Budget System v2 / Transform PR

Michael,
I appreciate you joining us here at Dashtalk and your effort to help.

I would suggest you create a new thread and form a new proposal that addresses the weak points from your last campaign. I am not saying your campaign wasn't effective, but it was very difficult to prove effectiveness. I think a new proposal should specifically focus on proving the results from your campaign. This means actual clicks to dash.org, actual google analytics data, search engine traffic data, ad placement views, ad hits, actual metrics that can back up your work.

All,
This thread is about the budget system changes, I suggest we keep the discussion on topic.
 
stan.distortion said:
Welcome to the forum Michael. Something I'm curious about, have you or any of the companies you've been associated with ever slandered or otherwise attempted to discredit competing PR firms or competitors of your clients as part of a PR campaign and is that kind of thing common in the PR industry?
That's not a loaded question btw, its the last part I'm really interested in. Cheers and good luck with the next proposal.
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Hi Stan - and thank you for the welcome note.

I've never slandered a competitor (we really don't have many direct competitors in the crypto space and when asked about them I'll try to point out factual differences in terms of experience, but I would never do so proactively or in a way that would be public or in any way considered slander). First, it can be deemed illegal (although prosecution has to show intent, damage and willfulness); second, it's generally immoral; third, it's simply bad business and ineffective. The closest parallel case I can think of is where Facebook hired a large PR firm to pitch negative stories about Google - (CAN'T POST THE LINK BECAUSE OF FORUM RULES ABOUT NEW MEMBERS, BUT YOU CAN GOOGLE IT FROM 2011) - and they were humiliated when this came to light.
 
kot said:
InTheWoods - I propose to use this to clarify all the doubts you have had about this project. It would be better to ask instead of judging.
I think it is quite unique opportunity to have everything clarified.
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Thanks, kot. InTheWoods, I am also a fan of Amanda's - and we provide her with interviews for her editorial needs on a regular basis. Most publications have both editorial and advertising - the advertising pays the bills (and Amanda's rates are extremely reasonable) but most people don't read blogs or podcasts that are only advertising and no editorial. Over time, most companies/organizations/entities find the right mix of what's often referred to in buckets as "earned media" (PR is in this bucket, as is SEO and anything else where the skill of the practitioner has an effect on the result, ergo "earning" additional views that were not there beforehand), "owned media" (one's own website, blog and anything else where it's largely in your control; social media is a hybrid, since the poster controls only the initial content but can earn a good, bad or indifferent response), and "paid media" (advertising and sponsorship). It's been my experience that in the life of most companies/groups, they start with owned, then experiment with earned, then finally layer in paid. It's completely up to the community here what the mix is and who to use.
 
michaelterpin said:
Hi, I’m Michael Terpin from Transform PR. Ask Me Anything.

We also began conversations with a number of mainstream media, including an interview with Reuters.

I’m happy to answer any other questions.
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Michael, welcome!

Could I ask what ended up happening with Reuters? Is there any chance that they might publish something, or did the plug get pulled before things solidified? If so, do you think they might follow up and publish anyway, on their own initiative?
 
We set up a number of interviews with journalists attending the conference (we also do the PR for the conference, so we had the earliest access to the media and were often the ones who invited them in the first place). Two in-person interviews we set up that did not immediately lead to stories were with Reuters and with CoinDesk. Typically, those require follow-up to nurse through completion, particularly if they're more broad-ranging features and not breaking news. Evan is free to follow up with both reporters on his own, as is anyone else he appoints to handle this. If we were to return as agency of record, this is naturally something we'd hop on right away. This is the main reason multiple-month (sometimes annual) retainers are common in the agency world - it assures continuity as well as predictable budgeting.

Michael
 
Michael,
I understand that you have experience in the crypto space and that there are plenty of anecdotes you can give us. Keep in mind that the masternodes are smart group of investors with superior swarm intelligence. Many of these investors own companies and have hired PR firms that are not effective. They have also used PR firms that know internet tools like the back of their hand and give lots of useful metrics.

Again, I will suggest that you regroup and put together a better proposal. Give some real metrics of how you can prove what you are doing is effective. Post that proposal in a new thread and let us ask questions and help you get to a proposal that works.
 
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Solarminer, "superior swarm intelligence" requires more than just raw number of people - and the last time you used that phrase was to congratulate yourself on allegedly catching me in a lie because you (and your swarm, which from what I can tell does not represent the majority of this forum) confused circulation of publications with actual views on a story (which, as I've noted, is a number not shared by the publications), a discrepancy corrected by @jetzah.

