Metzger Associates' Blog

We've Moved -- Our Blog, That Is

We've moved our blog from Typepad to Wordpress. Please check for new posts and updates at metzgerpr.wordpress.com. We'll keep this one up a bit longer, but won't be posting here.

We'll see you at the new site!

We've Moved -- Our Blog, That Is

We've moved our blog from Typepad to Wordpress. Please check for new posts and updates at metzgerpr.wordpress.com. We'll keep this one up a bit longer, but won't be posting here.

We'll see you at the new site

We've Moved -- Our Blog, That Is

We've moved our blog from Typepad to Wordpress. Please check for new posts and updates at metzgerpr.wordpress.com. We'll keep this one up a bit longer, but won't be posting here.

We'll see you at the new site

We've Moved -- Our Blog, That Is

We've moved our blog from Typepad to Wordpress. Please check for new posts and updates at metzgerpr.wordpress.com. We'll keep this one up a bit longer, but won't be posting here.

We'll see you at the new site

New Media Minute from Daisy Whitney

A reporter I've worked with for some time, Daisy Whitney, has recently expanded her work from from TV Week and other publications to her own video podcast -- The New Media Minute.

I've been enjoying her commentary for some time, and this week featured another of my favorite "new media" personalties: Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV.

I found this particular episode of Daisy's video weblog (or vlog) is important for a couple of reasons:

1. I like how Daisy is expanding her work to a new medium, and how the Web is allowing her to do so without securing a contract, job, what have you, with a network or other established media outlet. She's doing good work, and I hope her following continues to grow.
2. In this episode, she's profiling someone who's doing the same thing. He even notes in his interview that he's been approached by some networks, and while he might consider some, he likes what's happening on his own show and doing it his own way -- the essence of the "new media."

But perhaps most importantly, you have to love a guy that talks about wine that uses phrases like "this wine rocks my face off" and "less than 20 bones." So much for wine snobbery!

Check out Daisy and Gary at:

Daisy Whitney
Gary Vaynerchuk

Take a look, and as Daisy would say, head on over to Facebook and "friend them up!"

 

How Changes to Media Changed College Football

So, how did the change in the media make for the strangest year (in my humble opinion) in the history of college football?

Simple -- more exposure for more teams.

This year's season has been one of the strangest ever. Kansas (yes, Kansas, a basketball power and football doormat) has a chance to play for a national championship this year. Nearly every team that has risen to #1 has been beaten. This didn't happen once, but over and over again, like never before. Here's why I think it's happening.

When I was growing up in the 70s, teams were lucky to get a couple of televised games a year. ABC-TV had the contract with the NCAA, and there was only so much time for college games. Teams that wouldn't attract a big national audience might not get a televised game all year.

Enter cable.

Suddenly, in the late 80s and early 90s, the major teams had most -- if not all -- games televised, and many lesser schools were getting significant television exposure. Rather than a total of 30-40 total games being televised each year, 30 or more games were being televised each week.

So why did this change college football? Exposure.

In the 1970s and before, an outstanding athlete realized that he needed to play for a major college to get any national television exposure (and, as a result, professional scout attention) at all. As a result, great players were willing to sit out their freshman and sometimes sophomore years to play at a major national powerhouse. Today, since so many teams get TV coverage, a great high school player can choose to go to a school that is not a traditional powerhouse, play immediately, even as a freshman, and still get a reasonable amount of TV exposure.

And look what's happened. This year alone, a Top-10 Michigan team got beat in the first week of the season by Appalachian State. Top Five teams like USC, Southern Florida, Ohio State, and Florida have all lost, and the list goes on. Personally, I think it's the ability for small, even unheard of, schools to attract and get exposure for athletes that felt they had to choose a larger, established school just a few years ago. This year, the all-time record for career rushing was set by a kid playing for Chadron State College in western Nebraska.

A major shift in college football, and it's just an example of what's going on just about everywhere... are you looking at what media changes mean to your company or your clients each and every day?

You should be.

