Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category

Moving content.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Those people who know me will not be surprised with my banging on about the importance of good content.  What may surprise them is that sometimes content can move me to tears.

Yes – music, lyrics, films, a paragraph in a book…if it’s well enough written or executed, words – or a combination of words, sound an image – can really get to me.  Sometimes it just creeps up on you and catches you by surprise, or just sums up professonal and personal life in a way that presses all the right/wrong buttons.  Like it did this morning when I was surfing around some of my regular blogs and Writing Boots came up with this one.  It’s not a new concept, but the execution is just beautifully done.

Content matters and, yes, it can even make the most cynical copywriters cry!

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Content, blogging, copywriting, podcasting | No Comments »

Channels of anti-social media

Friday, August 21st, 2009

David Murray’s call for help and a father and son conversation has really got me thinking.

Social Media exponent Shel Holtz’s response to Murray’s plea is certainly helpful in clarifying the issues of time management in communication.  Interesting stuff and good that David has also taken time to respond in kind – that’s the conversation that Shel is talking about.  But it also made me think about my own contributions.

The reality is that you can’t be all things to all people and you can’t be pleasing all of the people all of the time.  We all have businesses to run and whilst content is an important part of Net.Mentor’s, it’s not just social media.  As with all communication, I think we have to understand that any channel, whether Twitter, Facebook or (whisper it) the printed word,  is just that…a channel.  We don’t read everything all at once and, even if you’re female or a journalist, we are only really capable of processing two or possibly three channels at one time.

It has to be about balance – and succumbing to the pressure of “I have to be out there” is going to kill us in the end.  My 86 year-old father has just given me GBH of the ear’ole for not sitting and spending time just talking with him.  “I’m too busy” is the reply.  “But I don’t understand what you do:I can’t see it, I can’t touch it, it’s all so…..intangible”.  Maybe, just maybe, social media is “anti-social” media.  Rather than spending telling the rest of the world, shouldn’t we just appreciate the moment of being at home with a glass of wine and talking to our friends or family while will have the chance.  Our true friends are the ones around us, our virtual friends are the ones creating their lives vicariously.

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Content, Social Media, blogging | No Comments »

Push on!

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Push/pull communication is a subject of regular debate amongst my CIPR students, but a blog post by Jeremy Porter in Journalistic about this subject and ‘interruption marketing’ set me thinking about a current strategy I’m using with a client which combines both push and pull.

Porter’s premise is that push and pull, when used strategically, can both work, although pull is preferable.  But, most of all, that content is king – a point I made in a recent post and have been banging on about in our business for some time.

But Porter also raises the issue of interruptions and how this form of push can be offputting unless used strategically.  My recent experience would also suggest that a combination of the two can work powerfully.

Experts in their field of online learning, Akamas have recently started to address social media and web 2.0 for their own marketing communication.  Helped by the fact that they have in-house, recognised experts who are also excellent writers, blogging is likely to become a positive aspect of their communication.

However, as we all know, there are millions of individuals and organisations already out there and cutting through the noise to get noticed can’t just rely on Pull.  A strategy of writing for their own blog or business articles, but then notifying key online media editors seems to be paying off.   The push approach is interruptive, but only as far as saying – “we’ve written something that’s interesting and relevant to you, it’s posted on our blog or an in-house article, but please feel free to use it as an article or blog post yourself.”

The response, on the whole, has been very positive so far.  Let’s face it, an editor isn’t going to turn away relevant, well written content that may in itself create more traffic for a site that already has pulling power.

Eventually, any well written, relevant and engaging blogs should have enough of their own pull to make it onto the RSS readers or blogrolls of their key target audiences.  But in the meantime, the power of push and pull in two-way communication clearly has its benefits.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Content, Marketing, Web content, blogging, communication | 1 Comment »

Let down by the Tweeple

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Last week I delivered a Talking Heads workshop on webPR to a group of delegates eager to learn the latest techniques of digital media and PR in the 21st Century.  It’s taken me a week to post this blog, because I needed time to reflect (and because Saturdays aren’t an ideal time to garner responses).

Heather Yaxley, better know to the blogosphere for her Greenbanana blog, was my co-tutor and we spent a stimulating day discussing SEO,  PR techniques and content writing for websites, social media, and creating a blog and podcast to show how easy it all is.

Naturally, throughout the day, we spent time talking about Twitter and its benefits of quick response, fast distribution, trending, citizen journalism, etc.  So what better way, I thought, to demonstrate this than to put a question out there and seek a response from the Tweeple (the people who Twitter). “Anyone got any good examples of webPR best practice?” I asked in wide-eyed anticipation.  I just wanted a couple of external ideas to inform our workshop debate from some other experts.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was where Twitter and its exponents showed its true colours. I #tagged, I @tagged and I sent directs. Heather re-tweeted. The response was fantastic.

