Business development #fail on Twitter: How NOT to pitch to me.

I believe passionately in the power of professional networking. Specifically, reaching out either in-person (usually at networking events or professional seminars) or via wonderful tools like email, LinkedIn or Twitter to cement a solid business relationship. Almost every day I receive an approach from an advertising/marketing agency, media owner, technology provider (particularly around mobile apps right now) or people looking to work for or with me (job opportunities).

I can’t speak for every brand/client-side marketer but I assume that I’m not alone or particularly unique in receiving these requests. I strongly suspect that marketers’ at most big brands are facing the same issue. Why wouldn’t you want to approach a Marketing Director, Digital leader or key decision-maker at a great brand like adidas, Chanel, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé or (in my case) Samsung?

When done right it opens you, and the company you work for, to wonderful opportunities, better media and marketing and of course, great new partners. The problem is that very often, it is done so poorly or with such little consideration it often comes across as rude or ignorant. That’s why your calls or emails are not returned.

I recently wrote a guest blog post for Firebrand Talent, which goes into detail on how best to approach client-side marketers like me. I've written a commonsense set of 6 guidelines that I hope more people will take to heart. If followed, you're guaranteed to improve your sales success and build better relationships. The article, titled Agencies, media & digital companies: Your sales pitch sucks can be found here: http://blog.firebrandtalent.com/2012/08/agencies-media-digital-companies-your-sales-pitch-sucks/

So with this in mind, I recently had a very strange encounter on Twitter that's left be frustrated and bewildered. I was asked by a supposed expert in social media and digital reputation management in the Philippines Tony Ahn if he could pitch for Samsung work, and get an introduction to the local marketing team. I say supposed, because the Twitter exchange ended in him insulting me personally - isn't that something a digital reputation expert hoping to win new business should try to avoid?

Here's what happened: 

If you are not familiar with the terms MAYABANG or YABANG, they roughly translate into arrogant or conceited in English.

Now sure, I might have come across as harsh but I hope the criticism would have been taken in the spirit of improving the communication or finding common ground. After all, my time is limited and I could simply ignore the conversation right? That may be a fair call. But to then take it to a personal level and get to insults, well that's not cool at all. What I find so bewildering about this exchange is how this is coming from an expert in digital reputation management and social media, who is clearly interested in winning new business.

So what do you think? Was I too harsh and deserve the insult? Or is this a case of a senior PR/social media person forgetting where they are (Twitter) and not practicing what they preach? Please let me know in the comments section below.

Update 1: There's a little more fuel that's been thrown onto the fire. This really doesn't seem like the best way to manage a relationship online...

Social Media is forcing PR to evolve beyond media relations into something more holistic (Q&A)

Public relations and Corporate Communications is rapidly evolving. This is, in part, because Social Media is forcing it to. This Q&A (as part of a story on Campaign Asia) looks at how social media is forcing PR to evolve beyond media relations and message creation into a more holistic craft that has a greater impact within a company. 

 What is driving the trend towards PR activities being increasingly focused on building and protecting corporate reputation?

I see this being directly related to the rise of social media, as well as a change in consumer expectations (they want information and answers now!), increased competition and most importantly, brands becoming much more transparent to customers (again, via social media). The change in focus away from dealing with a few key influential publications to communicating directly on a one-to-one basis with consumers means that the focus has swung away from crafted messages into responding quickly “on message” to customer enquiries. Everyone has an opinion. With social media, customers are now free to express their opinion, in real-time, or the entire world to see and comment on. This has meant that corporate reputation management is more important than ever. Within large organizations the responsibility for this has fallen onto the Corporate Communications team and their PR agencies to manage.

From your experience, what are clients asking for specifically in terms of PR and what is needed to build corporate reputation? 

Brands still need core PR and communications services. These services are essentially about getting a message about their brand, product or service into the mass media. What I’m seeing as the evolution to this is brands needing help to engage more directly with individuals who are influencers. This can be anything from a celebrity to an industry expert with a reasonably sized Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ or Weibo following to a very niche targeting of a large number of individuals in social media interest groups in more of a marketing-like way. This is a natural progression of PR but the consequence of this is social media is harder to control than mass media, and the response tends to be in real-time. This means that brands are asking PR agencies and internal Corporate Communications teams to also manage that social media response, which means they need to become experts in social media listening, responding in real-time to influencer or customer queries and have much deeper engagement with other internal teams to rapidly respond to customers.

Is consumer PR still important for tech brands?

Having a direct and meaningful connection into consumers and key influencers in the tech industry is critically important. Traditional PR still plays a strong role but my view is that this role is being eroded in line with the rise and increasing importance of social media and digital communications. The more important question for PR professionals is whether they should own social media, or whether it sits more comfortably in a Marketing Manager or Digital Agency’s area of responsibility? Right now I see Consumer PR at a cross-roads – do they dive in and own influencer relations and social media communications from end-to-end (listening, being the first line in customer service, responding quickly to customer feedback in social media, etc.) or do they become a niche area in their company focusing just on crafting messages that other teams deliver and manage?

Are agencies in Asia equipped to offer these more sophisticated services?

There’s still a gap between pitching these services and the ability to operationalise them for a brand. For example, Dell has over 25,000 conversation every day about its brand, products and customer service through social media. This requires a huge leap in the ability to listen, discuss and attempt to resolve questions, concerns and issues. It requires the same level of immediacy as crisis communications, every day. It also requires a broader skill set than having a contact list of journalists and crafting messages – it requires a strong understanding of customer service, having deep relationships into other parts of the organization and a good grasp of technology. I believe PR agencies want to be a key partner to brands but agency professionals are not well trained in this new technology, nor do they want to own social media end-to-end. I see this as a missed opportunity.