Inside PR 3.43: Online Security for PR Pros

August 21, 2013 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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To start, Martin Waxman is gaming his Klout score by using Spin Sucks as his platform. He began with a Klout score of 68, used a guest post to encourage social shares and climbed to 70 before settling on 69.

Learn more about the experiment and what we learned in just a few days about the influence game.

But that’s not the main point of our podcast today.

The point of our discussion comes from a question from Liza Butcher.

She asks:

My Twitter account has been “compromised” three times in the last two weeks. I would love if you could do a show or part of a show on the best way to protect yourself and/or your organization from being hacked or, as Twitter calls it, “compromised.” Do you think this is something that is happening more and more?

As it relates to online privacy, I relate a story that happened with Spin Sucks where we were under attack for more than two weeks. Because we use LastPass to generate our passwords every few days, we lucked out and the worst that happened was the blog was slow. But if it had been two months ago, they would have gotten us for sure.

We discuss what online passwords mean to each of you personally, how to secure yourself, how to use good judgement, and which tools to use.

A special thanks to Liza and to David Jones for their comments.

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.42: Our take on the Publicis Omnicom merger

August 9, 2013 • thornley • PR

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In this week’s episode of the Inside PR podcast, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about the Omnicom Publicis merger. Will this yield opportunities for independent agencies? While the deal seems to have be driven by considerations of scale and efficiencies, what of the creatives who actually attract the clients? What about the clients themselves? Where was the client demand for this type of a deal? And what about the front line employees? Will they see immediate benefits from this deal or will they experience uncertainty as they wait for the other shoe to drop? Will they be distracted? Will smaller clients suffer from inattention as management focuses on securing the larger clients? And what about PR? Where does it fit in the thinking of the new mega-holding company?

Also in this episode, we discuss Hootsuite’s $165 million funding round and we receive a comment from David Jones, one of the original Inside PR podcasters.

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Inside PR 3.41: Ctrl Alt Delete

July 25, 2013 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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When Six Pixels of Separation came out, it was a book ahead of its time and it put Mitch Joel on the map. To me, he was one of those authors I was dying to meet, but also a little intimidated by because of his thinking that really made you wonder if he had a crystal ball.

I remember the first time he commented on Spin Sucks. I’m pretty sure I ran around the office screaming, “Mitch Joel just commented on the blog!”

Since then we’ve become friends. While we don’t agree on everything, I respect the heck out of his brain and look forward to the debate that ensues when a topic of disagreement arises.

Now he is back with another book, titled “Ctrl Alt Delete” and it was my pleasure to sit down for a few minutes with him to understand why business leaders need to reboot their businesses, and the rest of us need to reboot our lives.

The book is divided into two sections: The first is for business leaders and the second is for everyone else.

As I listened to his calm and reassuring voice read the book to me through my earbuds while I rode my bike, I panicked a little bit about the advice he gives to individuals in “Reboot: You.”

He’s not wrong about any of it. If anything, it should inspire you to want more from your careers, to maintain control of your destiny, and to find the perfect position for you that allows you to do what you love. But, as a business owner, you always fear you’re not running your organization in a way that is flexible enough to move with the trends, but also that your team will get fed up and leave.

We talk about that, about how to get digital into your blood – even if you’re not a digital native – and about what the future of business looks like in the next 10 years.

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Inside PR 3.40: South by Southwest V2V – a new event for startups and entrepreneurs

July 17, 2013 • Martin • PR

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This week, I’m solo and we feature an interview with Christine Auten, interactive producer of South by Southwest.

Christine has been working with SXSWi since 2008 and is currently focused on a new project: launching SXSW V2V in Las Vegas, August 11 to 14, 2013.

SXSW V2V is a re-imagining of the legendary SXSW experience with an emphasis on the creative spark that drives entrepreneurial innovation. It grew out of the success of the main Festival and focuses on two of its strongest sectors – startups and entrepreneurs. SXSW wanted to expand beyond Austin and Las Vegas seemed a natural choice given its easy access and abundance of hotel rooms and conference space.

Then there’s Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, longtime SXSW supporter and the man behind the Las Vegas Downtown Project, an ambitious multi-year plan to bring back the city’s urban core.

Hsieh, one of the three keynotes, will talk about the Las Vegas revitalization project in The City as Startup. Other keynotes include Steve Case, CEO of Revolution on The Rise of the (Entrepreneurial) Rest and what it takes for his company to invest in a startup; and Lauren Bush Lauren, CEO, FEED Projects in conversation with Inc. contributing editor Donna Fenn on doing well by doing good.

