Archive for December, 2007

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Five Free Online Social Media And Public Relations Courses

07.12.31

Education Portal (via Lifehacker) recently featured a list of Universities offering free online university courses.

Digging through the list, there are woefully few courses on PR and social media.

However, I’ve picked out a few specific courses that PR and social media folks may want to check out:

Social Media

  1. New Media Literacies (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

    On the surface, this course looks at literacy theory in media contexts.

    In practice, this is a great introduction to new media tools (including podcasting, blogging, wikis and more), complete with comprehensive lecture notes and slides for reference.

  2. Stanford on iTunes U (Stanford University)

    Stanford University, one of the world’s leading academic institutions, has joined forces with iTunes U to provide access to Stanford courses, lectures, interviews and more, all in audio format.

    Head to the ‘Science and Technology’ section, then click ‘Technology’ in the centre panel, for lectures on Facebook (with Mark Zuckerberg), Google, podcasting and more.

Public Relations

  1. Marketing Communications As A Strategic Function (The Open University)

    This course emphasises the strategic importance of marketing communication, rather than seeing it as merely a tactical tool. This is essential if communications is to have a seat at the senior management table.

    Features complete course materials and useful references.

  2. Stanford on iTunes U (Stanford University)

    Stanford University, one of the world’s leading academic institutions, has joined forces with iTunes U to provide access to Stanford courses, lectures, interviews and more, all in audio format.

    Check out the ‘Communications and Media’ section:

    • Clicking ‘Media’ gives a series of lectures on the modern media, including ‘Public Life in a Wired World’
    • Clicking ‘Journalism’ gives a large series of classes, including ‘Journalism and the Internet’ and a look at whether newspapers can survive in the new world of journalism
  3. Communication Technology and Policy (University of Southern Queensland)

    This course looks at the diverse roles played by communication technologies in contemporary society, and in the regulations and policies that govern the use of these technologies. It includes a look at some of the challenges thrown up by the rise of digital communication, and the future of journalism and citizen journalists.

Posted in: public relations, social media, training

3Comments

Social Media Training Wiki Building Momentum

07.12.29

Social Media Training WikiIn the days since my last update on the social media training wiki (on December 19), I’ve noticed a shift in momentum.

Compared to the previous 10-day period:

  • Site visits and page views are up by over 800%
  • Bounce rate is down 12%
  • Unique visitors are up over 750%
  • Average time on site is up almost 50%
  • Site membership has grown by over 130%
  • Two well-respected bloggers posted positive reviews of the site.

Shel Holtz wrote a thoughtful post entitled "One-stop shop for social media training," saying:

…the site has all the markings of a great tool for the communications industry. All it needs is your efforts (and mine) to populate it with the content it needs to be a comprehensive resource.

Yesterday, Lee Hopkins wrote another good piece:

Joining the community of contributors is easy — just register and begin to add content. Joining is made even easier if you have an OpenID profile, which you should have (more info about OpenID here).

This initiative by Dave Fleet deserves to become as profoundly useful as the great Constantin Basturea’s NewPR wiki.

The traffic figures are relative, of course, but this is still a significant trend for the better. Reflecting back to my short-term objectives for the site:

  • More than double the number of site members by the end of January 2008 [completed]
  • Double the number of contributions by the end of January 2008
  • No existing pages with content placeholders by the end of January 2008.

We’re one objective down, two more to go.

Next step – let’s get this content started.

Posted in: social media, training

1Comments

Top Ten Less Well-Known PR/Marketing Blogs

07.12.24

In the last few days, a couple of people twittered about clearing out their RSS feed subscriptions.

This got me thinking: there’s a fairly well-known set of major blogs out there. Most people in this space know about Jeremiah, Shel, Todd, Neville, Shel II, Scoble, Steve Rubel, Mitch et al, but what are the undiscovered gems?

What Are My Top Ten Less Well-Known PR/Marketing Blogs?

Buzz Canuck

I first met Sean Moffitt when he spoke to Ontario government communicators at a speaker series event.

As the president of Agent Wildfire (a leading Canadian word of mouth agency) and founder of The Influencers (a word of mouth community), Sean’s expertise is relevant to everyone engaged in social media.

Network of Public Sector Communicators

In my opinion, this is a must-read site for public sector communicators. NPSC does a great job of cutting to the important issues for civil servants looking to get into the social media space.

