Posted by Gini Dietrich on February 2nd, 2012 
1 Comment
Right now the United States are in the middle of GOP Presidential race and it’s an interesting time, to be sure.
That’s why our interview with Mary Barber is so timely.
Mary, if you don’t know, is the founder of The Barber Group, which is headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. As a side note: Alaska is having its coldest and most snowy winter on record. While it’s scary for the residents, some of us (who love snow) are living vicariously through Mary’s Facebook updates.
Last year, Mary worked with a team of communication professionals to mobilize around a candidate.
But not just any candidate…a write-in candidate who won.
It was the first time a write-in candidate has won anywhere since 1954.
We won’t ruin the interview for you, but you’ll want to listen to see how they mobilized many people to get out the message, had a message of the day, and how they were each responsible for one platform and one audience.
She also discusses how they integrated online conversations with tried and true offline tactics, such as walking a district.
Don’t miss the announcement of Jay Baer and me keynoting Counselor’s Academy this year. We discuss the topic during the podcast. What we didn’t discuss is Jay will provide the expertise and I’ll provide the color commentary. And you’ll receive a copy of Marketing in the Round!
If you run a PR firm, get to New Orleans in May!
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Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Kristine on January 25th, 2012 2 Comments
Search is changing.
This week was a big week for social media, especially Google. Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman start the episode with talking about Google’s new search algorithm. Google has changed in search algorithm to make it personalized to the person logged on. Twitter and Facebook are not too happy about this change and believe that Google is not giving an accurate search result. The gang talks about how consumers are being affect and how we are stuck in the middle of a feud between two big corporations.
The pull between personalization and standardization increases with this new search algorithm, pushing standardization further and further outside of the picture. We will no longer all get the same search results. The team talks about what this means for consumers and communicators.
This issue also invokes change for communicators and marketers and how we promote our company’s online, the key words we use and how we publish content.
What do you think? Will Google continue to be the number one choice for search?
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Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Kristine on January 13th, 2012 3 Comments
This week, we feature another interview from the PRSA International Conference. We talk to our good friend Shonali Burke, communications strategist and author of the Waxing Unlyrical blog, about PR and social media measurement, a subject all PR people should pay attention to because it demonstrates the value of our work and whether or not we’ve achieved our goals.
Shonali calls out three problems in the way we approach measurement:
- The concept of measurable objectives has been lost – our objectives must be quantifiable and time-bound.
- Buzz is not a goal – because people don’t know what they’re trying to achieve, they’re not approaching communications strategically.
- People overcomplicate. Don’t focus on the tools but on what you’re trying to track and how.
Shonali mentions the Blue Key campaign, which asks Americans to donate $5 to raise awareness and support for refugee issues and how they track the program using custom URLs, Google Analytics and other tools to identify emerging trends.
She’s tired of PR professionals saying they’re not good at numbers and advises us to, ‘stop getting freaked out by math!’
Gini mentions that it’s not impressions or ad equivalencies that are important, but how we deliver the kinds of results that mean something to a client’s business. Joe adds that being in PR, we’re dealing with digital data all the time and need to get good at that. Martin suggests that as professional communicators we are all in business and, as such, should learn and understand the fundamentals of business.
Are you measuring your programs effectively and in a way that demonstrates real value to your clients or organizations? Do you have any thoughts or cases to add? We’d love to hear from you.
And thanks Shonali.
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Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Gini Dietrich on January 5th, 2012 Leave a Comment
Happy New Year!
We hope you had great holidays spent with family and friends.
After a short break, we’re back and ready to rock a new year.
And speaking of a new year, we discuss what we’re looking forward to in the first half of this year.
Martin Waxman is attending SxSW and speaking at Podcamp. Joe Thornley is co-hosting (with Shel Holtz) an online social media workshop for IABC and its members. And I have a crazy speaking schedule, beginning at the end of April, that coincides with the publication of Marketing In the Round, the book I’m co-authoring with Geoff Livingston.
We’re all bullish on what 2012 has in store and we’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to in the first half of the year.
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Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Kristine on December 23rd, 2011 2 Comments
This is the last show of 2011 for Inside PR. It has been another great year with Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley and Gini Dietrich.
