2011 is here, and for those of us in the mix so is RSA Conference 2011. Many of us  have already been working with clients on their plans and pitches for the event and the veterans among us know that by now we should be focusing in on what our news will be and how to best present it within a crowded, competitive and aggressive field.

Last year I polled a number of journalists and analysts regarding what they look for in compelling news, most pointed out directly that they wanted to know two things, 1.) what’s new; and 2.) why is it important to the readers. To expand a little on both:

“What’s New.” This is not just the what’s new surrounding your company and product but also the what’s new to the industry. If you want to be successful with journalists, it is of utmost importance when telling your clients’ stories that you are able to pull out of the marketing exactly what’s new in terms of the technology and its application and why the latest version can do something in a way that has never been done prior.

“Why Important.” I can’t emphasize enough that trying to tell a journalist or analyst that something is important because a vendor says it is just doesn’t cut it. You need facts, data and feedback from the field that validates your position. Trainer Communications managed a recent launch by our client eEye Digital Security where we talked in-depth about the new product line, but to truly achieve recognition we anchored it to a neutral research report that included a survey of over 1,900 respondents — demonstrating the problems and needs within the vulnerability management market. This was just the news journalists needed to make a compelling story.

If you are headed to RSAC 2011 with clients this year, I can’t emphasize enough two things: What’s New and Why is it Important. And, remember to back both up with neutral facts. To read about what the journalists and analysts said last year, visit: Tell Me Something New, Please.

One other thought, this year RSAC is going to be especially productive for Trainer. In addition to representing clients on the show floor, we are also going to host an event in tandem that will focus on educating vendors on how to improve their market visibility through PR and marketing. The venue is being finalized, but the free lunch will play host to a number of enterprise buyers, vendors, press and media who will provide candid opinions on the topic. If you are interested shoot me an email at jfranscella at trainercomm dot com.

Market leadership is all about positioning, doesn’t matter if that market is IT, consumer or politics.

Today the Obama Administration made former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s departure from the White House official. Emanuel now heads back to Chicago to run for the Mayor’s seat. Talk about your long-term positioning strategy in action — nicely played Dems!

If Emanuel succeeds — and BTW he’s not running against an incumbent as current Mayor Richard Daley is not seeking re-election — he’s in a perfect spot to succeed his now former boss as President, if Obama wins in 2012 that is.

If Emanuel wins, his term as Mayor will expire in February 2015, just ahead of the end of (again if he wins) Obama’s second term, which ends in 2016. Can you say perfect timing to run for President?

By removing Emanuel from the top seat and placing him into a tough-and-gritty city ripe for reform and rescue from the recession, the Dems get to position Emanuel as:

•    A successful reformer (the recession will probably end within the next few years and he will get to take credit for Chicago’s recovery regardless of whether or not he has anything to do with it)
•    A Washington outsider but someone who understands Washington politics (he will have been gone from the Beltway for at least four years by the next Presidential election but has spent significant time within it)
•    Oprah’s neighbor

Again, well played Dems, you should get the National MarCom award for long-term positioning strategy.

One final thought, if I was a Chicago resident, I would be very excited over the prospect of Emanuel taking over my town, talk about a man who could scoop up federal funds. I don’t think anyone since Senators Byrd and Kennedy have ever been in that advantageous of a position.

I’m a social mediaphile. I have a passion for all things social media and the technologies that enable them. I was particularly intrigued when a client of mine pointed out the Kansas City firm SocialVolt to me. SocialVolt is a social media management platform that claims to provide management and monitoring of social media discussions across multiple social technologies in a single dashboard-type of location. OK, no big differentiation from what other similar types of tools do. There was one particular capability SocialVolt provided that I found intriguing though — its compliance functionality.

I didn’t have a chance to speak with anyone at SocialVolt, but their website reads:

Using STUDIO’s first in class compliance feature set, organizations can now determine compliance rules, utilize sustainable discussion databases as well as backup and archive all conversations. Organizations can now scale social media across an entire enterprise without having to worry about jeopardizing their brand name!

If it actually works, its impressive to say the least to think that a regulated organization can cut loose on social media without worrying about compliance related issues. What’s even more intriguing is that SocialVolt doesn’t just stop at claiming to enable compliance, it specifies specific regulations it works with:

Whether it’s FINRA, FDIC, OCC, HIPAA or your own internal compliance officers, STUDIO gives you the tools you need to supply detailed research on any social media activity originated in STUDIO and even activity originated outside STUDIO.

