Inside PR 2.49: Die AVE, Die!

• • PR

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Last week, PR Daily ran an OpEd about the difference between advertising and PR. The article begins with the differences: one is paid, one is earned. Yep. Totally agree. But then the article takes a time machine back 20 years.

PR takes the value of advertising and builds upon it based on enhanced impact. Editorial is third-party opinion, so the impact is considered three times that of a paid advertisement. For instance, if a half-page ad in the local newspaper costs $500, then a half-page worth of editorial in the same newspaper would be valued at $1,500.

This isn’t 1990. Publicity is not PR. Advertising equivalencies, or AVEs, were thought to be dead.

Thankfully, Ragan had the foresight to invite a seasoned veteran, Shonali Burke, to write a rebuttal, which was done with class and grace, but made a strong point. Even if clients (or your internal clients) are asking you to track AVEs, it’s your job to educate them they’re asking for the wrong “results”.

Joe Thornley also recommends familiarizing yourself with Katie Paine’s blog, where she provides all sorts of real ways to measure your PR and publicity efforts.

Die AVE, die!

In other news:

  • The PRSA section for agency leaders, Counselors Academy, has its annual conference in Lake Las Vegas next month. If you’re an agency leader or owner and aren’t already planning to be there, rethink your conference schedule and get there! And Inside PR will do a live recording among the slot machine sounds…or maybe Martin Waxman will bring his sound machine.
  • Joe attended Social 2011, the Radian6 user conference, where they announced a new analytics platform that will allow you to track data from other services, such as Klout. Read more about it on his blog.
  • Also struck by the composition of the group at the conference, Joe discusses his thoughts on the disappearance of personalities behind brands.
  • Martin is catching up on Mad Men and is watching the fourth season now. He has three things he learned from the 1960s ad agency: It takes guts, time is of the essence, and we are and always will be a service industry.

Do you have comments? 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 2.48 – A big week for Salesforce and Radian6, Google +1 and April Fools!

• • measurement, PR, Shownotes

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Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I are back for another episode of Inside PR.

This week, we talk about the implications of the Radian6 acquisition by Salesforce.com and the launch of Google +1.

Oh. And April Fools didn’t pass us by either. Gini gives a big shoutout to HootSuite ‘s  Angry Owls prank and Martin is looking forward to connecting with Ernest Hemingway on LinkedIn. And along the way, Joe gets reorganized into a spare office – if one is available.

The big news this week was the announcement that Salesforce.com would pay $323 million to acquire social media analytics company Radian6. This is an interesting acquisition for the valuation, of course. But even more-so for what it may signal about the evolution of social media monitoring and analysis services. We take a close look at the implications of the Salesforce-Radian6 deal.

Finally, Gini kicks off our discussion of Google +1 with the question, “What does it feel like to be a me-too product when you used to be ruler of the world?” Fighting words?

Do you have comments? 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.

And a BIG WELCOME to the new producer of Inside PR: Kristine Simpson. You’re a brave person Kristine. 🙂

UPDATE: I’ve written a longer post on ProPR.ca about the implications of the Radian6-Salesforce, Finally, a means of measuring the ROI of social media?

Inside PR 2.47 – We ask Facebook a question…

• • Inside PR, PR

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This week, we record on Monday rather than Friday which gives us an extra two days to make the podcast even more timely…

Gini starts off by noting Twitter is planning to cut down on spam, and that includes those #FollowFriday or #FF tweets with long lists of @names and nothing else.  She says people will have to look at new ways to approach #FF. She chooses to write a weekly blog post featuring reasons to follow someone, like this one for Shel Holtz.

She goes on to mention Facebook’s new questions app, which apparently everyone has but Martin. Joe asks a question on FB and within four minutes gets 11 responses. (Note: by responding to Joe’s FB Q, Martin’s feature is enabled).  The way it works is you can pose a question, add answers folks can select, or let people provide their own answer. Gini feels it could be a good tool for market research and points out one change similar to a Quora feature: no one should be able to edit your question or answer. Currently, Facebook questions allows other users to edit the question and answers, this can result in your question longer representing your original point. Joe says he likes the social element of Quora and isn’t sure about the value of the FB experiment.

