Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
I'll be one of the presenters at the upcoming PRSA International Conference in Philadelphia. I'll also be one of the conference bloggers along with Kami Huyse and some other good friends.
The Sunday before the conference kicks-off we're planning a blogger dinner. I've asked Annie Heckenberger with the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Co. to suggest a locale.
As soon as we have the final details we'll post them, but go ahead and mark your calendar for dinner on Sunday, October 21st.
I could do a long, detailed recap of Gnomedex, or I could just point to Randy Stewart's great comic version. Good stuff.
One of the folks I've been running into quite at conferences is Kris Smith. Of course it's hard to miss Kris, he has a unique look :-)
If you look at the photos below you can see there is a difference. One is casual-conference-goer-Kris, the other is serious business-man-out-on-the-town-Kris. But which one is the real Kris Smith?
Kris is a podcaster by nature so of course he was doing quite a bit of podcasting from Gnomedex. He talked to a number of folks including me. To listen to the podcast you can click here. We talk about conference photography, development and a number of other fun topics.
I always enjoy my conversations with Shel Israel, you never know what nuggets you'll walk away with. Driving around Miami yesterday we talked about a number of things. One comment sticks out in my mind though, "My friends aren't virtual!"
I'm not sure how we got there, but the topic of 'virtual friends' and 'virtual connections' came up. Shel said, "I hate the term virtual friends, my friends aren't virtual, they're real people."
The issue relates to online interactions and online communities. You might have 'virtual friends' or people you interact with only online, but they're still real people.
Update: Shel talks a bit more about this subject on his blog.
I'm in Miami for two days to meet up with David, Shel and Jeremiah among others. Today we're at the Scrapblog HQ. I just got a personal demo of the new version from Carlos Garcia, pretty slick app.
I see a really cool use for it beyond the traditional concept. What is it? I told the Scrapblog gang, we'll see if it makes it to the next rev. If it does I'll show you what it is.
Time to work, before the blogger dinner this evening.
Heading out on the road again later this week. First stop is Miami to see David, Shel, Jeremiah and a few other folks for the Scrapblog dinner on Wednesday. Then I cruise back up the state to Palm Coast for an internal training session for a client on Thursday/Friday. Friday afternoon it's off to Atlanta for SoCon07.
I drove from BlogSavannah to Atlanta to attend the kick-off meeting of Social Media Club Atlanta this evening (event details here). Looking over the RSVP list there are plenty of old friends and a few new ones.
Social Media Club was founded by Chris Heuer, Howard Greenstein and Kristie Wells:
...for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn.Chris is a good friend who spoke for me at BlogOrlando last year...great guy with a ton of knowledge. However, tonight's session will be led by Howard (equally knowledgeable) since Chris is on the road elsewhere. It should be a fun event.
The kick-off is being held in conjunction with the Social Media 2007 conference in Atlanta. I debated about registering, but decided against it. I think I get more out free events like BlogSavannah and Social Media Club than a paid event like SM2007. With that said though....read the next post.
I'll be blogging from the BlogSavannah Un-Conference 07 today. You can check out the entire schedule here. Photostream is here. I'll be leading one of the final sessions.
I'm planning a simple blogger dinner in Orlando next Tuesday, December 19th at 7pm. We'll be meeting at HUE in the Thornton Park area. Here are some location/directions.
I have e-mailed a number of folks directly, but anybody is free to come...just leave a comment or e-mail me.
I have posted the photos from last night's D.C. Blogger Dinner which was organized by Toby Bloomberg.
The man above is the 'PR Blog Librarian' - Constatin Basturea. More notes to come....good times, good people.
Toby is organizing a blogger dinner next Monday night in Washington D.C. She'll be in town for the Healthcare Blogging Summit, I'll be there for WOMMA Summit.
Here are the details:
Date: December 11, 2006
Time: 7p to ... ???
Place: Open City -
2331 Calvert St. NW
Washington, DC 20008
202.332.2331
Woodley Park
Hope to see you there!
