Archive for October, 2007

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5 Keys To Creating A Cutting-Edge Online Newsroom

07.10.30

What should an online newsroom look like?

I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the last few days researching the current state of online newsrooms. I’ve looked at the private sector and the public sector, both within Canada (federal, provincial and municipal) and internationally.

My conclusion: most organizations aren’t using their newsrooms effectively.

From the 28 newsrooms I examined, most limit their new media functionality to RSS feeds. A few incorporate ‘new media’ elements like video or audio; fewer still include social media features.

What characterizes a leading-edge online newsroom?

What would help a newsroom stand out from the masses?

  1. Built on a blogging platform
    • Allows direct user input via comments
    • Permits trackbacks, to show reactions on other sites
    • Ideally incorporates a regularly-updated organizational blog
  2. Uses categories/tagging to classify content
    • Categorizes content with relevant tags
    • Displays tag cloud or list on the newsroom homepage
    • Identifies relevant articles via those tags
    • Allows news to be viewed by key topics, built-in to the navigation
  3. Makes multimedia content easily available throughout
    • Graphical, photographic, video and audio resources accessible from the homepage
    • Provides relevant multimedia content from each document
  4. Makes content easy to access and share
    • Uses social media tools (Flickr and YouTube are obvious examples)
    • Allows users to bookmark and share content through sites like del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati (leading sites commonly allow sharing via up to 14 sites)
    • Provides RSS feeds for all newsroom areas including key topics
    • Advanced search capabilities
  5. Social media news releases
    • See the template here

I don’t think all of these features are essential. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution. However, for a newsroom to truly consider itself a leader I think it should aspire to all five feature sets.

My conclusions largely mirror those of Todd Defren and his colleagues, who launched the social newsroom template back in February.

Who are the leaders?

From the limited sample I examined, three stood out:

Posted in: blogging, pr, public relations, social media, social media newsroom, tagging, web 2.0, youtube

1Comments

Podcamp Toronto 2008 – February 23-24, 2008

07.10.28

Jay Moonah, of Uncle Seth and the Online Music Marketing podcast, announced today that registration for Podcamp Toronto 2008 is now open.

The conference will take place February 23-24, 2008 at the Rogers Communication Centre at Ryerson University.

If last year’s lineup is anything to go by, this should be an amazing couple of days.

(I checked out Mitch Joel’s kick-ass presentation from the 2007 conference earlier today – fate seems to intervene every time I try to see him present in-person – let’s hope all the 2008 presentations are this good!)

Registration is free… so sign up now!

Did I mention it’s free?

Posted in: podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2008

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California Wildfires – Using New Media to Communicate In A Crisis

07.10.23

Immediacy is one of the great things about new media/web 2.0.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the coverage of the devastating wildfires down in California recently.

I’m fully aware that crisis communications must focus on traditional channels – TV, radio, print – in today’s media environment. However, quick and responsive new media tactics provide the ability to communicate directly with citizens that those channels do not.

Allen Stern at CenterNetworks wrote a great post about web 2.0-based coverage of the fires on Monday. His post provides a useful list of the ways some people have used new media to post up-to-the-minute information on the fires.

I’m going to focus on my perspective of how corporations have used this technology to respond.

What The Mainstream Media Is Doing

Here are a few of the best examples of ‘new media’ use from the mainstream media:

What California Is Doing

To my surprise, the state of California has a very useful resource at www.calfires.com (although it seems to be up one second, down the next due to high traffic). However, while the resources are useful, I’m surprised at their lack of uptake of new technologies on the website.

The site does have an interactive map. However, on close inspection it turns out that the map is actually from the KPBS News site mentioned above.

Why didn’t California take the bull by the horns and turn its own site into a communications hub during the crisis? Why not do what the news outlets did and use this technology to provide up-to-the-minute updates?

