Inside PR and PRSA present: Silver Anvil Awards Finalists – Part 1

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week, Inside PR and PRSA present a special show where Martin interviews two Silver Anvil Awards finalists.

Scott Brooks is vice president, marketing and communications for IBM Research. He talks to us about Watson, the computer-contestant on Jeopardy that defeated two of the show’s best players. Watson’s technology is based on the concept of  ‘automatic question answering’.  A team of 25 people worked for years to improve the ability of computers to answer questions.  When the communications folks saw the initial results, they realized the PR potential to build awareness and contacted Jeopardy to see if they might be interested in a man-machine competition.

Getting an early start and narrowly targeting their prelaunch outreach was one of the strategies the communications group used  to tell the complex story in long form. About 18 months before the matches, they approached three media influencers, New York Times magazine to write a feature, PBS TV’s Nova to produce a documentary, and author Stephen Baker to write a book.  The three had open access to Watson throughout its development.

The biggest communications risk IBM faced was presenting Watson live on television and not knowing what the outcome would be. Brooks said they made big decisions early on that were game changers including what to name the computer, what kind of voice it would have and what it would look like on stage.  Watson was actually named for for first president of IBM.

Their strategy paid off and Watson garnered prelaunch awareness and much traditional and social media coverage during the matches and after the win.

Kari Mather works as a senior communications consultant in corporate communications at Allstate Insurance Company. (Disclosure Allstate Canada is a Thornley Fallis client though we don’t work with Allstate U.S.)

The company created the Allstate Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, to fund cause-related programs in support of safe and vital communities, safe driving and ending domestic violence.

In this case, they helped the community of Tuscon Arizona build a playground in honor of Christina-Taylor Green, the young girl born on 9/11, who, along with 10 others sadly lost their lives during the shooting that injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Not long after the tragedy, the Allstate Foundation learned the community wanted to commemorate Christina’s short life, stepped forward and granted funding to build a playground at Christina’s elementary school and ensuring her classmates were involved throughout the project.

In addition to the funds, Allstate Foundation was active throughout the design and build, brought in more than 100 volunteers and stood side by side with the community to help bring the Christina-Taylor Green Little Hands playground to life.

What could have been a local story was picked up by local and national media and it became an important milestone in the company’s history as they were able to involve the community, agencies and employees in a cause they really believed in.

This year’s Silver Anvil awards will be presented in New York City on June 7, 2012. Inside PR will be there.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.97: Jazzing it up with Counselors Academy

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week, Gini, Joe and I are all together at PRSA Counselors Academy’s annual conference for agency owners/leaders in New Orleans (and we all had our parts to play…). The theme is ‘Jazz Up Your Agency: Stylings from the Best in the Biz’ and we thought we’d recap our first day and a half.

Joe talks about the opening keynote – a one-two punch featuring Gini and Jay Baer. They interviewed each other and offered a primer in content marketing and how agency owners can build trust and their businesses by integrating certain aspects of their personal and professional lives. We may think otherwise, but we get clients based on people and not the company name.

In addition to an engaging talk, the attendees all received a copy of Gini and Geoff Livingston’s new book, Marketing in the Round.

We continued our focus on content marketing with our second keynote, Marcus Sheridan, a hilarious, in your face presenter, who transformed his pool business into a content marketing powerhouse that used the long tail of search to generate sales results. His takeaway is to think about all the questions your customers are asking and write content that offers helpful answers.

As an event geared to business owners,  Counselors’ other focus is to provide practical sessions that improve the way you run your agency. These range from profitability and processes to understanding and managing people and creating a culture. Joe did a roundtable on how to get your staff thinking about the business of the business and turning them into an army of entrepreneurs, based on Jen Prozek’s book and her 2011 keynote.

Next year, the conference will be in June 2013 in Austin Texas and Dana Hughens is the chair.  If you’re an agency owner or leader, we think you’ll find a lot of value and encourage you to check it out.  In the meantime, you can get a flavor of Counselors Academy from the Sharypic photowall.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.96: Lee Odden’s Optimize

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

At the recent Digital Impact Conference in New York, roving reporter, Martin Waxman, caught up with Lee Odden. Lee, as most of you know, is the CEO of TopRank and the author of new book, Optimize.

Lee has been talking to PR professionals for a long time about how to diversify not only their thinking, but also their skill sets.

As a side note: I (Gini) met Lee for the first time in Orlando at the PRSA conference last year. And he described to me how, many years ago, he was talking about search engine optimization at PR conferences and everyone looked at him with blank stares. He said this past year was the first time many were jumping out of their seats to ask questions about how to incorporate SEO into their content and storytelling.

During his interview with Martin, he discusses how he’s now pushing our industry to think about the why instead of the how.

He begins by discussing his content marketing trilogy, which is: Where do your audiences look for things, how is it that they consume content, and what are their preferences for sharing.

He goes on to say, of course, sales is part of every objective, but when it’s a content program, your goals should also include gaining a social share or a referral, which leads to new audiences who buy.

