This is an extract from a post that first appeared on the Zude PR website.
The original was a whopping 9,000 words and was in danger of crashing The Conversation’s system, So we’ve split it into five posts.
In this, the 2nd extract, David Sawyer FCIPR, head of Zude PR, recounts the views of 12 of the world’s leading PR, SEO, content and social media marketing experts on why they “give it all away for free”/tells what he’s learnt from his involvement in the #PRstack project and why he feels karma is king for a new breed of communicators.
You can catch up with Part 1 here.
I, David Sawyer, am a Glasgow-based PR man who is evangelical about how PR, content marketing, SEO and social media marketing should work together to help organisations communicate.
I founded a Glasgow PR company last year to help clients do just that.
I am always learning and read around two hours of content every day. I share the four best bits in my weekly (Thursday evening) newsletter. If you want to join my Dad, Cousin Paul, and JP from Sixth Form on my list, sign up here. Never salesy, just valuable, helpful content.
If you like the cut of my jib and are thinking: “This is someone I could trust. Let’s get him in to sort our comms,” then I’m honoured. Here are the services I provide, here’s my chops, and here’s how to reach me.
EXTRACT 2
#1: Richard Bailey (Harrogate, UK)
Richard is senior lecturer and programme leader at University of the West of England. His personal blog is PR Studiesand he edits a magazine called Behind the Spin.
“Value is subjective: it’s impossible to measure the value of a public relations programme until it’s been running for a while (and even then it’s still hard). So perception is everything.
“How can you be perceived as offering value? Do those in your peer group think you have something to offer? That’s why we share – often for free. By publishing, we become authors (ie people perceived as having authority). An example of a hero of free authority: Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia.”
#2: Ryan Biddulph (Savusavu, Fiji, currently)
Author of 27 Blogging from Paradise books. Blogger. Coach. Internet lifestyle junkie.
“Giving it all away for free detaches me from outcomes. My lightbulb went off when I saw the more I gave freely the more creative I became and yes, the more money I make in the present and long run.
“The benefits are a sense of detachment and calm, peaceful confidence in all you do. I don’t strain and strive much now. I give freely and thrive. It paid off immediately because I felt better by giving freely and my business grew quickly after cutting the strings.”
#3: Philippe Borremans (Brussels, Belgium)
Philippe hosts the popular weekly European PR podcast www.wagthedog.fm.
“I am a sucker for karma…always have been. I truly believe that if you ‘share freely’ you will also ‘receive freely’. There has not been a defining moment but I am sure that reading certain blog posts, meeting people, and experiencing the benefits early on in my career all have something to do with it.
“Benefits come in very different ways…think business referrals, becoming part of a network, access to people. The last one was in the form of a nice contract to develop a social media e-learning course for in-company training: simply based on one single referral. Another example is the benefit of ‘free learning’ I receive while doing the thought leader interviews for my weekly PR podcast.
“Where, if anywhere, do I draw the full disclosure line? I don’t think I draw a line.”
#4: Deirdre Breakenridge (New Jersey, US)
Deirdre is CEO at Pure Performance Communications and the author of five Financial Times books.
“When I first started blogging in 2008, it was to document my own journey through a changing media landscape, knowing PR needed a new approach.
“At the time, I was working with FT Press on a book called PR 2.0: New Media New Tools New Audiences.
“I quickly realised that many professionals appreciated my content and rallied around it. They also wanted more of their questions answered.
“I would ‘listen’ carefully on Twitter through different hashtag conversations and then attacked the critical issues on my PR blog.
“The lightbulb went off when I realised the blog was a great way to educate, raise awareness about pressing industry topics, and to collaborate with people I couldn’t normally reach.
“The end result was a published manuscript, with the real life examples from communication pros willing to share their journey as well. It was a win-win for everyone involved.”
#5: Michael Brenner (Philadelphia, US)
Head of strategy at NewsCred. Contributor to The Economist, Forbes, The Guardian. Michael blogs at B2B Marketing Insider.
“There was no lightbulb moment for me in ‘giving away’ content. I assumed right from the very beginning that in order to gain the attention and trust of an audience, that you had to consistently provide value without asking for anything in return.
“In fact, I feel honoured that anyone trusts their valuable time and attention with content I create.
“The real lightbulb moment for me was seeing the audience I was starting to build on Twitter and LinkedIn start to share out the content I was creating on my blog and on various publications.
“It took about six months for me to see that connection pay off. That’s when I understood the real value of building an audience on social platforms but using your blog to bring them home.
“I think time is our most valuable asset. When someone asks me a question, I am happy to answer it.
