Inside PR 457: Ethical media relations

November 14, 2016 • thornley • Inside PR, Show Notes

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Twitter Moments for all of us. Large publishers’ growing dependency on Facebook. Thinking ahead about the implications of AI in our devices and apps. And the ethics of the close-hold embargo. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnows

Create your Own Twitter Moments

Twitter Moments, introduced for media and select users earlier this year, is now available for all users. This is a useful feature for anyone speaking at a conference or participating in an event or discussion that they want to curate and preserve. Bit by bit, Twitter is becoming even more useful.

Large publishers are becoming dependent on Facebook. But where is the revenue?

A report published by the International News Media Association and reported on by Nieman Lab indicates that 30% of visits to large publishers websites are referred from Facebook. That’s huge. But if publishers are becoming ever more dependent on Facebook’s network effect, and with Facebook favouring content published natively on it, the big question continues to be, is traffic paying off in revenue?

Getting out front on AI

The increasing introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into apps, social networks and internet-connected devices raise a broad range of ethical, legal and policy issues. And where that happens, government is likely to act. So, it should come as no surprise that large businesses are banding together in a number of organizations to address these issues in order in advance of legislation and regulation. Of course, we can only hope that the voice of civil society will be heard alongside that of business.

A media relations issue to ponder: Close-hold embargoes

Charles Seife, writing in Scientific American, introduced us to a practice we had never encountered: A close-hold embargo. And it gives us the opportunity to ponder the line between transparency and manipulation and the ethical questions that public relations practitioners must confront when negotiating terms of access with news media.

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 456: Ugh. It happened.

November 7, 2016 • thornley • Shownotes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnows

Snapchat is a Snap

If you missed the news, Snapchat has rebranded and at the same time begun to move outside of its core business, including the promise of Snapchat video glasses. Snapchat may well pull off what Google Glass failed at.

Why Allo?

Google Plus redux? Do we need yet another duplicative app?

The sprit of selfless sharing

MOZ, the SEO app is a useful tool and source of expertise for many PR people who need to learn and apply pragmatic SEO to their programs. Recently, Ran Fishkin published a remarkable post in which he was both candid and insightful. And we contemplate his observation that “Inbound marketing never really became a thing…” A big deal if you are repositioning your company into the inbound marketing space. Something for PR people to think about as we reposition our businesses for the future. Not specifically about inbound marketing. But about any space we are moving toward. Will it still be there when we arrive?

It’s your turn.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 455: PR in the Post-RSS, Post-Newsprint World

October 24, 2016 • thornley • Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnows

From Docs to Podcasts

A sign of the continuing professionalization of podcasts. In a few weeks, Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival, will launch its first Hot Docs Podcast Festival. The lineup is heavily skewed to mainstream, large audience podcasts. I guess that means that we need to continue to look to community-generated events like Podcamp Toronto to represent amateur niche content. Things like Inside PR. 🙂

Twitter – independent or acquisition?

Can Twitter survive on its own? Would it be better being acquired by a larger entity? I know that, one way or the other, I don’t want Twitter to disappear. As other services have refined their algorithms to present popular content first, I think that Twitter now holds a unique place as our newsfeed. An essential lense on the world that not only allows us to bear witness in real time, but also allows anyone to see it happening in real time.

Google Automated Insights

If you use Google Analytics, you must check out the automated insights that have been added to the Google Analytics mobile app. An invaluable tool that helps you quickly identify the most salient trends and events in the traffic to your site. Little by little, we are moving in the direction of the intelligent assistant. And it’s free!

PR can’t stop changing

For our main topics this week, we discuss the need for PR to accelerate the repositioning of its core business proposition in the face of shrinking newsrooms. PR will not disappear. It just won’t look like it did a few years ago. And companies that haven’t changed their focus away from earned media will find themselves left behind. The rise of Facebook as an aggregator. The decline of newsrooms. Sponsored content as the new norm. The end of print newspapers. PR must prepare itself for the post-newsprint world. Some PR agencies are well down the path of reimagining the business. The new firms seem to understand that the emphasis must continue to be on relationships. But different forms of relationships with different actors and agents (algorithms anyone?) Those that evolve in this way will succeed. Along the way, those that change will have to explain themselves to a marketplace that may not have understood the need for these changes. Those that don’t will disappear. Bet on it.