The group has recorded 82 episodes. However, Inside PR has been around for over five years with other hosts such as Terry Fallis.
This week Martin, Gini and Martin talk about their social media resolution.
Joe’s resolution is to be present, publish more often, and try to increase comments and engagement online. He will start by posting on Google+ and if there is more substance he will do a blog post and make people aware of his ideas on Twitter. To measure success, Joe will measure the amount of engagement he experiences on all his social platforms. He is looking for people to come back more than just once.
Martin’s resolution is to make the right choices. He has a hunger for a lot of things, but he can’t do all of it, and needs to focus. To measure success, Martin will measure engagement, meaningful interactions and meeting more great people.
Gini’s resolution is to take all that she has learned from her clients, all the digital tools and implement them for Arment Dietrich to drive sales. Gini will determine success by measuring good ol’ profit margins.
We’d love to hear from you. Send us your social media resolutions.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Kristine on December 15th, 2011 3 Comments
First:
Listener comments responding to our discussion on ‘mean girls in PR’… Thanks to Jessica Suter from The Change PR, Lizanor Barrera and our own producer, Kristine Simpson, who submitted an audio comment (and graciously edited it in). The consensus from everyone is there are a lot of good, honest and ethical women and men working in the profession (and yes, there are a few stinkers, too…).
Next:
We officially announce Gini’s new book, Marketing in the Round, co-authored with Geoff Livingston. The publication date is May 2012, but it’s available to pre-order on Amazon and other sites (just in time for the holidays). It will be launched in Canada at Third Tuesday (Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver). Congratulations, Gini!
Then:
We move on to talk about some recent changes to Twitter and Google.
Joe sees the new features/updates as an example of how innovation is still occurring rapidly in social media; Twitter is looking more and more like a user friendly service. Martin admits he still likes the Twitter.com platform because he feels at home there.
Joe is disappointed by the changes to Tweetdeck, because it has fewer features and will now carry only Twitter and none of his other social feeds. He’s going to revisit Hootsuite.
Gini mentions Market Me Suite as another alternative.
Martin says he’s been a Hootsuite user for a while and likes the functionality. He wishes they would let users customize column width in order to see more streams at a glance.
Google introduced Currents, a magazine reader (not yet available in Canada) and is integrating Gmail with the Google+ platform.
Joe likes the quality of the interaction on Google+. He says you can describe Google+ as a place you go for ideas, Facebook, as a place to interact with friends and Twitter where you find out what’s going on. Within that model there’s lots of room for each platform to survive and thrive.
But what about LinkedIn? Martin believes many LinkedIn features could be integrated into Google+ to make it a good business networking and information resource.
Joe feels too many people on LinkedIn are promoting themselves as they look for jobs; what’s missing is the culture of generosity.
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We’d love to hear from you.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Gini Dietrich on December 7th, 2011 3 Comments
We had so much fun at the PRSA International Conference in Orlando because we got to talk to so many smart people.
This week we have another smart person to share with you: Pierre-Loic Assayag, the founder and CEO of Traackr.
Martin Waxman had a chance to chat with him in the Traackr booth about what they’re doing, how relevance drives influence, and what types of analytics are now offered through the tool.
During the conversation, Martin asked Pierre-Loic what three pieces of advice he had to offer to PR professionals.
He said:
- 1. Be open-minded. The new media list looks a little like the old media list, but it’s not. Be open to the new influencers you aren’t used to seeing and welcome surprises.
- 2. Nothing replaces hard work. This is one we really like because he talks about how what they do makes the repetitive process easier, but they’re not replacing good PR.
- 3. There is no silver bullet. As easy as it is to want to rely on some of these tools to automate our jobs, there is no silver bullet to online influence. In order to engage people in a meaningful way, you have to rely on good old relationship-building skills.
He also talks for a few minutes about the alpha list they just launched, which is a way to give control to influencers so they can define their own lists.
At the end of the episode, Martin, Joe Thornley, and I discuss a blog post that is making the rounds right now, “Are Women In PR Just Grown-Up Mean Girls?”
I thought it would be interesting to get the opinion from my male counterparts, but Joe was too chicken to say anything beyond, “No! That’s not true!”
