On the Record... Online: Podcast
Richard Edelman discusses what the results of the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer mean for B2B focused organizations. This interview was conducted as part of the research for an upcoming book about the B2B applications of social media that I am writing with Paul Gillin, which will be published by Wiley later this year. 02:14 - Richard Edelman on how broadly B2B marketers should be looking to engage stakeholders, who the most credible spokespeople and the new keys to corporate reputation. 03:02 - Disappearance of the boundary between brands and corporate reputations. 03:39 - Richard mentions how Edelman client ITT Corporation's Watermark marketing program is focused on a mosaic of stakeholders including state and local agencies, politicians, NGOs and end customers. 04:12 - Why B2B communications is no longer a "solitary soldier." 05:11 - Richard Edelman on how B2B focused organizations should go about selecting social media channels to engage through by focusing on issues that have a social impact, remaining conscious of government's increasing role in regulation and finding ways for your expert employees to be heard. 06:31 - Richard explains why trust in financial analysts remains high, despite the fact that they failed to accurately predict one of the most precarious financial situations in US history. 07:26 - Richard Edelman and Eric discuss Ken Auletta's new book "Googled," the importance of trust and the lesson for B2B marketers from the 2010 Trust Barometer. 08:32 - The importance of tracking more than just a company's financial data in the age of transparency. 09:10 - Employees as the new credible source versus the CEO. 09:47 - How realistic is it that businesses really will start putting purpose before profits? Richard uses Edelman client GE Ecoimagination as an example on an organization that is putting sustainability at the center of its product offering. RECOMMENDED EPISODES * B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender * Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys * Inside the Pentagon with Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings ABOUT THE PODCASTER @EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage. His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies. Schwartzman is currently co-authoring a book on business-to-business social media communications with Paul Gillin, to be published by Wiley in Fall 2010. He is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US through PRSA. Since 2005, he has been producing the weekly, award-winning public relations podcast “On the Record…Online” (@ontherecord) about how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, the official podcast of the PRSA International Conference for the past three consecutive years. On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2010 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord. read less
Tue March 02 2010
Richard Edelman discusses what the results of the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer mean for B2B focused organizations. This interview was conducted as part of the research for an upcoming book about the B2B applications of social media that I am writing with Paul Gillin, which will be published by Wiley later this year. 02:14 - Richard Edelman on how broadly B2B marketers should be looking to engage stakeholders, who the most credible spokespeople and the new keys to corporate reputation. 03:02 - Disappearance of the boundary between brands and corporate reputations. 03:39 - Richard mentions how Edelman client ITT Corporation's Watermark marketing program is focused on a mosaic of stakeholders including state and local agencies, politicians, NGOs and end customers. 04:12 - Why B2B communications is no longer a "solitary soldier." 05:11 - Richard Edelman on how B2B focused organizations should go about selecting social media channels to engage through by focusing on issues that have a social impact, remaining conscious of government's increasing role in regulation and finding ways for your expert employees to be heard. 06:31 - Richard explains why trust in financial analysts remains high, despite the fact that they failed to accurately predict one of the most precarious financial situations in US history. 07:26 - Richard Edelman and Eric discuss Ken Auletta's new book "Googled," the importance of trust and the lesson for B2B marketers from the 2010 Trust Barometer. 08:32 - The importance of tracking more than just a company's financial data in the age of transparency. 09:10 - Employees as the new credible source versus the CEO. 09:47 - How realistic is it that businesses really will start putting purpose before profits? Richard uses Edelman client GE Ecoimagination as an example on an organization that is putting sustainability at the center of its product offering. RECOMMENDED EPISODES * B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender * Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys * Inside the Pentagon with Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings ABOUT THE PODCASTER @EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage. His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies. Schwartzman is currently co-authoring a book on business-to-business social media communications with Paul Gillin, to be published by Wiley in Fall 2010. He is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US through PRSA. Since 2005, he has been producing the weekly, award-winning public relations podcast “On the Record…Online” (@ontherecord) about how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, the official podcast of the PRSA International Conference for the past three consecutive years. On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2010 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord. read less
