Inside PR 3.35: Take Original Photos for Your Owned Content

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We are all together for the second week in a row, this time for Counselors Academy in Austin.

There were bats, the weather was hot and humid, and Mark Wahlberg was staying in our hotel. Despite every effort to stalk him, I didn’t see him, but there was a sighting the last night of the conference, after I’d left. Clearly he was avoiding me.

As it turns out, we were there to actually learn. Because of that, I attended the pre-conference session about creating photos for your content.

As Joe points out during the podcast, most communicators use stock photos to clear a copyright, but it’s shocking how many use the same images as everyone else. When you create your own photos, the copyright belongs to you and they complement the beautiful content you’ve created.

The instructor, Paul M. Bowers, made a great analogy. He said you can write beautiful copy to describe a meal or a dish, but until you see it on a plate, you don’t fully understand how good it might be.

Photos appeal to all of our senses and, in his example, makes you want to eat what you’re seeing. The goal is to elicit feeling from your readers when a beautiful photo is attached to it.

He provided five tips:

  • The six inch rule
  • The rule of thirds
  • Negative space
  • Lighting
  • Foreground and background

During the foreground and background assignment, Martin served as my creative consultant. You can see the results (and other photos) on Spin Sucks.

As Joe says, “The world is full of interesting things. Why use an image everyone else is using from Creative Commons? Go out there and shoot something for yourself.”

Now armed with these tips, you can!

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 3.28: Yahoo Brings Employees Inside

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The Yahoo! decision to bring employees to the office is not news. You’ve probably heard it dissected to death. I wrote about it, from a PR and marketing perspective, and people have debated it to death, from women’s liberation and backwards thinking to why companies disappear and what this might mean for company growth (or not).

But Joe and I, with some prodding from Martin, discuss it a bit differently: From business owner perspectives.

Both of us have had good success with employees working from home. I run a completely virtual company and Joe has two offices (Ottawa and Toronto) with a team who work both in the office and at home.

We’re in agreement if you’re aiming for productivity, working from home tends to work better than being in an office where you can be constantly interrupted. But, if you’re looking to innovate, create new product design, or brainstorm, it’s really hard to produce remotely.

Joe says it’s easy to come up with a good idea, but they need to be stewed over and discussed. When the idea becomes a strategy is when people are waiting for the coffee to brew and they begin to discuss the idea. You can’t replace that with a virtual office.

I agree. In fact, I talk about how we struggle with those very things so we have to make a concerted effort to use technology to our advantage when we need to work on bigger, more thoughtful things for clients (or ourselves).

But through the discussion, we come up with a new way of doing things and using technology to obtain innovation without being in the office.

Listen to the episode to see what it is!

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.26: Get Weird with Counselors Academy

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It’s no secret Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and I are big fans of Counselors Academy.

During this week’s episode, we talked to this year’s Chair, Dana Hughens, about what to expect in Austin on June 9-11.

For those of you who are not familiar, Counselors Academy is a subsection of PRSA created for agency owners and senior members.

This year’s theme is WEIRD, which stands for wired, entrepreneurial, imaginative, and results-driven. It plays off the the “keep Austin weird” tagline of the city and is designed to help attendees increase creativity in their organizations and with their clients.

During the episode we talk about the types of things you can expect to learn, different activities in which you can participate, and a very cool pre-conference that is sure to fill up quickly.

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.24: Value, Ethics and Diversity with Mickey Nall

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We’re trying something a little bit different this week. We have a video of our interview with Mickey Nall, managing director of Ogilvy and incoming chair and CEO of PRSA International.

But don’t fear! Those of you who prefer the audio version (and to hear the voices of Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and me), Kristine Simpson stripped the audio from the video and edited it into our normal recording.

This interview is really interesting because Nall breaks down his goals for 2013 into three areas: Value, ethics, and diversity.

We discuss the three, where we think this year will take us from his perspective, and whether or not we agree. Martin and Nall discuss the types of things PRSA members receive and whether or not they’re valuable, particularly in this new economy where we’re all doing more with less.

Of course, ethics is a big one as we could all readily quote some recent issues with large PR firms (and PRSA members) getting caught doing some unethical things, in the form of whisper campaigns and more.

The diversity angle has some fun debate – we don’t all agree on what that means. Does it mean diversity as it relates to males and females? Or nationalities? Or both?

We’ll leave these things for you to listen (and watch!) and decide. Where do you land on PRSA member value, ethics, and diversity?

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.21: Our 2013 Predictions

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We made it through December 21. The world did not end. The Mayans were wrong!

We hope you had great holidays!

