Art imitates life, as Elasticity client Lanworth, which provides satellite-based independent crop production intelligence to the finance, consumer food product, and agri-business industries — often driving commodities markets — was recently featured on CNBC.

Whether it’s ESPN, Fox Sports, Twitter, Deadspin, Facebook, JoeSportsFan, or HallofTheVeryGood — the full spectrum of sports watchers are chronicling every moment, fans are paying attention, and reputations are often damaged by poorly calculated missteps. Indeed, that’s why many public relations agencies have burgeoning (albeit not very profitable) sports business practices.

With this in mind, today I began a new series for JoeSportsFan.com — where I’ve been a longtime contributor writing about various sports topics and other dumb stuff — to examine PR challenges in the sports world.

You can see my first post about a feud this week between the star player and manager of Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins, and suggest how the situation could have been handled more professionally so as to limit the reputation damage to those involved, as well as the team during a time when they are trying to build momentum for the opening of their new ballpark next season.

I hope you enjoy the series and appreciate your feedback — good or bad — so that it doesn’t suck so much.

Carry on.

My comment to each, in separate conversations, was that Forbes has done an enviable job of opening a hearty can of whoop-ass on many of its competitors and hanging in there with the solely online publications that have excelled, as you can see in this comparison between Forbes.com, Businessweek.com, and HuffPost.

Why do I think Forbes has done it right?

In a pill, they got over themselves, realizing that it’s not about Forbes, but the people reading Forbes — a demographic that has evolved. It’s about consumers and what they want in their daily media diet. And what we are seeing from consumers is that they want variety, they want the ugly blood and guts served with a side of fun and games.  Tax policy with a side of fart jokes.

There’s a reason why an Indiana University study found “The Daily Show” to be as substantive as network news, and a Rasmussen Report showed 32 percent of adults ages 30-39 believe that “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” are capable of replacing traditional news outlets.

There’s also a reason why instead of reading a morning newspaper when we get to work, we come in, grab a cup of coffee, and flip to our Live News Feed on Facebook and scroll through news items that our Facebook Friends have posted — ranging from genocide in a third world nation to leprechauns in Mobile, Alabama (no, really, you should click on the leprechaun link).

And as Forbes and HuffPost excel in online news, you see similarities in companies who are excelling in social media.

Zappos employees talk about anything and everything in social forums — not just shoes. Vegetarian (Communist) products brand Morningstar Farms does  a nice job with content on Facebook. And we counsel our client Charter Communications to place content in their social media channels that does not solely revolve around them.

So whether it be in traditional media circles, or in the online social realm — mediums that aggregate information should never forget that the content isn’t for you. It’s for the consumer.

Saturday Night Live has 30+ years of background in this.  They’ve poked fun at everything from presidents to popular culture and their Weekend Update has been the satirical news of record.  The Onion took a further step at creating new humorous antidotes, stories and otherwise and placing them out as a news media outlet (print, video, online, blog) like any other.

Then came the popularity of shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  The Daily Show taking what was started with Weekend Update and expanding to new audiences and The Colbert Report taking on the political blow-hard pundits who are gaining in popularity as of late.

But the traditional news media continued to stand firm.  They did not even acknowledge the other avenues existed.  The news was paramount.  And important.  Important enough that humor, parody and satire had no place.  And those that delivered the news?  Just as important.  There were no humorous angles to Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.

And thus, public relations as an industry followed suit.

But things are changing now.  I’m sure there is no one instance that was the tipping point, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was the Daily Show.  An IU study found the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to be as substantive as network news.  A Rasmussen Report showed 32% of adults ages 30-39 believe that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are capable of replacing traditional new outlets.  And nearly one-third of younger Americans see Colbert and Stewart as true alternatives to traditional news outlets.

That’s a big impact.  So how did traditional news outlets respond?  They started slowly.  They played clips on their shows (well, the cable news guys did–they have a lot of time to fill) to get a laugh, to prove a point that fit their political agenda, or attacked the satirical shows in retribution.

But then Brian Williams from ‘NBC Nightly News’ started showing up as a repeat guest on The Daily Show.  It was humorous, genuine, and a reach to cross into the audiences that watch the program.

