65: Getting Answers on LinkedIn

This week we talk to Bill Nigh, an IT professional from Bluenog.com who is among the most frequent contributors to LinkedIn’s Answers section. This is where anyone can ask and answer questions of large and small importance. Nigh does his answering out of a general sense of goodness and kindness to others, but we can see situations where Answers can be useful for a variety of business purposes, including establishing your own expertise in a particular topic area or niche. 

Download and listen to the podcast here.

64: The Spinfluencer

Eric Schwartzman

If you’re a PR professional, you can’t afford not to listen to On the Record…Online. For the past three years, this podcast has offered a steady stream insight on how journalists, marketers and new media innovators use the Internet to report the news and promote their businesses. Host Eric Schwartzman has anchored all 120 programs and in the process become a media influencer in his own right.

Paul came across On the Record…Online when he was writing The New Influencers and devoured program after program. He later devoted a couple of pages of the book to describing how the show had evolved from a conference promotion to become a staple of Schwartzman’s iPressroom service.

In this interview, Schwartzman talks about how On the Record…Online came into being, the impact it’s had on his business and how public relations is evolving in a world of fragmented media.

Download the podcast (27:39)

62: Brogan on Online Living

Chris Brogan is all about social media. The engineer-turned-marketer has one of the largest Twitter followings, is an active blogger and co-founded the Podcamp series of unconferences, which have been held in more than 40 countries. He currently crafts the content for CrossTech Media’s growing conference series, but he mainly publishes in media of all kinds.

Brogan is a prolific communicator. In addition to his frequently updated blog, he is active in multiple social networks and can usually be counted upon to respond to a Twitter request within a few minutes. His blog posts are full of practical and insightful advice for marketers. In this interview, Chris explains the addictive appeal of Twitter, describes the new conference model that is emerging from social media and updates us on some of his recent promotional projects that leverage online groups and video in innovative ways.

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61: We’re Grumpy This Week

Paul’s been on the road, and he recently took a tour of the pressroom at the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper that’s been awash in controversy. Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell has made it clear that he intends to measure journalists increasingly by the volume of their output. David and Paul think this is a bad idea, although they do acknowledge that journalism is still too opaque a profession to the casual outsider. Journalists need to be more transparent.

Paul just returned from the Enterprise 2.0 conference, where corporate interest in social networks was evident. He thinks big businesses are going to glom on to these tools with enthusiasm. If the CIA can do it, anyone can.

David has a jeer for PR pros who use editorial calendars to pitch executives instead of ideas. Paul remarks on the practice of posting huge PDF files on websites as a barrier to sharing meaningful information. They agree that the best kind of pitch is one that saves the reporter time and trouble. Unfortunately, agencies and their clients are still too focused on pushing executives and messages instead of valuable ideas.

Don’t forget to stick around at the end for Dana’s Pick of the Pod!

Download the podcast (17:24)

56: The Provocateur

Larry Weber didn’t achieve fame and fortune in public relations by spouting conventional wisdom. The founder of Weber Shandwick, the world’s largest public relations agency, Weber has a reputation for blunt talk, innovative strategies and a relentless focus on new trends. Since leaving the helm of Weber Shandwick, he’s wiped the slate clean and is building a new-media PR firm from the ground up. Not surprisingly, he thinks a lot of conventional PR doesn’t work any more. In this interview, he tells why marketers should think of themselves as media people, how influence is dispersing and why mainstream media just isn’t all that important any more. Weber books include Marketing to the Social Web and The Provocateur.

Listen to the podcast (22:51)

55: Reinventing a Company With Brand Advocates

Can a nearly 400-year-old company reinvent itself around customer conversations, brand advocates and online enthusiasts? The story of Fiskars proves that it can. Fiskars makes high-quality scissors that are popular with scrapbooking enthusiasts. The problem was that the company’s brand recognition was low. Scrapbookers perceived one scissor as being pretty much like another. Big-box retailers were also beginning to draw down their inventories, meaning that Fiskars needed to reconnect with small, specialty retailers.