What California Could Do

In addition to what the state is currently doing, it could :

  • Create its own interactive map with the latest updates from citizens and let news organizations embed that in their sites
  • Let citizens upload their own photos and integrate them into the map
  • Set up a blog and a Twitter feed (and integrate them) to give the latest updates on evacuation orders, all-clears, etc.
  • Create an RSS feed (or feeds) to push updates out to people
  • Aggregate news from mainstream outlets to provide a one-stop newsroom
  • Write clearer news releases
  • Do this all centrally, bump their generic information down or off their state’s homepage and give more space to updates on the fires.

Why?

Because they have the necessary website traffic

Google "California Wildfires." Two of the top five links are government websites.

Heck, we don’t even need to wonder if people are going to the government’s website – their CAL FIRE Incident website crashed under the increased traffic.

The LA Times twitter feed, at time of writing, has 96 followers. The San Diego Union-Tribute Help Blog doesn’t even have subscriber stats on Google Reader.

With the traffic going to government sites, they could push information out much more effectively to many times more people.

Because they have the necessary resources

Newsrooms have limited staff. The government, however, has far more extensive resources. Add in the potential for citizen contributions and you have a powerful tool for emergency information.

Because now is not the time to bury information

In a crisis like this, information should be front and centre. The less searching people have to do, the better.

This also goes for news release-writing. If you’re announcing a new toll-free hotline for donations, don’t bury the phone number in the third paragraph (however, check out how their ‘email/share’ button works – interesting). Put it right at the top.

Because no-one will complain about having to look a little harder for vehicle registration information right now

I’m not a crisis communications expert (although hopefully some of you are and I’d love to hear your comments). However, I do know that when the President declares a state of emergency for your state and 750,000 people flee their homes, your list of "highlights" on your home page should not include:

  • Small business seminars
  • A jobs website
  • A link to a DMV video on YouTube
  • A kids’ website

Sure, these are all valuable initiatives but I really don’t think they need to take up space on the homepage right now. While the crisis is full-blown, the state could dedicate a lot more real estate on its main homepage to providing useful information to its citizens.

——-

California is doing a decent job of providing information online to its population in the midst of a crisis. However, with a bit of innovative thinking, they could do a lot more.

Posted in: blogging, crisis communications, Google, media, social media, Twitter, web 2.0

8Comments

My Social Media Life And Why Walled Gardens Don’t Work

07.10.21

While out running recently, I re-listened to a Six Pixels of Separation podcast during which Heidi Miller talked about the social media overload in her life. I got to thinking about how I feel about social media overload and the implications it has for the tools I use.

I first dipped my toe into creating content on the web back in 2000 when I managed the website of a division of Hitachi Europe Ltd. I’ve maintained my own personal website since then, but I’ve only recently launched myself headlong into social media.

I can’t believe how much my life has changed since then.

I plotted a timeline of my adoption of web 2.0 tools this year. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s sufficient to make my point:

This isn’t a linear chart; if anything, the increase is exponential:

One look at my average day shows the central role that social media plays in my life:

I love this new lifestyle. I’m always connected. Nothing I do happens in a vacuum any more. I’ve met a tonne of new people. What’s more, my lifestyle accomodates my new-found passion, so I don’t have to sacrifice anything except time to accomplish all of this.

There’s just one cloud on the horizon – the chart above.

The line can’t keep going up. There isn’t enough time in the day.

I see three options:

  • Option #1: Burn-out
  • Option #2: Level-off
  • Option #3: Aggregate

Option #1: I can continue to use more tools and burn out (no thanks).

Option #2: I can stop using new tools, or I can keep using new ones and let a few less valuable ones drop off. I can see this happening, but it would be more through necessity than choice.

Option #3 Find ways to keep up with multiple tools through one interface. I like this option. A lot.

I already have a few tools to do this:

Twitku is a great tool that lets me watch and update my Twitter and Jaiku feeds at the same time.

