Friday, March 27, 2015

FIR on Higher Education #31 – How to Mobilize Alumni through Communications

Students will soon be graduating. As they receive their diplomas, these new graduates will bid farewell to their schools. Countless time, energy and not to mention money has been invested in the experience. Alumni have the potential to be one of the best ambassadors for a school by discussing their intimate and unique experiences with others.

Stakeholders across the institution need to ensure that these new graduates aren’t saying goodbye forever, but rather continuing a dialogue through their alumni communications program. On episode 31 of FIR on Higher Education, alumni relations expert Daniel Cohen will share best practice tips on how to do this. Daniel is the CEO of the alumni networking platform company Graduway and a regular conference speaker on this topic.

Among the topics we discuss on this episode is:

• The importance of engaging alumni
• The type of content that most resonates with alumni
• Specific examples of schools taking innovative approaches to mobilizing alumni
• Keys to mobilizing alumni to become potential donors

Following the interview, I share thoughts on the importance of academics embedding stories in their interviews, while technology correspondent Harry Hawk discusses how he is using Blackboard.

About Daniel Cohen
Daniel Cohen is the CEO and Co-Founder of Graduway. Prior to Graduway, Daniel worked for seven years with Merck & Co. serving most recently as their Regional Commercial and Finance Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Prior to Merck, Daniel worked for seven years with Procter & Gamble in the United Kingdom in a variety of finance roles including heading up its finance graduate recruitment function. Daniel holds a BA (Econ.) from the University of Manchester and is a qualified accountant.

Get this Podcast:



This episode is sponsored in part by Experiential Communications’ Media Training for Academics program.

If you enjoy the For Immediate Release on Higher Education podcast, please considering leaving a review, rating and subscribe at the following link (once at this page, click view in iTunes).

About Your Host
Kevin AnselmoKevin Anselmo is the Founder and Principal of Experiential Communications, a consultancy focused on education. He helps brands within academia - whether individual or corporate - communicate with stakeholders. He also is the creator and instructor of the Media Training for Academics program.

Previously, Kevin was Director of Public Relations for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and prior to that managed the media relations for IMD Business School in Switzerland. In addition, he was an adjunct communications professor at Nyack College in New York.

Currently based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Kevin lived and worked in Switzerland for eight years and in Germany for two years. He has led public relations initiatives in various countries around the world.

Find Kevin on Twitter: @kevinanselmo.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR on Higher Education is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Kevin Anselmo on 03/27 at 05:36 AM
Show Notes • Higher Education • (0) Comments • Permalink

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

FIR Interview: Bryan Person interviews consultant, author, and speaker Jon Burkhart

FIR InterviewsLongtime FIR supporter Bryan Person caught up with social media consultant Jon Burkhart at the 2015 South by Southwest Interactive festival, where the pair talked about Burkhart’s focus on helping organizations avoid embarrassing themselves online.

At SxSW, Burkhart handed out postcards as icebreakers, each features an examble of a brand #fail on social media, including one dealing with the Justine Sacco kerfuffle, one addressing the ill-advised SpaghettiOs tweet commemorating Pearl Harbor Day, and one about the Golf Channel’s I Have a Golf Dream tweet on Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s birthday. He also has produced the Tits-up, Balls-up Challenge, a game he introduced to attendees at SxSW, pictured below, which he talks about in the interview.

Tits-up Balls-up Challenge

Get this podcast:

About our Conversation Partner

Jon BurkhartJon Burkhart is a consultant, speaker, and author, baed in London. He is the co-author of Newsjacking, a 2013 book he wrote with Grant Hunter about how brands can be part of cultural conversations without looking like idiots (according to a Fast Co.Create review).

Jon started the first real-time marketing blog, UrgentGenius.com, in 2010 with his co-author, Grant Hunter. He sits on the South by Southwest Interactive Advisory Board; he has created or delivered seven talks at SxSW in four years. Burkhard leads “think-make-launch” workshops for agencies, brands, and organizations including British Design and Art Direction. He builds newsrooms in agencies to kick-start real-time content creation, and donates time to a cause he created called Millennial Mentoring, which launched at SxSW in 2013).

He spent 10 years in advertising agencies before moving into his current activities.

Connect with Jon on Twitter at @JonBurkhart

About our Guest Interviewer

Bryan PersonBryan Person’s role at Lithium Technologies is to help the community provider’s enterprise clients offer high-level customer care to their customers across the social web. Bryan delivers strategic counsel on best practices in social customer care and online engagement, and training/implementation on the company’s cloud-based Lithium Social Web platform.

He also leads presentations and panel discussions on social customer care at events and conferences, having spoken recently at SXSW Interactive, the WOMMA Summit, BlogWorld NYC & LA, and the Social Media Club Dallas.

Bryan is the founder of the Social Media Breakfast, an event-and-networking series for teaching, sharing, and learning about industry best practices. The breakfasts began in Boston in August 2007, and have since spread to more than 50 cities around the world.