Considering the speed at which companies such as Kaiser are utilizing new media services to market health care products and services, HIPAA coverage I think is an especially smart decision they made.

Definitely an intriguing technology that is worth watching, especially as social technologies become more and more embraced by mainstream internal and external marketing organizations now realizing that it is a powerful communications channel that delivers results.

One thing I would like to see out of SocialVolt is a customer use case posted on the website or even some commentary on a blog or two about how regulated companies are using the technology. For now, I rate them as a definite company to watch.

PLEASANTON, CA  – June 29, 2010 -  Trainer Communications, a full-service public relations, integrated marketing and social media agency servicing the enterprise and consumer technology sectors, today announced that the San Francisco Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA-SF) has honored the agency with the Northern California Silver Anvil Award for “Best Integrated Consumer Product or Service Campaign.”

Trainer’s winning Zazzle campaign, comprised of strategic top-tier business publication and holiday gift guide placements, and national consumer broadcast segments, resulted in billions of impressions worldwide. The Silver Anvil awards emcee Tom Vacar, an award-winning journalist for Channel 2 Fox News, made note that Trainer had earned the distinction of being the only company in the past 25 years to receive a perfect score by the judges. Trainer CEO Susan Thomas, along with several Trainer team members, attended the gala event held in San Francisco, Calif. on the evening of June 17, 2010.

Trainer, a previous Silver Anvil award winner, was selected based on PRSA’s comprehensive evaluation system that stringently assesses overall campaign objectives, strategy, tactics, execution and results. The core elements of the Zazzle campaign included:

* Expert-driven strategies on news releases and key media targets
* Tactical use of state-of-the-art PR management tools
* Award-winning Metrics Matter™ best practice methodologies

“More than just our PR agency, Trainer Communications is a strategic partner whom we collaborate with on a regular basis to help build our business. Trainer consistently executes creative campaigns, delivers stellar results based on its Metrics Matter approach, and almost always exceeds expectations. We offer our congratulations on Trainer’s perfect-score award win and look forward to teaming with Trainer on additional award-winning work in the years to come,” said Michael Karns, marketing director for Zazzle.

In addition to this PRSA Silver Anvil, Trainer is being honored this week at a gala event hosted by the Bulldog Awards in New York City for “Agency of the Year.” Trainer will also receive the 2010 Bulldog Award for “Best Campaign Under $100,000,” saluting Trainer’s PR innovation for its highly successful “Data Robotics Goes Pro” campaign. These three awards add to a growing list of national acclaim for Trainer which, among other accolades, has also won the 2008 Bulldog Award for “PR Innovation of the Year” for its Metrics Matter methodology, the 2009 Sabre Award for “Best Agency to Work For,” and the 2009 MarCom Gold Award for “Excellence in Publicity Campaign.”

“While these awards validate our PR and marketing prowess, what’s really important is the value our campaigns create for our clients to help drive their business. We are honored to represent clients like Zazzle that encourage us to perform at elite levels all of the time,” said Susan Thomas, CEO, Trainer Communications. “While we strive for perfection in all that we do, we are truly humbled to receive the first-ever perfect score in the 25-year history of this prestigious award.”

About Trainer Communications
Trainer Communications is the premier provider of integrated marketing and high-tech public relations services. Specializing in technology, the agency offers deep domain expertise across data infrastructure, information security, optical and wireless communications, enterprise software, networking, and consumer industries. Trainer represents emerging and high-growth technology companies that lack the market recognition and visibility needed to meet business objectives and is the only agency that guarantees quantifiable results with its Metrics Matter™ methodology. Established in 1995, Trainer has represented more than 200 companies, including one-third that resulted in a positive liquidity event. Notable successes include Brocade, Cloudscape, CrossWorlds, Data Domain, G-Log, Itronix, Oblix, Sygate, Trigo, Versata, and WhereNet. Based in Silicon Valley with nationwide coverage, the agency has received numerous awards, including the 2010 Bulldog Award for Best Small Agency of the Year and Best PR Campaign Under $100K, the 2009 and 2008 MarCom Gold Award for Best Publicity Campaign, the 2009 Iron Sabre Award for Best Agency to Work For, two 2009 National Videographer Awards, the 2008 Bulldog Award for PR Innovation of the Year, and the 2008 Iron Sabre Certificate of Excellence for Product of the Year. For more information, visit www.trainercomm.com.

