On Inside PR this week: Spin Sucks!

IMG_0041Spin sucks! You know it and I know it. And Gini Dietrich knows it. But even more, Gini has written a new book, Spin Sucks, in which she shows us how to replace spin with authentic communications that your community will find informative, entertaining and useful.

Spin Sucks the Book has just launched. And in this week’s episode of Inside PRMartin Waxman and I talk with Gini about the book, what it tells us, and her innovative approach to marketing the book. (If you know Gini, you wouldn’t expect anything less from her than to turn the launch of her book into a marketing experiment. She’s always thinking of how to do things better.) This included a Brand Ambassador program to spread the word about the book so that Gini could maintain a much more limited travel schedule to promote Spin Sucks than she had to maintain when promoting her previous book, Marketing in the Round. Over 800 people applied to be a Brand Ambassador, agreeing to buy the book and write a review to coincide with the launch date. Ultimately, she selected over 200 of the applicants to be Ambassadors.

If you wonder what type of results Gini got from this approach, check out the quality of the reviews on Amazon.com. High quality, Well written, persuasive reviews from people who’ve read and loved the book. (At the time I write this, there are 76 reviews of Gini’s book. Sixty five are 5 star and eleven are four star.)

It doesn’t get much better than that.

This is an excerpt from an article originally posted on the Inside PR podcast blog

Gini Dietrich tells Third Tuesday why Spin Sucks

Gini Dietrich is coming back to Canada. Even better, she’s coming back to Third Tuesday.

Gini DietrichGini will be doing the Canadian launch of her new book, Spin Sucks, at Third Tuesday Toronto (#3tYYZ) on April 7 and then at Third Tuesday Ottawa (#3tYOW) on April 8.

“We live in a world where content farms, Internet spiders, and fake accounts have the potential to ruin one’s experience online,” Gini says. “It certainly would be easy – and quite possible to even make some quick money – by sitting back and gaming the systems.”

At Third Tuesday, Gini will talk about what is wrong with:

  • Whisper campaigns;
  • Astroturfing;
  • Media manipulation; and
  • Unethical business practices.

She’ll show us that these tactics aren’t necessary to achieve results. She will talk about how to communicate honestly, responsibly, openly, and authentically, to truly earn the trust of our customers, stakeholders, investors, and communities. And she’ll illustrate her talk with case studies on the organizations that are doing things ethically and responsibly…and winning.

Bonus

Every attendee will receive a copy of “Spin Sucks” when you check in at the event. So, you not only can hear and meet Gini Dietrich, you can get your copy of the book personally signed by the author.

Register online to attend

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Don’t miss the chance to see Gini and get your copy of Spin Sucks. Register online to attend Third Tuesday Toronto (#3TYYZ) or Third Tuesday Ottawa (#3tYOW).

I hope to see you there.

Thank you to our sponsors

Third Tuesday is supported by great sponsors – Cision Canada and Rogers Communications – who believe in our community and help us to bring speakers not just to Toronto but to Ottawa as well. Without the sponsors we couldn’t make Third Tuesday a truly Canadian affair. So, thank you to the sponsors of the Third Tuesday 2014 season: Cision Canada and Rogers Communications.

We want students to be able to attend

Third Tuesday is a great opportunity to hear about the latest developments in social media and to network with business and thought leaders. And we don’t want students to miss out on this opportunity. So, if you are a student and would like to attend, don’t let the admission fee stop you. Simply present your student ID card at the time you sign into Third Tuesday and we’ll refund your admission fee, courtesy of Thornley Fallis.

You can't judge a presentation by its title

June was a month of wall to wall conferences. And those conferences brought Gini DietrichMartin Waxman and me together in two cities – Austin and Ottawa – and pulled us to opposite ends of the continent.

Tod Maffin speaks at PABSo, you spend all that money and time to attend a conference. And now you’re sitting in a presentation and you’re deciding whether you made the right decision. What makes it worthwhile?

Gini applies the Chile Con Queso Test. She loves chile con quesos. And she judges a restaurant by their quality. If they’re great, she’ll keep going back for more. Gini’s Chile Con Queso Test for conference presentations? Does the presenter provide her with at least one idea for a blog post? “If I can go into your session and come away with a blog post idea, I’m going to think you’re the best speaker on earth,” says Gini. On the other hand, “If I can’t get at least one idea to create content around, I’m not going to think you’re a great speaker.”