“When someone asks me for a day, I think I’ve earned the right to charge them for that kind of time.”
#6: Stuart Bruce (London, UK)
Stuart is an international PR adviser, speaker, trainer, and blogger. He runs Stuart Bruce Associates.
“Professor Anne Gregory answered the question ‘why do you give it all away for free’ for me when she tweeted ‘… you do so much to upskill our profession’. That is a major motivation. I want to be proud of the PR profession I work in and one way of being proud of it is by making it better.
“The self-interested answer is that by giving away an insight into my thinking I win more business from people who want to use the way I think. Both of those were my motivations for giving it away, but a third has emerged over the years. By sharing what I know and think, I get excellent critical input from peers, competitors, friends, acquaintances etc. This improves what I know and think, and hopefully improves what they know and think thus creating a virtuous circle.
“Nearly all of my consultancy and training work comes either directly from giving stuff away or by referral from work that was originally from giving stuff away.
“I don’t really draw the (full disclosure) line as it is a bit like sport. Even the biggest fan who watches everything on TV, reads every article and goes to every live event, is never going to be a star player.
“Even if I tell people how to do stuff it doesn’t equate to my experience and expertise. They still need me to do it well, better and to reduce the risk of mistakes.
“What I will never disclose is anything that impinges on client confidentiality. That means my best crisis comms advice and experience can’t be fully disclosed as some of it has helped clients avoid a crisis and therefore talking too much about it risks actually bringing it out into greater prominence!”
#7: Mike Carhart-Harris (Dorchester, UK)
Mike works in public sector communications and blogs, thoughtfully, at Don’t believe the hyphen.
“As someone working in the public sector, it feels easy and natural to share good ideas and best practice. What works in one area can be easily transferred to another – and, in my mind, should be.
“We’re all working towards common goals, in the main, and within a climate of austerity and needing to show value. But I actually think that a growing generosity of inspiration is happening across sectors. I think there’s a mutual professional interest as well as enlightened self-interest; to improve the value and reputation of what we do.
“For me (sharing what I know) it’s a win-win. I get to learn from those more experienced than me. What little I can offer in terms of thoughts and experiences I might blog about is no real sacrifice. I’m not giving away any trade secrets. As a relative novice, I can only gain and hopefully get better at what I do.
“I can see there may need to be limits (to what you can disclose) for private sector practitioners in terms of anything commercially sensitive.
“But I think what we’re seeing is a lifting of the veil and a drive to transparency that dispels the old lie about the ‘dark arts’ of spin. For me, as a local government employee, there are clear political boundaries. More generally, I would never disclose something that undermined trust.”
#8: Adam Connell (Derby, UK)
Adam is a digital marketer. He blogs at his site Blogging Wizard.
“There was a gradual shift when I started an online record label in college.
“This label was part of the net audio scene which thrived on the freedom of music online – artists from all over the world, creating music just for the love of music.
“Initially, I built up this small record label to help promote my friends music (and mine too). Shortly after, other artists came to us with their music and wanted us to release it for free.
“We went on to put out 60 releases and to-date we’re getting close to cracking the three million downloads mark, despite shutting the label down a long time ago (all releases are still available via sites like Archive.org). This experience taught me the value of free information and I later started Blogging Wizard with the same thinking.
“The idea of breaking down boundaries and making information more accessible has been at the forefront of my mind.
“Yes, there will always be a place for paying more for additional information (e.g. full courses), but there’s a lot available already at no cost.
“The bottom line is that my aim is to help other bloggers with the content that I publish and that sometimes requires giving away the farm, or at least part of it.”
#9: Andy Crestodina (Chicago, US)
Andy is the strategic director and co-founder of Orbit Media, an award-winning, 38-person web design firm in Chicago. He is also the author of Content Chemistry, The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.
“Like any content marketer, I give by best advice away for free for one simple reason: avoid obscurity.
“I’m not afraid that something bad will happen. I’m afraid that nothing with happen. And I know that by giving away all of my best advice, I can pull people towards me and win their attention. It’s only then that I have a chance of inspiring them to act, either by becoming newsletter subscribers or leads.
“Creating content started paying off quickly, because I knew how to use that content when talking to prospects who were already in the sales funnel. Content can be a very effective sales support tool, and in that way, it’s effective almost as soon as you create it.
“But it was more than a year before our content became effective at driving traffic. So the marketing benefits took some time to kick in. But it’s like a flywheel. The more you turn it, the easier it is to make it go around. Now we generate a huge amount of traffic and leads with very little effort.
“I’ve never seen a (full disclosure) limit. Pat Flynn discovered this when he started publishing his income reports as an affiliate marketer. Marcus Sheridan discovered this when he publishing his pricing structure for fiberglass pools. Put simply, the more you give, the more you get.
