Inside PR 557: Looking Ahead to 2022

Can you believe it’s mid-December and another year is almost done?

That can only mean one thing … it’s time for our annual episode where we gaze into the proverbial communications crystal ball …

OK, it’s not that dramatic, really. But Gini, Joe and I do talk about three of the trends we’ll be watching over the next 12 months:

  1. Natural language generation and AI writing assistants
  2. Values-based communication and leadership counsel
  3. Impact and consequences of social media algorithms

Check it out and let us know what you think and what other trends you may be seeing on the horizon.

Continue reading…

Inside PR 554: Content Meets the Sound of Silence

Have you noticed your brand is no longer getting the type of engagement on organic social media? How about ranking for search or interactions when you publish new content on your website or blog?

Perhaps the digital world has become even more pay-to-play and is expecting a higher price from organizations in order for them to achieve decent business results.

That’s what Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and I talk about on Inside PR. Our conversation is based on a post by digital thought-leader Rand Fishkind called, ‘The Incentives to Publish No Longer Reward the Web’s Creators‘.

TL;DR version: Your content marketing strategy needs a balanced and integrated approach.

Have a read, then have a listen and let us know what you think.

Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

It’s your turn

We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected],

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our producer is Jacob Waxman, a talented musician, producer, and recording engineer. Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Creative Commons License

Inside PR by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 552: Imagining Your New Workspace

It’s fall—well, almost—and there’s a hint of excitement in the air. At least it feels like there should be!

Kids are going back to school. College and universities are offering more in-person classes. And people are getting revved up for the busiest season of the year.

But are you ready to go back to the office or would you prefer to work remotely or in some type of hybrid situation?

And how will you communicate what you decide to your team?

Of course, there are no easy answers, but if you’re interested in our take, check out this episode of Inside PR.

Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and Martin Waxman talk about:

  • The importance of having a communicator in the room when workplace decisions are being made.
  • Why organizations need to listen closely and pay attention to people’s reactions.
  • Giving employees an opportunity to voice their opinions and know they’re being heard, rather than simply feeling they’re being talked at.
  • Creating a culture of empathy by understanding people’s situations, anxieties and fears.
  • Being flexible and letting people know nothing’s set in stone and that you’re prepared to adapt if need be.

And finally a word of advice from Joe: If you’re on a Zoom meeting and someone says something that makes your blood boil. Don’t get into a fight. Shut your camera and mic. Take a breath and try to see things from your colleague’s point of view. Then come back when your temper’s cooled so you can have a more balanced (and hopefully productive) conversation.

Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

It’s your turn

We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected],

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our producer is Jacob Waxman, a talented musician, producer, and recording engineer. Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Creative Commons License

Inside PR by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 550: The Plumbing of the Internet

On this bi-weekly episode of Inside PR, Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman, and Gini Dietrich discuss the plumbing of the internet, from Feedburner and its replacements to how marketing automation works in the deep dark areas of the web and how video continues to evolve as we adapt.

These are things we all take for granted, sort of like the sewer beneath our cities, but they are necessary for making things work.

And there are things that have transformed the way we’ve done business in the past 18 months. While we certainly used Google Video or Skype or Zoom, it tended to be once or twice a month—at the most.

Now we’ve found that video chat is the primary way work is done and we now all take for granted that it’s the preferred way to communicate.

Even as some organizations go to a hybrid model or even back to the office full-time, there will be times that video is warranted.

And, as schools reflect on the best learning, some students will be in-person while others are at home. Martin speaks to his experience teaching in a hyflex classroom, which is hybrid and flexible.

The classroom is like a studio and students have to sign up to be there in person.

For those that are learning at home, the teacher (Martin, in this case) has a camera that follows them around automatically, capturing the lecture—and then everyone in the class, in-person included, will all Zoom in and any group work will be done through breakout sessions.

It’s a new way of working and, certainly, the plumbing of the internet will continue to evolve as we adapt to new ways of learning, working, and living.

Join us for this episode to learn more!

Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

It’s your turn

We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected],

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our producer is Jacob Waxman, a talented musician, producer, and recording engineer. Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Creative Commons License

Inside PR by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Inside PR 549: When PR People Do Bad Things

OK. Before you get defensive, I want make something clear right from the start: We are NOT saying all PR people are evil.

Far from it.

In fact, most of us are simply trying to do the best jobs we can for our organizations or clients and behave in an honest and ethical manner.