Bryan’s specialties include customer service, social customer care, social CRM, professional speaking, content marketing, content creation, online communities, business blogging, corporate blogging, blogger outreach, podcasting, and corporate podcasting.

Connect with Bryan on Twitter at @BryanPerson

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Check the FIR website for information about other FIR podcasts. To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 03/24 at 08:19 AM
Show Notes • Interviews • (0) Comments • Permalink

FIR Presents AMP Up Your Social Media #48: Tony Zayas and Prospecting Using Social Media

AMP UP Your Social MediaFor the past 10 years, Tony Zayas has been passionately engaged in the world of social media. He works for printing and promotional products in the franchise organization called Proforma. This is his second time on GaggleAMP’s podcast, and we welcome his expertise once again! Tony recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss power prospecting using social media.

“Apply sales marketing tactics to social.”

Tony discusses tips for prospecting using social media:

  1. You have to grab customers’ attention in a number of different ways. Your customers aren’t sitting right in front of you, so you have to open a box of brainstorming tools in order to reach these customers and really grab their attention without the benefit of a face-to-face interaction.
  2. Continually promote your program. Because you aren’t always face-to-face with potential prospects, you’ll want to continually promote your program in order to ensure that you’re given the most opportunity to touch your prospective client base.
  3. Get folks to participate. Participating leads to action, and those customers will help to gain more momentum in traction with getting others’ attention as well. I requested video testimonials from those who took my training courses, and this was then utilized to get more customers!
  4. There are three major challenges to overcome on social media. Time, content, and strategy can all block your success on social media. Carve out time, create engaging content, and design an effective strategy for your online efforts. GaggleAMP thankfully can knock out the first two issues fairly easily!

Tony ZayasAbout Tony Zayas

Tony is a proud father and husband hailing from Aurora, Ohio. He’s a Chicago sports, UFC, and Iowa Hawkeye football enthusiast and has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa in Philosophy and English. While he also dabbles in mixed martial arts, he’ll always retain that his greatest passion lies in his family.

Tony would love to hear from you! Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Get this podcast:

Tweet about the show using #AUYSM or Tweet at us @AMPUpSocial. AMP Up Your Social Media is a proud member of the FIR Podcast Network.

FIR Community on Google PlusShare your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

Posted by Glenn Gaudet on 03/24 at 04:49 AM
Show Notes • AMP Up Your Social Media • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, March 23, 2015

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #800: March 23, 2015

FIRQuick News: Ryanair’s next stop is not New York, SHIFT becomes a Google Analytics Certified Partner, American Airlines is playing better music onboard thanks to passengers’ Twitter complaints, business use of social media by front-line employees increases; Ragan promo;

News That Fits: Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign: right or wrong?; Michael Netzley’s Asia Report: reflections on Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew; latest Pew research on internet usage in emerging and developing countries shows text messaging and social media big in many countries; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; listener comments in audio and in the FIR Podcast Community on Google+; as PR rises and journalism falls, PR seems to be dropping the ball; Dan York’s Tech Report: 800th episode, eh?, Internet Society, the BBC’s new responsive website, Meerkat, and more; Igloo software promo; the past week on the FIR Podcast Network;

Music by Ex Norwegian; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir; Igloo Software, providers of an intranet you’ll actually like, delivered securely with our cloud platform: learn more at www.igloosoftware.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report for March 23, 2015: An 94-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Links to websites, blog posts and other content we discuss in the show are posted as Delicious bookmarks to facilitate your connection with the discussions and sharing of that content.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday March 30…

Posted by neville on 03/23 at 12:22 PM
Show Notes • Hobson and Holtz • (0) Comments • Permalink

FIR B2B #24: Naomi Oreskes on How Merchants of Doubt Undermine Good Science

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

The gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins points out the need for workplaces to find ways for recognize people who aren’t naturally vocal and aggressive. The ability to shout shouldn’t be a requirement for advancement. Paul, who is an introvert, is particularly sensitive to this issue and thinks companies are squandering talent when they don’t listen to the people who don’t talk very much.

A new study by Google says 46% of potential buyers researching B2B products today are millennials, up from 27% in 2012. That makes them the biggest generational group researching these products. These buyers use mobile devices extensively and favor online video, which means B2B companies need to get on the stick and enable their websites and content for the channels millennials use.

A report from Dun & Bradstreet NetProspex based on an analysis of 223 million records finds that more then 71% have gaps and inaccuracies. This seems surprising at a time when so much information is available about business professionals and the companies they work for. Eric asks if anyone knows of a service that overlays data from multiple sources into comprehensive and accurate profiles of buyers.