Tue February 23 2010
EmployeeScreen celebrated its 10th anniversary last August, making it a grandfather in the hotly contested market for employee screening services. The landscape is dotted with more than 1,000 companies, many of them specialized boutiques, according to Nick Fishman, chief marketing officer and executive vice president. EmployeeScreen has thrived in that environment in part due to a diversified set of social media programs that deliver education and insight that draws more than 3,000 visitors to its website each week. It was almost an accident three years ago that EmployeeScreen began to develop its social media presence. An early experiment with search engine optimization yielded a huge lift in traffic, which emboldened EmployeeScreen to go further. Today, its EmployeeScreen University draws thousands of human resources professionals each month to a slate of articles and audio/ video podcasts, with about one in four visitors clicking through to EmployeeScreen’s main website. Its active blog helps sustain its position near the top of search engine results. The success has enabled EmployeeScreen to reduce its dependence on advertising and to engage with prospects at a deeper level. It's also demonstrated a greater truth, says Fishman. “One small guy can make very big waves.” This episode is hosted by Paul Gillin (@pgillin) of Paul Gillin Communications. 0:00 About EmployeeScreen 1:15 Competitive picture 1:45 Why using social networks to conduct background checks is a bad idea 5:15 How EmployeeScreen got into social media marketing by accident and the surprising early success the company had 7:30 The launch of EmployeeScreen University, a learning destination for HR professionals to learn all about background checks 9:30 Visitors grew to 5,000 to 7,000 per month, with 25% clicking to the corporate site 10:15 The move into social networks; HR people were early adopters of LinkedIn 11:00 Why Twitter hasn’t been a big business contributor 13:15 About EmployeeScreen’s all-time most popular blog entry 15:10 About adapting content for a b-to-b audience 16:15 Traffic to the blog averages about 3,000 visitors a week 17:05 How podcasts fit into the mix 17:30 Thematic programming: This Week in Background Checks; other uses for the podcast series 20:05 Which metrics matter most 20:45 How social media has reduced the need to advertise 21:15 Maintaining an early competitive lead; how search engine optimization keeps the site strong 22:15 Why you shouldn’t try to game search engines 23:00 Trying to keep up with social media evolution 24:15 How Nick and EmployeeScreen got into social media marketing 26:15 The need to stay on top of changing trends in Internet marketing 26:55 Landmarks in EmployeeScreen’s social media experience 27:50 “WordPress has been a godsend” RECOMMENDED EPISODES • B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender • Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys About the Guest Host This episode was guest hosted by Paul Gillin (@pgillin) of Paul Gillin Communications. Paul was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, one of the most successful technology media entities to emerge on the Internet. Before that, he was editor-in-chief and executive editor of the technology weekly Computerworld for 15 years. He wrote The New Influencers, Secrets of Social Media Marketing and the Joy of Geocaching and is currently co-writing a book with Eric Schwartzman about business-to-business applications of social media. Paul writes a regular column for BtoB magazine and contributes to various blogs and online publications. He’s also a Research Fellow and a member of the advisory board of the Society for New Communications Research. read less
Fri February 19 2010
Business benefits, audio and video production techniques, search engine optimization, a discussion of the latest gear and the future of podcasting in a world of attention deficits with Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts. 01:35 -- Steve Lubetkin talks about his introduction to podcasting and his background using technology as a business communicator professional. 03:32 -- Eric mentions that this podcasts reaches almost as many listeners through the show blog as it does via RSS, and asks Steve if the same is true for him. 05:05 -- Steve Lubetkin builds a business case for RSS, by pointing out the many benefits of distributing XML with enclosures. 06:28 -- For Steve Lubetkin, the ultimate goal in producing and distributing podcasts from is to get his clients noticed, and for that reason, he prefers automated solutions that minimize his time investment in achieving that result. 07:13 -- Using podcasts to get clients noticed via search engines. 08:24 -- The distinction between HTML and XML measurement, and the importance of securing a measurement solution that records both. 09:02 -- The importance of parking your feed on iTunes, from a client satisfaction perspective and listener satisfaction standpoint. 