Martin recaps a recent post about what to look for – and what to avoid – when you’re choosing an agency. Joe mentions he feels the post points out that social media is in the broader context of overall effective communications, which is where it should be.

Joe announces that (sadly), our talented producer Yasmine Kashefi is leaving Thornley Fallis to go client-side. Yasmine has done a superb job on the show and we all want to thank her and wish her all the best!  We’ll miss you and hope you’ll send us some comments and thoughts.

Do you have comments? 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 2.45 – On the Internet, Sharing is Forever

• • Inside PR, PR

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Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley are all here for this week’s Inside PR. We talk about a couple things this week – community-driven events and online sharing.

Are unconferences and community-driven events dying out?

We look back one more time at our great experience at this year’s highly successful Podcamp Toronto. It takes a huge amount of effort to organize this type of event. And as professionally organized events have moved into the social media space, have they lessened our appetite and the pool of volunteers willing to organize unconferences? Do the professionally organized conferences cause us to have expectations of a conference that a community-based, volunteer driven conference can’t meet?

What’s happening in your community. Are there still vibrant unconferences or other community-driven events where you live? Are they becoming more frequent and more successful? Or rarer? Less well attended? We’d love to hear from you about this.

Sharing is Forever

We also talk about online sharing – or over-sharing. Martin starts the conversation by pointing to two sites that let you share your clickstream. Wow!

Would you want to share with others all the sites that you visit? Do you use the Web for work-related research? Is this an idea for a business that simply won’t work – at least if people appreciate the value of making conscious decisions about what we share.

Often, a choice to share is forgotten or poorly understood. We’ve already seen how Facebook’s frequent changes of their terms of service leads to people sharing information they hadn’t consciously realized they were sharing. Or think of Tumblr. How many people shared information on Tumblr, became bored with the platform and forgot that it is still spewing information about them. As Gini says, The Web doesn’t have a “Forget” button. Sharing is forever.

Do you have comments? 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 Yasmine Kashefi.

Inside PR 2.44: PodCamp Toronto reunion show part 2

• • PR

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It’s time for part two of our PodCamp Toronto ‘reunited’ shows featuring IPR creators Terry Fallis and Dave Jones joining Gini, Joe and me.

Terry continues as host and looks back to April 2006 when IPR began and how he and Dave felt the need to act quickly in order to establish themselves among the many, many burgeoning Canadian PR podcasts.   He observes that five years later the big PR podcasting wave has yet to hit.

Eden Spodek mentions recent CRTC research saying hobbyist podcasting is growing.

Martin contends MSM has done a great job podcasting their shows and wonders if that hasn’t had an effect on the number of people tuning into hobbyist podcasts.

Joe feels podcasts are fulfilling the expectations of people who are looking for niche content.

Gini believes we learn visually or by reading and not by listening and thinks that’s one of the reasons podcasting hasn’t exploded.

Joe talks about how businesses that experimented with audio podcasting quickly realized the power of putting that together with video.

Terry takes a straw poll of the crowd and asks how many people prefer audio or video podcasts. The audience is split 50/50. Terry talks about how much he likes audio and launches into a quasi-romantic story about the time he met Mitch Joel IRL… Enough said.

Martin asks Gini if she notices any difference between Canada and the US in social media?

Gini remarks that she’s impressed by PCTO’s ability to attract so many people and how well organized the free event is. She says she doesn’t think that there would be this many people attending in Chicago.

Martin wonders how you engage people in social media if you’re not a creator?

Joe thinks we’re all creators and need to have the passion to stick with it. The challenge is putting up with the work required to be creative.

Dave believes it’s about expectations and what keeps you motivated. He said that when he and Terry started IPR, they committed to do the show every week, aimed for consistency and quality and built an audience from there. It’s important to respect what your community wants and to do what’s right for you in your space.

Gini talks about community and uses an example of how her community came to her defense when another group criticized her en masse for her position in a blog post.

And that brings the second PodCamp Toronto show to a close…

Do you have comments? 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 me on Twitter.

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.

