Unjournalism

The geniuses over at JibJab take on one of my favorite topics: the sad state of (what we refer to as) news. Watch it here.

In the past, cable news networks like MSNBC have been quick to completely disregard the day’s events and whore the JibJab videos all over town — you know, because the president is in them, so it’s news, right? I wonder if they’ll be as quick to show this one a thousand times per day, consider the (and Fox News and CNN) are direct targets of this assault on stupidity.

Tags: JibJab, TV news, journalism by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

The TechCrunch report has it all. This is great.

Why don’t these people (those responsible for building Web sites, MySpace pages and the like) have this basic understanding of Web buildling? That lack directly led to this embarrassment.

Welcome to the new world, Senator McCain. How are your NCAA brackets going?

Tags: MySpace, Web design by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

My Google Reader river of news this morning showed to rather ill-fitting blog posts side by side. One was Steve Rubel writing about some poor blogger who’s been receiving death threats (haven’t read the story yet, but intend to). The other was from the wonderful Lifehacker, offering advice about writing better e-mail subject lines.

The headlines: “On Death Threats and the Blogosphere” and “Get your email read with a killer subject line.”

For those of you who aren’t smart: This occurred through no fault of either of these bloggers, neither the clever godfather Rubel nor Lifehacker’s life force Gina Trapani. This is just one of those coincidences that makes you go, “Hmm.” Or in my case, makes me go, “Blog post!”

UPDATE (5 minutes after posting): Turns out the Lifehacker post, in another sign of what might be a big coincidence (for you Seinfeld fans), is actually a reference to a post by Dan Santow. Dan works for Edelman, the PR firm that employs…yeppers — Steve Rubel. Crazy!

Tags: blogging by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a great piece today written by Pamela Hill Nettleton, who is described as a magazine writer and former editor of Minnesota Monthly magazine, not to mention a doctoral student in communications at the University of Minnesota.

The article expresses Pamela’s disgust for product placement and the overall sad state (commercialized) entertainment. It’s a brilliant, funny piece that mirrors many complaints I’ve made, in speech and in writing, at various times. Well done, Pamela. Well done.

Tags: Star Tribune, advertising, product placement by Mike Keliher
2 Comments »

Kudos to Catharine Taylor of Adweek for writing the most level-headed story I’ve seen to date on corporate blogging. It’s thorough, intelligent and fair. It’s not a pro-traditionalist, anti-new-communication hack job, nor is it a “throw caution to the wind,” Web-2.0-will-save-us-all dreamfest.

And thank you for that, Catharine.

Tags: Adweek, Catharine Taylor, blogging, new media by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

Brian Solis has another good post on the social media release panel discussion from the NewComm Forum that took place last week. Read it, you should, but here’s a highlight:

It’s a bigger discussion about sharing official news in way that reaches people (which should include bloggers and journalists too) with the information that matters to them, in the ways that they use to digest and in turn share with others through text, links, images, video, bookmarks, tags, etc., while also giving them the ability interact with you directly or indirectly. It also helps new people find the information in different ways. All this, without the BS.

We don’t need focus groups to ask journalists what they want. We already know that most reporters despise the press release - that should come as no shock to people, yet it always seems to.

Brian is one of the many who’s adding some great thoughts to this discussion. The problem with NewComm Forum’s social media release panel? It was only an hour long — should have been a week.

Tags: Brian Solis, NewComm Forum, newcommforum, social media, social media release by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

This session was awesome. In a packed-ass room at the Venetian, Chris Heuer of the Social Media Club moderated a panel that discussed the idea of the social media news release. Participants (official ones, not those who jumped in from the audience, for better or for worse) were Brian Solis, Laura Sturaitis from BusinessWire, George Vazquez from PR Newswire, Tom Foremski of “Die Press release! Die! Die! Die!” fame, and the man himself, Todd Defren, the creator/inventor (and human dart board, at times) of the social media release template.

People keep saying Tom Foremski said “the press release is dead.” I know that a lot of people have said that, but did Tom? Whenever anyone in this room mentions that, Tom shakes his head — leading me to greet Tom after the session as “the man with the honor of having more words put in his mouth than any other at the conference” (rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?). Read enough PR blogs and you’ll start to think Tom is trying to kill the whole PR business. But he’ll tell you that, really, he just wants to get the info he needs to write his story and get to sleep.

Mr. Heuer did a noble and respectable job of making sure this didn’t turn into a “lynch the wire services” hate-fest, but one guy tried to make it one (I won’t say who, but anyone who was there knows who it was). I have a lot of respect for the folks at the wire services. They’ve got a lot of work to do to keep up with the leading edge of a business that’s, in large part, making it up as it goes. Sure, their role is changing dramatically, but they’re not the devil, nor are they going to die any time soon. It’s too bad the two representatives of the newswire biz spent so much time backpeddling and defending themselves. I would’ve liked to have learned more about what they’re doing for social media news releases and what lies ahead rather than about how they justify their existence.

