Metzger Associates' Blog

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!"

 

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.

Simply Brilliant

posted by Doyle

Bravo to Geert Desager, Microsoft's Trade Marketing Manager, for this video (and thanks to John Kembel at HiveLive for passing it along).

This is the best illustration of the difference between talking to your customers vs. talking with your customers I've ever seen. It's simply must viewing for anyone in marketing, public relations or any subset.

Well played!

New Media Summit Video

 

Thanks to Endoze Design and David Cohen for the video. The Second Annual New Media Summit was well attended (thank you!) and our guest panelists were outstanding.

Web Sites -- Ends or a Means?

“We designed our Web site, launched it, paid for it and we’re still waiting for the fully anticipated onslaught of new business. It has been two years and we have put our Web address on every piece of communications we have. Where are the results?”

While this maybe a little extreme and I would guess it has been the discussion in more than one board room. It just means Metzger Associates feel it is time, once again, to re-enforce the hard core reality that a Web site is not the be all and end all, it is simply just one more tool in your arsenal to tell and sell your story.

The foundation behind everything your company wants to accomplish in the "www" world is, “what do you really want that story to be?” Is your Web site just an institutional means to provide general information or is it designed to make the telephone ring. If so, what telephone? What do you want the call to ask? Even before you begin to design or re-design your  site, you have to have consensus on what it is supposed to accomplish. It will most certainly have some information for vendors, advisors, investors and the community -- and hopefully will tell a good story. But, what will it really do for your bottom line? How are the next generation Web 2.0 tools going to increase profitability? How will you connect the dots and tie it to all your other products, marketing and sales materials.

Are you ready for the Web site to provide two-way communication? Will it be interactive, attention getting and interesting? Will you allocate the needed resources to make your site a living changing organism? Is it user-friendly and does it promote your mission, vision, customer loyalty and/or appreciation?

Maybe it's time for that long over due re-evaluation -- especially now, with the emergence of results driven new media tools. It is very possible that a fresh new launch, new look and utilization of Web 2.0 tools could bring you those results your company anticipated long ago.
 

Second Annual New Media Summit

Metzger Associates is pleased to host our Second Annual New Media Panel May 31 at 5:30 p.m. at the Denver Press Club. Moderated by Metzger's New Media Practice Director Doyle Albee, this year's panel is truly world class. Join us to hear thoughts on today's media status from:

Phil Weiser: Since arriving at the CU Law School and Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program (with which he has a joint appointment) in 1999, Philip Weiser has worked to fortify CU's strength in telecommunications and technology law, establishing the Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law and the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program. Philip writes and teaches in the areas of telecommunications and information policy, recently co-authoring Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age (MIT Press 2005). Prior to joining the CU faculty, Philip served as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the United States Department of Justice, advising him primarily on telecommunications matters. Before his appointment at the Justice Department, Philip served as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the United States Supreme Court and to Judge David Ebel at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Veronica Belmont: An Associate Editor at CNET.com, Veronica develops audio and video content for CNET's array of shows. She produces and co-hosts CNET's flagship podcast   Buzz Out Loud, a daily technology show, as well as the weekly  MP3 Insider podcast and Crave video podcast. Veronica also writes and hosts videos for the Prizefight and Insider Secrets series. Through these videos, Veronica highlights technology in a way that consumers can easily incorporate into their lifestyles and enhance their already savvy skills such as adding video to their profile on their favorite social networking site or how to make their PC look like Mac.

Brad Feld: Brad is a managing director at Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital. Prior to Mobius, Brad founded Feld Technologies, which was sold to AmeriData Technologies in 1993, where he became Chief Technology Officer. Brad currently serves on the boards of a number of private companies, including ClickCaster, ePartners, FeedBurner, Gold Systems, Judy's Book, Lijit, Me.dium, NewsGator, Rally Software, and StillSecure. In addition, he is on the board of The National Center for Women & Information Technology, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County and The Colorado Conservation Trust. Brad has previously been a member of the board of directors of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization and founded the Boston and Colorado chapters. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

J.B. Holston: Currently the CEO and president of Newsgator, J.B. has run a wide range of technology and media enterprises over the last two decades. As President of Ziff Davis International, Holston managed Ziff Davis' operations across more than 100 countries, and launched Yahoo! Europe. He was part of the senior management team that led the successful LBO of ZD by Forstmann, Little, and subsequent sale to Softbank. Since selling his last technology start-up, Holston has helped create a wide range of for-profit and not-for-profit entities, including Media-x at Stanford, among several others. After receiving a BA in creative writing from Stanford in 1979, he taught English at Phillips Academy, worked as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Boston, studied and wrote in Paris, France, then worked in strategic planning for NBC and RCA. J.B. received his MBA from Stanford in 1986, then worked on Jack Welch's staff at GE before moving back to NBC, where for five years he was responsible for strategic planning and NBC's international operations.

If you're interesting in joining our audience, send an email to [email protected] for more information.

Ouch! (But a great forum to discuss transparancy)

One of our staff members at Metzger worked at a Fortune 500 company when that company got its first voice mail system. One day, a member of the PR staff there -- who, they all learned, was dating another staffer -- sent a steamy voice mail message to her beau. Sadly, rather than sending the message to the intended person, she sent the message to the entire PR staff. Needless to say, she got a lot of ribbing over the next several weeks.

Today's technology is making goofs even more public. In a similar (but non-sexual) story, Steve Rubel of PR firm Edelman recently found himself needing to apologize for a post he made on Twitter saying he threw his complimentary subscription to PC Magazine away. Editor Jim Louderback didn't take too kindly to this, and posted a terse response on Strumpette.

We've all read stories about students getting in hot water over an errant MySpace post, but here we have a full-blown professional faux paux from someone fully engaged in Web 2.0.

Some thoughts:

• So many of us are so comfortable with tools like email we get a false sense of privacy for electronic communications. In this case, a flip comment on a very public forum did serious damage to a relationship Edelman needs.
• Mistakes are becoming more and more public. A blow-up like this 10 years ago would have ended with a handful of people even knowing about it. Today, such an incident is posted, passed on, perma-linked and pondered by hundreds or even thousands -- like us -- who weren't involved.
• Rubel is an executive with many years of experience, so he'll probably come through this OK in the end. Such an incident could easily derail the career of an entry-level employee.
• On the other hand, Rubel is an executive with many years of experience (and pretty savvy in the blogosphere). Does that make such a slip even worse?

We're in a brave new world of communications, and new tools are emerging and gaining traction all the time. The cover of the most recent Wired Magazine call for companies to "get naked" and show complete transparency in communications. The key is to be transparent while showing restraint. It's OK to be blunt and even reveal flaws, but think it through. Perhaps Rubel was simply stating that he read PC Mag online rather than on paper, but the incomplete and casual remark on Twitter didn't say that, and he's feeling the wrath of an editor scorned.

In the end, it's OK (and advisable) to be both transparent and thoughtful.