MAVEN’S FAVORITES: Our favorite stories of 2011 that did not make the list, but made it into our hearts:

MediaSync: is a free online reporter resource with a database of more than 500,000 media contacts and 9 million articles and blogs. The site allows PR pros to quickly identify, connect with and track reporters, editors, analysts, bloggers and others in the media/analyst community who are assigned to a specific beat and/or write on specific topics relevant to your marketing activities. If you don’t subscribe to expensive services like Vocus or Cision, this is an alternative. However, it seems you get what you pay for when looking for media relations databases.

TweetStats: is a free application that calculates various stats of your tweets and displays the information in colorful graphs for free. This website only requires a twitter username (no password or profile required) to compute statistics, which makes it very useful when analyzing twitter activity for clients or competition.

EdCals, by CisionPoint: is a site offering free editorial/media calendars from CisionPoint’s database of nearly 500,000 editorial opportunities in North America. Yes FREE! While not the most attractive service out there – who cares? Our intern loves this program because it puts the information in an easy-to-download Excel file too.

MuckRack: Tracks the short messages on Twitter written by the journalists who do the muckraking for major media outlets. Muck Rack makes it easy to follow one line, real time reporting. A great way to skip having to make your own twitter lists.

Prezi: is the zooming presentation editor. Prezi lets you bring your ideas into one space and see how they relate, helping you and your audience connect. Zoom out to see the big picture and zoom in to see details — a bit like web-based maps that have changed how we navigate through map books. A very cool program, if you know how to use it. If not, your presentation will give people motion sickness.

SimilarSites.com or SitesLike.com: is a related content engine, displaying a list of related sites for any site that you submit. SimilarSites.com takes past user opinions into account when sorting relevant sites. Each search result has “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” buttons, letting users help us determine a site’s relatedness. As more users search and submit feedback, the results get increasingly accurate. These programs help me widen the range of outlets when pitching… and it is kind of fun to look up the sites you prefer to visit for fun.

SlideShare: is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. Upload and share on blogs, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. 50 million people use SlideShare every month for research, sharing ideas, connecting with others, and generating business leads. SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, and videos. Why didn’t I have this site in college? You can search any topic and find hundreds of presentations –genius.

NewsBasis: is an online service for media professionals and businesses. Companies, agencies, non-Profits and academic Institutions can easily and efficiently promote story ideas to the media and content publishers and respond to their specific requests. This works like HARO  and ProfNet but with in a website with a search function. While interesting to sort through, I tend to find other services are better.

So the question is, given the reluctance of potential clients to hire a firm based on past successes and general campaign ideas alone, how much insight and information do you include in a proposal without giving away too much?

The answer isn’t an easy one and depends greatly on the client you’re pitching, but here are some general rules we try to follow during the proposal writing process at Maven:

-          Provide detailed, measurable objectives. This sets the tone for the proposal and shows that you understand the company well enough to formulate objectives that meet the business goals of the company.

-          Write in terms of outcomes, not outputs. This will allow you to demonstrate what they will receive from a well structured campaign (e.g.  increased traffic to their website, more visibility of executives in trade publications, etc.), while providing more general outputs. Keep in mind that the outcomes are what they’re paying for in the first place.

-          Provide specific ways that the campaign will be measured. For example, if a Twitter campaign is part of the plan, in the measurement section of the proposal give detail about how the campaign will raise the number of followers; increase the “klout” rating; or double retweets by influencers. This way, the client gets a feel for the results you can produce, without divulging all of the firm’s methods.   

-          Insert a statement that says that any ideas presented for consideration by the agency remain at all times the sole property of the agency and can only be implemented by the client in the event of a signed contract. This isn’t a guarantee that your ideas will be protected, but it will hopefully make them think twice before using them. 

Keep in mind that a proposal for services is really an overview and the plan is something that a client should pay for. It’s the first step in the client/agency relationship where trust and rapport are built and if you’re lucky, the beginning of a long-term, symbiotic partnership.

The social ask is when those within a social community asks an individual for some sort of subsequent action. When signing on to our multiple social networks we are signing up to be bombarded with requests to friend, follow, like, donate, scan, forward, etc. These requests have leapt out of our inboxes and onto virtually everything – TV commercials, napkins, products, store windows and anywhere else people can squeeze one. Sarah and Alterian, an interactive solutions provider helping marketers engage with customers, set out to find out to how many times a day people are potentially hit with a social ask. The answer? 107,945 time a day. Find out more in this infographic:

Infographics not for you? Click here to the social media release.

Most people think that evaluation is something that happens at the completion of a campaign. In fact, evaluation should happen at different intervals throughout the year. This way you have the ability to assess the effectiveness and then adjust accordingly, creating an even stronger campaign. In addition, evaluation provides an opportunity for ongoing improvement and helps guide the campaign in a successful direction.