Now it’s your turn.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 454: Are you a romantic or a stalker?

October 3, 2016 • thornley • Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnows

Martin Waxman’s Social Media Marketing for Small Business is on Lynda.com

Yes, this is a shameless plug. But since it’s Joe writing this, Martin doesn’t have to be embarrassed. In fact, I think Martin is as smart about social media as anyone I know. And now Martin is sharing this knowledge on Lynda.com. Martin tells us about his trip to California to record a video course, Social Media Marketing for Small Business.

Buzzfeed News isn’t entertainment

Buzzfeed separated its Buzzfeed news operation from the Buzzfeed entertainment operation. Prelude to a possible sale of Fuzzfeed News. Buzzfeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith says no.

WhatsApp shares user data with Facebook

As happens so often with privacy concerns, after an initial spate of bad press, public protestations about Facebook’s decision to share user data from WhatsApp with Facebook seems to have died down. Our concern with privacy is something that spikes occasionally. But then we put it out of mind as we enjoy the experience of social media.

Wired tells us about teens and social media

A few things in Wired’s profile of teens and social media caught Gini’s eye. There are a lot of do’s and don’t’s. It’s not about understanding young people. It’s about looking at the social mores being established by a cohort that doesn’t have the baggage of previously shaped expectations and behaviour, a cohort that can lead the way in assessing new channels and defining norms of behaviour on them. As Martin says, “One generation’s romantic is another generation’s lurker.” (Apologies to John Cusack.)

The NY Times on Facebook

Liz Spayd, The New York Times Public Editor, recently offered her take on the content that The Times has been creating for Facebook. In her analysis, Facebook Live: Too Much, Too Soon, she states

“…here’s the problem. After watching countless hours of live video in the past few weeks, I have hit upon many that are either plagued by technical malfunctions, feel contrived, drone on too long, ignore audience questions or are simply boring, by I imagine most anyone’s standards.

“Too many don’t live up to the journalistic quality one typically associates with The New York Times.”

This leads Martin, Gini and I into a discussion of the nature of content appropriate to social media. It’s not always going to stand up to The Times’ traditional standards. But it will be effective in its new place, for different reasons.

Also worth noting in this article is something I hadn’t seen before. The New York Times has a contract to produce video content expressly for Facebook.

“While the terms of the deal are secret, the transaction requires Facebook to give The Times a guaranteed sum (reported to be $3 million a year) in return for a prescribed amount of video (so far it’s averaging upward of four a day). Neither Times officials nor Facebook would discuss the deal, citing confidentiality. Several other media companies, including BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and Mashable, have also signed on. Their job: to stock Facebook’s pond with high-quality video so it can compete in the rapidly growing market for live-stream video.”

The Times as content creator for Facebook. That’s something different from The Times posting its stories on Facebook. Different even from The Times posting its stories natively on Facebook. It is instead The Times creating content to meet Facebook’s needs. That is different – and worth watching.

Now it’s your turn.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 453: Gini Dietrich knows how to promote content

September 6, 2016 • thornley • Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast. This week, we discuss:

#IPRMustKnow

Instagram Stories continues to attract publisher interest. It could well be the combination of an engaging experience meeting a pre-existing audience.

Blab shut down, abruptly. Another sign that the psychology of scale has beat out the idea of sustainability for many business founders? For sure, it’s another reminder of the danger of placing your content eggs in any single shared space.

Unless you promote it, they will not come

Gini Dietrich schooled Joe on the importance and method of promoting content when she interviewed him for the Spin Sucks Inquisition. Within minutes of the post going live, Joe started to see mentions on his Twitter feed. Over the next week, he watched Gini promote the video. But beyond that, he watched Gini’s network chime in and share it. So, this week, we discuss Gini’s approach to promoting content, an approach which enables her to leverage a large and interested community of interest.