NOTHING! Not a sausage, nada, zip, f*(&% all.  Now, I’m not arrogant or self opinionated enough to think that Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross or Richard Branson would sit bolt upright, drop whatever celebrity-dripping activity they were doing at the time and yell “Peter Brill’s asked me a question, I really MUST respond!” I also know that I’m a very long way from hitting my million followers. But some of the people I do follow are self-proclaimed social media ‘gurus’ who spend their entire waking hours, apparently, Tweeting their latest discoveries and words of wisdom to their glorious world of followers.

So where were you when you had the opportunity to demonstrate to sceptical PR practioners who are earning a living from the daily grind of messages delivery that social media really works? What happened that you missed an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in a truly didactic context?

Don’t bother trying to tell me that you happened to be out at that moment, because if you haven’t already worked this out for yourselves, I could see you Twittering plenty at the same time – one of you even twittered a link about how Twitter is all about listening!!

I enjoy Twitter, it’s quick, it’s mobile and it’s easy to use.  But I’m also of the opinion that everyone is on ‘transmit’ and no-one has yet worked out what Twitter is really trying to achieve. Everybody is so busy demonstrating how busy they are being a  busy and important part of everybody else’s business, that they’ve completely lost sight of the basic principles of dialogue.

So when an opportunity presents itself to demonstrate just how positive a role Twitter can play in communications dialogue and education, it’s biggest exponents weren’t receiving.  They were too busy telling us how they’d just got out of bed, farted and brushed their teeth.

I’m sure there will be plenty of comments (one would be nice) about how I could have done this, that or the other to have changed the outcome.  Too late!  Apparently, the thing about Twitter is it’s incredible immediacy.  The moment is past. 

So our delegates left with their scepticism about Twitter intact, and I’m just carrying on transmitting tweets along with the rest of the tworld in the  hope that someone, somewhere might actually explain why they hell we’re all bothering.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in General, Social Media, blogging, podcasting | 3 Comments »

Bitter Naked Schadenfreude

Friday, March 7th, 2008

As a relatively recent blogger, I found the NakedPR blog a refreshing, if acerbic, means of bringing a sense of reality to some of the blog hype. So I was sad to see that Jenn Mattern is hanging up her blogging trousers for a while. I was, however, more saddened by the way she signed off. Her last blog was a truly scathing attack on the whole of the PR blogosphere: the final set of comments, a bitter postscript to some clearly personal online spats. I’m sure she won’t give a toss what I think, but her present and future clients might recommend a more dignified exit.

Which makes me wonder: if blogging is such a bitter experience, why do people do it? DaveDorm, not unsurprisingly, took personally someone’s desire for Schadenfreude (pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune) in reading his blog. His response only serves to reinforce my thoughts that perhaps social media should actually be re-defined as ‘anti-social’ media. Dave asks “is that why you people really come here? To revel in my pathetic life? Is that what this is? Enjoyment in my misery?” – which, of course, raises the obvious question – why would you lay your misery out for others to read? In fact, Dave’s blog has a lot of fun, left-field, ‘you really couldn’t make it up’ stuff which helps lighten the day.

He goes on to say “Being on my list is an extension of my trust. Don’t violate it.” But doesn’t that miss the whole point about blogging? In putting yourself out there and poking at issues, whether it’s NakedPR, DaveDorm, Net.Mentor, Greenbanana, Strumpette or Uncle Tom Cobley and his carthorse (sorry, couldn’t find a link to that one), we’re constantly being told that the beauty of blogging is that it’s personal communication rather than corporate puff. If that’s true, then I think we all have to be prepared to get our hearts broken once in a while and try not to feel bitter about it.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,
Posted in blogging, public relations | 4 Comments »

Flat Earth Spin

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

The old chestnut – who depends on whom, PR or Journalist – has been repackaged, re-spun and reprinted in a new book by Nick Davies. “Flat Earth News” has engendered massive current debate in the UK and beyond. An entire edition of BBC’s You and Yours was devoted to the subject, and included Nick Davies on the programme. By their own admission, the BBC had themselves succumbed to Chatto and Windus’ PR machine in devoting an entire hour to the subject.

So is reproducing media releases without checking the facts lazy journalism? Yes. Is it the way all journalists work? Unlikely.

According to UKwatch.net the research behind the book from Cardiff University’s media boffins is a depressingly true reflection of current journalism. I’ve been both a broadcast journalist and a PR (apparently I’m supposed to be a Flack, whatever that is). On occasions I’ve been both at the same time (the worst of all worlds)!

