News vs Entertainment : a PR crisis?

News vs Entertainment : a PR crisis?
Desperate days for traditional media are dangerous days for corporate and organizational reputations.

Gerald Baron, Founder and CEO, PIER System/AudienceCentral; Author, "Now Is Too Late: Survival in an Era of Instant News" made some pithy comments about the 'news as entertainment' trend and its effect on PR in today's Daily Dog.

What's wrong with this trend?

• Too little money is available for good reporting.
• Wall Street expectations destroying news organizations.
• Audiences switching rapidly to new media for which there is insufficient revenue to support real journalism.
• The line between amateurs and professional journalists is blurred and it is likely the public largely doesn't care.
• News is entertainment and needs to compete on the basis of what the audience wants—not what is good journalism or what should be covered.

"Public relations professionals need to understand that these desperate days for traditional media are dangerous days for corporate and organizational reputations," says Bacon. "They need to be able to respond fast, to be aggressive in attacking misinformation and bad reporting and most importantly, they need to grab onto the incredible opportunities they have to talk directly to the people whose opinion about the organization matters most to their future. Talk quick, talk with complete honestly and talk directly."

How does a web content strategy figure in all this?

"Today's Internet tools including virtual communication centers, blogs, and communicator-controlled websites all make that possible. The desperate media environment makes it essential," advises Bacon.  And he is 100% correct..

How do you do it?

If you do not yet have a section of your website that can be controlled by the communication department this should be a priority.  The tools available today make this a no-brainer.

RSS enable this section of the site, so that your content can be syndicated across the Net.  Feeds also allow you to reach subcribers fast...

Use RSS feeds and other tools to monitor the blogs and conversations so you have your finger on the pulse and can pick up and respond to any comments or issues right away.

Reaching Employees and Customers with Blogging and Podcasting

Got an email today about an interesting sounding event:

How To Use Blogging & Podcasting To Engage Your Employees, Reach Your Customers & Build Your Brand
October 18-20, 2006 – San Francisco, CA

Hear practical lessons learned and case studies from IBM, Southwest Airlines, U.S. Army, Cisco Systems, Mayo Clinic and others.

Link to the detailed agenda:� http://www.aliconferences.com/conferences/blogging_podcasting/1006.html

White Papers: 5 Reasons to Write Them by Michael A. Stelzner
While I am on vacation this week, we are fortunate to have some excellent guest authors. The first guest, Michael Stelzner, is author of the bestselling book Writing White Papers and has written more than 100 white papers for recognized...

Citizen Journalism Takes a Leap Forward
Collaborative Experiment Based on Wiki Method Aims to Enable Consumers to Contribute Directly to News Stories

A new experiment in citizen journalism plans to some crowdsourcing and include readers and their sources in the network that journalists can tap into for stories.

Assignment Zero, a collaboration between Wired magazine and NewAssignment.Net, the experimental journalism site established by Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, intends to use not only the wisdom of the crowd, but their combined reporting efforts—an approach that has come to be called "crowdsourcing," reports The NY Times

Citizens with a variety of expertise—the "people formerly known as the audience," as Professor Rosen describes them—will produce work to be iterated and edited by experienced journalists.

This is an experiment to watch. It could turn out to be a place where your experts can contribute content.  Some of the content might even make it into Wired, says Chris Anderson, the editor. .    

Disney's Content Strategy to Reach Moms Online
Entertainment Behemoth takes the needs of their online audience to heart.

Moms are increasingly turning to the Internet for answers to everything from problems with teething babies to financing college. Based on research into their online audience Disney is launching a new website aimed at providing these answers the AP reports. 

Web-savvy and 32-million strong, U.S. mothers spend almost as much time online as women as a group, according to eMarketer's new report, "Moms Online: Parenting With Web 2.0."

And they're not just on children and parenting sites. The biggest opportunity for marketers targeting moms online is social networking sites, says the report.

Disney has plunged right in to this space with their new website Family.com

Family intends to be a one-stop site for parents, especially mothers, providing everything from Internet search to user-generated articles on key topics such as education and food, and, eventually, a 'ParentPedia,' a compilation of information on 1,000 topics that can be expanded by users.

Parents have become a larger part of Disney's online audience, accounting for nearly half of the 25 million unique visits per month to the Disney.com site, the company said. Most of those are moms. 

Disney surveyed 30,000 mothers over the past year to find out what they are looking for online. The openness of the new site along with trusted content vouched for by Disney is what moms say they want..

The site will be in beta till the summer.

