Archive for February, 2008

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International Olympic Committee Allows Beijing Athletes To Blog

08.02.16

The International Olympic Committee has ruled that athletes at the Beijing Olympics will be allowed to write about their experiences during the games.

They’re referring specifically to blogs. If you’re not familiar with blogs, in this context they’re essentially journals that are available on the web.

According to the BBC, this is the first time the committee has allowed blogging by participants.

A couple of things to note:

  • Pictures and video of the games are banned from the blogs to prevent copyright infringement.

I guess I can understand this – the committee sells the media rights to the games, and wants to protect its income from these sources.

  • The committee "considers blogging… as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism."

I’m not so sure about this one. The committee is definitely on track when it comes to viewing websites as a form of personal expression, but "…not a form of journalism?"

It’s pretty clear by this point that blogs can be a perfectly legitimate form of journalism. It’s not traditional journalism, for sure, but anyone who follows the online space knows that blogs are becoming a greater big threat to the traditional media (if they aren’t already).

A quick web search of "blogs as journalism" produces over two million results. One of the "scholarly articles" at the top of the search results, from 2003, is entitled Weblogs Threaten and Inform Traditional Journalism:

Blogs are quickly becoming a very influential media tool, one that can challenge conventional notions of who is a journalist and what journalism is.

This was from five years ago.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this. I mean, I don’t consider this site to be journalism. This site is more about my personal commentary and thoughts on my area of interest. Perhaps this wording was the only way that progressive members on the committee could convince others that they should allow blogging at the games. Who knows, maybe without this the participants would have to register as journalists or some other nonsense.

Still, I’d like to see the International Olympic Committee acknowledge the important role that blogging plays in today’s media landscape.

Posted in: blogging

Tags: , , , ,

2Comments

I’m Done With Social Media

08.02.15

“Social media” is out. So is “microblogging.” No more “social bookmarking” either.

What am I talking about? Clear writing. Plain language.

I’m not pulling the plug on all this stuff. However, I am going to start to write about it in terms that the average person on the street can understand.

Out with the old, in with the new

Huh? What are you talking about?I often hear people say we should write so our grandparents can understand what we’re writing. Well, my grandad certainly wouldn’t have a clue about blogging, vlogging or unconferences.

So, next time I chat to someone about the stuff I’m up to, I won’t throw out the latest jargon that we’ve conjured up. I’ll use short, simple words to describe these complex ideas.

Will I dumb down the way I communicate? No. Far from it.

I’ll open up my conversations to people who don’t live in our little bubble and who don’t know our terminology, but who want to know about this stuff.

It’s not easy to cut out these words and phrases, but I guarantee to you that far more people will understand you.

This is the kind of thing that visitors to the Social Media Training Wiki need. Simple, direct language.

Here are a few simple starters:

  • Out: my blog
  • In: my website
  • Out: social media
  • In: online tools that let you have two-way conversations
  • Out: URL
  • In: website address
  • Out: RSS feed
  • In: website content you can subscribe to

What web jargon would you like to eliminate? What would you say instead?

(photo credit: ~k~)

Posted in: writing

30Comments

What PR Pros Can Learn From Gamers

08.02.12

Can we get communications pointers from computer games?

Crysis features life-like graphics, but gamers want more than just realism The New York Times recently featured an article looking at how there’s a growing trend in computer gaming away from intensive graphics, complex storylines and immersive dialogue and towards simple games that allow people to interact with each other.

“Paradoxically, at a moment when technology allows designers to create ever more complex and realistic single-player fantasies, the growth in the now $18 billion gaming market is in simple, user-friendly experiences that families and friends can enjoy together.”

So what parallels can we draw between this and our communications?

Keep it simple

Gamers are shifting away from complex games like Crysis (pictured above, which I love by the way) and Bioshock and towards those with simple concepts like Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Halo 3.

From complex to simple. We need to remember that when we write for people. The general public isn’t interested in the minutiae of your product, service or policy. They’re interested in the simple story. What’s happening? How does it affect them?

Make it about the people

Only one of the top ten selling games last year was single player only. All the rest included extensive multiplayer features. World of Warcraft, the king of multiplayer games, has over 10 million paying subscribers.

