Inside PR 375: During a crisis, don’t leave your customers in the dark

June 11, 2014 • Martin • PR

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Martin here.

On today’s show, it’s Joe and me. Gini will be back in a couple of weeks. And throughout the summer, we’ll be having a few more two-handers when one of us is away – but we’ll keep recording!

We start off discussing the recent DDOS attacks on Feedly and Evernote that happened just before we recorded.

And we remark on how the two companies took different approaches when it came to communicating their situations to customers.

Feedly posted notifications on its Twitter feed and blog but nothing on Facebook.

Evernote updated its Twitter feed and used the same content on Facebook. But the company did not post on either of its two blogs.

Here are a few suggestions for communicating during a crisis that came out of our conversation:

Use your owned property – your blog or newsroom – to break the news and continue sharing regular updates there.
When posting updates on Twitter, link back to your blog to add details and context to the situation.
Personalize your message. Record a video or short series of videos to let people know what happened and the steps you’re taking to fix it.
By all means post on Facebook, but if you’re not buying ads, know that not as many people will see your news as on other sources.
Take a page from MSM and be consistent with your communications. Let people know when they’ll hear back from you. That way people will know you’re on top of things and more news will follow.

In the second part of the show, I offer my take on the 2014 IABC World Conference that was taking place in Toronto. One highlight was a talk by Leslie Quinton on the human side of crisis communications and how important it is to always remember your moral compass; that is, continue to ask yourself if what you’re doing is the right thing to do.

I also caught up with Shel Holtz who, if you haven’t seen him speak, is always a sharp, insightful and engaging presenter. He talked about visual storytelling and presented a strong case for why all communicators should move in that direction.

If you haven’t been to an IABC World Conference, it’s worth looking into because it offers you an opportunity to meet and learn from communicators around the globe. Next year’s conference is in San Francisco, June 14 to 17, 2015.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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.

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 LeCompte.

IPR special edition: Rob Biesenbach on telling stories

April 29, 2014 • Martin • PR

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Martin here. I’m getting ready to head off to PRSA Counselors Academy’s spring conference and thought I’d catch up with one of the presenters, Rob Biesenbach. Rob is a communications expert, speaker, writer and actor who is ‘fighting to end dull ordinary communications in our time’. (But he doesn’t have a cape.)

At Counselors, Rob’s going to be talking about how to Unleash the Power of Storytelling to build trust and win business.

He says most people play fast and loose with the definition of story and don’t understand its distinct structure: a character, in pursuit of a goal, in the face of some sort of obstacle.

Stories aren’t a quote from Winston Churchill or a customer testimonial.

Rob likens our job as communicators with acting: both require you to connect with your audience, tell a story well and express yourself. Too many businesses compare themselves to other businesses – when they should be looking to and learning from show business, where the most powerful stories in our culture can be found.

Rob is also doing an Ingnite style presentation based on his new book, 11 Deadly Presentation Sins.

He talks about the three he thinks are the worst:

Failure to connect with an audience
Failure to focus
Doing a data dump rather than a story that’s filled with emotion.

And when it comes to PowerPoint, he cautions us that when you see ‘insert text here’ on a slide, it’s a suggestion, not a command.

Want to hear more? You can catch Rob at Counselors Academy or check out his website.

And if you’re interested in Counselors Academy and the other presenters, you can follow the hashtag on Twitter #CAPRSA.

Gini and Joe will be back next episode.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.70: Tom Garrity on PRSA Counselors Academy Conference

April 23, 2014 • Martin • PR

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It’s Martin semi-solo, this week; Gini and Joe are off.

I’m here with Tom Garrity, president of The Garrity Group and chair of the PRSA Counselors Academy conference for PR agency leaders, which takes place in Key West, Florida, May 4 to 6.

Tom and I start off by chatting about how some PR specialists are also hot air specialists. Actually that’s not quite true. We got on the subject because Tom’s agency represents the Alburquerque International Balloon Festival, one of the more visually exciting events around.

If you follow Inside PR, you’ll know we’ve discussed Counselors Academy before – that’s where Gini, Joe and I met. We’ve been to the event many times, recorded a few episodes there and I was conference chair in 2012.

I’ve said this a number of times: CA is my one must-attend PR gathering of the year, a chance to meet and get to know a smart, friendly and lively group of PR agency movers and shakers.

Unlike other conferences, Counselors is focused on the business of running a PR agency and provides an opportunity to take part in top notch professional development and lots of idea-sharing over casual conversations, coffee or drinks.

