Framing versus spin
One of the reasons I chose to call my consultancy No Spin PR was because serious public relations practitioners are always hopelessly frustrated by the word spin being applied to what they do.
It’s a derogatory term, and I believe there are some terms and words that can never be reclaimed (in this I differ from the hiphop artists who have ‘reclaimed’ the ‘en’ word – in my view it would be better to let that one fade away to the point that 23rd-century folk who encounter it would have to ask what it meant).
Implicit in the word spin is the idea that deception is involved, facts are being turned on their heads, and/or there’s so much fast talking going on the truth would be unrecognizable even if it were part of the mix. The ‘truth’ is, it’s as much of an insult to call a public relations practitioner a ’spin doctor’ as it is to call a woman a ‘chick.’ And it is a female-dominated profession, although not yet at the most senior levels. Read more »
Twitter chats – #askdrstu launching Nov. 24, 2009
One of the best (although sometimes the most technologically frustrating) aspects of the Twitter community is the regular chats that take place. Identified by hashtag (#), there’s #litchat (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 4-5 PM EST, with topics like ‘Continuing discussion of THE CRAFT OF WRITING’), #solopr (a forum for solo public relations practitioners to discuss a wide variety of topics, from the joys and sorrows of working alone to media lists, the bane of every PR practitioner’s existence), #agchat and #onthefarm, two chats that focus on the business of agriculture and the realities of farming in the 21st Century. There’s also #journchat, which brings together public relations pros and journalists. As an information exchange and a positive development in creating greater understanding, #journchat may be one of the most exciting chats on Twitter.
To find any of these chats, log on to Twitter and use your search function to search for them by hashtag (on the far right, under your profile you’ll see a search function – type in #solopr or #litchat). Scroll through the tweets and you’ll discover the chat moderator, whom you can then start following, and the regularly scheduled time for the chat.
When Twitter grinds to an almost-halt, the chats can be a frustrating experience. But that doesn’t happen all that often these days, and the wonderful thing about the chats is the commitment the moderators make to ensure they happen on a regular basis. My hat is off to the lovely Kellye Crane, for instance, who not only organizes the #solopr chat every Wednesday from 1-2PM EST, but ensures she’s got a backup if she’s travelling that day so the chat can continue.
New to Twitter as of Tuesday, November 24 is #askdrstu, a series of five scheduled chats led and moderated by Dr. Stuart Clark, author of the award-winning The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began.
Five chats are planned for 2009, on Tuesdays beginning November 24 at 1PM EST (10AM PST, 6PM GMT). Each week the chat will focus on a different popular astronomy topic. The first relates directly to the subject matter of The Sun Kings: “What level of influence does the Sun have on climate change?” Stuart will share what he’s learned from fellow scientists Henrik Svensmark, Mike Lockwood and : Kalevi Mursula in Bruges, where he recently moderated a debate on space weather and its effect on earth’s climate.
The other four chats are scheduled for December 1, 8, 15 and 22. Subjects could/will include topics he explores regularly in his role as a science journalist: ‘What is dark matter?’ ‘What defines a planet?’, and ‘Why isn’t Johannes Kepler better remembered?’
Whether you’re an astronomy buff or neophyte, you’re guaranteed to learn something by participating in the #askdrstu chats.
And if astronomy’s not your cup of tea, check out the hashtags used by the smart, funny people you follow on Twitter and find a chat that does make you want to join the conversation.
Social media could drive a public relations renaissance
So you’re all up to speed on the new rules of engagement for marketing and public relations and how important it is to abandon control of the ‘message’ and engage with your various audiences (the people formerly categorized as ’stakeholders’ although this term is now out of favour as well, I’m not quite sure why) and the importance of ‘transparency’ and the fact that you’d better get on the social media bandwagon because at the rate things are going, there won’t be many mainstream media outlets left to whom you can tell your corporate story.
That static Web 1.0 web site you spent so much money on two or three years ago is sneered at and in order to maintain your search engine rankings you feel under increasing pressure to add a blog and feed it with content. Then you have to master Twitter to promote your blog and no one will read your media release unless it’s a social media release which means you’ve got to start shooting amateur video you can post on YouTube and you haven’t mastered Facebook and now you’re being told you need to create a Facebook group page and instead of ever being done with this whole business of communicating so you can get on with growing and running your business, you end up feeling like you’re even farther behind than when you started. Read more »
Spacelocker: The social media train wreck
I signed up for Spacelocker last October because I’m naturally curious and because I’ve been involved in social media and social networking for years now. The site didn’t make a lot of sense to me and I think I logged on to it once after joining. Had I remembered my password, I would have closed my account, because its juvenile graphics and navigational difficulties combined with no immediately clear explanation of its value add made it just another site, and one that didn’t seem intended for – or useful to – me.
I’d had the occasional email from them and ignored it. But I was extremely startled the first week in June to suddenly start getting replies to emails I hadn’t sent, from people I’ve never formally added as contacts to my Gmail account (and people I certainly never added to my Spacelocker account as contacts; I don’t think I added anyone there), asking me where they’d met me or politely declining my invitation to join me on Spacelocker. Ahem. An invitation I hadn’t sent.
