Every Thursday, socialTNT channels the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. The videos are meant to encourage dialog between PR/communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

This week, socialTNT met up with Chris Heuer, partner at social media communications firm The Conversation Group. He’s also an executive and cofounder of the Social Media Club. In today’s episode, Chris tells us his definition of social media and proclaims that PR is dead.

When Chris and I met, we started talking about his book, a discussion of social media tools for internal communications. He enjoyes bouncing ideas off of people to spawn creativity. He also prefers working in collaborative, Socratic environments, so it’s not surprising that Chris cofounded the Social Media Club as a venue to share ideas about emerging media. This manifested itself throughout out our conversation; every time one of us would say something clever, he’d jot down notes in a a Moleskine notebook, potential ideas for the book. After a few minutes, our chat diverged away from his book and into a discussion of social networking, disposable attention, and brands.

As Brand managers everywhere try to stifle social media and maintain a uniform brand image, Chris promotes opening up. Instead of silencing employees, companies have to let go. To maintain, companies have to trust and educate their employees. To support his theory, Chris broke out a power point slide with a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

“I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but
people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not
to take the power from them, but to inform them by education.”

Fun Facts About Chris

• Once taught Interactive Advertising at the Miami Ad School
• Has a Virtual Assistant outside the country
• Does not have or use an RSS reader
• Is a hit-and-run Twitterer
• In July 2007, married Kristie Wells, VP of Customer Advocacy at Joyent, the company that used to host Twitter
• Prefers in-person, real world communication over its online counterparts, but you can still find him on Facebook and LinkedIn

Ever wonder exactly what social media is? Chris’s succinct definition is not to be messed. He also explains what changes Public Relations and Marketing will need to make in order to stay alive. Check it out:

Wow. A lot to chew on. Is PR dead? Has social media killed it? What do you think PR will need to do to evolve? Is Schizophrenic Branding a problem? How do marketers deal with multiple voices coming out of their company? Let us know in the comments.

Quick Note: Today marks the first day socialTNT’s “3Q’s in 3Min” is available for download on iTunes. Yup, that’s right: Now you can view our video interviews with today’s top reporters and social media experts anywhere you want. Watch us on the train, at the gym or even at the break room of your stodgy PR or marketing firm. The last seven episodes are currently available in high-quality video, with the full library coming soon. Oh, and it’s all available to you for FREE!

Also, don’t miss a post: Please add socialTNT to your RSS reader [what’s that?]. Better yet, subscribe to socialTNT by email!

[The above photo, “Utterz Meetup House of Shields - Chris Heuer” by Brian Solis, is used under Creative Commons]

For me, Prologue is a great implementation of the instant communication, micro-blogging technology Twitter pioneered. It really seems to be a great tool for global companies with employees scattered across time-zones.

It works like this:

• Leave a status update, comment, helpful link or question, so that everyone on the team can see the progress of other members on the team, answer questions, etc.
• Tag each Tweet with a project-specific category to quickly filter through the other posts and find only information regarding a specific project.
• Add an RSS feed for instant communication.
• Better yet, add an RSS feed for each category tag to filter for project specific “news.”

Right now, Prologue is only available on WordPress. Make the blog private if you don’t want the world to see. (Personally, I’d love to see someone remain totally transparent and keep their Prologue Blog public.) Since the code is open, you should be able to adapt it to most enterprise scenarios.

Click on the screenshot below to see the demo blog set up by the WordPress team.

Do you foresee your company utilizing this for Enterprise 2.0 implementation? Will this be a Twitter Killer, or is it another testament to the greatness of all things Tweet?

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Don’t miss a post: Add us to your RSS reader [what's that?], or Sign up for our Email.

Recommended Reading:

“Twitterpated: A Twitter How-To”

“RSS for Success: A Primer”

“PR to Enterprise: Beam me Up!”

Every Thursday, socialTNT channels the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. The videos are meant to encourage dialog between reporters, PR/communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

Today, socialTNT is celebrating the shortest day of the year by offering you 3Q’s in One Minute with Social Media Diva, iJustine. That’s right: In one minute, iJustine is going to peer into the videostream of time to tell us what she thinks will be hot in 2008!

