Niche marketing with podcasts

Dr. Taffy Wagner and Ms. Bettye Jamerson, better known as the ‘virtuous women’, have done it again with the advent of their new Literary Corner podcast that spotlights new, non-fiction, men and women authors each week. Dr. Wagner and Ms. Jamerson were inspired to create and produce this podcast after facing marketing challenges of their own when promoting their non-fiction books. Bettye often comments on the struggles she experienced early on when learning the process of how to market and promote her own book. They decided to come up with a strategy for new authors to help them with promoting their book and themselves, whereby making their promotion process easier. “Knowing what to do and how to do it really takes the pressure off and gives new authors that necessary immediate exposure” said Bettye.

Making money from podcasts

Peter Kay is jumping on the podcast bandwagon, by charging fans up to £1.50 to hear him read the first chapter of his autobiography.

The book, The Sound Of Laughter, is out on Thursday – but those who cannot wait to hear how it starts can order the recording from his official website by text message.

The Phoenix Nights star wrote the memoirs after learning that journalist Johnny Dee was putting together an unofficial biography, which came out in June.

But even if it was reluctant, Kay’s decision appears to have paid off handsomely. More than 250,000 advance orders have been placed for the £18.99 book – making it the fastest selling autobiography this year.

The ROI question again

Charlene Li is asking for help.
Sge says:

One issue that keeps coming up over and over again is how to measure the ROI of blogs. I’ve written about this in the past and have been stewing over how to go beyond the intangible “blogging is good for your business” exhortations to quantify blogging’s benefit to organizations.

Well, we’re getting close but we could use some help. My colleague, Chloe Stromberg, and I have been interviewing companies about how they measure ROI and realized that we needed to throw the net wider – this is where you come in!

I have some questions about ROI as a measure. It is easy to take a simplistic view.

Medical science podcasting

Another case study for research organisations comes from Medical News Today.

Marking a major milestone in the delivery of Nanotechnology related information; AZoNetwork and Nanotechnology Victoria (NanoVic) announced the official release of the first in a series of Nanotechnology Reviews in a Podcast format.

This initial Podcast provides a short history of the development of Nanotechnology and interviews several key players from within the Nanotech industry, research community and government to draw out their current views on the likely impact Nanotechnology will have on healthcare, materials and the environment.

This is a serious production. It is a way of offering content to niche audiences very easily.

Trade Association podcasts

Todd Zeigler in the Bivings Report offers a case study for Public Relations practitioners who are working for trade associations in which he says:

It is just sort of a fact that very few trade associations blog. One of the few that does is the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose blog is called shopfloor.org.

Not only does NAM blog, it does so very effectively. What makes shopfloor.org work is that it is written by real live human beings who have opinions. Sure, some people aren't going to agree with NAM's point of view. But regardless of your politics you have to respect NAM's willingness to participate in the conversation online. What they are doing is extradinary for a DC-based trade association.

Monitoring using RSS and other tools

Simon Wakeman discovered an interesting post by Steve Rubel about how he finds news and material to blog about - Steve has created what he calls a blog feeder.

Simon notes the potential for this just got greater, as Steve has blogged that Technorati now offers RSS feeds for searches, which means that it’s a whole lot easier to include Technorati searches in a blog feeder (althoug it does not cover all blogs and sometimes takes a long time to index sites). Also spotted this news on i-wisdom and Webfeed Central.

Can I add that it is also possible to use RSS for Google News, Google Scholar and any web site can be monitored using Google Reader (When you find content you want to read on a regular basis, you can subscribe to it, and Google Reader will monitor that website for updates and add them to your reading list). There is an issue with how fast it will update with Google.

As I am now experimenting with Google Reader, it is an interesting option. In addition, of course, I do have my sumarisation software that allows me to load interesting items direct to my blog in summary form which is very quick.

Of course there is a ton of software out there to help you monitor changes on web sites.

If you can't monitor news, blogs and web sites these days you will be at least 20 hours behind the news so I do it and I expect every PR practitioner does it as well.

For some practitionser these tools are helpful to maintain modernity for thier client blog.

Monitoring using RSS and other tools

Simon Wakeman discovered an interesting post by Steve Rubel about how he finds news and material to blog about - Steve has created what he calls a blog feeder.

Simon notes the potential for this just got greater, as Steve has blogged that Technorati now offers RSS feeds for searches, which means that it’s a whole lot easier to include Technorati searches in a blog feeder (althoug it does not cover all blogs and sometimes takes a long time to index sites). Also spotted this news on i-wisdom and Webfeed Central.

