Archive for January, 2009

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YOUR 40 Top People To Follow on Twitter

09.01.31

My "40 PR-Related People To Follow On Twitter" post yesterday got quite the reaction – both in terms of traffic and conversation. I was thrilled to see the number of people who responded, recommending other people, and happy to observe that I was already following many of those who were recommended.

Bizarrely, as it turns out, you recommended the same number of people that I did (at this point in time, anyway).

So here they are – in no particular order, in the same categories as yesterday – your 40 people to follow on Twitter:

Social Media Folks

1. Amber Naslund – @ambercadabra – Director of Community for Radian6
2. Warren Sukernek – @warrenss – Director of Content Marketing for Radian6
3. Mack Collier – @mackcollier – Social media consultant. Writes The Viral Garden blog
4. Connie Reece – @conniereece – Texas-based founder of Every Dot Connects
5. Sonny Gill – @SonnyGill – Online/social media marketer
6. Debra Mastaler – @debramastaler – Search engine marketer
7. Liana Evans – @storyspinner – Online marketer
8. Wayne MacPhail – @wmacphail – Emerging media consultant, photographer, Toronto social media scene ever-present, nice guy
9. Connie Bensen – @cbensen – Community strategist for Techrigy
10. Charlene Li – @charleneli Social media consultant, formerly of Forrester Research. Co-author of Groundswell
11. Leslie Carothers – @tkpleslie – Writer and social media "strategist"

Communicators

12. Lisa Dilg – @pprlisa – PR exec at PerkettPR
13. Jami Reyes – @jamimiami – Public and government relations specialist
14. Kellye Crane – @KellyeCrane – PR/MarCom writer and consultant
15. Scott Meis – @scottmeis – Senior project director at Chicago communications firm Carolyn Grisko & Associates Inc
16. Arik Hansen – @arikhansen – Communications pro based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
17. Andrea Betts – @arbetts – New York-based young PR professional
18. James Walker – @jaywalk1 – Washington, DC-based communications pro
19. Steve Rubel – @steverubel – Senior VP and director of insights for Edelman Digital

Educators

20. Kate Sweester – @kaye – Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia teaching PR research and communication
21. Kelli Matthews – @kmatthews – PR instructor at the University of Oregon
22. Barbara Nixon – @barbaranixon – Assistant professor of communication arts at Georgia Southern University
23. Beverly Macy – @beverlymacy – Social media instructor at UCLA (self-nominated)

Corporate Twitterers

24. Scott Monty – @scottmonty – Head of social media at Ford and "generally nice guy" – keynoting at the Mesh Conference in Toronto in April
25. Frank Eliason – @comcastcares – Comcast’s Director of Digital Care
26. PR Week – @prweekstaff – Generic feed for PR Week staff
27. Tonia Hammer – @toniahammer – Community relations/PR/social media girl at Molson, and a good friend of mine
28. Adam Moffat – @molsonmoffat – Manager of brand and marketing PR at Molson
29. Bryan Cox – @molsonbryan – Government relations and PR at Molson
30. Ross Buchanan – @molsonross – Another Molson-er
31. Julia Rosen – @juliarosien – Natura Mattresses

Miscellaneous Professions

32. Kirk Lapointe – @kirklapointe – Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun and Adjunct Professor at the UBC School of Journalism
33. Edward Branley – @YatPundit – New Orleans-based computer consultant
34. Phil Baumann – @philbaumann – Registered Nurse. Has a cool presentation on 140 healthcare uses for Twitter
35. Shelli Johnson – @yellowstoneshel Founder and Chief Strategist of Yellowstone International – a tourism think tank
36. Andy Quayle – @techburgh – CEO of web hosting company Tubu Internet Solutions
37. Jeremy Meyers – @jeremymeyers – A/V digital content producer
38. Kim Wood – @KimWood – Philly-based realtor
39. Ryan Deschamps – @ryandeschamps – e-Learning Services Manager at the Halifax Public Libraries in Halifax, Canada
40. Steve Leon – @steveleon – Partner, ShowStoppers press events (self-nominated)

Who else have we missed?

