...it's blogs like this




In chapter 5 of 'The New Rules of Marketing and PR' - Scott explores the vast world of Blogs: Tapping millions of evangelists to tell your story.


I like the use of the word 'evangelists' in his heading - for the world of conferences, we use terms like 'prospects', 'customers', and 'advocates' - I think the word 'evangelist' takes this to a higher level, imagine if you had people evangelising about your business....


So I've outlined below some of the most interesting parts of this chapter, as we continue learning about the new rules of marketing and pr...


- Your blog will most certainly serve you as a valueable creative outlet
- Only about 20-30% of marketing/pr professionals read blogs....and less than 10% write them (i'm in a minority!)
- Blogs are written because someone is passionate about a subject and wants to tell the world about his/her area of expertise
- Sometimes blogs are misperceived by people who don't read them. Journalists as well as PR people are quick to dismiss the importance of blogs because they often compare them to magazines, and newspapers, with which they are comfortable!


My favourite quote about web-as-a-city...

"The woman next to you at the bar may not be a journalist, but she sure knows something, and you can choose to believe her or not. Incidentally, seeing the Web as a city also helps make sense of other aspects of online life. Craigslist is like the bulletin board at the corner store, eBay, a garage sale; Amazon, a bookstore replete with patrons anxious to give you their book tips. You've even got the wrong side of the tracks spots via the web's adult-entertainment underbelly...."

So the FOUR uses of Blogs for Marketing and PR

1. To easily monitor what millions of people are saying about you, the market you sell into, your organization, and its products
2. To participate in those conversations by commenting on other people's blogs
3. To work with bloggers who write about your industry, company, or products *this one is central to what we do here @ IQPC
4. To begin to shape those conversations by creating and writing your own blog


The best example this chapter gives is how the Obama campaign used blogging and social media to connect with the public of the United States. The author says "...I am absolutely convinced that Obama won the U.S presidential election because he was the candidate who most strongly embraced social media...".
People were excited to be interacting so closely with officials from the national campaign pages as well as their opinions posted - they felt 'heard'.


So I guess my question is - how long does it take for people to stand up and listen? Are you listening? Can you hear me? Then talk.


Until next time,
Chris Archer

...it's how to use news releases to reach buyers directly



By Courtney Green - Senior Marketing Manager, Sydney

As it has for many things, the Web has changed the rules for news releases. The way buyer’s access news via Google, Yahoo and various PR wire sites means that it’s not just journalists accessing your news but millions of people around the world. How to reach and engage with these millions of people around the world is what the Author, David Meerman Scott looks at throughout Chapter 17.

Scott says in regards to news releases “you are providing your buyers with information that they need in order to find your organisation online and then learn more about you”. This makes perfect sense – for instance I have a Ministerial Keynote Address that has just been added to a conference I am currently marketing, therefore writing a news release about his address will then lead to people becoming aware of this and in turn learn more about the conference.

Scott goes on to say that a fundamental change about news releases is that you don’t need to wait for big news. Write about pretty much anything that your organisation is doing!

• CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.
• Win an award? Write a release.
• Add a product feature? Write a release.
• Publish a white paper? Write a release.

This to me, I feel would keep the momentum of your marketing strategy at full pace so you are constantly at the forefront of people’s minds with interesting and relevant information to share.

Scott also looks at the use of RSS feeds which increase our ability to reach a much wider audience than ever before. Here at IQPC Australia we use Media Atlas (aap) and I have just come across a new one called http://www.whatech.com.au/ which has a technology and finance focus. Just this week I uploaded a Smart Grids press release and within the hour it had been picked up in Google Alerts and also by the CIO Council who then distributed the press release to their utilities database thus reaching people that I may not have otherwise!

One section in this chapter looks at the importance of links in your news releases. This is something I have become increasingly aware of over the last few months as we move to more web centric marketing. Not only do links within your news releases allow buyers to easily move between the news release to your event website or specific piece of content, it also increases your event website ranking – and we all know how important that is! Scott says “Each time your news release is posted on another site, such as an online news site, the inbound link from the online news site to your web site helps to increase the search engine ranking of your site, because the search engines use inbound links as one of the important criteria for their page ranking algorithms”. 

The final and perhaps most important section of this paragraph looks at the value of repurposing your news releases for other audiences. Scott says that “too often, organisations spend tons of money on, say, a PR program that targets a handful of journalists but fails to communicate the same information to other constituents”. Putting it into context it would be like having a very good press release and not repurposing it into an effective piece of copy to email to the database of a supporting association. For me, repurposing is time effective, smart and allows you to reach audiences that could have been missed opportunities.

Probably the advice that stands out to me the most is last paragraph of the chapter where he writes about the importance of having relevant, fresh and regular content/news releases. He says a regular editorial calendar means your company is busy. A non-updated media room can appear as if you company is stagnant. To me this rings true for our download centres. It is important for us to be constantly on the look out for relevant news articles or content opportunities so that we appear as not just a conferencing company but an information provider that is on the cutting edge of news and industry trends.

