25 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a PR Firm

Before I started the Idea Grove, I was a senior corporate communications executive for billion-dollar companies. I’ve led public relations campaigns of all sizes and budgets, and I know how important it is to select the right PR firm during the agency review process.

That’s why I’ve created a simple assessment tool to help companies make the right decision — and avoid common mistakes.

From my experience, the most common mistake is to fall for a slick agency presentation without fully understanding one or more of the following: (1) the agency’s specific qualifications; (2) how the agency will prioritize the company relative to other clients; (3) how the agency will charge for its services; (4) whether the agency will be a good personality fit.

Many PR firms are downright spectacular during the agency review process, but just mediocre once they’re a few months into the engagement. This is because large firms, in particular, win new clients through the sales efforts of senior executives — but then make a junior staffer the primary contact on the account.

With that in mind, I recommend that corporate communicators conducting agency reviews ask themselves the following 25 questions –- comparing PR firms across the categories of Qualifications, Prioritization, Cost-Efficiency, and Compatibility — before making a decision:

Qualifications: Can the Agency Do the Work?

1. During our discussions, has the agency demonstrated a good general understanding of my industry?
2. During our discussions, have agency representatives listened well and done their homework to gain a grasp of my company’s specific goals and challenges?
3. Does the agency seem to have sufficient personnel and breadth of expertise to meet my needs?
4. Does the agency have case studies that demonstrate success with similar clients and/or projects of similar scope?
5. Has the agency provided enthusiastic client references?
6. Do representatives of the agency seem intelligent and creative?
7. Have representatives of the agency suggested good ideas that I had not previously considered?
8. Do representatives of the agency seem passionate about what they do?

Prioritization: Will I Be Valued as a Client?

9. During the review process, has the agency been prompt in returning my phone calls and responding specifically to my information requests?
10. Has the agency been straightforward in identifying the individual who will be my primary, day-to-day contact person?
11. Does my primary contact have a sufficient level of relevant experience?
12. Has my primary contact taken a prominent role in meetings during the review process?
13. Has my primary contact personally serviced some of the client accounts cited by the agency in case studies and client references?
14. Does my primary contact have the authority to offer advice and make decisions when I need them quickly?

Cost-Efficiency: Will I Get My Money’s Worth?

15. In creating a proposal, do agency representatives focus on meeting my needs – or do they ask, “What’s your budget?” and deliver a plan that absorbs all available dollars?
16. Is the agency straightforward in discussing how it bills for its work?
17. If the agency bills by the hour, does it openly share the specific billing rates of its individual employees?
18. Do the agency’s billing rates seem reasonable compared to other firms?
19. Do the agency’s client references vouch for the agency’s flexibility and fairness in billing?

Compatibility: Will the Agency Be a Good Partner?

20. Is the personality of my primary, day-to-day contact a good fit with mine?
21. Do agency representatives communicate freely and easily with my company’s employees in meetings?
22. When asked their opinion, do representatives of the agency say what they think – not just what I want to hear?
23. Do the agency’s recommended tactics seem honest and ethical?
24. If the firm serves other companies in my industry, are agency representatives forthcoming in discussing any possible conflicts of interest?
25. Does my gut tell me the agency is promising what it can actually deliver — and not exaggerating simply to get my business?

I’ve organized this assessment tool as a printable PDF score sheet, designed for easy comparison of competing agencies. Download it here.

Partisanship, Lies and Photoshop

“Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other.”

– Historian James Harvey Robinson

Funny thing is, that quote’s about 100 years old. So when we talk about the excessive partisanship that plays itself out across the U.S. media landscape on a daily basis, we’re not talking about a new phenomenon.

Nor is the concept of media “echo chambers” — which allow us to spend all day, every day, exposing ourselves only to viewpoints that confirm our existing beliefs — a new one. As Robinson also famously said, “Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.”

But there is something different, and more frightening, happening today when it comes to political coverage. Liberals and conservatives have reached the point where we’re not even living in the same realities anymore. And creating separate and distinct realities is now part and parcel of Photoshop-assisted “photojournalism” as well.

9/12 Protests: Mountain, Molehill — Who Knows?

Here is how Time magazine, in its just-published cover story on talk show host Glenn Beck, characterizes the demonstrations Beck inspired in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere last weekend:

If you get your information from liberal sources, the [D.C] crowd numbered about 70,000, many of them greedy racists. If you get your information from conservative sources, the crowd was hundreds of thousands strong, perhaps as many as a million, and the tenor was peaceful and patriotic. Either way, you may not be inclined to believe what we say about numbers, according to a recent poll that found record-low levels of public trust of the mainstream media.

