social media

#HAPPO Day for PR Folks is December 8 2010

There’s an event taking place tomorrow, Wednesday December 8, called Help a PR Pro Out, or HAPPO. Organized by two people I’m proud to call friends, Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon, the aim of HAPPO is simple and does exactly what it says on the tin – helps a PR professional out.

Specifically, helps a PR pro out when it comes to finding a new job, or putting them in touch with an agency that may be looking.

A Little Back Story

When I was first starting out in the corporate communications industry, no-one wanted to let me speak. I was the new kid on the block, the greenhorn that was good for getting coffee and licking envelopes.

If I had any ideas, I had to run them by my junior account manager, who ran it by the junior manager, who might run it by the manager (depending on their hormones for that day).

It didn’t matter how great my ideas were (and some were crap, I’ll admit, but there were some that I knew were blasting anything my “peers” came up with right out the water). It was frustrating. It was soul destroying, knowing I had more in me. I was about to give up when fate took me for a little spin.

I was at a dinner reception for one of the company’s clients, and managed to be seated next to the boss. As the night and brandy wore on, he asked me why I was so quiet at work. I said I didn’t mean to be, but I wasn’t really given the opportunity to talk. So my boss said talk now. So I did.

And kept on talking. And kept on talking.

Two hours later, I was pretty sure my boss was hammered and I had just spoken to someone for two hours to help then pass the time at a dull party, and they wouldn’t remember our conversation on the morning. I was wrong.

I was made a junior account executive and made a key part of three accounts. I had the foothold on the ladder and didn’t want to look back. All because someone that could help finally listened. So now I want to listen and help out where I can.

Help a PR Pro Out

On Wednesday December 8, PR and communications professionals will be ripping up a storm online, all in the name of helping a fellow PR-ster out. Tweets, blog posts, job pitches, Twitter chats, Facebook status updates – you name it, it’ll be happening. You can follow HAPPO on Twitter or on their Facebook page, as well as get involved in the following ways:

PR job seeker. If you have a blog, write a post about why potential employers should give you a chance (telling them Danny Brown said so might work, but don’t put all your chickens in that basket!). Then tweet it out, link back to it, and have yourself on display to potentially hundreds or thousands of agencies. Use the #happo hashtag so we can retweet your information. Offer an email where agencies can contact you. (If you don’t blog, leave your details in the comments and/or email me and I’ll tweet you out).

PR agency. If you have a position open, or one coming up, follow the HAPPO hashtag conversation on Twitter. Or leave your details in the blog posts that are going up of the folks you’re interested in, or email them directly. Or use the HAPPO Facebook Page and let us connect you.

I would have missed on a fantastic career if someone hadn’t taken the time to listen. Let’s make sure that no-one else needs to. Let’s show our fellow PR pros that we’re listening, and we’re here to help.

You in?

photo credit: Jose T?llez

Why Bloggers Deserve to Be Deserving

This is a guest post from Danielle Smith and is a follow-up to my recent post about PR and blogger relations.

Danielle is a former award-winning Television Anchor and Reporter who has turned her attention to the online sphere. She is the founder and primary author of ExtraordinaryMommy.com, a vlogger, online TV host, speaker and author.

More important than anything she is a mom to two sweet and sassy small people and is having the time of her life.

You can find Danielle on Twitter at @DanielleSmithTV.

I’ve said it before.

I’m not easily offended. I respect that many of us have different opinions and often feel peaceful enough about my place in the world…. that I can simply smile when we differ and walk away.

But sometimes, as was the case with the recent anonymous post from ‘Sarah’ on MomBlogMagazine, I felt as though I, as a blogger, was being baited. Sarah, an “actual employee from an actual PR company; one you have heard of if you’ve heard of any”, wrote a post titled, “Why PR People Get Paid, and You Don’t”.