(I don’t normally write long list-like posts like this – hence I’m posting this on a weekend, which I don’t usually do. Normal service, sans-lists, will resume on Monday!)

Posted in: social media, Twitter

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54Comments

40 PR-Related People To Follow On Twitter

09.01.30

Thumbs up! Over the course of today I saw (and partook in) several conversations on Twitter around people giving up on Twitter itself because they couldn’t find interesting people to follow.

In some cases, people complained that they could only find ‘social media’ and ‘PR’ people on Twitter. Unfortunately (perhaps), I’m one of them so while I can advise on some good people to follow, my Twitter ecosystem is to a large extent populated by other PR and social media folks.

So, for a little Friday fun, here are my suggestions for 40 PR-related people I recommend you engage with on Twitter. Interesting discussions guaranteed…

Social Media Folks

1. Shannon Paul – @shannonpaul – New media creative content consultant at the Detroit Red Wings
2. Chris Brogan – @chrisbrogan – President, New Marketing Labs, co-founder of PodCamp and all-round nice guy
3. Jeremiah Owyang – @jowyang – Senior Analyst, Social Computing at Forrester Research
4. Laura Fitton – @pistachio – Principal and Founder, Pistachio Consulting
5. Jennifer Leggio – @mediaphyter – ZDNet social business blogger. Writes smart posts that make me think
6. Julien Smith – @julien – Uber-smart, uber-friendly new media consultant from Montreal. Great guy all-round
7. David Alston – @davidalston – Vice President of Marketing at Radian6
8. Aaron Newman – @aaronnewman – Founder of Techrigy
9. Scott Stratten – @unmarketing – Ottawa 10. Melanie Baker – @melle – Community Manager at AideRSS

Communicators

11. Joseph Thornley – @thornley – CEO of Thornley Fallis Communications, Canada’s leading PR blogger and my boss
12. Todd Defren – @tdefren – Principal at SHIFT Communications
13. Brian Solis – @briansolis – Principal at Futureworks
14. Dave Jones – @doctorjones – VP of Digital Communications at Hill & Knowlton Canada
15. KD Paine – @kdpaine – Measurement guru and ultra-friendly runner.
16. Danny Brown – @dannybrown – Owner of boutique agency Press Release PR
17. Doug Haslam – @dough – PR pro with SHIFT Communications
18. Michael O’Connor Clarke – @michaelocc – VP at Thornley Fallis Communications, blogger since 2001 and general wise guy
19. Mike Kujawski – @mikekujawski – Ottawa-based marketing and social media consultant focused on the government sector
20. Shel Holtz – @shel – Co-host of For Immediate Release, communicator and co-author of Tactical Transparency
21. Colin McKay – @canuckflack – Director of Research, Education and Outreach at Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner. One of several people on this list who constantly question and make me think
22. Neville Hobson – @jangles – UK-based PR pro and co-host of the FIR podcast with Shel Holtz

Educators

23. Beth Harte – @BethHarte – Adjunct professor at Immaculata University
24. Karen Russell – @KarenRussell – PR professor at the University of Georgia
25. Christine Smith – @ProfChristineS – PR Educator at Centennial College, Toronto
26. Robert French – @rdfrench – PR teacher at Auburn University. Founder of PROpenMic and founding fellow of SNCR

Entrepreneurs

27. Chip Griffin – @chipgriffin – CEO of, among other things, CustomScoop and Media Bullseye. Questions everything and keeps me on my toes
28. Guy Kawasaki – @guykawasaki – Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures and founder of Alltop
29. Gary Vaynerchuk – @garyvee – Host of winelibrarytv.com
30. Peter Shankman – @skydiver – Founder of Help A Reporter Out
31. Marcel Lebrun – @lebrun – CEO of Radian6

