Creating good podcasts

I love reading updates from Mashable - the social networking blog - and their posts often provide content for my own blog posts for all the right reasons. Sadly, though, today they're forming a blog post for all the wrong reasons. I decided while grabbing a quick bite to eat this lunchtime to delve into their post 'For the Love of Podcasting' and listen to a few of their podcasts. I was really disappointed. I can see they're aiming for a certain style and tone to these podcasts, but the attention to the quality of production is poor. The introduction is rushed, the sound quality is very bad, they don't tell you (from what I can see) how long each podcast is, and the presenter doesn't sound particularly well prepared. This is such a pity because the content should actually be quite good, and is certainly appealing, but the quality really put me off of listening beyond the first 30 seconds or so of each one that I launched.

So, while podcasts are a form of communications that you can produce yourselves, there are a few basic tricks really worth following in order to make them just that little bit more friendly on your listeners' ears:

• be prepared for your podcast. Have a plan (this doesn't have to be a script - in fact, it's sometimes better if it isn't scripted) of what you are going to say and what you might ask the person you are interviewing
• check correct pronounciations of names, and check job titles of the interviewee before you begin recording
• always log the length of the podcast for your listeners to know just how much time they need to put aside to listening to this
• slow down your speech just a little so that what you are saying is clear
• wherever possible, conduct interviews face-to-face. Using a telephone line isn't ideal but it can be okay if face-to-face or ISDN interviews just aren't possible
• invest in decent recording equipment
• edit your podcast. It's well worth spending just a little time cutting out some of those ums and ahs or even full questions and answers that just haven't quite worked to make the podcast flow better
• CIPR members should also check out Karen Ainley's guide to podcasting for PR in the member area of the CIPR website (under PR guides).
  

Blocking PR 'spam'

It's funny that as a PR professional I rarely see any pitch that I deliver to a journalist or blogger for that matter as 'spam'. This is because I always do my homework and would only send a release to a journalist or blogger who are writing about the same subject area that the release is in. However, this blog post today shows just how annoying some PR agencies are potentially being in their approach to bloggers. So much so that people are beginning to develop spam filters to specifically block emails from particular PR agencies. Ouch! You really wouldn't want to be on that blacklist.

Interestingly, I also received an alleged 'press release' into my own inbox today. Slightly bizarre given that I'm a PR professional. I'm used to sending them, not receiving them. I don't quite know how I received this one or why I was on their mailing list. Maybe they found me through my blog and thought I might give them a mention. Basically, it's for a new website about eco-living, from what I can see. However, the press release is just so bad for the following reasons that I just don't think they deserve a mention:

1. It was sent as a pdf attachment (strong rule of good PR - don't send unsolicited attachments!)
2. The covering email was not personalised - pure laziness (or sign of bulk emails)
3. The alleged 'press release' provided me with hardly any information
4. It felt and looked far more like an advert than a press release.
   

Multimedia PR flying high

Scott Berinato's post, Delta-Northwest Create the Press Release of the Future, on the Harvard Conversation Starter blog highlights an exemplary use of a micro-site for PR purposes. In my mind this is a great example of a multimedia release. Clear thought has been given to the stakeholders and communicating direct with key groups (staff, customers, communities), but this is also coupled with an excellent news centre with extensive quotes, web videos available for use, broadcast-quality video clips available to access, audio clips for download, and a great selection of images too. This is a great example of best practice for such issues, and one that really isn't difficult to replicate by other organisations with a bit of foresight and a modest budget - it really need not cost a lot of money, and I expect many organisations would see significant return for investing in a site like this for certain issues.

A real tweet for PROs

Just following on from my recent Twitter addiction, here's a great post today from Mashable on how to monitor 'tweets' and use them to manage your brand.

Let's consider the application of this, for example, for a university. Say a prospective student tweets that they're trying to find information on a particular course, or trying to find something out about your university. Perhaps that piece of information isn't readily available online, or it is available but well hidden. That university could then respond by either quickly putting the relevant piece of information up on their site, and provide a link back to the person who tweeted in the first place, or by supplying the link to that person. Surely this is just basic social media monitoring that all universities and similar organisations should be doing, but perhaps don't yet have the time and resources to manage.

A del.icio.us solution!

Really useful blog post here on how the Missouri University of Science and Technology are using del.icio.us to help them evaluate online coverage of their brand.

Twittering away

I've been prompted to think a lot about Twitter today.

Firstly, there's a great post on how Twitter can be used by journalists on ReadWriteWeb today. Really insightful article that I think shows the next step that journalism might take. Firstly journalism had to take the step from print to online, then from merely linear one-way online communication to blogs, and now from interactive 2-way communications to multiple-platform communications. Could this be the end of the 'article' as we know it? Instead journalism and articles as such might span across multiple platforms instead of being a single piece of copy on a single page.

Then I followed a link through from one of the comments to a nice little article on Marketing Vox on how to use Twitter to Build Brand Integrity. This got me thinking about the education sector in particular and how Vice Chancellors of universities, many of whom have been reluctant to engage with blogs, could instead use Twitter as a means of communicating with their students, giving themselves a 'presence' on campus even when they're not physically there, and giving them and their institutions a more friendly face.

Finally I came back to thinking about potential uses for Twitter for Crisis Communications again. At the CIPR Education & Skills Sector Group we're currently putting the final touches to a conference on crisis comms and new media. I'm working with one of the speakers to help develop a 'how to' session, and I think we need to do a step-by-step walk through of Twitter for our audience. This one is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

Now I just need to decide the best use of Twitter for PJC! I've been a little slow with keeping it updated so far but am sure I'll pick up momentum soon.

Just a nice, innocent viral marketing video

I rather like this viral marketing video doing the rounds from HP, so just thought I would share it even further. Really is the key to viral marketing videos - keep it simple, clever, entertaining, fun and something that makes you smile and want to share with others. This does the trick ... and my post is evidence of that.