More Best Practices and Tips for AR Professionals

Another good post which lists several good articles on Best Practices and Tips for AR professionals.
http://www.johnsimonds.com/2007/08/good-links-that-analyst-relations-professionals-should-read/

This is one of the best ones with some good tips from a former analyst. The bottom line is that, as with any other target audience, it's about building relationships.

http://armadgeddon.blogspot.com/2006/11/ar-classics-series-seven-ingredients.html

Mapping out Social Media

This is a great post on social media illustrated with maps of : the world of social media, online communities, and an internet trend map.

http://technobabble2dot0.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/social-media-maps/

The map of social networks shows the international spread of the sites including one I have never heard of: http://www.hi5.com/ which is considered the most international of all and on their home page gives you options for: english, french, spanish, dutch, german, portuguese, italian, dutch and romanian.

The Impact of Blogging on PR

I went to a seminar on Blogging yesterday by Alan Weinkrantz in Tel Aviv and came away thinking how powerful the blogsphere is becoming and how PR has to adapt to the new media ecosystem. In this new world, the bloggers get briefed sometimes before the media does and the bloggers get the news out faster sometimes than any other channel--and that's power.

Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion posted an older (yet still relevant) Presentation on PR and Emerging Communication Channels which analyses the new ecosystem and gives you 3 Steps to get started if you want to join this world (do we have a choice?). Step 1: Listen--he suggests tools to investigate what is out there; Step 2: Reach Out to other bloggers and create relationships; Step 3: Participate--become part of the conversation

Deborah Schultz also gave a lecture a few months ago in Herzilya on Blogging and she inspired me to go out and create my own blog (and here we are). She explained that Blogging is like a big party where you can invite people to join you at any time. So far the party just keeps getting bigger and more fun.

Best Practices in Analyst Relations

A good summary of different tips for Best Practices in Analyst Relations which is what I try to concentrate on in my blog.
http://analystrelations.blogspot.com/2007/06/best-practice-at-analyst-briefings-less.html#links

One of the best tips is to follow up with the analyst which is many times overlooked. Since one of the goals of a good AR person is to create good ongoing relationships with key analysts- Follow up is essential for this. A good document to use is: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/4/5/briefing_analyst.pdf

If you prefer the the sarcastically funny tips of Donald H. Taylor called Briefings and Balderdash, then check this out: http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/briefings-and-balderdash-7-top-tips-on-the-analyst-briefing/

Please send me your tips.

Advice from Gartner on Gartner

I went to the Gartner Conference this week in Tel Aviv and the last session was on "How to work better with Gartner". I would say that the best advice was:
1) To use inquiries more often and get the value of : getting the analysts attention on specific issues; establishing your point of view on individual issues; receiving specific info on your messaging, competition, product development, etc.
2) Dont send more than 20 slides in a presentation for an analyst (if they are really interested you may not get past the first two)
3) Practice the briefing in advance to a critical audience
I also made some suggestions--that they should open the communication lines more, for instance, ie. run a blog for AR issues, etc.
The most interesting session at the Conference was actually on the Media Industry which seems to be making the most dramatic changes that will affect our lives.
An example: Dove uploaded a movie on YouTube rather than pay several million dollars for a TV ad, and generated 3x more traffic to: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat4.asp?id=6909 than their Superbowl Ad. This will probably do a lot to revolutionize the advertising industry, at least in the U.S....

Bigger is not always Better

My contact at Datamonitor believes that the biggest benefit will be that now they will be one of the "big boys".
However, bigger is not always better.
The article in Bloomberg also talks about whether Datamonitor is worth the price paid but the real test will be if Informa can rebrand the group to bring more value to their customers. If they want to compete with Gartner, the value is not just about better or more information but whether they can influence the buy side as Gartner does which is still Gartner's biggest differentiator and it isn't about size, it is about brand.

A New Entity in the Analyst World

Comments on the move by Informa to buy Datamonitor/Ovum/Butler.
I will check my sources at Datamonitor and get back to you on this.
What do you think?