Now, that said, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Foremski, who very politely laid into the wires, challenging them to explain how the SEC’s reg FD requires public companies to use wire services (technically, it doesn’t, but the wires really hang their hats on the idea that it does). As soon as the SEC acknowledges another method to achieve this mystical instant and simultaneous notification, the wires are going to have some splainin’ to do.

Fortunately, the panel is under no illusion about one key idea: No format — tailored for social media or otherwise — will fix poor content. The social media release template might be a good way to distribute info, but if your info sucks, tough shite. As the wise Mr. Defren said, we still need “to do good PR.”

That’s a fundamental truth, but here’s what I see as the real bottom line for anyone interested in new news release formats: Don’t sweat the details of some fancy social media release template, smart as it might be. Want a “fancy, new” news release? Write clearly and strip out the bullshit, for starters. (Amen to Mr. Solis for saying that, literally. Isn’t it sad how just that — a lack of fluff and BS — can still make you stand out?) If you think bullet points will work, like the social media release template calls for, great. If not, just write succinctly and clearly. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s good.

And to paraphrase Mr. Foremski (at risk of perhaps putting more words in his mouth — sorry, Tom), recognize this basic idea: You’re distributing your news on the Web, so for god’s sake, put links in your release. I can’t believe how rare a thing this is.

Do you have something worth showing off – I mean literally, visually? Great. Include photos or videos. These are things the social media release template guides us toward, but don’t get caught up in fitting a template. That’s how we got ourselves in this situation in the first place.

Do you want people to learn more about the topic you’re writing about? Include links to other content that’s related to the topic. Who cares if it came from your company? Let go, for god’s sake. Be a resource, not a megaphone. Resources are useful and valued. Megaphones are just fucking loud.

Tags: Chris Heuer, NewComm Forum, newcommforum, social media release, socialmediaclub, socialmediarelease by Mike Keliher
6 Comments »

Katie Paine gave a good but seemingly basic session on social media measurement. Basic isn’t bad, and I certainly did take away some good ideas. A quick little catchphrase on measurement: The three things to measure are outputs, outtakes and outcomes.

-Outputs: Your communication efforts. Your pitches made, your posts written, your comments left, your videos shared, etc.
-Outtakes: Were your communications “taken”? Messages received, brand seen or experienced?
-Outcomes: Did behavior change? Did the message recipient take an action based on your outputs and his or her outtakes?

She emphasized two key ideas: Don’t collect data if you’re not going to use it; it’s a waste of time and money. Similarly, “data without insight is just trivia.” How true. Also, “you become what you measure.” Regardless of what the true measure of your marketing success is, if you’re measuring clips, you’re going to work myopically toward drumming up clips. If you’re measuring new sales, you’re going to find a way to make new sales and directly prove it was your doing. That last part is my extrapolation of Katie’s idea, but I’m it’s what she was getting at.

Katie’s most significant point is one I whole-heartedly agree with: People think that if they’re forced to measure and report results, they’ll appear to have little value and they’ll get fired. Katie believes quite strongly that the opposite is true. It might be rocky at first, but the only way to show value (or get a sweet job and a $2 million house) is to measure and work toward intelligently established goals. Amen, but in the real world, it’s not always as easy as it sounds.

My boss and personal favorite new-media mogul (“…the same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world!”) Albert Maruggi spoke about using new media and the Web in general as “the key to buyers’ hearts,” particularly through the interaction and engagement the Web enables. In the next couple of days, that presentation and all the video interviews in it (with execs and marketers from Sigler Music, Bawls Energy Drinks, Best Buy) will be available at www.providentpartners.net/forum.

As the guy who does the majority of the media relations and other PR work for our clients, I love the idea of, as Albert put it, thinking of your company as a media outlet. Every company has some sort of expertise, information or “edutainment” to share, and things like blogs and podcasts make that sharing easy and powerful.

Plus, this is a fun time to be in PR. Printed publications, even seemingly old-school farming magazines, are putting sound bites on their Web sites. Blogs and podcasts, with their RSS feeds and quick syndication, work like homegrown newswires that boost search engine rankings like nothing you’ve ever seen. News releases are less for “the press” (notice I called it a news release, not a press release – always have) and more for anyone who wants information about what you’re talking about, often the consumers and shoppers themselves.

The last session of the first day was a panel discussion/debate/occasional bark-fest on social media news releases. That gets its own post, as there was a lot of material there.

Tags: NewComm Forum, newcommforum, social media by Mike Keliher
No Comments »

Dave Weinberger’s opening keynote was great. It was a great way to kick off the conference – full of energy, humor and good ideas. Dave did a good job of setting the tone for the conference, and his passion for the subject matter at the forum was encouraging.

Aside from the touchy-feely “we’re changing the world” talk, a couple of things Dave said really resonated. He said that marketers often believe they have markets for which they create messages, when in reality, the opposite is true: Messages create markets.