Google Reader lets me keep tabs a bunch of sites. As a result, I only need to check sites like Technorati or Facebook occasionally.

iGoogle lets me watch Twitter, Gmail, Google Reader and GTalk while accessing my Google Notebook, TinyURL and Google Docs… all from one page. Vista’s sidebar does a similar job, although with less gadgets available for now.

What ties all these applications together? Information sharing.

In a world of information overload, walled gardens don’t work.

In the future, tools will only fit into my toolkit if they’re opened-up. I need to aggregate their information through other tools. RSS feeds, open APIs and widgets are essential.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe I’m the only one thinking this way.

Companies need to share information through these tools or risk falling into obscurity.

Posted in: blogging, facebook, Google, podcast, social media, social networks, Twitter, web 2.0

5Comments

Information R/evolution

07.10.19

Check out this amazing video on how the Internet is forcing us to adapt the way we organize, find and indeed think about information.

I don’t like to gush about things, but this is cool. What’s more, it’s true.

Hat tip: Ed Lee from Blogging Me Blogging You. Thanks Ed.

Posted in: search, social media, tagging, web 2.0

1Comments

Interview: LearnAsOne Founder Steve Heyes

07.10.18

LearnAsOne is a new charity set up to fund new schools and support their running costs throughout the developing world.

I recently had a chance to ask Steve Heyes, founder of LearnAsOne (and an ex-roommate of mine from university) about his thoughts on social media, how he’s using it to promote his organization and the challenges of being a “digital charity.”

Dave: First off, tell us a bit about your background and how you decided to launch LearnAsOne

Steve: My first job out of uni was running the UK office of a charity called Ethiopiaid. We raised and donated over £2-million a year to 15 partner projects in areas such as health, HIV/Aids and education. I was lucky enough to visit the country for 3 weeks and seeing the impact that people’s generosity had on other people’s lives was moving and inspiring. What seemed like so little to me, meant so much to them – a roof over their head, a simple vaccination, a sanitation block, a new set of school books – their reactions were amazing!

I then moved to Burnett Works, a fundraising and communications agency, working on campaigns for clients such as Cancer Research UK and Plan, the child sponsorship agency.

I was really happy there, but in the back of my mind I always knew I wanted to start a charity to help educate kids in the developing world. The literacy rate in Ethiopia (where we hope to build the first LearnAsOne school) is just 42.4%. How are you supposed to fight the effects of poverty if you can’t read and write? I believe education is the greatest gift you can give to anyone – it gives people a chance to develop not only themselves, but also the country in which they live.

I always assumed I’d set up the charity in 20 years time, once I’d set up my own business and had the luxury of time and money behind me. Then social media exploded…

Dave: So what opportunities do you think social media opens up for charities?

Steve: I think the opportunities are massive. The Internet effectively removes the distribution costs of contacting people, but social media takes it to the next level. If an idea takes off it can grow at an unbelievable rate.

And it doesn’t even need to be initiated by the charity. They just need to sign up to the social media tools that already exist so that their supporters have the opportunity to use them. For example, when Richard Hammond, the popular Top Gear presenter, had a high speed accident filming for the programme a fan set up a get well page on the online sponsorship site JustGiving in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance who air lifted him to hospital. A link was posted on the PistonHeads website, it rapidly spread all over the net and within a week over £160,000 had been donated – absolutely amazing! You’ll be glad to know Richard went on to make a full recovery

Blogging from the field also has massive potential. For example MSF doctors blog about their field missions in countries such as Bangladesh and Sudan. It’s so real and shows donors exactly what their money is helping to achieve. I believe it’s the most popular content on their website. Fundraising widgets are proving extremely popular and have already had an impact thanks to applications like Chipin, and are being pushed hard in the sector by bloggers like Beth Kanter.

Facebook is another obvious one, but I don’t think anyone has cracked it yet. I’m really looking forward to seeing the first big charity application.

The best thing is that all these tools already exist and are free to use, so I’d recommend that all charities give them a try.

Dave: How do you plan to use social media to promote the charity?

