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WHAT IS: RSS?

For the smart PR professional, the Internet should be the first port of call in the morning to keep on top of the daily news agenda and spot any potential newsjacking opportunities.

At the last count, Google claimed that it currently indexes roughly one trillion web pages. OK, we know that 99.999 per cent of those pages are probably about ponies, midgets and the like, but that still leaves a huge amount of information that needs to be sifted through.

One of my personal favourite developments in Web technology has to be the RSS feed. The latest, arguably flawed research from Forrester revealed that 11 per cent of consumers use RSS. There are a number of variations of both RSS itself and what the RSS stands for. However, for our purposes, we will stick to the RSS created by Dave Winer, which is often referred to as RSS 2.0 with the initials meaning Really Simple Syndication.

PR professionals who monitor specific websites on a daily [or more frequent] basis would have to remember each website and open them individually. They would then have to scan each site to look for new news items and make note of them / collate them / remember them. 

However, by working in tandem with sites or applications  such as Google Reader, Bloglines or NewsGator [also known as feed aggregators], RSS feeds allow you to manage all the content on a site. Readers can subscribe to feeds by clicking on the RSS button [pictured]. The news aggregator site will then display any new content and automatically update itself.

At its very most basic, it means that instead of visiting each news site, any new, relevant content is pulled for you, on a single site. It might sound lazy, but a PRO could literally scan a page of headlines looking for relevant stories in minutes instead of opening the 30 or so new sites they have to regularly check. Instead of remembering to visit all those sites, the user only needs to remember the address of his or her news aggregator site [or even have it as their home page]. Updates, to wiki or blogs can also be quickly viewed.

RSS feeds do not sound like the most terribly exciting internet tool. However, used with news aggregator sites, RSS feeds can shave time off the daily grind of PR life.

WHAT IS: Podcasting?

Decreasing costs of technology and distribution have made it cheaper to create content that appeals to mainly niche audiences. A podcast is video or audio content that is often embedded in an RSS 2.0 feed. The name was created by combining “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasting allows the content to be syndicated, subscribed to and downloaded automatically. These files can be played back by the RSS subscriber at the user’s convenience on an MP3 device, other portable device or PC. Podcasts work on all sorts of devices not just iPods.

How does it work?

There are five basic steps:

1. Create the podcast - Anyone can create a podcast. No satellites, radio stations etc are required. All you need is a microphone and/or video camera, computer and connection to the web
2. Edit the content
3. Upload to server
4. Users subscribe
5. Updates - The difference between podcasts and basic downloads is that podcasts are part of a series (weekly, fortnightly or monthly schedule) so that the user receives a series of files that build on each previous session. Anything else is a download.

Why should I care?

Porter Novelli has an interest in addressing small, specialist audiences of influencers.

Why has it taken off?

The key drivers behind the growth of podcasting include technology and shifts in consumer expectation.

Technology has made it easy and quick for us to download and update files as well as increased the number of ways we can consume this content. Mobile video and audio devices allow us to consume this content where and when we want. A related driver is the growing expectation amongst consumers that they can watch anything, anytime and anywhere.

When is podcasting relevant?

Clients shouldn’t necessarily all start podcasting but there are certainly situations where it may make sense. Examples of cases where it could be a cost-effective way to engage niche audiences include:

• when communicating with specialist stakeholders such as legislators, shareholders etc
•  internal training and communications – for example record training sessions and make them available to entire corporation via podcast
•  promotion of content – increase the value of existing activity and assets by distributing this content online
• increase the value of sponsorships – for example capture and distribute behind the scenes coverage and interviews with key players/performers for an event that a client has sponsored

WHAT IS: Google?

What is this?

Google’s original mission remains intact: to use search to organise the web’s information. We enter what we’re looking for, click ‘Google Search’, and Google, almost instantly, scours the web.

It uses a rather impressive algorithm called PageRank – named after co-founder Larry Page – which assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set (Wikipedia).

In the world of PageRank, websites ‘vote’ for, rather than link to, one another. The importance of a site is measured through a combination of the number of votes received, and the number of votes received by the sites its votes came from.

Why should I care?

There is far more to the Google story. Delving deeper, it becomes clear that there is a whole load of functionality – and controversy – lurking beneath the surface.

Google could well play a bigger part in your life, now or in the future, than you might expect.