Optimize is about how to approach reaching particular audiences by thinking about what they care about, their pain points, and their goals. This forms an editorial approach that ties together marketing and public relations.

Listen to Lee talk more about this…and his soothing voice that will make you a fan for life.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.95: Richard Binhammer on social business

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley speak with Richard Binhammer at Dell about social business, moving forward and the roll of PR firms. We want to thank all those who send in their comments. Last week, Petra Opelova commented on last week’s episode. She agrees with Gini that webpages are still very significant. She also liked Matthias Lufkens’ approach of treating our customers as your friends. Adapting this approach not only humanizes your customers but also humanizes your company in the eyes of your customer.

As an early pioneer of social media, Richard was at Dell six years ago when Dell first came alive to social media. Today he is a director of Dell social media campaigns. Richard Binhammer was the second keynote at the PRSA’s Digital Conference. Joe caught up with Richard just before he went on stage to discuss social business and the role of PR firms in corporate social media accounts.

After the interview, Joe mentions that the relationship between business and PR firm is more than just tactical, the businesses are smarter and know how to use social media. As PR firms we need to support businesses from a strategy perspective.

Gini mentions that PR firms are being hired for different reasons today compared to five years ago. PR firms used to own relationships, especially with reporters. Today, we no longer own that relationship and we now have to redefine ourselves. With the social web, crisis is an emerging threat to businesses. PR agencies should be able to help on strategic crisis management.

Martin thinks that PR professionals need to acquire new skills. For example: amature video production, audio production for podcasting, and more. This will help us create, tell and distribute stories.

If you are out and about travelling, don’t forget to check out the Inside PR team in a couple weeks at PRSA’s Counsellors Academy in New Orleans.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.94: Matthias Lufkens on Davos and social media

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week we feature an interview with Matthias Lufkens, former social media director for the World Economic Forum in Davos, who tells us about the organization’s use of social media.  We caught up with him at PRSA’s Digital Impact, where he was one of the keynote presenters.  Over the next few week’s we’ll be sharing more interviews from the conference.

Matthias has several takeaways from his presentation:

1. The number of visitors to your own website is less and less important; organizations now have to be everywhere, on all the social sites.

2. Start by sharing riveting content.

3. Being active in social media means ceding control and letting people comment and share your content.

4. Create communities and then engage and lead them.

He has an additional piece of advice for communicators: look at online communities as your friends and that will change the way you build relationships with them.

Joe cites a KPMG study on how much social engagement activity emanated from Davos this year and how social media really opened the gathering to the world.

Gini calls out Matthias’ comment about having a small team and says with social media, a few people who know what they’re doing can accomplish a lot.  She doesn’t agree with his point about traffic your site being less relevant and believes social channels should drive people back to your site.

Martin mentions Matthias’ point about thinking of customers as friends and having that inform the way we communicate with them by avoiding the hard sell.

Want to meet us in person? Gini, Joe and I are going to be attending the PRSA Counselors Academy conference in New Orleans – Gini’s a keynote presenter, Joe’s doing a roundtable and I’m conference chair. We’re recording a show at the conference and doing more interviews with some of the smartest entrepreneurs in PR.  And everyone who attends gets a copy of Gini’s new book, Marketing in the Round.  Hope to see you there.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.93: PRSA Digital Impact Conference Recap

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

Martin Waxman and Joe Thornley join Inside PR from the PRSA Digital Impact Conference in New York City and pull Gini Dietrich in via Skype because she was back from Norway just the day before and couldn’t make the trip to the Big Apple.

Based on the interviews Martin and Joe were able to secure, we have a lot of great content coming up for you!

Some things to look forward to include interviews with:

  • * Mattias Lufkens who, for many years, served as the social media director for the World Economic Forum at Davos. He gave a keynote at the conference that showed a case study on building an online presence. He talks about how he built the social media efforts for Davos and how he eventually grew a team focused only on video, blogging, social media, and web efforts surrounding the annual event.
  • * Katrina Klier who is the worldwide marketing director for Microsoft. She catches up with Joe to talk about how Microsoft is moving past community and building kinship.
  • * Gina Hernandez who is the executive director at the Society for New Communication Research, where she is responsible for sponsoring original research and advanced thinking on social media.
  • * Lee Odden, who talks about his new book, Optimize.

And much more!

During the next few weeks, we’ll air these interviews so you benefit from the conference presentations, even if you weren’t able to attend.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Special edition of Inside PR: talking Digital Impact with Eric Schwartzman

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

PRSA’s Digital impact conference is happening in New York April 2 and 3 and we’re pleased to announce Inside PR is the official podcaster.
Martin talked with Eric Schwartzman, digital marketing consultant, entrepreneur, author, podcaster and founder/co-chair of Digital Impact about this year’s program. Now in its fourth year, the sold-out event is designed for PR professionals, marketing communicators, speechwriters and even entrepreneurs who are trying to integrate social into their strategy.  Its focus is earned media through social communications and it’s tailored to the PR community.