Steve: The big idea behind LearnAsOne is to build a web application that provides a way for people to fund their own school. And then promote it using social media.

The web app will:

  1. Locate communities in need of a school
  2. Give them a webpage/blog where they can upload fundraising needs (e.g. classrooms, books, teachers’ salaries) and a way for people to donate
  3. Provide feedback (including video) direct from the school so donors can see exactly what their money is helping to achieve
  4. Enable supporters to leave comments and questions for the kids and teachers to answer.

The great thing about this idea is that once the app is built it will cost the almost the same amount to fund-raise for one school through the site as it will 100. And that is because of social media.

I’m also hoping that social media will also allow us to build the app for free, or at a very low cost. We are currently using Facebook, plus contacting bloggers and posting on social bookmarking sites to in an attempt to locate graphic designers and web developers to help build this app. Our current site was actually part developed by Jason Lemm who I found using MySpace – although he’s far more active on Facebook these days.

In terms of fundraising and generating awareness I think the potential of social media is huge. Never before has there been the opportunity to reach such a huge audience for such a tiny cost. We have a Facebook profile and I’m interested to see how that organically grows. There are also plans to build an application so that users can add the school they are sponsoring to their page. And we are very keen on developing a ‘Fund your own school’ widget that can be used across the rest of the net.

Blogs are really important too. Both being picked up on blogs like this one to raise awareness and though the individual school blogs which will show donors exactly what their money is achieving. I hope that some of the comments and questions they leave will be answered in future blog posts by the schools and a conversation can start to develop.

YouTube is likely to have a massive role to play in demonstrating our work and also spreading awareness of our fundraising events. And I’m sure sites like Digg and Stumble Upon will at some point drive a significant amount traffic to the site.

But I think the most exciting thing will be if and when supporters start initiating things in the social media field off their own back. It’s what I hope will happen and when it does, we’ll know that the idea really is working.

Dave: How else are you getting word out?

Steve: We held our first fundraising event last weekend. It was called RunAsOne and was a 10k with a twist. You had to run ‘AsOne’ i.e. run attached to someone. Yep – I’m serious, attached to someone. It was great fun and really successful. The support the runners received around the course was amazing. We are hoping to organize follow up events next year and are actively encouraging people to put on their own version of the event too. We’ll gladly offer support and advice if asked for, but just like social media – what is the need for us to retain full control over these event? It just means we need more staff and spend more of the donors money on fundraising rather than education.

Another event in the pipeline is BreakfastAsOne. One of the major reasons kids don’t go to school is because they need to work to earn enough money to eat. If the school provides them with a free breakfast they are far more likely to go. The idea is for people to host their own fundraising breakfast so kids get their breakfast and can go to school.

Dave: What challenges have you found in establishing a digital charity?

Steve: The biggest challenge is finding volunteers with graphic design and web development skills to help develop the MySchool part of the website. I unfortunately have the coding skills of a monkey so I’m hoping that by appearing on blogs like this people will get in touch and offer to lend their skills. Even if they only have the time to design one page or do a few hours of CSS work I’d love to hear from them. I can be contacted at volunteer@learnasone.org

Dave: What’s next for LearnAsOne?

Steve: It’s got to be getting the MySchool web application up and running. It’s such a simple, scalable and cost-effective way to fund education projects in the developing world. As far as I know no other education charities operate in such an interactive and engaging way – so I think it’s got a great chance of appealing to a lot of people and giving thousands of kids the opportunity to go to school.

Dave: How can people get involved?

Steve: There are a huge number of ways:

  1. Volunteer their graphic design or web development skills
  2. Forward this on to any friends who can help build the app or bloggers/journalists who can help to promote the idea
  3. Blog about LearnAsOne
  4. Join the Facebook group and ask their mates to join too
  5. Organize their own RunAsOne
  6. Make a donation
  7. And I guess your readers probably have few social media ideas of their own!

Thanks for your interest Dave. It’s been a pleasure having the opportunity to talk about social media and LearnAsOne.