At the end of this week I'll be attending the American Marketing Association's Mplanet conference in Orlando, specifically at Walt Disney World. As a blogger I was extended an invitation to attend/cover the event, so big thanks to the AMA and kudos to them for extending the 'press' distinction to this blogger.
The conference starts on Wednesday evening (Nov 29th) and ends on Friday, December 1st. A full agenda can be found here (PDF). If you're coming to the conference drop me an e-mail or a comment and perhaps we can meet-up or head out for some good Indian food.
Earlier this year I visited Auburn University for part one of my 'Hyku College Tour'. Part two will begin this week with visits to the University of Georgia on Monday and the University of Florida on Thursday and Friday. It looks like I am the un-official social media speaker for the SEC :-)
As I have said before I always enjoy my time interacting with students, I'll be posting reports from my sessions during the week.
I'll be in Atlanta till Wednesday. First stop is Auburn University for some time with Robert French's students. On Tuesday I'll be leading a panel for IABC at lunch then it's off to the blogger dinner that night.
Still need to do some BlogOrlando wrap-up though. That's for the plane.
Disney was nice enough to host a huge fireworks show for the end of BlogOrlando. (Not Really)
Over the next few days I'll be posting some wrap-ups and links to other resources from the event. For now it's time to rest and get ready to fly to Atlanta.
For the next few days I'll be tied up with BlogOrlando. I might get a post or two up here, but I doubt it. You can follow the BlogOrlando action by visiting BlogOrlando.com of course, or using Technorati and Flickr to track BlogOrlando stuff.
I'll be in Atlanta the first part of next week for some meetings and an IABC event on Tuesday the 26th. That night we're be organizing a blogger dinner. We'll most likely be meeting somewhere ITP around Buckhead. More details to come. If you're interested in joining use drop me an e-mail of leave a comment.
One of the cool people I have been able to meet at BlogHer is Amanda Lenhart from Pew Internet & American Life Project. Amanda is a Senior Research Specialist and was behind the most recent report on Bloggers: A potrait of the internet's new storytellers. Back in 2005 she also worked on a report about Teen Content Creators and Consumers.
I told her, "I cite your stuff all the time in presentations."
Amanda is coming off a whirlwind media tour with the recent release of the Bloggers report. Perhaps you read about it in the news or on the blogs :-)
I have a quick trip to Atlanta scheduled for next Wednesday (up and back the same day). My flight out that evening is rather late, so I'm going to attend the Atlanta Media Bloggers meeting that night. According to their blog:
The Atlanta Media Bloggers group meets the third Wednesday of every month at The Loop Pizza Grill in Buckhead (unless we pick a different place) from 7:00PM-9:00PM. 2451 Peachtree Road - Atlanta, GA 30305There are no other details about the meeting that night so it might not actually be happening. Stay tuned.
Announcing BlogOrlando, an un-conference to be held in Orlando, Florida on Friday, September 22nd through Sunday, September 24th, 2006. What started off as an informal gathering of friends might just turn into something bigger.
Hyku, in partnership with Rollins College will host this FREE event that is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike from Florida and anywhere else (so far we have one international attendee). We hope to bring together a good cross-section of folks to discuss blogging, podcasting, public relations, social media, citizen's journalism and other related topics. In addition to the Friday event we are planning some outings at the local theme parks over the weekend. This event is as much a social/family gathering as it is a 'work' gathering, so bring the family (kids included).
Shown below is a tentative schedule for the weekend:
Thursday (9/21): Travel day for most, perhaps an informal dinner that nightIn the coming weeks I will begin to post a schedule for the un-conference portion of the event.
Friday - day (9/22): BlogOrlando un-conference at Rollins College
Friday - evening (9/22): Full-on geek dinner somewhere in Orlando
Saturday (9/23): Blogger day at one of the Disney parks
Sunday (9/24): Travel day, or stay an extra day at the Disney parks
As you can see the weekend will feature time at the Disney theme parks. We'll finalize what park we're going to do on which day. If we have a large contingent of families/kids coming in we can look to organize a Friday activity for those folks.
