Social Media

Wanted: A new formula for PR!

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment
FT Online, Angelo Fernando writes a Bi-weekly column

FT Online | Bi-weekly column

I don’t think there’s a single waterer-proof formula for PR.

No matter how much we love the Social media Press Release, (basically an enhanced press release, with some great links and embedded media to create a richer story), it seems like too much work for companies to build these.

Then there is the quest for that secret sauce of Public Relations that might involve a more integrated strategy. Translated: the PR agency works with the ad agency which works with the promotions company. Good luck with that!

So in a bid to stir up things I came up with my own formula for PR. Here it is in a nutshell. C + C + E = Tn.

Got it?

You need a decoder ring for this one, so here it is. Context plus Content plus Engagement equals Trust to the nth degree.

Continue reading…

This was the subject of a newspaper column, in a series I have been writing on, published in FT Online. Until the web site has been updated, this is a link to a PDF.

Anti-commercial on library throws ‘Spice’ on dry subject

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Who would want to make a commercial to promote a library? Videos of city centers and golf courses have built-in stories that are easy to tap into. But a library? They end up being like this! Or, for heaven’s sake, this –with slogans and beauty shots devoid of a story line!

So this commercial, which borrows heavily from the effects we have come to expect in Old Spice genre, is a lot of fun. OK, maybe they could have not been so liberal about stealing the copy approach ( “look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man…”) but I guess that’s what genius is, sometimes,”standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Shameless rip-off, or brilliant homage to a meme before it burns out?

Not everything this group does is that way, though. Take a look at this video on Roman citizenship, that is another way of spicing up a dry subject, even with with the standard Professor talking head.

Clay Shirky on distraction: turn the damn wi-fi off!

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Whenever  I digest Clay Shirky’s books, such as Here comes everybody, I always wonder where someone like him finds time to draw out such astute observations about so many social and technological events swirling around us.

His latest, Cognitive Surplus,  is a must read for anyone wondering (or responding to the cynical question)’where do people like you fund time to blog and hang out on social media sites?”

So when I heard him last week on a webinar, remark that he often goes to a place with his Netbook and turns the wi-fi off, it all made sense. We celebrate the fact that many gadgets around us are wi-fi enabled –now including cameras and MP3 players. But just because we have the default option of being always on, always connected to the grid, we could be denying ourselves the time to sit back and come to our own conclusions.

“The volume of the media coming at us is so large,” he observed;” we need to filter it and ‘do new imaginative things’ out of them.

Whereas once literacy was once a goal for our children,  we now need to teach children how not to be distracted, he said. “Being deluged,” is the norm. “For all the fetishizaion of ‘inbox zero’ for example, there is no way to keep people from  wasting your time. The discipline comes to basically turning off the channels.

I tried it today at the coffee shop. I got so much more done. I was reminded of the book I intended top pick up, Distracted.  It deals with “networks of attention.”

That’s a new phrase to me!

“Attention is not always within our control. The unexpected, the changeable, the novel, even the habitual abduct our focus, intrude upon our awareness, and pull us off course for a time.”

The funny thing is, I would not have been able to find that book is not for my wi-fi connection. I know what Clay would say: “Get thee to a library!”

Are you a Hootsuite or Tweetdeck person?

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There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who divide the world into two sets of people, and those who see us as one big blob of humanity…

OK, more seriously, while presenting Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, at the webinar on Thursday night (it was Friday in Sri Lanka)  it struck me that these two interfaces, while similar in terms of dashboards, appeal to two types. After all, Hootsuite is a web-based application – no downloads necessary. There are some who are not very comfortable with apps that don’t reside on their computer.  Tweetdeck on the other hand, is a slick application that resides on your desktop (now also for the iPad and iPhone. Both are great search engines in their own right.

In my experience Tweetdeck gives you a lot more search results.

Tweetdeck Advantage: Try this: Look for “Floods in Pakistan” on Tweetdeck. The Search within Tweetdeck gives you a real-time feed of tweets. BUT you could get a broader, deeper set of results by going to Tweetdeck.com, and searching there. The same phrase gives you this. It is a lists of Lists, that also give you a snapshot of the number of followers of that list and the number of tweets a day by people on that list.

Hootsuite gives you a lot more filtration.

Hootsuite Advantage: To conduct the same search on Hootsuite you could either do a quick search using he magnifying glass icon and it brings up a floating column with results, or you could create a permanent feed. But what I like about Hootsuite is that you can then sort through those results using the pull down tab and selecting ‘filter.’ This is very useful when searching for a keyword, organization name or hashtag within the results.

So what’s your dashboard preference? Does it say something about your work style? How does it simplify your search?

Replace dirty filters! Stop content clogging up your pipes!

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

On last Friday’s webinar I asked Dave Barnhart to co-present with me on the final in this 6-part series on Passport To Digital Citizenship. Dave is a social media coach who runs a successful business practice around blogging strategy, micro-blogging and web content. Steve England was also on hand with his mobile marketing insight on how all this plays out as we take our tools and our content into a wireless world.

In this session I focused on filters and deep drilling!

