Tech PR War Stories

This week we talk to Melanie Seasons, a young PR blogger for Manning, Selvage and Lee Digital out of Ann Arbor. She writes the Fake Plastic Noodles blog and talks to David and Paul about how she works with her traditional PR media colleagues. Her job is to get them to understand the value of new media, and how to incorporate blogs and microsites and other digital techniques into traditional media campaigns.

“Digital PR is common sense, and it isn’t losing control of the message,” she says. She talks about how to approach, pitch, and recruit bloggers by building relationships with her PR team.

Download the podcast here.

Folks, Paul and I have changed the name of our podcasts to mediablather, and you can surf on over to that site here and click on the episodes you have missed as well as subscribe to the feed.

Here is a short podcast reminder, depending on how you have subscribed. Thanks!

We have a new name and a new place for our podcasts, we explain why and how we changed our name to Media Blather. Subscribe to the new feed in iTunes or on Feedburner.

This week, Paul and David talk about how to promote your blogs and other Web content. You have to be more grassroots and deliberate about it, and use a variety of techniques such as mailing lists, keywords, inbound links, and just paying attention to the details of your content. The days of Flash-y pages are over: the way to Google’s search algorithms lies with simple and well-designed textual pages. Google has become our universal home page, and understanding how they will index your site is important in driving traffic to your site.

You can download the podcast here.

Hi everyone. After a year of TechPR War Stories, we have decided to change our name and move ourselves on over to mediablather.wordpress.com.  So check us out over there.  Still the same great content, format, and hosts. Just the name has changed to sharpen our focus.

When Paul was writing his book, he met two mothers who personified the term “new influencer.” Paige Heninger (left) and Gretchen Vogelzang launched Mommycast in early 2005, never expecting it to be more than an intimate chat between them and a few friends. Nearly 300 shows later, Mommycast still has that first-time intimacy, but its global audience now numbers in the millions. The show has big-ticket sponsors, a host of awards and its own channel of family-oriented podcasts. But success doesn’t appear to have spoiled Paige and Gretchen, who still think of each program as just another phone call.

Marketers don’t see it that way. They clamor for a chance to get a coveted mention on the program. In this interview, Paige and Gretchen tell how Mommycast got started, the secrets of staying focused and how they handle inquiries from marketers.

Download the podcast (28:54)

It’s our birthday! And in recognition of this, our 52nd weekly podcast (okay, so we missed one or two weeks) we convene a roundtable discussion of the new world of business communications.

The stars aligned perfectly: David was in Boston on a speaking tour and some of our best friends and colleagues from our years in media were up for a free meal and discussion. Our friends at Lois Paul & Partners kindly provided the venue (as well as two of our speakers) and our seven participants turned out to encompass a mix of media, marketing and financial disciplines.

The debate got quite spirited at points, with Bob Scheier and Steve Hall famously facing off over the ethics of fact checking. Venture capitalist Bill Frezza had the quote of the evening: “We are in the post-integrity age of journalism.” And Lois Paul and Ted Weismann of LPP recounted with resignation the frustration of convincing clients that it’s about more than just the Wall Street Journal these days.

This podcast runs 56:42, with several minutes of bonus material and the end. This week we launch “Dana’s Pick of the Podcast,” a new weekly feature in which Producer Dana Gillin spotlights the program’s best quote at the end of each episode. For those of you who have always wondered about our theme music, we offer the full version of Meet You In The Heavens by Rebel Soul Band. Enjoy. And post your comments below.

Thanks to our panel:

Lois Paul, President, Lois Paul & Partners

Ted Weismann, senior vice president, LP&P

Bob Scheier, IT/Business Writer

Bill Frezza, General Partner, Adams Capital Management

Steve Hall, Publisher Adrants

Download the podcast (56:42)

Below:

Bill Frezza          Bob Scheier

Lois Paul

Steve Hall

Paul Gillin & David Strom

Mark Cuban, the CEO blogger/owner of the Dallas Mavericks, says no. He doesn’t have enough space in his locker room to hold all of them, and so last week posted this note saying he has to draw the line somewhere, and he will exclude bloggers from the lockers, although still credential them for interviews and other press tasks. This week, David and Paul discuss what rights bloggers have vis-a-vis regular journalists, whether you should treat them differently and how to distinguish, and other issues. We also give cheers to Newsgator and jeers to Trimble.You can download the podcast here.