10:06 -- B2B podcasting is, for the most part, not about reaching large audiences. It's about reaching individuals with an immediate need for the marketers product or service. So instead of getting in front of thousands of people who may or may not have a need, podcasting is about automating the awareness, consideration, research and evaluation phases of general buying cycles. 11:31 -- Steve Lubetkin discusses the benefits of communicating via audio and video, in both short and long formats. 14:17 -- Instead of producing original content, Eric and Steve Lubetkin discuss using podcasts to extend the reach of business and other corporate events that are occurring already. 17:29 -- The advantage of shooting events in video is that you can always use only the audio if you prefer, but you still get the ability to use the video as well. 20:33 -- Steve Lubetkin gives his tips on the best gear for producing business oriented podcasts today and talks about the importance of recording good audio versus good video. 23:49 -- Steve Lubetkin and Eric talk about mixing audio, HD and the flip. 35:23 -- A discussion of business-to-business podcasts it is the use of podcasts for internal communications. 38:12 -- integrating podcasts into corporate communications campaigns. 42:15 -- Ron Ploof's new book "Read This First," which was featured on Marketing Over Coffee. 43:47 -- A discussion of Steve Rubel's (who has been featured in a previous episode of this podcast) life streaming experiments on Posterous, which he covered with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson on For Immediate Release, and how podcasting might adapt to attention deficits. 47:03 -- Eric talks about Andy Lark's keynote at the first NewComm Forum, at which Andy showed EPIC 2014 to the crowd and proceeded to blow everyone's mind with his presentation about social media. 48:07 -- News at Seven, the dynamically generated news program, which featured avatars posting an online news program edited by fact stripping robots. 49:17 -- The importance of text to the future of content marketing and in dealing with attention deficits if we move into a change of partial content consumption. 50:32 -- Unleashing the archival value of content through search engine optimized text notes. 53:13 -- You can find Steve online at http://www.lubetkin.net/blog and www.ProfessionalPodcasts.com RECOMMENDED EPISODES * B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender * Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys ABOUT THE PODCASTER @EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage. His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies. Schwartzman is currently co-authoring a book on business-to-business social media communications with Paul Gillin, to be published by Wiley in Fall 2010. He is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US through PRSA. Since 2005, he has been producing the weekly, award-winning public relations podcast “On the Record…Online” (@ontherecord) about how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, the official podcast of the PRSA International Conference for the past three consecutive years. On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2010 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord. read less
Tue February 16 2010
Despite it's first appearance in George Orwell's 1984, the use of "doublespeak" is on the rise in the US. Whether it's euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook or inflated language, doublespeak is a serious problem in the US for individuals and organizations. In this episode, American linguist William Lutz, co-author of the SEC's Plain English Handbook, author 17 books on writing in clear language and professor emeritus at Rutgers University explains why doublespeak is counterproductive to democracy, why we need to stop being passive consumers of deceptive language and what we can do to fight back. 01:28 -- "Clear language is essential so that both parties understand what they are agreeing to. In any contract that you enter into, you have to understand what your obligations and rights are under the terms of that contract," says Mr. Lutz. If a company writes a contract in such a way that consumers think they understand what their obligations are, but in reality don't, they may agree to something they don't understood, and ultimately cannot fulfill. When companies use anything other than straight-forward clear language to describe the terms of an offer, they're not dealing honestly in the marketplace, In they are setting up consumers to fail. 02:47 -- After a career focused on the use of doublespeak -- a term coined by George Orwell in his book 1984, first published in 1949 -- Lutz says this practice is on the rise for the very same reason Orwell predicted in his book, which is that "You can get away with a lot of things in language. We talk about spin, and it's all right to be a spin doctor. But what are we really saying about a spin doctor? A spin doctor sits there and says, "Oh no, no, no, you didn't hear what you thought you heard. Let me tell you what you really heard, and proceeds to put a spin on. And the spin turns out to be something entirely different than what was said or what was written or whatever. This has now become a profession. if you can get away with things using just words, why not? And it's become, unfortunately, something of a growth industry," says Mr. Lutz. 04:12 -- Doublespeak poses a threat to the United States because it creates a buffer between what organizations are saying and what people are hearing. if you're entering into a credit card contract, or buying a home, and you're understanding of your obligation is not based on reality, that's problematic. The housing bubble was exacerbated by the fact that people thought they understood the mortgages they were getting, only to find out that they were in over their heads. In a democracy, we decide what policies and candidates to back by listening to the public discourse. If the discussion is carried out in doublespeak, organizations deliberately mislead the people so don't really know what's going on, and we wind up making decisions of social importance on the wrong basis. 