Never mind that Sarah seems to think I use jealousy and misplaced entitlement as a barometer for gauging what I should be and shouldn’t be ‘getting’ in the blogging world. (That theory was inane enough for me to ignore) ** see her references to Annie A-List and Thanksgiving Dinner

Never mind that Sarah also seems to believe my blog is a whim that I may or may not choose to play with tomorrow or the day after. See this quote:

Let?s stop pretending your blog is a world-changing event and recognize it for what it is?something transient that may be gone tomorrow if you flake out or change your mind or your Uncle Vinny finds your blog and you realize you don?t really want him to know where you live because you still owe him money.

What I truly take issue with is one little word.

Deserve.

According to Sarah, I don’t DESERVE a damn thing. I’ve chosen to work at home. I’ve chosen to have this transitory-may-shut-down-any-day-blog. I’m not required to show up in an office, dressed in business casual, ready for a day of meetings. There are apparently a slew of bloggers who work much harder than me and my site may or may not be ‘ugly’.

To quote:

Make sure your number is based in reality, not what you think you deserve. Actually, if you?re using the word ?deserve? at all, you?re already sunk. You don?t deserve anything. There are hundreds more bloggers out there that are willing to take a cold, hard look at what they are producing now and how they can improve in the future. Those are next year?s Annie A-Listers?a list that no one deserves to be on, but one that women work like dogs to get on.

I find this paragraph confusing – because on one hand, Sarah is right….. any number I give, any compensation I request MUST be ‘based in reality’. By ‘based in reality’, I imagine Sarah means that I do, in fact, KNOW what my time is worth… that I do, in fact, KNOW what my quality of work is worth – and NOT that I am arbitrarily assigning a ‘what-would-I-like-to-get-paid-today’ number when asked to be involved in a project.

Now, here is where things get slippery. The very next two sentences say, “Actually, if you?re using the word ?deserve? at all, you?re already sunk. You don?t deserve anything.”

Yes, Sarah, I do. But not because another blogger has been compensated. Or because I’m jealous. Or because ‘you’d pay me if I was a guy’. And not because ‘PR professionals get paid, therefore I should too’. This is not a game of comparative analysis.

I deserve to be compensated for my work as a blogger.

I deserve to be compensated for the work I do because it is work.

I deserve it because I work hard and because I believe my time is valuable.

I deserve it because I provide a product (a post, a video, a campaign, etc) that benefits someone – a PR firm and/or a brand.

I deserve to be compensated because the platform I have created for myself, beginning with my blog is actually worth something. And fortunately, I know that my ‘numbers’ are based in reality.

And while Sarah is apparently not JUDGING me for…

“choosing to be a stay-at-home mom who makes money or gets stuff for the kids and family by blogging or decides to be a blogger because they were laid off and wanted to create a portfolio”

it certainly sounds a lot like judgement and an absurd over-generalization to me… Did all bloggers, or in this case ‘stay-at-home-mom-bloggers’ decide to start blogging because they were laid off? Or wanted to create a portfolio? I know I didn’t.

I understand from Sarah’s comments that she intended the post to be ‘funny’. I think it is challenging to be ‘funny’ on an average day, but on this topic? I think a more ‘serious’ tone might have been more beneficial.

How about you – do you feel deserving?

A Special Interactive Book Review with David Siteman Garland

This coming Wednesday, December 8, at 12.00 noon eastern / 11.00am Central / 9.00am Pacific / 5.00pm GMT, there’s going to be a (hopefully) cool and special interactive experiment here on the blog.

Using the interactive features of the Livefyre comment system that’s used here, my special guest will be David Siteman Garland, who’s probably better known as the Rise to the Top guy.

David is one of the leading voices on building and promoting a business, and has a book out called Smarter, Faster, Cheaper. Instead of me writing “just another book review”, David has agreed to be a “live guest” on this blog on Wednesday.

So how’s it going to work?

David will be recording a video, which will be his own take on the book – what it offers, who it’s for, how to use it, etc. I’ll embed it in my post, and then at noon, David will be here to answer your questions about the book, starting a business, promoting it and more.

The difference is, this will all happen in the comments section.

Because Livefyre offers real-time live updates, it’s more like a chat system than your normal blog commenting system. The cool thing is, when a new comment has been posted and you’re on the page, a little alert box pops up to say there’s a new comment (or several, if more than one new comment has been posted as you read).