This year, one of Tom’s highlights is the closing presentation at Hemingway House, with keynote speaker and ad agency owner Steve McKee, who offers insights from his new book, Power Branding: Leveraging Success of the World’s Best Brands.

Other keynotes include 9 INCH marketing founder Stan Phelps talking about branding and strategic marketing and Shonali Burke on successfully integrating research into your PR plans and pitches.

Tom’s also looking forward to the Bold Moves session – raw conversations about major changes agency owners made in order to transform their business. It’s a Ted X type format moderated by past Counselors chair and Mitchell Communications CEO Elise Mitchell. Speakers include Aaron Blank, president and CEO, The Fearey Group, Lynn Casey, chairman and CEO, PadillaCRT, startup entrepreneur Forest Featherstone and Janet Tyler, founder and co-CEO, Airfoil.

There’s a round of short Ignite presentations, breakout workshops, roundtables and a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Tom recommends Counselors because it always helps him improve his agency and fill in what he doesn’t know.

Here’s where to go for the schedule. There’s still a bit of time to register if you’re interested. Or you can follow the hashtag on Twitter #CAPRSA.

I’ll be there and will interview some of the presenters for upcoming episodes of Inside PR. Stay tuned.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.69: Behind-the-Scenes of Spin Sucks

April 18, 2014 • Gini Dietrich • PR

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We have a very special guest on today’s Inside PR.

She is someone near and dear to my heart, both personally and professionally.

She was with me in Toronto a couple of weeks ago for Third Tuesday and we caught up with her to talk blogging, editorial calendars, and community.

That person is the one and only Lindsay Bell-Wheeler, the content director for Spin Sucks.

Lindsay and I have worked together for nearly two years and have evolved the blog from a top 25 contender to one of the top (or the top, depending on which list you look at) PR blog in the world. She also manages the strategic content direction for our clients and coaches a team of writers and editors.

I let Joe and Martin lead the conversation, but managed to get in a few quips of my own.

She didn’t know she was going to be a guest on the show (I know how stressed out she would have made herself had I told her) so her comments, jokes, and wit are completely off-the-cuff…and brilliant.

I’m excited to introduce you to her and excited for you to learn more about the behind-the-scenes happenings of the crazy place we call home.

Enjoy!

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 368: Spin Sucks!

April 7, 2014 • thornley • Inside PR, PR

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Spin sucks! You know it and I know it. And Gini Dietrich knows it. But even more, Gini has written a new book, Spin Sucks, in which she shows us how to replace spin with authentic communications that your community will find informative, entertaining and useful.

Spin Sucks the Book has just launched. And in this week’s episode of Inside PR, Martin Waxman and I talk with Gini about the book, what it tells us, and her innovative approach to marketing the book. (If you know Gini, you wouldn’t expect anything less from her than to turn the launch of her book into a marketing experiment. She’s always thinking of how to do things better.) This included a Brand Ambassador program to spread the word about the book so that Gini could maintain a much more limited travel schedule to promote Spin Sucks than she had to maintain when promoting her previous book, Marketing in the Round. Over 800 people applied to be a Brand Ambassador, agreeing to buy the book and write a review to coincide with the launch date. Ultimately, she selected over 200 of the applicants to be Ambassadors.

If you wonder what type of results Gini got from this approach, check out the quality of the reviews on Amazon.com. High quality, Well written, persuasive reviews from people who’ve read and loved the book. (At the time I write this, there are 76 reviews of Gini’s book. Sixty five are 5 star and eleven are four star. It doesn’t get much better than that.)

Gini will be launching Spin Sucks in Canada at Third Tuesday Toronto on April 7 and Third Tuesday Ottawa on April 8. There are still a small number of tickets available. So if you’d like to meet Gini and get a signed copy of the book click on one of the following links to register for Third Tuesday Toronto or register for Third Tuesday Ottawa.

Also this week, we had a listener comment from Charlene Burke about the use of LinkedIn.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 367: Reflections on SXSW and PressFriendly

March 27, 2014 • Martin • PR, social media

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Martin here.

When we recorded this show, I’d just returned from SXSWi and I offer my thoughts reflections on this year’s Festival.

There’s no doubt SXSW remains a one-of-a-kind event with a unique laid-back energy and excitement for all things tech and social. That’s something you see first-hand watching the featured speakers and keynotes and in many of the smaller sessions, too.