This year’s keynote lineup features:

Other sessions include a panel on PR and Wikipedia and whether or not PR people should be allowed to make changes on pages they manage; a communications professor talking about copyright, trademark and what you are and aren’t allowed to share; and several sessions on understanding influence, which tie directly into this year’s theme, ‘Influence and Persuasion’.

You can follow the hashtag #PRSADIconf Twitter.

We’ll be recording interviews with some of the presenters and keynotes.  And if you’re in New York, please drop by to say hi.

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.92: Is it social media or social business?

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

We start with some exciting news about Inside PR’s new partnership with PRSA.  We’re heading to New York in early April to join them as the official podcaster of the PRSA Digital Impact conference.  They’ve got a great line-up of speakers and we’re planning to record a number of interviews with social media influencers that we’ll use on future shows.  Stay tuned for more details…

This week, we feature an interview with Giovanni Rodriguez that roving reporter Martin conducted at SXSW.  Giovanni is the person who introduced both Joe and Martin to social media at Counselors Academy in 2005. He’s been the managing partner at his own agency and is currently a consultant at Deloitte. And he’ll be presenting at the Digital Impact conference.

Giovanni talks about social business and what differentiates it from social media.  He believes social media as a term was always limiting because it forced the discipline into a marketing corner.

He goes on to say that social business is more inclusive in that it asks the question, how can people use these technologies and best practices to engage and empower their constituencies? These could include anyone in your network, your customers, employees, partners in your ecosystem.

He’s seeing new type of professional emerging; one that will offer offers a suite of services similar in scope to management consulting: strategy, discovery, benchmarks and road-mapping.

And Giovanni wonders whether or not intermediaries – that is, the role played by agents – will be eclipsed by trusted counselors and advisors.

Gini agrees the role of PR agencies is changing and that we need to move beyond impressions, understand an organization’s goals and develop programs that drive business results.

Joe thinks PR people are well positioned for the change Giovanni describes as we’ve been involved in monitoring and measurement, analysis, insight and strategy for quite some time and have a good understanding of the landscape and how to navigate in it.

What do you think?

********************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.91: We talk of many things

• • News, PR, social media

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

This week, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about new social management tool Jugnoo, tablet computers, Facebook timelines for pages and a new feature in social media measurement tool Sysomos.

Last week we reported that Jugnoo, a new social media management console service had launched in open beta. We received a comment from Danny Brown telling us we pronounced it wrong. Oops. And Gini and I talk about when a service like Jugnoo should ask potential users to install a plug in or open access to a user’s Website data.

We also talk about the rapid adoption of tablets in the workplace. Two years ago, we considered our notebook computers to be the go-to mobile devices. Today, we each use a tablet computer. We wonder how long it will be before we will be able to reduce the number of devices. The limiting factor on this is the evolution of tablets to include both the hardware and software to support all the content creation we want to do.

Timelines for pages is being rolled out to all users at the end of the month. Gini is keen on timelines. She’s watched as content that she had long ago posted to the Arment Dietrich page had resurfaced. Old content becomes more accessible. Joe is skeptical of the value of timelines for small businesses. Many small businesses have limited resources to devote to social media. And it seems to him that corporate page owners will have to devote considerable energy and resources to keep their content fresh. And this may not be a priority for may businesses.

Finally, we talk about the integration of Google Analytics into Sysomos’ Heartbeat social media monitoring service. A nice addition that makes a good service better.

What do you think? Are we on the right track? Missing something? Do you have a different view?

*************************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Katie Charbonneau. Inside PR producer: Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.90: We indemnify you

• • PR

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

[display_podcast]

First we mention for a new startup out of Toronto now in public beta. JugnooMe is a dashboard that helps small business owners figure out which messages to use on various platforms, how to schedule them and how to measure the results.  It also has a Social Advisor tool that acts like a virtual consultant and answers the question: what do you do next?

Jugnoo offers social search monitoring, reputation management, engagement, video creation from inside the platform, social commerce and analytics all under one roof. And there’s more to come.  Good luck to Danny Brown and Hessie Jones, who are both involved.

Martin kicks off the next segment by introducing a comment about Pinterest from listener Petra Opelova.

Gini talks about Pinterest’s copyright issues and how the company’s terms of service puts the onus on the user. As a result, people need to be careful about the items they’re pinning, because all the liability could fall on them.

Joe believes adhering to copyright is important and buys the images he uses on his blog and other sites. However, he says unless a person makes a concerted effort to ensure they own the items they’re sharing online, they’re at risk of violating copyright.  Joe compares Pinterest’s terms of service to the indemnity clause many large corporations add to their contracts, thereby shifting the risk from the company that has the resources to the small business it’s working with.

Do you adhere to copyright when you’re sharing online? What do you think about Pinterest’s terms of service and indemnity deflection? We’d love to hear from you.

*************************************************

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Katie Charbonneau. Inside PR producer: Kristine Simpson.