Podcasting
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, March 26th, 2009
Whether you like the term social media or not (and many don’t), it looks like these tools are here to stay. In a few short years we’ve gone from getting blank looks and crazy stares when mentioning using social networks or blogs for business, to the current trend towards jumping on the SM bandwagon. Social media for business is at last becoming mainstream.
We’re not the only ones to notice this. The wonderful 6s Marketing Company based here in Vancouver just published the results of survey it conducted that shows that social media is becoming entrenched as a tool to help build Canadian businesses.
Here are some of the highlights taken from their report:
“Out of the respondents who filled out the survey:
* 69% use Facebook
* 47% use Twitter
* 38% use LinkedIn
* 38% use YouTube
* 29% use Flickr
And guess who gets control over Social Media Marketing efforts? 28% of companies rely on their marketing department to manage their SMM campaigns, while 18% leave it to the upper management.”
We will be podcasting with Chris Breikss of 6s Marketing next week and the survey will be our main topic of conversation so let me know if you have any questions you’d like me to ask Chris. It’s going to be a great podcast and will be even better with your input!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, March 09th, 2009
At the end of last week I had the pleasure of a double whammy, back to back podcast and tele-seminar with Sue Clement of Success Coaching. Sue is a business coach extraordinaire: having built a successful employment agency, Sue now focuses on helping others build their business.
Listen to our podcast where we talk about the challenges to networking for business, referral marketing – what it is and why it works, and strategies for doing it effectively. Then listen to our tele-seminar too!
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast22.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, March 05th, 2009
I get asked the question “what is social media?” all the time. It came up today during our teleseminar with Sue Clement from Success Coaching and I thought I would follow up in this forum to answer the question for a wider audience.
Social Media, according to wikipedia, “are primarily Internet – and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information”. The words sharing and discussing information are key. Social media tools are all those tools online or on your phone that let you post information and get feedback, or interact with your others in that forum.
Social media tools include: blogs, podcast, videopodcasts or vlogs, and social networks. Basically any tools that you can use online that allow you to interact, collaborate or get social. In business, which of these tools you use will depend on what you are trying to achieve, who your customers are, your corporate brand and resources.
Social media are simply tools that can be used to extend your reach, to grow your network, to drive traffic, to increase brand awareness and to build business. These days they are a vital component of any company’s marketing arsenal because they are more targeted, less expensive and more versatile than traditional marketing methods.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 26th, 2009
We’re celebrating our first year of podcasting with the Out-Smarts podcast, and what better way to do so that by going back to the source of inspiration for one of our first posts: Northern Voice.
This year’s Northern Voice conference for social media and personal bloggers was another resounding success. We talk with attendees to get their take on the highlights of the 2 days, why they attended and what they liked most. Contributors include Ruth Seeley, Tzaddi Gordon, Bruce Sharpe, Raul Pacheco aka Hummingbird604, Gus Fasarolli, Louise Desmarais and the very drole Christine Rondeau.
Thanks to all who contributed and thanks also to the folks at Northern Voice for organizing another great event.
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast21.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 20th, 2009
Liveblogging from Northern Voice afternoon session on Friday. This session is aimed at beginners but there will be tips for people who are professionals at this.
Aims of the presentation:
Get started at audio and video
Get better at it
Bruce is actually a rocket scientist -formerly from MacDonald Dettwiller. Now with Singular Software.
Podcasting – a blog + audio and video – like having your own radio or TV show boradcast over the Internet. Also things you would put up on YouTube
Why do it? – Because the audience wants it. Every minute there’s 10 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. People will be more interested in your blog. Its a new medium of expression for you. (Mhairi – For me I podcast because it drives traffic but mainly because I was bitten by the bug and love doing it and it helps me to learn). This presentations will cover: 5 W’s: Why, what content; where; how and recommendations etc.
Lots of steps in producing audio and video – can be very daunting. Bruce will tell us one way to do each thing.
Video Examples:
- Now Public
- Underground News
- Unboxing on YouTube
- Live events – Bruce Sharpe.com
There is no end to the interesting things you can do.
Audio Format Examples:
- News
- Commentary
- Interviews
- Education
- Conference Presentations
- Sports
- Whatever You Want.