Google is becoming so ubiquitous that the company is often accused of spying on us, not just in terms of what we’re searching, but in the real, physical world. Google Street View was subject to plenty of bad publicity earlier this year because its “360-degree panoramic street-level views” (Wikipedia) have been deemed a breach of privacy.

The ‘absolutely everywhere’ nature of Google inevitably raises questions about online privacy too. Google has the capability, though not necessarily the inclination, to store data about our internet use.

But one of Google’s great positives is its wide range of features (this is just a small sample): 

• Blogger
• Google Reader
• YouTube
• Picasa
• Chrome
• Google Alerts
• Google Documents
• Google Maps
• Google Calendar 

This means a large chunk of our online activity converges with Google at some point. But it is that functionality which makes Google far more than a search engine. 

Any social media benefits?

Most importantly, I’m a big fan of Google Reader. Before pitching bloggers or even blogging effectively, it’s essential to read. The easiest way to familiarise ourselves with the content out there which interests us is through that wonderful creation, RSS. And it just so happens that Google Reader is regarded by me – and a whole bunch of far more influential and wise digi-folk – as one of the best readers available. It allows us to manage, search and read RSS feeds easily, and share and annotate them.

Google is also active in the blogging space. Its Blog Search is useful for social media professionals as a supplement to Technorati, for example, but we can also blog through Google – in fact I do, regularly. Blogger is a popular blogging platform which Google bought in 2003, and is a great starting point for novice bloggers.

Two of Google’s other major purchases, Picasa and YouTube are also social beasts. The former enables photo sharing, the latter video. It doesn’t get much more social than sharing such rich content around friends and family.

Any issues I should know about?

Google gets a lot of bad press about data use and privacy, so that’s something to think about.

Google does some things very well: their search is such that ‘to Google’ is a commonly used verb, and Google Reader’s rather wonderful. But Picasa, Talk and Google Mail all stand out as products with plenty of competition.

Google is possibly well on the way to providing viable cloud computing. Before that becomes possible, we need to have reliable and effective methods. Google’s made a start, along with competitors in some cases. Picasa enables us to store and share photos, and Google Docs does the same for documents. Calendar, Mail and Notebook can also be seen in the same light.

How much does it cost?

Zip. Google has amassed its vast fortune in a variety of ways, but extracting cash from the everyday web user is not one of them.

HOW TO: Create Articles on Wikipedia (if you work in PR)

Wikpedia is one of the most referred to sources of information on the internet. Despite the content occasionally being of questionable veracity, clients often request that we create or edit articles about them or related topics.

If you have already read WHAT IS WIKIPEDIA, you will be aware that you can’t create or edit any article in which you may be perceived to have a vested interest. Fortunately there is a clear methodology laid out by Wikipedia about how you can request article creation and edits.

How long will this take me?

It shouldn’t take an awfully long amount of time, you’ll need to have drafted the material you wish to be added, locate an appropriate Wikipedia editor or WIKI project and create a request. Obviously creating an article from scratch will take longer than requesting alterations to a page that already exists.

What do I need to know first?

If you haven’t already then you should read the Wikipedia: Conflict of Interest, then you should read the article on Verifiability and Neutral Point of View which will help you to create an article of acceptable standards. 

How do I do this?

First stage is to create an account. You do this by clicking on create account in the top right corner of the main page.

Please use your name and Porter Novelli email address when creating the account. 

Once created you’ll see a page that looks like this:

Then click on your user name at the top right of the page and you’ll be invited to create a user page for your account. This bit is important as it’s where you will disclose your employment status with Porter Novelli and place any articles that you wish to be reviewed and added to Wikipedia.

So copy the following text to your user page.

== Disclosure ==

I am employed by [[Porter Novelli]], a global public relations network. 

I am aware of, and have read Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:COI | Conflict of Interest]] behavioural guidelines and the [[WP:SCOIC|Suggestions for COI compliance]] - and understand how these are ''particularly relevant to me''. I will do my best to adhere to these guidelines in the following ways:

* I will not post, or edit articles about past and current clients, their products or services

* I will not post, or edit articles about my clients' competitors, their products or services

* I will restrict requests for factual amendments to such pages to the relevant Talk pages where I will disclose my interest, and reference [[WP:SCOIC]] 

* In those cases where I make such Talk page requests, I will endeavour to supply references to [[Wikipedia:Reliable_sources | reliable sources]]

You can now turn your attention to drafting the article you wish to be added.