Writing for the Web: No More Gatekeepers
Anne Marie Nichols is author of a freelance writing blog about The Write Stuff and contributes this post about the demise of gatekeepers, the web, and some famous self-publishers that will surprise you. Goodbye to the Gatekeepers?by Anne Marie Nichols,...

Social Media: Why You Should Pay Attention to This
Here's our weekly heads up for the Blogging and Beyond Internet radio show over at VoiceAmerica. If the term Social Media and Web 2.0 has you scratching your head, then don't miss this show. Click here to listen to the...

My “Blogging Software is Revolutionary” Rant

On Saturday I gave a presentation at Northern Voice (a Vancouver-based blogging conference) about blogging software and how it can and should be used for building Web sites are more than just a blog, or perhaps look nothing like a blog.

The session was podcasted here, and I’ve pasted in my talk outline below. The site we built during the session is here: http://bloggingworkshop.com/. Enjoy!

Not Just for Blogs

I think blogging is revolutionary. I think this because it is capable of building community and relationships, of informing, of entertaining… but when it comes right down to it, the thing that I think is so mind-blowing about blogging is the software. That, and the price of that software.

I started making Web sites in 1994. At that point, and for a long, long time, the vast majority of Web sites were built by making HTML files, potentially hundreds and hundreds of HTML files.� My first job was with the L.A. Times Web site, and when we wanted to change the design in any way - from the wording of something in the navigation to the color of the links - you did it on a file by file basis. Every single page had to be opened, changed, saved, and then put onto the Web server again. Needless to say we didn’t do a lot of little changes.

As the Web evolved, so did the software solutions. If you were a big Web site company with a lot of money, you hired people to build you something better: a database-driven Web site. With a databased site you could build pages as they were needed. At the L.A. Times that meant that when someone clicked on a link for a news story, the database found that story, pulled it out, and plunked it into a template. The ground-breaking thing for the worker bees was that there weren’t individual files sitting around anymore: if you wanted to make a change to the site design you made it to the template and the next time someone looked at a story, boom, they got the new template. It made things easier for the developers and that in turn made things easier for the site’s visitors, because the developers could then spend time on other stuff, like content. It made other good stuff possible, too, like search, like archives, like content sorting by category.

That was what you did if you were a big company. If you were a little buy, or an individual, and you didn’t have the big bucks to spend, you still had masses of HTML files sitting around, and things like search were really out of your reach.

Then along comes blogging software.

What is blogging software? Well, at heart, it’s a database. You put the content in, it goes into a database. When it gets displayed, that content is dropped into a template. Sound familiar? This is why so many blog sites look the same from page to page - the home page looks just like a permalink page, except for the content of the actual blog posts. The templates are the same.

And most blogging software came with bells and whistles: search, archives, RSS feeds… it was all built in. You didn’t need any special expertise to set it up, and with a lot of blogging software you could get started in minutes. Best of all was the price. What the big companies spent hundreds of thousands on, you could get for free with Blogger. Even the blog software that did cost money was relatively inexpensive. For $200 or so, you had everything you needed.

As long as what you needed was a blog, you were set.

Well, my big message today is that if you invest some time and learning, you can make a blog software work for more than a blog. You can build any Web site using blog software, and if you do it right, no one will be the wiser.

Let’s look at some examples of what I mean. (A little caveat, I’m going to show you mostly business Web sites because those are the kinds of Web sites I’m hired to create, but the principles are the same whether you have a “brand” or not.)

Thomas Paul Fine Art
http://www.tpaulfineart.com
Rejuvenile by Christopher Noxon
http://www.rejuvenile.com
Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com
Mani’s Bakery
http://www.manisbakery.com

Blog software can really revolutionize the maintenance issues for a web site, and make it easier to redesign (a reality we can’t ignore) as well, but that doesn’t mean every web site needs to run off of blog software. Small web sites with mostly unique page layout won’t be able to make easy use of blog software.

But any site that needs to be easy to update (perhaps by multiple people), has some standardization of presentation, and can work with a template approach.

Is it easy? Well, yes and no. Get the right blog software, and have the right know-how and it’s not a big deal. But if you aren’t willing to learn some code and invest some time… it’s hard. There are people you can hire to set up a site for you, that’s for sure.

Now, the components of blog software: usually you have:

• publishing interface
• admin and setup stuff
• templates

I’m showing you pMachine’s Expression Engine, but many different kinds of blog software can be adapted for this kind of site. It’s important to choose blog software that gives you access to the templates! Wordpress.com isn’t going to do, and only the Typepad Pro level will work for you. If you can find software that can handle multiple blogs, so much the better. The reason I really love EE is that each “blog” can be customized, and because of all the extra components—mailing list, poll, photo gallery, forum module.