The point we all agreed on, though, is our industry is so focused on media relations, which is just a tool and not everything that we do, that it’s hard to escape that notion.
Enjoy the show!
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We’d love to hear from you.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by thornley on December 2nd, 2011 6 Comments
Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about the PRSA’s initiative to develop a new definition of public relations on this week’s Inside PR.
The PRSA’s current definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.” The public is invited to suggest the elements of a new definition using a ” fill in the blanks” form on the PRSA Website.
Joe isn’t sure that the PRSA’s “fill in the blanks” crowd-sourcing approach will yield the type of definition that truly reflects the enhanced role of PR in the era of social media.
Gini Dietrich suggests that whatever definition is adopted, it will only be useful if it can be readily understood by the general public. And she believes that right now most people believe that PR amounts to little more than media relations.
Martin argues that the public relations profession should define itself through the lense applied by Jeff Jarvis when he asserts that “In a world of publicness which allows us to connect to each other, to information to actions and to transactions, links, i.e. linking up, help us organize new societies and redefine our publics.”
Also in this week’s podcast, we continue to experiment with Google+. Gini Dietrich has set up the Spin Sucks page on Google+. Take a look at it and let her know what you think of it.
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We’d love to hear from you.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Kristine on November 24th, 2011 1 Comment
We recorded Inside PR 2.76 on the day Google+ opened its pages to businesses and watched as companies developed their G+ presence in real time.
Now it’s a couple of weeks later, and we thought we’d take a closer look. Gini kicks it off by referencing her blog post on the topic. She calls out Google’s transparency in admitting they helped several companies build their brand pages in advance of the launch. However, she’s noticed some of those organizations haven’t grown their followings or done much posting.
She goes on to say while the social media bubble may have wanted G+ to be a Facebook slayer, that’s not likely Google’s intent. She believes it’s to give us a social reason for using Google and that will provide them with more data.
Martin likes the interface, that you can share directly from Google Reader and that Google docs, calendar and Gmail are all there. He wonders if there’s more of a business application to the platform because G+ is so open and when you’re with friends you want to be in a less public environment – a private room with the doors closed, like FB.
Joe calls out the ability to organize circles by interest. And in his circles for journalists, marketers, web design and PR, people continue to publish interesting discussions. Joe uses the platform to follow posts on an industry by industry basis.
Martin suggests it could be a mini-blogging platform without the constraint of 140 characters; a place for companies to start a larger discussion.
Some recent updates: G+ can be managed by third-party apps like Hootsuite. Right now, there’s only one administrator allowed for business pages – that’s going to change in the new year, but currently it’s a drawback.
And finally, we want to wish all our American friends and listeners a Happy Thanksgiving!
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We’d love to hear from you.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
Posted by Gini Dietrich on November 17th, 2011 2 Comments
This week, Jay Baer, of Convince and Convert and The Now Revolution fame, is our guest.
We interviewed him at the PRSA International Conference in Orlando last month and thought now was a great time to run it.
It’s 2012 planning time so we discuss with him the things people ought to remember when using the social tools, trends to watch, and what to consider for next year.
A few things you want to pay particular attention to while you listen:
- His keynote topic at the conference was the goal of corporate culture in speed, authenticity, and response, not about social media.
- He talks about how social media success isn’t about the tools and technology. It’s about corporate culture and being social instead of doing social.
- He wants you to remember that the tools always change. If you focus on the tools, when they die, go public, or get bought out, you’re going to be left with the smoking wreckage of a plan not focused on strategy.
- He says the goal is not to be good at social media. The goal is to be good at business, using social media.
We ask him what are the three things he wants you to take away and he outlines them for us.
We also discuss how, as consumers we have so much more information about at our fingertips, it’s important for companies to be sustainable, human, approachable, and engage to help us make our decisions.
Ending with what’s next for Jay Baer and the four words Martin takes away every time he hears Jay speak.
It’s been said multiple times during the podcast, but if you’ve never heard Jay speak, you’ll quickly understand why he’s one of the industry’s most sought-after experts.
He walks the walk, is highly engaging, and is really, really smart.
Enjoy!
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We’d love to hear from you.
Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.
Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.
