It’s Facebook question of the week time (clap, clap, clap)!

Unfortunately, I have had zero time to scan the questions and record a video.

You may be asking yourself why I have time to type a blog post and not record a video. It’s because I’m still in my PJs…and a portion of this blog post was already in my drafts folder.

So we’re going to talk TweetUps today. And I’ll be back on schedule next week. Continue Reading »

As you know, my top 10 blog posts I read on vacation on Monday included Shel Holtz’s blog about moderating comments. Then, as we were recording InsidePR yesterday, we discussed the issue again. You can read Shel’s post here and listen to the discussion with Joe Thornley here. Sneak peak: Joe and I disagree about moderating blog comments.

I included Shel’s post because I think it’s an interesting viewpoint and because I don’t like reading only those things that support my thinking. I respect the heck out of his decision to moderate his comments. We all have different strategies for our blogs. His clearly is not the same as ours…plus he thinks if someone says something negative about someone else on his blog, he’s liable.

I vehemently disagree!

He says he found a comment that said, “Name redacted is a thief and imposter take no note of him. He is a fly by night character that moves on as he owes money.”

Come on. First of all, if that got through the spam filter (which is unlikely it would), who is to say you can’t go back and unapprove it later? Have guidelines on your blog that state you will delete comments that appear libelous to you. And delete it.

He goes on to say that he gets a lot of spam that isn’t caught. Again, I call baloney. There are great spam filters in the best commenting systems such as Livefyre (which we use and LOVE), Disqus, and Intense Debate. We don’t moderate our comments and I think I’ve had to delete maybe two spam comments that got through the filter in the past six months. Continue Reading »

On today’s InsidePR, Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I discuss how Netflix screwed up in Canada. There were a few American news items about it, but I didn’t realize the severity of the issue until they had me read some Canadian stories about it.

The gist of it is that Netflix hired PR and marketing firms to help them launch in Canada. Reasonable, right? But one of the firms (and we’re hearing that it was not the PR firm) hired actors to pretend they were Netflix customers. These “customers” roamed the streets and did interviews with media, as if they were truly excited about the brand’s availability in the country. Of course, the media discovered these people were actors and Netflix had to do damage control, as well as issue this apology. Not fun when you’re launching a new service and you end up in crisis mode. Continue Reading »

During the summer I fell off the InsidePR bandwagon. Not in terms of recording, but in terms of talking about it here. But I’m baaack! And this week, Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I discuss preparing students and young professionals for the business world.

We’ve talked here before about using the social web to find a job, but this discussion is a bit different. With school back in session, these tips are really for those who need to be figuring out how to begin looking for internships or for a full-time job by summer.

1. Remember your personal brand and that online doesn’t forget. The things you put on the web right now create the person that will follow you around for the rest of your life. You’ve likely already heard it’s a bad idea to not let your friends tag you in photos of you doing body shots, but also think about what you say and what others say about you. As employers, we look at everything about you online to determine what kind of employee you might be and whether or not you might fit our culture. Google sees everything so be cautious.
Continue Reading »

On Sunday afternoon, because of a comedy of errors that included Joe Thornley pouring himself a glass of scotch and wondering what he was getting ready for (and not remembering what it was until Monday) and my being so tired after the big ride with my dad in Oregon that I was asleep at 5:00, we had to reschedule our InsidePR recording for this afternoon.

Getting ready to get on Skype with Joe and Martin Waxman, I tweeted, “Hmmm…about to record @Inside_PR. What should we discuss this week?”

My friend Petya Georgieva suggested Seth Godin’s decision to give up on traditional book publishing.

Great idea, Petya! The problem is, we STILL haven’t recorded episode 2.18 because we all got on Skype and my sound wasn’t working. So Joe and Martin were talking to me and I was typing back to them. Really, really funny (maybe you had to be there), but it definitely does not work for a podcast. Continue Reading »

Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I are finally getting our chemistry down (it only took something like 12 weeks) and we’re having a blast recording InsidePR! Well, I’m having a blast because I get to make fun of Joe’s slight accent (aboot instead of about) and Martin’s “step forward” when he delivers a punch line. They might not appreciate it, but you are sure to enjoy it!

On today’s episode, we received a question from Jody Koehler, a PR pro and agency owner in the Netherlands, who asks whether or not you need to really understand PR 1.0 before you can consult on PR 2.0.

You can listen to the episode and our debate by clicking here. Be sure to listen to episode 2.14 for July 28, 2010.

What we didn’t discuss on the podcast, but what I’ve been thinking about since we recorded (we always record on Monday nights), is this is becoming the age old question about whether or not you let interns run your social media program. Continue Reading »

On this week’s InsidePR, Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I discuss the resistance people have to using social media. We thought we were solely going to talk about Ivor Tossell’s article about Twitter in The Globe and Mail, but we ended up discussing social media as a whole.

You can listen to it here.

Our conversation led me to thinking about a comment I made a few months ago on my friend Maureen Blandford’s blog. Her topic was about using Twitter for thought leadership, not for mindless thanks and RTs that don’t lead your followers to anything of substance. You can read her original post here.

I commented… Continue Reading »

On this week’s InsidePR, Martin, Joe, and I spend a bit of time talking about the G20, how it was perceived to the U.S., how people protested peacefully, and not so peacefully, and where we were getting our news surrounding the conference.

But, as Martin and Joe continued the conversation about what G20 meant to Toronto and how the “news” was coming via Twitter from people not allowed inside, I couldn’t get my head around this video on Eric Portelance’s site .

It’s people protesting peacefully at the G20. I’ve watched it at least 12 times. I still can’t understand why this happened. Did they really wait until the national anthem was finished before charging?

What do you think??

I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to communication, marketing, and technology, but the idea of podcasting a book is new to me. So, after Joe, Martin, and I talked on InsidePR about Terry Fallis and his new book, I did some research on how to podcast a book.

Turns out, I’m not the only one who hasn’t considered this opportunity. There is very little to be found on how to podcast your book. BUT! I did find 10 steps on how to podcast a book from Grammar Girl and Scott Sigler that I thought you’d find interesting because, well, I did. Continue Reading »

Yesterday Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I were recording our second podcast for Inside PR and our topic was the evil billable hour in PR firms. It’s live today and you can listen to it here.

But, because a podcast is so one-sided and because we went off on a tangent that I want to explore further, I thought we could discuss it here. Continue Reading »