I feel that chapter 17 really reiterates what I and my team have been trying to achieve in our marketing strategies of late and it is encouraging to know we are on the right track.

Courtney Green

...it's chapter 16 of the New Rules

Our bible here at IQPC is 'The New Rules of Marketing and PR' - how to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly.

As a unit, the team has been reviewing and discussing a couple of chapters each week, and as the Online Communications Manager, I've decided to take it one step further and chart my learnings - since the aim of this blog is to 'evolve an online communications manager'.

The good thing about this book is the simplicity of the language. The author, David Meerman Scott, uses plain english, real world examples, and cuts the crap. The book was evolved as a result of his experience with his own blog and the feedback and conversations he had with the readers. In addition to this, the book does not read front to back - you can open any chapter and read, and it's not required that you've read the early ones....

So this is how i'm going to post - chapter 16: Video and Podcasting made, well, as easy as possible. Overall impression of this chapter: I think it reinforced to me that we are doing a good job in terms of new media within business - our standard of podcasts and videos are excellent, but we can certainly take it to the next level...

Key learnings:  

• Video: Essentially the chapter explores how easy it is to create engaging content via video. The best line in this part of the chapter is where the author says ‘Creating audio and video content for marketing and PR purposes requires the same amount of attention to appropriate topics as other techniques. It requires targeting individual buyer personas with thoughtful information that addresses some aspect of their life or pr they face. By doing so , you brand your organisation as smart and worthy of doing business with...
• He says that the idea of companies using video for business is still fairly new. He mentions Youtube and Vimeo as channels through which companies can publish video content (and develop a channel) - ‘Vlogging’ is an interesting term for embedding video content into a blog (we should think about engaging with our bloggers and encouraging them to embed our content?)
• Podcasting 101: A podcast is a piece of audio content tied to a subscription component….I wonder what he means by this, and if it’s something we should consider? Ultimately, are we really only creating ‘Audio interviews’ if they aren’t podcasts, because there is no subscription element? Podcasts also presume that people can access them on their iTunes or iPods (mobile), but is this how we envisage they’ll listen to it?
• ‘Many people will help promote a show they have been featured on..’ - this is a great line which got me thinking about how we should encourage our interviewees to leverage the content to their networks also - after all, they invested the time to doing the podcast, they should do more for us!!
• Put links to your podcast on your website, email signature, and on your offline materials (business cards, brochures)

Quotes:

“Podcasting is great marketing because, like blogging, it is a human voice”

  

“Most podcast’s don’t have a PR stamp on them, so the shows come across as being human. The reason why this is interesting is that there is a big marketing shift going on right now. The older traditional advertising model, like the 1950s TV, is that we publish and you consume. However, today’s marketing model is that we publish and you respond to it. It provides me real feedback from real people, and I have conversations. I can be interactive."

Until next time,

Christopher J Archer

...the Tao of Coaching

Recently I've found myself 'coaching' others, well, doing my best...

I've always like to teach others, mainly because someone once told me 'the best way to learn is to teach others', and I believe this to be very true. When you have to explain to another person how something is done, you are forced to really evaluate and rationalise what you are doing...

Often I find myself talking reaaaaalllly fast, then observing the person's body language..which is often one of confusion. Sometimes I struggle with finding the balance between giving someone a task with enough information as to WHY they are doing it, without having to tell them the WHOLE rationale behind it.

Take today for instance - I have a marketing intern working under my guidance at the moment. She is very capable, but has never worked in a marketing department before. Her experience with marketing is limited to textbook study at a marketing institute (which makes me wonder if they are teaching the 'New Rules of Marketing and PR' there). SO, when I'm briefing her on a new project, I start asking her to do something, then realise that she has no idea how or what or where to begin, so I have to start back at the WHY we do 'online content'....

I'm getting better at it (and so is she in understanding the objective of online communications), also because my Regional Marketing Director, recommend I read 'Max Landsberg: The Tao of Coaching'...now, i've only just begun, but it's a good book. I want to share a couple of the learnings i've found useful.

Ask questions:  Don't just tell when helping others develop their skills!!! This may sound obvious, but the book explains that if you invest the ten minutes in coaching (notice that I didn't use the word explaining or telling) someone who reports to you, it will later save you an hour!

In this video - Herb Kelleher, CEO Southwest Airlines says 'Coaching has to emanate from the heart, not the head...and that people readily recognise the difference between the two...'

Ask for feedback and then receive feedback genuinely: Avoid being defensive, and ask for specific examples.

I've only read the first quarter of the book, but it's worth reflecting on it in this blog!

Stay tuned for more!

Catch me on Linked IN - Christopher J Archer