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The start of January marked my second anniversary at Trainer Communications. On that day, I tweeted:

I meant it, too. There’s a lot of great things that go on at Trainer Communications. Aside from working with an excellent bunch of PR, communications and marketing pros, Trainer’s commitment to Metrics Matter™ (the agreement made between Trainer and clients on the amount of press coverage that will be achieved for each initiative) and entrepreneurial spirit fosters the perfect environment for me — one where results are key and creativity and initiative are rewarded.

Prior to coming to Trainer, I had been the managing editor of a Central Valley (CA) newspaper and founder and general manager of a communications and advertising consultancy that produced a weekly cable network television show covering sports and recreation activities. During the 26 episodes, I leaned to do everything it took to produce a weekly show, which included but by no means was limited to — securing sponsors, filming, editing, voice over, production, coordination with the cable company for scheduling and technical matters, and receiving praises with humility and scorn with professionalism. Need to produce a weekly cable television show? Let’s talk.

One of the things I wanted to carry into my PR and communications work for clients and Trainer was my ability to produce video — something I am glad to say I’ve had a chance to do. Through the course of my Trainer career, I’ve produce videos for former clients, current clients and Trainer, some of which you can check out here:

Solidifying my satisfaction over the past two years at Trainer were two key events, 1.) Helping our firm to win a national Videographer’s Award of Distinction for production of a Web 2.0 news video, and, 2.) Being named as one of the leads of Trainer’s Video Practice in our 2009 yearend release. Check it out:

I am looking forward to another year with Trainer (and many more after that), to building the video practice and to continuing to help lead client accounts successfully. Next up: RSA Conference 2010, here we come!

Tisa Penny (left), Shannon Magill and Susan Thomas with the PR News and MarCom Gold awards, earned for outstanding communications, PR and marketing efforts in support of the Mt. Diablo Region YMCA fund raising efforts.

There’s nothing like an award to rally the troops, build morale and validate the value of your organization’s services. At my day job, Trainer Communications, we value awards our clients win as well as those we earn. They not only instill a sense of organizational pride, they also validate fine work done and best efforts put forth.

Recently, the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals, PR News and the Videographer Awards recognized Trainer for its outstanding work in communications, public relations, marketing and video.

For its pro bono work done on behalf of the Mt. Diablo Region YMCA’s new facilities fund raising efforts, the Association awarded Trainer its International MarCom Gold award and PR News awarded it an honorable mention. For its outstanding work in video production, the Videographer Awards presented Trainer with the prestigious “Clapboard” for corporate video and Web 2.0 news video production for its work done for former client G-Log and current client Bear Valley Resort. The MarCom and PR News awards were earned by the outstanding trio of Trainer founder and CEO Susan Thomas, Account Coordinator Shannon Magill and Account Coordinator Tisa Penny. The Clapboards were earned by the Trainer video duo of VP Ross Perich and myself.

G Log Corporate Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bear Valley Resort Web 2.0 News Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone who’s ever brought a client in front of Mike Rothman for a briefing knows two things: 1.) Prepare the client to tell the truth; 2.) Prepare the client to hear the truth. Although a lot of times clients don’t realize it at first, the toughest briefings — which may leave them rattled — often end up being the most productive as they not only provide (pardon me) “insight,” but also a good indication regarding the true level of resonance that their messages are having. Prior to going to eIQ, when Rothman was still taking briefings, I had an opportunity to bring a couple clients in front of him, while the clients didn’t necessarily exit walking on sunshine, they were forced to reconsider at least a couple bullet points and then recraft them to be more aligned with reality as opposed to hype (which paid off in subsequent briefings). My hope is that Rothman will again take vendor briefings and continue to provide the same sharp-witted insight as he has in the past — the truth, as harsh as it may sometimes be, does everyone a favor.

I am glad to see Alan Shimel continues to go strong on his blog, now AShimmy, when he announced he had left Still Secure I was left to wonder if he’d continue to post his thoughts and opinions on the tech industry, to my delight he continues to go strong. Many of my It security marketing and PR plans start off with a trip to Alan’s blog to find out what he’s saying about “it,” to understand how he’s breaking “it” down or to find out if I am really planning around something “new” (note to security PR pros: when Dan Kaplan at SC says publicly that Alan’s blog is one of the sites he looks at for potential ideas, checking it out on a regular basis isn’t a bad idea).