Key posts:

Crisis Blogger

Minimalistic design but not minimalistic content. As author Gerald Baron says:

“Through a growing network of experts around the nation, I’m being called on more and more to assist companies and organizations with the public and stakeholder challenges that threaten their future. That’s what this blog is all about.”

Search Engine

With a combination of cutting-edge topics, excellent journalism and great delivery, Jesse Brown’s CBC podcast Search Engine vaulted to the top of my ‘must listen-to’ podcast list recently. This is the accompanying blog.

For an example of the level of engagement Jesse has with his subscribers, look no further than a recent post calling for questions about potential new copyright legislation.

Radical Trust

I met Collin Douma for the first time at a Third Tuesday Toronto event with Giovanni Rodriguez and bumped into him again at the most recent session with Richard Binhammer. Collin has quite the engaging personality, and has a blog to match.

As a former Group Creative Director at MacLaren McCann and now the Chief Strategist at Social Media Group, Collin has experience on both sides of the PR/advertising fence to back up his assertions.

Some of his ‘essential posts’:

SoSaidThe.Organization

If you’re a Canadian involved in social media, Colin McKay’s name is probably familiar to you.

As Canuckflack and as the Director of Communications (A) for the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Colin has taken a leading role in driving social media forward in the public sector.

SoSaidThe.Organization, like NPSC, should be required reading for government communicators.

Social Media Explorer

Jason Falls’ excellent blog is a recent discovery of mine.

Recent winning posts (in my opinion) include 10 Must Read Blogs For 2008 (an excellent counterpart to this post, as it includes the a-listers) and 10 Steps To Manage Your Feed Reading Time.

PR Meets Marketing

Cece Salomon-Lee’s excellent PR/marketing blog offers a lot of practical advice, and features a great section on how to (and how not to) pitch bloggers.

Link Blogs

Ok, I’m cheating a bit with this one, but I find that link blogs feed me some of the most interesting articles I read.

By following articles flagged by people you respect and who are interested in similar things to you, you can greatly improve the quality of your reading.

My top feeds for this:

If you feel the urge, you can follow my del.icio.us posts and shared items too.

The New PR

Ryan Anderson’s PR blog benefits greatly from his relaxed, off-the-cuff writing style. As the public relations manager for interactive marketing firm Fuel Industries, he has the experience to go with the style.

One of my favourite passages, about Dell’s Richard Binhammer:

“To be honest, Richard was not what I expected from a living, breathing social media case study. Far from a utopian social media zealot, he’s a gruff, opinionated, and extremely intelligent communicator who is surprisingly pragmatic about the role of social media.”

What About You?

So, there you have it. My recommendations for some great reading that you may be missing out on.

Being on this list doesn’t mean these blogs aren’t well-read. In fact, most of these blogs probably have more readers than I do. It matters not – this isn’t a competition. These folks consistently provide relevant, valuable content. You should read them.

If you’re not on this list, don’t be offended – chances are your reader numbers are high enough or I’m so familiar with your material that I don’t consider you a “hidden gem.” Of course, the other possibility is that I screwed up and missed you.

If you think your blog should be on this list, comment here and point me to it! I’d love to check your site out.

What about you? What are some of your hidden favourites?

Posted in: blogging

11Comments

Twitter: Conversation Starter

07.12.21

The Halton Catholic District School Board stirred up controversy this week when it banned Phillip Pullman’s fantasy book "The Golden Compass" and two other books in the "His Dark Materials Trilogy."

According to a board statement, "Philip Pullman’s trilogy of atheistic ideology, carefully couched within the realm of fantasy for young readers, is in direct opposition to the mission statement and governing values of our board…"

The topic is dangerously close to provincial government territory so I won’t give my thoughts on it here. You can check out the mainstream media coverage on Google and form your own opinion.

However, the contentious theme led me to wonder what other people thought so I asked my Twitter friends:

My question to my Twitter friendsI was thrilled with the response. In a few minutes I had ten responses from people who generally live no-where near Toronto (though one or two do live in the area), have no connection to this yet still responded strongly to the story.

Responses to my Twitter question

Note: I responded to John Czwartacki’s (CZ) first comment,  leading to his second post.My response to CZ

Set aside, for a moment, the specific situation, and look at what happened here.

