38: Boo hiss

Paul was attacked in the blogosphere last week, and it got him thinking about dealing with negativity online. The risk of blogger attacks is one of the biggest reasons companies avoid social media, but Paul and David argue that fears are overblown. Sure, you need a thick skin to invite customer feedback. But companies with good products and happy customers aren’t likely to be hurt by one bad seed. And companies with poor products and angry customers should research their situation thoroughly before wading into the blogosphere.

Negativity can be an important indicator of future trouble, so it pays to monitor customer conversations. Also, the speed at which a story spreads these days can catch businesses flat-footed if they don’t react quickly. A recent story involving AT&T and the California wildfires demonstrates this; the story was “dugg” more than 2,100 times in the six hours before AT&T issued an apology. The good news is that fast action and a willingness to admit mistakes can quickly quell negative publicity.

 Listen to the podcast (9:32)

Don’t call us to ack. receipt, puh-leeze

Alan Zeichick has some great tips here for PR pros who have to pick up the phone to find out if a press contact received their emailed release. And he also links to a piece by Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten too.

The moral of both stories: don’t call us. If we want to follow up, we will.

37: How to measure social media success

This week our guest is Katie Paine, the social media measurement guru of the great northeast. Katie’s an experienced journalist and PR professional who has spent the last several years developing a business around understanding the payback of social media campaigns. She has strong opinions about what marketers should do.

Katie believes that the Internet is the most measurable medium ever invented, but that people generally don’t do a good job of using the metrics they gather. It’s not about bar charts, she says, it’s about trends. The important thing to measure is how your reputation in the blogosphere is developing over time, using a variety of promotional means.

Katie tells the story of the ASPCA, which had an epiphany when it realized there was a direct correlation between news stories in the media and traffic to its web site. The organization used this insight to increase contributions and membership.

Lots of services try to automate the task of measuring online conversations, but the human factor is still needed. Even Microsoft is on record as saying that machines alone aren’t up to the task of evaluating online results; people still need to interpret the data. In the early days of the Internet, measurement was all about total eyeballs, but Katie argues that the important factor today is audience engagement. In that respect, online media is a powerful complement to traditional media. You can use online metrics to assess the effectiveness of print and broadcast campaigns.

Listen to the podcast (18:39)

36: All about corporate blogging

This week’s virtual guest is Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book and an expert on business blogging. Paul met with Debbie at the BlogWorld Expo conference in Las Vegas and conducted a short interview, which we play here. Paul and David then discuss some of the more frequent questions they hear from PR professionals who are trying to get their executives on the Cluetrain.

Some major issues they address include:

• Should every company have a blog and are there alternatives that are superior for different business objectives?
• What do you do about reluctant executives who don’t see the value of online customer conversations?
• What should your blogging policy look like, or do you even need one?
• What are the different applications of blogs to achieving business goals?
• How do you deal with negativity? Should you enable customer comments and engage with persistently negative commenters?

Download the podcast (16:34)

34: Blogging at SAP

Paul’s at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, where he met Mike Prosceno, VP of Marketplace Communications at software giant SAP. SAP has an unusually progressive approach to working with the blogosphere. Not only does the company use blogs for internal and external communications, but it has embraced bloggers as important influencers, treating them in much the same way it treats mainstream media. In this interview, Prosceno talks about how SAP evaluates influence in the blogosphere, the company’s PR strategy as it relates to bloggers and why blogging is so compatible with the SAP customer service philosophy.

Listen to the podcast (11:42).

33: Are PR people spammers?

David and Paul riff on Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson’s anti-spam manifesto, which includes the publication of hundreds of addresses of PR people who are banned from his inbox. David is appalled that Anderson would go so far as to publicize e-mail addresses for every spambot to harvest. Paul agrees, but sees merit in the problem that Anderson is highlighting. Both agree that there are tools journalists can use to manage their inboxes more effectively and that the onus is on reporters to become familiar with those tools.

The hosts would like to hear from their listeners about ideas that are working for them. How are you getting through the e-mail deluge and getting your message to reporters? Comment below, and we’ll include the best ideas on a future episode.

The hosts also discuss Steve Rubel’s blog post this week in which he laments the craziness that has overtaken the Web 2.0 market. They agree that the hype machine is out of control, but believe that this is nothing like the Internet bubble of nearly a decade ago. Paul says that new platforms invariably spark a surge of innovation and that this is basically good for the market. A shakeout is inevitable, and the survivors harvest the best ideas of the companies that didn’t make it. Sustainable new markets need to go through this process, he believes.

Get the podcast here. (15:58)

32: Dan Kusnetzky analyzes PR

This week we chat with Dan Kusnetzky of the Kusnetzky Group. Dan worked for an analyst for many years at IDG, and now specializes in virtualization technologies and currently blogs for Ziff Davis. He talks about both his favorite PR tricks and some of his frustrations over  the years, and why he likes working with smaller companies that can be more innovative. 

You can download the podcast here.
 

31: Scott Kirsner talks shop

This week, Paul and Dave are joined by Scott Kirsner, a Boston Globe columnist, freelance writer, blogger and conference organizer. As a writer who’s had significant experience in both mainstream and new media, Scott understands the power of each to shape opinion in different ways.Scott sees greater convergence happening between newspapers and citizen journalists, but believes newspapers still have to come up the learning curve in understanding the unique characteristics of Internet content. PR people are skilled at pitching him as a print reporter, he says, but pitches tuned to his blog are almost non-existent. For every 250 print pitches, there’s one blog pitch. This is an opportunity missed. PR still doesn’t give bloggers the attention they merit.

Marketers can adopt new media to understand and engage with their markets better, Scott believes. Start by reading Cluetrain Manifesto. Then stop talking at your customers and start asking them for comments and feedback. You can leverage inexpensive tools like online video to tell people about innovative work your company is doing or to showcase interesting people. Scott’s book, The Future of Web Video, can help you there.

Get the podcast here. (16:51)

30: Feel the love

Paul and David talk about the best PR practices they’ve ever encountered. Paul recounts his experience with one firm that arranged a CIO roundtable and ended up with a three-page magazine spread. David lauds the organizers of a user conference for really celebrating their customers. Both hosts agree on the value of using customers to tell you story, even if it means accepting the bad with the good sometimes. David has a bouquet for NASA, which really knows how to put on a press event. There’s a lot that tech PR pros could learn from the space agency.

Download the podcast here. (16:42)

29: These are the worst

This week the discussion is about the worst PR practices Paul and Dave have encountered recently. These include unanswered inquiries, missed phone calls, messed-up mail merges and the trade show “press swarm.” They’re not complaining, mind you, just pointing out how lack of attention to the basics can torpedo even the best PR efforts.

A particular issue is PR people who don’t respond to overt invitations from reporters to be included in articles. What are these people thinking? Our hosts debate the merits of “info@” e-mail addresses; Dave doesn’t like them but Paul thinks they’re OK if done right.

Dave describes how his schedule was disrupted by a PR professional who couldn’t distinguish between eastern and central time zones. Paul reminds listeners that there is a difference between standard and daylight time and wishes more PR pros would make that distinction.

Paul tells of his experience at the Demo conference, where a PR feeding frenzy was evident on day two. Why didn’t these people do more advance work?

And then there’s e-mail. Dave reminds PR pros that if he doesn’t respond to the first e-mail, chances are low that the second one will be any more successful. And Paul recounts the amusing results of a misfired mail merge he received this week.

Download the podcast here. (11:24)