Posted in: blogging, facebook, MySpace, social media, social networks, youtube

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5 Questions From ‘New Media’ Newcomers

07.10.14

I attended an IABC seminar this week where Cyrus Mavalwala and Joseph Thornley explored the transition from ‘old’ to ‘new’ media.

Joseph structured his presentation around some interesting questions posed by the audience. Five questions in particular captured my attention, so I thought I’d share my perspective on them:

Why Should I Care About Blogging?

I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this question – it will depend on you, your situation and your objectives. However, I don’t think there’s any question – if you work in PR or marketing, you should care.

Joe Thornley used the case study of Jeff Jarvis and his experience with Dell to effectively illustrate what can happen when companies don’t pay attention.

I’d like to focus on a slightly broader picture. In brief, here are five reasons why I think you should care about blogging and more broadly about social media in general:

  • Important: social media isn’t about the technology; it’s about people. Blogging, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku – they’re just technologies. Don’t focus on them. As PR pros, we need to focus on the consumers on the other side of the technology. Increasing numbers of them communicate through social media. You can’t control those conversations, but don’t you want to be part of them?
  • You might not care about social media, but does your company’s target market? If they care, you should
  • Social media gives you a chance to build a relationship with customers and thought leaders in your field
  • When something goes wrong, people go to your website. You need to be able to respond quickly; blogging allows you to
  • You can’t get instant credibility in the blogosphere – you need to build it up over time by engaging in conversations either on your own blog or on others. When something goes wrong, people will go to your website. You don’t want to have to establish credibility while simultaneously managing a crisis
  • It’s true, you can’t control conversations on today’s Internet. However, wouldn’t you rather conversations involve you rather than revolve around you?

Why Do You Do It?

I have two blogs – this one and The Toronto Runner. My motivations for each are different in most respects, but I’m passionate about both of them.

I use this blog as a way to:

  • Educate myself more about PR, social media and marketing
  • Stay on top of emerging trends that will impact public relations
  • Share my thoughts and perspectives on topics that I find interesting

I use my running blog to:

  • Share my passion for running with other people
  • Provide accountability – it motivates me myself to push myself harder
  • Pass on tips and routes for local runners

I Have A Podcast; Do I Need A Blog?

This leads me to a wider discussion of new media and how people view it.

I think it’s important for PR professionals to treat new media technologies as tactics, not strategies.

We shouldn’t look at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and their kind and wonder how we can make them work. None of them are one-size-fits-all solutions. If they’re appropriate to a situation, use them. If they’re not, don’t.

In relation to this particular question, it may well be that a blog would help the podcast. However, without looking at the bigger picture, you can’t know for sure.

For a great example of what I mean, check out this audio excerpt from How To Do Everything With Podcasting by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. They discuss using podcast to solve a problem rather than as a strategy by itself.

What Sources Do You Use?

Again, this answer is very contextual. I blog mainly about my thoughts on emerging PR tactics, not on mainstream “news.” Therefore, I tailor my reading accordingly:

How Do You Find Time?

There’s no avoiding it, staying on top of all the emerging new media technologies takes a lot of time. I’m fortunate in that I’m fascinated by it so it doesn’t feel like work, but sometimes I still have to consciously make time for life outside the web.

My job currently doesn’t directly involve any of these online activities so I try to work them into my day as seamlessly as possible:

  • I limit my blog reading to three periods each working day (I read the rest in the evening):
    • When I get to work
    • During lunch
    • When I’m about to leave
  • I listen to podcasts while commuting and when I’m out running. I run for between 60-90 minutes three or four times a week, so that adds up
  • I use Twitter via instant messenger on my mobile device so I can do it on the move

There’s no way I can, in good conscience, take time during my work day to write a blog post, so I do my blogging and social networking in the evenings.

So there you have it. Five questions asked by people new to the world of blogging, web 2.0 and social media, and my humble perspective.