In order to be successful, it is important that the article is neutral, encyclopedic in tone and specifically that it avoids peacock language. It should also include at least two independent reliable sources. 

You should then copy the article to the discussion page of your user profile.

Now it’s time to seek out the most appropriate person or group of Wikipedians to check your article and do the actual creation.

The first is to find the appropriate WikiProject and then on its discussion page, create a new section and place your request.

Remember to use full disclosure of who you are, who you work for and you relationship to the client. Then create a link to the draft article on your discussion page and finally signing off with four tildes (~~~~), which will time and date stamp your request as well as providing another link to your user page.

Then you wait. You can add the RSS feed from the discussion page where you created your request to your RSS reader so that it anyone responds you are aware of it. Or you can check back frequently. 

Please be aware, and make your client aware, that some changes might be made by the person creating the new article and that it is entirely possibly that further changes will be made once it is up for the world to see, and edit. That is purpose and power of Wikipedia after all.

Changing existing articles

If a change is made that you feel to be incorrect, or there is an article about your client already that contains incorrect information then you need to go to the discussion page and make your case. Again remember to include independent sources to strengthen your case.

And that is basically it. It may take some time and it may not always work, it depends on how interesting and relevant the topic is to Wiki editors, so make sure you are careful to set expectation levels with your client.

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HOW TO: Use Twitter

Twitter [see our What Is guide] is often criticised for being little more than an ego-centric waste of time. The criticism stems from the banality of a large number of updates or “tweets”, such as where someone is having a coffee or what they think of the football.

However, if used correctly, Twitter can prove to be an invaluable tool for clients, brands and PRO’s. There are many conversations taking place about your brand on the Web. Microblogging sites, such as Twitter, are another channel which companies should be keeping a close eye on.

How long will this take me?

Setting up a Twitter account is very quick. Fill out your details and upload a picture and you can start Tweeting away. At this point it is also worth mentioning that you can protect your updates if you do not want anyone except your friends to see them.

The first tweets will invariably concern you getting to grips with Twitter, which is as far as most people get with the site. But start following people who are of interest to you and join in their conversations when you have anything to add.

To follow people, simply search (in the box at the top) for those you already know, authors of blogs you read or any news channels that are relevant. I’ve linked to a list of analysts (via SageCircle) and a list of journalists (via My Creative Team) for you to follow.

You can speak directly to people if you precede your message with ‘@’ and the person’s username. For instance, to speak directly to KerryMG you would simply start your message with @KerryMG. These messages can be seen by anyone who follows you. If you prefer to send a more private message, you can direct message someone.

By typing “d” and then a space before their name your messages will be private. For instance, to direct message Whatleydude, you would type “d whatleydude”. You can also click on their name to view their profile and on the right-hand side of the page there is an option to ‘message’ them.

Many users access Twitter through their regular browsers. However, there are a variety of applications that can improve the experience and allow you to view Twitter in real time or on your mobile phone. Find a list of them here. There are all pretty similar but most people seem to be using twhirl.

As mentioned in the ‘WHAT IS: TWITTER’, Twitter is an excellent resource for information. If you have sufficient followers it is an excellent soundboard. Tweet about whether to get an Asus or Mini-note and you can expect advice from followers.

Twitter itself has an excellent search tool in the form of Twitter Search. Using Twitter Search you can check what users are saying about the brand and monitor the level of conversation.

For clients, Twitter can be a vital channel for gauging opinions on a topic or brand. Using simple search tools such as Twitter search, clients can see who is saying what about the brand, products or competitors. Many users invariably have a blog and it is Twitter where they first make their feelings known.

It can also be used as a channel to communicate new product releases or news. As long as the client has spent time building a loyal following, it is an excellent way to reach and update key stakeholders.

And that’s really it. Different people use Twitter differently. There’s no right or wrong way to use Twitter-it’s like telling people how to speak at a pub. As long as you are polite and remember that it could potentially be broadcast to everyone, you can’t go wrong.

In a nutshell there are five uses of Twitter for PRO’s:

1. To build your own brand and network with peers

2. To evaluate what the social media space is saying about your brand

3. As a channel of communicating to key opinion formers

4. As a means of distributing and communicating news, events

5. A soundboard for ideas and feedback

Some Useful Charts for your DIY Monitoring Tools

You should already have read:

Brendan's article: HOW TO: CREATE A NEWS TRACKER WITH NETVIBES

My article: SOME USEFUL RSS/ATOM FEEDS FOR YOUR MONITORING TOOLS

We use Google Trends to track search volume (although we may upgrade to the really quite neat Google Insights):

how to

HOW TO: Create a Crisis Blog

All organisations face possible crises typical in their sector, e.g. airports and terrorism. How the company communicates with key stakeholders (the media/employees/investors/etc) during and after the crisis will help determine whether that crisis builds or seriously damages the company. That's why it is important to develop a crisis communications plan in advance to prepare you for every major eventuality. A good crisis communication plan allows for an honest, relevant and timely response.

