FIR Podcast Network

The December episode of “The Hobson & Holtz Report” features Neville and Shel discussing these topics:

* Social media lessons from the UK’s 2019 general election

* Podcasts will be eligible for Pulitzer Prizes

* You may be able to create your own Twitter

* Merriam-Webster’s word of the year and the communicators who reject it

* The English language is finally losing its grip on the internet

* Key digital marketing trends to watch in 2020

* Dan York reports on Twitter and decentralization, Reddit’s growth spurt, and TikTok’s top 100 videos

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

The next episode of For Immediate Release will be posted on Monday, December 16.

Links from This Week’s Episode

* General election 2019: Five lessons from the ‘social media’ election

* Why You Are Missing Out If You Are Not Building A Facebook Group

* How A Private Facebook Group Led to Boyfriend Perfume Launching A Car Air Freshener

* General Election 2019: Has your local Facebook group been hijacked by politics?

* Pulitzer Reveals Audio Reporting Category for Non-Fiction Storytelling

* Podcasts Will Be Able to Win Pulitzers — Oh, and Radio, Too

* Inspired by The Daily, dozens of daily news podcasts are punching above their weight worldwide

* Jack Dorsey Wants To Help You Create Your Own Twitter

* Mastodon, the hot new social network like Twitter, sort of

* ‘They’ named as Merriam-Webster dictionary’s word of the year

* Stop grammar-policing the word, “They”

* The past, present, and future of the singular “they”

* The English language is finally losing its grip on the internet

* Internet World Users by Language

* Share of the most common languages on the internet

* Translate conversations with Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode

* Star Trek’s Universal Translator Version 1.0 is Here

*

Accelerate your sales through digital maturity frameworks. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Noah Koff (http://aha.pub/NoahKoff), a digital advertising executive, award-winning producer, journalist, coach and founder of Redwood Portland.

Noah helps clients make good decisions for their customer acquisition programs with a goal of increased revenues and profits. He enjoys building high-performance teams and mentoring. Noah is passionate about helping midsized companies, whose e-commerce sales are flat or in decline, to achieve sales acceleration.

To learn more about Noah, go to http://aha.pub/NoahKoff. To get in touch with him, visit https://www.redwoodportland.com.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* The pain point of midsized companies, whose e-commerce sales are flat or in decline, is not knowing how to accelerate their sales. #SalesAcceleration https://www.redwoodportland.com @NoahKoff

* A digital maturity framework can help midsized companies to accelerate their sales. What frameworks do you have for #SalesAcceleration? https://www.redwoodportland.com @NoahKoff

* #SalesAcceleration can come from defining brand positioning and tactical strategies for new customer acquisitions and revenue growth. What are your strategies for accelerating your sales? https://www.redwoodportland.com @NoahKoff

* An expert in #SalesAcceleration can help midsized companies make good decisions for their customer acquisition programs in order to increase revenue and profit. Consider working with someone who can help guide your decisions! http://aha.pub/NoahKoff

* Midsized companies can build successful brands with a strategic roadmap and close collaboration of existing teams. What are your strategies for #SalesAcceleration? https://www.redwoodportland.com @NoahKoff

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

Social media has changed the way we communicate, not only with friends and family, but in our business relationships as well. With our hectic day-to-day, we can now perform a quick scroll and catch up on the lives of those around us, all before crawling out of bed or uttering a word. And of course, this has its own positives and negatives – it alters the way people interact with others, with media, and with brands.

The days of billboard advertising being the go-to medium are long gone. Given how we interact with media has changed so drastically, it’s only natural the media around us changes, too. Enter the concept of employee advocacy. Much like influencer marketing, employee advocacy enables businesses to use the power of people, and their influential capacity, to expose others to news, information, and brand messaging as it relates to their company or purpose. And, it’s taking businesses by storm and delivering fascinating results.

In this episode of AMP UP Your Digital Marketing we meet Andrew Hutchinson, Content and Social Media Manager at Social Media Today, to discuss the findings on a GaggleAMP commissioned employee advocacy report. In this discussion, we’ll cover why there has been such a rising interest in employee advocacy and what the data in the report told us about marketers perceptions.

You can download Building the Case for an Employee Advocacy Program discussed on this episode at any time.