The original concept/title for this event was: Josh is Tired of Traveling Outside of Orlando so Everybody Come Here Con or JTTOOECH-Con. I wanted to get some friends to the area to meet, but more importantly spend some down-time at the theme parks with their families. Thinking about it more I also wanted to bring together some folks from the growing blog community in Florida that normally couldn't afford to travel out of state (and pay) for other events. I hope to achieve the best of both with this event. Of course having a draw like the Disney parks isn't a bad thing :-)
What will it cost? Nothing, well almost nothing. The un-coference will be free, but of course you need to get here and cover your hotel and theme park tickets. If you're from the area and only plan to attend on Friday, then all you're paying is gas and your lunch.
If you want to get a hotel reservation you can contact the EO Inn or the Embassy Suites in Downtown Orlando. Since this is an un-conference we don't have room blocks or special rates.
As more details become available I will post them here and over at BlogOrlando.com. I'll also have a registration form up shortly. For now if you intend on coming leave a comment below. Online registration is now available.
Update: upcoming.org link.
I spent most of the day in Jacksonville, FL hanging out with the nGen Works gang talking about blogs and other web-stuff in addition to eating some great Thai food. (some pix here)
Carl, Bruce, Travis, Joey and Varick are a cohesive unit that focus on building standards-based web sites. They launched a group blog, In the Garage, a month or two ago and wanted to talk shop so-to-speak. They're off to a good start but they just wanted to make sure they were heading in the right direction before really ramping things up. Each of the guys have some diverse interests that will really make the blog an entertaining read in the next few months.
That's Brian Oberkirch from Weblogs Work below. Feel free to caption away in the comments.
Brian and I have been working together on a number of projects recently (more on that soon). It's an unusual alliance between a Louisiana Samurai and a Florida Viking.
We had our little blogger get together in Atlanta this evening. Good times, good people. The fine staff at The Grape didn't know what to make of our rowdy group, but it was a great venue. I took some photos but I now realize that I was always taking from one angle and thus missing half the crowd.
At our max we had 12 folks there, some bloggers, others interested in blogging. As is always said at functions like this, 'It's good to put a face with a blog.' Yes, some of the talk was blogs, but not to bring up a cliche....it was mostly conversation. It was people from different walks of life getting together and sharing a common interest. A major element though is people who realize that they can learn from others and in some ways try to instill that belief in the organizations they work with.
A big thanx to Toby, Teresa, Polly, Justin, Carol, Justin, Abigail (+ Tim), Dave, Scott and Julie for coming out 2nite.
We're already planning the next meetup.
As somewhat of a joke (although I do get serious at the very end) I've put together this PR Blogger Lifecycle, or the steps that new PR bloggers go thru. This isn't an original idea by any stretch of the imagination. If you haven't read Min Jung Kim's Lifecycle of Bloggers you might want to start there.
I look over some of them and say, "yep, in May of 2005, I was at step 4." Where are you on the scale? The true PR blog masters just start at Step 7.
1. What's a Blog? You don't know what a blog is, but everybody you know has one. Your initiative is part peer pressure, part curiosity. But you're cheap and even though everybody says don't go with Blogger you can't see yourself paying a few bucks a month for TypePad. After all you sent your resume out on loose-leaf paper and that got you a job in PR.
2. First Post: The first foray is awkward at first, but you soon get the hang of it. You realize that this blog thing can be a great self-promotional tool and hey you're in PR so you can do this. However your blog content is more meta than meat since you think that there is no way you can truly add to the deep discussions going on (joking here). Your style is point-to and agree with.
3. You Love Steve: Steve Rubel get's knocked a bit, but he is one of the most recognized bloggers in the PR/Marketing space. As such he's one of the first people you add to your RSS reader. The RSS reader, as you've just learned, is the must-have piece of software. In order to get recognized by Steve you comment and link away. Steve's a genius, he can do no wrong....oh look, he just linked to me, I've made it!