SXSW V2V is SXSW on a micro scale. Programming is structured in a similar way with traditional panels, a daily keynote, solo room, a pitch event called V2Venture and mentor sessions. But with fewer tracks, it will be a more intimate event.

After hours, you can expect to experience SXSW’s lively networking and parties and a closing night mixer in downtown Las Vegas.

Christine is most excited about the mentor sessions, an opportunity for startups to connect and gain insights from 90 experienced professionals. Note: I’m happy to be included as one of the mentors. My focus will be on how to develop a strategic approach to PR, content and news. If you’re attending the event, I hope you’ll drop by.

Like SXSW, creative takes centre stage at V2V, a place for designers, developers, thinkers, investors and tinkerers from around the world to come together, learn and exchange ideas. And as a first-time event, it’s bound to have its share of start-up energy.

“We plan and set the stage and then the community comes and does what it does and that’s exciting to see,” says Christine.

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Inside PR 3.39: A Change for Native Advertising

July 15, 2013 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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The FTC recently sent a letter to Google, Yahoo!, Bing about native advertising and how they must require their users to show what is paid and what is not, in terms of content.

This changes the stage a bit for native advertising. In what started out as a paid play that looked just like the content shared on the site, it now must be disclosed it is actually different than everything else because it was paid for or sponsored.

Not unlike adding “advertorial” or “paid advertising” across the top of content in magazines, this new rule follows the FTC disclosure guidelines they’ve been aggressively promoting for years.

As PR professionals, we lean toward the editorial side, but because native advertising wants to look and feel and sound like valuable content, it is quickly becoming our jobs to figure out how this will play out for our organizations or our client’s organizations.

But native advertising is not a trend started by the PR industry; it was started by our advertising colleagues, but it also serves the needs of media outlets who are on a one-way street. Because of that, communications professionals need to experiment to help journalists make this work. It becomes about how we create content that serves our audience, is not an intrusion, is fun, informative, and increases value of earned media.

It is, in fact, not unlike what the ad agencies are doing with longer form videos that serve as shareable commercials.

Also during this episode, learn about the mistake Martin Waxman made during last week’s podcast and what Richard Edelman shared at IABC about the future of PR.

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Inside PR 3.38: On advertising, PR and choosing an agency 2.0

July 5, 2013 • Martin • PR

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We start this week on a sad note as we remember Arthur Yann, vice president PR, PRSA, who passed away suddenly in June. Arthur was an industry leader, a man of integrity and intelligence and a good friend of Inside PR. His untimely death is a big loss for the PR industry and we want to send our deepest condolences to Arthur’s family and colleagues at PRSA.

You can read tributes to Arthur by Gini and Martin.

We also congratulate Louise Armstrong on becoming the new president of IABC Toronto, the organization’s largest chapter.

This week we talk about two things – some of the innovations advertising has been making in recent months and whether or not PR is in danger of being commoditized – again.

Martin recaps a blog post he wrote on recent changes to the ad landscape including the launch of Instagram video, hashtags on Facebook and Google/YouTube training advertisers how to make their videos more viral.

Gini wonders if PR is just not creative enough as an industry and perhaps that starts with the way we name our agencies, like lawyers and accountants. Joe suggests that it’s not an industry that innovates, it’s the people in it.

Martin mentions an observation by Dave Jones, one of IPR’s founders, who made the leap from PR to the ad and now digital worlds. Dave suggests PR people default to one of three strategies when they develop campaigns: celebrity spokesperson, charitable component or survey. And if you can work in all three, that’s the holy grail. He says the industry needs to liberate itself from that mindset.

And speaking of a new mindset, Joe talks about AirPR, an online platform, just out of beta, that claims it can match clients to PR agencies more effectively than RfPs. Joe and Gini think it may be worth trying, while Martin feels it’s a step in the wrong direction because it places no value on relationships.

And finally we want to thank podcaster and video producer Steve Lubetkin for leaving a comment on Inside PR 3.36. We appreciate your thoughts on the subject of visual storytelling. You can read more of Steve’s insights here.

That’s a wrap for this week. We’d love to hear what you think.

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Inside PR 3.37: You can’t judge a presentation by its cover

July 2, 2013 • thornley • Inside PR, PR

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June was a month of wall to wall conferences. And those conferences brought Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and me together in two cities – Austin and Ottawa – and pulled us to opposite ends of the continent.

So, you spend all that money and time to attend a conference. And now you’re sitting in a presentation and you’re deciding whether you made the right decision. What makes it worthwhile?

