Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Thought Leader Life with Mitchell Levy, Episode 63: April 7, 2015

Thought Leader Life with Mitchell Levy

Our co-host for the month of March is Jim Canfield (@jimcanfield) and one of our guest for March was Bruce McLennan (@FarnsworthGrp).

In this episode, Mitchell Levy introduces his co-host for the month of March, Jim Canfield, who is the CEO of Renaissance Executive Forums, a membership organization that helps companies become successful. Along with this episode’s guest, Bruce McLennan, Jim providesinsights on how forum groups can help top executives become better leaders and managers, make better decisions, and get through what is called “being lonely at the top.”Having organized a couple of CEO forums himself, Mitchell notes that such groups can havea powerful impact on its members. Bruce agrees, saying that he was amazed with the depth of what he could take away from the dialogues. He also narrates how forum groups helped him and his company get through dark times by providing support and guidance, as well as fresh ideas and perspectives. 

Bruce McLennan

Being part of a forum group means having informal accountability partners, people you respect askingabout where you are now and where you want to gonext.You will have people in the forum who will tell you straight up,”Look,you’re doing it the wrong way,” and check on your accountability in a good, friendly way. Jim also notes that, in executive forums, you get a genuine, objective third-party view of issues. Although members of the forum come from diverse backgrounds, Bruce points out thateveryonehas commonality in the issues they face every single day. According to Jim, because all of us are smarter than any of us, the idea that we can get a good collaborative group together,andcome up with a better solution thanwe would have on our own, should be important to every executive out there.

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

Here are a couple of aha moments from the episode. See more in the “Aha Moments from Thought Leader Life”eBooks available in the social media-enabled eBook platform, Aha Amplifier: http://AhaAmplifier.com/.

• It’s nice to be able to sit in a closed room witha group of peers who really understand what you’re doing. @FarnsworthGrp#TLL
• Finding accountability partners is always relevant. @happyabout #TLL
• It’s really important for a CEO of an org to have a point of view. @jimcanfield #TLL
• All of us are smarter than any of us. @jimcanfield #TLL

Join us 11 am PT / 2 pm ET / 7 pm GMT on Saturday every week. The show blog is Thought Leader Life.

Any comments or suggestions for the show please send them. Thank you for listening and if you like what you hear, please leave a review on iTunes!

This episode was sponsored, in part, by THiNKaha.com, helping experts become thought leaders.

You can connect with Mitchell at MitchellLevy.com, @HappyAbout on Twitter, or join his Thought Leadership Best Practices Group.

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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.

Posted by Michael Procopio on 04/07 at 04:15 AM
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Monday, April 06, 2015

FIR B2B #25: How Yamaha Harmonizes a Diverse Customer and Channel Community

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

New McKinsey research makes the case that B2B purchasing decisions are not only growing increasingly complex but also evolving to resemble B2C buyer journeys. “Many more influencers and decision makers are now involved in the purchasing process, and business buyers too have been shaped by their consumer shopping experience,” McKinsey researchers Oskar Lingqvist, Candace Lun Plotkin, and Jennifer Stanley write. “Just as the digital revolution has transformed once-predictable consumer purchasing paths into a more circular pattern of touch points, so too business-to-business selling has become less linear.”

That means the pressure is on B2B companies to understand the buyer journey better, and the only way to do that is by speaking to buyers. Unfortunately, many sales reps still jealously guard access to their customers, inhibiting the flow of information that can make all sales and marketing professionals more productive.

Government agencies are loosening the reins on their scientists and increasingly allowing them to speak freely about their research, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, improvements are inconsistent, with agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention getting strong reviews for openness, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration scraping the bottom of the barrel. Still, the improvements are an encouraging trend both for science and for vigorous scientific discussion.

Special Guest: Jeff Hawley, Director, Customer Experience Group, Yamaha Corp. of America

Although Yamaha is a household name in music circles, its sales and marketing strategy has until recently been strictly B2B. Like many big Japanese electronics firms, Yamaha makes a huge variety of products, with a particular focus on musical instruments and sound engineering technology. The company’s social media strategy needs to enable product groups to speak to customers in their own distinct language without losing the benefits of brand consistency. Yamaha also needs to communicate directly with consumers while being mindful of the needs of its B2B channel.

The company has recently been consolidating and unifying its Facebook presence in response to research that indicates that customers have a strongly positive association with the Yamaha brand regardless of the products they use. It’s dipping its toe into direct-to-consumer marketing for the first time. Jeff Hawley explains how customer insights are guiding his group’s thinking as it builds a consistent social media identity.

Follow Jeff on Twitter.

