Hey Everybody,

I just started reading Jeremiah Owayang’s blog, at web-strategist.com. And needless to say. It is very good. My favorite post so far is his ongoing collection of companies that have failed or screwed up with social media. Check it out here.

Keep up the good work Jeremiah,

Thanks,
Will Flavell

Hello Everyone,

I have seen a few posts (humorzo, PRSA  Digital Impact, and NevilleHobson) around about this issue. And I thought as a semi-pr guy that I might be able to shed a little light on what this is and what is happening. I don’t work for Cision and I don’t even work in a PR department anymore, I used to do both and I think that I might be able to give an objective light to it.

Vocus and Cision are both list building services that PR people use. The big problem arises when PR people get lazy and build gigantic lists that they then use for Spray and Pray dissemination strategies. I read a lot of blogs slamming PR people for being lazy and spamming. Sadly, that is the case with a lot of traditional-only pr practitioners. Many are used to the old days and large print publication staffs. They are used to press releases being a trade secret that we could sell to clients. They are used to big media coverage being something that you could promise clients. To put it simply, those days are gone and the PR industry is in a world-shift of change from media-fragmentation to user-generated content to trying to pitch bloggers.

Here is a scenario of the problem in action. You take a PR person who has made their career by pitching big reporters and big, mass-audience publications. There is a very standard way of writing and talking in this world. Now you ask them to pitch a very personal, very niche blogger. Obviously, there is gonna be a huge disconnect. So, we have to retrain those people or get new kinds of PR people.

Sorry to be so honest, but it is sadly the truth. And I am a member of the PRSA.

Thanks, sorry for the downer post,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

You might remember a post that I wrote a while ago when I was launching my first YouTube Contest. You can see the video here if you want. Anyway, I just wanted to report on how the contest is doing. Today, we have reached the half way point. We are two months into the four month video submission timeframe. We have 51 group members and 30 videos. Not too shabby for a contest promoted totally through social media (no ads and no pr). All I did to promote it was tag other people’s videos that related to the subject matter (braces) and tell them to submit their videos to our group an win.

At first, the contest was going pretty slow, but I think that we are finally reaching a tipping point of organic growth. At this point I have probably joined about 20 themed groups on various SNSs and sent them contest info. I have probably tagged or seeded about 250 videos. But the great part is that by now, people are telling other people and seeing the invite to submit on other people’s videos. This is increasing traffic to our contest and the comments and messages sent to me (contest coordinator). So word-of-mouth is finally starting to kick in.

We are lucky though, there is already preexisting online community of braces wearers. And our client (who makes custom brackets for kids braces) really wants to get the idea of his product out to them. So it really is a nice marriage of an existing online community of conversation and a fun way to access them.

Our client is called WildSmiles, check out their custom braces here.

Oh and here is our intro video. Please have mercy on it. I shot and cut it and I am not a video guy. I was just trying to make the video very cost-effective, as it is not as important as the actual promotion. I also know that it is a little hammy, but it is for kids.

Thanks,

Hope you enjoyed the post,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

Just wanted to share this copyright free version of the Social Media Press Release. I got it off of http://www.pr-squared.com a while ago. Just wanna offer it to all the PR people out there. I think that I have said this before, but I don’t think that the new standard social media press release is ever gonna be considered the standard news release format. Instead I think that we are moving away from the days of a standard form of communication with each other and with media. What is a standard anything anymore?

But this template does give a good idea of some of the multimedia applications and tools that we (pr People) should be including in all of our communications efforts.

Peace and have a nice weekend,

Will Flavell

Social Media Press Release download location

Good Morning Everybody,

As most of you PR people probably already do (or should do), before we send out any press releases, we usually put them through a free spam e-mail checking service. Well, I just found something else that looks pretty cool. It is a free grader for your press release online.

HubSpot’s Press Release Grader evaluates your press release and provides a marketing effectiveness score. This score is based upon basic factors from public relations experts including the language and content of the release, plus advanced factors from Internet marketing experts such as links and search engine optimization characteristics.

Check out the service here: http://www.pressreleasegrader.com/.

Also I thought that I would add the link to a free Spam e-mail checker. It will grade your level of spam and make suggestions. Also it is free. Check it out at http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/. Both of these are good services and can be relied on.

Enjoy,
Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I just wanted to share this great video that I saw on YouTube.