05:41 -- "Doublespeak is a matter of intent. You can identify doublespeak by looking at who is saying what to whom, under what conditions and circumstances, with what intent and what result. If a politician stands up and speaks to you and says, "I am giving you exactly what I believe, and then turns around and does the opposite, then you've got a pretty good yardstick. She was pretending to tell me something, and it turns out it wasn't what she meant at all, she meant something different," says Mr. Lutz, in his doublespeak litmus test. 06:43 -- The first type of doublespeak is the euphemism. "We want to talk about something, but because of social conventions we don't use direct language, we use indirect language. you don't walk up to someone and say I'm sorry your mother died. You say I'm sorry for your loss, or I'm sorry she passed away. But no one is being misled. In fact, it's a mark of your concern for the other person that you use that euphemism. However when you start using a euphemism because you want to avoid the harsh reality, then you're engaged in doublespeak. For example, the State Department invented the euphemistic doublespeak term "unlawful arbitrary detention" or "unlawful arbitrary deprivation of life," says Mr. Lutz. "It basically means that the government was busy killing its own citizens without benefit of trial or or any other legal niceties, so [that's an example of where] euphemism moves into doublespeak." 07:46 -- The second kind of doublespeak is jargon, which usually centers around a particular industry or area of specialized knowledge. In the workplace, by the workers, jargon is fine because everyone understands it. But when you use it to mislead or obscure with someone who does not know that jargon then you've crossed the line into doublespeak. For example, "involuntary conversion," is a legal term which means the loss of use of your property due to fire, theft or public condemnation. If your car is stolen, legally that's an involuntary conversion of your property. However, when you talk, as one airline did, about the involuntary conversion of a 737, meaning that the plane crashed, then we've moved into using jargon is doublespeak. 08:57 -- The third kind of doublespeak is bureaucratese or gobbledygook, where we just pile words upon words that nobody can figure out. " I think the classic master of that was Alan Greenspan. I used to listen to his testimony before Congress just so impressed with his use of economic jargon, doublespeak, gobbledygook and it all sounded so impressive, didn't it? But it didn't mean anything that anybody could figure out," says Mr. Lutz. 09:29 -- The fourth kind of doublespeak is inflated language, which tries to make something impressive or important that really isn't. For example, "used cars" are now "pre-owned" or even "experienced." We have "previewed DVDs" meaning they're "used." The doorman on a building is the "access controller." And William's all time favorite, the "predawn vertical insertion" which was used by the Pentagon described the invasion of Grenada. 11:15 -- People are very good at recognizing doublespeak. The constant use of doublespeak has a hardening effect in that we come to expect it,which is unfortunate because we shouldn't. As an analogy Lutz uses air-quality. As long as the air quality is good no one is concerned, or pays much attention." But as soon as the air quality becomes bad, suddenly everyone's up in arms. He believes we should have the same concerns about the quality of language that is used in public discourse. And says that we need to voice our concerns to politicians who use doublespeak much as we would to manufacturers of products that malfunction. We'd return the product for refund and should do the same when we hear doublespeak by stopping to be passive consumers of language and demanding those who use doublespeak to rephrase themselves. 14:13 -- Using Enron as an example, Eric asks William whether or not the use of clear language can actually help investors detect fraud, because organizations can just lie in plain English. It's difficult to lie in plain English, cause it's easier for people to catch you. In the case of Enron, William explains that they used footnotes that were so cryptic they were incomprehensible, and that both journalists and analysts covering the stock could not find a single Enron representative who could explain them. It was not written in plain English. it was written in financial, economic jargon, bureaucratese, gobbledygook and it was done, to deliberately mislead and hide what was going on because if they wrote it in plain English, so that it was even moderately understandable, and people read it, they were going to ask questions. And they probably would have figured out that instead of running a profit, they were running a multibillion-dollar loss. And the other thing that's happened now is that if you've lie, the government can now prosecute you for fraud. So the folks at Enron had to write language that allowed them to pretend like it was all disclosed, but people just didn't understand it. So you see, "mandating plain language, that is plain enough so that any reasonably intelligent investor can understand it, puts a strong legal restriction on people who try to attempt fraud," says Lutz. 18:02 -- The direct-mail business, which counts on a 1% return rate for its sustenance, is a perfect opportunity for consumers to fight back against doublespeak, by simply ripping up misleading or unclear offers and sending them back to the solicitor in the pre-paid envelope so that they pay postage, without netting a return. If just 5% of all direct mail recipients protested in this fashion, direct-mail solicitors would be forced to change their practices. 