Transcript:

Glenn: Welcome back to the show. Today we’re speaking with Andrew Hutchinson. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew:  Thank you very much for having me, Glenn.

Glenn: Andrew, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Andrew: I am the Head of Content and Social Media at Social Media Today. So, basically all the content that goes through Social Media Today comes through me. The majority of them are written by me. The majority of posts that are written by us each day. And yeah, I manage all that content and keep us going.

Glenn: And so, I’m really excited to have you on the show today because we’re going to drill into some research that you all did, it was sponsored by GaggleAMP but it was 100% done by Social Media Today. And I thought you really tapped into some really interesting findings which I hope we can go into. But can you kind of tee it up for us and tell us a little bit about the survey, how it was done and, you know, why we think it might have the validity that it has?

Andrew: Yeah. So, we conducted a survey on employee advocacy or the state of employee advocacy. We run regular surveys throughout the year on different aspects of social media and digital marketing. And what we do is, we basically send it out to our community and we try to get as many people as possible to respond. We send it out via email and via social networks. And, yes, see what people are actually experiencing.

So, it’s one thing to theoretically write about what’s happening in the industry and what’s happening with the latest advertising trends or whatever, but it’s another thing to get the actual feedback from the people who are on the frontline and they’re actually doing it. So, we find that really valuable to actually get real world experience. And it’s really valuable for our readers in particular, because it’s not theoretical, it’s not just us saying, hey, this is a new ad thing from Facebook, this is actually what people are experiencing.

So, for this survey we had over 400 respondents which gave us a reasonable field of response. I think half of them were B2B, around half B2B, half B2C, 54% were B2B and 29%, sorry, were B2C. So, yeah,

Maximize employee engagement and learning through interactive training. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Anne Beninghof (http://aha.pub/AnneBeninghof), an internationally recognized consultant and trainer. She has taught professional development, authored nine books and several videotapes, and is a regular contributor to blogs and webinars.

Anne focuses on engagement-centered learning and emphasizes the power of adding caffeine to presentation design so audience members are awake, alert, and learning. She is passionate about helping companies change their practices as presenters so employees are learning and highly engaged.

To learn more about Anne, go to http://aha.pub/AnneBeninghof. To get in touch with her, visit https://www.caffeinatedlearning.com.

Here are a couple of AHAmessages from this episode:

* The pain point of companies is not knowing how to change their practices as presenters so employees are learning and highly engaged. #InteractiveTraining https://www.caffeinatedlearning.com @AnneBeninghof

* Virtual or in-person sessions that keep employees awake and not multitasking can help companies increase employee learning retention. What methods do you have to keep your employees attentive? #InteractiveTraining https://www.caffeinatedlearning.com @AnneBeninghof

* An expert in #InteractiveTraining can help companies energize an audience and facilitate adult learning. Consider partnering with one who can help you gain maximum return on training! http://aha.pub/AnneBeninghof

* Companies can benefit from exploring technology tools that will have their employees engaged and focused on learning. What technology tools are you using for employee learning? #InteractiveTraining https://www.caffeinatedlearning.com @AnneBeninghof

* Research-based design principles, along with an engagement-centered focus, can help companies create effective learning sessions. How can you create effective sessions for employee learning? #InteractiveTraining https://www.caffeinatedlearning.com @AnneBeninghof

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

On the sixth day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to you…six SEO tricks, five breakable habits, four productivity tools, three AI experts, two PR trends, and one mindset shift in a pear tree.

We’re not really talking SEO “tricks” per se (I used that only because it fits better in the lyrics of the song); more like best practices. 

SEO, or search engine optimization, often feels a bit like magic. We know we should know how it works, but do we really? It turns out, it’s not magic, we don’t have to be David Copperfield—and it’s pretty easy for a communicator to add to one’s skill set. After today, you’ll know how to incorporate these six SEO best practices into your communications planning.

THE 6 SEO BEST PRACTICES

Your six SEO best practices are:

Use one priority keyword every month in your content—and master it before you move on.

Be really smart about how you earn links to your site with your priority keywords as anchor text. 

Understand domain authority.

Optimize your content in advance for online, voice-activated, and mobile.

Understand the Google algorithms. 

Don’t write for robots.

In this week’s Spin Sucks podcast, I give you detail about each of them, how they fit into a communications program, and what you should measure.