Can I add that it is also possible to use RSS for Google News, Google Scholar and any web site can be monitored using Google Reader (When you find content you want to read on a regular basis, you can subscribe to it, and Google Reader will monitor that website for updates and add them to your reading list). There is an issue with how fast it will update with Google.

As I am now experimenting with Google Reader, it is an interesting option. In addition, of course, I do have my sumarisation software that allows me to load interesting items direct to my blog in summary form which is very quick.

Of course there is a ton of software out there to help you monitor changes on web sites.

If you can't monitor news, blogs and web sites these days you will be at least 20 hours behind the news so I do it and I expect every PR practitioner does it as well.

Charity site launch

Former Turner Broadcasting executive Richard Kilgarriff is launching a community-based broadband offering in November, allowing people and companies to promote their products and services online, while raising money for good causes, reports the Guardian.

Famous Top Fives offers users "best of" lists provided by celebrities, experts and members of the public for everything and anything - books, films, albums, DVDs, songs, wines, hotels, TV shows.

Celebrities already signed up to provide a list include Minnie Driver, Michael Stipe, Pete Doherty, Cliff Richard and Lennox Lewis.

This means that practitioner involved in not for profit and Charity PR may like to add this site to their 'little black book'.

If

Get involved with peer-to-peer media platforms

With a background provided by Kami Huyse, and a very interesting talk by Dr Kolb, considered Text 100’s ‘resident futurist’, you can join a discussion about how new media technology is changing PR practice. He outlines some new skills PR practitioners need to develop.

To my mind there is no alternative. Would one expect a PR person (what ever the domain of practice) to ignore the press, radio, television, or the web? Of course not.

In this Forward podcast, Dr Kolb encourages PR students and new practitioners to get involved with peer-to-peer media platforms, and also outlines Text 100’s involvement in Second Life. To begin the podcast, Kami Huyse gives some introductory information about what Second Life is and why PR practitioners should take notice of it.

TV is dead? Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis in the The Guardian suggests that the definition of television is up for grabs.

His article begins with a disagreement with Amanda Congdon - a daunting experience no doubt.

The video blog Rocketboom.com made Amanda Congdon a star on the internet. It earned her a guest slot on the TV series CSI. It got her considerable publicity in the major American media when she left the vlog. And it just plopped her into a hybrid car with her name emblazoned on the side for an internet-video tour of the US. That was what brought her to my den in New Jersey with three friends wielding cameras for an interview that is now online at AmandaAcrossAmerica.com.

Amanda and I got into a tussle over television. I said she was creating the new TV. She dismissed the label "television" and insisted she was making something else, a video blog. But I argued that the definition of television is up for grabs. What is TV now? We don't know yet, for every time I think I've spotted all the sticks of dynamite set to explode under old, linear television, I discover new fuses sizzling.

Apple has just announced iTV, a box that will wirelessly transport internet video on to our televisions. Thus, the line between broadcast and online - like the line between terrestrial and cable or satellite - is erased.

I have no trouble with this idea except that there is huge market inertia.

In the meantime, the success of Sixty Second View in its niche is an example of how powerful this new for of TV can and will be.

Blog alert goes mobile

Always-on reports that mobile search company 4info allows writers to upload their blogs so that mobile phone users can receive them as text messages or alerts.

This is a useful additional lever that PR can use to extent the impact of their on-line relationship management.

Watching on-line politcal PR - case study in the making

Stuart Bruce agrees with Anthony Mayfield's analysis analysis. Webcameron is a very good initiative.

He says that the key difference between what Labour is doing and what the Conservatives are doing is understanding. You get the impression that the Tories get what social media is really about, while Labour still just sees it as a set of new tools.

Simon Collister has some interesting thoughts about Webcameron on his eDemocracy Update blog. He also questions if "Politics needs a sea-change in attitudes, not a ride aboard the blogging bandwagon."

Watching what is happening in Politics offers an excellent case study for practitioners with commercial and not for profit portfolios.

Bebo worth mega bucks

Four-and-a-half years after Michael and Xochi Birch created www.Bebo.com it is one of the hottest properties on the internet. In less than two years it has acquired more than 27m users and claims to have overtaken MySpace to become the leading social-networking website in the UK and Ireland.

