Inside PR 487: What makes it worthwhile to attend a conference

When it comes to conferences, is less really more?

It’s conference season. And, like you, we want to get the most out of the conferences we attend. And we have become more demanding of the conferences we attend, given that we can get so much great content via Webinars and online courses.

So, let’s talk about why we attend conferences. What are they good for? How do you get the most out of them? Should conference organizers offer a different experience, based on facilitated discussions drawing on the expertise in the audience?

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 456: Ugh. It happened.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast.  

#IPRMustKnows

Snapchat is a Snap

If you missed the news, Snapchat has rebranded and at the same time begun to move outside of its core business, including the promise of Snapchat video glasses. Snapchat may well pull off what Google Glass failed at.

Why Allo?

Google Plus redux? Do we need yet another duplicative app?

The sprit of selfless sharing

MOZ, the SEO app is a useful tool and source of expertise for many PR people who need to learn and apply pragmatic SEO to their programs. Recently, Ran Fishkin published a remarkable post in which he was both candid and insightful. And we contemplate his observation that “Inbound marketing never really became a thing…” A big deal if you are repositioning your company into the inbound marketing space. Something for PR people to think about as we reposition our businesses for the future. Not specifically about inbound marketing. But about any space we are moving toward. Will it still be there when we arrive?

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on iTunes

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 452: Does the Hub and Spoke approach need a tire change?

A recent Ontario arbitrator’s ruling reminds us that the law and social media are in an ever-changing relationship. The Olympics’ once again aggressively enforce trademarks on social media. Instagram Stories are feeling good. And the trend to distributed publishing prompts a rethink of the hub and spoke content publishing model. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Employers’ social media responsibilities are fluid

You may think that social media has been around long enough that you’re comfortable that you know what you should, can and must do when interacting on social media for your employer or client. Well, an Arbitrator’s ruling in a dispute between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the union representing its employees should remind us that nothing is fixed when it comes to social media. As reported in the Toronto Star, the Arbitrator ruled that the TTC, when operating @TTCHelps, its Twitter outreach ID, failed to take all of the measure it should have to protect its employees from online harassment and abuse. The union argued that, by operating its customer service Twitter ID, @TTCHelps, the TTC was providing a forum for abuse and harassment of its employees. While the arbitrator did not support the union’s demand to shut down the account, he did indicate that the TTC be more assertive, telling people to take down posts, images, etc. considered offensive to employees, blocking Twitter uses and requesting Twitter to close the accounts of those users who do not cooperate. We have a good discussion about this ruling. Regardless of which side you come down on, this is a reminder to be ready to revise your practices on social media. The law still is being made.

Olympic-sized trademark enforcement says its about big money more than athletics

It’s become a tradition. Noting the hyper-aggressive trademark enforcement surrounding the Olympics and the use of any of their registered terms. Small businesses need to keep themselves as safe as the larger entities. And that’s just not fun.

Instagram Stories make a good social media platform even better

Gini has been posting to Instagram stories daily, and she reports that it’s a much simpler, intuitive experience than posting to Snapchat. Simpler. Intuitive. A solid foundation for success.

Does the hub and spoke need a tire change?

The hub and spoke approach to creating, distributing and promoting content has been a best practice for several years. However, after hearing that 75% of the content Buzzfeed produces isn’t published on Buzzfeed.com, Martin wonders if it’s time for marketers to reassess the role of the hub. Gini and Joe aren’t quite ready to abandon their blogs, but they agree with Martin that we need to challenge our accepted practices.

Now it’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 448: Integrate this

Twitter brings easy analytics to your mobile device. YouTube plays catch up in livestreaming video. And we ask why, after all these years, integrated marketing communications isn’t the norm. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Twitter Engage brings Twitter analytics to the masses

Twitter just made it a whole lot easier to track analytics like follows, @mentions, retweets, and video views, with the launch of Twitter Engage, a new iOS app. Real-time monitoring in your hand. The app launched on iOS in the US-only. You can hear the collective sigh of disappointment from Twitter addicts in the rest of the world.

YouTube Livestreams from your mobile

Livestreaming videos to YouTube from your mobile is about to be possible. YouTube announced at VidCon that it is testing livestreaming with select publishers. Available to the rest of us soon. With YouTube’s huge catalogue of videos that we already have uploaded, it’s going to be competitive with both Facebook Live Videos and Periscope. Does that mean that I have to buy a third phone to livestream events to all three services?

Integrated Marketing Communications: Many are called. Not all answer.

Gini Dietrich wrote in a blog post that, with the proliferation of platforms and the need to integrate ephemeral and chat channels, integrated marketing communications is more important than ever. We’re all heard the term integrated marketing communications for over a decade. Independent agencies seem to have embraced integration. PR agencies in particular have moved to the PESO – Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned – model. So, why isn’t integrated marketing communications practised each and every day? We talk about the impact of tight communications budgets and the persistence of silos within corporate marketing and communications functions. We also look at the legacy of separate profit centres in holding company agencies. The need to maximize returns for individual centres may work at odds with making integrated marketing communications a daily way of life for people working in holding company networks.