In other words, on the basic question of how many people came to Beck’s rally, Time takes a pass — leaving it at anywhere between 70,000 and 1 million. Shouldn’t a journalistic organization be able to do better than that?

Oh that’s right — Time says you wouldn’t believe them if they told you. So the purpose of Time magazine is … what exactly? To tell us what the “liberal media” says and what the “conservative media” says — and then to let us continue believing what we did before we picked up the magazine, unhindered by irritating things like facts that might challenge our biases?

Imagine you’re a historian, 50 years from now, and you want to write something about the 9/12 rally. So you find media and blog coverage citing an ABC News estimate of 1.5 million protesters. Then you find ABC News denying that it ever issued that estimate. Then you find conservative sources stating that the estimate of 60,000 to 75,000 issued by D.C. officials was a deliberate underestimate. Or comparing the Daily Mail (U.K.) estimate to the New York Times estimate. And on and on.

Hmmm, I guess that wouldn’t help you much. But there must be pictures of the event, right? And pictures don’t lie — right?

So you find this picture of the event. Looks like a million people easily — and all holding up nice signs about liberty and freedom.

And then you find these pictures of the event. Looks like a nasty group.

And then you find this picture, allegedly of the event.

So, are you ready to write that factual history of the 9/12 rallies?

I didn’t think so. The Photoshopped, faked and selectively chosen images do little to paint an objective portrait of the event.

The pictures do tell lies — in some cases, whoppers.

The Era of Objectivity

It hasn’t always been this way. When I was growing up, for example, most families in my neighborhood either subscribed to Time or Newsweek. As I got older, I realized that Newsweek was the magazine more favored by liberals, Time by conservatives.

But the differences were relatively subtle; both publications operated from the same set of facts. (If the 9/12 rallies had been held in 1989 instead of 2009, I promise you, both publications would have had the same, objective crowd estimates.) They deemed the same topics to be worthy of coverage. I think I was in college before I had a clear understanding of the difference in tone of the publications.

Today, a first-grader could tell the difference between Fox News and MSNBC.

What does this mean for journalism — and for photojournalism?

In the late 19th century, the media was just as partisan as it is today; newspapers were either Democratic or Republican and this colored their coverage of just about everything. The downside then — as today — was a lack of public trust in the accuracy of what was published.

Early in the first decades of the 20th century, a movement emerged to professionalize newspapers to enhance their authority and credibility with the public. Part of this movement was promotion of the doctrine of objectivity, and the ideal that journalists could be depended on to be independent observers, delivering “just the facts.”

This became orthodoxy by the 1930s -– about the same time that technological innovations made possible a more candid, spontaneous brand of photojournalism. The combination of new journalistic standards and the technology necessary to achieve them visually gave birth to an era commonly known as the “golden age of photojournalism,” from the 1930s to the 1950s — spearheaded by the photojournalistic bible of Americans of all political stripes, Life magazine.

A Crisis of Confidence

As the media universe has fragmented over the past couple of decades, an increasing number of media outlets -– first in radio, then in cable news and on the Internet –- has evolved from news reporting to news interpretation.

A central element of the interpretive approach has been politically charged media criticism — commentators and analysts weighing in on the limitations, biases, and missteps of the so-called “mainstream media,” generally meaning those traditional print and television news outlets striving for objectivity. The ideal of objectivity is increasingly viewed by the public as a false standard masking a hidden agenda.

This crisis of confidence has taken its toll on news organizations — and on the photojournalists who work for them, whose work is under scrutiny as never before, as bloggers and others put their images under the magnifying glass, looking for evidence of staging, doctoring, or other forms of manipulation.

Meanwhile, blatantly partisan media and blogs (in many cases, the same ones that criticize the mainstream media for photo manipulation) increasingly seem to have no ethical qualms with posting Photoshop specials — complete fakes — as long as they advance their partisan objectives.

Which leads us to a place where Time magazine, rather than trying to separate fact from fiction, simply throws up its hands and says, “You figure it out.”

Will Twitpic Succeed Where Scoopt Failed?

As most photographers on Twitter likely know, Twitpic is a service that makes it easy to post images to Twitter, and to view and comment on photos from your Twitter account. It’s also emerged as the trendy new candidate to kill old-school spot photojournalism once and for all.

Ben LaMothe at Online Journalism Blog sounded the alarm this way:

For small and mid-size papers, getting art for a story could be as easy as doing a TwitPic search by keyword and see what pops up. If a user-taken photo of an event pops up, you could contact the author, ask for permission and post it. At worst, they’d ask for a small fee, which when paid would still be a money saver compared to sending a photojournalist to an event.