We need to move from targeting individuals and towards letting our communities interact. By letting people share content, helping them to bookmark it, making it more accessible by removing layers of spin and even allowing comments on our announcements we can enable more social interaction around our stories. By moving away from venues that we control (our own websites) and towards those where users feel comfortable (social networks, for example), we can lower the barriers further.

Guitar Hero 3 We also need to move from one-way to two-way interaction with our communities. We can help members interact with each other, but it’s only when we also start to interact with them that we can realize the benefits of all this new technology.

Keep it interesting

This relates closely to my first point. Many of today’s new games place immense demands on your computer hardware. Games like Crysis require people to upgrade to the latest hardware just to play them. Meanwhile, the trend is moving towards games that focus on fun rather than perfection.

That’s key for communicators. Sure, a government can throw $100 million at something or an organization can release a technologically game-changing product. Unless you can make it interesting, though, no-one will care. $100 million is an abstract figure. I can picture $1,000 or maybe $10,000. Once you’re into the millions, you’re beyond what I’m likely to ever encounter in my life. I have no way to relate to it, so why should I care? A thousand more heart transplants, though (pulling the example randomly out of the air), is on the way there. Or producing enough power to light a city. I can relate to those things. It has to be relevant and interesting or people will switch off and move on.

Get the basics right

(Updated) You can have all the high-tech wizardry in the world, but if the fundamentals of a game aren’t right it will all be for nothing.

The same applies to communications initiatives. Before you worry about web 2.0 gizmos and whatever the new wonder app of the day is, make sure you get the fundamentals of your announcement right. You know, the old fashioned stuff. Things like well planned, written and executed tactics. If you don’t get that right, all the shiny stuff you layer on top won’t help.

Conclusion

There you have it. Three Four lessons communicators can learn from gamers:

  • Keep it simple
  • Make it about the people
  • Keep it interesting
  • Get the basis right

What other lessons do you think we can learn?

(Photo credit: ntwrock and me)

Posted in: pr

Tags: , , ,

4Comments

Why Measurement Is Important

08.02.11

“The things that get measured are the things that get done. Companies measure the stuff they care about.”

Measurement is importantSo simple yet so powerful and so true. This is a quote from a recent episode of the excellent Manager Tools podcast, and it has big implications for communications folks.

Sure, there are a lot of barriers to effective measurement. For one thing, there’s no standard industry-wide way to measure success, especially in social media (yes, I know about CPRS’s MRP but it’s not “standard” yet). For another, there’s the instant pressure to move onto the next project once you’ve executed the last one. Then, on the agency side, there’s the additional cost that the client has to agree to.

Yes, there are barriers galore. I’m sure there are plenty of other factors to overcome. I don’t have the answers to them.

Still, I can’t escape the important implication of the quote:

If we want senior management to take communications seriously, we need to measure our activities.

To those of you out there who are already sold on the importance of measuring what we do, read no further. I don’t need to preach to the choir.

To the rest of you, though, read on.

You’re probably like me – you have a template for your communications plans with a section to plan how you will evaluate your initiative. Maybe you even fill it out. But do you ever do it?

Here’s the thing: other business units do. They evaluate their projects, even if it means finding proxies for what they really want to measure (like complaint numbers as a measure of product quality).

That’s why they have credibility.

That’s why they have a voice at the senior management table.

So, next time you write a communications plan and say something like…

We will evaluate success based on:

  • Amount and tone of media coverage
  • Correspondence received
  • Pick-up of key messages

… or the like, actually do it.

We may not have the perfect methodology, an ideal amount of time to spend, or a huge budget, but we have to start somewhere.

If you don’t care how successful your activities are, how do you expect your CEO to care?

(photo credit: FlickrJunkie)

Posted in: measurement

9Comments

PR Web Takes The ‘Social’ Out Of Social Media

08.02.07

In the lead-up to PodCamp Toronto 2008, we’re issuing a news release with details of the event. Given that it’s a social media event, we decided to issue a social media news release.For those of you who may not be familiar with the basics of social media releases, we intended our release would differ from a traditional release in several ways:

  • Bullet point-style news that cut to the point rather than wordy, spin-filled paragraphs
  • Content divided into distinct sections: news, quotes, quick facts, learn more
  • Multiple links to useful information like the location, registration form, speakers, etc
  • Embedded social media tools – tagging, del.icio.us links
  • Limited embedded multimedia content – graphics and audio
  • Ability to share the release through social media tools like Digg, StumbleUpon or similar

(This is a gross over-simplification of the format, but for the purpose of this post it suffices)

With these requirements, PR Web was a logical choice. The company’s services seemed to match our needs perfectly:

PR Web Service Options

PR Web LogoWe plumped for the third option, “SEO Visibility” – the level above “Social Media Visibility.”