But last night was a new milestone in my opinion.  If you haven’t seen the piece on Chatroulette, you must go now and watch it. (I’ll wait). Did you count the media personalities in that piece?  At least 5.  All 3 major new network anchorpersons (ABC,CBS, NBC) as well as some cable news for good measure– MSNBC and Fox Business.  And they weren’t just mocking the video roulette site.  They were poking fun of themselves.  They were poking fun of their industry.  And they were doing it on The Daily Show’s terms.

They showed that the news doesn’t have to always take itself so seriously.

Why?  Well, for one, to get viewers.  But it’s more than that.  It’s an attempt to show that they are human.  They are endearing themselves to their audience, or better yet, a new potential one.

And they did it through humor and self-deprecation.

So, if you made it with me this far into a long blog post, my question is this: why hasn’t the Public Relations Industry followed suit?  Why have they continued to act as if they are above the fray?  Why have they insisted that the news is more important than any humor based program you can think up.  (And by news, I mean EVERY press release ever written for any client need–big or small)  Why would they not follow the actual media they are working with?

This is not an indemnification of the industry as a whole, only to say this: lighten up, you may just actually be more effective as an agency/industry if you do.

We have found at Elasticity that humor, parody, and the lighter side of human nature have phenomenal appeal.  Stories are placed more frequently.  Programs take off and go “viral” with greater frequency, and we’re able to break through the clutter.  We’re able to endear our clients to their audiences.

Another example we talked about this week.  Ole’ Miss is replacing their beloved Col. Reb with a new mascot.  The story is that Admiral Ackbar is a leading contender.  We all heard this story and it took off like wildfire.  Do you think you would have heard about this story had they been thinking about replacing their mascot with a bear, or an eagle?  (though it may have been picked up by Colbert since he hates bears)

This is a highly controversial topic right now, and those who practice this type of communications are not taken serious.  But it is catching on.  There are more and more every day that see this.  And in time, the larger agencies may just play ball on our terms, much like the major news networks participated in Chatroulette.

Now, this is not to say that the news is all humorous, nor to say that no news is actually legitimate.  Only to say that humor often times breaks through clutter and the news media is starting to catch on.  You don’t have to be 100% serious 100% of the time.  Having a “human” face often times endears you to your audience.

And isn’t that what “public relations” is all about?  Endearing yourself to your audience?

]]> http://goelastic.com/theblog/index.php/2010/03/does-humor-belong-in-pr/feed/ 1 http://goelastic.com/theblog/index.php/2010/03/managing-a-crisis-today-i-couldnt-write-it-better/ http://goelastic.com/theblog/index.php/2010/03/managing-a-crisis-today-i-couldnt-write-it-better/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:11:11 +0000 Aaron http://www.goelastic.com/theblog/?p=724 I read a lot of blogs. Funny ones, blogs on news, sports, midgets, mustaches, the Muppets, and so on.

The ones I read on PR, social media and marketing are a mixed bag. Generally most people are trying to say something that would be perceived as being immensely smarter than the person before them by throwing out a dozen statistics and varying untested theories. Admittedly, I’m sure our blog is no exception, at times.

So yesterday my partner Dan, who is very good looking, sent me a piece from MediaPost by Catharine P. Taylor about how the present crisis at Toyota is a prism into just how radicalized the new world of public relations has become. But instead of giving you my analytical perspective on it, telling you where I agree and disagree and how much brighter I am than Taylor because I’m kind of a big deal with great hair — I’m simply going to republish it — because it’s an excellent piece.

You can either link to it here on MediaPost’s site, our read below.

You’re welcome.

Toyota’s Crisis: Prism Into How Social Media Has Radicalized Public Relations
by Catharine P. Taylor, March, 4, 2010

True-confessions time: I used to be a PR person — back when it was a very different profession than it is as I sit here in 2010, typing away on a Wi-Fied laptop, checking tweets and charging my smartphone so I can access my email when I go into the city later today.

I started out as a glorified secretary at Ogilvy & Mather back when cable was considered cutting-edge, and worked at a handful of other big New York agencies that churned out TV commercials in a steady rhythm. Later, after a decade as a reporter, I took the stock options bait, and was an employee for just under a year at Organic during the dot-com boom/bust year of 2000. Fortunately, I didn’t vest.

My PR background explains why, when it comes to marketing and social media, it’s the public relations ramifications, not the advertising ones, that interest me most. Even if there was some evolution in what a PR job was between my traditional agency jobs and my year heading communications at a digital shop, it was still basically the same: try to establish an image for the company, ferret out news and disseminate it, and build relationships with reporters, who had sole control of the PR distribution channel (though not necessarily in that order).

