We have moved to a new site. This old Typepad site will remain online for a while, but no new content will be added to it, so I encourage you to visit the new site and subscribe there. The original RSS and iTunes feeds will remain active, so if you are already subscribed, you should continue to receive new podcast episodes. Thanks for listening!
Cheers,Donna
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In this 10-minute podcast, I explore some social media crimes and misdemeanors spotted in the wild recently. Which ones have you seen?
You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download the MP3 file to listen later, or subscribe to this podcast in iTunes.
Here are the show notes:
00:01 Welcome and intro; Trafcom News is a podcast about communications tactics – tactics for people who care about communicating in person, in print and online. This episode is about what NOT to do when using social media. Thanks to Sue Horner for this idea, which started when I told her I was working on a client project that included doing a survey of their competitors' efforts in the social media world.
01:52 It’s a crime for a business to start using social media without a strategy in place.
02:45 Bad practice: Using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. and NOT linking to any of your social media properties from your website. Why would you want to keep your social media accounts a secret?
03:15 How about companies that don’t fill in their Twitter bio? Twitter gives you 160 characters for a bio, that’s 20 more than you get for a Tweet. Use them! Be sure to include a link to your main website.
03:30 And then we have the Twitter account that’s updated once a month, with a link to a news release. Boring boring boring. Why bother using Twitter if you are not communicating, sharing, entertaining, doing SOMETHING?
03:48 Yet another faux pas: The Twitter account or the Facebook page where customers are lodging complaints and sometimes sharing compliments too. What does the owner of the account do? Ignore the criticisms from customers. Or delete them. They ignore the kudos as well. If you’re putting yourself out there, you have to step up to the plate and engage. Certainly you can take certain conversations offline – directing customers to a toll-free number or support email address but don’t be absent.
04:23 What about businesses that use Hootsuite or TweetDeck to routinely cross post to Facebook and Twitter, using Twitter hashtags and other lingo? This can be confusing to Facebook followers. They will think you’re not communicating clearly. They may also think you’re lazy.
05:01 Remember that Facebook penalizes business pages that use third-party apps to post updates, so people are less likely to see your so-called news in their feeds anyway.
05:30 Here’s another crime: Using a Facebook personal profile page instead of a business page – in other words, Acme Engineering masquerading as a human being with the first name of Acme and the last name of Engineering.
06:15 Social media crimes and misdemeanors mentioned by some of my Twitter and Facebook friends:
08:01 Recap of social media crimes and misdemeanors, this time with a more positive approach (as social media best practices):
09:25 Please check out my video on content curation, based on a presentation I did at the IABC world conference in Chicago in June.
09:40 Have a comment? Add your comment below or email donna AT Trafcom DOT com.
Theme music for Trafcom News Podcast is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley
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Have you snored through one presentation too many? Or worse, given a snooze-worthy talk?
In this interview, Eric Bergman describes his cure for death by PowerPoint (or other slideware used badly). Author of the recently published book Five Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint,” Eric gives us tools that offer a fresh new way of looking at presentations. Specifically, he shares these five steps:
You can listen to the conversation with Eric with the player below, you can download the MP3 file to listen later, or you can subscribe to this podcast in iTunes.
Trafcom News Podcast 111: Conquering death by PowerPoint by donnapapacosta
Have a comment? Add your thoughts below or email donna AT Trafcom DOT com.
Theme music for Trafcom News Podcast is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley.
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In this podcast you’ll get some practical tips to help you produce useful, relevant and engaging content that meets your target market’s needs and, in the end, your business goals.
Some of this material was first presented at a seminar at HalTech. You’ll find the slides at the end of these show notes.
You can download the audio file here, subscribe to the Trafcom News Podcast on iTunes, or listen right now with this player: Trafcom News Podcast 110: Content marketing tips by donnapapacosta
00:01 Intro and welcome
00:45 Some of this material was first presented at HalTech in Oakville
01:10 Many organizations are interested in content marketing because they want to focus more on inbound marketing and less on traditional push marketing. Some of us were doing content marketing before it was called content marketing!
02:14 A main benefit of content marketing: search engine optimization (SEO).
03:12 There’s always a place for sales literature, but that’s not content marketing.
03:38 Content marketing should attract people to your business; people get to know you in a genuine way, with mutual benefit.
04:50 Content marketing is not like a broadcast medium; you’re not talking AT your audience.
04:58 If the main content on your home page is your mission statement, you have a problem. No one cares about your mission statement but you. It’s an internally focused statement more relevant to your employees. What customers want to know: How you can help them.
05:40 Trend today: A lot of websites publish useful information up front, not just info about the company.