How does a crisis blog help?

A crisis blog can be part of an effective crisis communications plan by projecting a human face or voice for an organisation and by providing a forum for getting specific feedback from customers. In particular it should become the first port of call for anyone seeking information on the crisis.

It is set up to store content such as news releases based around likely crises the company might have to face, leaving gaps for relevant details. It sits on a company’s server but is not accessible to the general public until required. In an emergency, the blog can become live in minutes to provide information to the media, investors, families and employees in a timely way.

What do I need to do first?

Online media monitoring and blogger outreach
• A crisis blog should always be underpinned by a robust media monitoring system: listing keywords, identifying the key online influencers in the relevant category and ongoing tracking of their online conversations
• Build and maintain relationships with the influential bloggers to help you participate in/steer relevant conversations when a crisis unfolds

Assign clear responsibilities
• Describe which employees should write the blog
• Identify under what circumstances they’ll be tapped
• Create a list of staff capable of monitoring online debates

Training
Train assigned staff:
• To monitor and build a blogger outreach programme
• To understand what’s required to bring the crisis communication system online
• How to blog effectively in support of an issues management situation

How do I do this?

• Integrate the crisis blog with your wider crisis PR efforts

• Maximise visibility of all crisis content

It’s important that those looking for information related to a particular crisis are directed to the official corporate response and/or any crisis response content when released:

• Maximise visibility in organic search by setting up the blog in advance as higher blog tenure improves its ranking in Google results
• Conduct a paid  search programme where you buy crisis-related keywords
• Create a large sign on the corporate homepage signposting the blog (when live)
• Make sure all content released (images, transcripts of video and audio, articles etc) contains relevant keywords so that it can easily be found and shared
• Use RSS feeds and increase inbound links to content on site

•  Draft backgrounders, position statements and news releases

• Make it easy to have regular updates

• Include an event timeline - a chronology of events for a crisis can offer a useful perspective for journalists. If you have time and resources to create graphics to accompany the timeline, provide these as JPEG files for download

• Include internet links - provide links to other web sites with useful background information

• Include media contacts  - a complete list of media relations contacts for your organization is vital. Offer multiple ways to contact your organization

• Mobile blogging (moblogging) and video blogging (vlogging) - consider how these might be used to vividly depict how the company can respond to a crisis (particularly in a product recall)

Summary

Once you’ve created a crisis blog, it can be brought to life at a moment’s notice, providing key stakeholders with all the information they need and ensuring that the message you want is the one that prevails online.

WHAT IS: Wikipedia?

Founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is an attempt to collect and summarise all human knowledge in every major language. Its content is written and developed collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and nearly all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the internet. 

Why should I care?

Wikipedia is the largest and most popular source of information online. As of April 2008 it had over 10 million articles in 253 languages, almost a quarter of which are in English. Wikipedia pages feature highly in search results and it is often the first place people will look for information about your clients.

Can this make me look foolish in any way?

Yes. 

Creating or editing articles in the interests of public relations is frowned upon. By public relations, Wikipedia does not just mean people employed by PR agencies. It also means anyone who has a vested interest in the company being written about. That also means you can’t pay an independent writer to create or alter client article.

If you do get tempted or requested by a client to create or alter an article, you should bear in mind that it will be noticed and the changes will be traced back, if not to you directly, then to your company's domain. If that happens then at best, the article might be deleted. At worst you are also risking the reputation of your client and your agency.

The good news is that there is a well defined process for approaching Wikipedia contributors and asking them to create or edit on your behalf which is covered in the upcoming How-to create and edit Wikipedia articles.

Suggested further reading

Wikipedia: Conflict of Interest

Wikipedia: Is in the the real world

WHAT IS: Twitter?

Twitter’s not a difficult to tool to explain. Like the status update on Facebook, users notify their “friends” (i.e. those that have chosen to follow their updates) describing what they’re doing or thinking via text-based posts. The main characteristic of Twitter is that members can only use 140 characters per update – so messages have to be to the point. The difficulty with Twitter lies in trying to explain why over two million people use it.

