Social Media
Posted in Podcasts on October 24th, 2006
According to Wikipedia (in itself a social medium), the term describes the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. So with podcasts, blogs, vlogs and the like growing exponentially, where will it all lead? Will there be anyone left to just listen or will we all be too busy talking? Susie believes the latter, and also suggests that blogs are not the marketing tool they are being hyped to be. The ladies also discuss journalism as it relates to blogging - it is a complex worldwide web we weave.
Music: Social Disease by Preston from Inside Sky
Mike C says:
First, I love the new WordPress/PodPress Site. Very nice job.
Though I have thought about some kind of internal project based communication device, you two crystallized the idea of using a blog. I’m going to try that here in Ohio.
I’m surprised that you, using Google as a topic of conversation, didn’t touch on the fact that blogging allows a company to let the general public in on a conversation that is Googleable. For example, when Suzie was working for Timex she could have written about a product or capability in her blog, and letting people comment, with a lexicon of Googleable words. When someone would look up the words “watch” and “glow-in-the-dark face” into Google, Suzie’s blog would come up and of course it would have lots of links back to Timex. The blog works as a fishing net. Or it that Phishing — nope, that’s another beast.
Did I say I like this new web site format?
Nice work y’all.
October 30th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Mike C says:
…and yes, Suzie should start her own blog. Barbara, I’d love for you to blog about your cartoons, too.
One last note (I should have waited until the show was over to click submit), I believe blogs, podcasts, vlogs, etc. are consumed a number of different ways. I, myself, have gone through nearly a half dozen ways and I consume this content and some are consumed in a different manner than others.
One of the biggest mistakes podcasters and vloggers make is to limit how people can consume their content (such as providing only an iTunes subscription links or not providing a download the show link, etc.) and not understanding that someone may wish to consume the show in some other fashion. For example, I use an aggregater. My aggregater habits changed when I went from an iRiver to an iPod. My friend can’t install an aggregater on his work computer so he is a user who goes to PodcastAlley.com and clicks on the shows he wants from there. Some people use the pickle and I’m sure some will use the new tabbing feature in the new browsers to mark their favorite shows. I think that new interfaces should be made so people like my Dad listen to podcasts in a way where he can feel like he’s playing a radio (a box with knobs and dials on it along with a thing called an antenna). As you can both imagine, this seemingly limitless number of consuming options means that marketers have a limitless number of avenues to travel — which is GREAT (unless, of course, they’re lazy).
Hear ya next week ladies.
October 30th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Charlene Ann Baumbich says:
Interesting topic! Let me tell you why *I’m* blogging and why–and Suzie, although I’m writing about ME, I am doing so because a) I’m fascinating (ha-ha) but b) my blog is reaching a NEW audience for me, which is a wonderful PR tool. Which relates to BUSINESS.
I write books (www.welcometopartonville.com) and PR is key.Since I often travel for my job (professional speaking AND book promotions), I subscribe to (pay for) an industry travel genius’s newsletter regarding all elements of travel: http://www.joesentme.com . My subscription is worth every cent! Over the past several years I would occasionally respond to one of his newsletters to let him know how his breaking news saved my keister on a given business trip, and often I would include the humorous side.
One thing led to another and the chance for me to write a travel humor SOMETHING came up; Joe said he’d promote it. A blog was the easiest way to launch my “travel humor column” so I went with it.
Chain of events:
http://www.joesentme.com (Joe Brancatelli) offers a kick-butt travel newsletter. Joe points to several other travel writers and I’m one of them. http://www.travelinglaughs.blogspot.com . People read Joe looking for travelinfo, who click to my blog, which “just happens” to offer links to my book and speaking websites. I’m having so much fun writing this blog that I hope to one day cull a travel humor BOOK from it.
