74: Corporate Bloggers See No Evil

Paul did an informal audit of 15 corporate blogs this week and discovered that the financial crisis that has fixated the nation is blissfully absent from their coverage. Just two of the blogs even mentioned the turmoil on Wall Street, and only one of those blogs was in the US. Paul and David wonder why, four years into the business blogging revolution, so few corporations are willing to speak honestly to their constituents. They see an opportunity lost.

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Paul to Co-Keynote New Marketing Summit: Special Discounts for You!

If you’re anywhere near the New England area, we hope you’ll join Paul David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Don Peppers and a host of other new-media marketing practitioners for a two-day forum that’s jam-packed with advice from experts in the latest online disciplines.

The event is the New Marketing Summit, and if you sign up with code PAULVIP, you get a $200 discount off the $795 registration. This is special discount for Paul’s guests because, as a co-designer of the program, he gets special treatment!

In addition to keynotes by Paul, David and Don Peppers of 1to1Media, here are a few topics from the program:

• Niches, Microniches, and Social Networks
• Videoblogs, Podcasts, New Media, and the Impact on Marketing
• Search Engine Secrets
• Brands and Reputation in an All Media World
• Unlocking the Puzzle of Marketing Within Games
• Interactive Digital: Beyond Flashy-Shiny-Fast

There are dozens of speakers, many of them successful practitioners who will tell what’s working for them and how you can benefit from their experience.

It’s Oct. 14 and 15 in Foxboro, Mass., about 25 miles south of Boston. If you attend, please look up Paul and say hello!

73: A Naked Conversation

Shel Israel

When Paul and David were reporters working for major tech publications, they used to occasionally get pitches from a PR guy named Shel Israel. Israel’s been around the business a long time and knows the ins and outs of pitching reporters. He also understood very early that the rules were changing and that power and influence were moving into the hands of individuals.

In early 2006, Israel teamed up with superblogger Robert Scoble to publish Naked Conversations, the first book to dramatize the increasingly powerful effects that bloggers were having on markets. The book’s success catapulted Israel into the category of industry thought leader. Suddenly, people like David and Paul were calling up asking to interview him!

Which is precisely what they did for this episode. In an interview set up via the great democratizing agent called Twitter, our hosts spent a half hour with Shel Israel talking about the continuing evolution of markets into conversations. In a session that really is more conversation than interview, Israel spoke about the impact that Naked Conversations has had on his career, but more importantly about the changes that social media are engendering in the public relations field. It’s not a matter of if PR pros should engage with online influencers, he said, it’s a matter of how quickly they can rush to learn the new rules.

Shel Israel is brash, funny and very opinionated. This half-hour clip should give you an indication of why he’s become such a prominent voice in new media.

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72: Introducing Web Informant.tv

This week, in an act of shameless self-promotion, Paul interviews David about his latest venture called Web Informant.tv, a series of sponsored screencast product reviews using the Camtasia authoring tool. David talks about how he came to create these videos and why they are useful, what the intended audience is for watching them, and the issues surrounding creating Web-based videos. (And don’t worry: we will be plugging Paul’s new book when it comes out!)

You can listen to the podcast here.

71: Mr. LinkedIn

Who says you can’t reinvent yourself after 20 years in the business? Not Chuck Hester. A veteran of technology public relations going back to the days of print, Hester has become a disciple of the business networking service LinkedIn. He uses LinkedIn to organize meetings and group dinners during his frequent travels and to maintain a list of hundreds of business contacts. When he wants to meet someone, he often starts with LinkedIn Answers or a query to his network. The strategy has drawn media attention and made Hester a master connector in tech media. And that’s paying off for his employer, e-mail service firm iContact. Chuck Hester shares some secrets of effective LinkedIn use in this interview.

Download the podcast (15:00)

70: Social secrets of David Nour

This week Paul and David talk to David Nour from Atlanta. He is a champion of using social networks for business purposes, both in terms of using the tools to extend his own networks and also to enhance the connections within corporate types.

David met David at the annual National Speakers Association conference last month and learned a lot of great tips in how to get the most out of LinkedIn and Facebook. He spends about an hour daily updating his profiles and connecting with his networks, and in the process has been able to consult to some of the world’s largest corporations. He says you need to understand what you are trying to accomplish at the outset, and also that these are early versions of the services and have limited functionality (LinkedIn’s Groups is a prime example of that). To be a great social networker, you need both producers and consumers to be active on each network.

He is also a prolific speaker, executive coach and the author of a new book called Relationship Economics: the art and science of social networks that will be out in stores in a few weeks. 

You can download and listen to the podcast here. 

69: PR Strategies for Startups

 

Jason Calacanis

This week Paul and David discuss some of the strategies that serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis mentions in his subscriber-only mailing list (note: our recording is mistaken about where to find it) about PR strategies that have resonated with him. As he says in his post:
 
“You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be connected, and you don’t need to be a ‘name brand.’”
 
He talks about how you can be the brand, and be totally involved in what your company is doing. And always pick up the dinner check. They also talk about others who have succeeded in garnering positive press for little dough. Two jeers this week for Konica Minolta printers from David and Gannett’s reaction to the Gannett blog from Paul.

You can download and listen to the podcast here.