Inside PR 2.89: We Love Pinterest!

March 1, 2012 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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This week on Inside PR, we discuss Tony Clement’s visit during Third Tuesday. We also chat about the pros and cons of Pinterest and begin to touch on the copyright issues (which we’ll focus on in a subsequent episode).

Open Government and Social Media

If you know Joe Thornley, even peripherally, you know his life’s work has been dedicated to open government and Canadian politics. Because of that passion, he was able to secure Tony Clement for Third Tuesday last month (which I discovered rarely happens on the third Tuesday of each month).

Tony, for those of you non-Canadians, is a federal politician, president of the Treasury Board, Minister for the Federal Economic Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor), and Member of Parliament of the Conservative Party.

He discussed open government, social media, and transparency for politicians.

Joe, who doesn’t agree with Clement’s policies, found himself really respecting the conservative politician, whose methods he admires.

And Martin Waxman added how Clement talked about how he’s using social media to be human, authentic…and himself. He has a plea for all citizens as other politicians get on the social bandwagon.

Pinterest

I LOVE PINTEREST!

A tool with endless possibilities, it reminds Joe of the early days of Twitter, when the platform left it to us to make it what we wanted it to be instead of trying to cram us into something they wanted it to be (cough, Google+, cough).

We discuss how to use it both personally and professionally, as well as a couple of case studies that show sales conversions early on.

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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 Gini Dietrich, with extremely detailed notes from Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.88: Email. The Bane of our Workday.

February 22, 2012 • thornley • PR

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Are you struggling to keep up with all the email you receive? Is email totally broken as a productivity tool?

Two recent posts by Fred Wilson and MG Siegler about their frustration with email glut serve as a jumping off point for Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley to discuss the challenge of making email serve our needs.

Also noted this week: Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, has a new book, Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Giving Great Talks, published via Amazon’s publishing program. It’s a useful book with lots of practical tips for anyone who has to pitch a business or convey a new idea to an audience.

And this was also the podcast we recorded on Gini Dietrich’s birthday. If you want to join in her birthday greetings, check out this happy birthday post from Jack Bauer, Gini’s dog. Happy birthday Gini!

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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 2.87: We won’t delete your comments

February 9, 2012 • admin • PR

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It’s been an interesting week around the web with lessons about good and not-so-good communications. Gini mentions the blog post she wrote about the Susan G. Komen Foundation and how its decision to unplug their funding from Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screenings created a huge outpouring of support for Planned Parenthood and a reputation issue for Komen.

She talks about how poorly Komen handled communications around the issue including deleting comments from its Facebook page. She and a few people tried a test where they posted comments – from benign to negative – and took screen captures of their posts. The organization removed them all. She wonders why Komen didn’t consult with its communications advisors in advance to develop scenarios, messages and a crisis plan.

By now most of us have heard that based on the outcry, Komen reversed its decision.

We all agree deleting comments after the fact is one of the worst things organizations can do and they should decide at the outset whether or not they’ll accept comments and build trust via an open conversation.

Joe talks about Radio Royal York’s public video welcome to Blissdom organizers who were visiting Toronto. He hasn’t decided if it’s a mistake or a good way to engage with a customer and asks if anyone else had seen something similar. However, the situation is somewhat moot. At the time of writing, the video has been removed.

In case you missed it, our last topic is the upcoming Facebook IPO and the company’s disclosure that the majority of its revenue comes from ad dollars.

In fact, the big three social media players – Facebook, Twitter and Google+ – are all media companies of sorts and have finally figured out now they monetize their innovations – by selling us (and our data). There’s no doubt they’re great networks that extend the scope of our relationships, but we are still the product.

Martin wonders how they’ll deal with large policy issues like freedom of speech and feels governments should monitor the situation to ensure we keep the Internet open. Joe isn’t happy with that type of intervention – he’d rather see governments focus on education and standards.

Next week is Social Media Week in various cities around the world. Here’s where to get a full list of events. And if you’re in Toronto on February 17, Third Tuesday Toronto is hosting a breakfast event on open government featuring Tony Clement, M.P., President of the Treasury Board of Canada. It should be a lively discussion.

And that’s a wrap! We’ll talk to you next week.

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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 2.86: Politics and Social Media

February 2, 2012 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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Right now the United States are in the middle of GOP Presidential race and it’s an interesting time, to be sure.

That’s why our interview with Mary Barber is so timely.

Mary, if you don’t know, is the founder of The Barber Group, which is headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. As a side note: Alaska is having its coldest and most snowy winter on record. While it’s scary for the residents, some of us (who love snow) are living vicariously through Mary’s Facebook updates.

Last year, Mary worked with a team of communication professionals to mobilize around a candidate.

But not just any candidate…a write-in candidate who won.

It was the first time a write-in candidate has won anywhere since 1954.

We won’t ruin the interview for you, but you’ll want to listen to see how they mobilized many people to get out the message, had a message of the day, and how they were each responsible for one platform and one audience.

She also discusses how they integrated online conversations with tried and true offline tactics, such as walking a district.

Don’t miss the announcement of Jay Baer and me keynoting Counselor’s Academy this year. We discuss the topic during the podcast. What we didn’t discuss is Jay will provide the expertise and I’ll provide the color commentary. And you’ll receive a copy of Marketing in the Round!

If you run a PR firm, get to New Orleans in May!

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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 2.85: The Pluses of Google

January 25, 2012 • admin • PR

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Search is changing.