Posted in: blogging, facebook, Google, podcast, social media, social networks, Twitter

4Comments

Talk Is Cheap – Toronto PR Unconference

07.10.11

Gary Schlee, professor of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Centennial College, today announced Talk Is Cheap, "a social media unconference for corporate communications and public relations folks."Talk is Cheap

The conference takes place the evening of November 15 at The Centre for Creative Communications, a campus of Centennial College.

For more information, check out details of the conference on Gary’s blog, or sign up to attend (for free) or present at the conference wiki.

With just a few hours passed since the event was announced, the conference already has its first speaker – Joseph Thornley has signed-up to do a session on "Best practices in media relations."

I met and chatted with Gary at a seminar tonight. This should be a great event.

Posted in: pr, public relations, social media

1Comments

Thoughts On FacebookCampToronto2

07.10.09

I attended FacebookCampToronto2 tonight at Toronto’s wonderful MaRS building. Surprisingly, much of the content was marketing-related, which was a pleasant surprise – I expected it to be very technical.

I live-blogged the event on Twitter, but in hindsight here are a few of the moments that stood out for me:

  • Roy Pereira from Refresh Partners:
    • There are over 5,500 approved Facebook applications
    • 84 apps account for 90% of usage
    • Out of the 30 cities with the most Facebook users, 11 are in Canada
  • Ami Vora from Facebook:
    • Facebook gets roughly 250,000 new users per day – that’s roughly a 3% increase daily
    • Total users currently stand at about 45 million
    • The site serves up an average of 50 pages per user per day, making it the sixth most trafficked site on the web
    • Roughly 100 apps are added per day, and about 80% of users have added at least one application
    • Facebook’s photo application gets more traffic than all the other major photo sites combined
    • 50% of users return to the site daily
    • Their event product sees almost three times as many page views as Evite
    • Developers should think of privacy as an asset that enables people to surf in comfort, not as a restriction
    • This was a example of how PowerPoint should be used – uncluttered slides, great use of images, minimal text
  • Jesse Hirsh
    • “Are we in the early stages of a social operating system?”
    • Many top applications emerged early on and received ‘first-past-the-post’ momentum
    • Five characteristics of the top applications:
      • Original
      • Infectious – vampires, pirates, zombies etc
      • Engaging – provide a semi-public stage for users – allow crowd-sourcing, creativity, simple polling/surveys etc
      • Integrate with existing content – e.g. Simpsons avatars
      • Empowering – ratings, reviews, favourites
  • Greg Thomson
    • Success in a Facebook app requires about 10,000 active users, or about 250,000 installs
    • He estimates that each active user is worth about $3.00 per year
    • 60% of his users generate about 90% of his revenue. 30% don’t generate any
  • We saw demos on three cool apps:
    • Dogbook / Catbook (Geoffrey B. Roche)
    • WishList (Bogdan Arsenie)
    • DreamBook (Phil Tucker)

A couple of my thoughts on the evening:

  1. Thanks to Roy Pereira, Colin Smillie, and Andrew Cherwenka for organizing the event
  2. This was incredible value for attendees. For, well, nothing, we got a great set of presentations. Facebook, of course, isn’t the one-shot cure to all our problems, but I’m sure everyone was able to take away a few nuggets
  3. Don’t try to pass off an unsuccessful project as a case study. One presenter tried to but got called on it
  4. Why create an app that requires an entire site within Facebook? Why not do it outside and leverage that?
  5. Facebook is a social network. If you want to make use of it, make sure you work with the ‘social’ aspect and don’t ignore it
  6. A timely tweet (thanks to Brian Solis) of a Jason Calcanis quote this evening says it all – once again, for the vast majority these are tactics and not strategies:

“If you’re building your business on Facebook only, you’re an idiot”

Posted in: facebook, social networks, Twitter

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Panel Discussion: "Is The News Release Dead?"

07.10.07

Last Thursday I attended a panel discussion, organized by my department, entitled “Is The News Release Dead?”