Listen to the end for this week’s outtake

You know that we’re not polished in our presentation. And if you heard us before the show is edited, you’d know that even better. But we genuinely like one another and have fun doing the show. Occasionally, this shows through in what we don’t include in the final version. Listen to the very end to get a taste of the stuff we leave on the cutting room floor.

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you.

Now it’s your turn.

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

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 452: Does the Hub and Spoke approach need a tire change?

August 16, 2016 • thornley • Shownotes

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A recent Ontario arbitrator’s ruling reminds us that the law and social media are in an ever-changing relationship. The Olympics’ once again aggressively enforce trademarks on social media. Instagram Stories are feeling good. And the trend to distributed publishing prompts a rethink of the hub and spoke content publishing model. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Employers’ social media responsibilities are fluid

You may think that social media has been around long enough that you’re comfortable that you know what you should, can and must do when interacting on social media for your employer or client. Well, an Arbitrator’s ruling in a dispute between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the union representing its employees should remind us that nothing is fixed when it comes to social media. As reported in the Toronto Star, the Arbitrator ruled that the TTC, when operating @TTCHelps, its Twitter outreach ID, failed to take all of the measure it should have to protect its employees from online harassment and abuse. The union argued that, by operating its customer service Twitter ID, @TTCHelps, the TTC was providing a forum for abuse and harassment of its employees. While the arbitrator did not support the union’s demand to shut down the account, he did indicate that the TTC be more assertive, telling people to take down posts, images, etc. considered offensive to employees, blocking Twitter uses and requesting Twitter to close the accounts of those users who do not cooperate. We have a good discussion about this ruling. Regardless of which side you come down on, this is a reminder to be ready to revise your practices on social media. The law still is being made.

Olympic-sized trademark enforcement says its about big money more than athletics

It’s become a tradition. Noting the hyper-aggressive trademark enforcement surrounding the Olympics and the use of any of their registered terms. Small businesses need to keep themselves as safe as the larger entities. And that’s just not fun.

Instagram Stories make a good social media platform even better

Gini has been posting to Instagram stories daily, and she reports that it’s a much simpler, intuitive experience than posting to Snapchat. Simpler. Intuitive. A solid foundation for success.

Does the hub and spoke need a tire change?

The hub and spoke approach to creating, distributing and promoting content has been a best practice for several years. However, after hearing that 75% of the content Buzzfeed produces isn’t published on Buzzfeed.com, Martin wonders if it’s time for marketers to reassess the role of the hub. Gini and Joe aren’t quite ready to abandon their blogs, but they agree with Martin that we need to challenge our accepted practices.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 451: Verify me Twitter. I’m a backseat rider.

August 1, 2016 • thornley • Show Notes

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Twitter opens verification to everyone. Yahoo closes an era. Anthony Ponce is a backseat rider. And the New York Times Public Editor shines a spotlight on the importance of perceived bias. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

RIP Yahoo

Yahoo once was the directory of the internet. So, we couldn’t let it fade into oblivion without marking the event.

Verify me, Twitter

It has been a widely-coveted symbol – the Twitter blue verification check mark. Now, we all can apply for it. Many will be called, but few will be granted? Have you applied for Twitter verification under the new process? Has your application been approved?

Backseat Rider

Anthony Ponce left his job as an on-air news anchor to spend full-time driving tax and posting the stories he picks up to his Facebook page. An interesting experiment. Politicians long have known that the best briefing they could get when visiting a city is the discussion with the taxi driver. They go everywhere and see everything.

Bias in News Media Redux

This is the issue we live with on a day by day basis. It’s also something which viewers of Fox News seem to accept, even welcome. Liz Spayd, the recently-appointed Public Editor at the New York Times reminds us that perception and reality do not necessarily converge when it comes to the issue of bias in news coverage. We’ve talked a lot about bias and personal perspective. And Spayd’s column brings us back to this topic.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 450: Post Ghost fights back

July 25, 2016 • thornley • Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle Twitter’s tortured relationship with the development community on this week’s Inside PR podcast.