4. Stats Watching: How many people are reading my blog?...Look at all the traffic from Steve's link. You make your blog stats your default homepage. You worry about post-volume. Look, if I mention other bloggers they'll link to me! It goes on and on. You create blog posts that specifically appeal to the ego of other bloggers.
5. Rank Matters: Stats obsession turns to rank obsession. Dammit Technorati hasn't updated my link count in a week! You check the PubSub PR list ever day to monitor your progress, but you just can't get past that MicroPersuasion blog. Hey look, posting photos of my cute kids got me to the top of the list!!!! Your blog becomes more about building links and rank than it does providing content to your readers.
6. You Hate Steve: You say to yourself, I know more about X than this Rubel guy, how come he gets all the links/interviews/traffic/etc...So instead of commenting and praising Steve you snark and challenge. Soon you find that criticism also builds traffic.
7. Finding the Zone: An inner peace soon settles upon your blog. You say to hell with everybody else and write what you want to write. You don't follow memes and you don't post to get traffic. You post what you want to post. Readers appreciate this, in many cases it's why they started to read you in the first place. You were a fresh voice, but the previous steps marginalized this.
8. You Accept Steve (and everybody else): Sometime you agree with Mr. Rubel, other times you disagree, but that's what's great about the blogosphere, you can have a debate and sometimes we all learn something in the process.
9. Relationships: You continue to build relationships with other bloggers and they become some of your best friends and colleagues. If you have a question or a client issue they can help solve it. When you attend conferences and finally meet them in person it's like you've known each other for years, because you have.
10. Starting Over (Goodbye Blogger/TypePad): In the ultimate act of penance for your earlier Rank-Chasing misdeeds you start all over again. Many times it's because you've outgrown Blogger or TypePad, or you've changed jobs, or you just want a fresh start.
With a new blog you start from scratch. No links, no rank, but it doesn't matter because all your friends help you move. In the end you'd much rather have those relationships with friends than links or visitors or PageRank.
I'm in Atlanta all week. The family will be relaxing, I'll be working.
Tuesday night's Atlanta Blogger Dinner is shaping up nicely. As of this post we have anywhere from 8-10 people showing up. Toby is wrestling up some more recruits and Jeneane put the word out as well.
I also forgot that the BellSouth Classic golf tournament is going on about 2 miles from where we're staying....traffic should extra fun this week.
After a quick stop in St. Augustine over the weekend for re:Charge06, I'll be in Atlanta, GA all next week. While I'm in town we're trying to arrange a blogger dinner for Tuesday the 28th. The location will most likely be in the North/Northeast metro area. Confirmed so far are Toby Bloomberg and Teresa Caro. If you're interested in coming leave a comment or e-mail me.
As soon as we finalize the location I'll update the post. We'll be meeting at The Grape at The Forum. Here' a link to a Google Map. Say 7:00 PM? The Forum is a shopping plaza on 141/Peachtree Parkway. The Grape is across from Jason's Deli at the very north end of the plaza.
Spending two days in Palo Alto has really been an experience. The entire atmosphere makes you a smarter person. The level of discourse and interaction is unmatched, especially compared to Florida. I can see why Buzz Bruggeman moved to Seattle from Orlando.
For example, Thursday night was dinner with Toby Bloomberg, Debbie Weil, Nicole Simon, Stephan Spencer, Evelyn Rodriguez, Jeremy Wright, Jory Des Jardins, Shel Israel and Robert Scoble with a brief appearance from Dave Winer & Dan Farber and a drop-in by Albert Lai of Bubbleshare.
Friday night featured a small dinner party hosted by Keith Teare of edgeio. The guests included Mike Arrington from TechCrunch, Gabe Rivera from memeorandum, Brian Oberkirch, David Parmet, Jeremy Pepper, Erin Caldwell, Eva (a Ph.D. student from Stanford) and two women from eSnips who just flew in from Israel. Great conversations and great homemade chocolate sauce from Keith's wife.
