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Robert Scoble recently highlighted how the ground rules of PR may well have changed.
“Oh no,” you cry, “not another ‘Scoble’ story?!”
Well, yes, because he is the catalyst for this post.
In a recent post of his he discussed why Steve Ballmer and Microsoft aren’t currently the darlings of Wall Street.
Says Robert,
“You might have missed that Microsoft’s stock has been in a freefall lately. My friends have been asking me “why doesn’t Wall Street believe Steve Ballmer?” That’s an easy one. Cause he didn’t convince the grass roots influence networks first.”
Scoble argues that the traditional way of conducting investor relations has to be hold a press conference. But that’s not, as Robert points out, necessarily the best way of conducting those relationships.
“Why have Google and Apple done so well in the last three years? Cause the grassroots loves them. That’s the powerroot of the industry. Ideas here don’t come from the big influencers and move down. No, they start on the street and move up. Anyone miss how Google got big? Not by throwing a press conference.”
Robert points out that in the week he quit Microsoft he not only gazumped Bill Gates’ decision to move away from the business, but he got more attention than Microsoft itself, despite the fact that Microsoft was announcing a stack of info at the very large TechEd conference.
How did he do that?
Well, according to Robert,
“I talked with the grassroots FIRST. Against the advice, by the way, of a lot of PR people (they wanted me to break the news to Walt Mossberg or someone “important” first - they thought that’s how I was going to get the biggest story going).
“They all are wrong. I almost bought into it too. In fact, I did. On Saturday I talked with maybe 20 people and said “can you wait until Tuesday to talk about it?” I wanted to give the story to the Wall Street Journal too. Not to mention I wanted to tell my coworkers before the story hit. I didn’t get that chance and I’m lucky, in hindsight, that I didn’t. Because the story started on the grassroots first it got far far bigger than if I broke it on a big newspaper.
“It’s a lesson I’ll never forget again. [snip]
“Analysts, on the other hand, also watch what grass roots are saying. The wisdom of crowds [my highlighting - Lee]. It drives a lot of buying decisions. Why is Google’s stock higher than Yahoo’s? (Yahoo does pretty much the same thing as Google and has more users, after all). Because the influential users all use Google. When I ask my audiences which email or search system they use they predominantly answer Google. That turns into hype. Hype sells advertising (advertisers want to reach the influential users, not the clueless ones). That turns into profits and profits turns into stock price.”
Now, this reminds me of something that my partner in crime, Allan Jenkins, wrote and spoke about many moons ago [sorry, can't find the link]. There are market tools that rely on the wisdom of the crowds to make predictions. From what my rattly memory serves up, Google has an internal version of this prediction market software to drive its business decisions. Allan, can you weigh in with a comment that provides the relevant links, please?
But that aside, what strikes me as relevant to our industry is that a non PR practitioner is tellling us something important — it is time to consider if the traditional ways of conducting relationships with key publics are enough, or whether you need to approach both the top-down and bottom-up channels.
My view? If a non-PR geek can unwittingly outposition a major PR-active company and get more airtime and column inches, as well as vastly more exposure in the online conversation channels, then it is time to consider that the ground-up channels have ‘come of age’ and require your consideration.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Lee, sure Robert is a non-PR geek, but at that one of the most powerful non-PR bloggers. I’d argue that it is not such a big surprise that he was able to outposition MS. Agree about having to listen to him though.
Scoble, a “non PR practitioner“? That’s a good one, Lee
Constantin, PR is not blogging, but blogging certainly owes a huge debt to PR strategy and tactics. I think its possible for many people to use PR strategy and tactics without actually calling themselves PR professionals. I know I don’t consider myself a PR professional. But I use many PR ideas in my work.
Lee, I think you make a compelling case by using Robert Scoble’s post that more company executives should look at how Microsoft bloggers have changed so many perceptions about Microsoft amongst their customers.
I’m not convinced that Scoble is widely recognised outside of the blogosphere, though, which is why I am so surprised that he out-media’d his old employer. We all know his name, but clients of mine have no idea who he is or why he is important.
I think Scoble was well known amongst Microsoft customers who read blogs and slashdot.org. I suppose that’s what’s important to Microsoft.
Do you think some other blogger within Microsoft will now become more prominent?