Summer Fun

June 30, 2005 | Humour

You Are Coffee Ice Cream

Energetic and lively, you are always on the go. You’re doing a million things at once and doing them well. You tend to motivate others and raise spirits. You are most compatible with chocolate ice cream.

MIT Weblog Survey

June 29, 2005 | Blogging

If you have a blog, you should take the MIT Weblog survey.

The press release is dead. NOT.

Blogging, PR

The PR segment of the blogosphere has been having a field day with Steve Rubel’s assertion that blogs and RSS will eventually supplant the press release. Echoing Mark Twain, some posters have referred to his comments as the premature declaration of the "death of the press release." 

Now, in my short time as blogger, I have come to appreciate Steve’s style. For the most part, he provides links and information. From time to time, however, he takes a strong position on an issue. ‘Cause nothing works to build interest like a strong position. PR 101, my friends.

Before I get to my opinion, some selections from the bloggersation.

Shel Holtz on Messages and Channels — on the importance of professional communications in getting the story told

John Cass, with a suggestion that we should look for examples where blogs have been more effective than PR. Hard to measure this, John, unless you set the research task prior to the program, not afterward.

Tom Murphy (PR Opinions) –  with a rant and a round up of opinions, including his own. BL Ochman makes a similar point to Tom’s: blogs are tools, and won’t replace the press release. But, thank god, blogs are reducing the frequency of lame press releases

There was WAAAAY more than this, but Tom Murphy has links to much of the commentary in his posts, and if you REALLY want more, I am sure Technorati and Google can help you out.

What do I think?

The press release form has a tremendous value for both marketers and journalists. It is part of our "rules of engagement." A press release tells the reporter who what where when why and, okay, how. Some releases are better than others, but for the most part, press releases get this basic job done. Reporters rely on this. Parseing a blog would be way more painful.

And, Chicken Little and EPIC 2015 notwithstanding, the mainstream media is NOT going away tomorrow. So: companies need to engage with journalists in the time-honored ways. Should the press release feed be in RSS? You bet. Will RSS, a distribution mechanism, replace the press release, a form for communication? No way. Apples and Oranges.

But what about blogs? Those are forms of communication? Can’t they get the job done? Who needs a press release?

Can a corporate blog do the job of the press release? Maybe, but the form of its post is  going to be so damn close to the press release that I challenge you to tell the difference.

Shel and Tom cover this very nicely in their posts, but I want to stress one thing. Blogs are not about the rule of engagement. For the most part, bloggers don’t understand or care; they just want access. They won’t strive to address all the points, as a good reporter will. They will pick what they want and ignore the rest. Back to the rules of engagement: it is in all our interests that professional journalists and professional communicators tell the story. Because we want a story. Not just a few facts sprinkled with opinion.

Marketing and PR pros know the press release is just the tip of the iceberg; the outreach to the journalist is far deeper, with many more layers.  As a communications professional, you must develop a strategy for communicating with bloggers AND the regular media, which remains as, if not more, important. Bloggers have strong reference value with their core audience. Mainstream media’s influence extends far beyond its fans; even critics respect what the NY Times says.

Blogs are subective. MSM (except perhaps Fox News) is objective. Both have their place in reaching the audience. Make sure you include blogs, RSS and press releases in your forward communications plan.

The press release isn’t dead. it is just evolving.

Roadmaps Round-up

Blogging, Business Management, Customers, Fake/Fictional Blogs, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, Mathom Room

Adrants on the promotion campaign for the John Twelve Hawks’ book The Traveler.  Program includes a character blog, and as I said in my comments on Adrants, I’ve long believed that fans of books/tv/film will embrace well written character blogs. This is slightly different, as it is promo for a new book, not a build-on to an existing franchise, but it will be very interesting to watch this play out. From my quick glance, the program looks very well done, and there is certainly no subterfuge.

Amy Gahran over at Contentious has a great idea for a unique gift: the gift of conversation.

From Creating Passionate Users, Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak  Main takeaway: give the right features and make them usable as well as useful. Don’t provide a feature just because you can. Make sure it is something that your user actually wants.

Finally, from Jim Logan, some thoughts about CRM — CRM is an attitude and a set of processes, not a piece of software   Main takeaway: Focus on doing active customer relationship management, using whatever software tools you want, versus on a piece of software as savior.

Who’s on top?

June 28, 2005 | Blogging, Politics/Policy

Why is it that even in the middle of a media revolution, we can’t resist the temptation to create an aristocracy? Benevolent, but an elite nonetheless.

Following hot on the heels of blogebrity (which apparently started as part of a contest), we have the AO/Technorati Open Media 100.

I agree with Fred from A VC, who says: Take me off your lists please:

"Open Media?  Then let’s make it open. Let’s keep the desire to rank and create clubs in check guys."

Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to get our wish.

It is human nature to congregate with people of like mind. Social groups (cliques) form. Once the group has solidified, it is hard to break into it. Not impossible, but the formed unit tends to resist interlopers.

