jay baer — Inside PR

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We’ve talked to author, digital strategist and speaker extraordinaire Jay Baer on Inside PR a few times before. In fact, the first time was after the 2009 PRSA Counselors Academy Conference in Palm Springs that Jay references in the beginning of his new book, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help, Not Hype (highly recommended by Martin).

Jay is the closing keynote at Meshmarketing conference in Toronto on November 7, so we thought this is a good time to catch up with him and discuss what’s new.

Jay defines youtility, the theme of his book, as creating marketing that has so much intrinsic value people would pay for it. He says many companies are embracing this principle because it helps them break through the clutter we face today.

He encourages businesses to ‘market their marketing’ by developing a launch strategy for their content that leads people to it.

The competitive landscape has altered the information we consume into a mashup of personal and professional sources and Jay he believes businesses need to develop relationships with customers that are similar to the relationship people have with their friends. He calls that friend of mine awareness.

Jay says the PR industry, which became active in social media early on because it understood the importance of stories and relationships, now has to change the way it executes and move from being talkers to skilled makers of content like infographics, videos and white papers. Most PR agencies don’t have makers on staff and have to outsource too much of that work.

Joe experienced the concept of Youtility last week and references a number of blog posts from trusted sources on what we need to know about the new Google algorithm; he received useful information in real-time that helped him.

Gini is surprised businesses are still not creating launch plans for marketing the content they produce in order to help amplify it.

Joe talks about how he’s moved Thornley Fallis into an agency of makers with video, web design and creative people in-house. However, he’s noticed some clients aren’t including PR agencies when they’re looking to develop an integrated campaign and we need to change that.

Gini, who also transformed her firm into a maker agency, agrees and says there’s some confusion on the client side on what we, as new PR agencies, can do.

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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.

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.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

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The spring conference season has ended so we’re all back in our offices, podcasting from our desks, and talking about what we’ve learned the past couple of months.

Before we get to that, though, a HUGE congratulations to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. They just recorded their 600th episode. I did the math. If they recorded once a week, that would take 11 years to achieve. But they’ve cut that in half…six years; 600 episodes; twice weekly podcasts.

It’s no easy feat, either. They use Google Wave to begin brainstorming each session, adding commentary, links, and other information to enhance the story. They spend a lot of time bringing you relevant and valuable information. And that’s why it’s one of the most respected and highest listened to podcast in our industry.

If you’re not already subscribed, do it now by clicking here.

If you missed it, there was a really good comment from Keith Trivitt, associate director of public relations at PRSA, on the Burson-Marsteller/Facebook issue.

We talked for a couple of minutes about Keith’s response and the responsibility of all PR professionals, no matter their PRSA membership.

And on to the show!

A few things each of us learned throughout conference season:

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Mike Michalowicz, talks about not calling yourself a PR firm, but to focus on what makes you special. That allows you to take yourself out of the rate discount discussion and get paid for your expertise.
Bret Werner talks about really understanding your niche, figure out which companies you really want to work with, and which clients you need to take to get you to those gold star companies in the next three to five years.
Jay Baer is a great speaker, who also knows how to speak in tweets, he said the goal is not to be good at social media, but to be good at business using social media.
Jay also said, if you suck, Twitter is not your problem.
Jen Prosek, author of Army of Entrepreneurs, has a great philosophy on training and onboarding new consultants.

One more thing: Barbara Nixon, we talk about the difference between Facebook groups and Facebook pages for you!

Do you have an idea for a topic you would like us to discuss? 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.