06:00 Example of CMO.com, which features useful curated content. If you visit the site, you’ll notice it’s sponsored by Adobe, but it’s a vendor-neutral site with minimal presence by Adobe.
06:50 Various ways to share content: text, audio, video, photos, blog, podcast, e-newsletter, webinar, infographic, white paper, e-book, survey, case study, how-to guide.
08:00 To find out what your target market wants: ask them, and look at your analytics to figure out what keywords people are searching for.
08:45 Be aware of the buying cycle in your industry; at which point is content marketing most useful?
09:38 Other benefits besides SEO: word-of-mouth buzz, getting known as a thought leader, to get leads and business; use social media to amplify content.
10:15 After you create a blog post or other content, tweet about it and mention it elsewhere via social media; be careful not to talk only about your own content.
10:42 Example: Liquor Control Board of Ontario Food and Drink magazine; this is content marketing (print).
11:21 Example: Great video by F-Secure to tell the story about the origins of the Brain virus; watch the video and see the F-Secure guy travel to Pakistan to meet the men behind the virus. See Home Depot’s various how-to videos; these are content marketing.
12:50 You can do content marketing even if your product isn’t sexy. Indium Corporation is blogging and using content marketing very successfully. They manufacture solder paste!
14:00 Be interesting, relevant, consistent to get results.
14:09 Best practices: Know your audience, look at your analytics, create content on a regular basis (editorial calendar can help), think like a publisher, use social media to amplify content, add curation as a tactic so you publish others’ content and not just your own.
15:18 Steal content, but only from YOURSELF. In other words, reuse your own content, repurpose and repackage into a different format. Turn a blog post into a presentation. Turn survey results into tweets, etc. Package your popular blog posts into a newsletter.
16:30 Do not overtly sell your services; be useful and relevant; don’t be dull; curate as well as create. Keep your end goal in mind. Just do it.
17:33 Where to send comments; email donna AT Trafcom DOT com or comment on the Trafcom News Podcast blog.
Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley.
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Or: Why you should not try to present like Steve Jobs.
In this 26-minute audio podcast, consultant, speaker and author Shel Israel discusses his latest book, Stellar Presentations: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Giving Great Talks.
You can download this episode right here, subscribe to the Trafcom News Podcast via iTunes, or listen right now with the player below:
Here are the show notes:
00:01 Intro and welcome; about Shel
1:10 Interview begins; Shel was the first speaker at Third Tuesday Toronto in 2006
02:09 Shel’s background as a storyteller
02:50 People retain and appreciate stories more than information
03:12 Storytelling vs. PowerPoint? Shel uses PPT. Claim to fame: he launched PowerPoint. And we forgive him for it.
03:50 Humans have craved stories forever
05:13 PowerPoint is a means to enhance your presentation’s key points; it should not BE your presentation
06:20 Shel also uses PowerPoint to help him stay on track
07:45 Why you should not try to present like Steve Jobs
10:12 Look inside yourself; what are you good at?
14:00 Last thing the audience wants to hear from an entrepreneur is his business model. Some info is better in a handout, not in your presentation.
17:00 Why Stellar Presentations is aimed at a niche market of tech startup people; how it is useful to many others who speak
Interview ends
23:44 Donna’s Podcaster’s Checklist recently updated
24:11 Series of recent posts on Trafcom News blog about content marketing
24:30 IABC/Toronto Professional Independent Communicators meeting on Secrets of Successful Independents March 7
25:00 Audio and podcasting workshop for PWAC Toronto March 24
Where to send comments: Email donna AT Trafcom DOT Com or go to the Trafcom News Podcast blog. Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley
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In edition 108 of the Trafcom News Podcast, you’ll hear an interview with Sue Johnston of Waterloo-based It’s Understood, who explains how she categorizes communication styles into four personas: artisan, guardian, idealist and rational. Both in the workplace and in your personal life, it pays to know your type!
And speaking of workplace, Sue’s new book, Talk to Me: A User’s Guide to Workplace Communication, will be published in February 2012.
For now, please listen to this chat with Sue in the player below, and refer to the graphic at the bottom of the post.
Trafcom News Podcast 108: Communication Styles by donnapapacosta
Or you can download the file here or subscribe to this podcast in iTunes.
Here are the show notes:
00:01 Introduction and welcome
01:20 Why communication styles are important
03:00 Sue Johnston’s explanations of the four communication style personas: artisan, guardian, idealist, rational; see her website for more information and tools
09:55 After you’ve discovered your own style, how can you determine someone else’s style?
16:40 About Sue’s book, Talk to Me: A User’s Guide to Workplace Communication
18:01 Send comments to donna AT trafcom DOT com. Visit the Trafcom News Podcast blog.
Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from Music Alley
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Why is content curation a hot topic, and why should you care? This 19-minute podcast explores what curation is, how individuals and brands can use it, which tools make it easy, and how to get started. Much of the content in this discussion originated with presentations in November 2011 to the IABC Western Region conference in Whistler, British Columbia, and the IABC/Toronto west end group.
Listen now or listen later. You can download the MP3 file here, subscribe through iTunes, or listen right now with the player below.
Trafcom News Podcast 107: Content curation by donnapapacosta
Here are the show notes:
00:01 Introduction and welcome
01:10 Link to slides from presentation to IABC Western Region conference in Whistler, BC, #iabccanwest, November 2011; link to write-up of IABC/Toronto session by Sue Horner on her blog.
01:36 What comes to mind when you hear the word curation? Museums? Good analogy! Curation defined: finding, organizing, categorizing, describing and sharing content
02:22 Why is curation a hot topic? Fast Company says so.
03:00 Information overload or filter failure? Clay Shirky says it’s filter failure.
04:00 Finding, grouping and sharing the best of relevant content
04:20 Why curate? As an individual, you can be seen as an important industry resource. Example of Dave Williams in e-publishing with his nascent site, Ebooksdecoded.com
06:10 Use of social bookmarking tool Delicious in content curation . Donna’s video about how to use Delicious; slightly out of date but still relevant; benefit of adding multiple tags; easy to share bookmarks
07:45 Brands and curation: especially important in the B2B sector with its long sales cycle; essential to be seen often in front of your prospects as a trusted source of information.
08:20 Examples of businesses using curation in this way: CMO.com from Adobe; Intel Free Press; these are not marketing or advertising sites. They are vendor-neutral.
09:30 What’s the difference between aggregation and curation? The human factor.
10:02 Select the best of relevant content, add own opinion and then share.
10:21 Fire hose of information: Lots of tools available to help you. Storify.com makes it easy to collect tweets and other information, particularly from events, and tell a story with them, adding your own thoughts. Scoop.it lets you put stories together easily.
11:30 Example of Smartbrief.com, curating content in hundreds of topics.
12:05 See screenshots in presentation.
12:16 Not just text. You can curate videos with Shortform.
12:40 Use Paper.li to curate content from Twitter. Older video from Donna on how to use Paper.li to curate Twitter content.
13:10 Other ways to share curated content: blog, enewsletter, widget, microsite. Example of Donna’s blog post on GooglePlus.
14:05 Curata example: Green Data Center News from Verne Global.
15:25 More on curation tools: Curation Station, Diigo, Pealtrees, Storify, Paper.li, Scoop.it, Mangify.net and more.
15:55 Developing a curation strategy: what role does content play in your overall strategy?
16:12 Industry news, expert tips and advice, presentations, case studies, event and book reviews, infographics, photos, podcasts, videos, etc. Anything that can be communicated can be curated.
16:30 Important to be discerning, discriminating
16:40 Company news, industry news, competitor news, etc. – curation in internal communications.
17:02 Curation best practices: understand your market and your place in it; what are you trying to achieve? What does your audience care about? Pick a curation platform or a curation tool. Keep your information organized; use tags. Add your own flavour; tell a story with your content. Share content and make it easy for others to share.
17:45 Always link to the original source!
18:00 Think like a curator and you’ll be a curator; be consistently helpful.
18:21 Please send your curation stories or other comments to donna AT trafcom DOT com. Visit the Trafcom News Podcast blog.
Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from the Podsafe Music Network
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In this conversation with Barb Sawyers, we explore some of the ways in which organizations can use storytelling to engage employees and communicate important messages.
A fellow member of IABC/Toronto, Barb is a writer and author of Write Like You Talk – Only Better. She also publishes a blog at Sticky Communication.
You can download the MP3 file here, subscribe through iTunes, or listen right now with the player below.
Trafcom News Podcast 106: Storytelling within organizations by donnapapacosta
SHOWNOTES
Apologies for the audio issues during part of the conversation.
00:01 Intro; about Barb
01:23 People remember stories; in organizations, you particularly need stories for the tough sell
02:20 Recap of Barb’s blog post; keep the story concise; don’t bore people
03:44 Keep it real, admit to conflict (stories need conflict); identify heroes and villains
05:22 In some organizations, leaders fear conflict; maybe the villain is a problem solved, not a villain in the traditional sense of the word
06:40 You can’t engage employees if you’re not being real; use real language
07:02 We are emotional beings; people are naturally afraid of new things at work, such as change
07:33 Develop your characters; they should be likable
09:45 It’s important to warm people up before you interview them
10:44 Make sure your story has a point, just like fables always have a moral
12:00 Role of emotion in corporate storytelling; story without emotion does not resonate with people. People won’t relate to “just the facts”
14:02 Remind people that they can review the story before publication, to ease their mind and get better stories
16:20 Be sure you share with transparency and respect; find common ground
18:00 What to do when they say: “We have no stories!”