Don’t get hung up on the strict this-then-that of this seemingly sequential statement. The true point here is that “markets” don’t exist; they’re a construction of a business or communication plan. Maybe you don’t buy that, but it’s an interesting thought. To me, it means that marketers and communicators need to think about the messages – the meaning, the sincerity, the desired response – before they think too hard about anything else.

John Bell from Ogilvy gave a good presentation on creating a complete social media strategy. First of all, it’s nice to see a big dog from a big company who speaks English (as opposed to speaking Bullshit or Over-everyone’s-head-ese). Second, it was indeed insightful to hear John talk about a complete social media strategy, rather than, as he called it, a GMOT strategy: Get Me One of Those…blogs, podcasts, (or god forbid) viral videos.

John was talking about some very recognizable blogs and other Web properties, and he mentioned TechCrunch and its mighty leader, Michael Harrington. Yes, Harrington (for the unaware, it’s actually Arrington). This stands out in my mind, but it certainly didn’t “ruin it” for me. John’s presentation kept my attention and taught me a few things. Still, is this an honest mistake, a sign of an unlearned intern toiling away on PowerPoint slides, or an indication of not being as in-touch as believed? The world, as the Tootsie Pop company will tell you, may never know.

Jim Nail from Cymfony (just acquired by TNS Media) gave a great presentation on making a case for social media strategy. The best part was the piles of stats and factoids strewn about his talk.

Jim said 69 percent of consumers are “interested in” products to help them avoid ads. First question: How will these people initially find out about this magical product? Word of mouth? Sure, but how about the people who spread the word? Where’d they hear about it? As informal as it might be, there’s got to be advertising or marketing somewhere, doesn’t there? Bottom line: It’s not all bad.

Perhaps a more interesting thought about “ad hatred” is this: Consumers will do anything to avoid traditional ads (TV commercials, for example). Why is it that this leads advertisers to infiltrate (ruin, even?) “regular” programming with product placement and other “new” ad tricks rather than just making better ads? Isn’t this like taking the path of most resistance? I’ve certainly seen many TV commercials that don’t make me think about throwing my shoe at the TV. Why do they think to go the other way first?

More from Jim Nail:

Blogs with “high or very high authority” (according to Technorati – a good but not flawless measure) outnumber by a damn long way any other single media.

— “authoritative blogs”: 30,488
– radio stations: 13,000
– TV stations: 9,000
– magazines: 17,000 (by what measure, I wonder? I’d expect a bit more)

BoingBoing has more inbound links (plus one, now!) than NPR or BusinessWeek.

Jim says if 20 percent of blog comments about a company are positive, that’s “pretty good.” That seems a low standard, but it’s an interesting benchmark.

One point of disagreement: Jim talked about “blog victims” like Kryptonite and three other examples I can’t remember. But one common trait ran among these supposed “victims”: They weren’t victims. They all deserved it. “Victim” implies some sort of innocence, that they were being picked on and beat up on by the blogosphere without warrant. In the Kryptonite example, for one, people really could pick those bike locks with a Bic pen. Don’t they deserve to be outed? Doesn’t the public deserve to know that? How does that make them a victim?

Like I said, this all happened before lunch! More to come later. This is a great conference. Lots of fun and lots to write about. (Plus, I won $100 playing Spanish 21.)

Tags: NewComm Forum, newcommforum by Mike Keliher
2 Comments »

I finally have Internet access at the NewComm Forum. I’ve spent most of the day watching everyone around me check e-mail, write blog posts and just generally enjoy the wonder that is wi-fi, while mine just wouldn’t work. Some sort of goofiness with the hotel’s authentication, coupled with my utter laziness in trying to fix it. That, and the sessions were good enough to keep me tuned in. Because I’m a geek.

I couldn’t spend the day blogging about the conference during the conference, as I had intended, so I’m going to try to put some extra thought into the later-than-expected posts I throw up later. In the meantime, though, I must say (again, keep my indisputable geekdom in mind here) I’m quite pumped to have met Shel Holtz today.

We and others around us had a good chat over lunch about everything from the fate of newspapers (not as dire as many think) to the future of widgets and RSS (you’d better come to the next NewComm Forum). Bummed, though, that his colleague Neville Hobson couldn’t be here. These guys co-host the For Immediate Release podcast, which I enjoy greatly. They’re bright and insightful and apparently dedicated to improving the community of communicators — a rather respectable set of traits.

I met some other very cool, very bright people today, too. Tom Foremski and I had a great walkin’-the-halls chat about the way newswires are changing (are the doomed…?!). And while I didn’t actually meet Todd Defren, I nodded eagerly a lot when he said things during the session on social media news releases. Todd’s a bright guy with some great ideas.

More to come later on all of this stuff. No time now. Battery’s dying.

Tags: Shel Holtz, future, newcommforum, social media release by Mike Keliher
No Comments »