My first response was to conclude that my Gmail account had been hacked, but that seemed unlikely. I had an appointment, so I quickly dashed off an email via the contact form (the only way you can contact Spacelocker other than by snail mail in London, England), saying I wanted to close my account but that I was quite sure it had been hacked, because everybody and his uncle and their cat and dog had received an ‘invitation’ from me. Read more »
Social media as continuum rather than ladder
Love this post and the explanations as a follow-on to the previous post querying the directionality of the ladder of social media engagement. What makes it particularly good is the correlation of the newly coined terms to the Forrester/Charlene Li Groundswell terms.
Some nice thinking and writing going on here. Kudos to Leigh Duncan-Durst and Live Path.
Using PitchEngine to create your own ‘agency newsroom’
Since the debut of the social media press release (SMPR) in May 2006, I’ve been exploring various options for tapping into the media-rich potential of templated releases.
No Spin PR has been working on a variety of projects since its unlaunch in November 2008, and has been looking at PR 2.0 press release distribution methods as well as the creation of various kinds of social media press releases (SMPRs). Distribution can be an expensive process, especially if clients’ target stakeholders are global.
While the PR Squared template linked to above may represent the industry gold standard, it’s unusable for me as it comes in PDF format. It also doesn’t address the distribution issue.
Enter Pitch Engine. Not only does it supply all the functionality and features of the SMPR template, it makes distribution a snap. With a single click you’ve sent the shortened URL for your hosted release out via Twitter. With another click you’ve shared it with your Facebook friends. One more click and it’s gone out via Friend Feed as well.
Pitch Engine allows you to post your releases either categorized by brand or in simple chronological order. Releases stay live on the site for 30 days. You can also create a newsroom for the individual brands you manage, although that service isn’t free (it’s currently US$50 a month or US$550/year for this feature).
One of the things I like best about the SMPR is its “News Facts” section. I first encountered these when working with UK companies, who used to put them at the bottom of their releases under a “Notes for Editors” heading, sort of the press release equivalent of a footnote. I’m a bit of a demon about citing my sources (except when I forget and think I’ve found something all on my own, which does occasionally happen, but not often) and still write the occasional research paper, so I love this feature. And I’m enjoying the repackaging of a tradition I’ve always found charmingly quaint.
For me the biggest bonus is the ability to create a media newsroom for my company and add my own branding to that portion of the site. It also means potential clients interested in working with No Spin PR can see samples of my work and get a sense of other clients and whether we’d be a good fit. So welcome to the No Spin PR Media Newsroom. Stop by from time to time. There’s a whole lot more where that came from.
Oh – Pitch Engine also tracks the number of times your press release has been viewed. (Although I hope it doesn’t track my own viewing of the releases because I’ve been rather lost in admiration of my own handiwork and would hate to skew the stats.) And you can subscribe to an RSS feed for an individual ‘brand’ or all the releases from a particular newsroom.
Starting at the top of the social media ladder
While the info in this diagram is old (Q2 2007) and it specifically tracks European social media participation rather than global (and it would be nice to see North American figures at least, and then I always like a breakdown between Canada and the US because – well – I don’t like feeling like the overlooked middle child in a large family), the use of the ladder is an interesting visual metaphor. Some of us, myself included, confidently seem to have started at the top of the ladder and are busily running down it now.
Rearranging the information in percentage terms would actually give you a far more accurate visual representation of the progression of social media usage, I think. I know I had been blogging for a good two years before I ever set up a feed reader system for myself, and since I’m considered an alpha flickr user, I was creating content from the very beginning of my involvement with social media. I’d also argue that social media has been in existence for well over a decade now, and that Twitter has its roots in chat, but I’ve already talked about that elsewhere.
I’d be interested to know in the comments if you started blogging before you started seriously reading other blogs or not. I have been known to try to operate machinery without reading the instruction manual too.
Hat tip to United BIT for the diagram and its post on the subject.
Northern Voice 09 – afterglow?
What’s the difference between a love-in and an orgy? While I haven’t looked it up on Wikipedia, I suspect the difference is that a love-in involves friends and friends of friends, while an orgy involves interaction with total strangers.
I’m not using these sexual analogies merely to be provocative (saucy, for my friends in the UK), but because – well – if the shoe fits, you really are Cinderella, aren’t you?
Even allowing for my widely varying moods while attending the last three Northern Voices, it’s been interesting to watch it evolve as a conference. Sadly, however, its evolution is incremental, and there was, for me anyway, a certain sense of going through the paces this year rather than genuine excitement. Read more »
Northern Voice 09: the love-in
From Stewart Butterfield’s keynote, The Internet 1992-2009, A Love Story through Chris Heuer’s Death of Advertising, the official presenters’ track at NV09 is a paean to what the internet can do for you and your business. Read more »
Crimes against Twitter: how mainstream media and marketers are messing up
The bewildered who aren’t yet tweeting may well be puzzled by the plethora of articles they’re suddenly reading in publications as far flung as the Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, The Guardian, The Spectator, Business Week…. Certainly the English-speaking world is suddenly all atwitter about Twitter (or at least the portion of it who still read either real or virtual newspapers and magazines). Read more »
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