In nature, order and structure are a requirement for smooth operation of the unit. Someone has to be in charge of defending the territory etc. etc. 

In human society, however, social groups are formed for reasons other than defense and self preservation. The group may initially apply order and structure to itself to make the group more manageable. You know, to blow up society, even anarchists need a leader

It starts with the member list and a definition of the membership requirements. But, sooner rather than later, it becomes clear that "membership has its privileges." Status. Respect. Wealth. Before you know it, the group, which may *think* it is open to all comers, starts to fear dilution of the membership value, and as a result, begins to defend its exclusivity. It may be subtle. It may even be sub-conscious. But make no mistake… it is there.

This is bad enough when the group is a formal group. But when it is an informal group — a clique versus an organization — it can be downright insidious. Because informal groups aren’t going to have rules in the same way a club or association might. So there’s no way for those on the outside to EVER get on the inside where all those great connections can be found. 

Do I think this has happened in the blogosphere? No. Not yet. But the signs are there, and it would be a shame if we didn’t resist.

Captain Picard did, and so can we.

blogher

Blogging, Travel

Just a reminder post about the upcoming blogher conference in late July. Hope to see you there!

Stuff and a question

June 25, 2005 | Blogging, Marketing, PR, RSS, Web Marketing

The stuff is just that — some interesting stuff I have been saving to post on, and haven’t had time to blog much lately. I should probably do a link blog, to make it easier to publish these links. Maybe later this summer when I have a minute to breathe.   

From Shel Holtz, two posts about RSS: a plain English guide to RSS and RS huh?

A guest post on Pro-Blogger by Toby Bloomberg on how blogs must earn their keep. (And an aside, it was great to meet Toby and a bunch of other folk at the marketing wonk after yesterday’s AMA blog seminar in Boston)

The question is about SEO techniques. I am revamping two, possibly three client websites (cross fingers), to make them SELL not just TELL, and I am curious about some SEO "things."  I am NOT an SEO expert and my clients know that. But I have had a lot of online marketing experience, which does qualify me to some degree to know what’s what. So here’s my question:

I believe that a well written website that sells not tells should do well in search engines. Yes, you should make the effort to understand the right keywords to incorporate in the copy, and there is no harm in submitting to the engines and the like, but that done: If your website sells your products AND you have a robust marketing program that drives qualified prospects to your site, what happens with the engines is additive, not the baseline of your marketing success. Agree? Disagree? What am I missing?  Bob Bly had a related question on his blog not long ago, but I don’t know that we reached closure .

Been to Texas…

June 21, 2005 | Mathom Room, Travel

Posting has been light for the past week as I have once again gone "off grid." This time, we went to Austin, Texas for a family friend’s Bar Mitzvah, and then took a couple of extra days to take our 5-year old son to SeaWorld San Antonio.

I brought the laptop in case something came up, but resisted the temptation to go online. :-)  I do promise to get back into a regular posting schedule but in the meantime, should you be planning a trip to Austin/San Antonio, here are some of our highlights from this most recent trip.

Austin: The Texas State History Museum and Zilker Park / Barton Springs. Hotel: Mansion at Judges’ Hill

San Antonio: At SeaWorld, if you can, Dine with Shamu. It gets you quite close to the whales for an extended period of time, but warning: it is NOT the show with all the feats of daring, so make sure you see the regular Shamu show as well. And touristy though it may be, you have to eat at a place on the Riverwalk at least once. People watching at its finest. Hotel: Marriott Riverwalk.

That’s it for the travelogue. We will return to our regular marketing topics later this week.

And I will leave you with a quote from Davy Crockett. After losing re-election to the Congress in his native Tennessee, the 50-year old Crockett said:

"Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas."

Hot Topics: Full RSS feeds, how often to blog

June 14, 2005 | Blogging, RSS

Shel Holtz on posting full RSS feeds. There has been a lot of back and forth on this for the past few weeks. Shel’s argument for full feeds pretty much sums up all the "pro" opinions I’ve read. Needless to say, I agree — if you are reading my blog in an RSS aggregator, you get a full feed. And if I’ve written long, as I sometimes do, there is a warning at the top of the post. My feelings aren’t hurt if you don’t have the time

Amy Gahran over at Contentious had two good posts about daily blogging (not) — I’m linking to the second as it has a link to the first within it. She makes some very good points about why it isn’t necessarily wise to post every day or multiple times in a day. Underlying thesis is that the quality of writing is more important than frequency of posting.

I agree. If you are writing original content, versus a link blog, it is far better to be good than to be often. If you can do both, more power to you. I aim to get one original post per week, and supplement with short posts (like this one).

Of course, in the end, it is YOUR blog, so do what you like

A word from Tom Lehrer

June 13, 2005 | Humour

"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!" and

"I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up."

If you’ve never heard anything by Tom Lehrer, I urge you to start today.