It's also a logical fallacy that if some of your members have hired PR firms that were ineffective, therefore all PR firms must be ineffective. I've gotten sick a few times on Indian food; does that mean all Indian food will make everyone sick at all times? I'm afraid you're still confusing what media relations firms (including ours) do with what digital marketing/SEO firms do. Feel free to solicit a proposal from an SEO/SEM firm, but the metrics are quite simply different. If we are allowed access to the Dash Google Analytics, that will help show some cause and effect between a story placement and a spike in traffic. But as the extensive argument trail over what caused price to rise during the campaign demonstrated, there were a dozen other possible explanations and no conclusive proof for any argument. Evan already has our new three-month proposal, which I will let him post and be on the ready to answer questions. Just know that there's no PR firm in the world that can give you before-the-fact analytics of which reporter is going to run which story and what the impact will be. If you want to stay with utterly provable scenarios, you should limit your entire marketing to PPC ads - and even then, you'll not be able to tell if they led to anything beyond the click unless you have a way tracing the click all the way to the purchase of DASH on an exchange.

Michael

Solarminer said:
Michael,
I understand that you have experience in the crypto space and that there are plenty of anecdotes you can give us. Keep in mind that the masternodes are smart group of investors with superior swarm intelligence. Many of these investors own companies and have hired PR firms that are not effective. They have also used PR firms that know internet tools like the back of their hand and give lots of useful metrics.

Again, I will suggest that you regroup and put together a better proposal. Give some real metrics of how you can prove what you are doing is effective. Post that proposal in a new thread and let us ask questions and help you get to a proposal that works.
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welp considering this thread got derailed I guess I'll role with it.

Michael, I've seen the metrics you provided questioned by very trusted community members who have been here a long time and whose word I would trust over an outside PR firm's any day (no offense to you or anyone in your profession). It's best to answer straight and not beat around any bushes because we are a vigilant bunch and brushing aside our concerns with fancy words and lingo will do no good. Basically a budget that can buy us Amanda, Juan + bunch of other stuff was wasted on what exactly? bunch of zero comment articles and this one cointelegraph article that wasn't even that popular. Not even coindesk? The prime source of crypto news? Cointelegraph is 2nd best but we've been getting covered there for quite some time already?
article from 12-14-14
article from 10-6-14
article from 10-11-14
A whole list of more coin telegraph articles about darkcoin
More from coin telegraph on DASH

I mean you no disrespect kind sir. If you are planning another proposal please do your best to outline the metrics you will provide to the people voting in your proposal. Thank you.
 
Solarminer said:
Michael,
I understand that you have experience in the crypto space and that there are plenty of anecdotes you can give us. Keep in mind that the masternodes are smart group of investors with superior swarm intelligence. Many of these investors own companies and have hired PR firms that are not effective. They have also used PR firms that know internet tools like the back of their hand and give lots of useful metrics.

Again, I will suggest that you regroup and put together a better proposal. Give some real metrics of how you can prove what you are doing is effective. Post that proposal in a new thread and let us ask questions and help you get to a proposal that works.
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It's helpful to remember that the proposal was passing with 75% approval after otoh changed his votes. The only reason it wasn't funded was because Evan recognized a flaw on the budget system and asked otoh to change his votes back.

So for the record, the only reason Michael isn't working with us this minute is because of a flawed budget system, NOT because of lack of support from the community.
 
David said:
It's helpful to remember that the proposal was passing with 75% approval after otoh changed his votes. The only reason it wasn't funded was because Evan recognized a flaw on the budget system and asked otoh to change his votes back.

So for the record, the only reason Michael isn't working with us this minute is because of a flawed budget system, NOT because of lack of support from the community.
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Actually David that was before metrics about Transform PR were revealed, metrics that were poor to say the least.

I doubt the proposal will pass with sufficient amount of votes the 2nd time.

As buster mentioned before, we had Cointelegraph articles without even paying for a PR agency. The biggest hit Transform PR managed to achieve was a Cointelegraph article with 1009 views and 333 shares. The top rated comment is a negative comment which one could argue speaks negatively about the quality of the article.

JuanSGalt wrote a Dash article on Cointelegraph out of his own volition because he loves the project, an article that costed us zero, an article with 2k views (twice as many) and 545 shares.
 
InTheWoods said:
Actually David that was before metrics about Transform PR were revealed, metrics that were poor to say the least.

I doubt the proposal will pass with sufficient amount of votes the 2nd time.

As buster mentioned before, we had Cointelegraph articles without even paying for a PR agency. The biggest hit Transform PR managed to achieve was a Cointelegraph article with 1009 views and 333 shares. The top rated comment is a negative comment which one could argue speaks negatively about the quality of the article.