But let’s just say, there are some less than scrupulous individuals and companies whose approach and choices reflect badly on the industry.

And it’s not just PR pros who are guilty of this. Certain bloggers, journalists, media outlets and influencers are also not as honest or transparent as they could be when it comes to conflicts of interest.

And because social media has given us all a voice, we need to make sure we think through the consequences of how we use it.

That’s what we talk about for this week’s podcast.

We got the idea from a Washington Post story about a site that bills itself as an investigative blog. Turns out, it has financial ties to a PR firm and seems to focus on stories where the agency’s clients have a vested interest.

In our opinion, this contravenes many PR codes of ethics and standards including PRSA, CPRS and the Global Alliance to name a few.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

And if you want to dig deeper, check out Gini’s Spin Sucks post on the subject.

Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

It’s your turn

We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected],

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our producer is Jacob Waxman, a talented musician, producer, and recording engineer. Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Creative Commons License

Inside PR by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are Back … IPR 546

Hello … Helloooo … Check 1, 2 … Is this thing on?

OK, cliches aside, I’m happy to report that after a hiatus of around 20 months and all the things that have happened between then and now, Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and I are back recording Inside PR.

Why? To be honest we missed talking with each other about what’s new in PR, social media and digital marketing. We also missed hearing from you.

Our one big change is we’ve moved to a biweekly or fortnightly format, which fits better with our schedules and other commitments. That way, you can expect to hear from us on a regular basis. (OK, given our recent history, my fingers are crossed on that one.)

In our first new episode, we catch up and talk about what’s changed.

Gini: Learned how to teach first and second grade, bakes and rides her bike more than before, and runs her business with an even sharper focus.

Joe: Stared at the same 120-foot view of the street from his home office for days on end and pivoted to a remote business, communicating internally and externally on Microsoft Teams.

Martin: Moved my office furniture counterclockwise, kept track of who, in the neighbourhood, needed a paint job on their front porch, and started a Digital Marketing Trends newsletter on LinkedIn.

We also talked about how to establish boundaries when you don’t stray too far from the home office and ways to spark creativity.

It’s great to be back!

Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

It’s your turn

We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected],

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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 Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Oh, and we have a new producer!

Meet Jacob Waxman (yes, he is my son and also a talented musician, producer and recording engineer). Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Creative Commons Licence
We Are Back – Inside PR 546 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 438: The media world is spiky, not flat

Martin here. And we’re all back.

We start this week with three #IPRMustKnows:

Gini talks about Facebook’s new mobile app, Moments, that searches your camera roll, groups photos together and asks if you want to send them privately to the people in the shots. You can also create Moments for events, vacations, etc. (Of course, it’s not yet available in Canada 🙁 .)

Joe discusses Facebook’s Media Central studio in NYC that coaches celebrities on how to use the platform and live video. He says good enough video isn’t good enough anymore and we should take video streaming seriously, not just wing it. Soon FB will up the ante when they let people broadcast high-quality live video that can be integrated into their own studio control room.

I mention PRSA Counselors Academy. This year, I’m chair of the organization and our annual conference for independent PR agency owners and leaders is May 1 to 3 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There’s a fantastic program on the business of agency PR including a keynote on creativity from Disney’s Duncan Wardle. Here’s a link for more information or to register.

Our main topic this episode centres on the concentration of digital media and is based on The Game of Concentration by Joshua Benton, a story we read in the Niemen Lab Blog. The author makes the case that journalism used to be spread across North America because you needed a local newsroom to cover local news. With digital, you’d think that would create an even more distributed news world, but the high profile new media companies seem to be clustering in major markets like New York, Washington, LA or Silicon Valley, or Toronto, if you’re in Canada. Which means the media world is getting spikier and not flat. And that’s a challenge to both journalists and PR pros.

We’d love to know what you think. 

  • What does the future hold for local media and PR practitioners?
  • Will people’s interest in the immediate world around them spark a resurgence of local stories and news?

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 432: More must-have PR apps

Martin here and this week, it’s part two of our discussion about apps and tools we like.

But first #IPRMustKnow:

The Twitter 10K – No it’s not a marathon, it’s the chatter that Twitter’s going to increase its character limit to 10,000 (from 140). We’re mixed on what we think about this. Gini feels it’s another replacement for the verbosity of emails. Joe noticed that even with more characters in DMs, he’s getting fewer of those. I wonder if this isn’t another way to keep people on the platform in mobile. OK, we all like Twitter the way it is… but we also don’t want to be curmudgeons.

