Drew B's take on tech PR

Social media of choice for music fans: Wikipedia

Thanks to my very well-connected and social-media-smart client Will McInnes for this fact which comes from Yahoo and Billboard magazine research. 

While music artists devote massive attention to their sites and MySpaces, they forget about their Wikipedia page. Yet in fact people searching for artist information are selecting the Wikipedia entry link over artists' MySpace pages by a factor of more than 2-to-1. The Wikipedia entries are also more popular than artists' sites.

Thanks Will for the link (which I saw on his Twitter). Here's the original article on the research.

Social media monitoring II

I wrote last week about monitoring social media for things that matter to the PR person, and what tools might work best to do the job. In the comments that developed below that post, the issue of whether to pay for a media monitoring tool if your feeds take up "too much time" came up, and I have some thoughts on that.

To set out my point of view concisely, I'd compare the argument to traditional media monitoring. Many PR firms pay for press monitoring, but they'd be crap PR people if they didn't read a large amount of media. Looking for issues and current affairs is done through living and breathing the media.  In the same vein you might pay for someone else to track web feeds for you if it's too time consuming, but the real value is lost.

I've spent far too many years working with feeds to let me see what's happening in my field, the my clients' business areas and for out-of-work stuff. It's just part of how I consume media now to be honest. "RSS hell" it ain't.

I know there are paid ways of short-circuiting the process of web feed reading and I expect the reason many PR people would prefer that option is because when RSS becomes high volume (and in my opinion for what it's worth, RSS was designed for high volume) it takes just too much time to get up to speed.

But the bigger picture is social media is not just about who says what, it's about connecting and social networking. That's what will separate the reporting monkey from the consultant. So for that networking, engagement and for the stuff you learn which you can apply as a consultant, I'd go for the long hand approach any day, and urge PR consultants to learn long hand too.

Social media monitoring changes

When you're monitoring blogs and social media for mentions of your company's brand, or product, or your spokesperson or the big issues that might lead to you getting some extra press coverage, a simple way to do it is to use Google Blog Search, type the phrase in that you want to monitor and then you can subscribe to bulletins through RSS or email alerts. Google isn't the only blog search engine that can help you do this. Technorati and Blogpulse also do the trick. Google is very simple and quick, Technorati is good at prioritising 'importan' blogs over the smaller ones, and Blogpulse is good at running graphs of your blog coverage.

And I have always, when needing to monitor something fairly important, used all three. One will always pick up on something that the others don't, and that could be the mention of a company rumour or product issue that you need to act on. The belt and braces approach, so to speak.

But recently I'm finding that these three search tools are bringing back very similar results. 99% of the time, when a story pops up in my RSS reader, it will appear in all three blog searches.

So it looks like I might be able to do a litte de-cluttering and cut down on the number of feeds I need to check for my client work. One set of results is going to do the trick. And tip for anyone that does the same thing, it might be a safe time to choose your one blog tracking tool and forget about having to keep hold of the rest.

Social media tips - some cracking guides

Here's a great little video on what Twitter is, in laymans speak. Really good overview. When people start using Twitter, the big problem is understaning what it is. Because the thing that made Twitter viral is also its biggest obstacle to user adoption. People just don't get it straight away.

In fact, check out CommonCraft's YouTube channel here. They do plain engligh' explanations of blogs, wikis, bookmarking and RSS, to name a few.

The Twitter video's pasted below too:

UK bloggers in the Ad Age 150

The chaps at Spinning Around have taken a knife to the Ad Age Power 150 (or in other words the big US media mag's list of the  biggest 150 marketing blogs) and pulled out the UK blogger rankings.

Luckily for me (because it appears only three Brits are in the top 150) Ad Age also lists blogs outside of its 150 too. It goes right out down to 500. And hoo-ray for that, because it means I'm in the UK top 10. Thank you kindly Ad Age and Spinning Around fellas.

Technology PR job - I'm hiring

A while ago I posted on Twitter, on this blog and on the Hotwire Facebook group that we were hiring a PR junior. We got heaps of applications, and with the tip that I picked it up from Jason 'squillionaire' Calacanis (to use your social networks first when you're looking to hire staff) I'm posting again to say I'm looking to hire someone again, this time a digital PR maesto.

I'm on the hunt for a PR person preferably with a digital PR background, but the right attitude is what matters. It would be great if you've done PR for internet, TV, media or social media companies, but a variety of backgrounds would be good too. And a few years in PR agency land would be nice.

If you think our gaff might be a nice place to work, please let me know. Even if you're just wondering. Or if you know someone I should have chat to!

We're offering nice packages and nice work to keep you interested (of course I would say that, but it's true, honest). Have a look at our site or my last job post if you want to know what it is we do in case you're not sure. But if you read my blog then you'll have a fair idea I think.

The Sunday Times says we're the best small PR firm to work for. And PR Week says we're doing some nice work too. And if you like things like flexi-hours, a very nice bunch of clients, and good coffee, let me know! I'm on drewbenvie @ gmail.com

Strangling print media

I spoke at a small event at the Charoltte Street Hotel last night called Social Media - Death of Print. Here's the lowdown as a bunch of bloggers and Twitterers documented the proceedings. Have a read.

Ged Carroll: Event notes
Steve Waddington: Seriously social
Ben Matthews: Death of print
Jaz Cummins: Blogging don't need a fullstory to make a good story
Sarah Stimpson: Last night's social media debate
Robin at Bite: Twittering the proceedings

It was nice little event, I say little because the bad weather meant fewer people turned up than were expected to. Shame, because the networking afterwards was just as good.

One thing I said during the panel debate was that I think social media is not killing print media, but it is strangling it. By that I mean the social web is forcing the press to re-work how it works and how it attracts its audiences. But I believe and hope there will always be a big set of print media available to the consumer, whether that's magazines or papers, and that we don't see too much consolidation in the years to come. I think we will see a fair bit, but not too much please. Thanks.

Thanks to Heather at Taylor Bennett and Sarah at Unicorn Jobs for having invited me. I felt very geeky talking about social media so much, but I'm getting used to that label now.

SXSW and Zuckerberg the CHOAD

I wish I was at SXSW. It's one of the huge digital media conferences out of the US, and all the big and sharp  companies and people are out there. Mark Zuckerberg the ickle 23 year old Facebook boss is doing the keynote right now, and doing a v v bad talk according to the blogosphere. His audience are blogging and posting on Twitter that he's reading from press releases and is "a CHOAD". Free wifi and mobile blogging make giving speeches such an unforgiving environment.

Here's how Twitter looks right now:

marcusestes :  Zuckerberg is such a CHOAD.
lindare :  Yikes, the Sarah Lacy interview with Mark Zuckerberg is excrutiating.
Howleyda :  Zuckerberg Is so awkward
CampfireMike :  Mark Zuckerberg sounds like a corporate boardroom on steroids.
MisterBoh : God, what a puff interview with Zuckerberg-no objectivity in questions. It's a happytalk press release topped with giggly froth.

The Observer: 50 most powerful blogs

Just saw via Hugh MacLeod that today's Observer has an article reviewing the 50 most powerful blogs. He's in it, and Robert Scoble's out. Here's the full article.

Speaking at Social Media - The Death of Print

If you're around on Monday and want to say hi, I'm speaking on Monday night at Social Media - The Death of Print. Here's its Facebook group. Looks like some familiar faces coming along so should be a bit of fun. Thanks to the team at Unicorn Jobs and Taylor Bennett, who are putting it on (it's on at the Charlotte St Hotel at 6pm this coming Monday).