The Harte of Marketing

Yesterday I shared with you an interview with Ronnie Polaneczky of the Philadelphia Daily News. Today, I introduce you to Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge.

Rich is the voice and dedication behind Data Center Knowledge, an on-line news source/blog. Rich is a technology journalist and analyst with over 25 years in the industry writing for web sites, daily newspapers and magazines, mostly covering the technology industry. Rich is a regular source for media covering technology, and has been quoted in Wired, New Scientist, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Computer Weekly, IT Conversations and Web Host Industry Review, along with The Financial Times, Newsday, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and many other publications. [Source: Data Center Knowledge]

So you might wonder why I selected Rich of all the journalists out there. Well, there are a few reasons…

• I have too many years in the technology industry to count, so I guess that’s made me partial to tech journalists and bloggers. You know, it’s that geek thing.
• I bumped into Rich on Twitter (yes, you heard that correctly, Twitter) and I was curious what he was up to, so I have been “listening” to him for months (and I read his blog daily).
• I have never pitched a blogger, or Rich, so I wanted to see what it would take.
• Rich isn’t related to me (not even a distant cousin, I swear!) so I wanted the challenge of pitching a tech blogger on something completely not related to what they blog about and see how it would turn out.

Well, here’s how it turned out. I hope you enjoy the interview with Rich, it’s thought provoking and offers a journalist’s perspective on how the industry is changing. As well, it’s indicative as to why considering a social media outlook and Web 2.0 tools might just get you that interview or post you’re looking for…if you are so inclined to be social with the media.

1. Do you think the public relations profession and how PR professionals interact with journalists has changed over the years?

In my career I’ve shifted from a large newsroom environment to the Internet. Newsrooms have large infrastructures and information goes to editors and then to reporters for follow-up. And sometimes I’d be pitched directly (without going through the editor).

Working in a newsroom included a lot of time spent shifting through piles of mail looking for something newsworthy. Moving on-line has saved a lot of time in that regard. E-Mail and wired releases have become the gateway to get news and interaction with PR professionals. A lot of pre-briefings happen this way too. This has put a premium on e-mail as a delivery medium, so e-mail pitches need to be crafted in a way that gets them through spam filters. They also need to be written properly for newsworthiness and in a format that can help me to decide very quickly (via the pre-view pane) that it’s relevant to my audience.

The structure of press releases has also gotten better over the years and the digital premium is great; but they still need to be newsworthy. The subject line now must make it very clear why it’s relevant and why now (on-line). Being on-line means the news can go live whenever. So anything I read can end up being breaking news or a trend piece.

I also see as a trend that more companies are using their blogs to announce and to put a personal face on their news. As well, larger companies are getting more sophisticated in terms of podcasts, video, etc. (for example, IBM and Cisco) and using tools like Twitter to talk to editors (for example, Sun and HP).

2. Every journalist receives unprepared and unrelated pitches, what’s your take on this?

Interestingly enough, the number of pitches that I receive has gone up exponentially over the last year. Perhaps it’s because Data Center Knowledge has become better known and read. This also means that the volume of unsolicited pitches has soared.

This increase in traffic has two implications: one, the number of submissions to sort through has increased and two, there are a lot of pitches that are simply not relevant or not on point. At Data Center Knowledge, we are all data centers, all the time. That’s it. So if you aren’t pitching something to do with the data center, it’s a not a good use of anyone’s time. I often wonder if the person pitching has even looked at the site to pre-qualify Data Center Knowledge as a correct place for their news.

There are also two other factors that I see for bad pitches:

1. There are a number of digitally focused PR agencies that create channels. They put certain types of clients into these channels and then all the releases fall into one bucket. Only a handful of pitches might be relevant, the rest isn’t. But when they finally have something relevant to Data Center Knowledge, it might be skipped over because I am used to seeing pitches that aren’t relevant.
2. By attending major trade shows my name gets on a lot of media lists. Then vendors start to bombard me with releases and requests for interviews at the show. There’s a time commitment to get through all this. PR folks then e-mail and call me and that all the calls take me out of my work flow.

3. Do you think your on-line news site/blog make readers feel more connected to you?

The readers of Data Center Knowledge are a much more focused audience, because it’s a niche that I am writing for. This is not something that everyone knows about (i.e. people outside of technology).  Most of my readers experience the same phenomenon…it’s a distinct tribe of people. My format is a now a familiar setting for my readers and Data Center Knowledge can be more playful like a blog at times. In a traditional setting, something fun and breezy once in a while wouldn’t have gotten past editors. It’s a shared experience of a smaller group. It’s one of the reasons that this format is appealing, it’s for people that care and matter about this sector. The format leads to a community of myself and my readers and other bloggers.

4. If so, how do you know if you are making a difference with your readers?

There are a couple of key metrics that I rely on. Traffic, of course, is one. Writing online, analytic tools provide instant feedback on what readers are interested in. I can see which stories have an increase in interest. Another is the number of RSS feed subscribers and what they click on most often. Beyond that, the other metric is knowing where your readers are coming from, for example Slashdot, Digg, or another blogger posting an item.

