Video is the Ultimate Social Object

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When I started blogging on ProPR in 2005, blogging was strictly a text only affair. My first post was a headline with text. That’s all that WordPress, my chosen publishing platform, could handle.

But things didn’t stand still. And there were a rapid series of improvements to blogging software that let me add pictures, audio and video to my blog. Today, I include pictures in every post on ProPR to provide quick cues about the subject matter of the post. Depending on the subject, I may include an audio clip. However, more and more of what I produce involves video.

Video is the ultimate social object. It is visceral and immersive. It conveys a sense of personality. I can hear my publishing experience extends beyond text-based posts to include audio and video.

My colleague, Mike Edgell, has answered the question of “Why video?” in a short video. I think it makes the point very effectively. Take a look at it. And if you find it helps you explain to people why video is becoming the ultimate social object, please feel free to share it. It’s on YouTube with a Creative Commons Share Alike Non-commercial license.

If you want conversation, go where the people are.

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When I started the ProPR blog in 2005, the social media conversation was focused on blog posts, links, trackbacks and comments on those blogs.

But that changed with the introduction of Twitter and Facebook. Twitter gave us drop-dead simple posting and conversation. Facebook is hard-wired to connect with friends and signal affinity. Simple publishing platforms that everyone could use. And with simplicity came numbers. And with numbers came conversation.

As people flocked to these new publishing platforms, the conversation followed them. And I noticed a decreased in comments on ProPR.ca. But that didn’t mean that I noticed a decrease in the conversations I was involved in. In fact, I continued to find new people I’d follow and engage in conversation with them. But that now happened primarily on Twitter.

Over time, Twitter became my preferred social space. It seemed to be THE place where I found people sharing interesting links to long form content – a discovery engine driven by the people with whom I share interests. I began to follow people and others who shared my interests followed me. And as we did this, we shared content and replied to one another’s posts. All in 140 characters or less. On any device – desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile.

So, I followed my community from blogging to Twitter. And I’ve learned a lot from the conversation.

But one place I did not follow the conversation to is Facebook. I was an early adopter of Facebook and approached it as a place to connect with family and close friends. It was the place that I’d publish things that I only wanted to share with a small, close group of friends. And generally speaking, the content I found on Facebook reflected that – people sharing small gestures and information of personal import. What I rarely found on Facebook was the kind of thoughtful, deep dive content into specific topics. For that I still need to turn to blogs. Basically, people who invest a lot of effort into thinking through issues and writing about them prefer to post to places that they own and control, not to a platform that has an evolving business model and shifting policies regarding privacy, advertisement and the organization of content.

But … it’s foolish to ignore any place where more than 500 million people gather. And the revision of the Groups feature on Facebook has caused me to take another look at how I might make better use of Facebook.

As I said, Facebook is hard wired for connecting with friends and causes and signalling affinity for them. And there is a huge amount of conversation on Facebook.

So, I’m going to see whether Facebook Groups will provide a better vehicle for conversations around two communities that I belong to. I’ve set up a Inside PR Podcast Facebook Group and a  Third Tuesday Facebook Group. For the next two months,  I’ll make an effort to cross post information to these two groups and to participate in any conversations that develop there. At the end of those two months I’ll report back on what has happened and how they each compare to the other places that I use – ProPR.ca, the Inside PR podcast site, the Third Tuesday Meetup sites, my @thornley Twitter feed and the @Inside PR Twitter feed.

Already, I’ve realized one immediate benefit of Facebook. It makes creating and posting video comments dumb simple. I’ve posted an introductory video on the Inside PR Podcast group.

It’s not great quality. I created it on the spur of the moment using my iPod Touch. And that’s the first benefit of the new Facebook Group feature I’ve discovered. It makes posting and responding to video comments as easy as writing a test comment.

I’ll be interested to see whether the conversation flourishes in these places. I hope you’ll join me there.