Peach – the social network flavour of the moment. Peach is a new social network and messaging app created by Vine’s co-founder. Have you tried it? When we recorded this episode, Gini, Joe and I each had two friends on it and (hint) they’re all hosts of IPR. It’s too early to tell whether or not Peach will catch on – certainly the network effect isn’t evident yet. But, like all new social platform, we encourage you to check it out and see for yourself. And feel free to connect with us there.

And that brings us to our main topic – apps we like and use.

Slack
If you haven’t tried it, Slack is a collaborative chat and networking app that helps manage projects and workflow. Among other things, we use it to prep for IPR. You can set up channels for conversations specific to your needs (i.e. client channels, trends, etc.), add and save links, post documents and easily find what you’re looking for through its search. We all like its simplicity and that it gives us the ability to communicate in the moment.

Auphonic
Auphonic is an audio production app that we use to produce IPR. It lets us edit, include metadata, equalize sound and reduce hum. And because of Auphonic, Inside PR now has its album art back on iTunes.

What other apps would you recommend? We’d love to hear your suggestions and test them out.

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 423: Has Big Tech Become Too Powerful?

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We’re back after a brief end of summer hiatus and start off with this week’s #IPRMustKnow segment.

Martin: Signal, Facebook’s new app for FB and Instagram, gives journalists a set of tools to discover breaking news, curate visuals and stories and share them on various platforms.

Gini: Google and Twitter have teamed up to provide an open-source competitor to Facebook’s Instant Articles, a place for publishers to display breaking news on mobile.

Joe – How do you spell Google Reader? Apple News. Joe gives an overview of the much-touted app. He likes the visual interface but doesn’t think it’s a replacement for an RSS reader yet. And he offers a quick hack on how to get the app if you’re not in the U.S. – but you’ll have to listen to the show to get it :).

And our talk of the big three – Apple, Google and Facebook – brings us to our main topic: a New York Times op-ed by Berkeley prof Robert Reich called, Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful. Reich contends Facebook, Google and Apple have too much influence over the government and regulators and the way we discover news and content.

Listen for our discussion. And please send your thoughts. We’re interested to hear what you think.

We end by answering a question Barbara Nixon posed on Facebook and Twitter: ‘What should new PR pros expect and prepare for when interviewing for an entry-level PR position?’

Gini wants to hear where people see themselves in five years and where their career path is heading.

Joe tries to have a conversation with potential hires to see if the person can exchange ideas with him, and if they fit into a culture of creativity and curiosity.

Martin suggests searching the company to find out about the principals, how they think, and what their culture is. And then search yourself to see if there are any red flags.

Any other suggestions? We’d love to hear from you.

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 Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 420: Neville Hobson Hangs Up His Mic

This week, we have something special: Joe’s interview with Neville Hobson, co-host of the Hobson & Holtz Report and one of the first PR podcasters.

But first, our #InsidePRMustKnow segment.

Martin: The social news distribution space is getting a little more crowded. Facebook’s adding a Twitteresque app to let publishers send out breaking news alerts.

Joe: An academic study shows that what works for marketing – good SERP – also will affect voting decisions in elections. Something for us all to be aware of and vigilant about. Also, helps understand the concern of European authorities over the dominant share of search held there by Google.

Gini: How do you drive more traffic to a podcast? Eden Spodek, who’s launching her own podcast in a few weeks, suggests posting the audio and an image to YouTube and Gini tried that. We’ll let you know what happens.

Now onto Joe’s conversation with Neville …

As you’ve probably heard, Neville is leaving the FIR Network after 10 years and tells us he’s going to be focusing on creating more written content. In a wide-ranging discussion, he takes us on a journey that begins with the early days of podcasting, or as he calls it ‘home brew radio’. Neville tells stories about what he’s observed and learned along the way. He mentions some of the people who inspired him and shares his thoughts on what makes a podcaster great (hint – curiosity).

And speaking of podcasting… Just a reminder that we kick off our #InsidePRBookClub next week with a discussion of The Business of Podcasting by Donna Papacosta and Steve Lubetkin. We hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts.

We’d love to hear from you.

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.

******************************************************************

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.