MASTER SEO IF YOU CREATE CONTENT

In the end, while you must master SEO if you create content, it isn’t the only source of new leads. It must be used in tandem with other tools you have at your disposal in today’s digital world. Implementing these six best practices will help you go forth and prosper. 

If you’re following along with the 12 Days of Christmas series, check the blog this week for the seven PR pros to follow and the eight communications to subscribe to.

And I’ll be back next week with the 10 PR metrics to include in your 2020 planning. Until then!

Succeed in your business relationships through the Vested Way. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Kate Vitasek (http://aha.pub/KateVitasek), who has been the driving force behind the University of Tennessee’s pioneering research and development of the award-winning Vested® and Vested Outsourcing business model and movement.

Kate is a keynote speaker and executive trainer and coach in the art and science of developing strategic Vested partnerships that give organizations the power to deliver transformational results. She is passionate about helping companies structure their business relationships and make them successful.

To learn more about Kate, go to http://aha.pub/KateVitasek. To get in touch with her, visit https://www.vestedway.com.

Here are a couple of AHAmessages from this episode:

* The pain point of companies is not knowing how to structure their business relationships and make them successful. #VestedRelationships https://www.vestedway.com @VestedWay

* Learning about #VestedRelationships with actual partners and contracts can help companies transform their business relationships into successful ones. How successful are your business relationships? https://www.vestedway.com @VestedWay

* Agreeing on clearly defined and measurable outcomes can help companies ensure mutual success with their business partners. How do you define and measure your outcomes? #VestedRelationships https://www.vestedway.com @VestedWay

* Companies and their business partners can benefit from working together to formulate their joint vision, which will guide them in their #VestedRelationship. What is your business vision? https://www.vestedway.com @VestedWay

* An expert in #VestedRelationships can train companies to do business and build relationships that create value for them, their partner companies, and the world. Consider working with one who can guide you! http://aha.pub/KateVitasek

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

In this solo edition of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip Griffin shares answers to a wide range of questions put to him in the latest Ask Chip Anything webinar.

It’s a departure from our usual format, so we’re interested in hearing what you think. Should Chip and Gini do occasional AMA/mailbag style episodes?

Among the topics Chip covers are:

* How to prepare your agency for a recession

* How big your agency needs to be in order to be sold

* How to budget for 2020

* Which time tracking tool to use

* How to decide whether to move from freelancer to agency owner

* Which benchmarks matter to the business

[read the transcript]

Achieving business breakthrough by creating an effective marketing system. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Regina Partain Bergman (http://aha.pub/ReginaPartainBergman), marketing strategist, business breakthrough specialist and international bestselling author.

Regina conducts coaching for business owners. She helps them to add six or seven figures to their revenue and achieve the business breakthroughs that they want. Regina is passionate about helping her clients develop an effective marketing system that allows them to generate more leads and maximize their revenue.

To learn more about Regina, go to (http://aha.pub/ReginaPartainBergman). To get in touch with her, visit http://bridgeportismarketing.com/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* The pain point of many business owners is that they want to add another six or seven figures to their bottom line but are unsure about how to do that. #MarketingSystem #BusinessBreakthrough http://bridgeportismarketing.com/ @BridgeportStrgy

* A good #MarketingSystem is a great help for many business owners so that they will have the business breakthrough that they need, increasing their bottom line. http://aha.pub/ReginaPartainBergman

* Are you working with an expert who knows about #MarketingSystems? Knowledge about marketing systems can give a person the credibility to help business owners to go beyond their six-figure target revenue. http://aha.pub/ReginaPartainBergman

* #MarketingSystems can help business owners to generate leads and increase their net profit. Choose to work with an expert who knows about marketing systems. http://bridgeportismarketing.com/ @BridgeportStrgy

* Developing #MarketingSystems can give someone the credibility to help business owners choose the right program for their businesses in order to generate higher profits. Are you getting help from someone who knows about marketing systems? http://aha.pub/ReginaPartainBergman

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

The truth is – SEO is really just really good marketing and  understanding your audience. It’s creating content that frankly resonates with your audience but also has demand, which is where keyword research comes in. The idea of manipulating Google and trying to do SEO to rank is where people kind of go astray.