This situation generally doesn’t affect these people. I gave them very little information on the issue, but instead asked them to read through a full article. They still responded.

As I mused recently, imagine the power of this for organizations. Imagine the feedback you could get on ideas, quickly and cheaply.

Anyone still think Twitter is pointless?

Posted in: Twitter

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How Not To Deal With The Media

07.12.20

Wolves arguing Newfoundland paper ‘The Telegram‘ recently published an article detailing an email trail between Newfoundland journalist Craig Westcott and Elizabeth Matthews, the Director of Communications for Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams.

Check out the article – it makes very interesting reading.

Matthews has blacklisted Westcott for a while due to his criticism of the Premier. The government is apparently now also shutting his paper out of government advertising.

As the Canadian Journalism Project noted:

When all the spin and personalities are removed it seems to come down to the cruel realities of being an experienced self -employed journalist in a small town who must not only report news and events but is also called on to do SIGNED commentary and editorials …something the local daily does not.

The Telegraph also published a critical follow-up post that refers to a thoughtful post by Ed Hollett.

I won’t comment on who has the moral high ground here in terms of the history, but I do have a couple of thoughts about this incident that we can learn from:

  1. Don’t involved in acrimonious back-and-forths with reporters. You’re unlikely to win, and you almost certainly won’t come out of it looking good
  2. As Hollett says, "The biggest thing is to keep personalities out of it;  sometimes even when you have to deal with arguably the biggest idiot on the planet you have to find a way of getting on with the job."

    Agreed. It appears here that personalities and personal feelings got in the way. That’s where things fell off the rails.

  3. Nothing is off the record. Don’t assume that because you’re not in an ‘interview’ that the reporter can’t/won’t publish what you’re saying.

Every person that I’ve talked to says the same thing about journalists – they’re good, reasonable people who generally aren’t out to ‘get’ you. However, if you get into conversations like this, you’re asking for trouble.

(Photo credit: Laenulfean)

Posted in: media, public relations

2Comments

Social Media Training Wiki: An Update

07.12.19

Just over a month ago I threw out a challenge to the online PR community:

[...] As a community, let’s develop a best-practice social media 101 training program.

Let’s create a one-day, scratch-the-surface program that will help employees who are new to this social media thing to find their feet.

Let’s put it out there for the good of the community.

Let’s encourage people to adapt it and adopt it.

Let’s see if we can raise the bar for social media knowledge in our organizations.

Check out the wiki. [...]

smtwSo, what’s happened since then?

Progress:

  • A total of 135 contributions
  • 17 registered contributors, including some experts I respect greatly and was very happy to see
  • 12  useful ’social media 101′ topics, including current talking points like ethics, blogger relations and the social media news release

Challenges and Opportunities:

I don’t think the site has yet gained the momentum it needs to, in terms of visitors, topics or depth of content. This isn’t entirely unexpected, as I’ve been otherwise occupied recently and haven’t given the site the attention it deserves.

So, where to take the site from here?

I plan to focus on four areas:

  • Recruiting new members (you can sign up here)
  • Encouraging renewed contributions from existing members
  • Fleshing-out existing topics
  • Adding advanced topics (Colin McKay suggested an open source business case, for example)

A Renewed Challenge

First up, I’m renewing the challenge to you.

Do you have expertise to share? Then join the community and help to create a resource for the benefit of everyone.

Are you new to the scene? Tell us what you want to know – either in the comments here or on the wiki discussion forums.

Objectives

I’m also setting some specific objectives for the short term, transparently, for everyone to see:

  • More than double the number of site members by the end of January 2008
  • Double the number of contributions by the end of January 2008
  • No existing pages with content placeholders by the end of January 2008

As a community, let’s develop a best-practice social media 101 training program.

Check out the wiki.

Posted in: social media, training, wikis

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3 Reasons Why Live-Blogging (And Twittering) Is A Good Thing

07.12.17

I just want to take a few moments to give my thoughts on a debate that has bounced around a bit recently – whether or not live blogging is a good thing.

Doug Haslam wrote a great post recently for Media Bullseye, looking at both sides of the issue. Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson also discussed live twittering on recent episodes of For Immediate Release.

Earlier in 2007, Shel Israel live-blogged a panel at the New Comm Forum featuring Steve Crescenzo, giving Steve a somewhat unfavourable review.

