Friday Roundup 2nd May 2008

It's not surprising that the early adopters of MarCom Professional are early adopters period. It's not surprising that early adopters post about the trends, the memes, the innovations that will catch the mainstream a few months later, and transform the marcom industry in the longer term.

If you want to share this insight, I invite you to forward this email to anyone you think will be interested in the posts about social media, the buzz about Twitter and the debate surrounding Social Media Releases.

I'm sure MarCom Professional member Graham Jones (aka the Internet Psychologist) would agree that unless we invite you to forward the email so patently the thought might not occur to you, and we'd all be the poorer for not being so straight forward.

Time and the webstats will tell :-)

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

Corporate Vlogs - The future of PR?

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Jason Calacanis, CEO of Maholo.com, believes that corporate Vlogs are the future of PR.

He concedes that this is the same theory that many had in 2004 with regard to blogging., but to back up his theory Calacanis points towards his own company's figures:

"Since inception Maholo has had over 4M views to our videos, and last month we broke the 1M mark. Four million views means millions of folks (let's say two million) have come in contact with the Mahalo brand. If you were to pay for four million 15 second spots on the web the cost would be $25 for each 1,000 views--or $100,000. More...

Everyone needs Twitter! (Well, those that are interested in using it properly)

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

Todd Defren in his blog post yesterday asked whether PROs should “Get Into Twitter or Get Outta Public Relations”

Todd highlighted how PROs who used Twitter could improve their personal branding, have access to the knowledge of some of the industry’s most brilliant minds and build relationships with their peers.

If you read my blog, you would know about my initial scepticism toward Twitter and how I eventually changed my mind about it. I find myself regularly having to explain to friends and colleagues why I spend time Twittering during the day and in my spare hours after work. More...

How to Cope with Criticism of Your Copywriting

by Matt Ambrose of The Copywriter's Crucible

[Picture courtesy of Jonno Witts]

There can be few things as infuriating for a copywriter, or for any creative type for that matter, as having the creation of your sweat and tears criticised by a client. Whilst the temptation is to throw your laptop out of the window or question whether they’ve fully appreciated the intricacy of your words, learning to respond objectively to criticism is one of the key skills a copywriter has to learn.

Writing is a deeply personal process in which you read through the brief, conduct your research and then carefully compose a message carved by your fingers and sculpted by your brain. More...

Digital coverage takes precedence over print - report

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

We’ve just conducted a study of 300 senior in-house PR professionals and, among other interesting stats, it has uncovered a tipping point in media focus.

New media channels are set to overtake traditional print and broadcast as the priority targets for PR professionals. It was surprising to find that less than half (49 per cent) of respondents cited traditional print media as their main target for PR, and for one third (32 per cent) it was the last choice. Blogs and social networks have taken precedence for these PROs. More...

Social Web Analytics - my upcoming ebook and a case of cobblers' shoes

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

Two weeks ago, I posted about the fast paced field of Social Web Analytics. I presented a definition of these tools, expressed my intent to write an ebook on the technology and the main vendors, and listed the vendors I intend to cover...

I also invited anyone with experience of wielding these tools to get in touch so I can include comment and insight from them. This invitation is still open.

What's really interesting however is that only two of the vendors have got in touch to volunteer their full cooperation in my analysis. More...

Fifteen Web Principles

by Chris Applegate of Outside Line

I can’t believe that it’s taken me over a year to become aware of the BBC’s Fifteen Web Principles, but that’s more than outweighed by how impressed I am at how the essence of their philosophy has been distilled into such a concise document. All of these principles are sound, all are worth reading and all in perpetual draft (so they can change as the web evolves). The particularly relevant ones in my view, are: The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less, but execute perfectly. More...

Futuresonic 2008: Aleks Krotoski

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Aleks Krotoski (@Aleksk), an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity, is speaking about gaming and play on the internet.

She argues that the Brain Training game was the sole reason for the extraordinary sales of the Nintendo DS, sold on the promise that it will make you smarter ("Reduce your brain age!"). But it is ultimately a selfish game, you play it on your own.

World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies, on the other hand, are communities where collaboration is essential. More...

Twitter anxiety

by Mark Pinsent of Mark Pinsent

I’m only following 33 people on Twitter. Is that enough?

I think so. Other people follow loads more - like 783 - but I can’t understand how that doesn’t become utterly useless. Unless all you do all day is sit watching your Twitter account you’re going to miss loads of stuff aren’t you? Or am I mssing something?

I saw this blog post, see, from Todd Defren. I totally agree with Todd that Twitter’s a really useful tool for understanding what people are thinking about, writing about and doing…which can only help PRs do a better job. More...

Social networking may be in your genes

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Some people are avid social networkers and build up huge numbers of "connections" and "friends" online. Take a look at Thomas Power, the Chairman of Ecademy, for instance. He has over 15,000 contacts in Ecademy and almost as many in LinkedIn. Does he really know all those people? If you think he's in a fix, consider Ron Bates - LinkedIn's top networker who has almost 40,000 connections.

Facebook appears to limit the number of friends. Steve Hofstetter, for instance, managed to amass over 200,000 friends, but was cutback by Facebook to a puny 5,000. More...

World Wide Rave! vs. Unscrupulous and Illegal Viral Marketing Techniques

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

World Wide Rave: People talking about you and your company and your products.

World Wide Rave: When a community is eager to link to your stuff on the Web. World Wide Rave: Tons of people visit your Web site and check out your blog and watch your YouTube videos because they want to (and without being coerced).

World Wide Rave: The online buzz that drives people to you, generating interest in your products and services.

For decades, the only way to spread ideas was to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services. More...

How to create a journalist backgrounder in 5 mins with Google

by Andrew Smith of escherman

Anyone who has ever spent more than 5 minutes working in the world of PR will almost certainly have had to produce a journalist backgrounder in their time. This is a document prepared for a client before they meet or are interviewed by a journalist. Although different agencies might tinker at the edges, the basic format has always remained the same - namely:

1. Name, Job title, e-mail, phone number, etc.

2. A brief bio of the journalist eg previous titles worked for, areas of interest, etc.

3. More...

Magic and Logic: 2 Steps to bridging the gap

by Stephen Bourke of Endpoint

Imagine that you head up a large marketing department. You've got a digital specialist. A PR specialist. A DM whizz. B2B, P2P, SEO and every other acronym covered. They all love you. You are a marketing genius and embrace new trends and technologies while paying homage to the classics. You are untouchable.

Then one day, while out visiting the back offices of your corporate hinterland, you catch sight of your old corporate identity plastered all over pens, stationery and signage. You call your corporate identity specialist into the office and ask how this has happened, but she is as perplexed as you are. More...

Zude, Where's My Digital Identity Hub

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

One of the more talked about companies at the Web 2.0 Expo is Zude, an interesting example of what's possible in the realm of social computing.

The world maybe doesn't need another social network, but what we sure could use is a platform that allows us to aggregate social elements from all over the web into one place - how we want, when we want.

Zude officially announced in beta and allows users to grab elements from any social networking site and integrate them into their own Zude page. More...