I’ve worked in local radio newsrooms in recent years and received the “are you mad?” looks when I’ve suggested actually stepping outside the office to go on a story, rather than settling for a 20 sec clip on the ‘phone. Yes, journalism has changed. There are is less money, fewer staffers and double or treble the amount of content required. That’s Nick Davies’ point. Quality of journalism has to suffer. But is it the journalists’ fault?

PRs hold a precious commodity – news – and good PRs know how to create news and make their story more attractive and newsworthy than someone else’s. Does that make them bad people? Does it prevent journalists from using their editorial judgement and whatever investigative skills remain open to them to look beneath the surface? I don’t think so.

Naked PR’s Jennifer Mattern turns her guns on bloggers who now seem to be demanding more relaxed and ‘promotional’ releases to be issued by newswires because this is the kind of stuff bloggers want. I’m with her and PRWeb. If bloggers want credibility, they should work as hard as any other journalists, regardless of the style or medium. In fact, looking at some of the PRWeb releases, if this is the kind of stuff they want – and the kind of things PRs believe is news – then they deserve each other.

At the end of last week, I gave a lecture to a group of young PRs on briefing spokespeople. The keynote speaker was Gito Harri, who had just delivered his last piece to camera for network BBC TV news before becoming a senior media strategist at PR giants Fleishman Hillard. The money certainly had an influence, but I wonder how long it will be before his carefully honed journalistic skills become blunted by the constant chipping of unrealistic client expectations and under-resourced journalist contacts.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,
Posted in Media, blogging, communication, public relations | 2 Comments »

A bit of a PR Punchup!

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Jennifer Mattern seems to have started a right old PR punchup with her latest blog about PR blogs. Brendan Cooper followed up with left hook on blog bullying and now there’s an unholy row going on.

There I was, minding my own rose-tinted business, bimbling along in the blogosphere, when La Mattern comes along and parks several tanks on my illusionary lawn. It seems that all is not well in PR blogland, and the there are accusations of cliques, insiders and bullying the new boys/girls on the block. Jenn’s point is that PR blogster are generally engaged in a love-fest, while Brendan states that relative newby blogsters (such as myself) are being criticised by more experience hands for raising the same issues that have been discussed on the old forums, or established blog lists. Well, welcome to the world of PR!!

Cliques, insiders and bullying (yes, try any top 20 agency for size – even the really good ones succumb once in a while). New for old – a show of hands from any PR who has re-worked an old story and gained coverage as something new…..carried unanimously by the old lags at the back. A PR luv-fest, well where were you when the champagne was last handed out, that’s the nature of the industry.

But…and it’s a but with a capital B – Jenn’s article did make me think about getting out a bit more (at least into the blogosphere). You will notice that my own blogroll is still very small at the moment and there’s a reason for that. I wouldn’t expect people to add my blog to their key list just because they are a mate, any more than I would add theirs. I believe you need to earn the place. So no hints, no begging, and no luvviedom – but if I’m one of your clique then hey, thanks anyway.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,
Posted in blogging, communication, public relations | 2 Comments »

Today’s news comes from….

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

An item by Steve Hewlett on the BBC’s Today programme – admittedly not particularly easy listening given a convoluted writing style and constant background voiceover – did clarify some thoughts regarding journalists and online information.  The Today intro describing online radio as a “threat” and Hewlett (tongue in cheek I hope) believed that online news items gaining the greatest hits are those most desired by the “great unwashed”.  I had to chuckle at the implication that only network news providers are the true filters of news with gravitas, and that they alone are leading the crusade to educate the masses. And in reality – a serious point made by the item – where is popular news now being sourced?

Native Edge’s Andrew Arnold picked up an interesting blog on research by US Comms agency Brodeur on the use of blogs by journalists as a source of information. Jerry Johnson, Brodeur’s Exec VP who lead the research, has also received considerable comment on the stats after they were revealed at a conference.

In my own recent blog about objectivity I talked about journalists writing their own blogs – possibly under a degree of coercion from over-eager editors. What is certainly clear from this research is that journalists see the blogosphere as a vital source of information – certainly in North America – and I have little doubt that this is the case in the UK. Call it lazy journalism or just plain commonsense, but the research showed that more than 78% of journos saw bogs as a source of stories and angles, with nearly as many using blogs as a way of testing the tone of discussions on a subject. Interestingly nearly half also viewed blogs as a source of breaking news. Disturbingly, perhaps, one third saw blogs as a way of identifying and validating news sources. If this is true, then it would appear that journalists are standing up their stories based on an online persona. Certainly there are a significant number of bloggers with long and established reputations. But the thought of John Humphrys, logging on, bleary eyed to check his sources with Strumpette does add a certain frisson to the morning!

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: ,
Posted in Media, blogging, communication | 1 Comment »