Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Investigating the gun industry, Muslim extremists, and high-stakes litigation, I’ve grown accustomed to deadline intimidation from corporate legal departments or an executive’s personal PR squad, but only this week am I getting a feel for what it’s like to be the target when a sovereign nation goes into crisis-communication mode.

Worried about revelations in Law of the Jungle, my soon-to-be-released book about the epic Chevron (CVX) oil pollution case, the Republic of Ecuador’s U.S. public relations advisers, New York-based Ketchum, has sent a six-page, single-spaced memo to Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Nathalie Cely. Marked “reservado y confidencial,” the memo, prepared in Spanish throughout, outlines “difficult questions” the book raises “that negatively affect Ecuador,” and includes an ad hominem swipe. “It remains unclear when and how many times Barrett visited Ecuador or if he interviewed anyone from the Government,” the memo states. “This can be converted into a point that we can raise, but only in suitable settings and among appropriate journalists.”

I obtained a copy of the memo from a helpful noncombatant who works for neither Ketchum nor the ambassador and who requested anonymity for all the obvious and usual reasons. The damage-control document is a peculiar combination of advice on how to discredit the messenger—“this can be converted into a point …”—and admissions that the book raises issues that do not reflect well on Ecuador’s government....

The capability of LinkedIn to be an effective platform for strategic communication is both constrained and advanced by its unique properties. Make no mistake, however. When operating in a B2B and/or services-oriented environment, organisations can leverage LinkedIn via a number of potent means – e.g. market research, differentiation, positioning, viral marketing – to deliver business results....

My bias towards believing LinkedIn is better for service-leaning organisations is because of LinkedIn’s proclivity for better suiting the approaches of thought leadership and inbound marketing (noted below)....

...PR News: One of your seven principles of business brilliance is "know-how is good. "know-who is better." How would that apply to the work of PR pros and marketers?

Lewis Schiff: Much of the middle-class mentality focuses on the development of technical skills in order to succeed (lawyer, doctor, etc.). However, at the higher levels of wealth, we see that all of those "trades" can be hired for. The most successful among us build strong teams while they focus their energies on creating extremely effective networks. Depending on the task, an effective network can be five strong relationships or 5,000 thin relationships. However, for the most important strategic relationships, we see that very successful people have very deep relationships with just a few people.

For communicating, a large network is desirable. But for influencing strategy and crafting smart messaging, it probably makes more sense to cultivate fewer relationships where there is greater intimacy and support, rather than a "WAN" or wide-area network....