Third Tuesday Measurement Matters Agenda

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The agenda for the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters conference has been published. Here’s the day’s schedule:

8:00 Registration opens

8:30 Opening Keynote
Katie Paine, KD Paine and Associates

9:00 – 10:15 Panel: Monitoring: How to set up and run your social media command centre
Martin Waxman, Chair

Sheldon Levine, Sysomos
Ryan Strynacta, Radian6
Pragya Dubey, MediaMiser

10:15 – 10:35 PostRank: Leading Edge Solutions to Social Media Measurement Challenges
Carol Leaman and Ilya Grigorik

10:35 – 10:55 Break

10:55 – 12:10 Panel: New metrics for new media – influence, engagement, resonance – and others?
Mark Evans, Chair

Darren Barefoot, Capulet
Brian Cugelman, AlterSpark
Ilya Grigorik, PostRank

12:10 – 12:30 Traackr: Leading Edge Solutions to Social Media Measurement Challenges
Pierre-Loic Assayag

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:45 – 15:00 Panel: Analysis – more than skin deep – how to find real meaning

Terry Fallis, Chair

Claude Théoret, Nexalogy
Patrick Gladney, Social Currency
Rob Clark, Edelman

15:00 – 15:20 Radian6: Leading Edge Solutions to Social Media Measurement Challenges

David Alston

15:20 – 15:35 Break

15:35 – 16:50 Panel: Show us your ROI – Yes, we can demonstrate a return.

Donna Papacosta, Chair

Charles Funk, CNW/DNA13
Scott Lake, Swix
Christopher Berry, Syncapse

16:50 – 17:30 What’s next? What keeps the providers of Measurement and Metrics awake at night?
Katie Paine, Chair
Carol Leaman, PostRank
David Alston, Radian6
Pierre-Loic Assayag, Traackr

17:30 – 19:00: Reception and Cash Bar

Still some places open for participants

There are a small number of spots still open the conference. You can register online to attend Third Tuesday Measurement Matters.

We couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors

Thank you to our sponsors: CNW Group, Rogers Communications, MolsonCoors Canada, Radian6 and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. You have stood by us. Your contributions make it possible for us to focus on organizing and programming without having to worry whether we’ll be on the hook for hard costs. Thank you. Third Tuesday wouldn’t happen without you.

Wanted: One more social media measurement provider to put in the spotlight

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The Third Tuesday Measurement Matters #TTMM conference will put three social media monitoring and analysis providers on the spot and in the spotlight.

Each will be asked to tell us about a social media measurement challenge they set out to solve and how they did it. And then, we’ll ask them to look ahead and tell us what challenges they think must be overcome in the next year(s).

We have confirmed the first two monitoring and measurement providers who will be put in the spotlight: Radian6 and PostRank.

Radian6 was on the leading edge of developing an algorithm and index to measure influence. PostRank linked its fortune to the concept of engagement. Both have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to research and constant improvement of their monitoring and measurement suites. Clearly, they belong in the spotlight.

We have room in the spotlight for one more company. And I’d welcome your views about who it should be.

Which social media measurement platform do you think is on the leading edge of social media measurement? Which do you think have tackled a tough challenge and come up with an approach that is worth sharing?

Leave a comment on this post and help shape the agenda of Third Tuesday Measurement Matters #TTMM.

After all, if you want to understand the state of the art, why not ask those who are investing their money to explore it?

Registration is open for the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters conference

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Registration is open for the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters #TTMM conference, to be held in Toronto on September 28.

A stellar roster of speakers

Attendees at Third Tuesday Measurement Matters will meet, hear from and participate in discussions with social media measurement experts, including Katie Paine, Carol Leaman, Ilya Grigorik, Charles Funk, Marcel LeBrun and David Alston (tentative), Sheldon Levine, Josh Hallett, Claude Théoret, Pragya Dubey, Scott Lake, Leona Hobbs, Darren Barefoot, Rob Clark, Brian Cugelman, Christopher Berry,  and Patrick Gladney.

A stellar lineup of speakers. And there are more who we anticipate will confirm their attendance during the next week.

A word about cost

The registration fee will be $125 per person. That’s more than we charge for most Third Tuesday events. However, we have a full day’s rental on the hall, audio visual system, lights plus a lunch and two breaks to provide food and beverage.

Our aim is to break even on the cost of staging the actual conference. And we’ll do that with a combination of sponsorships and registrations.

We couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors

I hope you agree that this is one heck of a lot of conference for a fee that is far lower than you are used to paying. That’s the value of being community-oriented – and of having sponsors. They cushion the risk of mounting an event like this.

And we couldn’t do it without our sponsors. For the past year, we’ve been lucky to have some outstanding sponsors who have helped us to make this happen: CNW Group, Rogers Communications, MolsonCoors Canada, Radian6 and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. You have stood by us. Your contributions make it possible for us to focus on organizing and programming without having to worry whether we’ll be on the hook for hard costs. Thank you. Third Tuesday wouldn’t happen without you.