Inside PR 2.43: Then meets now at PodCamp Toronto – the reunion show part 1

• • PR

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Get ready for some familiar voices as Terry Fallis and Dave Jones join Joe, Gini and me for Inside PR, recorded before a ‘live studio audience’ at PodCamp Toronto.  #PCTO is Canada’s largest social media event, an unconference now in its fifth year.  Terry, Dave and I recorded episodes there in 2009 and 2010 and thought we’d get the (almost) whole crew together again. It’s a fun way to connect and reconnect with our listeners IRL.  And it’s always great to see and thank our talented and hard-working producer, Yasmine Kashefi!

This week, Terry plays ‘host’ after nearly a year’s hiatus and reminisces about our five-minute-before-the-show-planning.  He mentions PodCamp Toronto’s 5th anniversary and Joe notes PCTO has 1400 people registered.  Eden Spodek, one of the event organizers talks about how in 2007, its first year, there were 300 early adopters and people thought it was about podcasting, but it’s always been focused on social media.

Joe believes the quality of speakers and discussion further demonstrates that Toronto is not only a Canadian business centre, but also a digital centre second to none with many great events and a smart and engaged community.

Martin comments that attendance at PCTO mirrors the adoption of social media and asks Dave about ROI and potato chips.

Dave observes SM should be realistic about what you can accomplish: in year one it’s very much about recruitment and engagement followed by entertainment, activation and reward; building community over time.

Joe talks about Kobo and wonders if clients are developing a longer-term sense of value for social media or if the pressure is on immediate sales.

Jodi Echakowitz makes a comment about about integration and uses an example of how her client, Sympatico, helped increase Kid’s Help Phone’s database by supporting a community.

Martin asks Gini how she transformed her firm from pure PR into a social media agency.  Gini says she’s more of an integrated agency and talks about the need to educate clients on the fact that social media programs are a marathon. You have to built trust, credibility and relationships and that doesn’t happen overnight.

And that brings us to the end of part one of our #PCTO shows. We’d love to hear what you think and hope you tune in next week for part two.

Do you have comments? 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 me on Twitter.

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.

Inside PR 2.42: The Ten Commandments of Positivity

• • Inside PR, PR

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David Jones (and so will you) will be very happy that Gini Dietrich got a new recorder. Now MUCH better sound for you!

A few newsworthy things we discuss: The ban on UberTwitter (which has now been lifted) and this image of the social media Bermuda Triangle that Petya Georgieva sent to us.

This week, Martin Waxman talks about his 10 commandments for public relations, which Joe Thornley notes we tend to forget. These are eternal truths and include:

  1. Don’t lie
  2. Don’t spam
  3. Don’t overpromise
  4. Don’t pretend something is what it isn’t
  5. Be creative
  6. Remember yours isn’t the only story out there
  7. Know where you stand in the grand scheme of things
  8. Do what you say
  9. Smile
  10. Say thank you

These commandments are ethical-based and are a great reminder that spin sucks and bad PR is bad PR. Smiling goes a long way, which Gini discovered when a University of Michigan study was released showing bad moods are as contagious as the common cold.

It’s so easy to spread your bad mood around through email and the social web and we talk about how, as leaders, we need to be very cognizant of how we behave not only affects the people in front of us, but also morale and culture that can have a last effect. When is online conversation appropriate and when is it better to get out of your office and actually talk to people?

Don’t forget we’re recording live at PodCamp in Toronto THIS Saturday! We hope to see you there.

Do you have comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, or message us @inside_pr on Twitter. Or connect with Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and me on Twitter.

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.

Inside PR 2.41 – Congratulations to Terry Fallis and a few ‘true’ confessions

• • PR

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Skype issues meant we broke from our usual Friday recording time and instead talked on Monday – which meant Gini and I could extend our birthday celebrations a few more days…

We start with listener comments, first from Megan Getter, a student in Barbara Nixon’s PR class, who contends Kenneth Cole’s mis-tweet is similar to the poor judgment in the Groupon ad on the Superbowl.  Gini mentions Dino Dogan who wrote a blog post about how some brands seem to be setting out to create controversy when promoting their products.  Another listener, Liz, responds to our discussion on the Internet shutdown in Egypt and likens open online access to the right of free speech.  Finally, Victoria Procunier asks about LinkedIn product recommendations. Gini believes we should filter through what’s real in the same way we filter reviews on other sites.

