Inside PR 384 – It’s Spin Sucks anniversary – and we celebrate with blogging tips

• • PR

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Martin here…

It’s a big day for us at Inside PR – well, a big day for Gini, but we’re celebrating with her! Spin Sucks turned eight. And that’s a milestone.

Gini looks back and talks about her first post and how…um…disappointing it was. She said it was just a blog introduction without any links (though there were footnotes), but with a few references to some guy named Ray (they’re not sure who that was) and it had no images or optimization…

Back then they didn’t have a clear vision of the kind of content that would help them achieve their vision to improve the reputation of PR.

Gini took it over in 2009 and worked hard and consistently to create the type of content that built and engaged a community and made it into the runaway success it is today.

A big congratulations from all of us to Spin Sucks!

Joe says it’s not easy to keep up Gini and her team’s level of commitment and production and mentions a post by Darren Barefoot, who says he’s no longer doing most of his writing on his blog. Rather, he’s publishing on other platforms with bigger audiences so more people see and interact with his ideas.

In the second part of the show we ask Gini, who recently spoke about advanced blogging at Content Marketing World, to share some of her tips. Here are three:

  1. Follow trends and lists to discover fresh, relevant ideas.
  2. Imagine and reuse your content and turn a blog post into a podcast, video and other sharable social objects.
  3. Syndicate and distribute content beyond your social networks to build momentum.

Do you have any to add?

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, 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.

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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 Ashlea McGrath.

Inside PR 3.31: How are you making your living in the world of integrated communications?

• • PR, social media

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We’re living in a period of profound change in communications channels and tools. How will you change your communications practices to reflect these underlying changes in the communications networks, expectations and participants? What are the opportunities? What are the challenges?

Gini says that the current set of changes are accelerating a move to agency consolidation that she has been observing since the turn of the century. But while we as professionals are finding ourselves in integrated agencies, we are feeling pressure to become expert in related fields – SEO, content marketing, paid promotion. We have to be able to operated above and across the silos as they break down.

Martin Waxman feels that the greatest challenge for PR practitioners is to break out of the publicist mode once and for all. The move to content journalism and content marketing plays to the PR practitioner’s traditional storytelling strengths. And if you’re looking at your career, don’t disregard this path to the future.

Joe points to the trend to anchor integrated communications in marketing departments and marketing programs, places and activities that measure real results against defined objectives. PR practitioners must become platform agnostic, married not solely to earned media, but open to paid media as well as owned media.

Gini notes that she has seen search firms competing for some of these assignments. The challenge for these firms is that they are great at writing for robots, not for human beings. The complete firm will write for both human beings and the search robots. The success of PR firms or any firm will rest on their ability to pull together in one team the analytic and storytelling skills to offer truly compelling, effective content marketing.

Finally, Martin asks how people will be able to make a living as content creators when online outlets like Huffington Post and Forbes.com pay nothing or very little for quality content. Joe suggests that most won’t. There are few Mathew Ingrams or Om Maliks, few people who have something to say, day in and day out. Most of us write more infrequently on a narrower range of topics. As it ever was, few will make a living directly from their content creation. Most of us will of necessity rely on earning our living in jobs in which we benefit from reputations enhanced by creating and publishing smart content.

Also in this episode, Martin gives a plug to the digital communications class at University of Toronto. The next course starts in May. So, if you’d interested in taking this, contact Martin.

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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 3.27: The story on content

• • PR

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This week we feature video interviews we did at meshmarketing conference in Toronto. Our guests are three content marketing strategists – well, two strategists and one creative artist: Kristina Halvorson, Lee Odden and David Usher.

Here are some highlights:

Kristina Halvorson – Brands need to care about content more than ever because that’s what drives their relationships with customers online… Brands should ensure they look at content not at a commodity but as a business asset.

Lee Odden – Content is the perfect medium for storytelling, it’s what helps brands stand out beyond the noise… Think about online marketing as a peanut and jelly sandwich, search is the PB, jelly’s the social media and content is the bread that holds it all together.

David Usher – Content is very important to brands these days because it defines the brand. If you take the word brand and replace it with personality, it’s really the same thing… You need authenticity and originality and those are the two things that make content engaging.

Gini, Joe and Martin talk about the interviews and how each of us thinks about content. We agree you don’t need to have a big budget to create meaningful and sharable social objects. You need a great story to tell to people who are genuinely interested. And that’s where relationships and creativity come in.

What are some of your content marketing ideas secrets? We’d love to hear from you.

And if you liked these interviews, you may want to check out the great lineup of speakers at Mesh 2013 in Toronto in May. And yes, that’s another Inside PR video on the homepage :).

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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, Joe 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.

Gini recommends a content audit and talks about things that can be repurposed and optimize it so it reaches. You don’t always have to create something new, you need to use what you already have in other collateral.

Takes pieces of a PDF white paper that isn’t searchable and creates nuggets that are searchable from existing content.

Content as a business asset and spoke that it’s meaningful and engaging and the issue of high quality is interesting with social objects.

What are some of your content secrets? We’d love to hear from you.

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Inside PR 3.17: On content marketing and extreme reuse

• • PR

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This week, our episode is short, but sweet (well, we can at least guarantee the first part). We recorded this show before US Thanksgiving and Gini’s trip to Amsterdam to give a talk to the PR community there.  We’ll hear about her adventures next show.

We continue our discussion on producing and sharing remarkable content and Joe mentions an article Aaron Dun wrote for Marketing Profs on why creating a single blog post on a particular subject is no longer good enough. You need to learn how to re-purpose your content – in a major way.

Dun recommends an approach he calls ‘extreme reuse’, that is building out and spreading one idea across multiple platforms. He suggests you start by considering everything you do as fodder for content, whether it’s a call with clients, a brainstorm, an article you read, a conversation, trends…  Then figure out how you can take your concept and adapt it to other channels including blog posts, slides, webinars, Google hangouts, infographics, video, email marketing, etc.

Gini talks about all the content she creates – and how she doesn’t know where she’ll find the time to do any more…

That’s where having a talented and diverse team comes in. In order for extreme reuse to be effective, organizations need people with different areas of expertise to add their perspective to a story and bring it to life in various media.

Martin suggests we should also look at things strategically and realize not every idea is a big enough to merit that much reuse. So be selective.

Is content marketing something you can do on your own or do you need partners who are good at other things and who can create a series of social objects around a subject or a theme?

We’d love to hear what you think.

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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. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.98: Diving in to content marketing with Marcus Sheridan.

• • PR

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Would you like to be able to generate more than $2 million in new revenue for your company simply by writing a blog post? Marcus Sheridan, our guest on inside PR this week, has done just that.

Gini Dietrich caught up with Marcus after his keynote speech at the PRSA Conference last month in New Orleans.

Marcus shared an in-your-face and engaging presentation at the conference about content marketing. Marcus made a name for himself when he started a blog about fiber glass pools. His goal was to drive traffic to the website and eventually lead potential customers to his front door. To accomplish this, he answered common questions he had heard relating to installing or buying a fiber glass pool on his blog. Long story short, the traffic to his website blew up. He and his partners became “the guys that knew about fiber glass pools”.

Martin Waxman, Gini and Joseph Thornley discuss how Marcus’ image of content marketing can be adapted to the way PR and communications professionals craft and promote their key messages today in the connected era.
For more information on Marcus and his story, here is a little video that sums it all up.

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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 2.97: Jazzing it up with Counselors Academy

• • PR

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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.

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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.