Gini applies the Chile Con Queso Test. She loves chile con quesos. And she judges a restaurant by their quality. If they’re great, she’ll keep going back for more. Gini’s Chile Con Queso Test for conference presentations? Does the presenter provide her with at least one idea for a blog post? “If I can go into your session and come away with a blog post idea, I’m going to think you’re the best speaker on earth,” says Gini. On the other hand, “If I can’t get at least one idea to create content around, I’m not going to think you’re a great speaker.”

If you’re a speaker, how can you deliver the goods for your audience? I saw Lee LeFever talk about this at the recent Fireworks Factory organized by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo. Lee, who is best known for the explainer videos he has produced through his company, Common Craft, says that you must start from a position of empathy for the audience. Focus on what we care about, not what you want to present. Frame your topic in terms to which we relate. Suggest a commonly experienced problem to which we all relate. You’ll know you’ve done this is you see our heads nodding. Once you’ve established the shared space, focus on “why.” Why does this matter? Why will you approach it in this way. And then, and only then, move on to the “how.” How do I do this. Think about the presentations you’ve seen recently. How many of them failed because the presenter plunged directly into the “how” section, providing minute detail of what they did, while you were still stuck at, “Why do I care about this?”

Martin calls this the importance of appealing to the audience’s emotional senses. He points out that this often can be achieved through story telling, in which a motive is established and listeners are drawn into identifying with the subjects and storyline. Gini agrees with the power of this approach, pointing to a 52N (five minutes to engage, a variant on Ignite) presentation delivered by Abbie Fink at the recent PRSA Counselors Academy Conference in Austin. Abbie’s presentation consisted of reading a letter to her recently deceased family dog. At the end, she left many in the room in tears and everyone considering the nature of relationships. A story that appealed to our emotions. That appealed to the pet lover in all of us. That didn’t explain the why, but relied throughout on it. (Pity the poor presenter who followed Abbie – Martin Waxman!)

I attended a presentation recently by a speaker who gave me not just one good takeaway, but nine. Nine takeaways in an hour long presentation. And that speaker was … Gini Dietrich! Perhaps because Gini listened for takeaways in other speakers, she deliberately packages takeaways in her presentations. “When I write presentations, I write them long form. But as I do it, I write sound bites that I know people can tweet. You have to think about the key takeaways. Is someone going to get enough to pass the Chile Con Queso Test? And are they going to be able to tweet about it?” If you achieve these three objectives, people will come away with something to think about over the long term as well as content that will prompt immediate tweets and conversation.

Finally, there’s one huge no-no for conference presenters. What makes the audience groan and flee the room in droves? Martin calls it the “You can’t judge a presentation by its cover” problem.” You decide to attend a presentation on the basis of the description in the program only to hear the speaker lead off with the statement, “I’m going to talk about something different from the advertised topic…” Sadly, that’s not uncommon at conferences. Not just the small regional conferences, but even larger conferences. The kindest interpretation I can put on this it that because of the long lead time between the time that the conference topics were set and the actual presentation, the speaker decided that the topic was outdated and decided to offer more up to date thinking. The unkind interpretation is that the speaker just said yes to the organizers’ invitation and then realized that he didn’t really have anything worthwhile to say about the topic. Either way, it can be a real let down if you showed up keen to learn and discuss the advertised topic.

Gini sums it up: “We’re all busy. We all want to find value in the things that we are attending. We’re spending money to attend these things. And if we can’t get something out of it to bring back to our careers or organizations, then it’s not worth the time.”

So, after a month of conferences, these are our takeaways for presentations that are worthwhile. What are your thoughts? What makes a presentation worthwhile for you?

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Inside PR 3.36: Inside SXSWi – an interview with Hugh Forrest

June 19, 2013 • Martin • PR

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This is the second of the two shows, Gini, Joe and I recorded at PRSA Counselors Academy Conference in Austin – our annual must-attend agency leader event.

We’ve just watched Hugh Forrest, director of South by Southwest Interactive Festival – or as he likes to call himself, the community manager – present a keynote on SXSWi and how it’s grown to become a major social media and tech event.

Hugh was there from the start as the first employee of SXSW. He was hired by the organizers in the mid-90s when they heard you could migrate a database to a computer and asked him if that was possible. When he said yes, they asked if it could be housed on his computer – he had an early Mac – and a career was born.

The lesson? You need to have the right technology at the right time.

