44: Internet marketing superlist author shares secrets

Late last month, a post appeared on Tamar Weinberg’s techipedia blog that stopped us in our tracks. It’s called Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007 and it weighs in at more than 8,500 words and 250 links to an amazing assortment of blog entries about everything from headline writing to linkbaiting to becoming a Digg.com power user. So we called up and Tamar and talked to her about how she assembled the list and what she learned in the process.

If you’re trying to figure out what social media is all about, listen to this interview. Tamar is a recent Columbia graduate who consults on social media marketing and who isn’t tainted by memories of how easy things used to be. She’ll tell you about behavioral and ethical standards of new media and give you a lot of practical advice. We certainly learned a lot!

Download the podcast (15:51)

Why you should never give an unrehearsed demo to a journalist with a video camera

Scott Kirsner (TPRWS episode 31) blogs about a disastrous live demo by an executive at Nuance Communications, one of the biggest players in speech recognition. The demo went so badly that the exec posted a follow-up on YouTube explaining what went wrong. A lot of reporters carry video cameras these days, so know what you’re doing before you agree to let them switch those devices on!

Social Media Group updates the press release

Maggie Fox’s Social Media Group, which is one of the most innovative boutique agencies specializing in new media marketing, has developed a new version of the Social Media Press Release (SMPR), which was pioneered by Shift Communications in 2006.

The SMPR differs substantially from the traditional press release, which is often long, detailed and inflexible. The new format emphasizes many points of entry, so that journalists and bloggers can pick and choose the information – and the media – that they wish to use. The latter point is important. With so many media outlets today using images, audio and video to tell a story, the traditional press release doesn’t meet their needs very well. The SMPR makes room for story-telling through whatever media the publisher wishes to use. It requires more work on the client end, but should result in much better results.

Another innovation in this new version is its use of popular back-end services like YouTube and Flickr to host content. This means that people can find the information through search engines as well as via the press release.

Maggie has made the template available for anyone to use under a Creative Commons license. She has a more detailed explanation here. Or you can just download the template in PDF format.

BTW, Maggie was our guest on episode 16.

43: A roll of mints, a jug of cola and Wow!

Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe have turned chemistry into a viral video sensation. Their experiments mixing Mentos candies with Diet Coke have produced a series of online videos that have logged more than 40 million downloads and shaken up marketing at the Coca-Cola company. This week we snagged the duo, whose venture is known as Eepybird, and asked them about the secrets of their success. A hint: Don’t overdo it on production values, but pay attention to staging. Above all, keep it genuine.

Download the podcast (22:55).

42: Steve Boriss and the future of news

Our guest this week is Steve Boriss, who is an assistant professor at Washington University and the creator of The Future of News blog. Paul and David find themselves in alignment over many of the points, including how old media will have to evolve, how reporters will become content experts, and the role for PR in this new world order. Boriss also has some comments on what he teaches his undergrad journalism students.Paul does his own blog called Newspaper Death Watch where he talks about things such as How the Coming Newspaper Collapse Will Reinvent Journalism.You can download and listen to the episode here.

41: Putting search and recommendation engines in perspective

This week’s show was prompted by this amazing list of the best Internet marketing blog posts of 2007 by Tamar Weinberg.

With so much focus on search engine performance and user recommendations these days, PR pros may be tempted to spend all their time learning how to game the various traffic drivers that are sprouting up all over the Internet.  Sure, it’s always nice to get a traffic boost from Digg or StumbleUpon, but the value of that traffic may not be worth the effort.  The fundamental skills of PR — creating compelling content, building relationships and delivering on a message — are still critical in the Age of Search. This week, David and Paul try to put the recommendation engine craze in perspective.

Download the podcast here (13:04).