But then came social media. And how social media is changing public relations gets further and further from what I used to consider “doing PR.” Today’s case in point: Toyota Conversations, a site powered by Tweetmeme that aggregates tweeted news, images and video about Toyota, Toyota’s own Twitter feed, and other crucial information for Toyota owners affected by the recall. (The site was built in partnership with our friends at Federated Media.) When you put something like Toyota Conversations in the context of PR as we used to practice it, it becomes crystal-clear how much things have changed. The site is a pretty unvarnished view of the issues Toyota faces. It’s not often that you come across a corporate site with links to stories that criticize the company,  as in, “How Will GM Deal With Its Recall? Blame it On Toyota.”

But it’s not just that. When I looked at the site this morning, I was reminded that given the rise of social media, jumping into a conversation when it’s most against you is perhaps the only way that a major company can appropriately handle PR these days.

I never had to deal with a crisis the magnitude of Toyota’s — I was only in the ad biz, after all — but was certainly in the middle of situations where a bunker mentality prevailed.  Since reporters were in charge of the distribution channels, this usually meant that while the company I was working for at the time obfuscated, the reporters provided whatever transparency there was. We declined comment; they told the story, aided and abetted by off-the-record info from sources within the company. While reporters still play that role, now it’s also up to the corporation to lay it all out bare — as painful and threatening to the corporate psyche as that might be.

I do have certain quibbles with Toyota Conversation. Including tweets from Toyota owners would have been a good idea, particularly since Toyota tweets are readily available on Twitter Search and via Bing and Google. In the name of transparency, Toyota should consider it, even if there’s some risk. Still, in creating a site like Toyota Conversations, the company has made the biggest leap it needs to make: to start down the path of honesty after a period when it wasn’t honest with consumers or itself.

There’s much to learn from Toyota’s missteps. I’m anxiously awaiting the tomes from consulting firms about what went wrong. But they’d be overlooking something major if they didn’t take into account that a massive retooling of PR, because of social media, is part of the process of recovery for any company faced with a consumer-confidence crisis.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock only Harry Winston could afford or ignoring posts by one of my partners in crime, you’ve seen the statistic touting “85 percent of all brand purchases are made by women.” But did you know that 85 percent translates to something like $7 TRILLION in spending power?

Chicks rule.

Many of the advertisers wooing them, however, do NOT.

Roughly 91 percent of women think advertisers don’t really understand them. That may have something to do with only 3 percent of creative directors actually being women. Or, it could be that brand managers often use a “focus group of one” to determine their marketing strategy. Or maybe it’s just that the typical demographic stereotypes are total bunk. (I’ll say ‘D’ – All of the above.)

Think I’m kidding? See for yourself. Mom Logic posted some of the worst of the worst in an effort to shame brands into higher standards.

The demographic dichotomy is that designing marketing to make men happy may, in fact, alienate all of your female consumers.

Case in point, Burger King(R) has missed the mark by targeting their ads to the lowest common denominator, yet their CEO recently “discovered” that women were a huge segment of their consumers. (Insert sarcasm here.) Weird, huh?

I have one word to describe a recent ad aimed at kids and moms for BK’s SpongeBob meal prize… FAIL.

Conversely, successful advertising to women can actually better serve your male consumers as well.

So, how do we engage this audience of material girls wielding their wealth willfully? The conversation with them has to match the Elasticity of the demographic itself. Women have been stretching boundaries for centuries. Isn’t it time you join them?

Clearly, it doesn’t take a rocket-scientist, social media guru or both to understand that women are social beings. Yes, on average we talk more (about 3 times as much as men). We (often) ask advice and seek opinions before formulating our own. We (usually) listen to our sisters, girlfriends, daughters, friends, mothers, and female colleagues. We rant (Ask Motrin).

As the saying goes, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

But we also rave, especially to our female posse.

Kelly Skoloda, author of Too Busy To Shop, writes, “Gain the trust of one woman and you gain the trust of all who trust her.”

Social media has become a valued source of information and entertainment for many women. eMarketer published a study done by Blogher and iVillage about the growth of social media at the expense of other media.

Women use social media to gather information, express opinions, discuss topics/brands/ companies/ experiences, connect and share. Women are having conversations online everyday – women who spend $7 trillion a year, women talking about companies, women who are discussing brands.

