Three reasons to attend Counselors Academy Conference
Since 2005, as many of you know, PRSA Counselors Academy has been my annual must-attend PR event. In fact, I get so much out of the conference I volunteered to be its 2012 conference chair.
This year #CAPRSA is being held in Austin, Texas June 9 to 13, and in addition to the programming and people, it’s a chance to experience Austin without all the hullabaloo of SXSW.
My good friend Dana Hughens, who was last year’s co-chair, steps into the CEO role – that’s Chair Extra-Ordinaire 
– and, along with the team of volunteers, has assembled a W.E.I.R.D.* and wonderful line-up of content that’s bound to be thought-provoking, creative and fun. (more…)
What’s new – week of May 8, 2013
Convergence of new and traditional media was an idea that got a lot of play around the turn of the century (I love saying turn of the century and referring to 1999).
The biggest example of course, is the ill-fated Time-Warner/AOL merger. In its day, it was considered to be ‘transformative’ and a sign of the future. But as we all know, it didn’t pan out as planned. Maybe the deal was badly conceived or it just too far ahead of the game or both.
There’s not a lot of news this week, but our theme centres on convergence: (more…)
The mainstreamification of social media and where we can go from here
I don’t know if you caught the most recent Mad Men episode (and if you didn’t, this isn’t a plot spoiler), but for a show about the ad biz, it ended with Peggy typing and saying the words, ‘for immediate release’.
Cryptic? Not so much. But when you do watch it, you’ll get a glimpse of the value Don and Co put on PR.
Last week, I wrote a guest post for Spin Sucks on what Mad Men can teach us about becoming the ad (or PR) agency of the future.
It’s based on something I’ve been noticing a lot lately and that we talked about in a recent Inside PR. Let’s call it the ‘mainstreamification’ of social media. (more…)
What’s new – week of May 1, 2013
So a big TV programming exec jumps ship and moves to Twitter… Seems like that says a lot about where new and mainstream media could be heading.
Here’s this week’s recap:
The news in Canada is not only that Twitter’s setting up shop, it’s that it has appointed, Kirstine Stewart, VP of programming at CBC TV, as the country’s first Managing Director. Ms. Stewart has a long and successful broadcast history. Now she’s going from 22 minutes to 140 characters and six seconds. It will be interesting to see what she brings to Twitter from a content POV. And in a semi-related story ‘live from the Internet’, Yahoo inked an exclusive deal to license SNL’s 38 year archive. (more…)
What’s new – week of April 24, 2013
In the last week, we saw a fair bit of activity on the mobile front by some of the bigger social networks – and especially Twitter.
Here’s a recap of what’s new:
Twitter
Yesterday the AP Twitter account was hacked and sent out a false tweet about the U.S. President being hurt. This led to a stock market tumble and then a quick recovery when the story was proved false. It highlights the need for all of us to filter and verify content before we spread it. That may slow us down a bit, but it’s worth it. The latest hacking led to speculation that Twitter will soon launch a two-step authentication process to make its site a bit more secure. (more…)
What’s new? A roundup of new digital and social media apps, changes and news
Since January, we’ve been starting the UT SCS Digital Strategy Foundations class with a ‘what’s new’ roundup of some of the latest apps, sites and stories of interest and why they’re relevant to marketers and communicators.
Sometimes I found things, other times students brought them forward.
At our end-of-term tweetup, one of the students, Kara McAulay, suggested I keep this up as a blog series. I liked that idea a lot.
So each week, I’m going to present a sampling of several social media developments that catch my eye. (more…)
Social Media Barometer comes to PRSA Western District Conference
What Canadian wouldn’t want to be in Arizona in April? Especially when you can combine the idyllic weather with the high calibre programming Abbie Fink and Michelle Olson have curated for the PRSA Western District Conference, April 18 to 20.
I’m excited to be attending the event and presenting my Social Media Barometer - a look at some of the digital, social media and communications pressure points we’re facing as PR pros. I’ll be talking about the latest trends, issues and challenges and offering a forecast for the future.
Digital Strategy Foundations class – talented first group sets the bar high
About three months ago, I stood in front of a group of 25+ students who’d enrolled in the inaugural U of Toronto SCS Digital Strategy Certificate Foundations course. I asked them to introduce themselves and talk about what they do.
It’s a bit of an understatement to say their responses took me by surprise. I had people who’d been blogging for five or more years, community managers, entrepreneurs, government and agency communicators, mobile marketers…
And I thought: what have I gotten myself into? This is going to be a challenging bunch. (more…)
How to create a strategic content calendar you can stick to
If you’re serious about content marketing, start thinking like a publisher and develop a strategy.
And then, to make sure you stay engaging, relevant and on track, create an editorial calendar.
Writing, editing and publishing all take time, energy, attention to detail and commitment. Just like building relationships.
You need to be patient, adaptable and consistent. (more…)
The retail value of a like
I wonder if it first started a long time ago at the Academy Awards when Sally Field measured her Oscar win by how much people liked her.
It’s certainly a question many brands wonder about. What’s a like mean and what is it worth?
For individuals, it’s a bit easier. A like is a quick and easy way to let someone know you’re thinking of them or enjoyed an update.
For companies, it’s a different situation. Sure they can count likes and treat them the same as media impressions: a big number that looks impressive and makes you seem popular but when you dig deeper, doesn’t have much meaning or substance. (PR folks, stop clinging to it!) (more…)
The difference between writing, editing and publishing
It wasn’t so long ago when those were all separate functions.
You wrote something, sent it around and if you were fortunate enough to be accepted, your work was edited and then published.
That changed with social media.
The roles blurred and in many cases if you’re a blogger or content producer, you find yourself doing all three functions at once. Sometimes not very well. (more…)
The link between mobile and old time car radios
One of my first jobs was working as a junior copywriter for a large ad agency. And my favourite part was writing the radio ads because I got to be part of both the creation and production.
I’d find myself in a state-of the art recording studio with a seasoned conductor/arranger, full orchestra, vocalist who’d had a number of pop hits, mixers and technicians all there to produce my little jingle. (Wow!)
And when we were done, we played it through the big studio speakers and it sounded amazing. Ready to go, right?
Wrong. (more…)
Inbound or outbound PR
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Because PR, and specifically media relations/publicity, seems perched on the edge of the inbound-outbound marketing fence.
Neither on one side nor the other.
And that’s a challenge for the industry trying to find its way in the new digital landscape.
Social studies at PodCamp Toronto
PodCamp Toronto, the city’s annual social media unconference extraordinaire, happened on the weekend.
This year, Eden Spodek, Marcus Daniels, Diane Begin, Cyrus Mavalwala and I took part in a panel called Social Media Goes to College, about the state of social media education.
It’s based on the Digital Strategy Certificate we’re developing and teaching at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. And – shameless plug alert – registration for the Spring sessions is now open.
In addition to the five of us, we were thrilled to have a number of our students there to share their ideas, expectations and experiences. (more…)
Are we outsourcing our memory?
And is that a bad thing?
It is if it diminishes the quality of our relationships. And it feels like we may be heading in that direction.
Let me explain what I mean. It wasn’t that long ago when I knew tons of phone numbers. And that helped me in my job as a publicist in the days when we looked things up, used pay phones and occasionally called media just to chat.
I didn’t need a Rolodex because I had it up here (visual: finger pointing to head). I could tell you the locale of a 212, 213, 312, 310 or 612 without a moment’s hesitation. (more…)