Corporate Twitterers

32. Richard Binhammer – @richardatdell – Face of Dell’s digital media team
33. Keith Burtis – @KeithBurtis – Keith is one of the nicest guys I’ve met. He works as Community Manager for @bestbuyremix
34. Ferg Devins – @molsonferg – VP of Public Affairs at Molson

Miscellaneous Professions

35. Ike Pigott – @ikepigott – Like Chip, Ike questions everything I say. He makes me smarter
36. Shannon Whitley – @swhitley – Ridiculously smart, friendly, helpful developer. Developed the Chat Catcher plugin I’m using on this site.
37. Mathew Ingram – @mathewi – Journalist at the Globe and Mail; blogger and co-founder of Canada’s Mesh Conference
38. Christopher Penn – @cspenn – Chief Technology Officer of the Student Loan Network, co-founder of PodCamp and social media ninja
39. Eden Spodek – @edenspodek – The Bargainista – pension fund communicator, shopping blogger, passionate about communities
40. Connie Crosby – @conniecrosby – Law librarian, social networking “diva” and co-host of the Community Divas podcast with Eden Spodek

I could keep going on and on – I follow over 700 people, all of whom I find valuable. Check out the Twitterpacks wiki for other recommendations, too.

Who would you add to this list?

Posted in: social media, Twitter

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165Comments

Don’t “Message” Me

09.01.29

Remember the time when the standard response to any media question was to repeat essentially the same line over and over again?

I certainly do – I spent several years working in government communications, where Q&As essentially parroted the same answer back (yes, “parrot” is a verb for the duration of this post), largely regardless of the question.

It irritated me at the time and seeing it now annoys me even more.

Nowadays, more and more people are realizing that, especially on TV, repeating the same thing doesn’t make you look smart or informed. It makes you look rude and disconnected. Yes, you may get that soundbite, but if you’re live on air, you’re more likely to look like a tool.

The same thing goes for online outreach. Throwing out company messages and stilted corporate wording simply doesn’t work. Social media is all about people. If you can’t be a person, don’t expect people to react well to you.

This doesn’t mean you should just go around damaging your company’s brand by spouting-off about everything. Choose where you engage, address the issue in question and answer questions thoughtfully, while advocating your point of view as best you can. It also doesn’t mean you should go into interviews or onto websites unprepared for questions, but that preparation might be better as a series of general bullets around which you can frame your answers, rather than speaking points you regurjitate verbatim.

Don’t “message” people; talk to them.

What do you think?

Posted in: pr, public relations, social media

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19Comments

The Cost Of “Free” Tools

09.01.28

Money down the drain?At the risk of flogging a dead horse here, I want to address something that I keep hearing from people who don’t seem to understand the way social media outreach and engagement works.

Social media isn’t free.

Mitch Joel wrote recently that “there is a cost to free.” He was talking about the costs of “free” content, but the same applies to applying free tools.

Yes, some tools are free. It costs nothing to set up a Google Alert. It costs nothing to establish a Facebook page. It costs nothing to download and install WordPress.

Nothing, that is, except time.

Never underestimate the amount of time that social media outreach can take.

While you may choose to use free tools to monitor conversations about your brand (we use both free and paid tools at our agency), it takes time to measure and analyze the results of that monitoring.

You may decide to set up a blog, but it takes time (believe me) to consistently put out good content.

You may decide to produce a video podcast, but it takes time to plan, record, edit and post the episodes.

What’s more, to do any of these things well it takes even more time. Yes, I could blast out an email to 100 bloggers for you, but I won’t. Not only because I don’t agree with the practice and because it would be close to career suicide (though they both factor into it), but because it’s far more effective to carefully and thoughtfully pitch a smaller number properly. Better results take more time. More time means more cost.

Fancy that! You don’t get good results on the cheap.

