(L to R: Josh Hallett, Mike Manuel, Dave Coustan)
I got some of the PR 2.0 gang back together while we were at Syndicate NYC last week. David Parmet, Mike Manuel, Josh Hallett and I were joined by Joel Richman of PAN Communications. We talked about the lack of PR folks at the Syndicate show, about the Chevy ‘roll your own ad’ campaign, Amanda Congdon, and much, much more. We can’t help ourselves. We like to chat.
Listen to the podcast:
Technorati Tags: brian oberkirch, david parmet, hyku, joel+richman, josh hallett, mike+manuel, PAN+communications, pr2.0, syndicate, syndicate06, syndicatenyc, voce+communications, Weblogs+Work, Weblogs+Worknotes
A few of the folks from the Palo Alto PR 2.0 discussion got together for another chat this week. I talked with Mike Manuel, Josh Hallett and David Parmet about a post Mike did a few weeks ago on the social media services gap. We focus on the unique challenges agencies face when working in social media, and what we as workers on the frontlines can do to improve.
Listen to the podcast:
Technorati Tags: brian oberkirch, david parmet, josh hallett, mike+manuel, podcast, pr2.0, public+relations, Weblogs+Work, Weblogs+Worknotes
(Two sharp Mikes: Manuel & Arrington)
A great start last night for Third Thursday, the monthly meetup on social media jumpstarted by Mike Manuel, Phil Gomes, Jeremy Pepper & Giovanni Rodriguez. Hated not to make it, but we can live vicariously through Pepper's write up, Valleywag's commentary, Mike A's blog, Mike M's blog, and this mp3. Mike Arrington, of TechCrunch, talks about his goals for the growing network of sites he runs, and how he thinks the new PR should work.
We talked a bit about these same topics in our podcast on Weblogs Worknotes.
Shocking turn of events. Seems that Jeremy Pepper & Steve Rubel have thrown off the Man's yoke and started their own blockbuster PR firm, one grounded in the power of social media, I'm sure. Super snooper Josh Hallett broke the story. I, for one, welcome our new social media overlords.
Rock on, gentlemen.
Bonus: Parmet noticed a little change in attitude when we were all in Palo Alto a few weeks back. Was a new love blooming even then?
Update: Rubel is positively giddy over the new venture.
Here’s an article I did for Floral Management Magazine. It’s meant as a list of real world blogging tips for marketers who want to really put the new tools in play and change the way they talk to customers. As Mike says: it’s time to get real about how hard it is to really have a bunch of ‘edge’ communications. Love to hear what you think.
Living on the Edge: Blogging in the Real World
Ok, we get it: blogs can be really good for business. Over the past 18 months, a lot of words have been laid down to get people to think about blogs as more than online journals, places for cat photos and outlets for political rants. Big companies like Sun, Microsoft, Boeing, GM and a number of others have embraced blogging as a critical way to have conversations with those who matter to their business. A new blog comes online every second, according to blog search service Technorati. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel have just published the definitive book on business blogging – Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
Blogs are here to stay. So, how do we actually do this stuff?
As my friend Mike Manuel noted at the New Communications Forum this past week, it’s time to move the discussion out of theories about blogging and social media and into the raucous to & fro that is actual conversation. Once you get the big idea (that as marketers our job is to enhance conversations, not try to control them), you need a new set of approaches for getting the job done. The bad news: there are no hard & fast rules. As customers produce their own messages (through blogs, videos, podcasts, photos) at the edges, our marketing has to be flexible, flowing, transparent. Honest. Here’s a handful of real world thoughts to get you started on your own adventure with blogs and other social media:
Get Small Fast.
Social media is an embarrassment of niches. Blogs make small players look bigger & help big players get small. If mass media wastes your message on those not interested, social media helps you offer sharp, targeted stuff that is high value to the right readers. So, you’re not just the floral expert. Maybe you’re the wedding flowers guru. Or you’re the one who’s going to show us the value in everyday flowers. Or you’re going to launch a flower-a-day blog to help us branch out a bit. Drill down. Slice your area in half. And again. Go niche and you’re on your way to better blogging.
