As a veteran PR practitioner I’m always amazed when I see companies working so hard to communicate with their clients, prospects and the media, but ignoring their single most important audience – their employees. Employees are your company’s ambassadors. Mobilizing them with the right message unify your PR campaign and help to guarantee its success. Ignoring them could spell disaster.

Having worked in corporate communications with employee communications responsibilities for a big multinational conglomerate, I sincerely appreciated this employee memo from Woot.com CEO Matt Rutledge. Rutledge is communicating with his people about the company recently being acquired by Amazon.com.

While the memo is just flat out funny (Rutledge could have a career writing for “The Office” if he ever wanted to change jobs), the memo is great for several reasons.

1. He speaks in his own words. While not every CEO is a closet comedian, Rutledge obviously wrote this memo himself and I’m sure that his employees will take his message to heart for that very reason. He didn’t issue a PR release to his people; he just kept it real. That has impact.

2. He actually says something important. In between the jokes, there is real information for employees: “… we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot …”

3. He quashes rumors. Rumors usually start within companies, and they can be toxic to customer relationships. By giving his people real info (“… Snapster will continue as Woot.com CEO, just like before, and the rest of our staff’s not going anywhere either. Woot and all our various sites will continue to be an independently operated company …”) Rutledge has essentially shut down the rumor mill before it can get cranked up.

With good information in hand, he has ensured continued productivity and, as important, he has laid the foundation for solid external communication with clients and prospects.

Bravo Mr. Rutledge. And by the way, where can I get one of those vuvuzelas?

In tracking one of my client’s competitors I ran across a press release posted online at trade media outlet. The first sentence read:

“XYZ Company has launched a single-use bioprocessing filtration solution, which is designed to help speed up processes and reduce wastage.”

Wastage? Is that fancy waste? Because I can tell you that using a 25-cent word like wastage sure stinks like horse, um, waste. If the client put that word into the release, then the agency should have changed it, and if the agency put it in they should be ashamed of themselves. (And don’t get me started on the use of the word “solution.”)

Yes, I know that wastage is a real word. It’s in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. In fact, the writer could defend the word’s use in the sentence, but I’m willing to bet money that they were just trying to be fancy. But that doesn’t make the release good. In fact, it makes it bad because it hinders reader comprehension. Writing a release that’s easily understood by non-experts is particularly important when you’re writing on complicated topics like biotechnology. It’s one of those industries that filled with five-syllable words. Making those words understood often relies on the context around them, so it must be easily digestible.

Choose the shortest, most accurate word to do the job. Your release will read better and your reader won’t feel like their time has been wasted.

I read this interesting bit in a publishing industry newsletter that I receive called Wooden Horse (you can follow them on Twitter www.twitter.com/WoodenHorsePub). There’s a new wine enthusiast magazine launching. FINE EXCLUSIVE is a new magazine about the world’s most up-to-date knowledge of the finest and rarest wines. But it’s not your usual, run-of-the-mill wine magazine:

It has a wine concierge service.
It cannot be bought or subscribed to anywhere; it is available by invitation only.
It features an optional personalized cover for each subscriber.
The mailing list is limited to 5,000.
A subscription is 500 euros (US$ 669.)
It is published in Finland.

It carries with it a great B2B branding lesson: Brand isn’t about being all things to all consumers; its about being the preferred choice among consumers that will generate revenue for your business.

Many B2B marketers complain that they can’t brand themselves or don’t need to brand themselves because they only serve a tiny niche. This is the best time to brand. This allows you to control the entire market segment and command a premium price for your product or service. From the example above, how many other magazines do you know are getting more than $650 per subscription?

Need another example? How about the mass-market beer brewers who created or acquired micro-brew brands? The big breweries already had mass brand recognition when the microbrew explosion happened in the 80s. Why bother with anything else? Because mass-marketed beer was small margin on large volume basis. Microbrews command a premium price per unit.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling IT services or aluminum extrusions, branding can help you improve your margins and dominate a market niche.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are moving picutures worth? Apparently about $22 million during 4Q 2009, for small businesses. A new study reported on MediaPost’s blog shows that small businesses are significantly increasing spends for online video.

“Video capability was the fastest-growing website feature for small business advertisers over the past year, with 19% of advertisers showing video on their websites in Q4 2009, versus just 5% in Q4 2008.”

While this is focused on advertisers using video, the point is that video is now affordable for everyone, and there’s no doubt that it’s an effective tool for public relations. Video is a highly valuable way to generate branded content that will help establish thought leadership and allow companies to connect with potential buyers.

Video is particularly effective for demonstrating “how-to” and process-oriented services. Complicated equipment is much easier explained with video. Perhaps most importantly, video allows companies to attach personality to products or services (that of the company’s experts), instead of simply offering another anonymous product. And with the cost of video dropping – and high-speed Internet connections available almost everywhere – video is a winning tool.

Once video content is created, it can be spread via social networks to all corners of your market. For a small price, video can help you make a big impact with your public relations campaign.

If you’re working in marketing or any form of public relations, you have to be aware of the how social media is changing the face of the industry. Need real proof of just how all-pervasive social media have become? Check out this out.

That’s right, there is a social networking site for llamas and alpacas. Well, not actually for the woolly beasts (they find it tough to type with hooves), but people with an interest in these animals. “Lama Journal has been created so people who have an interest in alpacas and llamas, can come to one central location online and share information such as photos, videos, and much more…”

If there’s a social network for llama lovers, you can bet there’s one for your B2B target market. Now you need to get out there and start communicating with them.

A tweet today by social media thought leader Chris Berger led me to an interesting post on Ragan.com about the use of social media by the leaders of several large associations for professional business communicators. While Lindsey Miller did a nice job on the research, what I found particularly interesting was the comment posted by IABC President Julie A. Freeman in response to the story.

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Any sales professional will tell you that despite all the tools and tactics that have evolved over the years, most deals are closed because there is personal chemistry between the parties – the buyer simply likes the seller. Yes, even in the “sterile” and prolonged B2B buying cycle, closing deals usually comes down to the personalities of the individuals involved. So why, then, do so many business people keep their personality out of their marketing? Why do we feel the need to keep our prospects at arms’ length?

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A new study by research company BIA/Kelsey shows that less than one-third of small- and medium-sized business are planning to use social media during the next year.

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I recently found a great quote from philosopher-author Anais Nin: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” I think it’s brilliant in its simplicity and accuracy. It really struck home with me because I had just finished two days of client meetings sitting across from my counterparts from another agency that serves the same client. We were brought together by the client to brainstorm and collaborate on 2010 marketing strategy. This gave me time to watch how my peers interact with this client and gave me pause to reflect on how I handle myself.

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No, of course not. If you haven’t been living under a rock you know that this headline is patently stupid. Blogging is bigger than ever. But asking, “Is [insert topic here] Dead?” grabs attention. So why not do it all the time?

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