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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.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 04/06 at 03:07 PM
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The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #802: April 6, 2015

FIRThanks to Ragan Communications for their almost 8 years of sponsoring FIR; Gini Dietrich is guest co-host with Shel on the May 4 show while Neville is in Boston;

Quick News: Collaborate/London intranet workshop from Igloo Software on April 16, alarming declines in social media among Inc 500, good advice in BBC’s updated social media guidelines, companies just aren’t listening to what reporters want from their online newsrooms; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop;

News That Fits: Does it make sense to do online Q&As on Reddit, Twitter, etc?; Michael Netzley’s Asia Report: Gushcloud controversy and smear campaigns conducted by blogging cartels; would you use Periscope for employee communication as one CEO did?; listener comments in the FIR Podcast Community on Google+ and via email; The Economist study identifies Gen-narrators who could be effective brand advocates; Dan York’s Tech Report: Turkey blocks social networks, Flickr and the public domain, NASA space image library, and more; Igloo Software promo; the past week on the FIR Podcast Network; with social still treated as an ‘afterthought’ by PR agencies, we offer some advice;

Music from Adri-Ann Ralph; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: 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 April 6, 2015: An 87-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 April 13…

Posted by neville on 04/06 at 01:06 PM
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Monday, March 30, 2015

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #801: March 30, 2015

FIRA new podcast, Wag the Dog FM, from Philippe Borremans; FIR Interview coming: a second conversation with Millennials at Syracuse University London Campus;

Quick News: Brands flock to Periscope, being seen as innovative boosts a company’s bottom line says Ketchum survey, Slack is killing IRC, all 650 Members of Parliament in the UK will receive an iPad Air 2 after the May election; Ragan promo;

News That Fits: New apps - including Periscope, Meerkat and NewsByMe - could boost citizen journalism; Dan York’s Tech Report: Periscope and live streaming, Dave Winer’s MyWord, Facebook; drilling a social media crisis with Polpeo; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; listener comments in audio and in the FIR Podcast Community on Google+; wearable tech will shift from novelty to norm in the next five years; the past week on the FIR Podcast Network; Igloo Software promo; summary of what we learned from Facebook’s F8;

Music from Moon Taxi; 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 30, 2015: A 92-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

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 April 6…

Posted by neville on 03/30 at 12:37 PM
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FIR Presents Inside PR #405: Starbucks Starcrossed

FIR Presents Inside PROn this week’s Inside PR, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about three issues: Starbuck’s #RaceTogether initiative, the change to Google’s search algorithm to penalize Websites that are not mobile-friendly, and another move by Facebook to make itself more inviting to advertisers.

Starbucks #RaceTogether

Looking back at Starbucks’ #RaceTogether campaign, I can’t help but feel that, while laudable in intent, RaceTogether showed a remarkable lack of self awareness on Starbucks’ account. Martin and Gini disagree. They see more positive than negative in Starbucks’ initiative and its handling of the subsequent fallout.

Gini feels that Starbucks succeeded in getting us to talk about the issue. I think that Starbucks succeeded in getting us to talk about Starbucks – and not in a positive way. I think the issue came apart because of a lack of self awareness on Starbucks’ part. I see it as an unequal power relationship. A chain that sells premium-priced coffee to a well-heeled clientele asks its fairly low paid employees to raise a highly sensitive topic across the counter. Gini pushes back. She talks about her experience of her local Starbucks. Martin sees it as a grand gesture in the finest tradition of liberalism. Gini gets the last word. We’re talking about it. Starbucks had some success and she suggests they should not be timid about this type of social initiative in the future.

Mobile-friendly by April 21 or else

But that’s not all we talk about. We also point to the pending April 21 change to Google’s algorithm penalize Websites that are not mobile-friendly. Communications execs, make sure that your sites are up to date or be ready to see them disappear from the front page of Google Search.

Facebook entices advertisers

Finally, we discuss the disappearance of comments from corporate Facebook pages. Just one more step by Facebook to make Facebook a more attractive platform for advertisers.

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.

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

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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 03/30 at 12:24 PM
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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.

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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
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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

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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
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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.

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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.

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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
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Thursday, March 19, 2015

FIR Presents AMP Up Your Social Media #47:Dino Dogan and Effective Content Marketing on Social Media

AMP UP Your Social MediaDino Dogan is the CEO of Triberr, a SaaS solution that makes media buying in blogs, podcasts, and videos easy, scalable, and effective. His past exploits as a network engineer led him to working with people and then towards his company Triberr. Triberr distributes content thereby hitting the most important success indicators, like number of shares, traffic, and engagement. Dino recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss content marketing on social media.

“Write an article directed and targeted at a single person. The ‘fly on the wall’ effect is powerful!”