For this demo, I’ve chosen one of the templates that EE provides and I’m going to customize it. First, let’s deal with the Admin side and set up our publishing interface:

• Edit the blog preferences
• Set up custom fields
• Put in a sample post
• Set up categories

Next, let’s get rid of stuff in the template we don’t want.

And finally, let’s substitute a few things in the blog software code.

Voila!

Web 2.0 Empty Marketing Term?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that, when it comes right down to it, “Web 2.0” ain’t all that. Succinctly put, the very ways in which Web 2.0 is typically defined—user collaboration and contribution, photo sharing, etc.—aren’t really anything new to the Web, which has always partly been about user-generated content. (Read more about the report.)

From MediaPost: “It doesn’t really matter that this bright line has been so elusive, or that some savvy marketers simply use the label to distance themselves from the failures of Web 1.0 companies,” states the report.

What does Web 2.0 mean to you?

White Papers: Here's Why They Are Powerful Persuasders
The Persuasive Power of White Papersby Michael Stelzner, Writing White Papers blog, guest author Information overload. Filters. Time constraints. Limited patience. Marketing excess makes the task of influencing a chore! Getting an audience with someone important and presenting vital points...

Video Success Online Depends on Content Strategy
Looking for viral online buzz? It's all about the content

Andrew Foote of Peppercom has some sage advoce for firms looking to success with viral video and social media as part of their internet marketing strategy.:

Content is king in this game. More often than not, the quality of viral content takes a backseat to the marketing mandate.

Foote gives examples of how to get it right and how to get it very wrong. Dove's Evolution video was a winner, but their recent Super Bowl Commercial effort sank like a stone under a deluge of negative comments.

The bottom line is that the message has to be exceptional, says Foote. I'd also add the importance of originality, authenticity and relevance. Don't force a viral marketing idea because it sounds cool—make sure it jives with the demographic you're trying to reach

For some reason when we are faced with a new medium we tend to throw all the PR basics out with the bathwater.  Social media is very much like live communication - it's not a one-way, top down 'push' medium. You have to understand your sudience and deliver content that works for them. 

Yes, it was much less threatening to deiver content in the 'old' ways - no-one was talking back.  Social media tools make it possible for your audience to give you instant feedback - they'll let you (and the rest of the world) know, in no uncertain terms, if you get it wrong.

Here are Foote's tips for successul viral video online:

Don't force viral marketing concepts if they don't fit the brand essence.

Do your homework on what flies and what dies. Live the video sharing space.

Content is everything. Bring on producers who can push the buttons of buzz.

Take risks. Beware of corporate filters that will dilute the quality of the content.

Test it. If eight out of 10 people aren't cracking up, memorized or amazed, head back to the drawing board.

Cast a wide net. YouTube is center stage, but don't forget the other sites: Revver, iFilm, Myspace, etc.

It's stll about content strategy and delivering the right message to the right audience, via the right channels.

Talking to Other Dummies Authors

I’m in San Francisco for the first ever Dummies Authors Conference. There are about 50 Dummies authors here, and the day is packed with discussions about marketing books, the uses of agents, and general Dummies best practices. It’s going to be an interesting day! You can check out the agenda here.

There’s been a bunch of press already, but the most exciting news of the day is that the conference is up for being featured on the Evening News with Katie Couric. In fact, you can actually vote to send Steve Hartman to the conference tomorrow by going to http://www.cbsnews.com and clicking on Assignment America. We’re up against some guy who can talk really fast and a California prison program to send female juvenile delinquents to finish school ("Can etiquette, fashion and dance really set a girl straight?"). Wouldn’t you rather get the inside scoop on the For Dummies books? Of course you would. Go vote.

And, if I haven’t convinced you already, check out the other press coverage today:

• SFGate.com: 50 authors get smart about ‘Dummies’
• San Jose Mercury News: Brainy ‘Dummies’ writers hold ‘unconference’ in S.F.

Here’s a nice quote from the SFGate.com article:

The “dummies” label could be the weirdest aspect of the whole franchise, as the authors are not really supposed to assume their readers are dumb, just uninformed. The publisher, in an official statement on the matter, calls it a “term of endearment.”

Telcos Fail to Capitalize on Mobile Web 2.0
Telecoms companies are failing to make the most of the growing popularity of the online information-sharing services of "Web 2.0", according to new research 'Web re-loaded: Driving convergence in the real world.' by global consultancy Arthur D. Little.

This new report places users and user generated content in the spotlight yet again.  Yet it seems US Telcos have not yet got the Web 2.0 message.