Registration for the site was quick, easy and painless. The problems began when I uploaded our release.

Within an hour, I received an email from PR Web, conversationally titled “Editorial Hold Advisory from PRWeb – Please Do Not Respond to this E-Mail”:

Our editors have determined that a few changes need to be made to your press release in order to effectively distribute it on PRWeb. Your press release has been placed on editorial hold status in order to allow you the opportunity to make the required reviews and edits to your press release.

Please review the following editorial explanation describing why your press release was put on editorial hold:

  • PRWeb no longer distributes news releases with an excessive amount of links. Please limit your link count to 1 per 100 words. This policy is in place to protect the value of the links that you include in your release and the value of links within the PRWeb network.

The reviewing editor has also made these additional comments:

  • Your release also lacks an introductory paragraph in the body text that clearly outlines your news. Please insert one. Thanks!

Yes, you read it right:

  • Our “social media news release” had too many links
  • We had to drop the to-the-point, bullet-focused approach and lead with a regular paragraph.

Not very encouraging. Too many links? I have more links in my email signature. PR Web clearly doesn’t understand the concept of the social media news release.

PodCamp Toronto 2008 is only two weeks away so time is tight. We’re debating what to do at the moment. I’ve already contacted the company. What do you think? Should we:

  1. Re-structure the release into a traditional format?
  2. Negotiate with PR Web?
  3. Ask for a refund and use another company?

Let me know what you think.

Update (Feb 7): Jiyan Wei, Online Product Manager for PR Web, contacted me this morning to discuss this situation.

Firstly, thanks to Jiyan for getting involved, both via the comments here and with me directly.

Jiyan explained PR Web’s rationale for the links rule – while Google loves links, Google News apparently doesn’t. If a news release has too many links in it, Google News may decide it’s spam. He also informed me they’re willing to be flexible on it with our release, and that they’re considering whether to make the ‘rule’ more of a ‘guideline’ for users in the future.

Their second original request, about an introductory paragraph, also relates to Google News. As I understand it, the service won’t pick up releases that don’t fit their idea of what a news release should be. Bullet points don’t fit that idea.

All in all, a productive discussion.

In the meantime, several other newswire services contacted me. I’m very impressed that they’re paying attention – thanks to them, too.

Update (Feb 8): We released our release on PRWeb this morning – we went with a more traditional format in the end.

In an interesting twist, CNW stepped up to the plate and offered to let us try their service. Our SMNR-style release is now live on their site.

This was a fascinating experience. It’s great to know that the news wire services are listening. PRWeb handled the issue very well – they joined the conversation early, listened to my concerns and were flexible. Marketwire, webitpr and CNW all noticed and contacted me too. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take advantage of all their offers without spamming media outlets with multiple copies of the same release.

This is a great example of why companies should get involved in conversations like these. I think it worked out well for everyone.

Posted in: news release, smnr

Tags: ,

26Comments

Thoughts on Mitch Joel’s take on Ford/Scrabulous

08.02.06

My thoughts on Mitch Joel’s take on the Ford Mustang and Scrabulous controversies recently. Generally spot-on in my view.

Note: recorded half-way through a 22km run, so (a) the audio is bad and (b) I’m out of breath.

Posted in: blogging, utterz

0Comments

Social Media News Release: An EXTRA Tool, Not A Replacement

08.02.02

It’s been over 18 months since Todd Defren released his template for a new news release format and over that time the a healthy debate has raged over the idea.

Recently, Maggie Fox’s crew over at the Social Media Group released Digital Snippets, their own take on the format, re-invigorating the debate.

I love that the social media news release seems to be gaining traction. I love the flexibility, the multimedia content, and the way it forces writers to cut out the crap. I evangelize the format at every opportunity.

Still, a few months ago I wrote about how we needed to find a middle ground with the social media news release. In my eyes, the new format isn’t a panacea – it should add to our toolkit rather than replacing the 100 year-old press release.

My concerns in that post:

First and foremost, communicators need to think about their audience. However, we also need to think about how we’re going to get the message to that audience, and that means segmenting the media.