We had a great mix of speakers:

The panel members provided an interesting mix of viewpoints, from very pro-social media through to quite sceptical, leading to some interesting exchanges of views.

Rather than sticking purely to looking at the news release, the panel explored the broader topic of the role that web 2.0 can play in government communications. I continued my social media education by live-blogging the event.

I normally shy away from writing about government communications or anything too closely related to my work, but after careful reflection I decided to make an exception here for three reasons:

  1. The panelists gave their own opinions; they didn’t speak on behalf of the government
  2. These issues aren’t confined to the public sector
  3. I think we should be proud of having these conversations.

Some key points raised by the panel included:

On news releases:

  • The news release, in its traditional format, doesn’t work. It’s due for a significant overhaul
  • News releases are often used incorrectly – at a minimum you need to put news in it. If there’s no news, don’t do it
  • Social media news releases can combine multiple media with succinct content, tagging and content sharing to provide a new way to bring our messages to the public
  • The news release isn’t dead. However:
    • Our focus needs to change from getting content to the media to getting it to the public
    • We need to re-examine why we issue news releases. It’s a tool in our toolkit, but shouldn’t be the default

On traditional media:

  • Traditional media outlets are slowly realizing that the world doesn’t end when the newspaper hits the doorstep. Consumers expect continuous new content
  • The Globe and Mail now allows readers to comment on some stories on its website
  • A majority of consumers still don’t trust online sources as much as traditional media
  • Communications professionals need to stop thinking about the media as the end audience. They’re an essential part of our communications but we communicate through them, not to them

On social media:

  • If organizations delve into new media, transparency is critical. If you aren’t transparent, you will get found out
  • Views differed on whether it’s appropriate (or useful) for government to use social media tactics like blogs, podcasts and social networks
  • The time-shifting capability of podcasts has given radio stations a new lease of life. What’s more, they’re still evolving:
    • Imagine re-mixable podcasts where users can pick and choose the content that interests them
  • The conversations organizations have about Facebook now resemble the conversations they had about the web back in 1994
    • Any organization that ignores Facebook (or any other communications tool) is shutting off a way to communicate with its audience

I have a few thoughts on the discussion:

  • We’re playing catch-up: The discussions that we’re having now in the public sector are the ones that the PR industry as a whole have already had over the last couple of years. The leaders are figuring out how to use these tools; we’re talking about whether to use them
  • We need to educate our peers: There’s a lot of fear about new web technologies, especially around transparency. For new tactics to have any credibility, transparency and openness are critical. Failure to have this will mean failure of the tactic
  • We shouldn’t rely on snap-shots: People cited studies that show a minority of the public trusts online rather than traditional sources. However, the studies are just a snap-shot – don’t show the underlying trend, which is that more and more people are looking to online sources. We need to think about what people will want in a couple of years, not what they wanted six months ago, to avoid vainly chasing the end of the rainbow
  • We need to experiment: Wal-Mart set up a Facebook group. Did it go perfectly? No. They got a lot of negative feedback, but they tried. We need to try new tactics if we want to succeed
  • People want choice: In our fragmented media environment, people want to access information through their choice of medium. To ignore new channels is to miss opportunities
  • “Web 2.0″ isn’t a panacea: It won’t work for every announcement. However, it does add a significant number of new tools to our toolkits, which we should acknowledge and use appropriately
  • Podcasts, blogs, social networks etc. are just tactics: Some people seem to think that when we talk about social media, we’re talking about using it to the exclusion of other tactics. That’s just not the case. Podcasting, blogging, Twitter and all of these wonderful tools aren’t strategies; they’re tactics.

Overall, the panel discussion was fascinating. It was great to hear the different perspectives of the panelists on how (and whether) we should make the best of the opportunities that web 2.0 gives us.

Thanks to the panelists and to everyone else who worked on making it happen!

Posted in: facebook, media, news release, podcast, public relations, social media, social networks, Twitter

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