An official update to the original “Shift Happens” video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, this June 2007 update includes new and updated statistics, thought-provoking questions and a fresh design. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com — Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I have recently been using a new kind of wire service. It is an online wire service that focuses on corporate social responsibility issues. I have come to really like it. It allows each company or non-profit (must be approved) to host their own page of press releases, reports, videos and more. A lot of other wire services charge big bucks for this. CSRWire.com, the name of this program charges a $100 a year fee for it. Their press release dissemination is also really cheap, $495 for a basic. They also have a lot of good CSR story ideas and are easily searchable. They have a good reach and we have had some good hits with them. I also like that they don’t just target reporters (although important) they also hit online stakeholders, online news aggregators and much more. Here is what they have to say about their reach:

Your news is distributed to professionals in 210 countries and archived for search and bookmarking optimization. Including subscribers, syndication partners, web site, search, Send-To-Friend, social bookmarking, rss feeds, blogs and aggregators we can attest to reaching over 500,000 professionals per month.

CSRwire is the first stop on the campaign to get your message out, respond to comments, find out what the activists are doing, get included in research and books, encourage articles and mentions, keep track of competitors, raise awareness with ’socially responsible investors’, update others on your events or sponsorship and search for complimentary opportunities.

CSRwire is the only newswire service focused exclusively on issues of Corporate Social Responsibility. Since 1999 our reach has grown to include hundreds of thousands of journalists, analysts, investors, activists, academics, public relations and investor relations professionals worldwide. These ‘Thought Leaders’ write about, invest in, research and advocate on topics of interest to them, their readers, constituencies and investors. The topics include the environment, human rights, corporate governance, community development, business ethics, diversity, green technology, and corporate philanthropy .. to name a few.

Our distribution network is reached through a variety of methods: Website, News Alerts, Syndication, Blogs, Search Engines, RSS Feed, Aggregators, Send to Friend, Archive, Member Profile and Social Bookmarking.

So, I do want to endorse this cheap, forward thinking wire service. But I do have one big caution and problem with them. They charge an extra $50 for each photo or video on your release. While they seem to get the Web on the distribution side, they definitely miss how important it is to offer a few multimedia additions for free. Even the big boys like BusinessWire and PRNewsWire get that.

Thanks and Hope you enjoyed,

Will Flavell

Hey Everyone,

I’m sure that many of you have heard of Mike Wesch, he is a teacher at my alma mater, Kansas State University. He teaches a class called Digital Ethnography. It has turned out some really exciting stuff. His video on Digital Test: The Machine is Us/ing Us is amazing and I use it all the time to illustrate changes in communications.

I recently was forwarded his video on the changes in lifestyle habits of college kids. It is really cool. I wanted to share it with everyone. It is called A Vision of Students Today.

Check out his progress on research here.

Great Work Mr. Wesch. I am so happy to see at least one example of our education system tackling this important issue. I work with it everyday and was never taught much about it.

Great work,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I wanted to make a sad report this morning. I love newspapers and newspaper reporters. They are honest and hardworking and very, very underpaid. Even though I talk a lot about social media. I am sad to see newspapers declining. I saw this, this morning. The Sun-Times even though it is profitable, is having to cut people due to declining ad revenue. This sad case is just another chapter in newspaper decline.

CHICAGO – Speaking Tuesday at the company’s annual meeting, Sun-Times Media Group President/CEO Cyrus Freidheim Jr. called the current market “miserable” and said further cost cutting is imminent.

Despite the Sun-Times and its affiliated papers being the most widely read in the Chicago area, Freidheim says the company is still watching its advertising revenues melt before its eyes.

Freidheim did not specify where or when the cuts would be made nor did he discuss the possible sale of Sun-Times assets. The struggling company was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange in May 2008 and its shares currently trade for 44 cents. The company is valued at about $35.4 million.

I got the info at MidwestBusiness.com. Let’s all visit the Sun-Times online and try to boost their views so they can charge more for online advertising.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell

Hey everyone,

The Scobleizer (at FastCompany) recently interviewed Mitch Grasso, CEO of Sliderocket. I don’t know about you guys, but I am really excited for a social networking version of powerpoint. It is gonna be great. I hate powerpoint and all its limitations. I can’t wait till they go public beta, I have been on the list for months. I am going to give a class on social media and I would love to present it in a social media medium.

Here is Scoble’s

You’ve seen Microsoft’s PowerPoint. But you’ve never seen an Internet-enabled, collaborative presentation tool like Sliderocket — until now. Here Mitch Grasso, CEO and founder, tells us about Sliderocket the company and then shows us a demo. 

WordPress won’t let me embed the video interview, but watch it here: http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/sliderocket-empowers-a-new-kind-presentation.

Hope you enjoy,

Will Flavell