As EF Schumacher once wrote, “Small is beautiful.” This week, David is a dinner guest at Chez Gillin in Framingham. We use the f2f opp to interview his lovely wife Dana about her ownbunny-related podcasts and related Web properties. We talk about the importance of smaller, more focused markets, which is ironic given the level of alcohol consumption made us anything but focused. The moral of this podcast is to find your passion, develop that passion into a niche and dominate it completely with your various Web-related efforts. (We apologize about the poor sound quality, and promise to do better with future podcasts.) Paul’s jeer is about the frequent rescheduled appointments from PR people and how much time is wasted therein. David has a cheer for Jeanette Maher, IBM’s PR doyenne, and hope we can reconnect with her soon.
You can download the podcast here. If you are reading this online, please update your podcatcher to mediablather.com
Categories: Uncategorized
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.
Categories: PR
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.
Categories: Uncategorized
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.
Categories: Uncategorized
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)
Categories: PR · podcast · socialmedia
Tagged: influencers, interview, Mommycast, podcast
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.
Categories: blogs
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)
Categories: PR · events · interview · socialmedia
Tagged: newcommforum, PR, research, sncr, socialmedia
60: The struggle to collaborate
June 2, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Following a long series of shows featuring interviews with everyong from CEOs to anonymous bloggers, David and Paul reflect on what they’ve learned from these interactions. Paul is impressed by the fact that people who were once hard to reach have now become so accessible.
David is annoyed by the slow adoption rate of collaboration tools and wonders why people fall back to e-mail when such significant productivity improvements are available. Paul thinks productivity isn’t enough. People tend to fall back to the tools they’ve used for a long time, even if they don’t do a very good job.
In Cheers & Jeers, David tells of an interview he has coming up with someone, but he doesn’t know who. The PR person won’t tell him. Paul says he’s now receiving pitches aimed at bloggers, but they look suspiciously like the mass mailings he used to get when he was an editor.
Be sure to listen for bonus features, including Dana’s Pick of the Pod and some amusing outtakes.
Download the podcast by going over to mediablather and subscribing to our feed there.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: commentary