But, if you look at SEO as just another kind of marketing practice that’s based on understanding your audience and positioning, your website and your brand will be discovered. Your ideal customer will find you when they search for the parts or services you offer. If you can wrap your head around that basic understanding of SEO, then it becomes incredibly powerful.

Transcript:

Glenn: Welcome back to the show. Today I’m speaking with Garrett Mehrguth. Garrett, welcome to the show.

Garrett: Thanks for having me, man. Just excited to be here and chat with you and your audience. So, thanks for having me.

Glenn: It’s totally our pleasure. The thing everybody wants to know though is, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Garrett: Yeah. So, my name is Garrett Mehrguth. I started Directive about five-and-a-half years ago and we’re going out six years actually sitting here. We’re a search marketing agency. So, we do SEO and PPC, primarily for mid-market and enterprise companies, helping them generate more leads. So, yeah, I mean, we have an awesome business. It’s been really fun to kind of just grow and be a part of it as well as lead it. And we’re having a good time. And yeah.

Glenn: Okay. So, I have a question that seems to pop up quite a bit when I talk to people, and that is this idea that SEO is this black box and nobody really knows how to actually do SEO well. Is that a myth? I mean, is it something that can be done well?

Garrett: Yeah, I think that the problem is when you try to do SEO is actually the problem, because the truth is SEO is really just really good marketing, understanding your audience. It’s creating content that frankly resonates with your audience but also has demand, you know, where keyword research comes in. But I think the idea of manipulating Google and trying to do SEO to rank is where people kind of go astray, but instead if you look about as SEO as just another kind of marketing practice that’s based on understanding your audience and positioning your website and your brand to be discovered by your ideal customer when they search for the parts or services you offer, I mean if you can do that, that’s really the whole premise of SEO. And when you focus into that type of area, it becomes incredibly powerful.

Glenn: I really like that point-of-view because I think in the early days it was all about the kind of hacking, right, you know, how do I hack the system, how do I understand what the algorithm is so I can optimize specifically for that? And what I’m hearing is that it’s more about let’s just get back down to basics, let’s figure out the language and messaging people want.

Garrett: Yeah, I mean, that, and how – like, when people are looking for what you sell, do you show up, are you discoverable? Like, that needs to be the most important part and for the longest time, people – and still actually today – people really focus on, does my website show up? Like, what keywords does my website rank for? But I’ve actually have a fundamentally different belief on SEO and I believe that it’s about your brand. So, you have to ask yourself, does my brand show up when people are doing their research for what I sell? And because there are these things like, third-party review sites. If you’re a local business, there’s Yelp, there’s Google My Business, there’s Search Ads, there’s TripAdvisor, there’s all these different aggregators of data. And due to what I call the Yelp and Amazon affect,

Blast off into the future by taking advantage of technological advancements through strategic forecasting. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Sylvain Rochon (http://aha.pub/SylvainRochon), international keynote speaker, futurist, author and entrepreneur.

Sylvain conducts speaking engagements to educate professionals about the use of artificial intelligence for their professions and businesses. He helps them learn how to choose and adapt the right tools and technology for their businesses. Sylvain is dedicated to helping his clients get rid of their fear of technological advancements so that they can embrace the possible benefits they can bring.

To learn more about Sylvain, go to (http://aha.pub/SylvainRochon). To get in touch with him, visit https://sylvainrochon.com/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* The pain point of many professionals is that they fear that their livelihood will be affected by the influx of #ArtificialIntelligence and all kinds of disruptive technologies. #StrategicForecasting https://sylvainrochon.com/ @SylvainRochon

* #StrategicForecasting is a great help for many professionals so that they can get rid of the fear that their livelihood will be affected by recent #TechnologicalAdvancements. http://aha.pub/SylvainRochon

* Are you working with an expert who knows about #StrategicForecasting? Knowledge about strategic forecasting can give a person the credibility to help professionals to adapt to the recent trends in technology. https://sylvainrochon.com/ @SylvainRochon

* #StrategicForecasting can help professionals to choose the right technology that they can utilize to improve the efficiency of their businesses. Choose to work with an expert who knows #StrategicForecasting. https://sylvainrochon.com/ @SylvainRochon

* Doing #StrategicForecasting can give someone the credibility to help professionals get ahead in the future by choosing the right technology they need for their businesses. Are you getting help from someone who knows about strategic forecasting? http://aha.pub/SylvainRochon

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.