Crescenzo responded with pointed criticism of both Israel and of live-blogging in general. This kicked off a storm, both in the comments sections of the two posts (interestingly, including from Mark Ragan, whose company organizes a lot of conferences) and on other blog posts.

Here’s my take on live blogging – it’s here to stay and that’s a good thing.

I’ve live-blogged (and live-twittered) a few events recently. Why do I do it?

1. So people who can’t attend can get the highlights

Most people can’t make it to the plethora of social media events that cover the calendar nowadays. Live-blogging events means that people who can’t make it can still get the highlights and benefit from the expertise of the speakers.

Does this create a problem because those people haven’t paid to attend?

Absolutely not.

Bands post songs to the podsafe music network. That doesn’t mean people who hear them won’t want to buy their other songs or see them in concert.

Far from it.

Live blogging speakers may actually drive up demand for future events.

So, non-attendees benefit from insights, and speakers (if they’re good) benefit from increased interest and demand.

2. To get perspectives from people who aren’t there

Live-twittering, in particular, gives people a great opportunity to give feedback and perspectives on what presenters say.

People can give their feedback, in real time, which enriches the experience both for the blogger and for the other participant. If the session is interactive, the speaker may even respond to that feedback or clarify their points.

3. To provide a record for a later blog post

I like to take a two-pronged approach to live blogging: I’ll twitter away during the event itself, then head home later, reflect on things and write a more thoughtful post for my blog itself.

Why? Because the two media have different, complementary, purposes.

Twitter is a constant stream of real-time information.

My blog is a place where I write careful, thought-out posts.

Different purposes, different audiences, different approaches.

I benefit from having a record of the event and other people benefit from having a choice of media from which to pick.

So there you have it – three reasons why live blogging is a good thing.

Note: All of them have benefits for people other than the blogger.

That’s why live blogging is here to stay.

Posted in: Twitter, blogging

1Comments

Loss Of Control Is A Myth

07.12.16

I often see "loss of control of the message" cited as a barrier to entry into social media for companies. Today, I’m here to say that loss of control is a myth.

Traditionally, communications has always been about message control:

  • Carefully crafted soundbites
  • Carefully staged events
  • Carefully choreographed photo-ops.

All of these aim to keep close control of the message.

Organizations looking at involvement in social media can fear losing that control.

Here’s the truth: you lose control by not participating.

Reality Check

If you work for an organization that has any relevance nowadays, people talk about you. Whether you participate or not.

In the past, people talked offline. You couldn’t do much about it. Nowadays, much of it may be online.

You have a choice whether to participate or not. Whether to try to influence the discussion or not.

Given that, you have three options:

ostrichThe Ostrich Approach: Ignore It

Put your head in the sand. Ignore the conversation. After all, if you can’t hear it, it’s not happening, right?

Wrong.

You don’t silence discussions by ignoring them. They will happen anyway.

The only positive that can come from this is that you can report that you haven’t seen any bad coverage. It’s not the truth, but maybe you’ll sleep better for it.

The Tentative Approach: Listen

Maybe you know the conversation’s happening, but you’re not ready to get involved yet.

That’s fine.

Listening is a key step on the road towards participation. In fact, if you’re new to this, listening is probably better than launching head-long into using social media tools where you’ll probably get crucified if you use traditional approaches.

Take your time. Find out where your customers are. Who’s talking about you? Where?

The up-side of this is that you can tune in to these conversations and see how people perceive your organization.

You may even want to make changes based on what you hear.

Here’s the thing, though… you still don’t have any input.

The Engaged Approach: Participate

The common thread in the last two approaches is a complete lack of control of the conversation about your organization.

The only way you can directly influence the dialogue is by participating in it.

Note: I didn’t say you can control it.

It doesn’t matter whether you engage in social media or not, you can’t control the conversation.

However, you can influence conversations if you go about it the right way:

  • By listening and responding appropriately
  • By using the right tools in the right way
  • By genuinely engaging and participating.

So Who Does Lose Control?

Micro-managers.

You can’t engage people using corporate-speak. There’s no room for ten layers of approval on blog comments. Don’t even try to produce a podcast through a committee.

Give your people the ball. Train them. Give them the rules. Let them run with it.

What’s the real fear here?

Maybe it is loss of control, but not by the organization.

By management.