Think about campaign evaluation as a circular process – information is acquired, changes are made based on that information, more information is acquired, more changes are made, and so on. This is a relatively straightforward process, if you’ve built in the appropriate framework for evaluation. If you haven’t, or aren’t sure, here are a few things to consider:

Make sure your objectives are measurable. While a goal is a general outcome expected when a campaign or program is completed, an objective is very specific and based on projected and actual program outcomes. Your campaign objectives should be unambiguous and stated in a clear way that allows you to determine whether they have been met. They should be specific in terms of timeframe and outcome. For example: our objective is to increase the number of hits to our blog 20 percent by December 2011.

Know what you’re measuring and determine the right tool. Surveys can be an excellent way to measure public opinion, consumer sentiment, and awareness, but it is not a one-size-fits all measurement tool. If your objective is to increase web traffic then use a website analytics tool like Google Analytics; if you’re looking to measure awareness you can conduct an online survey; or if your objective is to ensure your key messages are conveyed in your press coverage, then a media analytics program like Vocus or Burrelles Luce may be appropriate.

Determine a benchmark. Inherently, measurement is a comparative tool. To effectively measure the relative success or failure of a campaign, you need to compare to something else. (For example, if your website gets 10,000 unique visitors/month but your biggest competitor gets 40,000, it may be time to adjust your strategy). The most effective comparisons are to the competition and peers over time, however that information isn’t always available. Another benchmark is to compare your results to past performance over a specific time period.

Once you’ve collected all of your data, draw conclusions and adjust. Ideally with each change made, the campaign gets stronger and produces better results. At the end of the day, continuous evaluation of a marketing campaign allows for those who control the marketing dollars to see the real value and return in real, hard numbers and positive results.

At first read I got all fired up, as many folks in the PR industry did. Who does he think he is anyway? What a jerk (which might still be true). But after a second read I started to not blame the client, but the agencies. It appears that both firms made the same mistake: “Success” was never defined. The client didn’t get what he expected because those expectations were never laid out and agreed upon, and the onus is on the agencies for that.

The client/agency relationship is a partnership. At the beginning of a partnership it’s essential that goals are established and agreed upon; and not just goals, but also the method by which they will be measured. It’s amazing how many different definitions of “success” there are.

This blog post also demonstrates that agencies need to be just as picky when it comes to choosing clients, as clients are when choosing agencies.

At one point the author says this about PR people:
“It would be crazy to categorize all public relations people as crazy, so let’s just say that P.R. people drive me crazy. All of them…. What I have finally come to understand is that P.R. people are paid to twist reality into pretzels and convince you that they are fine croissants. At some point, they actually believe their own concoctions.”

If this is his feeling about folks in the PR industry, and it is, then there will NEVER be a firm that he is happy with. As a PR practitioner, it’s not my job to change your mind about PR. It’s my job to deliver results. Measurable, agreed-upon results. If I need to continually “prove” to a client the value that I am providing, it is not a beneficial relationship for anyone.

At another point the author writes about his restaurant: “we would appeal to locals and tourists and transplants and day-trippers and pescadores, locavores and flexitarians. We wanted boomers and Wall Streeters and Gen X, Y and Z’ers. If I had known what Millennials were, I would have wanted them, too.” From this statement, it’s clear that adequate market research hadn’t been done, setting up not only the restaurant, but also their PR agency for failure.

It’s unfortunate that this blog entry is not unique. It’s also unfortunate that some (not all) of the negative perceptions of PR people is deserved. PR practitioners need step up to the plate and take the time to work with clients to determine objectives, define success and develop a measurement plan. We also need to be wary of the client who has the best product/most amazing solution/business that absolutely can’t fail, because at the end of the day, no one will succeed, no matter your definition.

Facebook now consumes our personal and professional lives. Instead of hearing news through the grapevine, we read it in our newsfeed or friend’s status updates. This does not signify the loss of interpersonal relationships and communication but an evolution. The best part of evolution is studying it, learning from it and improving.They say facebook is worth upwards of $50 billion, but the tracking woven into the facebook fabric makes it priceless. We have all accessed an app and begrudgingly gave permission to access our personal information… or is that just me? That access gives people a glimpse into your city, relationship status, age, music tastes, job and more. It all depends on what the app asks permission for. Recently apps have upped the ante and I can’t help thinking ‘when you give a mouse a cookie…’ My privacy setting are as private as possible but even so I am sure my info is accessible, especially because I find myself using apps when establishing or monitoring client pages. The more pages, the more apps, the most susceptible we all are. I am fine with some of my information, as long as it does not come back to me through email spam, text messages or facebook messages.The statistics provided by facebook are invaluable to marketers. I just wish they would apply insights to personal pages so I can satisfy by ego and checkout my traffic. Well, to get a round this oversight, please visit our Maven facebook page, if you are reading this…

Some words of wisdom for those posting on personal pages or on behalf of your organization. Do yourself a favor and subscribe to Dan Zarrella’s blog and newsletter. He has great insight, easy to decipher visuals and, most importantly, he knows his stuff. Below see some useful findings from Dan. The site keeps growing adding features, function and fun. I though facebook hit the apex when they added photos but ain’t no mountain high enough and people can’t get enough of it. I could illustrate this by laying out all the most recent stats but instead just take a look below:

Now go post entry to your facebook page!