Media Guerrilla

Just ruminating here on my previous post, you can tell where my head's been at lately....

The monitoring vs. mining nut is a tough one to crack, no question, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that of the many services that do exist, very few, if any frankly, are very good at real-time monitoring. And even then, those that come close, come at a cost - that cost ultimately being the time and effort that comes with good ol' fashion human analysis ($$$).

So, for those of you that find yourself in a place where by either choice or, uh, default, you're shouldering the task of monitoring online chatter for a brand, a quick tip:

Make a pipe. A Yahoo Pipe.

You can go crazy creating all sorts of custom feeds, alerts, watchlists, and the like, and while these things in aggregate can help you stay abreast of conversations, generally speaking, they waste a ton of your time too. Why? Because what you have is a loose set of data sources, each making dumb matches on a keyword, tag or string you've selected, and each lacking filters for relevancy, importance, language, etc.

It's a little like standing in the entrance of a grocery store. You know all the food you need is front of you, but you're still left having to traverse aisles hunting and picking for what you really want.

basically lets you mashup and manipulate all sorts of data sources, adding a layer of intelligence and utility, and most important, efficiency, to your monitoring mojo that's tough to beat. Now, I'll admit, building a Pipe requires a little patience and know-how, but there are some great available, plus there's a growing pool of that you can take as-is and put to work immediately. A few favorites: , , ....

These examples just scratch the surface of what you can do with Yahoo Pipes, dig in and give it try, my bet is that you'll find it alleviates some of your biggest web monitoring headaches. Good luck.

[Disclosure: Yahoo! is a client of mine, but that shouldn't stop you from trying this or me from sharing it....]

Technorati Tags: monitoring, yahoopipes

Earlier this morning I had the chance to speak on a PRW panel about , and one of the topics that surfaced (err, re-surfaced) was the ol' conversation monitoring vs. mining debate...

If you don't know what I'm referring to, I wrote about this a while back, but essentially it has to do with the competing (and sometimes conflicting) need companies have to monitor and react to online chatter with the need to measure and weigh the value and impact of conversational efforts over time.

Oddly enough (or is it, sadly enough?) we were talking about this issue *two years* ago, yet it continues to frustrate and divide the way that communicators and marketers approach online conversations today.

In the end, like everything these days, it's about finding a balance between these two things, but you have to understand the difference before you can bridge the divide.

Technorati Tags: conversation, measurement, mining, monitoring, PRWeek

Alright, so I learned a lesson recently: Conversation-making online is really, really effective and to an extent, enjoyable too, as long as the volume of discussion maintains some sort of natural ebb and flow and remains, well, manageable. This is especially true with blog comments.

While it's fairly easy for most blog authors to maintain a qualitative back-and-forth with several people at once, the “conversation” paradigm just absolutely breaks down when, for example, several comments quickly become several hundred. Think slashdot effect, but in the comments thread.

In this scenario, whatever dreams, ambitions or hopes you had of meaningful dialogue just get crushed by the sheer volume and force of several hundred voices each talking to you and each other all at once.

It's not to say this stops you from adding value or making meaningful connections, but man, you really have to work A LOT harder to do so, and the return on your efforts can still feel a little futile. In this case, you also start to wonder: is a blog really the best tool, the best platform for this particular conversation?

Technorati Tags: attention, blogging, conversation

Man, I'm moving too fast sometimes. Case in point, Paul Holmes published a piece in the April issue of the Holmes Report titled, "Manifesto for the 21st Century Public Relations Firm" - and sadly, I didn't trip across it until today, but glad I did nonetheless. It's a great 'big picture' read, enjoy...

Update:

[If you can't get past the subscription wall here, has re-posted w/ permission]

Technorati Tags: holmes report, paul holmes, pr

I'd be remiss and a crap coworker if I didn't extend a quick welcome to my new Voce compat and new media comrade in arms, Scott Sigler. If you don't know Scott, you'll find plenty of bits and about him online, not least of which is that he was the first author to podcast-publish a full novel (EarthCore), and now he's going "all hollywood" on us as of this week with that his stuff's being scooped up by the movie studios. Congrats and welcome, Mr. Sigler, I'm looking forward to working with you, dude.

Technorati Tags: scott+sigler, voce+communications

I think as more marketers dig into customer advocacy projects there's this tendency to assume a loyal customer (a "passionate customer") is also an influential one. That's a very dangerous assumption, tread carefully.

Loyalty and influence are two separate things and more often than not, unrelated.

Is a loyal customer likely to give you feedback on your product? Sure. Will this customer recommend your product to others? Maybe. Will this customer's recommendation have an impact and influence on others' decisions? Who knows...to assume, however, that someone's passion and loyalty is somehow proportional to their influence is a formula that's problematic to say the least.

Technorati Tags: customer+advocacy, marketing, influence

Margie Zable Fisher via blog lists 10 reasons PR doesn't work. Dave McClure, Jeremiah Owyang and others are piling on with their own thoughts, more will inevitably surface.

Personally, I have no retort, no counterpoints, no defense, and no qualm, just a suggestion really for those that believe this: go try advertising.

Enjoy the holiday weekend everybody....

Technorati Tags: business, pr

New media training and education is a big part of what I do inside Voce and truthfully, like any form of teaching, it's a mixed bag of headaches and rewards. Through my own experiences, I've really developed a heightened appreciation for teachers - their patience, their perseverance and mostly their ability to motivate people to learn - qualities that far too often go under-appreciated.

One of the things I've learned over the last few years, perhaps the hard way, is that you can literally spend days educating, training and couching folks on new media concepts and tools, but without a reciprocated willingness to learn and an eagerness to work, it's frankly a waste of time. I think there's some sort of analogy here that involves a horse...

Anyway, someone asked me a while back if new media would "kill off" the PR industry. My answer: No, but laziness and ignorance certainly will.

Technorati Tags: education, newmedia, training

If you haven't already, take some time to catch up on the latest stuff that Brian Solis is blogging about, particularly on the topic of "PR 2.0." I know, I know, we're all trying to avoid propagating the silly versionitas that's infecting tech marketing language these days, but the *concept* behind PR 2.0 is an important one -- one I believe in and one that even today, remains largely under developed and poorly articulated.

Be it through inspiration or sheer perseverance, I think Brian's defining a trend and capturing what a lot of PR folks feel, think and to an extent, say, but only now are beginning to actually do....

Technorati Tags: brian solis, pr2.0

Another great Third Thursday meetup last night. Our guest speaker was Podtech's John Furrier who, among other things, shared his thoughts on the recent at CES and discussed how projects like this are indicative of bigger possibilities for newsrooms at special events. Jeremiah Owyang captured a live stream of our talk, check it out.

Thanks to all that attended. June's meetup will be on the topic of citizen journalism - we think. Details will be posted to the Third Thursday Meetup page shortly. BTW, if you have ideas for speakers or topics, let me know, we've got some great stuff on the horizon, but we're always looking for new topics, new voices....

Technorati Tags: socialmedia, podtech, john+furrier, thirdthursday