Just Do It.
How do you learn to blog? By blogging. Badly at first, but improving with each push of the publish button. See, you’ll quickly learn what gets a response. People will comment, link to you, totally ignore posts that don’t matter to them. Don’t fret endlessly over what platform to use (choose one of the top ones and get cranking). Don’t overdo the fuss over your design (do something clean and sharp that lets people get to the info they want). Don’t overthink it. Start writing a little bit, and see what the world has to say.
Link, link, link.
The most important thing to do in a blog post is provide good links. The second most important thing is to provide really good links. And so on.
Write a Little. Often.
Readership and improved search engine rankings happen through this magical formula: lots of frequent, short posts with links. Have a big idea? Chop it up into a series of posts. Make your blog look alive with routine posts.
Listen. Learn. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s a conversation, right? How can you learn anything if you’re always running your mouth? Pay attention to comments. Respond to them. Use Technorati and other blog search services to track what people are saying about your company, your service, your area of expertise. Respond on their blogs. Great blogging is really about reading, understanding and synthesizing. The writing is mostly flourish.
Ping, Don’t Pitch.
My geek pals & I have a phrase we use when we tap each other for something: ping. When reaching out to other bloggers, don’t approach it as you would an old-school media relations pitch. Offer something of interest to someone you know says Josh Hallett. A great formulation. Engage other bloggers. Comment on their stuff. By all means, let them know what you’re up to. (You’re proud of your content, right?) But, don’t do it in a mercenary way. Focus on sharing valuable, relevant links & material.
Spread the Words.
All blog software creates a feed that is automagically updated each time you post. (Sometimes you’ll see an inscrutable orange box that says XML or RSS. That’s what we mean.) Use these feeds to help you spread the word. You can reflow (or syndicate) your blog content to other parts of your Web site. Make sure to prominently feature your blog feed on your page, on your home page, etc. Let readers get your blog posts via email if that’s what they want. Include your blog address in your email footer.
Search Me.
As Elisa Camahort so rightly pointed out the other day, the phrase ‘blogs are great for Google juice’ gets repeated as though it were a form of magic. Can blogging help you show up better on Google and other search engines? Absolutely. It’s a nice, organic byproduct of having real conversations with people. It doesn’t happen by accident, though. Think about what you want to be known for. (Again, go niche.) Then write about those things. Use those terms. And give it time. Blogging is a long-term play with no good shortcuts. As Jeremy Pepper cautions, though, "don’t just go into blogging for ‘Google Juice’ but because you have passion." Without passion for the topic, the blog won’t continually pull an audience.
Think Beyond the Blog.
When I say ‘blogging’, I really mean all the new tools we can use to self-publish our ideas. Blogs, sure, but there is also flickr and other photosharing services;delicious, digg and other bookmarking communities; podcasting at iTunes, Odeo, AudioBlog and other listing sites; YouTube, Google Video and other video sharing sites; forums, mailing lists and so much more. When you start looking around, the Edge suddenly feels endless. And very exciting.
Updated:
Mike Sansone adds a great point (Rebecca Blood’s incremental value process at work):
Share Your Knowledge. Mike highlights a key part of the blogging way — sharing know how, linking out, providing value as a ticket into the conversation. This is fundamental, and I’m glad Mike added his voice to this piece.
Technorati Tags: better+blogging, brian oberkirch, elisa+camahort, flickr, mike+manuel
There is a wide range of opinion on today’s NYTimes article on Edelman PR sending information to bloggers on behalf of Wal-Mart. I’ll recap the continuum below, but for me this is another example of our august traditional journalism outlets getting a little quesy over the idea of companies using blogs to get information directly to readers. When anyone can publish, then anyone can become a competitive outlet for news. (You may recall the last example, where the WSJ tried to cast aspersions over FON advisors blogging about the company.)
This echoes a point Tom Foremski made in a panel at New Communications Forum last week: that journalists are better suited than bloggers at ’sorting out the crap’. (A point JD Lasica rebuked right away.)
Some of the blog response has taken the same tone: shame on Wal-Mart for pulling the wool over these poor little bloggers.