"In order to harness and monetize Web 2.0 the Telcos will have to rapidly address the needs of this community" says Martyn Roetter, Director of Arthur D. Little's US TIME. "Younger Europeans are already showing their readiness to interact on the move, with 38% of them accessing email from mobile devices, while Google launched Gmail for mobile in November last year. Telecommunications businesses now need to offer access to the established web 2.0 services, for both communication and for the fulfillment of their wider social needs while on the move."

The dilemma Telcos face is whether they should build their own Web 2.0 platforms or engage with established sites such as flickr etc, says the report.

One good example of collaboraiton is the Pontiac Underground site that partnered with Yahoo! and now offers access to all the Yahoo social media sites in one branded place.

Whatever they do, they should do it soon. the race goes to the swift and The Cluetrain is not waiting for the laggers.

.

Some Fundamental Friday Video

This is one of the strangest things I've run across on the Web in a while.

Seducing Prospects with White Papers
Luring Prospects With White Papersby Michael Stelzner, Writing White Papers blog, guest author Looking to drum up new business? Need to generate some leads? Finding new business is hard work! If you want to persuade, white papers are the hot...

Will you take The Blog Squad's Survey?
Can you spare a few minutes of your time for The Blog Squad? We'd like to know more about you, and what your challenges are so we can better serve you and provide more relevant information and tools for your...

White Paper Details & Insider Secrets
In the next few days, I'm featuring guest author Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers blog to teach us about writing these important business marketing tools. I recently asked Mike questions in an email: Hi, Mike. Some questions arose for...

Twitter, twitter

Looking for a fun widget to add to your site? I like the new site called “Twitter.”

On Twitter, you quickly share just a little one liner about what you’re currently up to.� Then it notifies your close friends about what you’re up to.� It’s a nice way to feel connected to someone without feeling like you’re intruding.

Susie has added a Twitter badge to this blog, but your twitter status also gets sent via AIM or GTalk, or can be see on twitter itself.

It’s quick to sign up and fun.� Let me know if you join!

Mobile Edge Comes Through

I got an extra Christmas present in December from the makers of my laptop bag: Mobile Edge. Lewis Lustman, director of marketing for Mobile Edge, left a comment on an earlier post of mine and then followed up with an email to me.

I picked the Mobile Edge Chocolate Suede Tote because I wanted a laptop bag that looked like it belonged to a woman, and that didn’t involve black canvas or vinyl. It was a tough search, especially since my laptop—at 17”—was too large for many of the more fashionable bags. When I found a Mobile Edge bag at Fry’s, though, I discovered that I could fit my laptop into the bag, as long as I didn’t put it into the actual slot created for it. Since the bag was quite padded anyway, I’ve been merrily using it and putting file folders in the laptop slot since.

Recently, though, Lewis told me, Mobile Edge had started making an insert just for laptops like mine (huge) and he wanted to send me one. Naturally, I accepted.

Now, one of the things I really liked about the Mobile Edge tote I chose was that the interior piece that holds the laptop is just an insert; it can actually be removed completely from the bag (and get this, when you remove it, you don’t loose any interior pockets or features!). This means you could buy a couple of inserts and say, use the same bag for more than one laptop.

When my new insert arrived, I pulled out the old 15” insert, popped in the 17” and the laptop fits perfectly. I have had a chance to use the bag since putting in the new insert, and things do fit a bit better when you can put the laptop into the right place, so it actually feels like I have more space, not less.

I’m still a huge fan of this bag, which is well-made and durable, and I can now recommend it unreservedly for carriers of 17” laptops as well.

My one remaining complaint is that bag + laptop + peripherals + book + ... well, it’s all a little heavy. That’s more of a physics problem, though. I’ll let you know if Mobile Edge cracks the code on breaking that whole two bodies of mass attracting each other thing.

Thanks, Lewis!

Study Shows Blogs Increase Media Attention for Companies

A Cymfony/Porter Novelli study reports that “the majority of companies surveyed (76%) indicated that they have noticed an increase in media attention and/or website traffic as a result of their blog(s).”

Read more and download the report here.

So long, farewell, and thanks!

Blogging is still hot, and I’m still hot on blogging, but I’m pretty much tapped out when it comes to blogging about blogging. From this point on, I may update this blog periodically, but—officially—I’m retiring it.

Don’t get me wrong! My book, Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, is still a great resource for blogging! I put a lot of time, energy and experience into that book, and I’m so pleased by how well it has remained current and useful. (I shouldn’t have done such a good job, since Wiley might have asked me to write a new edition if it hadn’t held up so well!) It’s not retiring! This is merely a reflection of my desire to make more blogs, and talk about them a little less.

Thanks for being such great readers. For now, hasta la vista, baby!