This week, we talk about the predictions and trends we see for 2013.

I start the conversation with augmented reality and how those of us who create content should consider using it this year. Companies such as Layar make it easy to test some visual content with our written words. It’s an inexpensive way to see how it might work for you this year.

The other trend I like is native advertising. We talked last episode about how the lines between the disciplines continue to blur and native advertising makes that even more possible. While advertising will continue to pay for placement, PR should focus on working with our colleagues to create content that looks and feels like the site we’re visiting – from Mashable and Facebook to trade publications and blogs.

The trend Joe Thornley likes is the continued move from desktop to mobile; or the continuation of content consumption through smartphones and tablets. He says the percentage of visits from mobile on the sites Thornley Fallis manages continues to increase and the idea that we can be completely virtual continues to expand.

And Martin Waxman closes out the trends with the formalization of social media education. Of course, it’s a little bit selfish because he is at the forefront of the creation of this in Toronto, but Joe and I both agree it’s time to formalize the social web and harness the wild, wild west feeling.

So there you have it. Three very distinct, but integrated, looks at what 2013 holds for each of us.

What trends do you see coming this year?

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.20: The Year in Review

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It’s our last episode of the year – our winter finale, if you will. We take a look at the things that affected each of us, both in running our own businesses and working with clients.

This was the year Facebook hit one billion users and social networks, in general, wormed their way into every part of our lives. This was the year that it became impossible to treat social media as anything other than the main show.

Of course, we also had the introduction of the visual social networks with Pinterest and Instagram and even sites such as Mashable became more visually appealing.

Martin Waxman talks about the phenomenon known as Gangnam style and how interesting it is what goes viral and what does not. As a side note: We talk about doing an Inside PR Gangnam style dance next time we’re together. Who wants to see that??

Joe Thornley talked about the convergence of agencies and how Thornley Fallis ran into ad agencies during what would normally be PR firm pitches to prospective clients. Of course, Marketing in the Round calls for this breaking down of silos and integrating the disciplines and it was interesting to see it begin to take place this year.

We discuss search and what Google is doing with search plus your world. Martin mentions how Google now sees “Joe” and “Thornley” as a person instead of two words. And we talk about how tools, such as Zemanta, help you create content that is both optimized and has the right links included.

Joe, of course, talks about how “Trust Me I’m Lying” changed his sunny disposition about the blogosphere. He talks about how the era of trust is gone and how most bloggers are more interested in getting the backlinks and traffic than in creating a community.

And I wrap it all up with color commentary about each of the trends. You’ll have to listen to learn more.

Now it’s your turn. What was your year like?

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], 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 Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.18: An eclectic look at different cultures, a new digital strategy certificate and an NPR experiment

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The team is back together and catching up on some exciting events that have happened in the past few weeks.

Gini Dietrich shares her stories of her trip to the great land of Holland. She regales us with tales of her journey to Amsterdam. You will get a little chuckle when you learn why she was thrown out of the red light district.

Gini’s trip also sparks the conversation of how different cultures respond to people in different ways. The hosts talk about the art and culture of listening in different parts of the world, and the importance of being a good and active listener, especially in the industry of public relations and communications.

Martin Waxman announces that he will be part of a new digital and social media program created by the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. They will be launching a three-course Certificate in Digital Strategy and Communications Management in January 2013. The classes are geared to communications and marketing professionals who want to fine tune their skills and learn how to adopt a strategic approach to digital and social networks. You can read his blog post on the program here.

And last, but most certainly not least, Joseph Thornley shares an NPR Facebook experiment that determined what kinds of local stories drive engagement. The result were the following nine type of local stories: place explainers, crowd pleasers, curiosity stimulators, news explainers, major breaking news, feel-good smilers, topical buzzers, provocative controversies, awe-inspiring visuals.

This study can help your organization determine what kind of stories to share to ensure engagement with your local audience.

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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. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.12: The Right, the Wrong, and the Accidental

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During the Presidential debate on October 3, 2012, the person handling the KitchenAid account tweeted this:

The tweet was deleted almost immediately but not, of course, before it was screen grabbed and retweeted to death.

And then something surprising happened. KitchenAid caught their mistake and handled it. Immediately.

And then, Cynthia Soledad emailed Mashable to say:

During the debate tonight, a member of our Twitter team mistakenly posted an offensive tweet from the KitchenAid handle instead of a personal handle. The tasteless joke in no way represents our values at KitchenAid, and that person won’t be tweeting for us anymore. That said, I lead the KitchenAid brand, and I take responsibility for the whole team. I am deeply sorry to President Obama, his family, and the Twitter community for this careless error. Thanks for hearing me out.