If you’re a speaker, how can you deliver the goods for your audience? I saw Lee LeFever talk about this at the recent Fireworks Factory organized by Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo. Lee, who is best known for the explainer videos he has produced through his company, Common Craft, says that you must start from a position of empathy for the audience. Focus on what we care about, not what you want to present. Frame your topic in terms to which we relate. Suggest a commonly experienced problem to which we all relate. You’ll know you’ve done this is you see our heads nodding. Once you’ve established the shared space, focus on “why.” Why does this matter? Why will you approach it in this way. And then, and only then, move on to the “how.” How do I do this. Think about the presentations you’ve seen recently. How many of them failed because the presenter plunged directly into the “how” section, providing minute detail of what they did, while you were still stuck at, “Why do I care about this?”

Martin calls this the importance of appealing to the audience’s emotional senses. He points out that this often can be achieved through story telling, in which a motive is established and listeners are drawn into identifying with the subjects and storyline. Gini agrees with the power of this approach, pointing to a 52N (five minutes to engage, a variant on Ignite) presentation delivered by Abbie Fink at the recent PRSA Counselors Academy Conference in Austin. Abbie’s presentation consisted of reading a letter to her recently deceased family dog. At the end, she left many in the room in tears and everyone considering the nature of relationships. A story that appealed to our emotions. That appealed to the pet lover in all of us. That didn’t explain the why, but relied throughout on it. (Pity the poor presenter who followed Abbie – Martin Waxman!)

I attended a presentation recently by a speaker who gave me not just one good takeaway, but nine. Nine takeaways in an hour long presentation. And that speaker was … Gini Dietrich! Perhaps because Gini listened for takeaways in other speakers, she deliberately packages takeaways in her presentations. “When I write presentations, I write them long form. But as I do it, I write sound bites that I know people can tweet. You have to think about the key takeaways. Is someone going to get enough to pass the Chile Con Queso Test? And are they going to be able to tweet about it?” If you achieve these three objectives, people will come away with something to think about over the long term as well as content that will prompt immediate tweets and conversation.

Finally, there’s one huge no-no for conference presenters. What makes the audience groan and flee the room in droves? Martin calls it the “You can’t judge a presentation by its cover” problem.” You  decide to attend a presentation on the basis of the description in the program only to hear the speaker lead off with the statement, “I’m going to talk about something different from the advertised topic…” Sadly, that’s not uncommon at conferences. Not just the small regional conferences, but even larger conferences. The kindest interpretation I can put on this it that because of the long lead time between the time that the conference topics were set and the actual presentation, the speaker decided that the topic was outdated and decided to offer more up to date thinking. The unkind interpretation is that the speaker just said yes to the organizers’ invitation and then realized that he didn’t really have anything worthwhile to say about the topic. Either way, it can be a real let down if you showed up keen to learn and discuss the advertised topic.

Gini sums it up: “We’re all busy. We all want to find value in the things that we are attending. We’re spending money to attend these things. And if we can’t get something out of it to bring back to our careers or organizations, then it’s not worth the time.”

This post was originally published on the Inside PR podcast blog.

Inside PR 334: Community at Social Capital Ottawa

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I had a rare opportunity this week. We were able to record the Inside PR podcast with all of us sitting face to face in one place in real life. We were in Ottawa to attend the Social Capital Conference. And the best thing for me was that it felt like I was getting together with two of my closest friends for a chat about our shared experiences. Even after all these years, I’m still in awe of the power of social media to enable us to create deep and meaningful relationships over distance. So, even though Martin, Gini and I are together in the same real life space at most four times a year, we have developed a much deeper relationship.

Gini delivered the conference opening keynote explaining how she has built a large and active community around her Spin Sucks blog. The starting point, says Gini, is recognizing that “The one word we all like to hear is our name.” Her approach to community is grounded in this recognition. It has driven her to focus on the people who come to the Spin Sucks blog. She acknowledges them personally, responding to virtually every comment left on the Spin Sucks blog or the Spins Sucks Facebook page. But she goes beyond this. She reaches out to the members of the Spin Sucks community and participates in the discussion in their home spaces. Community is a two way interaction, not just one way.