JuanSGalt wrote a Dash article on Cointelegraph out of his own volition because he loves the project, an article that costed us zero, an article with 2k views (twice as many) and 545 shares.
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sorry
but you can not compare that

a pro PR company brings a steady flow of published articles , waiting for single writers to do one story once in a while is a totally different concept !
the key is that steady flow we can not get on our own , that is where the Pro PR company comes in as they can deliver that steady flow of PR (500 hits or 1k does not matter , it is about press every second day and not only once a month)
 
tungfa said:
sorry
but you can not compare that

a pro PR company brings a steady flow of published articles , waiting for single writers to do one story once in a while is a totally different concept !
the key is that steady flow we can not get on our own , that is where the Pro PR company comes in as they can deliver that steady flow of PR (500 hits or 1k does not matter , it is about press every second day and not only once a month)
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Was just giving that as an example. It was the best and most viewed article Transform PR achieved in a month's time.

I won't even mention other articles that didn't get much traction. You can check the list Evan posted in the opening post. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4k24u9ezjcbzx9z/Dash Media Coverage Report - Jan 2016.xlsx?dl=1 Most of them have zero comments. Hardly popular.

Money can be better spent elsewhere. By contrast, the videos Amanda put out were much more cost effective. One of them achieved >30k views and plenty of engagement.

To give you an example of how effective she was in ultimately influencing price, just check our competition's coin price following her video. It was the reason their market cap got a significant boost. It happened right after her video came out.
 
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I think we can agree to disagree
different approaches different opinions :wink:

I doubt that 1 video sparks a buying spree , sorry but I am very careful regarding PR and Price connections (as there are many more things at play + our competitors might have a pump organised for the video launch ... this whole market is so dam sketchy that we really do not know what is sparking why these days) :rolleyes:
 
michaelterpin said:
Hi, I’m Michael Terpin from Transform PR. Ask Me Anything.

you can reach me at michael at transform dot pr
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michaelterpin I emailed you as soon as it was announced that your firm was handling PR. I introduced myself and proposed an idea that I have concerning the project. I wanted to get your opinion on timing and fit with the overall DASH adventure. I never even got a response. "Thank you, we'll look at it" or "It is a crappy idea" or "This is amazing" would all have been acceptable responses. I got nothing back.
 
michaelterpin said:
Thanks, kot. InTheWoods, I am also a fan of Amanda's - and we provide her with interviews for her editorial needs on a regular basis. Most publications have both editorial and advertising - the advertising pays the bills (and Amanda's rates are extremely reasonable) but most people don't read blogs or podcasts that are only advertising and no editorial.
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I was talking about an editorial Michael.

Please read Amanda's post on the topic and check out the video I was talking about. I see it now has 33k views.
 
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tungfa said:
I think we can agree to disagree
different approaches different opinions :wink:

I doubt that 1 video sparks a buying spree , sorry but I am very careful regarding PR and Price connections (as there are many more things at play + our competitors might have a pump organised for the video launch ... this whole market is so dam sketchy that we really do not know what is sparking why these days) :rolleyes:
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I thought we were in agreement. What happened? Had a sudden change of heart?
i just heard from somebody else (i know personal and trust) very similar stories about Terpin to what you were telling !he really seems to have a horrible reputation out there, screwing people over,.... ! you were totally right in that ! MY APOLOGY !
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https://dashtalk.org/threads/transform-pr-project-closure-report.7962/page-3#post-83497
https://dashtalk.org/threads/transform-pr-project-closure-report.7962/page-3#post-83470
 
michaelterpin said:
Solarminer, "superior swarm intelligence" requires more than just raw number of people - and the last time you used that phrase was to congratulate yourself on allegedly catching me in a lie because you (and your swarm, which from what I can tell does not represent the majority of this forum) confused circulation of publications with actual views on a story (which, as I've noted, is a number not shared by the publications), a discrepancy corrected by @jetzah.

It's also a logical fallacy that if some of your members have hired PR firms that were ineffective, therefore all PR firms must be ineffective....
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I was offering advice to you and gave you respect. The swam I am referring to is the masternode owners and they are the only votes that matter. I did not say your performance was good or bad - just saying that better metrics will help your case to get another proposal voted in.

As for your personal attack about me not knowing how to read your spreadsheet, you are correct. We should have been provided data that we understand. Your data did not immediately show how effective your campaign was. The masternode owners need some understanding of what you are doing, if you are achieving your internal goals, if not then show what you are changing to be more effective. Each of your customers should assume you are not performing until you can prove it. If you are performing, this should be simple to show.
 
Oaxaca -

What email address did you use? I don't recall ever receiving your email. Please resend to michael at transform dot pr and I'll be happy to answer you.

Michael

Michael
oaxaca said:
michaelterpin I emailed you as soon as it was announced that your firm was handling PR. I introduced myself and proposed an idea that I have concerning the project. I wanted to get your opinion on timing and fit with the overall DASH adventure. I never even got a response. "Thank you, we'll look at it" or "It is a crappy idea" or "This is amazing" would all have been acceptable responses. I got nothing back.
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