If you work on the corporate or public sector side, it’s easy to forget that time has a cost. Working in those environments the cost may be more of an opportunity cost – of other things you can’t do because you’re working on this – than a hard cost, but it’s still there. On the agency side, the cost of time is clear as day to us, every day.

I’m not saying that social media tools are unique here. Traditional PR tools cost money, too. The difference is that I don’t hear people say “there’s no reason anyone shouldn’t do media outreach; it’s free.” I do hear that said about social media.

Next time someone tells you that social media is free, back away slowly.

(Image credit: thebmag)

Posted in: pr, public relations, social media

12Comments

When Can We Start To Say “Expert?”

09.01.27

Are you an expert? Since getting involved social media a few years ago, I’ve consistently shied away from describing myself with one word:

Expert.

I’ve also avoided using the word to describe others.

Not only have I shied away from using the word, I’ve been pretty harsh on the people who have used it.

Plenty of other people have similarly railed against social media “experts” – Michael Pinto is one recent example that attracted attention, but others like Brian Solis, Michael Gray, Geoff Livingston and Beth Harte and Susan Murphy have written about it in recent months.

I have avoided the “expert” term in the past for a few reasons:

  1. Because I’m still learning every day;
  2. Because the term “expert” sets you up for a fall;
  3. Calling yourself an “expert” makes you look like a pompous ass – that should be left to other people;
  4. Social media as a “discipline” (for want of a better word) has only been around for a few years;
  5. Social media is evolving so quickly that few people can really get a handle on everything.

Until recently I’ve agreed with Chris Brogan‘s take that saying you’re a social media expert is like saying you’re an email expert. 

Recently, though, I’ve started to wonder about my stance on “experts.”

  • Social media has now been around for a few years;
  • A lot of people have now been implementing and advising organizations and people on this for a while;
  • We’ve started to see a widening gap between people who get it right and people who get it wrong that makes me think it might be time to differentiate between the professionals and the enthusiasts.

I’m still not going to use the term about myself as I think my original points still stand in relation to me, but I’m starting to consider breaking it out to describe the people that I think consistently hit the nail on the head.

I wonder, does anyone care about this distinction outside of the fishbowl? Are those of us inside the bowl shooting ourselves in the foot while those outside call themselves “experts,” potentially landing more clients in the process? Does it make any difference?

So what do you think? Are we at a point yet where we can talk about social media experts?

Posted in: social media

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44Comments

ReviewMyWeb: Free SEO Competitiveness Tool

09.01.26

ReviewMyWebAlmost a year ago, I took a spin through HubSpot’s Website Grader – a free online tool that rates your website against a whole raft of search engine optimization (SEO)-related factors. Since then, it has stood as one of the better free tools around for analyzing your website.

The other day I received an email from Sam Babal asking me to take a look at his new tool, ReviewMyWeb. I have to say, I’m quite impressed.

ReviewMyWeb lets you plug in your website’s URL, along with up to two others, and emails you a report looking at factors including traffic, backlinks, metadata and keyword data, and indexed pages.

To give the tool a test run, I plugged-in my site along with two other popular Canadian PR blogs, Joseph Thornley’s ProPR and Dave Jones’ PR Works. I won’t run through all of the results in general here, but I will focus on a few that are worth mentioning.

Overall Results

ReviewMyWeb Competitiveness Rating

 

The first thing ReviewMyWeb does is give you a big-picture assessment of how your site is doing. In my case, I’m losing-out on backlinks and blog coverage (aka number of indexed pages). Neither of these surprise me – those two guys have been blogging for way longer than me so that’s understandable. It’s also handy – you can see at a glance how you’re doing and where you’re falling down.

Traffic Comparison

ReviewMyWeb Traffic Rank Comparison

The traffic rank comparison is one area that I found confusing until I got my head around it. It seems that lower scores are better, but no-where does it explain that to you. I’m guessing the site uses Alexa Rankings to generate its traffic report, which would generate the screwy ‘high is bad’ numbers. The graph, though, flips things around again – high is once again good. An explanation of the meanings of these two metrics would be helpful.