We’d love to know what you think.

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 447: The Future of Social with Jason Keath of Social Fresh

Major media outlets launch sponsored content with their Facebook Instant Articles and Jason Keath takes us through the highlights of Social Fresh’s Future of Social research report. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Sponsored Content on Facebook Instant Articles

Screenshot 2016-07-03 10.33.45Neiman Labs reports that two heavyweight traditional news outlets, the Washington Post and The Atlantic, have begun running sponsored content in their Facebook Instant Articles. Happily, the illustration in the Nieman Labs story suggests that the content will be clearly labelled as “Sponsor Content.” I tried to verify that by reviewing my own newsfeed. However, I couldn’t find a single sponsored article from either the Washington Post or The Atlantic. That makes me think that either this sponsored content is so far very rare or Facebook is geotargeting the ads and my Canadian IP address puts me outside of the target area for them.

Jason Keath, Founder of Social Fresh

Jason Keath is the CEO of Social Fresh, which recently released The Future of Social, a report based on research involving over 500 social media managers and executives. Gini tracked him down and interviewed him about the report and the lessons we can take from it. Among the highlights:

  • Companies that invest in social media tools achieve a greater return than those who don’t.
  • 95% of respondents using social media software report a positive ROI on their social media activities vs. 63% who are not investing in tools.
  • Social media is best at connecting with existing audiences, customers, strongest leads, fans and stakeholders. Building awareness through social media can be an expensive proposition.
  • To increase leads and sales, focus more time on fewer pieces of content. For example, Social Fresh invests heavily both in their research and the conference. This enables them to stand out by being deeper and offering more unique insights.
  • Take your audience up the commitment curve. Ask little of them at the beginning. Reading a post. Downloading a paper. Registering. Then work them up the curve to larger commitments.
  • Instagram is on the verge of leapfrogging LinkedIn and Twitter to become the second largest ad platform.
  • Marketers report satisfaction with the results they are achieving with video content and they plan to increase their commitment to it in the coming year.

If you’re interested in more info about this year’s Social Fresh conference, it will be held August 18 to 21 in Orlando. Discounted registration is available until August 1.

We’d love to know what you think.

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 410: Martin, You complete me

You want to make your point. So, which do you try to do? Appeal to your listeners emotions? Or hit them with cold, hard reason?

Martin Waxman and I have a wide ranging and maybe too personal discussion of that question on this week’s Inside PR podcast. And in doing so, we may reveal a little too much about ourselves. But isn’t that why we podcast in the first place? So that we can not just communicate our ideas, but communicate them as real people?

What got us off on this line of discussion? An article by Lisa Lai published recently on HBR.org. In her article, Lai provides both a conceptual overview of the emotion reason dichotomy and some practical advice on how to decide which route to go in specific situations.

As I read this article, I realize that one of my failings through my career has been my propensity to appeal to reason. I approach the world as a rational place in which causes can be discerned and solutions devised. That’s a world in which all things can be engineered with determination, focus, and a well thought through plan of action.

Martin allows that he sees things through the human lens and his first instinct is to appeal to emotion. He has struggled with the need to introduce the rational in situations where emotion just won’t do it.

This leads us to think about the importance of being attuned to the other person in order to read which persuasion technique is best for them. And that takes us back to the most basic communication skill, listening. We must listen to the other person for the clues about what’s important to them in order to figure out which approach to take with them. My preference doesn’t matter. If I want to persuade another person I need to start with their preference as my anchor point.

That takes us even further afield to the most often used and most often abused communications technique of the digital era: email. You can’t read the other person using email. You can’t tell whether your argument is going to be effective, is going to tap the right place, either emotional or rational.

Finally, we talk about Crystal, a new app that promises to tell “you the best way to communicate with any coworker, prospect, or customer based on their unique personality.” Machine-generated empathy!

We’d love to hear your views. What do you think of the reason vs. emotion dichotomy? Are you ready to rely on a machine algorithm to help you communicate in the mode preferred by the other party?

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

And we have a favor to ask: if you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Ashlea McGrath.

Special edition: The ABCs of podcasting at CPRS Ottawa’s Re-Boot Camp for Communicators

Ashlea here, your Inside PR podcast producer…

Today Joe and I took part in a high-wire feat at CPRS Ottawa’s Re-Boot Camp for Communicators.

Together we demonstrated the basic steps of producing a quality podcast, talked about the hardware and software you need to get started, and published this edition – live.

If you’re listening to this episode now, it means we’ve successfully completed our act! Can you hear the applause?

In all seriousness, CPRS Ottawa’s Re-Boot Camp was a lovely time; thanks for having us!

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 We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 2.62 Hanging Out on Google+

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It’s two weeks since Google+ launched and the Inside PR hosts, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley, have been testing it for its strengths and weaknesses. This week we  talk about our experience so far.