20:22 -- William addresses in inherent conflict of corporate social media policies. From a legal perspective, he takes a very conservative view, given the prospect for legal harm. But, on the other hand, he recognizes that you can't stop these sharing technologies, that are literally overwhelming us, acknowledging that organizations simply have to figure out a way to work with it. "It is interesting to note that even the Security and Exchange Commission in Washington DC does, now, have policies in place for Twittering, blogging, etc," says Mr. Lutz. When he was there, Chairman Cox held a press conference where he fielded questions via Twitter. It's a recognition that organizations need social media policies. "But you have to make a clear distinction and explain to employees that when they tweet from work or home, if there's any suggestion that they are speaking as employees of the company, they have to be very careful because they are now bringing down onto the company all that responsibility," continues Mr. Lutz. 24:38 -- Issues involving the use of social media at public companies which William has seen cause specific regulatory problems include the inadvertent, selective disclosure of earnings information via a social media and employees publicly bashing their employers on social media -- not small gripes but serious charges against the employer. It's a matter of context, which Mr. Lutz says there is a lack online, since social media makes a little too easy to mistakenly send business communications to friends and family and personal messages to our professional colleagues. Communications lacking context are easier to misinterpret, he says. 27:29 -- The hot topic of discussion at the SEC is the use of Twitter to distribute links to financial disclosures on a public company's website. Mr. Lutz discusses the SEC's guidance on the use of websites for corporate disclosures -- covered in-depth in a previous episode of this podcast with Brain Lane, partner at Gibson Dunn and Crutcher and the former Director of the Division of Corporate Finance at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Broc Romanek, the Editor ofTheCorporateCounsel.net and a former counselor to SEC Commissioner Laura Unger -- pointing out that that guidance was based on research that demonstrated the web has become a widely accessible point of disclosure. According to the SEC, Twitter is not widely accessible enough to fulfill the nonselective disclosure requirement. Nevertheless, Mr. Lutz does support the use of Twitter for business communications, as long as companies don't rely on it for corporate disclosures. 29:27 -- Regarding the use of company websites for financial disclosures from public companies [PDF], Mr. Lutz reminds us that websites do not exist by themselves. There are still all kinds of reulatory and other legal documents filed with government entities that are not available on most company websites. And all these disclosures have to agree with one another. So the issue of coordinating all these dissemination sources is really challenging and becomes a matter of document and information control. And until we solve some of these issues, companies are going to be conservative in the number of outlets they use to disclose information, simply because it demands so much work on their part to maintain all of them, which means they're going to only use the ones they see as most effective. 31:28 -- When it comes to advising public companies looking to leverage Twitter for corporate disclosures, Mr. Lutz reminds them them to carefully before they tweet. "Don't send a message just for the sake of sending a message." Add something material to the grist, William admits he has stopped using Twitter altogether, because he was unable to get the usefulness of the service. But his advice to others is: 1. Tweet only when you have something substantive to stay. 2. Think carefully about how you want to say it. 3. If the 140 character limit frustrates the completeness of your thought send two or three tweets in succession. 33:32 -- Eric tells William about Shel Israel's book Twitterville, featured in a previous episode of this podcast, and recommends it to better understand the usefulness of Twitter. BONUS CONTENT * SEC Guidance on the Use of Company Websites for Corporate Disclosures [PDF] * "Twitterville" - Eric's Book Notes RECOMMENDED EPISODES * Twitter Strategy: Humanizing Brands and Building Loyalty with Shel Israel * B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender * Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys ABOUT THE PODCASTER @EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage. His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies. Schwartzman is currently co-authoring a book on business-to-business social media communications with Paul Gillin, to be published by Wiley in Fall 2010. He is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US through PRSA. Since 2005, he has been producing the weekly, award-winning public relations podcast “On the Record…Online” (@ontherecord) about how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, the official podcast of the PRSA International Conference for the past three consecutive years. On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2010 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord. read less