And then she tweeted directly to the President to apologize.

Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and I (Gini Dietrich) discuss this topic, why it’s news, and whether or not it was crisis well done.

We also talk about the trend of social TV and how big real-time events, such as the debates or the Olympics or the Academy Awards, create an opportunity for each of us to have a voice via the social networks as we’re watching.

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Earlier this month, Darren Barefoot challenged The Globe & Mail for not linking to an Inc. article they wrote about and for using a much too similar “link bait” headline (which was changed when Barefoot emailed the business editor).

The real meat of the discussion comes when he says in his blog post:

In our remix culture, I feel strongly that we ought to, whenever possible, acknowledge our antecedents. It would have been easy for the Globe to recognize and link to Inc. in the text of the article (“In August, Inc. asked the question…”) or in a footer at the end of the article.

We discuss (and don’t all necessarily agree) on whether or not journalists should be required to link to sources of inspiration.

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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. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 3.07: Passion Combined with Measurement Make Oink Outings a Success and We Love Our Schools Clean Classrooms

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As a vegetarian, I was very interested to learn more about the Oink Outings with the Minnesota Pork Producers, particularly how they care for the baby pigs to make sure they get the right nutrition as soon as they’re born so, well, they can be slaughtered and brought to your dinner table.

While they didn’t turn me back into a carnivore, this interview covers more than just public relations, results, and the Silver Anvil entry.

You’ll learn that Oink Outings are events created by the Minnesota Pork Producers and Weber Shandwick to get moms to the farm. There they learn about what the pork producers do – from farm to fork – in order to build trust for the product. The goal was to show moms it’s OK to serve pork to their families and that it can be a trusted food source.

One of the things Weber Shandwick did as part of the PR program is survey moms before and after the program. What they found is a 79 percent increase in trust after moms had been on an Oink Outing.

When asked the three things other communications professionals can take away from the program, they said: Have passion for your work, measure your efforts (before, during, and after), and have fun!

If you have passion and know how to combine that with strategy and measurement, you’ll win every time.

Have a listen…I think you’ll enjoy hearing from a Minnesota Pork Producer. Her passion is very clear during the discussion.

Also in this episode…

The “We Love Our School” initiative from Bounty left behind chalkboards that gleamed brighter, windows free of fingerprints, and desks so clean you could eat off them. By cleaning more than 2,500 classrooms across the country, “Bounty” and “clean classrooms” was on the tips of the tongues of more than 25,000 volunteers and 430,000 students.

When Bounty learned teachers were spending their own money and time on classroom cleaning and supplies, the brand saw an opportunity to put its product to use for communities and students nationwide.  Launched on Valentine’s Day last year, “We Love Our School” successfully mobilized the Bounty target audience – moms with kids in school – to launch a nationwide school cleaning initiative.

Bounty encouraged parents, students and administrators to take the “We Love Our School” pledge and vowed to help provide cleaner learning environments to help foster creativity and hands-on learning.

With a multi-faceted campaign containing a persistent message, strong sampling and “always on” social media, Bounty’s program fulfilled a need in the community and engaged consumers with its “We Love Our School” initiative.

With roving reporter Gini Dietrich (aka me), you’ll learn more about the program, the research compiled ahead of time, and the results that created clean classrooms across the country.

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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. Inside PR is produced by Kristine Simpson.

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Inside PR 3.04: Domestic Abuse is No Longer Taboo with Purple Purse

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Domestic violence affects one in four women in their lifetime, which equals more than 145 attacks every hour in the United States.

As well, 75 percent of Americans think domestic violence is an issue that needs to be talked about, but only a third actually do.

Enter The Allstate Foundation. With a long history of supporting efforts to end domestic violence through financial empowerment programs, they partnered with YWCA USA to encourage a national conversation around the issue during Domestic Violence Awareness Month last October.

But a partnership wasn’t enough. Along with PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, The Allstate Foundation and YWCA designed a program that would help people talk about domestic violence through the “Purple Purse.”

The Purple Purse became the new symbol for domestic violence and the code word that would launch a campaign to build a collaborative community of people – both online and offline – who would help share information and resources to make it easier to talk about domestic violence.  The team targeted women of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Not only did it build a collaborative community, it gave women the resources they need to leave a domestic abuse situation. Things such as financial planning, saving copies of key documents, and how to prepare for moving out…and on.

In this interview with the Silver Anvil finalists, we learn the Purple Purse website, social shares, a portable widget, and offline events created an opportunity for women to discuss this very important issue, talk to one another, and hear from survivors.

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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.

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