Still to come: Free admission for a lucky group of students

Social media measurement should be an essential part of every communication, marketing and business curriculum. Students stand to benefit greatly by attending Third Tuesday Measurement Matters. But not all of them will be able to afford it.

So we’ll be announcing a special zero admission fee for a lucky group of students. We’re in the final stages of finalizing a sponsor for the “$0 student fee” and we’ll make a separate announcement as soon as the details are worked out.

If you care about social media measurement

… this will be the conference of the year. So, I do hope that you’ll consider attending.

A New President for Thornley Fallis & 76design

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Thornley Fallis and 76design have a new President: Keelan Green.

Keelan joined Thornley Fallis in 2002, just as the bottom was falling out of the tech industry. That was a tough time for the company. We shared our tech clients’ pain. And it put great demands and strain on our team.  This was when Keelan first showed his mettle. If a client needed a tight turnaround on something for Monday morning, Keelan could be counted on the pitch in over the weekend. If a piece of work was good, he’d look at it and make the changes necessary for it to be great work. Keelan always looked beyond the process of the work to focus on the results. And clients loved him. They came to the firm to work with him and they stayed for more.

It wasn’t just our clients who gravitated to Keelan. Even before he was appointed to a leadership position, other Thornley Fallis and 76design team members began to gather around him. After all, in a storm, you follow the person who you believe has a plan and the ability to get you home safely. That was Keelan from the start.

As time passed, we promoted Keelan through several positions. In every position, he excelled. As an Account Manager for some of our most important clients. As an Account Director and then as Vice President. And ultimately as Vice President and General Manager of the Ottawa offices of both Thornley Fallis and 76design.

In 2008, the economy entered recession. Keelan dug deep and brought our Ottawa office through the downturn with a minimum of bruises. As the economic free-fall ended and we hit the bottom of the cycle, he looked ahead and began to plan for the recovery. As a result of this leadership, our Ottawa office emerged from the recession stronger than it had entered it, with an expanded set of services and a larger client base. Growing out of a recession. It’s something we all want to do. It’s not easily done.

Now I’m asking Keelan to provide this type of leadership to the entire company. I’m delighted that he’s accepted the challenge. And I’m looking forward to working with him as he conquers new challenges and leads Thornley Fallis and 76design on to ever better things.

Finally, this is the kind of announcement I really love to make. Not just because it’s a good news announcement. But because it signals that we are being the kind of company we aspire to be – a company that attracts the very best people and then provides them with opportunities to grow personally and create a job they can truly be passionate about. Keelan’s growth and success with Thornley Fallis and 76design is a brilliant example of this vision in action.

So, this is a great day for our company. A step ahead for Keelan Green and a chance to celebrate our values.

Inside PR 2.15 is online

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The latest episode of Inside PR is online. This week, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I talk about social media meetups that we attend and how pick which events we will participate in.

You can listen to the complete episode here.

Inside PR 2.15 Shownotes

0:30 Martin opens the show.

1:37 Joe shares the first listener comment, from Clint Stiles, about Inside PR #30.

3:37 Longtime listener, Chartwell 65, offers some suggestions to improve the show.

8:55 Joe talks a bit about Third Tuesday and how it started up.

10:20 Joe kicks off the next topic and asks Martin and Gini how they decided which events to attend and why?

14:37 Martin tells us about his first time attending PodCamp Toronto.

15:35 Joe shares what he looks for in a conference.

19:46 Gini encourages everyone to check out Empire Avenue.

20:13 Martin closes the show.

Thanks are due to Inside PR producer Yasmine Kashefi for creating these shownotes.

The 23 Browser Tabs I Open to Start Every Workday

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Five years ago, my workday routine was much the same as it had been for the better part of a decade. Arrive at the office. Open Outlook. Open Word. Open Excel. Prepare and revise documents that would be saved on my PC or my office LAN and then would be distributed via email.

Those days are long gone. Today, I find myself working more and more in my browser and Web-based apps and less and less in Microsoft Office programs.

Yes, I still open Outlook when I arrive at the office (though I have already cleared most of my email from my BlackBerry). The traditional flow of calendar requests, email, task assignments and notes are there. And it works extremely well.

But from that point forward, everything is different. I don’t open Word. I don’t open Excel. Instead, I go straight to my browser. And I’ll spend a significant proportion of my day in my browser. And to make the start up process easier, I save a set of tabs that I open as the start of every day.

So, what browser tabs do I start my day with?