For those of you not familiar with the queen of the new Web Celebrity set, iJustine jumped into mainstream with her video about the insane bill she received from AT&T after buying her iPhone. The video made national news and prompted AT&T to reconsider e-bills for their data plans. She also has an amazing blog, Tasty Blog Snack.

Her facebook’s “About Me” simply states: I am the Internet. Since you can catch her on Facebook, MySpace, flickr, twitter, Revver, YouTube, and every other social network, I’m gonna say that could be true. Oh, and when she’s not saving trees from telco giants, iJustine is busy streamcasting her life.

Although not employed by Apple (yet), she SHOULD be the social media/community evangelist for the trendy tech giant. Even though she says Steve Jobs got up and walked out of a trendy Mountain View cafe after seeing her sitting next to him, iJustine claims that Steve Jobs is in love with her–and how could he resist: She has an apple tattoo on her shoulder blade.

In today’s “End of the Year” edition of “3Q’s in 3Min,” iJustine tells us her prediction on the biggest trend in social media in 2008, expresses her love of Twitter, and weighs in on the GOOG vs Facebook battle to dominate your social graph data!

Check it out:

I agree with iJustine, video is gonna be HUGE in ’08; you’ll certainly see more of it on socialTNT in 2008. I also want Wiki’s to gain momentum for Enterprise use.

What do YOU think will be the big trend in 2008?

This is the last “3Q’s in 3Min” for the year, as socialTNT is closing down for the break. We’ve got some great interviews lined up for 2008, so add us to your RSS reader, or sign up for our email, and you’ll never miss a post!

If you liked this post, check out the other video’s in our weekly Thursday series “3Q’s in 3Min.” Also, check out my review of Apple’s current social media PR/marketing strategy.

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[The above photo, "ShareaSale & The Conversation Group Party: Blogworld Expo, iJustine" by Brian Solis, is used under Creative Commons]

Ahhh, what a difference a year makes. Last year, “You” won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, user-generated content was king, and everyone wanted to create a viral video.

This week, there has been a lot of discussion of online video. The magicians are telling their secrets. And as the magic wears off, it seems many times the Emperor is actually wearing no clothes. Today, we’ll take a look at what the last year has taught us about online video and try to find ways we can make it a conversation.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

This week, two articles came out, both promising to provide readers with tips on viral video making. Let’s take a look at some of the tips and see if they are fully utilizing social media to engage the consumer

The first, a post on TechCrunch by Dan Ackerman Greenberg, felt like I was reading something dirty. He does outline several good specs on the video itself, but it’s the more outreach oriented tips that pose dangerous:

• “We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos.”
• “…kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users.”
• “We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this).”
• “Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments…We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.”

Sounds like old-school, one-sided, totally opaque marketing to me. This is truly pushing content at the consumer without caring what they have to say. In fact, it reminds me of a modern day laugh track; the consumer is fooled into believing that others have thought about, commented, and enjoyed the video.

The second article comes from Kevin Nalts in a guest piece for Advertising Age. He offers several of the same specs (keep it short, quality doesn’t matter, proper tags, etc.) but gives brands suggestions that seem more community-focused.

• “We’ll watch your advertising and even spread it for you — unless you promote gratuitously, insult us or, worse yet, bore us.”
• “The smarter play is to sponsor popular video creators to create entertainment with product placement. This requires brands to let go of overt marketing messages and trust the instincts of creators to please their audiences.”
• “Some brands fear running a contest because they don’t want to be ridiculed. But brands will be bashed by disgruntled consumers via online video whether or not their companies dabble in the space. Quietly watching from the sidelines is no insurance policy and certainly won’t grow revenue.”

I think Kevin’s piece gets closer to the idea that social media should engage a community. Considering the user-base and realizing the conversation is already in progress are great suggestions, but can we take it deeper? How can we better engage our audiences?

Turn That Pumpkin into a Carriage

In a NewTeeVee post yesterday from Craig Rubens, the question is asked: “Online Video: Is It Really Interactive?” Although specifically about online entertainment series, what he says can be applied to marketing and PR video campaigns:

Although the online video experience would appear to be this mythical, multilateral, interactive video utopia, the reality is, in fact, quite different. Because while it’s certainly possible for a network of collaborative video artists to work together, online, to piece together a long-term video mosaic of participatory brilliance, the reality has often been more of an ad hoc, trivial mess of mediocrity.

