I was inspired to jot down my thoughts after reading Matt Churchill’s recent post ‘ Hiding Content Behind A Like’. As usual, it was a thought provoking post from my Edelman Digital colleague and he discussed how the New Yorker is forcing people to Like its Facebook page in order to gain full access to an article by Jonathan Franzen. Matt went on to argue this is not a ‘deeper level’ of engagement as claimed by the magazine, rather it is an endorsement.

I’ve thought about this and would say that it’s neither; how can you endorse or Like something before you have read it fully? Just because you read an article does it mean you like the publication? Instead it’s an attempt to game Facebook’s search algorithm; something I expect we’ll see increasingly as search engines begin to rank more highly content and pages that are shared and recommended through social networks.

Forcing people to Like a page in exchange for content is not quite the link farms, keyword stuffing or other black hat techniques we saw in the nineties and noughties, but it does raise some interesting ethical questions for the SEO and social media communities. I recognise that gaming search is as old as search itself, but for me this does not sit comfortably.

People may argue that hiding content behind a Like is the trade-off consumers make in order to consume content. For instance, email capture has long been exchanged for useful content, such as research reports and whitepapers, whilst ‘pay with a Tweet’ services’ have grown rapidly – so paying with a Like could appear as the natural extension of this.

The issue I have is that the New Yorker is clearly trying to generate an artificially high number of recommendations to improve visibility on Facebook and subsequently, Google et al. With search engines ranked as the first place people look for information, this is a dubious practice at best and bears more than a passing resemblance to astroturfing.

I fully appreciate magazines and newspapers are looking for ways to increase advertising revenues via web traffic from search, but this seems a short-sighted tactic. To increase web traffic, news sites should be creating content that people want to Like, not have to Like. It can be done. The Huffington Post for example, excels at producing excellent news coverage and content people are searching for. It’s a great stratgey that has increased both readership and revenues.

We’ve also seen the Daily Mail masterfully strike the balance between news, trending content and celebrity gossip to create a one of the worlds most popular news sites with over 3 million unique visitors per day.

Whilst I see hiding content behind a Like as a slightly unethical attempt to game Social Search before it’s properly begun, more generally I’m excited to see how recommendations from my social networks impacts upon my search results.

For those who want to find out more about search and how social is going to play a bigger role on results, check out this deck entitled ‘SEO is broken – giving way to social search’ and post by Speed Communication’s Stephen Waddington. Similarly, Steve Rubel and David Armano have written great posts on related topics.

This week I have adopted a slightly different approach to the blog and carried out a guest post Q&A with Matt Churchill, Senior Account Executive at Edelman. For those looking to get into the PR industry, Matt offers a valuable insight, as well as some great tips and words of advice.

After the success of the 2010 PR Grad Schemes post which has had over 1,000 views so far, I hope this will prove just as useful for graduates and people looking to get into the industry. I will also be having a Q&A with someone working in PR HR in the not too distant future…so watch this space.

A bit of background: whilst I have known Matt for several months via Twitter, email and blog posts – I have never actually met him…until this week. You can find out  more about Matt from his blog, Tweets or Linked In profile.

Right then, Matt in his own words…
I graduated from Westminster Uni with 2:1 (BA Hons) in Journalism in 2007 and alongside my part-time job in a music shop I started writing for several music blogs until I did an Internship with Zest PR from October-December 2007.

In January of 2008 I started working with Chocolate Communications, a consumer and lifestyle agency, across a range of tech, gaming and corporate clients. I then started at Edelman Digital in February 2009 working within the social media team.

I’m a purist in my approach to working digitally. As a blogger, and generally subversive type, being honest, transparent and holistic in what I do both personally and professionally, is very important to me which is what attracted me to social media.

I’m fascinated by the media and the different ways we spread messages and interact with each other, be that through PR, advertising, marketing, word of mouth and new social networking platforms, and I happened to stumble into PR!

1. What did you have to do to get the job at Spook?
I saw a tweet from the team which said that Edelman Digital and Spook were looking for an Account Exec, so I messaged them and went for a chat. I then got invited back for a second more formal interview and got offered the role shortly after a third final Interview with all of the team.

Spook were an independent web design/build agency and were bought by Edelman in 2008, at which point the Edelman Digital team and Spook were thrown into together, and the start of a loving relationship was born. There’s a very definitive culture at Spook which is unlike any I’ve experienced anywhere and that was one of the major factors in moving. I can wear my hat and bright yellow shoes in client meetings, that’s all I needed!

2. Do you have a portfolio?
I don’t have a portfolio, I’ve never been to an Interview with one so I can’t really offer an opinion other than to say that it’s never been required that I bring one. I also think it depends on the culture of the company you’re speaking with – the more formal and corporate, the more likely they are to want to see something, it’s always worth asking if they would like you to bring something.

I think sending an e-portfolio in advance is a good idea – it gives them something to read and allows them a better perspective of you as a person and how you go about your work.

3. Do you feel your degree helped you to get the job?
I’m not so sure – my degree is in journalism which I hope allows me to approach PR & social media from a different perspective. I know that having a degree didn’t affect me getting an Internship which then led to my first job.

I think to be able to demonstrate a certain level of education is useful, but I’m more of the opinion that if you can get your hands dirty and get some actual experience with an internship before applying for a permanent role, it’s more valuable.

4. What does your role involve on a daily basis?
Working in social media means that I do a lot of different non-traditional PR work than someone in a different PR discipline, say B2B or Tech.

I work across a range of different clients and my role varies on each account. In the mornings I tend to do the initial rounds of monitoring, going through RSS feeds, looking at activity on Twitter, and sharing relevant news and blog posts with other members of the team.