Alin posted an interesting link to an I.B.M. Cloud commercial aired during Monday night’s NFL game. I don’t disagree with him that taking the Cloud into the pop culture main stream may signal the demise of it’s media sexiness, however, my observations were on the quality of the commercial itself and what a valuable learning tool it was for those of us pitching technology full time. Watch the commercial:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I.B.M. does a nice job of quickly defining what the Cloud is from a technology perspective and then goes heavily into what the business and consumer benefits it offers are. This format is a good lesson for anyone pitching a technology story — go light on tech and heavy on practical benefit. A lot of times it’s hard to get client’s to understand that a lot of the writers you speak with, unless they’re techy bloggers, don’t have time to become engineers, what they write about are the practical benefits a technology provides over its really cool code.

Reading Brad Stone’s piece in the New York Times on new eTailer Glyde.com got me thinking, what’s the return policy? If I buy a used — often very cheap –  game at Game Stop I can return it within seven days for a full refund and it won’t cost me $2.50 (see Glyde.com return policy). New DVD’s are so cheap to buy at stores like Walmart and to rent at RedBox in the supermarket it doesn’t seem to make any sense to buy something used on an online venue. It will be interesting to see where this company heads and what the future holds for this Web site, surely the profitability plan can’t be based around consumers selling used games and DVD’s to one another, there has to me more coming in the future.

Happy Halloween from a few of the hard-working, fun-loving gang at Trainer Communications. You won’t find a better bunch of PR and marketing practitioners completely devoted to client satisfaction but also sure to have, at least, a little fun every day.

Posted by Joe Franscella

Media designed to be made available quickly and easily over the Internet to anyone with a Web browser and Internet connection is typically referred to as “Social Media.” Commonly used social media types include videos, blogs, photos, PodCasts and remarks made on social media publishing communities, blog reply fields and platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and WordPress.

Well-known and heavily-patronized social media publishing sites and platforms and modern Internet search engine functionality has made it possible for individuals and businesses to interact on topics of mutual interest through social media at breakneck speeds and on a massive scale.

Social media interactions are so popular and easy that businesses recognize that with it, they can enhance brand recognition, win new customers and manage existing customer relationships. Well-known technology suppliers such as EMC are taking the power of social media so seriously that they are actively recruiting manager-level employees to fill full-time positions in the practice.

It seems as if new ways to penetrate customer bases via social media interactions spring up daily. Change takes place at such a rapid pace that many newcomers end up throwing in the towel before they even get started. Statements such as, “We haven’t yet seen the value of social media,” are often defense mechanisms that really mean, “I haven’t got a clue.”

To compensate for a lack of understanding on how to best utilize social media for customer interactions, organizations are increasingly relying upon their marketing, communications and PR agencies to integrate social media communications elements into their marketing strategies. Unfortunately, many agencies are as clueless as their clients.

CMOs, marketing VPs and directors that need to rely upon an agency to establish social media interactions can quickly cull through the morass of service providers and determine which actually provide “expertise” by checking them against a set of “expert” criteria.

Once you have identified an agency that can provide expert strategic leadership within traditional marketing arenas, you can then judge its ability to provide expert social media execution by evaluating  it against these seven-criteria:

1. Agency employees participate in social community interactions through the use of various social media formats
2. Agency employees have established, regularly used accounts on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube
3. Agency employees have established, regularly updated blogs
4. Agency employees have been recognized as active social media participants by recognized social media icons
5. The agency utilizes social media as a way to market its service offerings
6. The agency has secured tangible metrics as a result of its social media activities on behalf of clients or itself
7. The agency can demonstrate thorough knowledge and understanding how to raise search engine rankings through the use of keywords, meta tags and other SEO techniques

There really is no room for a missing check box when it comes to your evaluation. Just like college students must demonstrate that they have fulfilled all the requirements of a degree prior to having a diploma granted, an agency must also fill all requirements prior to earning “expert” status.

The last thing any good general wants to do is go to war with untrained soldiers. Could you imagine devising a clever strategy and then deploying soldiers on the battlefield who don’t know the difference between a muzzle and a breach? The results would be disastrous. Imagine you are a CMO, marketing VP or director and you decide to execute on a social media strategy with untrained soldiers, how well do you think it would go?

Before you choose an agency or consultant to to lead your company into the social media battlefield, make sure its soldiers are well trained in the art of interacting through the medium. How do you know if your firm’s soldiers are prepared? For starters, find out if they are engaged on a regular basis.

As a marketing and PR practitioner, I make it my responsibility to be involved beyond what my employer and clients expect. I blog, I Facebook, I Twitter, I YouTube, I Digg etc…etc…I am so passionate about the practice that I am proud to say David Pogue of the New York Times included me in his book:

In my next blog post, I am going to present a checklist of criteria CMOs, VPs and directors can use to determine the social media expertise level of an agency. Talk soon.