And while there weren’t any big new platform launches in 2014, there was a lot of big thinking.

SXSW is still a defining event. Yet with so many people and ideas in one place it can seem a bit overwhelming. Before you go, do your homework and figure out what you want to see and do and who you want to meet; the Festival offers such a friendly, open vibe, you can meet anyone.

And if you’re looking for a more intimate conference with the South-by feel, check out the second annual SXSW V2V in Las Vegas that happens in July.

You can read more about my SXSW highlights on the TFC blog.

Oh and here’s Kevin Bacon’s hilarious video explaining the ’80s to millennials.

In the second part of the show we talk about PressFriendly.

After receiving a pitch, Gini asked Laura Petrolino to test out the product and Laura wrote about it on SpinSucks. Essentially PressFriendly helps automate media relations. It’s aimed at startup entrepreneurs who are frustrated with the PR experience and want to try it on their own.

Gini feels they have the right thinking but that it’s difficult to automate relationship-building. She also wonders if reaching out to media and bloggers is the best use of an entrepreneur’s time or if they’d be better off hiring a professional.

Joe’s not sure building a media list should be handed to the most junior person or to an algorithm. That can lead to spammy pitches that hurt the reputation of the entire industry.

Finally, I mention that one of the students in my UTSCS hybrid Foundations Course produced a video, Joey Loves Water, and it went viral. It was part of her class assignment and as of this writing, she has nearly 200,000 views.

Joe notices the video has been picked up on a lot of cat sites as well as on Huffington Post. Once it got on the circuit, he observes, you can almost trace its virality by seeing which sites help amplify and pass it along.

The lesson? Ditch the corporate spokesperson and bring in a cat. Or…maybe not.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 364: Our PR loves

February 21, 2014 • admin • PR

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Martin here.

Because we recorded this episode on Valentine’s Day, we decided to talk about our PR loves – as in the tools that help us do our jobs better – not the people. The idea came from a Spin Sucks post by Gini and her team.

Martin’s loves:

Twitter for connecting, sharing/curating, sending quick messages and generally finding out what’s trending.
Evernote – the place where I keep all my notes, random thoughts, blog posts, ideas and to do lists. They’re organized, searchable and accessible on whatever device I happen to be on.

Joe’s loves (two pairs):

Feedly for news, tagging and follow-up and Diigo to store, annotate and keep track of posts he wants to reference later. Joe says that as communications professionals, we need to have the facts at hands when writing and both these platforms help with that.
Buffer and Hootsuite to schedule and share stories easily.

Gini’s loves:

Talkwalker, a new app that works like Google alerts. Gini likes it even more since its Hootsuite integration, which lets you schedule or tweet out alerts.
Scrivener the app Gini uses for writing books and other long-form content. Not only does it help keep you organized, it develops your table of contents and index, and it’s searchable so you can easily find various parts of a manuscript during your writing.

What are the tools you love that make your day easier?

We end the show with a question from Daniel Francavilla, a student of mine who owns his own design business. Daniel wondered about the importance of design and visual identity in communications.

Joe says (and we all agree) that it’s often the differentiator. We’ve gone from a world where the big choice used to be selecting a template in Word to one where design is integral to our work and the people who want to be competitive are those who design for a multimedia experience.

Thanks Daniel.

One quick reminder: For anyone in Toronto and Ottawa – the next Third Tuesday features data analyst Jim Sterne on the human side of analytics – #3TYYZ February 26 in Toronto and #3TYOW February 27 in Ottawa. Hope to see you there. And here’s Jim Sterne’s song parody, Modern Data Analyst.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 361: Justine Sacco, poor judgment and the mob mentality

January 22, 2014 • admin • PR

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Martin here…And as I said on the podcast, I was waiting for Google to write this post for me…

We start 2014 talking about the mob mentality you sometimes experience in social media.

Picture this. You’ve had a busy year and it’s almost the holidays. You’re traveling halfway across the world to head home for some much-needed R&R. It’s a long and maybe a bit of a dull plane ride. There’s no Wi-Fi, so you’re unplugged. The perfect way to unwind.

Sounds tempting.

But when you land…you notice something’s different. Strangers recognize you. Are they pointing fingers? You get reconnected only to find out you’ve been fired with no warning – over a tweet. The decision had been made when you were in the air.

I’ve just described what happened to Justine Sacco, who was a senior communicator for IAC. As in, past tense. The reason for her firing was a racist tweet she posted before leaving on the flight.