Another factor to consider in building communities – it takes time. And this is at odds with the short-term, campaign-based approach taken by many marketers. As Gini points out, she has been blogging for seven years, and it took more than one try to find the right combination of factors that led to the current success of Spin Sucks. This same point was made by Sherrilynne Starkie, who presented a real world case study of an international union building community. In Sherrilynne’s words, its success was only possible because the union leadership were prepared to “stay the course” and persevere through early stages of thin participation until members caught on that this was a real and ongoing exercise. Momentum built slowly. The community could not have emerged in a short-term campaign.

Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson have demonstrated bot of these fundamentals in building a successful community around the For Immediate Release podcast. They have been persistent and consistent creators of content. They routinely acknowledge their listeners and feature their contributions in the podcast. And they’ve set up a Google+ community to provide listeners with an opportunity to offer their own thoughts and engage in conversation with other members of the community.

This is something we’re trying to do with the Inside PR podcast as well. If you’re a regular listener, please consider joining the Inside PR Google+ community or the Inside PR Facebook group and participating actively. We’d love to involve you in the podcast.

And if you’re still with me, you can listen to the podcast by clicking on the player below.

 

Inside PR: Where do you place your trust?

Trust MeIn this week’s episode of the Inside PR podcast, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about the challenge of determining what news coverage we can trust when traditional media outlets vie with social media to be first with the news.

For me, this is like moving around in a darkened room. We know we’ve had contact with something, but we can’t really see what it is. Judgment and speculation become overly close neighbors at times like these.

How do you decide where to place your trust when news is breaking online?

The final episode of Inside PR – at least for 2012

Gini DietrichIt’s the end, at least for this year. The final episode of Inside PR for 2012 has been posted.

Martin-Waxman-20112-293x300In today’s episode, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman, I look back at the trends in 2012 that stood out for us. Things like the continuing evolution of social media to photos and video; the convergence of advertising, PR, digital agencies to compete directly against one another; the evolution of search to incorporate personal profiles and social interaction. And above all, for me, the stripping away of my idealism about the blogosphere that came when I read Ryan Holiday‘s “Trust Me, I’m Lying.”

Have a listen. Let us know what you think. In a comment on this blog, on the Inside PR blog, on the Inside PR Google+ Community or on the Inside PR Facebook group. Anyway that you want. We’d love to hear your views.

We’ll be back in 2013 as Inside PR begins its seventh year.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Inside PR: Google+ Communities, Twitter Photo filters and Facebook Democracy Fail

Inside PREpisode 3.19 of the Inside PR podcast has just been published. In this week’s episode, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about a number of things that caught our eye.

First up: Google+ Communities

Google has added Communities to its Google+ Network. Think Yahoo Groups. Discussion groups organized around specific subjects.

Introducing the Inside PR Google+ Community

We’ve set up a Community for Inside PR listeners on Google+. If you like the podcast and would like to suggest future topics or discuss each week’s episode, click over to our Google+ Community and join the conversation.

Google+ Communities

Worth watching

Will the Inside PR Google+ community get as many members as the Inside PR Facebook group? Will there be better discussion on Google+? (I’m betting the conversation on Google+ will be much better, if not more voluminous.)

Twitter upgrades(?) with Filters on Photos

Is this a step forward? Or a defensive move in response to Instagram pulling its integration with Twitter? I’m not sure about the companies’ moves. I bet our listeners have more insight into this than I do.

Facebook drops its commitment to user democracy

Does anybody care? Was this ever a real thing or did Facebook’s thresholds so high that it simply fed a feeling of powerlessness from the outset?

Listen to the complete podcast

And tell us what you think

This week, I’m encouraging Inside PR listeners to join the Google+ Community and find out whether this will be an instant success, a slow build, or a complete fizzle.

Gini Dietrich is Marketing in the Round at Third Tuesday

Gini Dietrich is everywhere! Including this month, at Third Tuesday Toronto #3TYYZ and Third Tuesday Ottawa #3TYOW.