There’s a big difference between the larger media outlets and smaller, community-based media.

The social media release is a great idea for the larger outlets where the reporter is always going to break down the story and look at it from all angles. However, smaller community papers simply don’t have the resources needed to do this. We frequently see releases published almost verbatim by these outlets.

If we were to stop issuing traditional releases for community-based stories, I’m willing to bet we’d see a drop in coverage in local media.

My thinking has evolved a little since then, but my fundamental concerns remain.

It seemed to me that a lot of people agreed.

However, I’ve heard rumbles about organizations using it to replace the old format, and started to wonder if maybe I was behind the times. Maybe I missed an evolution in thinking since then.

So, as I have a habit of doing nowadays, I asked my friends on Twitter:

“Social media news release: a replacement to the traditional release or an addition to the toolkit? I say the latter. You?”

The responses reassured me, and I was particularly happy to see Todd chime in:

Addition, Not Replacement

The social media news release isn’t yet a replacement for the traditional format. It’s a valuable addition to our toolkit which we can use as appropriate.

That said, a couple of sub-themes emerged here:

  • We need to write better news releases.
    • Todd and Brian Solis say it well in the post Todd linked to above: “A crappy press release is still a crappy press release regardless of multimedia or social bling.”
  • Social media is growing but “traditional media” is still the mainstream. Sometimes the old format is more appropriate to communicate with them.

Learn More

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Posted in: news release, smnr, social media

4Comments

Social Media Training Wiki: How Did We Measure Up?

08.02.01

In mid-December 2007, I established three objectives for the Social Media Training Wiki:

  • Social Media Training WikiMore 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

Results

Well, it’s the end of January; how did we do?

  • More than six times the number of site members (113)
  • Almost three times the number of contributions (374)
  • Some pages do still have content placeholders

Thumbs up!Two out of three. Not bad, given that the site also has seven new topics since the last post, including the beginnings of an RSS primer (in response to Shel Holtz’s helpful comments).

New Objectives

Time for some new objectives.

Last time around I set some areas of focus:

  • Recruiting new members (you can sign up here)
  • Encouraging renewed contributions from existing members
  • Fleshing-out existing topics
  • Adding advanced topics

I think these remain valid, so my new objectives are also based on these:

  • New members: 175 total members by the end of February 2008
    • Roughly a 50% increase
    • Why am I happy with such a small number of members? Because you don’t need to sign up to read and learn from the wiki. 175 experienced social media folks contributing to the wiki would be awesome
  • Renewed contributions: 500 total contributions by the end of February 2008
    • A 34% increase
  • Fleshing-out existing topics: Zero placeholders on existing pages by the end of February 2008
  • Advanced topics: New section of advanced concepts in place by the end of February 2008

Key Topics

To help people focus on the key topics, here are the gaps I see on the site right now:

  • Blogs – we need details on the pros and cons of blogs as social media tools
  • Blog Monitoring – this page needs populating
  • Micro Blogs – this page is short on pros and cons
  • Podcasts – what are the drawbacks of podcasting as a medium?
  • Social Browsing – I’m still not sure if this deserves its own page. If it does, it needs more content
  • Social Media News Release – what are the drawbacks of this format?
  • Social Networks – this page is short of content on general features as well as the pros and cons of using social networks from a marketing perspective
  • Video Blogs – This niche topic needs fleshing out
  • Case Studies – this isn’t one page, it’s every topic. I wrote yesterday about the lack of social media case studies out there. This is a chance to help correct that.

How You Can Contribute

Spread The Word

A big thanks to Lee Hopkins, Shel Holtz, Donna Papacosta, Dirk Shaw and everyone else who has written about the wiki already. The more people that know about this, the more will get involved in strengthening this resource.

Add To Existing Pages

Are you an experienced user of any of these tools? Why not take five minutes and add a few notes on one of these topics?

Add New Topics

If you spot a gap in the topics on the wiki, go ahead and fill it!

Help Others

There’s more to the site than just the wiki content. Every page on the site feeds into a site-wide discussion forum. If you have questions, post them! If you have answers, help people out.

Let’s add to this momentum. Let’s make the Social Media Training Wiki an even more valuable resource for the community.

Check out the wiki.

(photo credit: -murilo-)

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Posted in: social media, training, wikis

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