In an interview after his talk, Hugh tells us about how the acronym P.E.A.C.E. describes their approach to the growth of SXSWi:

Patience over profits. It took SXSWi five to 10 years to incubate and grow to where it is today.

Early buzz is good buzz. SXSWi is involved in a 10 or 11 month planning process that starts in July and they try to get people talking about the next year’s festival not long after the current one is done.

Acknowledge your mistakes. If there are issues (and there usually are), be honest and explain to the community that you understand there were problems and you’ll do what you can to do a better job next time. Whenever you’re innovating, he says, expect to make mistakes.

Customer service leads to customer advocates. WOM endorsement and publicity has always been important to SXSWi. They try to create customer ambassadors by communicating often, listening to criticism and establishing a two-way conversation with the goal of turning ‘haters’ or people who’ve had a bad experience into advocates. And that’s what they’ve done.

Encourage massive creativity. SXSWi is not a technology event, it’s all about creativity.

He mentions they’re starting a festival offshoot called SXSW V2V, August 11 to 14, in Las Vegas focused on startups and entrepreneurs. It’s going to be a smaller and more intimate event than Austin and they’re excited about the possibilities of extending the brand.

Gini, Joe and I discuss Hugh’s points and our take on community building, something Gini spoke about in her Social Capital keynote. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Have you ever been to SXSW? What do you think about the event? Are you planning to attend in 2014? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Inside PR 3.35: Take Original Photos for Your Owned Content

June 12, 2013 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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We are all together for the second week in a row, this time for Counselors Academy in Austin.

There were bats, the weather was hot and humid, and Mark Wahlberg was staying in our hotel. Despite every effort to stalk him, I didn’t see him, but there was a sighting the last night of the conference, after I’d left. Clearly he was avoiding me.

As it turns out, we were there to actually learn. Because of that, I attended the pre-conference session about creating photos for your content.

As Joe points out during the podcast, most communicators use stock photos to clear a copyright, but it’s shocking how many use the same images as everyone else. When you create your own photos, the copyright belongs to you and they complement the beautiful content you’ve created.

The instructor, Paul M. Bowers, made a great analogy. He said you can write beautiful copy to describe a meal or a dish, but until you see it on a plate, you don’t fully understand how good it might be.

Photos appeal to all of our senses and, in his example, makes you want to eat what you’re seeing. The goal is to elicit feeling from your readers when a beautiful photo is attached to it.

He provided five tips:

The six inch rule
The rule of thirds
Negative space
Lighting
Foreground and background

During the foreground and background assignment, Martin served as my creative consultant. You can see the results (and other photos) on Spin Sucks.

As Joe says, “The world is full of interesting things. Why use an image everyone else is using from Creative Commons? Go out there and shoot something for yourself.”

Now armed with these tips, you can!

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Inside PR 3.34: All together at Social Capital Conference

June 7, 2013 • Martin • PR

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We’re at the Social Capital Conference in Ottawa…face to face for the first time a while. Gini has just finished delivering a stellar keynote and we figured that’s a great topic for the show.

But before we get into that, Joe asks Martin, who’s just back from vacation, if he felt out of synch from a social network perspective when he was in Japan. Martin says he noticed the different news/communications cycle, though he didn’t pay as much attention as he normally would (and actually went on a bit of a Twitter vacation, too).

Martin also mentions that being in such a different culture means your eyes are wide open all the time as you experience the world from a fresh POV.

Building an engaged community
Gini’s keynote was all about how to approach blogging in a strategic way, develop a lively and engaged community and drive results for your business.

She says assembling an active community may look easy, but it’s not. It takes a lot of work and time. She talks about how some people look at her success and tell her she’s come from nowhere, but she and her team have been blogging since 2006. She says they made a lot of mistakes along the way because there wasn’t any formal instruction. You had to learn as you went along.

Her secret sauce or success formula comes down to this: participating in conversations, sharing content, visiting other people’s blogs and taking part in conversations there and making people feel welcome. She does her best to get to know people online and understand why they’re visiting the blog in order to make the Spin Sucks content relevant for them.

Joe talks about how important it is to acknowledge and celebrate people and suggests Inside PR should take a page from Gini’s strategy and rededicate ourselves to putting listeners back into the podcast.

So we’d like to encourage all of you to join (or rejoin) the conversation and share your questions, insights, and any suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover. We can talk about them on the show and continue the discussion on our Google+ and Facebook pages. We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Next week, we’ll be face to face again keeping it W.E.I.R.D. in Austin at PRSA Counselors Academy Conference. Till then, thanks for listening!

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