“At the moment there’s a race for traffic,” says Birch and for public relations practitioners this mantra is critical as well. It is worth watching how Birch is going about doing it.

According to The Sunday Times Bebo still has only 15 full-time employees, including four in London, and as yet generates modest revenues from advertising. But its huge and growing audience of young users has prompted suggestions that the business is already worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sounds fanciful? It might have been last year, before News Corporation (ultimate owner of The Sunday Times) paid $580m (£310m) for the company behind MySpace.

Birch is adamant that he has no interest in selling. “We used to follow conversations a bit more (when we received approaches). Now we pretty much just say ‘No’ immediately. I was more curious to begin with.

Google to tell Tories about the digital age

Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive of Google, is set to make a keynote speech to the Conservative party conference on tomorrow.

Following his first speech to the Tories as party leader on Sunday, Mr Cameron, 39, is to welcome Mr Schmidt to Bournemouth, where he will address the conference on challenges posed by the internet and digital age.

Newspapers are now doing PR

"An exciting new interactive service starts this weekend so you the Cardiff City fans can tell us what you think about the Bluebirds ."

The Echo is launching a new Cardiff City blog on our icWales website to give fans an opportunity to have their voice in your favourite paper.

Fab...

Are YOU spreading your podcasts about?

Figures obtained by the Scottish Conservatives showed eight people downloaded a podcast of a recent sports summit at Stirling University.

Tory MSP Derek Brownlee questioned the amount spent on creating the downloads when "the figures are so poor" reports the BBC.

Mr Brownlee could have a point. Is the podcast being offered to the media outlets across (not just Scotland but) the world. Are they presented in a variety of formats, have they been offered to all the sports club web sites in Scotland .......... and so a normal PR person would want to know the answers.

The politician wants to know about ROI - over how many years?

Silly Mr Brownlee.

Evaluate before the PR campaign...

Glenn has given us this advice :

Evaluation is often thought of as a “concluding” activity - something that is done once a programme or project is finished. But evaluation has its role “before” and “during” an activity. A recent experience highlighted for me the importance that evaluation can play in the “before” phase.quote>In landscaping (see: Gregory. A. 2002 Planning and Management Kogan Page, London) in preparation for planing public relations one has to get the widest view possible. In the use and application of Social Media, which is very dynamic, one needs to be able to both maintain monitoring and evaluation and feed this into both strategy and tactics as a continuum.

This there is no 'PR plan' but a process for managing the organisation's capability to maintain mutually effective relationships.

Create voting sites and get RSS on your Blackberry

Philippe Borrimans always has good stuff.

He introduces us to Ning, a social web service, let's you create and customise applications such as
voting sites, online groups etc... Then ethere is a new RSS to e-mail service called SimplyHeadlines. I think this is a nice one for people who want to stay up to date with news headlines by e-mail based on RSS feeds. The lay out is very easy to read and they also have a "mobile" version for Blackberry or other mobile readers. Another one to add to the list of "RSS by e-mail" readers. Then there's the mix of blogs and forums set off by Tooum and called Switchboard. Their hosted service includes categories, tagging, RSS feeds, sticky posts etc...

Political PR online

In Ohio, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has stocked his campaign website with video clips of speeches and TV commercials. MySpace.com and other websites display cyberspace bumper stickers that can be copied to promote Strickland's campaign for governor.

These candidates aren't alone. The Tory leader has a vidcast. Blogs wikis and podcasts are everywhere in the political PR space are there too.


"If you think of the Internet as a city, those social networking sites are virtual town squares where people spend time, where they share ideas, show their opinion, share information," said Keith Dailey, press secretary for Strickland's campaign.

And I guess that is a pretty good explanation.

Brands are sets of values

The idea that brand are a set of values is prettty old hat but works well in the Relationship Value Model which is why it is good to hear marketing people talking like Public Relations people.

A post in Marketingweb makes this contribution:

In a world of spreading social influence due to the internet, brands are sets of values and ideas whose importance ebbs and flows among communities. Social influence affects which ideas are important within a group of people to such a degree that it is very hard to make accurate predictions. (Important values and perceptions may diverge in different communities and cultures). So we need to become far more flexible in how we manage brands. Coca-Cola has begun to address this by using different colours for its brand in England, depending on the colours of the football team that it supports.

The extract is from Nilewide Vol 22 No 13. For more information or to subscribe, go to www.nilewide.com. and costs mega bucks (unlike the Relationship Value Model - which is free) but is informative and most of it is here.