This week was a big week for social media, especially Google. Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman start the episode with talking about Google’s new search algorithm. Google has changed in search algorithm to make it personalized to the person logged on. Twitter and Facebook are not too happy about this change and believe that Google is not giving an accurate search result. The gang talks about how consumers are being affect and how we are stuck in the middle of a feud between two big corporations.

The pull between personalization and standardization increases with this new search algorithm, pushing standardization further and further outside of the picture. We will no longer all get the same search results. The team talks about what this means for consumers and communicators.

This issue also invokes change for communicators and marketers and how we promote our company’s online, the key words we use and how we publish content.

What do you think? Will Google continue to be the number one choice for search?

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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 2.84: Are your measurement goals quantifiable and time-bound?

January 13, 2012 • admin • PR

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This week, we feature another interview from the PRSA International Conference. We talk to our good friend Shonali Burke, communications strategist and author of the Waxing Unlyrical blog, about PR and social media measurement, a subject all PR people should pay attention to because it demonstrates the value of our work and whether or not we’ve achieved our goals.

Shonali calls out three problems in the way we approach measurement:

The concept of measurable objectives has been lost – our objectives must be quantifiable and time-bound.
Buzz is not a goal – because people don’t know what they’re trying to achieve, they’re not approaching communications strategically.
People overcomplicate. Don’t focus on the tools but on what you’re trying to track and how.

Shonali mentions the Blue Key campaign, which asks Americans to donate $5 to raise awareness and support for refugee issues and how they track the program using custom URLs, Google Analytics and other tools to identify emerging trends.

She’s tired of PR professionals saying they’re not good at numbers and advises us to, ‘stop getting freaked out by math!’

Gini mentions that it’s not impressions or ad equivalencies that are important, but how we deliver the kinds of results that mean something to a client’s business. Joe adds that being in PR, we’re dealing with digital data all the time and need to get good at that. Martin suggests that as professional communicators we are all in business and, as such, should learn and understand the fundamentals of business.

Are you measuring your programs effectively and in a way that demonstrates real value to your clients or organizations? Do you have any thoughts or cases to add? We’d love to hear from you.

And thanks Shonali.

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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 2.81: On Google, Twitter and Marketing in the Round

December 15, 2011 • admin • PR

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First:
Listener comments responding to our discussion on ‘mean girls in PR’… Thanks to Jessica Suter from The Change PR, Lizanor Barrera and our own producer, Kristine Simpson, who submitted an audio comment (and graciously edited it in). The consensus from everyone is there are a lot of good, honest and ethical women and men working in the profession (and yes, there are a few stinkers, too…).

Next:
We officially announce Gini’s new book, Marketing in the Round, co-authored with Geoff Livingston. The publication date is May 2012, but it’s available to pre-order on Amazon and other sites (just in time for the holidays). It will be launched in Canada at Third Tuesday (Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver). Congratulations, Gini!

Then:
We move on to talk about some recent changes to Twitter and Google.

Joe sees the new features/updates as an example of how innovation is still occurring rapidly in social media; Twitter is looking more and more like a user friendly service. Martin admits he still likes the Twitter.com platform because he feels at home there.

Joe is disappointed by the changes to Tweetdeck, because it has fewer features and will now carry only Twitter and none of his other social feeds. He’s going to revisit Hootsuite.

Gini mentions Market Me Suite as another alternative.

Martin says he’s been a Hootsuite user for a while and likes the functionality. He wishes they would let users customize column width in order to see more streams at a glance.

Google introduced Currents, a magazine reader (not yet available in Canada) and is integrating Gmail with the Google+ platform.

Joe likes the quality of the interaction on Google+. He says you can describe Google+ as a place you go for ideas, Facebook, as a place to interact with friends and Twitter where you find out what’s going on. Within that model there’s lots of room for each platform to survive and thrive.

But what about LinkedIn? Martin believes many LinkedIn features could be integrated into Google+ to make it a good business networking and information resource.

Joe feels too many people on LinkedIn are promoting themselves as they look for jobs; what’s missing is the culture of generosity.

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We’d love to hear from you.

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 2.80: Relevance Drives Influence

December 7, 2011 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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We had so much fun at the PRSA International Conference in Orlando because we got to talk to so many smart people.

This week we have another smart person to share with you: Pierre-Loic Assayag, the founder and CEO of Traackr.

Martin Waxman had a chance to chat with him in the Traackr booth about what they’re doing, how relevance drives influence, and what types of analytics are now offered through the tool.

During the conversation, Martin asked Pierre-Loic what three pieces of advice he had to offer to PR professionals.

He said:

1. Be open-minded. The new media list looks a little like the old media list, but it’s not. Be open to the new influencers you aren’t used to seeing and welcome surprises.
2. Nothing replaces hard work. This is one we really like because he talks about how what they do makes the repetitive process easier, but they’re not replacing good PR.
3. There is no silver bullet. As easy as it is to want to rely on some of these tools to automate our jobs, there is no silver bullet to online influence. In order to engage people in a meaningful way, you have to rely on good old relationship-building skills.

He also talks for a few minutes about the alpha list they just launched, which is a way to give control to influencers so they can define their own lists.

At the end of the episode, Martin, Joe Thornley, and I discuss a blog post that is making the rounds right now, “Are Women In PR Just Grown-Up Mean Girls?”

I thought it would be interesting to get the opinion from my male counterparts, but Joe was too chicken to say anything beyond, “No! That’s not true!”

The point we all agreed on, though, is our industry is so focused on media relations, which is just a tool and not everything that we do, that it’s hard to escape that notion.

Enjoy the show!

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We’d love to hear from you.

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

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.