Fiskars engaged new media ad agency Brains on Fire to create an innovative promotional initiative around brand ambassadors. The strategy wasn’t just to throw open the doors to a community. Membership in the Fiskateers club was kept intentionally small. Fiskateers were given the tools and training to evangelize the brand and share their love of scrapbooking. The results: same-store sales tripled after a visit from a Fiskateer. In an interview from the New Communications Forum, Brains on Fire’s Geno Church tells how the program worked.

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53: Changing the World One Podcast at a Time

When Paul was writing his book, he met two mothers who personified the term “new influencer.” Paige Heninger (left) and Gretchen Vogelzang launched Mommycast in early 2005, never expecting it to be more than an intimate chat between them and a few friends. Nearly 300 shows later, Mommycast still has that first-time intimacy, but its global audience now numbers in the millions. The show has big-ticket sponsors, a host of awards and its own channel of family-oriented podcasts. But success doesn’t appear to have spoiled Paige and Gretchen, who still think of each program as just another phone call.

Marketers don’t see it that way. They clamor for a chance to get a coveted mention on the program. In this interview, Paige and Gretchen tell how Mommycast got started, the secrets of staying focused and how they handle inquiries from marketers.

Download the podcast (28:54)

52: Anniversary Party

It’s our birthday! And in recognition of this, our 52nd weekly podcast (okay, so we missed one or two weeks) we convene a roundtable discussion of the new world of business communications.

The stars aligned perfectly: David was in Boston on a speaking tour and some of our best friends and colleagues from our years in media were up for a free meal and discussion. Our friends at Lois Paul & Partners kindly provided the venue (as well as two of our speakers) and our seven participants turned out to encompass a mix of media, marketing and financial disciplines.

The debate got quite spirited at points, with Bob Scheier and Steve Hall famously facing off over the ethics of fact checking. Venture capitalist Bill Frezza had the quote of the evening: “We are in the post-integrity age of journalism.” And Lois Paul and Ted Weismann of LPP recounted with resignation the frustration of convincing clients that it’s about more than just the Wall Street Journal these days.

This podcast runs 56:42, with several minutes of bonus material and the end. This week we launch “Dana’s Pick of the Podcast,” a new weekly feature in which Producer Dana Gillin spotlights the program’s best quote at the end of each episode. For those of you who have always wondered about our theme music, we offer the full version of Meet You In The Heavens by Rebel Soul Band. Enjoy. And post your comments below.

Thanks to our panel:

Lois Paul, President, Lois Paul & Partners

Ted Weismann, senior vice president, LP&P

Bob Scheier, IT/Business Writer

Bill Frezza, General Partner, Adams Capital Management

Steve Hall, Publisher Adrants

Download the podcast (56:42)

Below:

Bill Frezza          Bob Scheier

Lois Paul

Steve Hall

Paul Gillin & David Strom

50: The Social Media Think Tank

The Society for New Communications Research has been studying social media since before the term was created. Founded by veteran publicist Jen McClure in 2004, the nonprofit group known affectionately to its members as “snicker” now counts more than 40 futurists, scholars, business leaders, communicators and other new-media professionals as research fellows. Its signature event in the New Communications Forum, a multi-day multi-track conference that features top speakers and results of the group’s most recent research. It also hosts the New Communications Research Symposium, a more intimate gathering on the east coast each fall.

Jen McClure’s passion for new media is the fuel that drives SNCR. In this interview, she talks about how the group was founded, the four new research studies that will debut at the New Communications Forum in April and what value PR professionals are getting out of their SNCR membership.

BTW, Tech PR War Stories listeners can take advantage of a $100 discount. Just use code NCF08100 when you register.

Download the podcast (16:05)

49: Take it down!

It’s a public relations nightmare: Some blogger posts an angry rant about your company. A few other curmudgeons join in and pretty soon you’ve got a gripefest going on. Or maybe someone gets hold of an internal memo that’s not meant for public distribution and posts it for the world to see. What do you do?

In the old days, we had back-room procedures for handling problems like these, but bloggers and consumer advocacy sites don’t play by the old rules. In fact, your cease-and-desist notice is likely to become more blog fodder.  In the new world of crisis communications, protests and threats don’t get you very far. You need to negotiate, admit when problems exist and not take yourself too seriously. Not that that’s easy, mind you!

Download the podcast here (11:10).