MSL Group View - BLog Works

By Charlie Kondek

How Much Time Have You Got?

I have spent 10 years in public relations, but even so there are many aspects of PR I’ve never experienced, because I’ve spent all that time working in the unique field of internet based PR, what we these days call social media. My history in this trade has always been characterized by reconciliation of the emergent to the traditional – something I have never minded in the least, as I’m not one of those “bury the old ways” kind of professionals, nor do I think it is the nature of my agency. But I recently got a chance to begin another chapter in that narrative. I got to work my first trade show.

It was one of the biggest shows of the year to my client, and I was there to meet the digital media I had been talking to on a regular basis, a collection of bloggers, writers and other content producers that I’d pitched to, tweeted with, Facebooked and otherwise reached out to. I was also there for an event we were having later with many of these people. But there was no reason I should be sitting on my hands in between those opportunities, so willingly I was taught by my colleagues the practice of accepting media appointments or being on hand to talk with any media that showed up without an appointment, and take them around the booth. Talk. You know, with your face, not from behind a keyboard?

I repeat here what may be obvious to some of the readers of this publication, some of the lessons I learned, that first of all in this situation you have to know your client’s story and sub-plots and your client’s products. You have to understand the geography of the booth and the trajectory of its narrative. But I also learned, both from my colleagues and some of the writers and editors I talked to, that you have to be cognizant of your guest’s time, that you have to identify, quickly, what’s of most interest to them and get them the info they want or connect them with the subject matter expert that will be of most relevance to their writing. Often this means asking visiting media, “How much time have you got” and working around to, “What kind of angle you working on? What’s of most interest to your readers? What would you most like to see?”

Writers hammered this home to me, as I listened to them tell me and the people I worked with how refreshing it is to have someone ask you these things, to understand that they are familiar with your company and your product and don’t need a complete history lesson. Many of them repeated the phrase, “the newest of the new.” “I know who you are. Don’t show me your whole catalogue. I just want to see the newest of the new.”

My colleagues, and my client, assured me this practice of manning a trade show booth was an easy one to pick up, but just the same it was evident how good they were at it, how much better than I the neophyte. Often in my career, because so much of what I do is new or because I am the only person in a room with the depth of experience in my subject matter, I’m the one educating. It was terrific for me to be educated, and I admired watching the veterans work. My client had lost track of the number of times she’d attended this particular show. My agency colleague confessed it was his fifteenth appearance.

I was sitting with this same colleague over a beverage later that evening talking shop, aptly listening to tales of the old days. I asked him what he thought of what I did, this whole social media thing. He said he loved it and felt it was, for him, a much more direct way to reach some of the people he wanted to reach than some of the traditional practices of PR. I have to confess though that I am feeling equally jazzed about our old friend The Trade Show. It’s a lot like what I do – try to reveal my client to its customers or the influencers that affect customer decisions – only it’s done in real space instead of via an electronic conduit. As with so many things in PR it fits what I’ve always preached: social media-based PR isn’t a replacement for traditional PR, it’s a complement. I’d be guilty of gross negligence if I didn’t continue the practice of asking PR to teach me even as I’ve tried to teach it. It’s good to remain a student.

• Date: 04.27.2010
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