Inbound Links

ReviewMyWeb Backlinks Comparison

Backlinks is one of the two areas where I’m getting toasted according to this analysis, so it’s worth examining. The difference in the three search engines used is very interesting – for one thing, Yahoo finds more than 10 times as many links as Google does, while Ask.com puts my site way out in front. As with most things online nowadays though, “in Google we trust,” right?

Indexed Pages

ReviewMyWeb Coverage Comparison

The interesting thing to note here is that, once again, each of the search engines is showing drastically different results (although I have the same number of pages according to Google and Yahoo!). It really does raise the question, which one should you trust?

Final Analysis

There are plenty of other metrics there in graphical format; the final analysis, though, is the most useful part of a ReviewMyWeb report. This section summarizes your strengths and weaknesses, and provides pointers towards improving each of them.

According to this analysis, ReviewMyWeb Summary:

  • This site ranks above the others under Google’s PageRank formula;
  • I’m slightly underperforming the others in terms of backlinks;
  • I’m outperforming the other sites in terms of indexed pages;
  • My site uses keywords well within its code;
  • I’m generating “less buzz in various web communities” in comparison to the other sites.

Conclusion

Overall, ReviewMyWeb is a useful tool, and it can help to shine a light on where you’re doing well and where you aren’t. Unfortunately, though, it is let down at the moment by two flaws:

  • Lack of explanation of how some of the metrics are calculated (traffic and web community buzz being good examples – it doesn’t name these communities).
  • Lack of real, practical tips for improving on your weaknesses.

The main difference between Website Grader and ReviewMyWeb is its practical focus. HubSpot‘s tool digs deep on the content on your site, and gives some useful recommendations. ReviewMyWeb simply tells you to get more links from other sites (for example). Still, ReviewMyWeb has the edge I like being able to benchmark myself against similar sites, I find the tool easy to use and,

Despite the points I’ve highlighted here, I do find this to be a useful tool. There’s room for improvement but ReviewMyWeb is still worth checking out. Let’s face it, the price is right.

Take a look and let me know, what do you think? Useful? Not? What could be improved?

Posted in: social media, tools

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10Comments

Live-Blogging Breaking News – A Good Idea?

09.01.23

Shooting suspect in Toronto subway shootingYesterday morning, at roughly 10:45am, a gunman opened fire in a subway station in downtown Toronto.

That incident alone was guaranteed to generate news interest; however one newspaper’s coverage caught my interest.

The Globe and Mail newspaper used Cover It Live (which I’ve used in the past) to live-blog its coverage following the shooting, complete with (moderated) user comments. I’ve embedded the coverage below.

This is a short post, as I want to hear your feedback.

My take: this is a great experiment. I tuned-in after a couple of hours, but found it very helpful to see real-time updates as developments broke and more information came to life.

One important point to remember: this coverage is after the fact; note that when this started they’d already updated their breaking news story. In my view, this is simply a different medium for reporting the news, albeit a very modern one.

So, what do you think about this experiment? Take a look at the coverage below.

What’s your take on the way the Globe covered the shooting? Is this kind of reporting effective? What would improve it? Is it, as one person suggested, a privacy issue in your eyes? Does this means of reporting news work for you?

 

(Thanks to Mathew Ingram for helping me to embed the coverage)

Update: CTV employee and former globeandmail.com staffer Bill Doskoch gives his take here, and Mathew Ingram has also given his thoughts on live-blogging news.

Posted in: blogging, media

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6Comments

Blogs Aren’t Inherently Trustworthy

09.01.22

Trust Back in December, Forrester set off a bit of a blog storm when Josh Bernoff reported that consumers trust company blogs less than any channel.