As we awaken from the spell of online video, we have to take it to the next level. I know online videos are entertaining ways to convey messages, but can we use the medium more effectively? It may be a Utopian dream, but we have to incorporate all the features and beauty of social media into our online video campaigns. What can we do?

Contests seem to be the most common approach to getting the consumer involved. Most companies simply have users generate commercial content for the company. But is this really two-sided?

In order to converse with users in their community, we have to learn how those communities work. On YouTube, most people post videos which are then replied to in either video or text form through comments. Full threads sprout and conversations go back and forth.

With that in mind, here are some tips:

• You’ve got a blog, great! What about a weekly video series?
  • You can create a company channel on YouTube and then embed into your blog.
  • It’s Really easy to set-up. Just buy a digital point-and-shoot camera. I recommend the Canon SD-series.
• Don’t spam. Offer tips or tricks. Or Industry trend commentary.
  • Make the content valuable, not just forgettable. Give people a reason to share the video and return to your channel.
  • Check out this great channel from California Cosmetics, an enterprising make-up artist.
• Post casual conversations and interviews.
  • Mini press conferences, these can inform your community or be re-purposed by vertical blogs.
• Live videocasts of press conferences, company events or trade shows.
  • Set-up a Ustream.tv account and do
  • A spokesperson can be a newscaster interviewing other top execs.

Hopefully this infuse some creativity into the use of online videos. What other ways can we jumpstart our video campaigns to engage our audiences and actually communicate with them instead of just pushing content? Or is everything cool in YouTube-land?

Oh, and if you think consumers aren’t creating their own dialog with your “viral video” campaigns, check out this mash-up created by a guy who realized that Dove and Axe are both owned by the same company. Both have viral videos with conflicting messages. Take a look:

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If you don’t have RSS on your corporate blog, you need to add it, ASAP. In fact, it’s been two and a half years since Robert Scoble said:

Sorry, if you do a marketing site and you don’t have an RSS feed today you should be fired.

I’ll say it again. You should be fired if you do a marketing site without an RSS feed.

Pretty harsh words. While I may not agree to the firing, I do agree with the sense of urgency. RSS, or “Really Simple Syndication,” is what I consider to be the most important must-have–after content–for any corporate or personal blog. Once you understand how the technology works and why it’s beneficial to PR and Marketing professionals, you’ll wonder how you survived without it.

It’s like a private wire service!

Simply put, RSS is a newsfeed. Think of it as a blog’s personal wire service. Every time you post new content on your blog, it gets pushed out to subscribers. Depending on the reader, internet browsers see either the headline or the full article. Here’s what it looks like using the active bookmarks in my Firefox browser:

On the left, you see all of the PR RSS feeds to which I’m subscribed. I simply mouse over them and the window expands. It’s like a menu of content. It’s a great time saver for your readers: They don’t have to leave what they are doing to see that there has been an update. One click glance let’s them know if there is something new and it let’s them choose how they want to receive the content.

For bloggers and marketers, an RSS feed is instant distribution of content–kinda like sending out your own newspaper or magazine, but digitally. It also helps build and track your audience by looking at the number of subscribers.

I like it cause it lets me scan a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Your ticket to the stars…

Ok, maybe not stars, but did I mention top tier bloggers and reporters scan feeds religiously? Marshall Kirkpatirck (formerly of TechCrunch, now with Read/Write Web) uses them as primary sources for breaking news:

I am subscribed to thousands of RSS feeds and currently have thousands of unread items in my feed reader[...]I have several folders that include feeds from the blogs of companies I wrote about at TechCrunch, news search feeds for those companies and other high priority topics. I refresh and check those folders frequently throughout the day[...]