We had previously taught attendees how  to create content, leverage the channels, connect and interact with audiences. So in this final seminar, I asked them to consider what it might be to be on the other side of the equation -as recipients. Too Much Information (TMI) is clogging up the arteries, and customers, readers, listeners and viewers may be filtering us out. What do social media filters look like? How do they provide us with deeper insight?

We’re talked about  Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Bloglines and much more! It was a great rounding off of what we do a both communicators and recipients!

Juggling radio and webinars –a lesson in distraction

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I had as a guest in the studio Bart Butler, an IABC member ho wanted to do a  story of my radio show. So it was really flattering to see what came of it –an article in EDIT EXPRESS, the online newsletter for members bt members.

Bart came at  good time. Bad really because this was a week during which I was sandwiching in one of my webinars and the show, among other things. So the point he picked up,(that  radio is non distracting medium) has been on my mind a lot. Here’s why: As we put on our hats as content creators, it could be very annoying to deal with the glue and tape (and that conduits and access points) of media distribution. I find this point being driven home by a book i am not reading, Cognitive Surplus, by Clay Shirky, who talks of the fragmentation of the concept of ‘media’ today. It used to be a word that bundled process, product and  output. But I digress.

Here is his article: Social Media Guru Goes Retro…with Radio

I like to add one thing, Bart: The only reason we seem ‘relaxed’ on radio is that conversations are relaxing. Whether they happen on-air, online or offline. The moment you remove the talk-back button, that’s when sweat breaks out for me!

OK, two things. Please don’t use the word guru!

Podcast: Is mobile marketing on the right dirt track?

/ Angelo Fernando / 4 Comments

I don’t know the answer to this. I don’t even know what ‘‘The future of the internet’ is, even though I was featured on a podcast by Antonio Edward about this week.

But I think he was trying to tease out what we practitioners of social media and Marcom think of the mobile device as it becomes the primary means of connecting, communicating and collaborating online.

http://mobicast.mobi/2010/08/14/the-future-of-the-internet/

This I do know.

  • There is far too much that tech companies and advocates of their tools take for granted. Many people are still in at the ground level when it comes to tagging, quick response codes, social media collaboration, and ‘location-aware social networking.’ What’s that? Exactly my point!
  • The iPhone and iPad are sucking up all the oxygen of publicity and discussion, so people on other operating systems haven’t begun to discover value in the ‘laptop replacement device’ in their pockets.

Webinar on LinkedIn tomorrow

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If you are new to the webinar series –and I know some of you will be based on the requests from companies — here is a preview of what we will be talking about in the webinar on LinkedIn tomorrow. I say tomorrow, because it will be the night of August 16th for me in the US, even though it will be the morning of the 17th in Sri Lanka!

LinkedIn is a ‘gated community’ and is much smaller than, say, Facebook. But it is also a super professional network that lets you build networks within the network. You develop solid connections and have richer conversations within this ‘closed’ (which is also a ‘private’) environment.

Here is my short take on LinkedIn: I think of LinkedIn as a knowledge–sharing portal, rather than a friend hang-out. It lets you ‘communicate to the niches’ rather than waste your resources on mass communication tactics.

Here is my co-presenter, Derrick Mains on the subject.

Some of you may recall that I featured Derrick in a guest spot during a previous webinar. Steve England will also join us as usual, with his amazing ideas on how mobile devices are powering social networks.

Here’s the format of the webinar:

  • 1st 10 minutes: introduction and review of what we have done so far in our series on “Passport To Digital Citizenship.”
  • 20 minutes: The key features of LinkedIn and how LinkedIn differs from Facebook. We will show you some strategies and a case study of how to do ‘business’ with individuals across organizations.
  • Break

After the break:

  • Hands-on session
  • Questions Time

Shrink the link, a craft worth learning

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If you’ve ever played around with Tiny URL and Bit.ly you will know that there are a few ways to shrink your links.

The easy way is to simply use the automated feature and let Bit.ly or TinyURL do it for you. The better way is to use the custom feature –still free!– and tighten things up so your readers recognize it is related to your content.

I tend to use this custom feature more these days, especially when I have repeated use of a specific URL. When should you consider using a custom URL?

  • For streaming audio of a fixed radio or TV show
  • The registration page of a micro-site created for an event
  • As a link to a photo album being updated regularly with news or event coverage
  • A contest that typically targets social media users through different channels. Perfect for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
  • When you want to email a link to a group, or embed it in a link to a  survey

But there is another way to go about this  for branding purposes. Take a look (on the right) at what Twitter uses. The URL is condensed to http://t.co. What’s that .co domain? It is the country domain assigned to Columbia! Speaking of new domains, there are others worth considering.

  • The .ly domain is the country  domain for Libya. It is used by Bit.ly/
  • If you are in the medical profession, you could register a domain ending in .md -the country domain for the Republic of Moldova, an Eastern European country.  However, to register a country domain you need to prove that you have a legal or business reason to do so.
  • The best known one is .tv –the country domain for Tuvalu. There’s a whole lot of information on how to use the.TV domain here.

So the next time you are planning an online campaign, consider how you could do this using your URL. It’s often an afterthought right? It shouldn’t be.

I haven’t even touched on the tracking features available with Bit.ly or Ow.ly/ That’s the topic of another post!