Over the past two years, she has built a large online following at her blog, Spin Sucks, on Twitter and on Facebook. She is building Spin Sucks Pro as a platform for marketing expertise tailored to the needs of senior executives. She has become a sought-after speaker. She finds time to co-host the Inside PR podcast with Martin Waxman and me. And she manages to hold down a day job as CEO of Arment Dietrich. (Disclosure: Arment Dietrich and Thornley Fallis are business partners.)

With all this on the go, Gini found the time to co-author with Geoff Livingston a book that every contemporary marketer should read: Marketing in the Round, a practical guide to integrating the traditional and new tools of marketing into a coherent, effective whole.

And now, Gini is making the time to be our next speaker at Third Tuesday. She’ll join us on July 24 (Ottawa) and July 25 (Toronto.) Gini offers great insight into marketing in the connected era. Register online to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa or Third Tuesday Toronto to hear and meet her.

Attendees will receive a copy of Marketing in the Round

That’s right. Your admission fee pays for a copy of the book. All attendees will receive a copy of Marketing in the Round. That gives you not just the opportunity to hear Gini speak, but also to meet her and have her personally dedicate and sign your copy of the book.

Thank you to the Sponsors who support Third Tuesday

As you know, Third Tuesday is a community-oriented, volunteer-driven event. And we wouldn’t be able to bring great speakers like Gini Dietrich to Third Tuesdays across the country without the support of some like-minded sponsors. We’ve been lucky to have some great companies step up over the past several years to help us make Third Tuesday happen. Big thanks are due to CNW GroupRogers Communications, the Canadian Internet Registration AuthorityRadian6 and Cision Canada for making the 2011/12 Third Tuesday season possible.

Interested in learning more about Gini Dietrich and Marketing in the Round?

Mitch Joel interviews Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston on the Six Pixels of Separation podcast.

Georgina Laidlaw and Valeria Maltoni reviewed Marketing in the Round

Bob LeDrew interviews Gini Dietrich on the FIR Book Club

 

Thornley Fallis is partnering with Gini Dietrich and Arment Dietrich

Today is a big day for me and the team at Thornley Fallis. We announced a partnership with Gini Dietrich and her team at Arment Dietrich.

I’ve known and collaborated with Gini Dietrich for over two years. Every week, we’ve come together to co-host the Inside PR podcast with Martin Waxman (Martin joined Thornley Fallis in 2011). We’ve attended conferences together. Developed ideas together. Shared insight into the direction and opportunities for each of our businesses. We’ve talked extensively about the changes in the communications business brought about by the social media revolution. And we’ve discovered that we share a similar vision for the future of communications: the continuing revolution of the relationship between consumers and companies, citizens and governments, you and me.

During that time, we’ve transformed our companies from traditional communications consulting organizations to focus on the expertise that is most important in the connected era, the time when we all have voices, can find and share with our communities of interest, and in which we become both the media and the trusted advisors to one another.

Gini has positioned Arment Dietrich as a thought leader in social and digital media. She has built an industry leading platform for these views in Spin Sucks, her widely-read blog. And she adding to that Spin Sucks Pro (in Beta), a resource for senior business executives who want to understand and participate in the new media. In the process, Gini has become an acknowledged expert in content marketing. She’s used it to build her own company and she uses that same expertise for her clients. She also found the time to capture her ideas in Marketing in the Round, the just-published book she co-authored with Geoff Livingston.

Thornley Fallis also has come a long way since its founding in 1995 as a traditional corporate PR company. Today, we are focused on the expertise necessary to engage with the public through traditional and digital media. We offer design to deliver remarkable experiences, produce video to create the ultimate social objects, build audiences and communities through content marketing, earn media through public relations, and build relationships and trust through social media. But these tactics must work together. So we develop strategies to marshall them into a coherent whole and then constantly measure and refine.

Given all this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’ve decided to bring our firms together so that we can offer our collective expertise to our clients.

That’s a big move. And it promises a much brighter future for our teams. New combinations of expertise. New clients. New opportunities. I’ll continue to write about my journey and experiences on this blog and we’ll also share our collective insight on the Thornley Fallis Blog and Spin Sucks. I hope you’ll join us for the journey.