Thu February 11 2010
I know. You've heard it a million times. The social web is not a vanity press. It's a place to develop relationships, where give and take rules and conversations thrive. Sounds great, right? But how does that work in practice? Just because you have a way to introduce yourself, doesn't mean people are going respond. What's the right way to use online social networks to get someones attention? So if you've ever wondered, "What do I do when my @replies and emails go unanswered?" then this episode is for you. I originally thought it was going to be pretty much just about the real time web, and the first half is, but you're going to hear some very useful, practical tips about how to actually break through and start conversations with people you may want to know -- even the ones who are so popular they're literally inundated with requests -- through social networks. You're going to learn about leveraging preferred communication channels, how to cross-pollinate social networks, where the VoIP industry is headed, whether or not government regulators should be look beyond net neutrality to search neutrality and what it all means to a 15-year old. It's the Social Networking Jedi Training episode with the father of the VoIP industry, Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) of JeffPulver.com and the 140 Character Conference. 01:00 -- In the financial markets, brokers and investors base their buying and selling decisions on real-time information, and in some ways, the real-time web offers us the same fast, breaking information, and its new found availability, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and Google Wave, has a flattening effect on competitive markets, by democratizing information, giving everyone access to information at the same time. The archival web gave everyone greater access to information, but some people were still at an advantage because they got it first. But it is the real-time web, where individuals echo one anothers voices, which has had a leveling effect, in the transfer of power from the few to the many. 04:46 -- The 140 Characters Conference, its purpose and the rise of Twitter among individuals in the mainstream media, politics, entertainment and advertising. 05:15 -- Using the analogy of financial markets once again, Jeff Pulver uses the gap in time between an earthquake that occurred in Northern California and amount of time it took for that information to surface on Google as representative of an information arbitrage opportunity, reminding us that just as a 5-second advance on world events can and does constitute a significant trading advantage, the real-time web may afford us advantages in business, politics and culture that not all entirely known. 7:01 -- Tim Street (@1timstreet) asks via Twitter how Jeff manages his database of personal contacts, which is mentioned in the book "Trust Agents" by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, though not in enough detail to be actionable. 11:48 -- Eric reads Jeff the following line from "Trust Agents" which says "The lesson Pulver told Chris at the time, was that one's personal database is an asset as valuable as gold, if nurtured and maintained" and then asks him specifically how one nurtures his personal database, which Jeff says is based on tailoring the message to the individuals preferred media channel. "If I understand that someones communication device is a Blackberry, then I make sure my subject of my e-mail is less than 16 characters. Some people, who will never respond to an e-mail, will respond immediately to a tweet. Some people who ignore e-mail, will respond to a direct message. There are people, who for some reason, will only respond to Facebook messages." Our default communications channels are different. The future of direct marketing rests in the marketer's ability to identify, remember and connect with each individual through their preferred communication channel, whatever that may be. 16:26 -- Jeff also says time of day when that person individual is active on a particular channel is also a determination. For example, if he is soliciting speakers for a conference, and he's unable to get a referral from someone, he may just contact that person on twitter. But before he dies, he'll go to their Twitter page and see if there's a time they're typically active, and contact them then. 16:46 -- if Jeff Pulver were designing a CRM tool today, the information he would record on each customer card would be: cell phone number, corporate e-mail, personal e-mail (Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail), Facebook ID, Twitter ID and preferred method of contact. 