Brands have the opportunity to engage and delight their female consumers by participating in social media. The rules are simple – just act like a veteran husband:

· Listen attentively

· Ask for input

· Invest TIME with the one(s) you love

This doesn’t just make sense intuitively; it makes cents financially… quite a lot of cents!  Reports (.pdf) show that the most socially engaged brands have grown 18% on average over last year.

Women’s friendships – on or offline – are the jewels of our lives.

If you want them married to your brand and your brand only, “put a ring on it,” socially speaking.

We do.

Do you?

No, don’t get the wrong idea. This is a family blog. What I mean is, remember my main man, the late James Brown, when he sang, “This is a man’s world?”

Sure you do. But despite the delicious, nutritious, sumptuous and scrumptious nature of that classic — let’s be honest — it’s an outdated perspective.

Certainly in today’s more progressive workforce, women in leadership have gained in stature. Right?

Not when you look at the CEO spectrum, no.  It took me to get until number 27 in the Fortune 500 to find a company — Archer Daniels Midland — that has a woman as it’s chief executive officer. Pretty pathetic.

Yes, things have changed dramatically since the 1960s – 70s. Just have a look at an episode of “Mad Men” or watch a 1970s newscast (no, seriously, watch that ’70s newscast hyperlink). But women are, in fact, leading in business, media, and elsewhere today.

Do you know where they are also leading? It’s a place where marketers need pay great heed. It’s at home. No, I’m not talking about cooking and cleaning. I’m talking about making family purchasing decisions that were once dominated by the “man of the house.”

Tech gadgets.

The technology industry has been slow to target women because the thought process had historically been that men were the ones who were focused on the burly, mustache-friendly hardware features defining many tech products. And that is no longer the case.

That’s why I found interesting this piece from Alex Johnson of MSNBC about this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) having a number of sessions dedicated to mothers and their use of technology.

As the story notes, the focus essentially “demolished the stereotypes of women as technologically illiterate.” Just consider that of the 200 million-plus online casual video gamers — more than half are women.  That’s why REO Speedwagon is trying connect with its largely female fan demographic with its “Find Your Own Way Home” video game. It’s also why when my wife and I just bought a new television for our bedroom — she drove the purchase.

One graph Johnson wrote that really grabbed my attention said, “When families with children set out to buy a new laptop computer, for example, it is Mom, not Dad, who is more likely to initiate the discussion, the study revealed. And Mom is more likely to make the final decisions on what features to look for and how much to pay for it.”

The importance of this trend cannot be overstated, especially when you think about the mentality of marketers and the considerations that go into developing a strategic campaign to reach consumers.

So I guess our centuries of bliss are over. My wife will buy the next big screen television and maybe even a chainsaw.

Having a penis is, in fact, highly overrated.

I’ll live.

Increasingly I was finding that even when pitching a quality concept, there was no appetite for it. It wasn’t that the pitch was bad (well, sometimes). It was that so many reporters were being walked out the door, and the work was being heaped on top of those who remained. Therefore, coverage was become very streamlined and limited.

Three experiences this week reminded me of my frustrations:

• An editor I know took a buyout from Fortune magazine as it continues to plummet.
• An Associated Press reporter who I pitched told me he loved the story, but due to vast layoffs at AP, they were really only looking at breaking, kick-you-in-the-face news stories as that’s all their staff could manage.
• And finally there was a question form my high school friend Marty, a graduate of THE UNIVERSITY who is an outstanding writer and editor for Politico.com.  He asked: “by 2012 will it be possible for a presidential candidate to try to do all their media work via Twitter, Facebook, direct email, other social networking, friendly sit downs (Fox, Oprah, etc) and NEVER have to sit down with NYT, WaPo, the network anchors, etc?”

My initial answer to Marty’s question was, “Right now we have ‘Old’ and ‘New’ media … we’ll get to a point again where it’s simply media. From a strategy standpoint, we never present an idea that does not have components of many forms of media — new, old, mobile, online, etc. The reality is that we live in an ADHD world where we are bombarded with media at every turn. And to truly reach everyone — you need to invest in all of it. That’s why Ashton Kutcher won his Twitter race with CNN by taking out billboards….ironically.”

Then I did something I rarely do as I lack the intellectual capacity:  I thought about his question.  What I realized is that we’ve already reached the point where a candidate can “try to do all their media work via Twitter, Facebook, direct email, other social networking….” as Marty had asked.