Same Song, Umpteenth Verse

We’ve heard this tune before, of course — many times. Dan Gillmor, the influential technology writer and founder of the Center for Citizen Media, was pounding nails in the coffin of the professional photojournalist in 2006, when he wrote about the power of crowdsourcing:

How can people who cover breaking news for a living begin to compete? They can’t possibly be everywhere at once. They can compete only on the stories where they are physically present — and, in the immediate future, by being relatively trusted sources … Is it so sad that the professionals will have more trouble making a living this way in coming years? To them, it must be — and I have friends in the business, which makes this painful to write in some ways … The photojournalist’s job may be history before long.

Fast on the heels of Gillmor’s photojournalism death notice came the buzz about a little Scottish startup called Scoopt, which was going to enable the “crowd” to turn its cell-phone news photos into cash. The startup got so hot so fast that Getty Images felt compelled to scoop it up early in 2007.

Scoopt’s Promise — and Its Reality

In September 2007, I had the opportunity to chat with Scoopt founder Kyle MacRae, who admitted that his startup was still in the proof-of-concept phase, despite Getty’s financial investment. The buzz about Scoopt was that it could become the chief mechanism by which camera-phone users disseminated their spot-news pics to traditional media organizations — and got paid for it. But the reality never caught up to the narrative.

For starters, only about five percent of pics submitted to Scoopt were taken by camera phones. And a good portion of those who submitted pics to Scoopt were sending in amateur red-carpet shots and other photo-op images that did not compete very well with what the pros turned in at these same events.

Where were all the breaking news photos that were going to make spot photojournalism obsolete?

Getty Images apparently wondered the same thing — and shut Scoopt down in February of this year.

The Last Straw

Daryl Lang of PDN analyzed Scoopt’s failure this way:

We need to look at how people behave when they’re lucky enough to get a hot news photo. When a random citizen snaps a photo of something amazing (like the water landing of a passenger jet in the middle of a major city, for example), some kind of storytelling instinct kicks in. They want to tell as many people as possible, as fast as possible. They may also want to make money off their work, but that can come later.

Lang tellingly pointed out that when citizen journalism made perhaps its most spectacular splash ever — when amateur pics of the U.S. Airways “Miracle on the Hudson” blanketed print and broadcast media in January — Scoopt failed to offer a single image of the event on its site. (This may have been the final straw leading to Scoopt’s shutdown.)

Instead, news outlets picked up a number of images posted on social networking sites — including, most famously, an image that Florida tourist Janis Krums posted to Twitpic from his iPhone.

Krums cut a deal giving the Associated Press rights to distribute the photo — although, of course, many blogs and media outlets ran the picture for free without seeking Krums’ permission.

The AP Should Do What?

So, that means the future isn’t Scoopt — it’s Twitpic, right?

In the wake of the U.S. Airways story, Rob Haggart of A Photo Editor recommended that the AP go out and buy Twitter. As he put it:

The AP should buy Twitter and Twit Pic because they’re proving to be the place where news breaks first.

Well, as they say, that’s an idea.

Unfortunately, the AP would have absolutely no idea what to do with Twitter and/or Twitpic if it did buy them, just as Getty Images had absolutely no idea what to do with Scoopt.

The AP, let’s remember, is the organization that is trying to deal with the issue of content theft by charging a ridiculous $2.50 per word for the use of AP content.

GLWT, AP.

If It Doesn’t Scale, It’s Going to Fail

OK, so let’s assume that nobody buys Twitter. Or Twitpic. Or PicFog, the Twitpic search engine that photo buyers could theoretically use to purchase spot news photos.

Could these companies — yes, they are currently three separate entities — come together to create a system where, say, the AP could buy the rights to use a photo like Janis Krums’ online, rather than having to track him down individually and make him an offer? In other words, could they make citizen journalism transactions like this one scalable?

Because if not, all this Twitpic talk is just more empty “social media rules the world” blather.

Kyle MacRae of Scoopt had it right when he told me in 2007 that scalability is the key to making citizen photojournalism a real business. He explained that scaling through technology was critical to building a business among local newspapers — where a publication might only be willing to pay $20 for a freelancer’s image.

It’s one thing when you’re Janis Krums and you’ve taken the citizen journalism photo of the year; the AP will make a phone call for that one.

But what about all those local-news images of housefires and car crashes and bad weather and other spot news that would form the core of any business that distributes citizen photojournalism for profit?

Would the AP or even the local gazette bother to try to track down and cut a deal with the amateur photographer in those cases? Would the photographer care enough about the 20 bucks to break away from whatever they’re doing to sign the paperwork?

A Citizen Journalist? Who, Me?