Jeff Jarvis counters (reasonably) that PR people place stories with journalists all the time & no one writes about how they are being taken advantage of.
More:
Richard Edelman
Mike Manuel
Dan Gillmor
Roundup at PR Linker
Marshall Manson (whose work is detailed in the piece)
We talk with Mike Arrington about TechCrunch & Edgeio, as part of the Weblogs Worknotes podcast series.
Technorati Tags: edgeio, mikearrington, podcast, techcrunch
What a crazy day. Busy, busy, so it took me a while to post up this podcast interview we did at New Communications Forum this morning. A roundtable discussion of PR & social media with:
and later
I’ll try to index the conversation & questions later this weekend. For more on the New Communications Forum, track the conversation and check out the flickr photos.
Grab the feed for Weblogs Worknotes.
Technorati Tags: david parmet, evelyn rodriguez, jeremy+pepper, josh hallett, mike manuel, newcomm forum, phil gomes, pr2.0, shel israel
Just added a podcast interview with Steve Rubel, of Micropersuasion, to the new Weblogs Worknotes feed. I’ll index the questions and topics later this weekend, but it’s available for you to check out.
Technorati Tags: edelman, micropersuasion, podcast, steve rubel
Odeo’s Noah Glass & Tim Roberts handle the blog thang with perfect aplomb. Right after we stuck a ’send us an odeo’ button on our Like It Matters blog, Noah & Biz Stone zapped us an odeo saying ‘cool, thanks for playing.’ Tim & I have since exchanged notes (via their new feature) about how to improve it, questions about RSS, etc. A few quick moments on their part translate to a great experience with the company on our part. So:
Technorati Tags: blog+monitoring, blogs, noah+glass, odeo, tim+roberts
Tara will be excited to see that Rebecca Blood has posted up a swell interview with our favorite philosopher of connection, David Weinberger. A few juicy bits:
“We shouldn’t be writing blogs in order to gain a mass market. And we shouldn’t be evaluating blogs and bloggers by how many people read them. …
Because I’d like to see the broadcast strategy get a real alternative not just in who the stars are but in the star system entirely."
and
"I blog because I tried it out and liked it.
I like it because it gets me into conversations and it builds friendships. I like it because I like writing. I like it because it stimulates me so much that I jump out of bed in the morning to get started."
We look forward to meeting Rebecca at the New Communications Forum event. We also look forward to hanging out with the esteemed Dr. Weinberger whenever the chance should arise.
I totally dug hanging out at Joe T. Garcia’s yesterday at the Fort Worth Ad Club Luncheon. Here is a clickstream for the talk I gave — a little social media jumpstart link kit:
Blogging Buzz/Confusion
BusinessWeek story — "Blogs Will Change Your Business"
Forbes paranoia — "Attack of the Blogs"
Blogging Delivered
Blogging Not Exactly Delivered
The Situation: Attention Scarcity
Long Tail blog on Mainstream Media Meltdown
John Moore on the influence of word of mouth
Brand Hijack manifesto
Sifry’s latest state of the blogosphere
Wrong! NY Times on tv-style ads on mobile devices. (Note: don’t try this at home)
Extinction Management
Tools
SixApart (Typepad, MovableType)
Wordpress (hosted option as well)
About RSS
Bloglines
NetNewsWire
(Example of syndicated headlines at Architel site)
Technorati
IceRocket
Delicious
Digg
tech.memeorandum
flickr
Odeo
iTunes podcast support
Robert Scoble
Jonathan Schwartz
English Cut
Stormhoek blog sampling
The Bad
Dell Hell
Dude, You’re Getting Dell’d
The Ugly
Essential Reading
Cluetrain Manifesto
Naked Conversations (check out the blog, too)
Small Pieces, Loosely Joined
Useful Marketing Stuff
MicroPersuasion
GapingVoid
BrandAutopsy
What’s Your Brand Mantra?
Church of the Customer
Media Orchard
New PR Wiki
Marketing Begins at Home
HorsePigCow
Like It Matters
PDF of my slides. (9.67 MB)
Technorati Tags: ad club fort worth, social media, Weblogs Work