One of the things that has caught most people’s attention is Google Hangouts, the feature that lets Google+ users set up video conference calls with up to ten users. So we thought that we’d use this feature for our recording. Well, as you’ll hear in this episode, there’s a reason why Google+ is still in the “test” period. Not everything works the way that you’d like it to. We lose Gini part of the way through. But she rejoins us by the end. We also experienced the same problem that Shel Holtz noticed when he and Neville Hobson recorded a special episode of the FIR podcast using Google Hangouts with Camtasia studio. The video recording had several defects – frozen screens and video that lagged behind the audio. Hangouts is quite ready for this use. But we’re hoping that Google will keep improving this feature and we’ll keep testing it. Eventually, I’m sure we’ll be able to produce a video version of Inside PR to accompany the audio version.

Have you ever sat down with a long time partner and said, if we could do it over again, what would we do differently? So far, I think that Google+ is the Social Network that’s doing it over and is doing it right.

For me, Facebook started as a place that suggested we could have private conversations with friends and family. But as Facebook developed its business model, it broke the faith with us on that. Bit by bit, it pushed our information onto public feeds – and it wasn’t always up front about what it was doing and didn’t provide us with easy control over how we could control our information.

Martin has been focused on rebuilding his network on Google+. And he’s found that it feels like the early days of Twitter, before the celebrities invaded it and the network became obsessed with numbers of followers. Martin’s finding that he can connect with his real community of interest on Google+ and have much higher quality conversations than he’s experienced on the other networks.

So far, I’ve had an experience similar to Martin. I’ve found that I share the interests of most of the people who have followed me. And by using the Circles feature to sort people by topic, I can dip into different areas just as I would if I were choosing between sections of a newspaper. A great way to increase the signal to noise ratio.

Martin also finds that a strength of Google+ is the ease with which users can adjust their privacy settings – on a general basis and on a post by post basis. It’s intuitive and clear.

Gini also points out that the Circles approach is different from the asymmetrical following on Twitter and the symmetrical friending on Facebook. And this means that we’ll have to develop a different way of figuring out how to manage ourselves in a way that takes full advantage of the unique properties of Google+

So, that’s our Google+ discussion this week. It’s the biggest thing that’s happened in social media in the past couple years. We’ll continue to test it and share our experiences in future weeks.

And what about you? Are you using Google+? What do you think of it? It’s strengths? Its weaknesses?

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.48 – A big week for Salesforce and Radian6, Google +1 and April Fools!

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Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I are back for another episode of Inside PR.

This week, we talk about the implications of the Radian6 acquisition by Salesforce.com and the launch of Google +1.

Oh. And April Fools didn’t pass us by either. Gini gives a big shoutout to HootSuite ‘s  Angry Owls prank and Martin is looking forward to connecting with Ernest Hemingway on LinkedIn. And along the way, Joe gets reorganized into a spare office – if one is available.

The big news this week was the announcement that Salesforce.com would pay $323 million to acquire social media analytics company Radian6. This is an interesting acquisition for the valuation, of course. But even more-so for what it may signal about the evolution of social media monitoring and analysis services. We take a close look at the implications of the Salesforce-Radian6 deal.

Finally, Gini kicks off our discussion of Google +1 with the question, “What does it feel like to be a me-too product when you used to be ruler of the world?” Fighting words?

Do you have comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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.

And a BIG WELCOME to the new producer of Inside PR: Kristine Simpson. You’re a brave person Kristine. 🙂

UPDATE: I’ve written a longer post on ProPR.ca about the implications of the Radian6-Salesforce, Finally, a means of measuring the ROI of social media?

Inside PR 2.36 – Wednesday, January 12, 2011

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Comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], visit the Inside PR Blubrry site, leave us a comment on the Inside PR show blog or message us @inside_pr on Twitter.

This week on Inside PR, Martin, Gini and Joe discuss viral videos and Quora, the question and answer website that everyone is talking about.

0:27 Martin opens the show.

1:32 Martin shares a story about talking social media with his local MP.

2:55 Gini starts off with the first topic of the episode: The homeless man with  golden voice.

4:38 Martin thinks it’s a great example of the kind of videos that go viral.

6:38 Joe reminds  us that there is no set formula for a viral video.

9:30 Joe thinks videos go viral because the appeal to a particular interest or cultural background. Unless you create a video with that in mind, it’s unlikely to be successful.

10:12 Martin recalls a panel he saw at South by South West Interactive and they gave three tips about making a great video: 1) develop a great story, 2) the production values need to match your story and 3) distribution and promotion.

11:34 Joe talks about the second topic of the show: Quora.com, a question and answer website and community. He thinks it’s a great research tool.

14:05 Gini wonders whether Quora is a social network or an open, unmoderated content reference website?

16:07 Joe says Quora is becoming a lot like a social network as it’s pure discussion, but on searchable answer basis.

16:30 Martin has recently signed up and is looking forward to playing with the website.

17:20 Martin closes the show.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Yasmine Kashefi.