Dino discusses tips for effective marketing in social media:

  • Search engine optimization is big. SEO works for transactional-type interactions. For instance, Google can filter results to what folks are looking for. But if you want to set up an ecosystem around your brand, then it’s a completely different ballgame.
  • Bogging gets people to take interest. Users are drawn to groups (or ‘tribes’ like Triberr) the same as they would be in real life. Blog often, share others’ posts, and comment to get the group engaged and magnetic.
  • Get employees engaged. Utilizing your employees can help fill the void in creating groups of people to talk about any given subject. They help get the ball rolling to successful social media campaigns.
  • Keep learning every day. Blogging is an evolving part of social media, and stay open to learning new tactics as the market changes. Keep in mind that many things will stay the same as well!
  • Own your blog. It’s great to have a social media presence, but make sure that your content goes back to your site because you own and control that. For Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, you’re merely ‘renting’ that space.

Dino DoganAbout Dino Dogan

Dino Dogan is a recent US Citizen from Bosnia. In his spare time, he dabbles in mixed martial arts as well as singing and songwriting. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Theological Studies from the University of Sarajevo and has also touched interests in dog training as well as psychology. He funnels his interests into different blogs—all of which can be found online!

Dino would love to hear from you! Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter or dinodogan.com.

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+.

Join the AMP Up Your Social Media Google Plus community or Facebook group. 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.

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.

AMP UP Your Social Media is sponsored by:

  • GaggleAMP - Empower your employees, partners and resellers to amplify your social media.
  • SafeLinks - Know when your links on social media messages fail before you lose out on the people clicking on them.

The FIR Podcast Network is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide

Posted by shel on 03/19 at 03:04 PM
Show Notes • AMP Up Your Social Media • (1) Comments • Permalink

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

FIR Presents AMP Up Your Social Media #46 with Lew Sabbag on Content Marketing in Social Media

AMP UP Your Social MediaLew Sabbag has 25 years of marketing experience and now works with businesses to improve their content marketing strategies. Currently, he is the VP of Social Media and Community for the American Marketing Association in Boston. Lew recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss content marketing on social media.

“There is a great deal of opportunity to be more effective, be more efficient, and be both!”

Lew discusses tips for effective content marketing in social media:

  • Have a presence that allows your company to be seen as ‘people.’ Show folks that there’s a friends and family side that is behind your company. Show when you work with the community to connect with other users on a more intimate level. This gives your client base a more comfortable way to communicate and engage with your company.
  • Create local pages for large companies. When your brand involves many businesses under one name, it’s best to have local brick-and-mortar offshoots to have their own social media pages in addition to the brand page. You can answer local-specific questions, tame the ‘trolls’, and give local-specific information.
  • Give quick responses. Customers get frustrated quickly when businesses don’t give a quick response. You’ll likely see ranking improvements as customers find themselves interacting more reliably with your company on social media.
  • Change your message across platforms. As you localize the content better, you’ll find that you can customize your content better as well. Humanize your efforts and keep variety across your social media platforms, as they’re likely addressing different crowds.
  • Find the right person for the right answer. Have a list of approved answers for questions. When you find that your locality can’t confidently answer standard FAQs, then it might be time to thank them for their question and funnel that question to someone higher-up.

Lew SabbagAbout Lew Sabbag

Lew values going out and helping the community and hails from Reading, MA. He’s also partner to a company called Business +1 and has a wide variety of side jobs aimed at helping the community with their marketing efforts. In Lew’s own words, ‘Here’s to helping people, learning, doing the RIGHT thing and having FUN along the way!’

Lew would love to hear from you! Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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+.

Join the AMP Up Your Social Media Google Plus community or Facebook group. 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.

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.

AMP UP Your Social Media is sponsored by:

  • GaggleAMP - Empower your employees, partners and resellers to amplify your social media.
  • SafeLinks - Know when your links on social media messages fail before you lose out on the people clicking on them.

The FIR Podcast Network is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide.

Posted by Glenn Gaudet on 03/17 at 10:26 AM
Show Notes • AMP Up Your Social Media • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, March 16, 2015

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #799: March 16, 2015

FIRQuick News: External CEO engagement is now a mandate, Facebook is shutting down FriendFeed, Netflix releases another awesome native ad, Quartz experiments with shades of grey to distinguish facts from hearsay; Ragan promo;

News That Fits: Apple Watch will usher in the ‘reimagining’ of content marketing, say agencies; Dan York’s Tech Report: NTEN and Bryan Person, Meerkat, and more; the brand potential of live-streaming apps like Meerkat; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; listener comments in the FIR Community on Google+; using Apple Watch in the enterprise workplace: Salesforce has an app for that; Igloo Software promo; the past week on the FIR Podcast Network; a multilingual approach to social media may be necessary for multinational companies;

Neville will be at WordCamp London next weekend; music from Two Gallants; 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 16, 2015: An 82-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

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 23…

Posted by neville on 03/16 at 06:30 AM
Show Notes • Hobson and Holtz • (0) Comments • Permalink
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