Now let me be clear here: I am not saying that traditional media is dead. It is clearly struggling to find its way, but it is not dead and in fact often validates trends as the New York Times did with “Rick Rolling.”

That being said, you must consider some interesting numbers. From October 2008 to October 2009, time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent year-over-year according to Nielsen. In conjunction, the number of online video streams viewed on social networking and blog sites increased 45 percent year-over-year as well.

Yahoo! News is the leading online news portal with 41 milion unique visitors monthly — up 10 percent for October.  AOL News was another winner with 24 million — up 17 percent. At the same time, the likes of CBS (-9 percent), USA Today (-15 percent), NPR (-9 percent) and the Washington Post (-28 percent) are all down.

So what’s behind this? Just talk to someone 40 or under (except for people who are lying because they are afraid to admit it in mixed company). Most of them will tell you they don’t have time for news, and when they do, it comes via links from friends.

Think about it: you open Facebook and in your news feed a friend spouts, “Great story from Popular Aikido Masters Hairstyles Monthly” with a link. You love Aikido! So you click on it. Same with Twitter, or even in e-mail — links, links, links.  That’s how more and more people are getting their news in our increasingly “I’m too busy for anything” culture.

That’s also why, despite its industry leading position, the average visitor is only going to Yahoo! News 5.76 times monthly — just 5.76 times per month. No more do we have that old-school commitment to diligently read our favorite news source as we did 20 or even 10 years ago with daily newspaper subscriptions.

So what does this all mean? Here’s what I’m interpreting, at least until I change my mind (tomorrow).

Marty, I think the time may have come, but via a slightly different path. Whether it’s a political candidate, a band trying to find new fans, The Muppets, or a company trying to influence an audience — the kings of delivering their messages, are in fact, links through these increasingly vital channels.

And as long as the content is interesting, funny, thought provoking or helpful it could be from anywhere –  a video from the New York Times on Clay Zavada’s roots, celebrity smack on GossipCandy, or the American Mustache Institute’s industry-leading opinions on why Dave Navarro is worthless.

It’s quality content delivered ultimately delivered, not by the “paper boy,” but through links.

In fact, the growth of blogs can be tied directly to 9/11 when the personal testimonies of the participants riveted those who were not in lower Manhattan that day. That was the moment when we began to see the possibilities for this very personal medium.

Today, of course, media is so very different. The news comes at us from all directions with Twitter having emerged as the means to find out what’s going on at this very moment anywhere in the world.

So, imagine if that horrible event was covered by all the media we have today. What would it look like and would the coverage have altered the event?

What would it look like?

Online media: Clearly, everyone would have turned to online media immediately for the details. I can imagine someone tweeting about a low-flying airliner and they may have even been able to catch a picture or video of it. Media would be putting out bulletins immediately and, of course, there would be a move to television coverage much quicker than the word-of-mouth movement most experienced that day. I can remember calling people to tell them to turn on TV. Others were stunned to find out out about it only when they turned it on and those amazing, sickening images replaced the kitschy morning TV shows.

Twitter: Twitter, of course, would be the star of all this and an event like this would likely move even more people to as a source of information. There’s no doubt 9/11 would have crashed Twitter; if Michael Jackson’s death did it, 9/11 might slow the entire system. The switch would then be on to other means of immediate coverage. Facebook, MySpace, texting and Twitter clones would pick up the slack. If Twitter could hold it together, it would become even more essential to the media landscape. If it failed, it might be passed as a media of information during times of extreme stress. I hope Twitter is planning for the potential that this day may happen for its future success may depend on its reliability.

Photos and video: In 2001, the ability to upload photos and videos was very limited which made the Internet less of an interactive experience. Today, these would be passed around at light speed. Media would simply link to the latest images as they came in, no matter where they were housed. YouTube would become a media channel like it has never been. TV coverage would turn to the Internet tools for the latest from those on the scene. iPhone video, Flip cameras and other cell phone video would become essential tellers of the story.

Would it have changed the event?

There’s the big question. My first thought was to find out at what point the planes would have been low enough for someone to text or tweet a message. A quick review of the mountain of information about flight paths shows that the planes dropped down to cell phone level for short periods of time. It is possible that a passenger could have tweeted a message about the hijacking. Would it have been early enough warning to head off the other planes? The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11 was low over the Hudson River for a few minutes. If a passenger had tweeted or texted what was happening, it could have spread information faster than what happened in 2001. Much has been made of the delayed NORAD response and the confuion over where the planes where.