I paid attention to it at the time, but decided not to weigh-in at the time. Today, however, I listened to the latest episode of the Shill podcast where, amidst the tomfoolery, Dave Jones and Doug Walker made the excellent point that blogs by themselves aren’t inherently trustworthy.

I agree.

Blogs are a tool. From a communicator’s perspective, blogs sit alongside news releases, pitches, events, media advisories and all other sorts of communications products. Is a speech inherently trustworthy? No, but the person behind it might be.

It’s the people that are behind the blogs that build trust – not the blogs themselves.

Why is trust in corporate blogs low? Because people don’t trust corporations (as a whole – yes, I know there are some companies that some people do trust).

Who do people trust? People like them. How do you build trust in your blog? You show the people behind the page.

Blogs don’t build trust. Genuine people, writing like themselves rather than machines, writing useful, authentic content rather than just messages, build trust.

Oh, and while I’m at it I should point out that this stuff won’t work in a vacuum, either. You can have the best people in the world on your blog but if your company’s actions don’t match the words, the words are hollow. Social media outreach won’t work for everyone.

What do you think? How can corporate blogs build trust?

Posted in: blogging, social media

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8Comments

Flight 1549 On Wikipedia: 90 Minutes; 176 Edits

09.01.21

flight1549 On January 15, 2009, US Airways flight 1549 made a crash landing in the Hudson River in New York after experiencing a "bird strike" (which, as Eddie Izzard points out, is really more like "engine suck").

Fortunately (and surprisingly), no-one died as a result of the incident, but it made headlines around the world. Alongside this, the Twitterati gleefully latched onto another "Twitter beats the mainstream media to the punch" story, helped by the mainstream media shining a light on the way the story rapidly spread through the twitter- and blogosphere.

By pure coincidence, I was on a regular call with a travel-related client (unaffected by the crash) at the time, and I certainly found Twitter useful in passing them relevant information in the minutes following the crash.

Another, less apparent effect online was the creation and rapid editing of a Wikipedia entry for US Airways Flight 1549. In the 90 minutes following the incident, 176 edits were made to that page.

Brendan Hodgson and Niall Cook from Hill and Knowlton (a competitor of Thornley Fallis) pulled together a great time-lapse video of the changes over those 90 minutes. If you still need convincing of the speed and power of social media, take 90 seconds to watch this video.

Powerful, no?

(Hat tip to Dave Jones for drawing my attention to this video)

Posted in: social media, wikis

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5Comments

Social Media Reading For Traditional Communicators

09.01.20

Confused? Social media is increasingly changing the landscape for professional communicators. Whether you work in internal communications, crisis management, strategic PR, or any number of other disciplines, it’s hard to deny the influence of social media tools on our work.

For long-time practitioners, it’s natural that these tools can be overwhelming. Some people like Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Terry Fallis and Joe Thornley, made the adjustment look easy. Some others, however, are still waiting for the bubble to burst. However, it appears it’s not about to happen.

As mainstream media outlets continue to downsize (Canwest, the Globe and Mail and Sun-Times Media Group are just a few examples) and TV networks fragment, we’re seeing more and more people get their news online. Traditional outlets are adding blogging functionality and bona-fide blogs to their websites, and even tools like Twitter, considered niche and cutting-edge just a few months ago, are receiving mainstream attention.

Amidst all this, what’s an old-school public relations guy to do?

Answer: Read… and learn. Get yourself a Google Reader account (here’s how to set up Google Reader), subscribe to a few sites and start reading.

These tools aren’t rocket science to learn, but there’s a change in thinking that needs to happen.

If you’re just dipping your toe into the murky new world of online communications, here are a few sites to get you started.

Big-picture thinking

Internal communications

Crisis communications

Strategic communications

This is a tiny cross-section of sites that I read on a regular basis. To those of you who are more established in this space – which categories/sites would you add to this list?

Let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post.

Posted in: 101, social media

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32Comments
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