Inside PR Podcast: I want content that's relevant to me. How about you?

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I’m a big fan of podcasts. I listen to them in the car, at home, while I’m on the treadmill and on the subway. Thanks to podcasting, I can listen to my favorite programs when and where it’s convenient for me. But what’ s even better about podcasts is that I can find content that focuses on my interests. And my interests are much narrower than the general public’ s interests. This isn’t broadcasting. It’s content for me and my community.

Each week, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I record the Inside PR podcast. We talk about things that interest us as communications professionals who are also exploring the changes that social software and social networking have made possible in the ways that people find one another, form relationships and interact. We try to talk about what’ s really going on, not just what happened. So we look for the truths and trends that underlie the communications and technology developments of the week.

It’ s fun for us to share our thoughts. But it’ s even better when you tell us what you think. So, please do give us your ideas for what we should talk about on inside PR. You can reach us on our Inside PR podcast Facebook Group, by leaving a comment on the Inside PR blog, or by tweeting to @inside_PR.

Don’ t be a stranger. Don’ t be shy. Let us know what matters to you and what you would like Inside PR to talk about.

And because seeing is better than reading, here’s my video invitation to participate in setting the agenda for Inside PR.

Six keys to success in social media

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One of my colleagues, Pierre Killeen, developed a list of six strategic considerations that corporate communications should bear in mind when planning their approach to using social media. I was struck by how simple, yet true, these six considerations are. So, I’d like to share them with you.

Six keys to success in social media

1. Success in social media is about human resources. The major input into social media is people’s time. As social media success begins to take hold, the resource requirements will start to grow. Where additional resources are not an option, organizations will have to reallocate existing resources in order to meet ongoing social media needs.

2. Social media platforms facilitate connections and conversations between individuals, not between individuals and institutions. Despite the filter of a social media tool or application, the conversation still takes place between two individuals. This distinction is integral to understanding the social media landscape.

3. People use social media to remain current with news and information filtered from people they know and trust. Connecting with social media influencers engaged in your issues is a key way to earn and build trust and spread your message.

4. Social media communications are about communities, not about target groups and audiences. Whereas traditional communication strategies seek to push messages to audiences, social media strategies are about connecting with and building communities of interest and practice.

5. Social media is about engagement. Some organizations think of social media primarily as another channel for pushing out content. This is inconsistent with the nature of social media and will, ultimately, act as a barrier to social media success.

6. Social media is measurable. Social media communications are rich in data and metrics. If you don’t measure everything you are doing, you are missing the opportunity to understand what is going on and what you are participating in.

What do you think?

I’d welcome your thoughts. What do you think about these points? Do you agree with them? Are there other considerations that you would add?

Inside PR 225: A new Inside PR Podcast Facebook Group

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This week in Inside PR, Martin Waxman and I talk about the changing media landscape. This follows on recent changes to both the digital and traditional paper versions of the New York Times, Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.

We also have an audio comment on the power of Twitter to connect communities of interest from Jody Koehler, founder of Coopr PR in the Netherlands.

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video of Jeff Jarvis‘ presentation in Frankfurt about creating publics. There’s a lot to think about in what Jeff is suggesting.

You can listen to the complete podcast by clicking on the player here.

Inside PR 225 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What do you think?

Finally, please remember that we produce this podcast as a way of connecting with out community of interest. You can reach us many ways – through a comment on this post or on the Inside PR blog, by leaving a video comment on our new Inside PR Podcast Facebook Group or by tweeting to @Inside_PR. We’d love to hear from you.

Meet RichardAtDell at Third Tuesdays in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver

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RichardAtDell is coming to Canada next month to speak at Third Tuesdays in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver. We’ll lead off with Third Tuesday Toronto #TTT on Monday, November 8, Third Tuesday Ottawa #TTO on Tuesday, November 9, Third Tuesday Calgary #CTT on Wednesday, November 10 and Third Tuesday Vancouver #TTV on Thursday, November 11.

Dell is one of the best known and longest standing case studies of the successful use of social media. It might well not have turned out this way. In fact, Dell was one of the early examples of a company on the receiving end of viral criticism and anger. Rather than go into a shell or attack its critics, Dell chose to enter the social media discussion, learn from it, win friends, and gradually turn things around. Today, Dell uses social media for many purposesw, including to connect with customers, build brand and as a retail channel.

RichardAtDell, aka Richard Binhammer, has been from the outset one of the constants in Dell’s social media presence. I first experienced Richard’s outreach as far back as 2006 when he commented on a post on my blog in which I’d written about a presentation by Robert Scoble in which Scoble had recounted the story of Jeff Jarvis’ upset with Dell. Richard reached out to me at a time when my blog had relatively few subscribers, acknowledging their problems but asking me whether I’d be prepared to acknowledge the efforts they were making to listen and act upon what they were being told. I was blown away just by the fact that a company at the other end of the continent would pay attention to me, let alone actually acknowledge me by coming into my place, my blog, to have a discussion. And yes, that made me a fan of RichardAtDell and Dell’s approach to social media.

Well, it’s not 2006 anymore. A lot has changed. And RichardAtDell has been there to experience the evolution of social media first hand. As the saying goes, he’s forgotten more than many of us ever will learn.

I hope that you’ll join us at Third Tuesday to hear from one of the leading corporate social media practitioners as he talks with us about the journey he’s been on, the path we’re following, and where he sees things going in the future.

Look for details and registration info in the next few days on each of the Third Tuesday Ottawa #TTO, Third Tuesday Toronto #TTT, Third Tuesday Calgary #CTT, and Third Tuesday Vancouver #TTV websites.

Thank you to our sponsors.

Once again, I’d like to thank our sponsors – CNW Group, Rogers Communications, Radian6, and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Your sponsorship makes it possible for us to bring great speakers not just to Toronto, but to Third Tuesdays across the country. You make third Tuesday a truly Canadian affair.

To whet your appetite

If you’re not familiar with the Dell story and RichardAtDell, you can get a taste of what we’ll be talking about at Third Tuesday by watching this video. Enjoy.

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.