Friday Roundup 11th July 2008

Listen.

Marketing communications isn't about who shouts loudest. Today, the emphasis has shifted to listening, so that when you do have something to say it's appropriate and engaging.

Brian Solis expands in "The Art of Conversation - It's About Listening Not Marketing". Graham Jones gets to the point in "How to improve your online business - listen". And Craig Thomler highlights "the approaches now available to communicators to listen, engage, influence and be influenced" covered in Philip Sheldrake's recent ebook.

And marketers are definitely listening to (well reading anyway) the perspectives presented by MarCom Professional members... we've just had the best week this year for new members and page views.

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

Mobile Marketing Magazine Calls for more Mobile marketing Case Studies

by si crowhurst of We Love Mobile

I read with interest the Mobile Marketing Magazine call for more case studies for mobile marketing campaigns. It is true that there is a lack of examples, at least, those that show results that are favourable. The idea proposed by MMM is to draw out case studies from agencies and brands. They have teamed up with the Mobile Marketing Association who will review these campaigns, and state what they liked about them. We Love Mobile is currently developing case studies that we will be submitting for inclusion. More...

Thinking Big Pays Off For Ten's Big Brother

by Trevor Young of One19

As an uninspiring Big Brother trudged through its umpteenth Australian season, Channel Ten knew it needed a BIG IDEA that would demand attention, create buzz and draw in an audience that, until now, had stayed away in droves (compared to earlier BB seasons).
Enter former Baywatch babe and ex-Playboy pin-up, Pamela Anderson. Literally.
Anderson, who at 41 is heading towards exalted 'yummy grandma' status, entered the Big Brother house to shake things up a bit, and ratings for the show jumped as a result (1.4 million viewers tuned in to see Pammy, making it the first time this year that BB had beaten all competitors and won every major demographic, according to news.com.au). More...

How to improve your online business - listen

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Bold researchers speaking at the University of East Anglia today have revealed that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a popular psychological treatment technique) may not be all it's cracked up to be. Indeed, some studies suggest that CBT is just as useful as other, less popular therapies, like "psychodynamics".

It all reminds me of a study on eradicating the fear of public speaking. Nervous speakers were allocated to three groups. One group received CBT, one group received Neuro Linguistic Programming training and a third group had no help at all. More...

A guide to engaging social media for government communicators

by Craig Thomler of EGov AU

Last week the Social Web Analytics eBook 2008 was released by Phillip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group.

I've been browsing the book for a few days and have found it a very coherent view of the development of the online channel and the approaches now available to communicators to listen, engage, influence and be influenced by their customers, stakeholders and community.

In particular the book focuses on how to locate and monitor the conversations even now going on about your organisation, to more fully understand community views and trends in real time. More...

Drawing the lines - effectively structuring government online teams

by Craig Thomler of EGov AU

There are many approaches in government - and the private sector - to managing their online channel. The area is still young and as yet I've not seen best practice structures emerge, as has occurred within other areas of organisation management.

In this post I intend to reflect on the different approaches and my own experiences of how well I have seen these work in practice.

I'll then propose the approach that I believe delivers the best outcomes for an organisation and its customers in today's environment. More...

Why Customer Service is the New Marketing

by Matt Ambrose of The Copywriter's Crucible

[image courtesy of ansik]

Whether it’s in customer reviews, blogs or forums, people are talking about products and influencing buying decisions. Blaring out sales messages merely antagonises skeptical prospects, who place their trust in the objective advice of their peers.

Research is showing that the ROI of traditional marketing methods is falling, whilst customer interaction is increasing. This would suggest that an adjustment to the bean counter is needed to how marketing dollars are spent. More...

Surviving in a tough market

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Hopefully you'll excuse the shameless plugging (as Dom puts it), but Hotwire was featured in the pages of this weekend's Financial Times as an example of a PR agency that survived in tough market conditions.

Kristin Syltevik, CEO of Hotwire, founded the agency in the middle of the Dot Com bubble bursting, but has somehow managed to come through this and build the agency into one of the fastest growing tech PR agencies in Europe.

With recent events and the state of the economy in mind, Kristin's advice is valuable for those PR agencies looking to weather the financial storm. More...

What the f**k is social media?

by Chris Applegate of Outside Line

The title says it all, really: | View | Upload your own
Via Social PRobiotic

It’s rather punchy message aside, the presentation is also very slickly done and excellent selection of the most relevant and hard-hitting statistics about social media today: 14% of people trust adverts while 78% trust word of mouth. Millennials spend 16 hours a week online. And I especially love the “social > media” slide. Give it a go.

Speaking of presentations, Slideshare is currently featuring “PR 2.0” More...

The Art of Conversation - It's About Listening Not Marketing

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Discussions and debates on the viability, necessity, and effectiveness of conversational aka social media marketing continue to roar across the Social Web.

There are three sides to this equation:

- New media pioneers and practitioners who defend and evangelize the art of conversations because they're investing in people and their feedback.

- Social Media marketers who embrace social tools and promote their use in corporate/brand marketing and Public Relations - most without using them in such applications. More...

Why you should question any tech B-to-B PR campaign that emphasises print over online

by Andrew Smith of escherman

A very instructive interview with IDG founder Pat McGovern in today’s Guardian - with some unavoidable conclusions for the tech PR sector. McGovern hasn’t built a $3bn empire by getting things too wrong - so worth listening to his views on the future of B-to-B publishing (he says all B-to-B publishing will be online in 10 years).

A few things in the feature did stand out. For example, many questioned his decision to drop the print edition of Infoworld in the US - saying farewell to distributing 180,000 copies every week. More...

Podcast production

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

The PR industry chuckled when Weber Shandwick made it into the pages of PR Week a couple of years ago with news of its bespoke podcast studio when the simplicity of the format means that a microphone and laptop PC are all that it required.

But the quality of podcast production distinguishes good from lousy. Noise levels, hisses, pops, coughs, splutters and pauses are not acceptable.

There’s an awful lot can be done to clean up an interview in an editing application such as Audicity but it’s time consuming and there’s some background glitches that just can’t be removed. More...