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Real-Time PR For the Web 2.0 Era
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Who's Blogging  |
There are three arms to NMS: entertainment, corporate and the fast-growing public affairs division.
Example: NMS workers troll blogs that are talking about its clients -- and sometimes knocking them. When Burger King recalled 25 million Pokemon toys because they were dangerous, NMS employees (who identify themselves as working for their clients) dug into chat rooms and blogs to tell Burger King's side of the story.
Example: When the SciFi Channel desperately wanted to energize the hard-core audience base for its "Battlestar Galactica," NMS found the blogs the audience inhabited and started dishing. Influential bloggers were invited to attend backstage visits, where they were able to meet actors and writers.
Example: When former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson (remember him?) was gearing up to run for the Republican nomination for president, NMS laid the groundwork online.
"We have bloggers who specialize in the enlistment of online intelligence," Snyder said, sitting in his 14th-floor office overlooking the Potomac.
Snyder started the company in his Capitol Hill apartment in 1999 and thought big from the beginning. He envisioned a company with $20 million in revenue, so he incorporated in Delaware, which has favorable corporate laws. Revenue grew fast. NMS charged annual retainers of $250,000 to $1 million. The growing popularity of blogging and the blogosphere around 2002 "put NMS on steroids," Snyder said.
By 2006, the company was grossing $10 million and had 55 employees, according to published reports. Big clients rolled in: ABC, Merck, SciFi Channel, Paramount Pictures and Pepsi. Snyder had a line of bank credit and no debt, so the company didn't get dragged down by interest payments.
"The hard part was managing growth," Snyder said. "We spend a lot of time hiring and training. You can get college graduates now who understand the power of social media because they have been using Facebook for years. It wasn't true five years ago."
Employees earn from $40,000 to more than $200,000. The biggest rewards go to people who bring in new business. "I want to hire people with an entrepreneurial feel. And the only way you can do that is by giving them a piece of the action," Snyder said.
Payroll is his biggest cost, followed by rent and equipment/technology.
After the deal with Meredith, Snyder paid off his mother's mortgage and bought his Nantucket home. He hired a top financial adviser. Although he gets a small salary, his real reward is a windfall of about $30 million if he can dramatically increase revenue. He sees the online political world as his ticket.
"This town is just beginning to grasp Web 2.0," he said.