Special Guest: Naomi Oreskes

Despite the fact that 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity is having a significant impact on climate change, only 50% of the general public holds the same view. This disconnect between scientific consensus and public opinion is nothing new. Businesses that oppose policy changes that threaten their interests have long used paid experts, faux public policy foundations and outright lies to create doubt in the minds of the public going back to the 1950s.

Numerous examples of these practices are exhaustively documented and analyzed in Merchants of Doubt, the 2010 book by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and CalTech science historian Erik Conway. The book shows how a small number of politically conservative but academically respected scientists have been involved in campaigns to cast doubt on everything from the dangers of tobacco to evidence of an ozone hole to the debate over climate change, and how media organizations give disproportionate attention to minority views in the interest of stirring up controversy.

A documentary based on Merchants of Doubt is now in staged release and will be widely available this summer. Eric saw it and calls it the most important documentary he’s ever seen. Paul listened to the 13-hour audiobook and calls it "life-changing." Naomi Oreskes joins us to discuss how commercial interests use doubt to block change and how to know when science is being manipulated in this way.

Follow Naomi Oreskes on Twitter.

Get this Podcast:

About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR B2B is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 03/23 at 07:31 AM
FIR B2B • (0) Comments • Permalink

Friday, March 20, 2015

FIR Presents Inside PR #404: Media just keeps on changing…

FIR Presents Inside PRMartin here. And while this may be episode 404, we’re not sending you to a page like this…

State of PR

On today’s show we talk about a couple of things: the ever-evolving media landscape and a new app that could turn citizen journalists into live TV reporters.

First – media: GigaOm, the tech analysis, publication announced it was shutting down. There’s been much written about them and why it happened. Here’s a quick recap:


That same week, the Toronto Star told readers it’s shuttering its paywall on April 1 and letting anyone access its online content free of charge.

We share our take on GigaOm, what it takes to run a business and how mainstream media’s trying to keep up.

Gini says it’s hard to figure out a workable paid content model and believes we’re on the brink of a content exhaustion point.

I suggest what we perceive success from the outside very differently than what you see when you’re inside and privy to the whole story.

Joe offers a business lesson and comments that venture capital doesn’t like slow and steady growth, but that you can build a business patiently and organically. He references Danny Sullivan’s post on Medium (shared above).

Then we chat about Meerkat, a live video streaming app where you send the feed directly to Twitter. In fact, Joe was testing it during our podcast but since the video is ephemeral, it disappears when you’re done, so you won’t find his feed.

Live streaming, of course, isn’t new. But the simplicity of using Meerkat means it could be a good tool for citizen journalists to witness events or capture breaking news. Have you tried it yet? What was your experience?

And what do you think about the state of media, social media and citizen journalism? We’d love to hear from you.

Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

What do you think?

Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

We’d ask one favor of you. If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

Get this podcast:

We’d love to hear your thoughts!

FIR Community on Google PlusShare your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also reach Inside PR’s hosts by email at insideprcomments@gmail.com, or join the InsidePR Google Plus community or Facebook group. InsidePR is on Twitter at @Inside_PR. You can send us an instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR: Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Check the FIR website for information about other FIR podcasts. To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed.

FIR presents Inside PR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years.

Posted by shel on 03/20 at 12:12 PM
Show Notes • Inside PR • (0) Comments • Permalink

FIR Presents Young PR Pros Episode 99: Refreshing Your Career

Young PR Pros Are you victim of routine? Do you feel like your career isn’t moving? Maybe it is time to refresh your career.

In episode 99, our hosts Kristine D’Arbelles and Julia Kent take inspiration from IABC’s Communication World. In the March issue, IABC interviewed Mark Schumann who talks about the three Ds to ensure his career and communication functions move forward: diagnosis, development and delivery.

Kristine and Julia look at refreshing your career through two lenses: moving on to another opportunity, or refreshing your current role. The answer isn’t always jumping to a job that pays more, sometimes you can refresh your career by making change within your own organization.

Don’t forget, the next episode is our 100th episode. We have a special surprise in store for you. The surprise might involve a new voice. And this is a voice you do not want to miss.

Also, Young PR Pros will be sponsoring the uOPRA conference Connect 2 Success. If you are attending the event, be sure to stop by and say hi to our host Kristine. Kristine will be appearing on a panel called Getting Started in the Field, as well as interviewing key speakers. We will be asking speakers to give us an example of the most impressive PR or communications move they have ever seen. We will share their responses and all our interviews over the coming months. This is the second time we participate at the uOPRA conference, check out the interviews with last year’s speakers here.

Get this Podcast:

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.
You can also connect with Young PR Pros through their blog our Facebook Page, or on our Google+ page, or send us an email at youngprpros@gmail.com, or send us a message on Twitter @youngprpros, @kristinedarbell, or @kentjulia. You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

Young PR Pros is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Kristine on 03/20 at 05:17 AM
(0) Comments • Permalink

Page 6 of 254 pages ‹ First  < 4 5 6 7 8 >  Last ›