If you want to read an excellent example of how blogging can give insight into Real News behind the news, check out http://www.joesharkey.com/ (a blog) This, Suzie, is a good example of the crossover between journalism and diary.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:52 am
Susie says:
Good - glad to hear from you guys on this topic. Twenty minutes couldn’t begin to cover this conversation. No, I won’t be blogging and here’s why. As a business speaker, I was constantly asked why I didn’t write a book. The answer is, I hate business books and didn’t want to feed that machine and become a fake guru like the Who Ate My Cheese guy. Coming from corporate America, I saw management hand off a ‘business’ book at a sales meeting and think they were done with motivation for the year. I spoke instead of writing because I felt I could connect better that way. I am a reading snob, and feel that my writing isn’t good enough for the discriminating reader. I do get great satisfaction just writing the weekly summaries for our podcasts, and want people to listen, rather than say the same stuff on a blog. I like the medium of podcasting to talk about trends and don’t want to have it seen as the same thing as a blog.
I hate bad writing, that is one of my pet peeves. So since most bloggers aren’t writers, it just grinds on me. Charlene, you are a writer, so blogging is just doing more of what you already do, so no problem. Journalists who blog - same thing. But I don’t like encouraging people to do something publicly that they don’t do well. That is just noise to me. If they are just doing it for themselves, that’s called a diary - no problem. My issue with corporate blogs is that in big business, messages are carefully managed, I know cause that was my job. I believe in carefully crafted messages that communicate exactly what a company is trying to communicate, and the last thing you need is a bunch of loose cannons editorializing. Unless the president himself wants to blog, or the head of communications, no one else at a company has the total perspective necessary to do that job properly. And we didn’t even talk about the time it takes! I just think it is a mistake to suggest everyone should be blogging on their business website, as only some types of businesses will benefit from it. Just cause there is a new software or a new catch-phrase doesn’t mean everyone has to use it. It’s all about benefit in business, and they should look long and hard to see if all that chat is benefitting them, or just costing endless wasted man-hours. Thanks for your thoughts, cause I love this topic!
November 1st, 2006 at 10:47 am
Gregg says:
Susie, you’re blogging! I knew you would.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:54 am
Susie says:
No, I’m not!! I’m replying!!
November 1st, 2006 at 10:56 am
Mike C says:
Actually Susie, Gregg is right. Podcasting is really audio blogging.
In one way I can appreciate from where you are coming, Susie, but I kind of think you’re looking at this from an old-school perspective. I don’t particularly want to promote bad writing but there are two things about blogging/podcasting/vlogging and the rest of the new media that makes a lot of sense:
1. If you have a message but you don’t communicate it, it’s worthless to the viewer/listener/consumer. If you have to wait until the message is not only complete but also in a perfect format, you may never get it out (go back to “worthless”).
2. As more people tune out of the conventional or old-school ways of consuming messages, messages in these formats will be heard less and less. One needs to put one’s message where the cheese is (sorry — I couldn’t help myself).
Lastely, I agree with you about business books — but mainly because the medium is mis-used. I was once given the cheese book much the same way you described and I found it only amounted to a torturous inauguration into the club who could easily say, “the cheese has been moved” instead of saying, “our market has dried up here, lets go over there”. I read slowly so I would have preferred someone provided me with a podcast to summarize the book in 15 minutes.
Blogging or not Susie, I still think you’re great.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Susie says:
Ah, gotcha Mike. You said that with business books, the medium is mis-used. That’s what is happening with blogging. The message is the message, no matter what the medium of the moment is. And the more bloggers out there, the less anyone will be listening, so in the end “old-school” will stand out again. Blogging is so immediate that the message is rarely well-crafted. I think of it as verbal barfing. I know, podcasting is just audio blogging, and I even hold the honor of having the most popular definition of it in the Urban Dictionary, admitting it is an audio blog. But I must disagree with Marshall McLuhan who said the medium is the message back in the day. I think we have come full circle and the message is the message - at least I think it should be. And thanks for still liking me, Mike.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Charlene Ann Baumbich says:
PS. Apologies for misspelling Susie. Sometimes my fingers get ahead of my brain. Just another fascinating tidbit about me. HA!
November 1st, 2006 at 4:47 pm