You can then click on each alert, and it takes you directly to the new comment, so you can see what questions and views are being shared as soon as they’re posted.

So all you need to do is ask your question for David via the comments, and he’ll be spinning his fingers all over the place to respond. You can then reply to David, or anyone else’s comments, and really make it an interactive book review and discussion like no other.

Not only that, but David also has some special giveaways for everyone taking part in the experiment on Wednesday.

To take part, all you need to do is the following:

Choose your profile. Because Livefyre is a profile comment system, you need to either have a Livefyre account (which you can create here by using the Join option), or sign in to comment using your Twitter or Facebook profile. You’ll see these options under the Comment As option to the right of the comment box.

Set yourself a reminder (I’ll be tweeting and using Facebook to send out occasional reminders) to be here between 5-10 minutes before noon on Wednesday December 8 to watch David’s video review of his new book.

Get your questions ready, and fire away from noon onwards.

Like any experiment, there could be some technical gremlins, but hopefully not. The Livefyre guys are working behind the scenes to try and make it as smooth an experience for you as possible. And David has his gremlin-slapping gloves ready, just in case.

Hopefully you’ll join us on Wednesday and have a bunch of great questions for David. I think this could be a lot of fun, and something to show how blog comments can really come alive.

Look forward to seeing you here – cheers!

A Charitable Social Media Mission for 2011

This post wasn’t meant to be here – it sprung from a thought I had, which I then posted as a status on my Facebook page. Here’s the thought:

Wouldn’t it be cool if big corporations that supported charities took an allocation of their donation, and paid for consultants to help non-profits learn about social media? The consultants don’t have to charge the charity, the corporation is still helping the charity, and the charity can allocate these funds back into the organization and those who need it the most. Just a thought…

From that simple thought, I got a ton of feedback and stories.

From the conversations with Abbie, Shana, Catherine and Kimberly, it’s clear there continues to be a huge need for social media within the non-profit sector.

Not only can it help reduce costs from an advertising standpoint, but (as we discovered with the 12for12k project), it can help raise awareness and reach like no other medium.

The problem is, too many charities can’t afford the extra cost of hiring a consultant or agency to train them on how to use social media to its fullest.

On the flip side, people that offer their time pro-bono to try and help educate non-profits often find they can’t continue to allocate free time and still work their own job to pay the bills. Sadly, this leads to them giving up, and the charity is back to square one.

So. Here’s a challenge for 2011. A mission statement, if you like.

Let’s build a database of social media consultants and agencies, either with expertise in the non-profit sector or working with clients that donates funds to non-profits, and look at how we can use their skills.

Let’s add companies and corporations to that database that are willing to fund social media education for their chosen charity, or ones that we can help suggest and connect.

Let’s find and add quality, creative agencies that understand the power of storytelling and want to make a change, and can bring amazing visuals to a charity’s words.

Simply put, let’s make it a mission to connect people who can help each other – consultant-to-business-to-charity-to-consultant.

Along with my business partner Troy Claus, I’ll be speaking with a bunch of folks over the next couple of weeks as we put in place some of the stuff we’ll be doing with 12for12k next year as it returns from its sabbatical.

I’m now making this mission one of the key goals for 12for12k next year.

I’m pretty sure we can find enough willing parties from all aspects of this mission to make a good start on the database and how it’ll work. Then the real fun can begin.

Interested?

Leave your details in the form below (it’s just for letting you know when the database is up, as well as ideas along the way – no spamming, I promise!) and let’s see what magic we can create next year.

Thanks!

[gravityform id=4 name=SocialMedia for NPO’s Mission 2011]

image: niznoz

25 Ways to Use the Web to Find Content for Your Blog

As a blogger, you know that sometimes the hardest thing to do is come up with content for your blog. Finding ideas for your blog (especially if you want to post regularly) can often lead to you not blogging at all, because you start hitting the wall when it comes to what to blog about.

So I thought it might be useful to offer up 25 ways to use the web to find content for your blog. Here they are.