Another metric is analyzing advertising, when we see how effective particular ads are. In this area, Google Analytics is getting better and starting to integrate AdSense support into the analytics. We can see what’s converting and how many people are engaging with the ads, and filter it for topical interest for future stories.

I also like to see which social media tools are effective in getting people to visit my site. In this area, Digg comes up a lot. Sometimes I get a large wave of traffic from Digg, so we need to figure out whether they stay or come back, and whether they click on ads. We also get a lot of traffic from IT professionals that spent a lot of time on Slashdot versus StumbleUpon and Digg. Ultimately, it’s important from a business perspective to know what Web 2.0 sites your community is familiar with.

5. How have Web 2.0 tools change the way you interact with PR professionals, companies?

RSS is the biggest news source driver for me. Companies putting their releases in RSS feeds help me to encounter their news more quickly. Many companies will always e-mail me their releases and I insist that they do so (especially the companies that I cover regularly). By time they e-mail me the release though, I typically already have a post written if it’s been in their RSS feed. I can’t imagine why companies who issue a lot of press releases don’t use RSS on their site. This is such a useful tool for bloggers and online news sites.

6. How have Web 2.0 tools changed the way you think about sharing news?

Some of the Web 2.0 sites, such as Digg, Slashdot and Twitter, have been really helpful in sharing stories that I am interested in, which is also a way to share my expertise. Twitter has been an interesting channel for sharing what I find interesting, as well as posts from Data Center Knowledge. It’s been interesting to build a community on Twitter. At first I thought Twitter was silly, but now it’s become a daily tool and it’s a good way to share and to see what other people are sharing and talking about. There are a lot of people who didn’t know about my site before I was on Twitter. Now it’s a matter of rationing my time between Twitter, Digg, etc.

I find with Digg that it is hard to get a lot of attention unless you are well networked. It seems to be designed for people who use instant messenger. There is also so much great information out there to sort through and read that it comes down to a time management issue.

7. How do you view the roles of print vs. on-line editions of newspapers and publications?

Most of what I interact with is the on-line editions of a newspaper. However, the New York Times print edition still gets read over breakfast. As a long time newspaper journalist, this use of on-line news is of interest to me. The Internet has changed the way news is consumed. Some folks in the newspaper industry just weren’t getting it. They felt that the Internet was the enemy or an unreliable news source with no credibility. But you can’t fight the future. And as more people get broadband, the shift to on-line news is going to accelerate. Of course there will still be printed versions of newspapers. It’s also interesting that advertising revenues come from offline (print) but readers are on-line. So, how do we make money on-line? That’s a focus and a challenge for print newspapers. There are a lot of layoffs happening in the print world and it’s a rough transition; but consumers love reading news online because it’s easy.

8. How have you started using social media tools in preparing your articles? If so, have you found it useful and how can it be improved?

Today, I can get any number of news feeds, news stories and I can craft my own news experience online with things like iGoogle or how I set up my feeds. This is just another reason why/how news consumption is changing. There are extraordinary advantages to doing journalism on-line. It’s so easy to bring all of the relevant news to one place. I can find out about news right away that would have taken so much longer before. Unfortunately, the shift from print to on-line journalism is happening due to layoffs.

9. What are your views on bloggers and how (if) are they changing as the space continues to grow?

It’s interesting because you see a spectrum of bloggers in each space. Some write from their own perspective, some from the corporate perspective. I am used to digesting corporate spin, but with these different blogs I get a very different mix and a lot is outside the PR department.

There is a decentralization of information and how it makes it’s way out into the blogs. A lot is open, free-wheeling, etc. From a corporate perspective I’ve seen blog posts lead to feuds between companies (like NetApp and EMC, and Cisco and Dell). They go back and forth between their blogs. This is interesting because they would write things on their blogs that they wouldn’t say while in the same room. Corporate folks are being more direct, which is interesting from a journalistic point of view. And corporations are now taking the time to dive into the market, which is interesting from a news perspective.

From the perspective of Data Center Knowledge, I link out to a bunch of data center blogs. As I discover a new blog, I like to link out to them. I don’t really fuss about whether my readers will go read the other blog because to me it’s about sharing the best information and resources available.

The extraordinary advantage of blogs is that they are changing the whole environment in real time. Information news and opinion on-line are a big change from the newspaper newsroom and it’s a change for the better. Tracking all of this allows me, as an on-line news source and blogger, to take in a whole lot of information in a shorter amount of time. This makes it easy for me to present it to my readers. Data Center Knowledge has been a great experience and it makes my journalism better.

The number one goal of Data Center Knowledge is to help my readers do their jobs better.

So if you are considering pitching Rich, you might want to make sure it’s something that benefits his readers. Just a thought. Thanks for the interview Rich!