The single most helpful tool for me in my efforts to blog about news events first has been an RSS to IM/SMS notification tool. I use Zaptxt to subscribe to very high priority feeds. It sends me an IM and SMS whenever a high-profile company blog is updated and in a number of other circumstances[...]A big part of taking a prominent position in the blogosphere is writing first on a topic. That’s a large part of what got me the job at TechCrunch and it’s something that an increasing number of people are clearly trying to do.

And he’s not alone. If you can get your news to a reporter and blogger through the means they use, what’s holding you back?!

If your blogging or pagemaking software doesn’t come with an RSS feed creator, try this walk through to set one up. Promote your RSS on your blog or web page by prominently displaying it using this logo: It has become the universal symbol for RSS.

In your email’s signature, add a link to your blog and its feed so clients, colleagues and reporters can easily subscribe.

Burn it down

To make it easier to increase your syndication opportunities, use Feedburner. Feedburner is chock full of tools like traffic tracking and free branded-email creation.

RSS is also a great way to track competitors and industry news. Whether it’s subscribing to the New York Times,GigaOM or a friend’s personal blog, RSS readers provide an easy way to find and access all sort of online content. For online readers, try Netvibes; Google Reader; iGoogle; My Yahoo!; or Newsgator.

For a complete list of all things RSS related, including web-based and offline readers, check out this great guide from Mashable.

Do you have any tips or tricks for RSS? I’d love to hear them

Oh yeah, don’t forget to subscribe to my feed by RSS or email!

When polling friends for a Veteran’s Day themed idea, a friend told me about TroopIdeas.com. TroopIdeas.com is a great attempt by a defense contractor, Gestalt LLC (now owned by accenture), at closing the feedback loop between troops and those who make decisions. The site is closed, but soldiers can submit suggestions through a web form which then gets viewed by the Gestalt team. According to PC World, the submissions get tracked like this:

Gestalt works continuously with the end user from start to finish, breaking the project down into 30-day chunks (dubbed “sprints”), which are developed quickly using SOA tools and interfaces, coupled initially with commercial and open source software and existing information systems. Every 30 days, the end users see what’s been done, critique it, suggest changes, and the process continues.

Check out this slide show from Network World highlighting one of the initial projects based on a soldier request. It appears to mash-up wiki-technology, GPS, photos and chats to keep troops on the ground informed of what’s going on in their area. Maybe soon, patrol units can Twitter-in their updates and alerts (ala the LA Fire Department) to enhance its real-time capabilities.

We’ve discussed previously how Enterprises are adopting web 2.0 technology, so it’s nice to see new media being deployed by defense contractors. It’s also nice to know our troops have some way to influence change that moves faster than traditional Pentagon bureaucracy.

I want to thank my Grandfather and my Uncle for their service to this country.

It’s Thursday afternoon, do you know where your Marketing Director is? Probably watching today’s “3Q’s in 3 Min.“

Every Thursday, socialTNT channels the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. The videos are meant to encourage dialog between reporters, PR/communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

This Thursday, socialTNT meets with Mario Sundar, LinkedIn’s Community Evangelist. For PR Peeps with clients on the fence about social media or those companies not quite sure about starting a blog, Mario’s interview might paint a better picture of the thinking behind entering the new frontier that is social media relations.

In the following video, Mario defines what a Community Manager (evangelist) does, discusses the current and future tools LinkedIn utilizes, and (my favorite) discusses how LinkedIn translates its brand across these various social media outlets.

The new era of branding leverages transparency to showcase corporate culture; if the culture aligns with the target audience (in this case, members) then they will want to be a part of the brand. Their participation is now their vote. In LinkedIn’s case, it presents a very professional, kinda business casual feel. Compare this to MySpace’s party-teeny vibe or Facebook dorm-room ambiance (don’t get me wrong, I love FB!). As a professional trying to network, which site appeals to you?

LinkedIn’s outreach influences maintains current members, harvests future members, and recruits future employees. Check out their blog, flickr feed, and YouTube channel. Keep an eye out for their Twitter feed!

Not included in the interview, but relevant: “The greatest benefit of a blog is the back and forth with the reader/user.” I couldn’t agree more, Mario.

So what do you guys think? Should companies hire Community Managers? Has anyone tried any community outreach that backfired? What about positive experiences? I’d love to hear your input.