Comments from the PRSA Gold Picks

As sponsors of the Colorado Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Gold Pick Awards, we were able to have a little fun in the program. Rather than taking out a huge ad that just congratulated everyone, we took out an ad that asked people to send a text message from their cell phone to a five-digit number (called a short code). When they sent the message, we captured their cell number and sent messages asking a variety of questions throughout the evening. Attendees were able to send comments back, and we captured them here.

Throughout the evening, we asked a variety of questions from "what do you think of the emcee?" to "how many times have you visited the bar?" The responses are below (and surprisingly, we only had to edit a couple!).

And since it's my blog, I made a few comments back (in parentheses).

this is fun
i love lamp (nice "Anchorman" reference by someone!)
thanks for having us
this is like twitter (yes, it is. See for yourself at www.twitter.com)
Everything looks great!
Where's the bar, again? (Seriously... a PR person had to ask that question?)
This is cool! (Thanks!)
Thanks Metzger!
Cool
Love it
Good joke by Sam (Sam Adams of the Rocky Mountain News was our emcee)
Luv it
he looks old (not sure who this was about... ouch!)
Fun times (not sure if this meant the bar, the event or our text messaging)
Can anyone hear me?
Great job
if you text and no one gets it, does at&t still charge you?
wwocolol (we think someone sat on the phone funny)
Talk up cant hear you in the back (Sorry to tell you a week later, Sam!)
Super
Excellent job
Great
Free drinks... Yay! (One of our messages offered free drinks, but noted that we were only kidding)
Can I have 2 (a reference to the free drinks... now that's the kind of PR people I hang out with!)
Rum and coke please
2 for me (note how the free drinks message lit up the crowd)
Nice job by all the winners
hi Palmer (Palmer is the president of Colorado PRSA)
please, please give me the tickets (we also gave away a pair of CU football tickets)
i need the tix! (Sorry, unless you were the winner)
nice dress (we hope that wasn't sarcastic)
Thanks
Thanx
Thank you
Thank u
U drive safe

All in all, a good evening. We won two awards and had a great time. Thanks to everyone that participated!

Thanks for "Twittering" With Us

Thanks to the PRSA folks for putting on a great Gold Picks Award Dinner last night, and thanks to everyone who played along with our text message game! We're still getting comments and will have them posted here soon, so check back shortly!

And if you don't know what a "twittering" is, click here. You may want to try it!

If It Isn't Bad Enough the First Time Around...

posted by Doyle

Poor Miss South Carolina.

I have no idea what the ratings were for the recent Miss Teen USA pageant, but I know I wasn't watching. But I have seen the pitiful clip of Miss South Carolina's rambling rant on why many Americans can't locate the U.S. on world map.

It would be too easy to poke fun, and too many already have, so let's hope she was just really nervous.

However, there's a lesson here for all of us regarding the conversational media -- millions of people that have no interest in a beauty pageant have watched this disaster. A mistake by any of us now lives on the Internet. It can be shared, forwarded, commented upon and rapidly distributed to an even larger audience than the original broadcast.

Just like bad news about your company, or missteps by members of your management team.

 

Bad Idea

posted by Doyle

Paying bloggers to post is a bad idea for everyone concerned.

Can lots of posts improve your search engine ranking? Yes. Is it OK if you disclose you were paid to post? It's better, but still not advisable. If you want to buy an ad, buy an ad. If you want to join the online conversation, do it openly and honestly.

We work with bloggers as well as members of the mainstream media to introduce them to appropriate stories they may find interesting. If they do, they may choose to write about them, online or in a traditional media outlet. If there's not an interest or fit, they don't cover the story. If they cover it, we get an honest story. We often learn a great deal for our clients from people who choose not to write about a topic -- we might find out there are similar offerings, or we're not explaining the benefits as clearly as we could, or a number of issues. These honest conversations are often as valuable as a story.

Paid blogging can severely damage the reputation of the company who pays, and it can destroy the credibility of the blogger who takes the money (whether they are required to be positive or not).

Bad idea.