PostGhost, a service that preserved deleted tweets, was told to cease doing this by Twitter. PostGhost complied and shut down its service. But it did not go quietly. They published an Open Letter to Twitter, arguing that the deleted tweets of people with very large followings could have as much impact on public issues as the tweets of politicians. Citing deleted tweets about the Brexit vote by British celebrities with large followings, they say, “the ability to reach millions of followers instantly and leave no trace is a massive and growing power, and one that is currently completely unchecked and undocumented.”

The PostGhost letter raises important issues that have been debated before and will continue to be debated. And once Gini raised it, we too found ourselves debating it – for the entire episode.

So, this is a single episode about one thing that raises a number of important issues. We hope you find it interesting and useful.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 449: Here an App. There an App. Everywhere an App.

July 18, 2016 • thornley • PR

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Snapchat is more than ephemeral with Memories. Pokemon Go rules the world. And we pick up on Walt Mossberg’s discussion of our fragmented messaging environment. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Snapchat Memories for when ephemeral isn’t enough

Hard on the heels of news that Snapchat has surpassed Twitter in daily users, we say Snapchat switch from its ephemeral-always model to provide users with the ability to save their Snaps using a new feature, Snapchat Memories. Memories lets you save current and previous Snaps and then use them for future stories. So, now you never need to worry people missing that embarrassing photo of your best friend that you sent out 25 hours ago. You can reach into Memories, add the photo to a new story, and start the cycle all over again.

Pokemon Go Goes

Like virtually everyone else this past week, we have been entranced by Pokemon Go. For its privacy implications. And because it has brought the potential of augmented reality to the masses. It may be a fad. But it’s a fad that will have made a difference.

Here an App. There an App. Everywhere an App

It was simple in the days of email: Just settle on your client – Outlook, AOL… and then add all your email accounts to access them in one place. Today, as we spend more of our time on chat, with proprietary, non-interchangeable standards, we are again facing the need to switch constantly between apps – for social networks, for chat. Pain the butt? We riff on a theme recently explored by Walt Mossberg in a blog post, The Tyranny of Messaging and Notifications, and on his podcast, Ctrl-Walt-Delete.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 448: Integrate this

July 11, 2016 • thornley • Shownotes

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Twitter brings easy analytics to your mobile device. YouTube plays catch up in livestreaming video. And we ask why, after all these years, integrated marketing communications isn’t the norm. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Twitter Engage brings Twitter analytics to the masses

Twitter just made it a whole lot easier to track analytics like follows, @mentions, retweets, and video views, with the launch of Twitter Engage, a new iOS app. Real-time monitoring in your hand. The app launched on iOS in the US-only. You can hear the collective sigh of disappointment from Twitter addicts in the rest of the world.

YouTube Livestreams from your mobile

Livestreaming videos to YouTube from your mobile is about to be possible. YouTube announced at VidCon that it is testing livestreaming with select publishers. Available to the rest of us soon. With YouTube’s huge catalogue of videos that we already have uploaded, it’s going to be competitive with both Facebook Live Videos and Periscope. Does that mean that I have to buy a third phone to livestream events to all three services?

Integrated Marketing Communications: Many are called. Not all answer.

Gini Dietrich wrote in a blog post that, with the proliferation of platforms and the need to integrate ephemeral and chat channels, integrated marketing communications is more important than ever. We’re all heard the term integrated marketing communications for over a decade. Independent agencies seem to have embraced integration. PR agencies in particular have moved to the PESO – Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned – model. So, why isn’t integrated marketing communications practised each and every day? We talk about the impact of tight communications budgets and the persistence of silos within corporate marketing and communications functions. We also look at the legacy of separate profit centres in holding company agencies. The need to maximize returns for individual centres may work at odds with making integrated marketing communications a daily way of life for people working in holding company networks.

We’d love to know what you think.

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.