I'm in the process of writing a complete wrap-up post from my New Communications Forum visit. Many great people met,
Today is my last day of work before traveling out to Palo Alto for New Communications Forum. After my non-stop live-blogging experience at WOMBAT I have decided that I will not be blogging that much during the conference. Since it is a conference attended by a number of bloggers there should be plenty of coverage to go around. I will have the camera handy though.
I'm looking forward to meeting a number of great folks while I am out there.
I just booked my travel for New Communications Forum. The conference is being held in Palo Alto from March 1st through the 3rd. The program schedule looks great, but mostly I'm looking forward to meeting up with old/new blog friends like:
- Toby Bloomberg
- Dana VanDen Heuvel
- Neville Hobson
- Shel Holtz
- Shel Isreal
- Owen Mack
- Mike Manuel
- Stephan Spencer
- Brian Oberkirch
- Debbie Weil
to name just a few. Now the big question, can anybody pick me up at the airport? :-)
What do I like? I like when I move a blog's feed from one of the 20+ sub-folders to my 'Friends' folder in NetNewsWire.
I currently have 37 feeds out of 400+ in that folder. The list grows when I: 1. Meet the blogger in-person or talk to them over the phone. 2. An offline friend starts a blog.
The latest addition: Rex Hammock
*Note the 'Ego' folder. That contains all my PubSub and Technorati watchlists for my name and company.
Earlier this week I was in Atlanta (or if you have fallen for the branding/brainwashing you call it 'the ATL') for a few days. Well actually one very busy day with two travel days.
Early Tuesday morning I had time to take MARTA downtown for a quick breakfast/meeting with Kevin Howarth. We ate at the Silver Skillet. It was a great old place with plenty of character. As the review says:
No place for venti non-fat mocaccinos or tofu scrambles, Silver Skillet is the kind of throwback breakfast spot that features standards like country ham, biscuits and gravy, and at-your-elbow coffee service.
Conversation was great, mostly about the economic models surrounding blogs from a media and B2B perspective. Within the industries that Kevin covers for TechLINKS he is seeing some pushback regarding blogs. Kevin feels that blogs are a great way for small tech firms to let people know what they do and to build relationships at a basic level.
So many of the tech firms he talks to either: 1. do the same thing 2. can't easily describe what they do. Either way that's not a good thing. For example:
Potential Client: What do you do?
Company 1: We prodive computer and networking solutions.
Company 2: We provide solutions for networks.
Company 3: We provide security solutions.
Company 4: We provide solutions for security.
Now repeat that 100 times and you have a good sense of the Atlanta market. A blog can help a company relate who they are and what they do on a frequent basis in language that end-users can understand.
While I was commuting around I took a few shots of the MARTA station at Midtown but was told that I wasn't allowed to take photos of MARTA by some woman who looked like she worked there, but I couldn't tell. I searched the MARTA site but couldn't find anything about photo restrictions. I guess the following photos will get me in trouble :-)
Now that the Orlando blogger MeetUp group is defunct and I have so many friends that have started blogs it might be time to socialize. Let's try to organize a social event in the coming weeks. Of course this means things like time and location need to be determined.
How about the Panera on Lake Eola one evening? Then again, Panera does not serve alcohol. So perhaps another location would be better :-) Any suggestions?
As for a date, what works best... Oct 12, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 or 27?
How about it Doreen, Jeremy, Buzz, Wendy, Bob, Jennifer, Trent? I'll get the word out to the folks over at Metroblogging Orlando.
Heading to Atlanta tomorrow morning. The trip will be full of work and fun. I've scheduled some meet-ups with a few blogging friends/contacts. Here's a partial list:
Monday:
- Toby Bloomberg - Diva Marketing Blog
- Robert French - Auburn University
Tuesday:
- Jeneane Sessum - Allied Blog
Wednesday:
- Kevin Howarth
I am also presenting to IABC Atlanta on Tuesday, September 27.
I will be heading to Jacksonville on Thursday the 15th for a PRSA presentation on blogs. Short notice? can't make it? I'll be back the following week for an AdFed presentation on Wednesday the 21st.