This doesn’t mean companies should rush in to using social media tools. However, it does mean you should re-examine your concerns rather than blindly accepting cliched misperceptions.

You don’t lose control by participating; you gain influence.

(Photo credit: Spartacus007)

Posted in: social media

5Comments

Spokeo – Cool or Creepy?

07.12.14


Spokeo (www.spokeo.com) is a very interesting new tool that allows you to track your contacts’ activities over 30-plus different social media sites.The site makes a point of speaking to privacy concerns, but does it go too far? Is this a very cool tool, or is it too close to privacy invasion?

Mobile post sent by davefleet using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Posted in: privacy, social media

2Comments

Canadian ISP Rogers Hijacking Web Pages

07.12.12

Rogers stirred up a storm this week with revelations that it is splicing its content into other companies’ webpages.

rogersgoogleAll of the reports I’ve seen have referred to this under the banner of "net neutrality."

For those of you that don’t speak geek, here’s the basic gist.

Rogers is, in essence, forcing customers to view content they haven’t asked for… on other peoples’ websites.

Alongside the disturbing side to this, as Shel Holtz points out, it also raises questions about what other companies could do with this technology.

Google Isn’t Happy

I wonder how Google feels about Rogers essentially deciding it can ignore Google’s advertising system and slap its content on any page it likes.

Oh, wait, we know.

Here’s a quote from a Toronto Star article:

"As a general principle, we believe that maintaining the Internet as a neutral platform means that carriers shouldn’t be able to interfere with Web content without users’ permission," the Google statement said. "We are in the process of contacting the relevant parties to bring this to a quick resolution."

This isn’t limited to Google’s pages, either. Here’s a quote from Rogers communications VP Taanta Gupta, from an ars technica article:

"We do not interfere with the content of the search (it could easily have been a Rogers yahoo search or any web site visit so is certainly not specific to any search engine or web site). "

Both traditional media and the blogosphere immediately slammed the move, with Christopher S. Penn calling for Rogers customers to drop the company immediately.

Customer Disservice

Rather than following Penn’s suggestion and dropping Rogers immediately, I contacted the company myself:

I’d like to comment on the various news reports about Rogers inserting its own content onto sites viewed by Rogers users.

I STRONGLY encourage you not to pursue this approach.

If this becomes standard and I see Rogers content inserted onto pages I view, I will immediately move to a different service provider, taking my cable and cell phone accounts with me.

Later in the day, I received this response:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service.

In your recent email, you have informed us that you concerned with the various reports concerning Rogers inserting content onto sites viewed by Rogers s users.

We do apologize for any confusion that may have resulted.

Providing an automated real-time message while customers are browsing is a more effective and preferable means of usage notification than sending an e-mail which customers may not see in a timely manner. I can assure you that there are no privacy issues around this process   it s an automated message that is simply tagged onto the page being viewed and does not alter customers  data requests.

We are pleased to have been able to address your inquiry. For additional information please visit our website at www.rogers.com.

You are a valued customer and we thank you for your business.

For future email correspondence with respect to this e-mail, please quote reference number [deleted]

Regards,
[deleted]
Rogers Online Customer Service http://www.rogers.com

Rogers just doesn’t get it.

Leaving aside the awful spelling and grammar in the response (suggestion: maybe try hiring some people who can copy & paste properly), here are my thoughts:

  • This response does nothing to show they might take my concerns into account with their ‘test.’ There’s no evidence they’re listening to their customers.
  • I didn’t mention privacy anywhere in my note. Their reply actually leaves me with more concerns than I started with.
  • They didn’t address my query, but assumed they did.
  • I sent Rogers a specific concern; they responded with a generic link to the same website I originally contacted them from. Amazingly, I couldn’t find anything about this issue on that site.

What’s a better reply, I hear you ask?

Off the top of my head, how about:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us, and for alerting us to your concerns.

You expressed some misgivings about a test we are conducting to help us communicate better with our customers.

Please be assured that this is currently just a pilot project. We will consider all the feedback we receive from our customers before deciding whether to introduce this feature more widely.

If you would like more information on this test please visit www.rogers.com/specificinformation.

Thank you again for your feedback and your valued business…

If you’d like to have your say, you can contact Rogers here.

Personally, after their pathetic response to my concerns, I’m now considering dropping them anyway.

Posted in: issues management, marketing, public relations

5Comments
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