Let’s be clear, we don’t condone any racist remarks and this was clearly a case of very bad judgment (just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should). If you followed the story, you’ll know it blew up when she was in the air and didn’t have access to Wi-Fi, there was an avalanche of critical posts, hashtags, a twitter storm and, of course, she abruptly lost her job.

Now that we’ve had the opportunity to reflect on the situation from the perspective of a few weeks, we thought we’d discuss these questions:

– Is it wise to let the community do your thinking for you?
– When should you wait to make a decision and when should you react immediately?
– How do you deal with a mob mentality when you’re trying to make a change?
– If you react quickly, is your decision strategic or just designed to stop the noise?
– Do you dump first and then ask questions later?
– Shouldn’t everyone have an opportunity to answer for their actions before they feel the consequences?

It’s a complex and multi-layered issue, as you’ll hear in the podcast. Have a listen and let us know where you stand.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

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 Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.59: Trends and fears for 2014

December 19, 2013 • admin • PR

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Martin here…

2013 is drawing to a close. And we know how busy people are with Christmas shopping, holiday parties and other seasonal celebrations. So we thought we’d keep it short and sweet and focus on one trend and one fear we have for 2014.

But first, I talk about PR Baton, a new initiative created by Dana Hughens, where PR people take part in a virtual relay on Instagram to visually showcase a day in the life of an industry pro. I was carrying the baton the day we recorded; here’s the photo I did to commemorate this episode.

Check out the PR Baton on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Now onto the show.

Gini’s Trend:
Agencies need to evolve or they will disappear. She references a study saying CMOs are unhappy with the roles ad and PR folks play in driving results for their organization because most agencies haven’t integrated digital with traditional and aren’t accountable for results.

Gini’s Fear:
Not being able to integrate the four media types – paid, earned, shared and owned – in a strategic way. PR especially needs to focus on learning about paid.

Joe’s Trend:
It’s going to be a year of big getting bigger; not necessarily for everyone’s betterment, but because there’s so much momentum in that direction. However, with that he sees an opportunity for independents who put their focus on innovation.

Joe’s Fear:
PR is going to become even more commoditized than it already is.

Martin’s Trend:
I harken back to 1999 and invoke another C word (and not content, communications or connection) – convergence. Next year is going to require a convergence of transmedia storytelling skills and agencies will have to take risks to find and build the right team.

Martin’s Fear:
I reference a recent blog post that says while social media is fast, relationships and trust still take time. That’s something I hope we don’t forget.

What trends and fears to you have for 2014? We’d love to hear from you.

Happy holidays!

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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.

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 part of the FIR Podcast Network.

Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.57: Introducing the FIR Podcast Network

December 6, 2013 • thornley • Inside PR

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[display_podcast]

On this week’s Inside PR podcast, we have the second of a two part interview with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson, the co-hosts of one of the longest running podcasts for professional communicators, the FIR For Immediate Release podcast. Last week, we talked about the early origins of podcasting, what motivated Shel and Neville to become podcasters, the content they offer and their relationship with their community.

In this week’s interview, we talk about the launch of the FIR Podcast Network, what it is and what the future holds for it.

This autumn, Shel and Neville launched another initiative – assembling a series of other related communications podcasts into the FIR Podcast Network – a collection of podcasts offering an unequalled breadth and depth of coverage of topics and best practices of interest to the professional communicator. In the past two months, the podcasts now on the FIR Podcast Network have grown to include:

FIR, the Hobson and Holtz Report, the original flagship podcast in which Neville and Shel cover the news of the week and draw on the discussions occurring on the FIR Podcast Google+ community;

FIR on Strategy, Andrea Vascellari‘s weekly tutorial on the development and application of strategy to communications challenges;

FIR Presents All Things IC, Rachel Miller‘s monthly look at internal communications issues and practices;

TV@Work, Ron Shewchuk‘s look at how to use video to engage employees.

Linked Conversations in which Chuck Hester unlocks the secrets to effective use of LinkedIn as a business tool; and

Inside PR, in which Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley bring an agency leader’s perspective to the most important and latest developments in communications.

Gini, Martin and I are excited to be part of the FIR Podcast Network. We think it has the potential to turn into something much more over time. At a minimum, it’s returned some of the joy of discovery and innovation that was the hallmark of the early days of our social media journey together. And over time, it may well become a definitive source for communications news and tips.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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 part of the FIR Podcast Network.

Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.