21:00 Put on storytelling hat to uncover employee stories; employees appreciate hearing stories about themselves
22:44 Classic storytelling establishes characters, builds toward a climax, then resolves; must have a conflict or challenge to be overcome
23:30 Pitfalls of corporate storytelling: thinking you have no stories; wanting to gloss over negatives; talking only about the CEO and other senior leaders; standing in the way of truth
29:00 Fear of the very word “story”
30:20 Day-in-the-life stories can be effective if it’s not a boring day; look for conflict or challenge to be surmounted
NOTE: Next Trafcom News Podcast will feature an interview with Steve Clayton, senior director of storytelling at Microsoft
36:00 Your comments are welcome; where to send comments.
Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from the Podsafe Music Network
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If you’ve been within shouting distance of me within the last six months or so, you’ll know that my hot topic is storytelling in organizations, for both internal and external communications. In this quick 10-minute podcast, I talk about why storytelling matters.
Listen now with this player:
Trafcom News Podcast 105: Why organizational storytelling matters by donnapapacosta
Listen later; download the MP3 file.
Here are the shownotes:
00:01 Introduction and welcome
00:44 Yes, I’m experimenting with Google+
01:00 Storytelling experiences at the IABC world conference in San Diego, including a visit to the USS Midway (blog post)
02:45 Great storytellers at the IABC conference, including Jonah Lehrer
03:55 Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate, spoke about storytelling in presentations; link to Shel Holtz presentation on Your Company Must Become a Media Company; link to Digital Storytelling presentation at IABC world conference by Donna Papacosta
04:27 Storytelling is one of the best ways for organizational communicators to actually reach people and get their point across
05:09 The human brain is hard-wired for stories
05:55 Stories must have a point, but you don’t have to start at the beginning
06:15 For storytelling to be successful, your organization and its products don’t have to be fun or sexy
06:40 Future episodes of Trafcom News Podcast will talk about the HOW of organizational storytelling
06:48 There is no excuse for not sharing stories. In Social Marketing to the Business Customer, Eric Schwartzman and Paul Gillin tell us about Indium Corporation, a company that makes solder paste, successfully using stories to talk to customers and to generate leads and sales.
07:00 Benefits of storytelling in organizations
08:30 Free teleseminar on Take Your Podcast to the Next Level, July 14; register now
09:18 Your comments are welcome; where to send comments. Email: donna AT trafcom DOT com; show blog: http://trafcomnewspodcast.com
Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from the Podsafe Music Network
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I’m delighted to bring you these insights from renowned storyteller P.W. Fenton. He publishes the award-winning Digital Flotsam podcast, among others, and has a long history as a broadcast engineer, actor, photographer, musician, songwriter and video producer. I’ve learned a lot about telling stories from listening to P.W., and I hope you will too.
You can download this podcast to listen later or subscribe to listen to it in iTunes or you can listen right now with this player:
Trafcom News Podcast 104: Storytelling with P.W. Fenton by donnapapacosta
Here are the shownotes:
00:01 Introduction and welcome; how I was first introduced to P.W. via Shel Holtz on the For Immediate Release: Hobson and Holtz podcast
01:55 About P.W. Fenton
03:20 How P.W. Fenton became a storyteller
05:05 Early influences on P.W., including radio, particularly Jean Shepherd
07:05 Keys to a good story: beginning, middle, end; start by doing something to get the listener interested; narrate in a way that keeps the interest going and that anticipates the ending and supports your conclusion; need to experience your own story as a listener.
08:44 P.W. has lived all of his stories; the best stories come from our own experiences.
09:58 How P.W. produces Digital Flotsam; the importance of editing.
12:07 P.W. has to enjoy his own stories.
12:35 P.W. shares advice about the art and craft of storytelling; the importance of reading and listening to stories and finding your own voice.
13:40 Advantages of audio storytelling vs. written storytelling; much easier to convey intent with spoken words; must write for your own voice and work to your strengths; difficulty of attempting to put P.W.’s own stories into a book.
16:37 My insights about relevance of P.W.’s comments to storytelling in a business context: Enjoy your own stories; listen to others’ stories; structure counts; best stories come from your everyday experiences.
18:27 Reminder to visit P.W.’s website and Digital Flotsam
18:35 Your comments are welcome; where to send comments: Email: donna AT trafcom DOT com, or comment on the show blog: Trafcom News Podcast
Look for the Trafcom News Podcast on Blubrry.com. Theme music is "Beneath Your Surface" by the Elisabeth Lohninger Quartet from the Podsafe Music Network
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