Joe congratulates Terry Fallis, Inside PR and Thornley Fallis co-founder, on his first novel’s selection as the essential Canadian novel of the decade in the Canada Reads competition. It’s a literary and social media success story and a great case study or publishers. It’s also a terrific read!

Today’s main topic is a site called Americans Against Food Taxes, which bills itself as a “coalition of concerned citizens, responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country – opposed to the government tax hikes on food and beverages, including soda, juice drinks, and flavoured milks”.  Joe points out the site is sponsored by organizations that sell or manufacture sweetened drinks and wonders if this isn’t an example of astroturfing. We discuss the implications and ethics around these types of sites and their impact on PR. If any of you have further insight on the group, we’d love to hear from you.

This is the first week for a new feature where we talk about a recent post on our blogs.  Gini discusses her take on the Groupon Superbowl ad and I mention being SAD – that is, having split-attention disorder.

A quick reminder that we’re doing a live recording of Inside PR at PodCamp Toronto, with special guests Terry Fallis and Dave Jones!  It’s an interactive session, so please bring your questions and comments. Hope to see you there.

Let us know what you think!

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

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.

(posted by MW.)

Inside PR 2.40 – Taking it to the people

• • PR

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It’s the week after the snowstorm – and Inside PR is digging out from under the snowbanks – or at least Gini Dietrich is.

Lots to talk about this week

Joe observed a pair of extraordinary presentations by Linda Williamson and Elena Yunusov from the Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario and Scott Mills from Toronto Police Services that dealt with the demonstrations and conduct of the police during last summer’s G20 Summit in Toronto. Both the Ombudsman and Toronto Police Services use social media – and both were remarkably candid about their experience and the lessons they learned.

Gini takes us through the Kenneth Cole #Cairo fiasco on Twitter. Gini reminds us that companies trying to raise their profile through stunts should remember that all PR is not good PR. Martin draws on his background in comedy to point out that gallows humour is a tough thing to pull off. I suggest that hashtag for Kenneth Cole’s tweeting should have been #Crass.

And to close out the show, Martin talks about Twitter’s appearance in a recent episode of Gray’s Anatomy. Martin, is Gray’s Anatomy still on the air?

Join us at Podcamp Toronto

We’ve scheduled a live Inside PR recording on February 26 at Podcamp Toronto. If you’re planning to attend Podcamp, please join us to take part in the live recording.

Let us know what you think

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

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.

Inside PR 2.39 – LinkedIn Recommendations and Social Networks In Egypt

• • News, PR, Show Notes, social media

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We’re trying something new starting this week. Rather than give you the time sections of the podcast, we’re taking a cue from NPR and writing an accompanying blog post with each podcast.

So here we are…on our 39th (can that be right??) episode of Inside PR. This week we answer a bunch of questions from our listeners and we touch on the crisis in Egypt.

Shel Holtz sends in an audio question (we love him!) and Guy Skipworth asks about former employees having online relationships with your clients after they leave your agency. You can listen to our discussion about both in the podcast.

Long-time listener Danny Starr says,

“Just catching up on old episodes and the discussion on “making” viral video was really good. One thing that I think needs to be pointed out about viral video is that you never know what’s going to hit it big… and while there are things you can do like capture something funny or unexpected in the footage, I think that anyone setting out to achieve the result of having a video go viral – and we need to be clear that viral is a result, not really a strategy – needs to be putting up many different things.”

The thing is, Danny, we agree with you. In fact, at Arment Dietrich, when we get a call about making a viral video, we always joke internally that we’ll create the video the client wants and then have two guys kicking each other in the nuts so it does go viral. Not really a strategy, but we’re certain it would work! And yes, I say “nuts” in the recording.

And, while we don’t spend much time talking about what’s going on in Egypt, we do ask (and answer) an important question, “Is Internet use a human right?”

Hope you enjoy this week’s Inside PR!

And tell us…what do you think of the new format? Do you have other comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, or message us @inside_pr on Twitter. Or connect with Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and me on Twitter.

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

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.