“Usually, people are afraid they’ll give away too much for one of these reasons:
I’m afraid my competitors will learn my secrets
I’m afraid my audience won’t need me if I tell them how to help themselves
I’m afraid my visitors won’t contact me if I give them all the information on my site
“But people who are afraid of publishing are taking a different kind of risk. They risk not answering one of their audience’s important questions. Every time you miss a question, you lose some of your audience. They’ll simply go look for the answer (and find it) elsewhere.
“You need to answer all of your audience’s questions. The key to success is content is to know what to blog about and how to connect that topic to your audience!”
#10: Gini Dietrich (Chicago)
Gini is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm. She is the lead blogger at the PR and marketing blog, Spin Sucks.
“I don’t remember making a decision to do it (give it all away for free); it just happened organically.
“I do remember being uncomfortable with taking a stance and then getting fired up about something and having that blog post go out of control. That gave me the confidence to shift to this paradigm.
“It’s a catch-22 (enlightened self-interest), for sure. The more you give away, the more people expect. And, when you need people to pay for something, they balk at it. But the benefits outweigh the cons and karma is a good thing when you treat people well.
“The only thing I don’t disclose is when people leave the organisation and why. I’ve only had one situation where I was legally bound not to disclose the issue so I didn’t say a word about it. Otherwise, it’s all pretty much out there.”
I’ve only had one situation where I was legally bound not to disclose the issue so I didn’t say a word about it. Otherwise, it’s all pretty much out there.”
#11: Jeff Domansky (Vancouver, Canada)
An experienced PR agency CEO, Jeff is a publisher, editor, and blogger at The PR Coach.
“One of my core beliefs is that a thought leader shares valuable ideas, insight or sometimes something as simple as empathy. That’s how the Internet was originally created and we seem to have forgotten the true meaning of “social” media.
“I built my original PR Coach site with a library of more than 9,000 links to 30 topics that PR professionals would find useful. I’ve continued that on Scoop.it, curating on social media as well. The benefit was it matched perfectly with my PR ‘coach’ persona and positioning. Besides, I’m just a curious cat.
“If you have integrity, full disclosure is simply not optional.”
#12: Judy Gombita (Toronto, Canada)
Judy is a (social) public relations and communication management strategist, and co-content editor of PR Conversations.
“Why would you put a price on global PR knowledge and relationships?
“Approached by Toni Muzi Falconi (Italian PR maestro, Global Alliance co-founder, and inaugural chair) in late 2006 to join a global/local, collaborative blog focusing on ‘conversations’ about public relations as a strategic management function – academic and working practitioners’ perspectives – I was interested and intrigued at the possibilities.
“I could envision the benefits, as a Canadian and a female (the outsized-represented gender in the PR industry workforce, but under-represented and appreciated in terms of formal senior roles, both in-house and agency, as well as thought leadership) in joining this initiative at the front end.
“The rationale quickly bore fruit: an international platform to build and test my professional and personal reputation and value (add) to the evolving public relations-distinct profession, as well as to grow and build (international) relationships with like-minded individuals.
“Almost 10 years later, what are some measurable outcomes from participating in PR Conversations? Figuratively and literally, it opened up a world of significant relationships (in terms of authority and influence) and gained knowledge and appreciation about the practice of public relations in different countries and sectors.
“My digital reach (and inspiration) is international and relatively unconstrained by time zones.
“Rather than ‘giving it away for free’, I continue to see opportunities to learn and inform, recruit and help impact public relations as a discrete area of strategic management and influence – not simply relegated to a secondary and tactical role under marketing, primarily in regards to media relations and/or ‘content’ production.
“How? One way is enlisting writers – fresh or established, but under-appreciated, thinkers and voices – for posts on our collaborative blog. More recently, I focus time and energy in a curatorial role primarily for the blog’s Twitter account in addition to my own. I use a variety of mechanisms to discover companies and individuals’ work and thoughts worthy of highlighting (particularly beyond the usual suspects), including scheduling specific shares into related global timelines.
“A sense of accomplishment and satisfaction comes in a myriad of ways beyond transactional ‘business’ goals, such as:
Increased profile (for self and others)
Collaboration to benefit the greater good (such as students)
PR (and related disciplines) value and knowledge curation
Mindfulness regarding time and energy
Disabusing many long-held ‘traditional’ PR stereotypes (particularly in regards to a purely marketing orientation)
Moving the needle of thought, in regards to reputation and relationships, for an increasing number of organisational stakeholders.”
Look out for Part 3 next week.
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