19:11 -- Eric tells Jeff about one of his favorite podcasts, Marketing Over Coffee by John Wall and Christopher Penn, and recalls a discussion in which they explained how to use a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail account address book to synchronize contacts in Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr and other social networks, and asks whether or not Jeff has ever used this method. 20:46 -- The role of e-mail in promoting conferences hasn't really changed, according to Jeff, other than the fact that e-mail is no longer everyone's preferred communication channel. So effectively leveraging e-mail means knowing who prefers it and who doesn't. But when Jeff wants to build a list of current contacts, he'll start by exporting his Linkedin contacts, next export his Plaxo contacts and his Gmail contacts and put it all together in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. He'll also go on to Facebook and Twitter and promotional publish links to his events and conferences, noting that this is where your number of followers is valuable. He also creates Facebook events and groups and direct markets those who RSVP and join. 24:27 -- One of the primary reasons Jeff Pulver uses Microsoft Excel to build his lists is the issue of data portability, or the concern that if he is forced to rely solely on Facebook or Twitter to access his social network, it's possible those services might someday lock him out, restrict access because of a terms of service violation or even change to the terms of service someday and limit the number of contacts a user can maintain. 26:22 -- Eric recommends Shel Israel, featured in a previous episode of this podcast about Twitter Strategy, humanizing brands and building loyalty, as a speaker at Jeff's upcoming 140 Characters Conference. 26:56 -- Freedom Voice marketing communications manager John Lincoln asks via Twitter about the latest VoIP phones with video conference abilities, and what's on the horizon. And Jeff says what's next is high-definition voice, since currently, our voices are so filtered and under-sampled that we are required to spell out our names phonetically, and often struggle to understand speakers with heavy accents or small children, which is a direct result of poor quality audio. 29:17 -- Why VoIP conversations often have audio dropout or interference, what, if anything, individuals can do about it and why net neutrality is a key component to the future of VoIP. 31:16 -- Eric reads Jeff an excerpt from a guest column titled "Search and You May Not Find" by Adam Raff who runs a company called Foundem, that appeared in the opinion section of the New York Times, suggesting that regulators need to go beyond just net neutrality and insure search neutrality as well. "The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because so much market power lies in the hands of one company Google. With 71% of the united states search market, Google's dominance of both search and search advertising gives it overwhelming control. One way that Google exploits this control is by imposing covert blank penalties that can strike legitimate and useful websites, removing them entirely from its search results or placing them so far down the rankings that they will in all likelihood never be found. For three years my company is vertical search and price comparison website found them effectively disappeared from the Internet in this way." 34:30 -- Jeff's 15-year old son Dylan, who Eric saw seated in the background during the interview conducted via Video Skype, shares his perspective on how the social media is changing the world. 38:23 -- End BONUS CONTENT • "Trust Agents" Eric's Notes • "Twitterville" - Eric's Notes RECOMMENDED EPISODES • Twitter Strategy: Humanizing Brands and Building Loyalty with Shel Israel • B2B Social Networks: Driving Commerce with Imperfection and Surrender • Social Media Investor Relations Special with former SEC Attorneys ABOUT THE PODCASTER @EricSchwartzman provides online communication training, strategy and governance to public relations, public affairs, corporate communications and marketing specialists. He has extensive experience integrating emerging information technologies into organizational communications programs through public speaking, hands-on training seminars, consulting and the development of corporate policies on social media usage. His clients have included Boeing, BYU, City National Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, Government of Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Southern California Edison, Toyota, UCLA, US Dept. of State, United States Army, US Embassy of Athens, the United States Marine Corps and many small to medium-sized companies and agencies. Schwartzman is currently co-authoring a book on business-to-business social media communications with Paul Gillin, to be published by Wiley in Fall 2010. He is the instructor behind PRSA’s top-rated social media and emerging treads training seminars, the Social Media Boot Camp and the Social Media Master Class, which are offered monthly in the US through PRSA. Since 2005, he has been producing the weekly, award-winning public relations podcast “On the Record…Online” (@ontherecord) about how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, the official podcast of the PRSA International Conference for the past three consecutive years. On the Record…Online is the Official PR Podcast of the 2010 PRSA International Conference. Subscribe via RSS or follow us on Twitter @ontherecord. read less
Euroscola Online - the podcast
Get Paid For Online Surveys
Make Money Online
Euroscola Online - the podcast
