52: Anniversary Party

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

47: Twitter magic

Many people’s first reaction to Twitter.com is that they just don’t get it. At first blush, the group instant messaging service looks like chaos: everyone is talking at once and some of them talking about nothing in particular.

But Twitter has inspired a passionate following. Some people make it their main online communications medium. It’s certainly changed Laura Fitton’s life. The Boston-based presentations consultant uses Twitter to meet influential people, find business opportunities and answer everyday questions. Twittering as “Pistachio,” she’s amassed a following of more than 1,500 “followers,” who value her ability to stimulate discussions with provocative questions and comments that fit into Twitter’s 140-character format. She’s a poster child for a service that is revolutionizing the way people interact with their social networks.

In this interview, Fitton describes what’s unique about Twitter and how it can be useful even to people who don’t log on that often. She also touches on possible uses of Twitter for marketing and PR.

Download the podcast (23:27)

Creative commons photo by Doc Searles

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)

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).

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).

40: A look ahead

This being the final Tech PR War Stories podcast for 2007, David and Paul thought they’d stretch out a little and ruminate on what’s ahead for 2008. Here, in no particular order, are their predictions. It’s going to be another wild year for tech PR, but one in which savvy PR pros can elevate their status with employers and clients:

• The end of beats at technology publications. Reporters will become more generalized and contract experts will contribute more of the specialized coverage;
• Fragmentation in coverage of technology; it will come from a variety of sources;
• Google will buy Second Life and Skype. Paul sees big opportunities for the search giant to leverage those core technologies into franchise businesses;
• PR pros will have to do a better job at creating meaningful relationships with press. They’ll also have to reach out to unexpected places for coverage;
• Increasing concerns about privacy in social networks. Facebook’s Beacon was just the tip of the iceberg;
• The Wall Street Journal will become a free service. Rupert Murdoch has already made it clear that he wants to take the paper in this direction and that will have big implications for tech coverage as the Journal asserts itself as a major online news force;
• The rise of social search, addressing some of the inherent limitations of search. Mahalo and WikiaSearch are early proofs of concept of an evolution of the search utility;
• Vendors will increasingly become publishers and will need help from PR people to create useful and interesting content.

What do you think? Post your comments below and please continue to offer suggestions and sources for future Tech PR War Stories podcasts.

Download the podcast here (19:00).

31: Scott Kirsner talks shop

This week, Paul and Dave are joined by Scott Kirsner, a Boston Globe columnist, freelance writer, blogger and conference organizer. As a writer who’s had significant experience in both mainstream and new media, Scott understands the power of each to shape opinion in different ways.Scott sees greater convergence happening between newspapers and citizen journalists, but believes newspapers still have to come up the learning curve in understanding the unique characteristics of Internet content. PR people are skilled at pitching him as a print reporter, he says, but pitches tuned to his blog are almost non-existent. For every 250 print pitches, there’s one blog pitch. This is an opportunity missed. PR still doesn’t give bloggers the attention they merit.

Marketers can adopt new media to understand and engage with their markets better, Scott believes. Start by reading Cluetrain Manifesto. Then stop talking at your customers and start asking them for comments and feedback. You can leverage inexpensive tools like online video to tell people about innovative work your company is doing or to showcase interesting people. Scott’s book, The Future of Web Video, can help you there.

Get the podcast here. (16:51)

27: Guard that address book!

This week, David and Paul discuss social networks that steal address book entries in order to recruit new members. Paul was a recent victim of Quechup, an apparently legitimate social networking service that’s outraged many people by apparently hacking their address books. Dave and Paul agree that you should be careful with who gets access to your contact files.

In a wide-ranging discussion, they also talk about how social networks are binding together technology journalists. An online network for ex-CMPers is quite active, indicating that old contacts are still strong. A lesson for PR practitioners: don’t burn bridges because people stay in touch with each other.

The sudden demise of The New York Times’ Times Select service is also fodder for discussion. Dave thinks it’s crazy to try to charge for content and that publishers should focus on building traffic. Paul thinks paid-membership models aren’t an altogether bad idea.

Download the podcast here. (14:08)