More about Social media marketing or Enterprise PR? Check out good ideas from Dell and bad ideas from Whole Foods Market. You can also learn how social media can increase external and internal PR .

Once again, thanks Mario for a great interview. Also: Mad props for the Guy Kawasaki/Fake Steve Jobs event this week! (I got to meet iJustine!)

[DISCLOSURE: At a previous firm, I worked on the LinkedIn team. That firm (and LinkedIn) no longer has any financial pull on me.]

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In PR, it’s often difficult to determine how to use social media tools for our Enterprise clients. Also difficult: how to use social media tools for internal PR.

Last night, at a Social Media Club event, the topic of the evening was “Enterprise: Moving Forward.” The panel for the evening was moderated by “Naked Conversations” writer Shel Isreal. Panelists included Dave McClure (500 Hats, Graphing Social Patterns), Jeremiah Owyang (Senior Analyst, Forrester Research), Jennifer Jones (host of “Marketing Voices” on PodTech Network), Eleanor Wynn (Enterprise Architect, Intel), and Bob Duffy (Community Manager of Intel’s community, Open Port).

I tried to Twitter-cast the event, but even on a T9 predictive text enabled phone, it was tedious. For those interested in watching the 119 minute discussion, Ustream.tv captured the whole evening here. Lots of great ideas presented. Here are a few things that I brought back that could apply to PR and Marketing professionals:

Internal Communications:

• Blogs hosted on a company’s intranet can boost internal communications
  • Remember: Allow an open forum
  • Leave comments enabled and respond respectfully
• Internal Wiki’s can increase team collaboration
• For large, multi-national companies, an internal social network can really help bridge the distance and increase team rapport
  • Allow tagging of photos and interests
• Close the feedback loop
  • Show employees what suggestions have been implemented
• If you really want to shake it up:
  • Digg-like voting on suggestions
  • Video, video, video!

External Communications:

• Look to existing conversations and communities before implementing your full-strategy
  • If your product is a finely-focused niche, there may not be a community. That’s your chance to facilitate the conversation with your brand as the moderator!
• Company blog makes a HUGE impact in the enterprise space
  • Position spokespeople as thought leaders
  • In addition to your products, discuss current and future trends
• Enlist community managers to comment on other blogs and address negative conversations threads in a thoughtful manner
• Create communities where company reps ask questions about product development or allow users to suggest new products/changes
• Go Geek!
  • Many companies (incl Intel) have gotten heavy traffic by using their sites/communities to publish White Papers, behind-the-scenes videos, production notes, demo videos, etc.
• Once again, close the feedback loop:
  • Show customers that their thoughts count and have been implemented
  • This helps establish a realm of trust that opens dialog. Instead of pushing your message, you allow many voices into the discussion about your product/brand
• Feeling bleeding edge: Customer/Company Wiki’s blur the line between intra- and inter- nets
• Bottom Line: It’s all about a conversation with the customers
• Check out Intel’s Open Port or Dell’s IdeaStorm [my earlier discussion of Dell's social media tactics here]

Has your company used social media internally? Have you implemented social media tactics to help build a community around your Enterprise product? I’d love to hear about it.

Also, feel free to comment on any of these ideas.

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Self-service direct email marketing solution provider Vertical Response recently released their version of Dr. Dre’s Mega-Hit “Nuthin but a G Thang” to get customers and partners excited about their services before Salesforce’s global tradeshow, Dreamforce.

Everything about the video is OTC. It’s shot around SF’s tech-heavy SOMA neighborhood, an iPhone makes a cameo, one of the rappers has a grill, and “ROI” and “dope” are used in the same sentence!

Ch-Check out the video (after the jump):

Yup Yup. These lines show the mass-ter marketing lyrical skills of VR’s rappers Furious Alf and 2fein:

“Email and CRM together/Now you know you’re in trouble”
“Aint nuthin but an app thang baby/we sendin mass emails like crazy”
VerticalResponse’s CEO and Founder–and blogger–Janine Popick posts a case-study of the video, offering a peek into the thinking behind and creation of this vertical marketing dork super-hit.

Mad props to the VR Crew for coming up with a unique way to hype people up about enterprise solutions.

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