The Society for New Communications Research has been studying social media since before the term was created. Founded by veteran publicist Jen McClure in 2004, the nonprofit group known affectionately to its members as “snicker” now counts more than 40 futurists, scholars, business leaders, communicators and other new-media professionals as research fellows. Its signature event in the New Communications Forum, a multi-day multi-track conference that features top speakers and results of the group’s most recent research. It also hosts the New Communications Research Symposium, a more intimate gathering on the east coast each fall.

Jen McClure’s passion for new media is the fuel that drives SNCR. In this interview, she talks about how the group was founded, the four new research studies that will debut at the New Communications Forum in April and what value PR professionals are getting out of their SNCR membership.

BTW, Tech PR War Stories listeners can take advantage of a $100 discount. Just use code NCF08100 when you register.

Download the podcast (16:05)

From Paul’s personal blog:

When my copy of Duncan Brown’s and Nick Hayes’ Influencer Marketing arrived in the mail, I looked at it a little bit like a trip to the dentist. I knew it was going to be good for me, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it.

What a pleasure, then, to find that this engaging and provocative book not only challenged many of my assumptions about markets and influence, but did so in a readable and persuasive manner.

The authors are co-managers of Influencer50, a consulting firm that specializes in helping companies identify the key influencers in their markets. Like many authors of their kind, they think a lot of marketing today is badly broken. Unlike many authors, though, they have concrete advice on how to fix it.

The central premise of this book is that the people who influence markets are largely unknown to most marketers. In fact, the authors’ firm offer clients a 50% discount if they can name even 20 of the top 50 influencers in their sphere. They’ve never had to pay up. Most marketers, they assert, consider influencers to be mainly press and analysts. In fact, they suggest that the list is far larger and more diverse than that, encompassing more than 20 categories ranging from channel players to venture capitalist to government agencies and systems integrators. They argue that many of these influencers are far more important than the media because they speak directly to a company’s customers. They pay particular attention, for example to second-tier consultancies, systems integrators and buyers groups. These people are whispering in the year of customers every day, yet most marketers aren’t even aware that they’re talking, the authors assert.

This book defends its case pretty well, using logic and ample case studies. It’s also written in a disarmingly down-to-earth and at times tongue-in-cheek style. Hayes and Brown aren’t stingy with their opinions. Bloggers, for example, get far more attention than they deserve, they suggest, and many bloggers are simply people who are awkward in social situations. Referencing Twitter, they say simply, “How anyone can maintain a proper job and use Twitter is beyond us.” You may not agree with their opinions, but you have to respect them for the directness with which they are stated.

They hate awards programs, believing them to be valuable only to the organizations bestowing the awards. Partnerships are meaningless in most cases because companies have far too many partners to manage effectively. They believe that brand equity is overstated and that celebrity endorsers play mostly to the egos of the marketers who recruit them. That’s just a sampling of the often counterintuitive assertions in his book.

I did have some nits to pick with Influencer Marketing. The case studies lack much in the way of hard ROI and are limited mostly to Influencer50 clients. I thought the rather critical chapter on bloggers underestimated the influence that those influencers have on mainstream media. The authors are also big fans of using consultants to identify influencers, a position that obviously favors their company.

Nevertheless, if the greatest value of a business book is to challenge assumptions, as I believe it is, then Influencer Marketing succeeds admirably. It’s one of the best marketing books I’ve read in a long time. For a commitment of five or six hours, it is well worth the time spent reading it.

It’s a public relations nightmare: Some blogger posts an angry rant about your company. A few other curmudgeons join in and pretty soon you’ve got a gripefest going on. Or maybe someone gets hold of an internal memo that’s not meant for public distribution and posts it for the world to see. What do you do?

In the old days, we had back-room procedures for handling problems like these, but bloggers and consumer advocacy sites don’t play by the old rules. In fact, your cease-and-desist notice is likely to become more blog fodder.  In the new world of crisis communications, protests and threats don’t get you very far. You need to negotiate, admit when problems exist and not take yourself too seriously. Not that that’s easy, mind you!

Download the podcast here (11:10).