So scaling is necessary. But there’s another roadblock to scaling, beyond any technology considerations. Even if you create a site that makes it incredibly efficient for news organizations to buy spot-news photography and amateurs to sell it, would the amateur even know about this incredibly efficient site before it was too late?

In other words, the shelf life for breaking news pics is very brief — sometimes hours, or even less. Most people like Krums don’t think of themselves as photographers, and certainly don’t expect to be an eyewitness to a huge news event. Would they bother to look for and register on a citizen journalism site, where there would obviously be terms and conditions to agree upon before any money could be exchanged (even if this site were Twitpic)? Or would they simply upload their pics online as quickly as possible to share them with their friends?

Last time I checked, Flickr, for all its 3.6 billion images and Yahoo money, has still been unable to create a legitimate photo-licensing revenue stream — unless you’re counting that deal with Getty Images.

And Twitpic is going to be the place where newspapers go to buy their spot new photos?

GLWT.

Eight Ways I’ve Found Photographers for Corporate Assignment Work

I’m not a photographer (a casual look through my family albums will offer proof of that), but I’ve been hiring photographers for corporate assignments for more than 15 years now. I’ve hired photographers while leading the corporate communications function for billion-dollar companies, heading up marketing for a tech startup I co-founded, and today, as owner/president of a boutique public relations firm.

I edit a lot of posts on this site concerning the marketing of photography businesses, so I thought it might be useful — to both photographers and clients — for me to simply list the different ways I’ve come across the corporate photographers I’ve hired over the years. So I wracked my memory and here’s what I came up with:

1. I met them somewhere. It might have been at a PRSA or IABC networking event, or a local conference where I noticed them taking pictures of the speaker, or a neighborhood block party, or because they were a friend’s brother-in-law. There’s no better way to find a photographer — or almost any vendor, for that matter — than through face-to-face contact. The lesson for photographers is to not hole up in your studio or appear aloof or unapproachable when out on assignment; get out there and meet people.

2. An employee referred them. As a VP of corporate communications, I’ve had lots of direct reports over the years. Many of them have known photographers, and I’ve acted more than once on their recommendations. I felt pretty confident in doing so, because my employees knew that the photographer’s performance would reflect on them. So photographers, if you have friends in PR or marketing departments, don’t be shy about asking them to put in a good word for you.

3. Someone in another department referred them. This is one that most photographers don’t think of. I once had, for example, my corporation’s in-house attorney come to me with a photographer’s business card to offer a detailed recommendation. The attorney did this for two reasons: (1) she had worked with the photographer in her prior job at a law firm and thought he did good work, and (2) the photographer asked her to do it. To me, that spoke well of both the photographer’s abilities — and his initiative.

4. My boss referred them. As you can imagine, this one’s pretty much a slam dunk for the photographer. I’ve actually had the CEO of a billion-dollar company tell me who he wanted to use for the company’s headshots. Photographers are wise to work all their relationships — but if you can get in good with a high-level mover and shaker, he or she might be a goose that lays golden eggs for your business.

5. I let the agency decide. When in corporate executive roles, I’ve typically managed agency relationships with a design firm, a PR firm, an advertising firm, or all of the above. Most of the photography jobs I authorized were part of larger, agency-driven projects such as annual reports or corporate brochures. In these cases, I almost always deferred to the agency when they had a photographer in mind for the project.

6. My designer was also as photographer. Today, as the owner of a small PR agency working with a lot of startups with limited budgets, I like to surround myself with people who have a variety of skills. When I’ve been able to find an independent graphic designer who can do other things — such as make code modifications to a WordPress template, or take quality photographs — I’ve jumped on those opportunities. It saves me some time in QuickBooks, and saves my clients money.

7. I got a direct-mail piece or phone call at the right time. Direct mail and phone outreach can be effective, and it has worked on me when the photographer made contact at the exact time I was looking for someone. But in general, the postcards and portfolios go in the trash and the phone call Post-it notes do, too. Direct mail is a nice volume marketing tactic to complement a photographer’s personal networking efforts — but it should never be a substitute for going out and meeting people.

8. I searched online. It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve done it. For example, a client of mine recently added a new board member from out of state, and I needed a headshot for the company Web site and press release. I didn’t know any photographers in that location, so I e-mailed some folks in my professional network to see if they did. When that tactic came up empty, I simply Googled “photographer” and the name of the city where the board member lived, and checked out the first couple of pages of results. Once I found a site where the photographer had (1) a nice portfolio; (2) a studio location; (3) prices/rates listed on the site; and (4) an easy-to-find e-mail address and phone number, I booked the job.

So that’s my story. Now let me turn it over to you. If you’re a corporate assignment photography client, what other ways have you found photographers for jobs? And if you’re a photographer, what other ways have you scored corporate work?