TOOLS -You need an audio recorder of some kind.
- Video – you can use the audio recorder on your camcorder.
- Audio – record it on the phone using your PC’s recording device
- Or: Olympus Voice Recorder, Zoom H4
Microphones – You need one. Don’t use the built in one as the quality is really bad on a laptop. So you should buy one:
- Clip On Microphone thast plugs into camera
- Recording to computer – buy USB mic that plugs into your ports – i.e. BlueMic Snowball or Better USB $125
Cameras
- Cell phone cameras aren’t good for this.
- Still camera’s are surprisingly good.
- Brand Name Camcorder – Sony, Canon and Panasonic are all good as are Mic input, flash memory or HDD.
- HD – Go for it!
Question – Flip is it good?
Not great for video podcasting – 2 versions of the Flip very compact, easy to use, selling like crazy (affordable). If the nature of your podcast is serendpitously finding stuff about life. But the quality isn’t that great – a still camera has better quality. Flip is okay depending on what you are doing – if not great quality is okay with you then go for it.
Tripod – Oh yeah – get one! Usually about $60 -$100 for a reasonable one – much more for a great one.
Check out review sites: dpreview.com and camcorderinfo.com
Lights -are the number one way to make your video look better. Don’t do halogen. Instead Bruce recommends:
- Natural/practical light
- Got to a camera store and ask
- Flouresecent, daylight balanced, diffused 9cost more but worth it!)
Green Screen - not really for beginners but so much fun. Check out tubetape.com and you tube tutorials. You can be in your basement recording and make it look like you are in NY.
Time to Record – plug in your mic and start up your editing software.
Prepare – If you are interviewing – prepare your questions in advance and prep the person being interviewed so that they can prepare (give them context).
You can use phone or Skype
Using Skype – free – good to use. Better quality than the phone. To record on Skype, use:
- Pamela
- Audiohijack
- Others were mentioned but connection was lost and memory is shot
).
If you have to record over the phone buy a recording device (but these tend to be dear)
Screencast Software
- Camtasia Studio
- Mac SnapZProX
- Screenflow
Editing
You should listen/watch and edit before you post. There is a lot of debate about this. Bruce likes it when people edit right – take the stupid stuff out. Take the ums and aahhs out. At the very least you should:
- Trim the ends -the deep breath before your start and so on.
- Cut the dead air – strange pauses
- Adjust levels (please, please, please)
- Add intro, outro and music.
- Add music, reduce noise, add sound effects
Levels – adjust the levels and take pity on peoples eardrums. Use Levelator to this easily.
Audio Editors:
- Audacity
- Garageband
- GoldWave
- Audition
- Soundtrack Pro
Video Editors
- Windows Movie Maker
- iMovie
- Pinnacle Studio
- Final Cut Express
- Sony Vegas
Resources:
Music thats safe to use:
- 17 Places to Find PodSafe Music blog post on blog talk radio by Deb Ng
- Magic
- Garageband
- Pinnacle Studio
- 99 Designs
- Audio needs to be in MP3 format. Download LAME from Audacity
Where to Host:
BlipTV – free, high quality better than YouTube, Ads are optional.
Show notes: Highly recommended, link resources.
Bruce provided a tonne of info and so far provided the most valuable presentation of the day. Thanks Bruce!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 13th, 2009
This podcast is in conversation with Jess Sloss. Jess is the founder of SocialSquared.com and Strategist at Giant Ant Media, a local firm well known for their infectious buzz worthy video content. We talk to Jess about using video content for business development and other corporate applications, what makes for great video content and about some of the great projects they are working on at Giant Ant Media. Enjoy!
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast20.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 11th, 2009
I was full of good intention to liveblog tonight’s Canadian Women in Communications event at BCIT tonight but the connection failed so here is the “almost” live blog of the event. There were six sessions taking place in the room. Unfortunately given the time constraints I could only attend 4 so I have tried to catch the essence of each.
1. Blogging – Telus Senior Communication Business Partner Deborah Chatterton discussed the benefits to giving employees their own publishing platform.
First you should determine if social media is right for your company. What is it all about? Its about engaging your target audience in conversation with you. In the past you pushed information out now you get info back.
