Travels with Rhody

The panel on “Bootstrapping PR for Entrepreneurs” at the Web Innovators Group meeting on September 29 was extremely well attended, and I had a great time serving on the panel alongside Bob Brown of Network World, Peter Kafka of the AllThingsD blog, and Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe. Mike Troiano of Holland-Mark, and formerly of Matchmine, did a great job as moderator, and the audience was attentive and asked great questions.

But unfortunately, judging from a discussion going on across several PR-related blogs today, it seems that quite a few public relations professionals in the audience felt neglected, devalued, or outright offended by some of the things the panel said (or didn’t say). I wanted to try to clarify some of my own thoughts about the value of public relations—thoughts that will, of course, continue to be from the point of view of a journalist.

First, I want to apologize, because I took the time to write out a little statement before the panel about the value a startup can get from a good public relations firm, and when or why a startup might want to think about engaging one. When Mike asked the question that would have given me the opportunity to recite my statement, I whiffed on it. I guess I felt like I’d already talked too much. But here’s what I wrote:

A truly great PR firm would know the local news landscape, have personal relationships with the key journalists, help you craft the most interesting parts of your company’ story into a pitch, be able to reach out to journalists on a personalized (not form letter) basis, and get stories placed. They’d also help you anticipate issues (e.g. your funding is public information once you file a Form D with SEC) and deal with crises. If you are news savvy and you like journalists you can probably do a lot of this stuff on your own, or if you have angel or VC investors you can probably lean on them for help or advice. If I were an entrepreneur directly responsible to investors and to my board I probably wouldn’t start spending money on a PR firm until I was into my 2nd or 3rd year and earning some serious revenue.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs (and their angel or venture backers) are with me on that last point—that PR is a costly investment that you should put off as long as you can. My understanding of the point of last night’s panel was that the audience wanted to hear suggestions and strategies for doing that, and for stretching out the period before you need professional help. I don’t think the premise was that companies ought to do without professional PR forever—just that there are ways to bootstrap this part of your business, like almost every other part. Of course, it really helps if you’re the kind of person who likes to talk about your company and enjoys the whole social media whirl.

Some PR-industry friends who were in the audience, including Bobbie Carlton, Chuck Tanowitz, and Lora Kratchounova, have said in their blogs today that they felt the panel came down pretty hard on the PR biz. It’s true that we all have our funny or sad stories about bad assumptions or goofy practices on the part of PR folks. But I imagine that PR folks have just as many stories about journalists. Journalists and PR people are frequently at odds with one another, because at bottom we’re all trying to put our own separate spin on the basic information. So I think the inevitable effect of getting four journalists up on the stage was that the audience heard a certain amount of complaining, without any balance from the other side.

I really do think public relations firms play an important role in the innovation ecosystem (which is the part of the business world that I write about), not least by freeing up busy entrepreneurs from having to spend so much time worrying about publicity. They can also help with crisis management, and they can educate entrepreneurs about all the little things they aren’t likely to know ahead of time about working with the press. The absolute best PR people are also constantly thinking about their own craft, and about how the PR business is evolving (just as journalism and the startup process itself are evolving).

I agree with what both Chuck and Bobbie wrote today, the gist of which is that there’s a lot more to public relations than just media relations, and that startups need to be thinking about ways to engage whole broad communities of people—customers, partners, investors, and occasionally journalists. A really good public relations firm or consultant will be able to help with that. As Chuck put it in his blog: “PR is about developing a broad communications program that includes building a long-term strategy that establish lasting relationships with your core audiences, creating content and managing conversations that engage those audiences directly; and reaching industry influencers (media relations gets lumped in here). Tactically this means that the communicator or agency you hire should have skill sets that include: writing ability; audio and video skills; creative thinking and the ability to connect with influencers.”

That’s definitely the skill set I would look for if I were seeking help getting my message out. (And Chuck, who’s formerly with Schwartz, says he’s working to launch a new firm with just those qualities.) So, the bottom line: Yes, PR is valuable, if you can afford it, and if you hire the right professionals. But you don’t have to wait until you can afford PR help before you start reaching out to the press or building the kind of broader communications program Chuck talks about. You can start by shooting a reporter a plainspoken e-mail summarizing your company’s business and inviting further inquiries. (In fact you can send them my way at wroush@xconomy.com.)