The news media struggled to keep up with the rapid events, as well. CNN did not report a hijacking until 9:18 a.m., more than half an hour after Flight 11 crashed into the north tower. By then, United flight 175 had already hit the south tower in full view of live TV. American 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37 and United 93 crashed at 10:03. That leaves us with less than two hours total for media to get the story together. Online media could potentially have sped up the process and helped people put together the pieces of what they were seeing.

While the media toiled mightily to get the story, its hands were tied by an old system that required calls to sources for perspective and limited the access to witnesses and video. At that time, one of the hardest parts of the reporting job was finding people with pictures, video and eyewitness accounts. They were there, but it took time to find them. Today, that kind of information is everywhere. Someone could have made a connection that could have saved lives.

The advantages of traditional media in these events cannot be underestimated, however. There’s no bandwidth issue – more viewers don’t crash TV stations. But, traditional and online/social have merged into one in many ways so whatever gains the non-traditional have made have an impact on traditional.

It’s all speculation about an event that still gives me pain to remember. Maybe the media of today will help prevent this from repeating and a cloudless blue sky will return to being simply a good day to fly, not something much darker.

Let’s hope.

For her piece, Miller spoke with some of the smarter new media pros, like Brian Solis of Future Works, as well as someone I was previously unfamiliar with — Brooke Hammerling — whom Miller goes to great extent to tell us is very fond of name dropping.

While the piece focuses on the power of modern day P.R. for start-ups, Miller covers essential territory for anyone looking to succeed in the modern public relations discipline.

“Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs,” she writes. “Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.”

Permanently change the business world indeed.

As I’ve covered before, Pew data says a few months back (which means it’s far higher now) that 28 percent of Americans first get their news from Yahoo.com and 19 percent from MSN.com versus four percent and two percent from the Web sites of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal respectively.

Not to mention that in January of 2008, Facebook had 50 million users. In April it surpassed 200 million and its fastest growing demographic is women 34-55 (no, we are not just talking about 20-somethings). And don’t forget that Facebook users spend on average of three hours daily there.

When Miller is not telling us of the somewhat excruciating details of Hammerling’s self-congratulatory persona (bi-coastal birthday parties — are you kidding me?), she examines some intrinsic ground that many in the P.R. world continue to ignore, looking back at old-school P.R. when, “tools of the trade were largely limited to press releases and pitch letters, embargoes and exclusives and, of course, the legendary and often criticized parties….But the rise of blogs and social networks — and companies’ ability to post information on their own sites — transformed all this. Gradually, deadlines disappeared, as even monthly magazines offered Web sites that published stories by the minute.”

And once you get beyond Hammerling’s pomp, she clearly gets it — that relationships are king, she understands the flow of information, and recognizes how proper positioning can impact the way a story is received by the reading public.

When launching the new site Wordnik, Hammerling focused on one tech blogger, Caroline McCarthy at CNET, because, “she could have fun with it, as opposed to writing a business story.”

Amen sister.

And then, as Miller reports, Hammerling plans to “approach one journalist, Quentin Hardy at Forbes, not because she wants him to write about Wordnik in the magazine but because she hopes he’ll mention it on his personal Twitter and Facebook feeds.”

“I don’t know if this is a Forbes story at this point,” Hammerling told Miller. “I see it more of Quentin as an influencer, Quentin the person.”

And since we erroneously continue to solely gauge ourselves by impressions, lest we omit that in the end, by 6:30 p.m. on the day Wordnik went live, 1.43 million people had seen tweets (actually, just 1.43 million were “following” but didn’t necessarily see the Tweets), CNET and other blogs also wrote about the site, and none of the coverage was in print — mostly bloggers and social forums. The publicity sent 40,000 people to Wordnik’s Web site to perform 170,000 searches the following week.

Plus, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are reportedly watching it as well, which is why traditional media has now evolved into the validating source of trends after the online and social forums have already covered an issue, product, or site in detail.

In the end, Miller’s piece outlines our new reality through the anecdotal window of Hammerling’s sound strategy and impressive results — all outlining the evolution of P.R., into, as Solis coined it, P.R. 2.0.