Tabs 1 – 7: Publishing

WordPress admin consoles for the blogs I publish or contribute to: ProPR.ca, Social Mediators, Inside PR, Corum App, and the CCPRF. I’ll moderate comments and try to write early in the morning – ideally before I answer email and begin to be dragged into the routine of the day.

The Aggregator Admin consoles for the Thornley Fallis and 76design Websites. Our Websites feature content drawn in from a variety of blogs written by our employees. I use the Aggregator Admin console to curate the content that appears on our Websites.

CoTweet: I use CoTweet to check and manage the @thornleyfallis and @76design identities on Twitter.

Tabs 8 – 11: Collaboration

Present.ly: We use Present.ly as our “behind-the-firewall” micro-publishing app. I keep this tab open to follow conversations among the TF/76team members.

TF Wiki and Agent76: We use a Wiki as our Intranet. It’s also a gateway to agent76, our time tracking and activity diary app.

Another WordPress admin console for my internal company blog, “Joe Behind the Firewall.”

Tabs 12 – 17: Social Networks & News

Google: I use Google.ca to get search results tailored to my interests as a Canadian. And my iGoogle homepage includes: Google Reader, GMail, Google Map Search, YouTube Search and Google Trends. I use this tab constantly throughout the day.

Google News: I open this every day. But I have to confess I rarely use it. Virtually all the news I want comes into Google Reader through my subscriptions to online news sites RSS feeds.

Meetup: I use Meetup to coordinate the Third Tuesday Toronto and Third Tuesday Ottawa social media meetups. I keep the app open all day when a Third Tuesday is approaching. When Third Tuesday is inactive, I’ll close this after a quick check.

LinkedIn: This social network is on the upswing in utility. I don’t spend much time in discussions here. I’d rather participate in the open discussions on blogs and Twitter. However, LinkedIn has proved to be a highly useful place to recruit new employees for our firm. So, I see myself investing more time in this network in the future.

TripIt: TripIt is an outstanding service that I use for trip planning and to find friends who are travelling to the same locations as me. It helps to cut down on the room service meals.

Facebook: With 500 million users, I can’t ignore it. But Facebook can be the greatest time suck. And I rarely open it during workdays. Much activity of little consequence.

Tabs 18 – 23: Measurement

Radian6: We’ve standardized on Radian6 as our preferred social media monitoring, management and measurement suite. I track everything relating to our companies. Clients too.

PostRank: PostRank gives me unique insight into the engagement of my community with the content I publish. What’s getting their attention? What’s not. An indispensable tool that just keeps getting better.

Google Analytics: another view of what’s really going on with my blog? With our Websites? A free analytics tool I couldn’t live without.

Feedburner: Although Feedburner has suffered from inattention and hasn’t really been developed since Google acquired it, it’s still a must-have to spot trends of use with my RSS feeds.

Google Insights for Search: I start here when I’m trying to understand which search terms people are using for concepts that I’m interested in …

Google Search-based keyword tool: … and then I use the search-based keyword tool for ideas on other search terms I should consider.

How about you?

How much has the programs and apps you use in your workday changed in the past few years? Are you still using traditional wordprocessors and spreadsheets or are you relying more and more on Web-based apps?

Which do you consider to be the "Best of Breed" Social Media Measurement Tools?

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Help select the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters speakers

Today, I’m asking for your help in deciding which developers of social media measurement tools we should invite to speak at the Third Tuesday Measurement Matters conference.

If you could hear from the people behind the leading social media measurement tools talk about their approach to measurement, who would you most like to hear from?

Insight from the people who design measurement tools

We’ll provide an opportunity for the key architects of three of the leading social media measurement tools to speak at Third Tuesday Measurement Matters.

This won’t be a standard product sales pitch. Instead, we’ll ask the speakers to talk about the key social media measurement problems they set out to solve and the solution they’ve developed. We want to get insight into the leading edge of measurement. And we’ll also ask them to look ahead and give us some insight into the biggest social media measurement challenges they believe we must solve in the coming year.

Who would you like to hear from?

Which measurement providers do you consider to be the very best? What do they do especially well? What do you think we can learn from them?

Please give us your suggestions and opinions as a comment below.

Inside PR 2.14 – better late than never, I hope

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Oops. We didn’t press the “publish” button on Inside PR 2.14 and then we didn’t discover it until the weekend when everyone was offline.

But, it’s published now. You can listen to it here.

Inside PR 2.14 [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As always, we’d welcome your comments and we’ll respond to them in the next episode.