We do a lot of monitoring and listening for clients, it’s arguably the most important aspect of the job, so I might then spend some time working on developing various taxonomies for these programmes. The use of language is an ever evolving space so we need to be on the ball when it comes to the way people are referring to things online.

There are also elements of outreach, doing the communications bit of the job, speaking with bloggers on a daily basis – this is my favourite bit of the job

Then, there’s usually a brainstorm or meeting thrown in for good measure where I’ll provide feedback on progress that’s being made.

5. How much responsibility do you have in your current role?
I’m very lucky at Edelman and Spook where I’m given a lot of responsibility. I think to try and grow in your role you need to be prepared to take on more responsibility than you might expect – the more proactive and enthusiastic you can be, the better.

I’m responsible for the day to day execution of tasks, reporting and researching. But what’s great is that the culture at Spook and Edelman is that you’re encouraged to have time to think and try and work out new ways of doing these things, and to be encouraged to share this and then develop an idea you’ve had is extremely rewarding.

6. What is it like to work within Edelman?
It’s actually pretty cool! The philosophy is great, we take a very holistic approach to communications which I think is very forward thinking. There are many agencies who seem to shy away from organically developing their business model and taking whiter than white approach to the work they do, and it’s really refreshing to work for a company who are very tightly managed, but also give you the freedom to express your opinion.

7. What made you accept the job at Spook?
The job with Edelman and Spook was the only role I’d even thought about. I was happy in my previous job, but the digital space is where I felt I could be able to contribute more effectively and provide a greater value to a team. I accepted the job because I wanted to move into digital, and despite having very little experience in that area, I was delighted that they were willing to take a risk!

8. What gave you the competitive edge to get the role at Spook?
I would like to say it’s about attitude – I went to the interviews and was totally honest about what I knew and didn’t and I think that I just happened to be the right fit for the team at that time. I was, and still am, enthusiastic about the way digital comms is developing and there’s a real opportunity for the work we’re doing to be the catalyst for institutional change within huge multinational companies.

It also helps if you’re intimately acquainted with Lolcats

9. What are the 3 most important skills that graduates need to be successful in PR?
I think that there are three behaviours, rather than skills that are important:

Proactivity – You’ve got to be willing to take the initiative without being prompted, and want to develop in your role as an individual and as a team member

Enthusiasm – A want to learn and become ensconced in the space is always useful. As is the willingness to speak to people you’ve never met before about something they may never have heard of.

Organisation – You’ve got to be organised in agency work, keeping track of lots of different clients can be tricky. I’m not the most organised person in Edelman Digital and Spook, so I write everything down in a big list. It helps keep track of everything!

10. What advice would give to graduates looking to get into PR?
I think there’s three things to focus on:

Do your research, and work out where the best grad schemes or Internships are, and try working in different places if you can to get a sense of how different agencies work – remember you might find after three months that you’re not enjoying it, so it’s worth experimenting with different sectors. I thought I’d be a great music PR, but I found it very formulaic so moved into consumer PR.

Don’t be afraid of asking difficult, or seemingly easy to answer questions to people who you perceive to be unaccessible. Most of the time they’ll get back to you with an answer that will be really enlightening. There’s no harm in contacting a PR over Twitter or e-mail. If they get back to you, that’s the start of a relationship right there!

A knowledge of PR isn’t essential, but an understanding of communications overall is pretty useful, and most courses teach this. Taking the seemingly traditional route into PR means that you’re going to be up against many other grads so if you can demonstrate a good level of detailed knowledge about the media in your chosen sector (knowing all the IT trade mags for example) is just as important as knowing how to draw a process diagram and analyse how effective it is.

As well as thanking Matt for taking the time to answer this Q&A, I’d also like to thank the students from all over the UK who sent me some excellent questions to put to Matt. I hope you will find this a useful post.

There has been a lot of talk lately about buying off bloggers. This murky practice involves individuals being paid by PR agencies and SEO specialists to basically write nice stuff about a client. This in turn creates the illusion of independent third party endorsements, as well as scoring highly on search engines.

For some more background you can read two good posts on this topic by Laurence Borel who spoke out after being offered £70 in exchange for some kind words in her blog, whilst Matt Churchill offers some in-depth analysis on the ethical and sustainability issues surrounding this practice.

Whilst, I too  had a recent approach from a SEO agency that put its motivation more crudely, a lot more crudely, it read ‘the reason that these blog postings are valuable is that, when they are linked to websites, those websites will achieve higher rankings in the search engines. Then those websites will sell more of their service or product. Those websites are willing to pay for your assistance’.

To me this is a black hat, underhand tactic if ever I saw one. Not only is it unethical, but could damage the trust, openness, the raison d’etre of blogging. I can see no difference between this practice and the infamous Edelman/Wal-mart fake blog. Whilst ‘paid for bloggers’  may involve ‘real’ people, I’m under no illusion that this tactic is just as bad as the Edelman/Wal-mart blog fiasco. In both instances there is no disclosure, audiences are being lied to and the blogger is guided on what to say – it is classic astroturfing.

Blogs are SEO friendly so it is not surprising that unscrupulous agencies are trying this tactic. However, I cannot help but feel that companies would be better off either investing in a product or service that people really want to blog about or carrying out some in depth analysis to target bloggers who would be genuinely interested.

This practice has made me question my own motivation to blog…I write SWT as I like to state my views and hopefully stimulate conversation. When someone offers me a story, I think about it, evaluate if it is relevant to the blog and if I can get any mileage out of it. I don’t do it for financial gain.

Whilst, I don’t mind people suggesting a topic, being paid to do so would call my impartiality into question.