Blog Comments

1. Using a plug-in like CommentLuv allows your commenter to share their most recent post. I’ve seen blog titles that have intrigued me and clicked through to read, and given me an idea for a post of my own. We use CommentLuv on For Bloggers By Bloggers.

2. If you see a comment that really resonates and offers a great viewpoint, ask the poster if they’d like to guest for you and expand on the original comment.

3. Similar to above, if you see a comment you disagree with, expand your own view into a post and offer reasons why your viewpoint is different.

Other Blogs

4. As #1 points out, CommentLuv is great for sharing the most recent post of a blogger, but not every blog uses it. So click through the URL of someone’s comment and see what they’re writing about, to see if you can gather ideas from there.

5. Blogrolls. While some have called blogrolls out of date, many bloggers still use them to share what they’re reading. Visit the blogs of those your favourite blogger reads, and see what ideas you can get from them.

6. A lot of bloggers have category lists for Top 10 Tips and popular posts in their navigation menu. Have a look and see what’s there, and use them to build your own content from.

7. Speaking of popular posts, if a blogger has their most popular posts on display in their sidebar, click on a couple to read and see what made them popular. Then see how you can take inspiration from them.

Social Bookmarks

8. Delicious is a great resource for finding blog content. Just type your topic into the Delicious search bar and you’ll find a ton of results from people that have saved articles or blog posts about your chosen topic.

9. Stumbleupon is a cool browser add-on that lets you browse websites at random. You can land on some great content that will give you your own ideas for your blog.

10. While not as popular as it used to be, Digg still has some great shared posts and news on its site. Look at the most popular and see what take you can offer.

11. BizSugar is becoming more popular, as it concentrates on small business news. If your blog is in this niche, you can get some great ideas from here.

12. A mix of social bookmarking and community, Blog Engage is similar to Digg and BizSugar with its voting system, but it focuses a lot on just bloggers and is a great starting point for ideas.

Blog Resources

13. One of my favourite blog communities is Scribnia. You can find authors and bloggers based on niches, and this can really help you target content to get inspiration from.

14. Alltop offers a great collection of blogs in a veritable feast of topics – if you can’t find something to write about there, then I’m stuck!

15. Still viewed by many as the Blogger’s Bible, Technorati has more than 133 million blogs registered with them. Use the categories or top topics to find content you can get ideas from.

16. Google Blog Search offers up a huge resource of blogs on every topic under the sun. Much like Alltop and Technorati, use the topic search to find your interests.

17. Another resource from Google is their Trends platform. If you’re quick off the mark, you can write a blog post about a trending topic, optimize it for SEO, and (hopefully) be found by those looking at the trends for that moment.

18. Junta 42 offers some great tips on content marketing – check out their articles for ways to get ideas for your own blog.

Social Networks

19. If you’re on Twitter, one of the best ways to find content for your blog is to jump into the weekly #blogchat discussion. Great bloggers, great topics – what more do you need?

20. Sticking with Twitter, have a look at what’s trending at any time on that platform then see if you can get a post out about it (just don’t go all spammy with your hashtags when your post is ready). Trendsmap is a great resource for global trends.

21. And yet again with Twitter, Twitter Search is great for finding out what people are saying regarding the stuff you blog about – type in a keyword, and see if any conversations inspire you to expand on them in a blog post.

22. On Facebook there’s a great app called Networked Blogs, that shares content from Facebook users with blogs, and the Networked Blogs directory. You can get a widget with different blogs in it, and use this to build some ideas for your own content.

23. LinkedIn Groups are perfect for finding blog content. Look at the questions being asked on there and write a blog post as your answer.

24. Seen by many as a place for file and document sharing, Slideshare has great presentations that are just chock full of ideas for you to take away and build several blog posts from.

25. YouTube is more than just a video upload site – think about grabbing a tips video, for example, embedding it into a blog post and then riffing on what else could have been added to the video to make it a better resource.

Your Turn

As you can see, there are a ton of ideas that you can get from places you’re already using, but may not have thought of. These are just 25 – but there’s bound to be a ton more.

So how about you – what are some of the ways you find content for your blog? Share your tips in the comments!

image: hugovk