Types of social media:
- You Tube for sharing videos
- Digg is a site where you can share websites you like.
- Social Networks like Facebook.
- Blogs
- Wikis – user generated content that can be added to
- Social Networks – like Facebook
Social Media Considerations:
- You should ask if social media is right for your company.
- Are your customers there yet?
- Are your company’s communications old style and can they adapt to this?
Blogging – Deborah points out that ghost writing a blog is unethical and that a sales or marketing pitch is a no no. You should keep the tone of voice real and hone in on actual experiences rather than trying to invent blog stories.
To find out if your company ready for social media culture – ask if they are you willing to give up control.
Q Why would you do it? A – The world is changing, people are retiring, knowledge pool is shrinking. Millenials are using this already, its a way of life for them and they are the next generation of new hires. This is going to happen anyway. You have no control over it. This is an opportunity to: shape the conversation; demonstrate thought leadership; strengthen relationships; make executives more approachable. Studies back up that social media actually increases productivity.
You have to have a strategy as to who will blog, what they will blog about, how often and whether you will allow comments.
Telus is not externally blogging.
Risks of blogging include: slander, bad behaviour – but these things happen in real life anyway.
Issues include: privacy, security, ethics, respectful workplace, insider trading. To mitigate risk: – you should post guidelines before you start – its very important to have a policy. Check out Sun MicroSystem’s policy for a great example.
Good social media examples:
- Dell were perceived to have terrible customer service in the days of “DellHellâ€, now they have an online customer forum where people can contribute and the company can track reactions and respond accordingly.
- Cadbury Schweppes.
- I’m for GM
- Obama campaign
To learn more:
- Darren Barefoot
- Canadian Public Relations Society Conference
- Northern Voice (registration is now closed).
2. Podcasting – CBC Radio 3 Senior Producer Andrea Gin provided insight into podcasting:
Andrea gave an introduction to podcasting and her work with podcasts at CBC. They have on average 100,000 downloads per week and are the most listened to radio podcast in Canada
Q Is it simple?
Anyone can be a podcaster. All you need is:
- recording device
- audio editing software
- quiet
Before you start podcasting, Andrea recommended that you think about what you have to offer – what is your niche and why would people want to listen? Also consider how people will access your podcasts. You can offer them as downloads on your website or register in iTunes. You can use images anywhere in the chapter or section of the podcast.
Q Do you edit it or broadcast live? A – It is usually edited and posted rather than live.
Q How do you make money? CBC doesn’t have ads but is more about content and supporting Canadian artists? Other companies have sponsors or use as a marketing tool.
Podcasting is different from radio in that people can listen to it anywhere they want when they want. With a radio show you miss it you miss it. Its also much more interactive than radio, lots of people comment and contribute.
Q.Can you download to your Blackberry – A – You should be able to but it will depend on how much memory you have.
CBC Shows also appear on Web Radio and Siruis Satellite.
CBC Audience expanded worldwide thanks to podcasting – lots Canadian expats around the world tune in.
Q Do you use webtrends to track this? A -Mainly Google Analytics and an in house tool
Q – Podcasting vision has it changed over the 5 years since you’ve been doing? A – Yes at the start we treated it like radio now its more of a cycle: your listener gets involved and interacts/contributes.
CBC doesn’t launch a podcast till they have 5 or 6 shows under their belt.
Tips:
- don’t do it sporadically;
- build an audience by being consistent;
- podcast regularly.
- Encourage feedback – phone calls and emails and comments from the blog.
What kind of software do you use to edit? Adobe Audition
How long are your podcasts? We try not to go over an hour and a half. An hour is about as much as people can tolerate.
Stuff you should know is a good podcast from howstuffworks.com focused on answering questions like how long can you go with out food or water.
3. Online Market Research – Angus Reid Strategies Executive Vice President, Monique Morden, discussed proprietary online panels and communities for
cost effectively reaching the voice of customer.
Angus Reid provides research services – they are a full service company providing the soup to nuts. Vision Critical is a software company (AngusReid are their power users and parent company), its a nice marriage of the companies. Angus Reid has taken research online and has opened up a whole new world. They are all across NA and have small and large companies as clients.