“Microblogging” is the generally accepted term describing sites such as Twitter. Updates can be sent/ received via the Twitter Web site, instant messaging, RSS, SMS or other Twitter tools such as Twhirl and Twitteriffic. The ability to send and receive updates or “tweets” via mobile handsets is also key. By being able to communicate using a device as ubiquitous as a mobile phone, members can send their instant thoughts to their followers. 

“I’ve just had a jam sandwich. It was great”

The most common criticism generally levied at Twitter is that tweets are pointless – why should you care what @GilesS has had for lunch?

And in many respects you wouldn’t care. Twitter is small talk; like discussing the weather or asking how someone’s weekend was (or what someone has planned for the weekend if it’s after Wednesday). It’s about getting to know someone when you haven’t got time for a proper conversation.

Devil’s in the detail 

Think about times when you pitch a journalist. You greet them with a redundant: “Hi, how are you?” for them to reply with an equally grey answer. Then you go into your spiel about how Pete’s Papers is revolutionising the printing industry with a new type of paper (it’s slightly whiter).

But what if you began by asking how their story on network infrastructure is going or how they got on at the conference they attended? It’s a nicer way of leading up to the pitch and this information is often freely available on Twitter. Some journalists are known to approve of being pitched through Twitter because they believe a pitch that can interest them in 140 characters is worth writing about. However, PR’s would be well advised to build some sort of relationship with the journalist on Twitter before asking whether it is fine to pitch them. 

Initial thoughts

Many bloggers are also on Twitter and it’s here that they often break stories or communicate their initial thoughts. By using Twitter search engines, such as Twitter Search, TwitterTroll or Flaptor PRs can evaluate what people are saying about their brands.

A large number of media outlets – from The Financial Times (@financialtimes) to ITPro (@itpro) have a Twitter account with stories posted as soon as they’re live. Twitter users have been known to break stories before the mass media. The recent earthquakes in China and Los Angeles were both on Twitter first.

Each Twitter, differs

Everyone uses Twitter differently. Some use it for networking, others as a glorified chatroom. As with much of social media, just imagine you’re in a pub. You wouldn’t say anything slanderous, libellous or stupid because people can hear you. Once you have spent time using the platform, you’ll find your own voice. There’s no right or wrong way.

Tweet what you sow 

As with most forms of social media, Twitter is free but it can take time to get started. Remember the first time you used Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, QQ or any other social networking site? You dipped in and out and it wasn’t until you spent time on it properly that you found a use for it. Twitter’s the same – the more time you spend on it the more you’ll get out of the community.

Some RSS/Atom Feeds for your Monitoring Tools

We've pulled together a little spreadsheet of useful feeds. You can add these to your feed reader to help you monitor what's being said about you (or your client, or any issue that you care about).

Take a look at Brendan's article: How to create a News Tracker with NetVibes for some other ideas.

This isn't a perfect list, by any means; but for most people, it's should be more than enough to get you off the ground. A lot of these feeds are hidden somewhere behind the sites that they come from; just try (for example) finding the feeds you're looking for on YouTube, Wikipedia, or Reddit without using this!

It will save you time, too. Hacking about with the URL cuts out about a minute of painful fiddling on the site. This is the commando way to do stuff. If commandos fiddled around with digital media monitoring, of course.

We've included Kingsley Joseph's Social Media Firehose - for a lot of people, that may be enough on its own - or already be too much. We prefer using separate feeds to creating one giant metafeed. Others don't.

A note of caution

Depending on the search engine behind the feed, different searches can give you wildly different results. For example q="hello world" can give different results than q=hello+world. You may need to play about with this. Your browser will convert non-standard "unsafe" characters used in search term (spaces, plusses, punctuation, and quotation marks, for example) into their safe equivalent. These can be recognised by the percentage sign before them, but can make the search term hard to read/create. If something is broken, it's most likely anything that looks like this.

%20 = (space)
%22 = " (double quotes)
%2b = + (plus sign)

If you're really determined to fix it, take a look at this useful tool for decoding/encoding URLs

Adding to the list

If you'd like to add to the list, please feel free to contact me.

The list

I've embedded this as a Google Spreadsheet (you can see the original here: some useful monitoring feeds. I'd appreciate any feedback on how this works for you.

how to