The week after that I am in Atlanta for an IABC presentation on Tuesday the 27th.
Just a quick post from ArtServe the location of a presentation I did for the Ft. Lauderdale Advertising Federation. (a few photos)
What was interesting for me is that ArtServe is located in a Ft. Lauderdale Library building. A library I visited when I was very young and staying with my grandmother who used to live in Hollywood, FL. I walked in, looked around and said, "I've been here before."
We recorded the session, I'll post some highlights over the weekend.
Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson of the For Immediate Release podcast have posted an interview with Constantin Basturea. To quote Shel's intro:
he has become a one-man resource for the global public relations profession, building tools that make it easier for PR practitioners to understand and apply the tools of social media. These include a wiki called The New PR, an annual online professional development event titled Global PR Blog Week, a PR headline service, and a comprehensive PR-focused del.icio.us bookmark listing.
I'll be lucky enough to meet up with Constantin next week when I am in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days.
Overall I think it was a great discussion at the Atlanta Media Bloggers social/discussion this evening. I didn't get full names and URLs from everybody that was there but here's a list of a few (sorry to those I did not list):
- Toby: Diva Marketing Blog
- Teresa: Caro Consulting Blog
- Dana: Moore's Lore
- Michelle: Happiness Blog
Most of the evening centered on building traffic and readership with a little SEO thrown in.
Quite a few of the bloggers were consultants in various sectors and the issue they face is how much personal content do you post? The answer really depends on the individual, but for the most part consultants are selling themselves. The majority of the 'selling' is for their knowledge but the X factor is their personality. Providing some endearing personal content on a blog can help you connect with potential customers and maintain relationships with existing clients. I'll post some more thoughts on this later.
I'll also keep an eye out to see if any of the attendees post follow-ups on their blogs.
I will be attending a meeting of the Atlanta Media Bloggers this evening in Atlanta, Georgia. The social/networking/discussion event will be held at Manuel's Tavern from 6:30 - 9:30 p.m. The topics of discussion will be blogging of course, but more from a business and media perspective. We're expecting anywhere from 12 to 25 people to show up.
Kevin Howarth of TechLINKS is the organizer of the group. If you are planning on showing up let him know.
I'll post a wrap-up of the event late tonight or on Friday.
I'll be in Atlanta the week of the 25th. If you want to get together while I am in the area, let me know. Currently scheduled:
- Dinner on Tuesday night with Frank Steele of the TDF Blog
- Atlanta Media Bloggers meeting on Thursday night.
Unfortunately, I will not be in town early enough to make the Scoble meetup on Saturday night.
I made Kevin Howarth's list of Top 10 blogs. Reading something like that is always good for the blego. Thanx Kevin.
Who is Kevin Howarth? Kevin is managing editor for TechLINKS, an Atlanta area technology magazine. If you want to know about technology in any market segment in the Atlanta area, Kevin is your man. In his position he can serve as a great connector, perhaps an Atlanta version of Buzz Bruggeman.
I first met Kevin at a Blog Nashville dinner. Kevin did a great job of documenting Dave Winer's 'Respectful Disagreement' session. We recently met again for lunch when I was in Atlanta this past week. We had a great conversation about blogs and journalism in general.
Details and online registration are up for my July 14th presentation to the Tampa Bay Advertising Federation. Current upcoming events:
- Tampa Advertising Federation - Tampa, FL - July 14, 2005
- PRSA Palm Beach - West Palm Beach, FL - July 20, 2005
- Pensacola Advertising Federation - Pensacola, FL - August 11, 2005
- Ft. Lauderdale Advertising Federation - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - August 17, 2005
- West Palm Beach Advertising Federation - West Palm Beach, FL - August 18, 2005
- IABC Atlanta - Atlanta, GA - September 27th, 2005
In just about every single case (except Tampa AdFed) we will schedule a dinner the night before the seminar. Interested in having me speak to your group? E-mail me.
Want to keep up with my travels? Look at my travel page.