Research used to be done on the phone now its all online. Some people don’t even have a phone particularly in the younger demographics so phone research results are skewed and you don’t know who are you reaching when you do phone research. (No call doesn’t apply to researchers.) Online is becoming such a great communication tool – research is another form of communication.
How do you do online research? Now you show the ad (or whatever your subject matter) and ask about it before you had to just describe it and ask questions to get feedback.
Types of research companies:
- Full service – Angus Reid
- Self service – ie Zoomerang, Question Pro, Survey monkey
- Panel software – Vision Critical, GMI
Sample (the people to be surveyed) Sources:
- email list – be careful about legal issues – do you won the list and is it okay to send.
- advertise on a website
- Customer base
- Access panels set up by others
Angus Reid has a full serve service where they design the survey and bring in the survey group. They have people they work with who form the survey group.
Validity of online research: Canada has highest internet penetration (about 86%). 55 years plus demographic is the fastest growing. Angus Reid did polling for elections and were the most accurate of any of the pollsters all done online.
Comes down to quality of questions and who you survey.
Angus Reid works with a group of panelists – they know about their panelists: if they have diabetes, age, kids etc etc so you don’t have to ask every time. They use only online polling because people tend to be more honest online – its less embarrassing and they tend to be more comfortable giving info online. They use open ended questions/comparisons to validate information. Usually panelists are surveyed once per week payment and have a small renumeration incentive of 1-4 dollars per survey. Online qualitative research is possible now: a group of people can have a conversation.
5. Webnames.ca COO Cybele Negris covered website and security pointers.
Domain Name Strategy – What domain name:
Depends on budget where you are – you should get at the minimum .com and .ca -
- .com is global 77 million globally registered websites;
- .ca is specific to Canada – 1 m .ca sites exists because it helps native companies to brand themselves.
Companies should have both – webnames.com was taken by someone else and he set up in competition to them. Protect your trademark/brand.
Canadians like to deal with Canadians. We ordered $5b worth of goods onlkine in 2005 – 63% from Canadian ventures.
Domains:
- 250 country code domain names in the world.
- 21 generic top level domain names: .net, .mobi (for mobile internet)
- .tel – used to store and share all contact information: Phone number, cell, home details, Facebook details etc. You can have different profiles for different aspects of your life. Works on any mobile device and gives you a geo location so that it will automatically generate a gigamap.
Domain Tips:
- Register as many as you can afford. You don’t have to pay for hosting – you can forward it to your main site.
- More sites = more links.
- You should register your domain for longer than simply one year as it shows Google continuity and improves ranking will have a better ranking.
- You should register your own domain in your name. If someone else does it then they are responsible and they can take it with them when they go.
Tips For Using Email Effectively
- Don’t use gmail, hotmail etc for your corporate communications it looks unprofessional use your branded email but gmail etc for entering on websites.
- Use departmental addresses – makes you look bigger/more established and allows you track email traffic i.e. info@yourcompany.com, sales@yourcompany.com, webmaster@yourcompany.com
- Use an auto signature
- Use rules and folders
Tips Online Privacy and Security:
- PIPEDA Act covers online privacy.
- Spam Act – first reading was 2008 – Still no anti spamming law in Canada.
- Phishing – people sending you an email disguising themselves as a company you deal with so that you are inclined to give them private information.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 26th, 2009
This is our third podcast in a series on branding with Isabelle Mercier of LeapZone Strategies. In this episode, we talk about the external facets you need to consider for effective branding including the competitive market, partners, customers and processes. You might want to listen to the first 2 podcasts in this series so thast you don’t miss out.
Out-Smarts Podcast #7 – the basics of branding – what it is andwhat it is not.
Out-Smarts Podcast #15 – branding from the inside out.
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast19.mp3]
Podcast: Download
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 16th, 2009
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 06th, 2009
Our first podcast of the year was recorded on Hogmanay (the last day of the old year) with Julie Gibbons of PeopleMaps . Its our first trans Atlantic podcast, the topic is Twitter. In this podcast we talk about PeopleMaps, their online personality reports and how they are using Twitter to build awareness and grow their community.
Watch out for a blog post addundum to this podcast, giving Julie’s top Twitter tips, very soon.
[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast18.mp3]
Podcast: Download
