PR Warrior

In this second episode of the new season of The PR Warrior Show, I chat with Dial M for Media's Danny Matthews about live video streaming and digital news content. Danny and I have collaborated for a number of years now. Firstly, we focused on the bulk production of video using a combination of iPhones and iPads. We would shoot between 15 and 20 videos in half a day - simple 'to-camera' videos that could then be dripped out on to our clients' social media channels over a period of months. More lately though, we've been producing live-streamed video broadcasts for Facebook, which can then be repurposed for YouTube, and then cut-up further for other social channels (Twitter, Instagram, etc). We've found these to be particularly effective, especially when produced on a regular monthly basis. These live streams continue to be popular months after they've been broadcast, in effect making them the gifts that keep on giving!

The PR Warrior Show is back, and we're kicking off this new season with an audio version of the video broadcast of the launch of Trevor Young's new book - 'Content Marketing for PR'. It's mainly a question-and-answer session, first with the host Steve Vallas asking questions of Trevor, and then members of the audience providing comments and asking questions. Become your own media channel and tell your stories like a PR pro! Are you struggling to cut through the noise and convey your message to the marketplace? We live in a fast-paced, digital-first world cluttered with brands and individuals telling the world how great they are. It’s no wonder consumers are so cynical and distrustful. They resent being interrupted with meaningless ads, pitches and promotional messages. They simply don’t care about you or your business—because you haven’t given them a reason to. Meanwhile, marketers and PR pros are beginning to accept that many of the methods they’ve been using to reach potential customers and influencers simply don’t work anymore. Bottom line: Standing out, getting noticed and resonating is a growing challenge for businesses and organizations, large and small. CHECK OUT THE BOOK WEBSITE BUY THE BOOK About the book Trust and reputation have never been more important in business Learn how to harness the power of both public relations and content marketing to build visibility, influence, trust, and credibility for your business, organization or personal brand. In this book, veteran public relations consultant and marketing speaker Trevor Young—aka “The PR Warrior”—shows you how to strategically use content marketing for PR to: Humanize your company or organization Deepen the connection your brand has with consumers Grow your influence within the industry you operate Build familiarity and a genuine sense of trust within the marketplace Connect with the people who influence your clients and customers Increase new business leads and sales Reduce the customer’s buying cycle Make paid-for advertising work harder Let new business come to you instead of sending out pitches Written for entrepreneurs, change agents, business leaders, marketers and PR practitioners, Content Marketing for PR is your essential guide to building a visible brand that’s recognized, respected and relevant in today’s noisy social world.

Australian-based marketing management consulting firm TrinityP3 has built a global footprint off the back of a consistent social media and content marketing effort, with a hefty dash of 'earned media' thrown in for good measure. In this episode of the PR Warrior Podcast, TrinityP3 founder Darren Woolley takes us behind the scenes of how he approaches the content publishing process, which mediums he uses and how social media fits into the marketing equation. It's a great case study of persistence. Darren had been blogging since the mid-2000s but five years ago became a lot more strategic in his content marketing and his efforts have paid off big time. In 2007, the TrinityP3 website was attracting just over 3000 unique visitors per year in what is a very niche B2B field; in 2016, this figure hit 200,000 - a jump of some 7000 per cent in traffic!  Meanwhile, the business continues to power along. Today, TrinityP3 has over 30 consultants around the world and offices in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, London; at time of recording, Darren was in the final stages of negotiating a joint venture in the US. This episode will be of particular interest to leaders of professional services firms who want to better understand how blogging and social media can help drive global exposure and growth for their business over time. Darren Woolley, Founder and CEO, TrinityP3

This is the story of a startup Australian recruitment company - Firebrand Talent - and how it built its brand and its business using a combination of social media communications, content marketing and influencer relations, or if you prefer: Owned, earned and social media. In this interview with Trevor Young from PR Warrior, the Australian Digital Marketing Director for Firebrand Talent, Carolyn Hyams, takes us ‘behind the velvet rope’ of the company's marketing strategy and breaks down in detail how the business approaches content marketing, social media and influencer relations to build brand visibility, influence and trust in the marketplace. This episode will appeal to anyone in business keen to know more about how publishing content and using social media to build a ‘village of support’ for your brand can pay business dividends over the long term. Show notes from this interview can he found here.

Josh Rowe is CEO of RealAs.com, a free website and app that helps homebuyers and investors find their next property. RealAs.com is still a relatively new business but what Josh and his team have been able to do in a very short space of time is leverage the power of social media, content marketing and strategic media relations to build visibility in the marketplace, to connect with consumers and position themselves as a prominent voice in real estate circles. In this episode of the PR Warrior Podcast, Josh takes us behind the scenes of how RealAs.com approaches its content marketing, how it uses social media and the importance of having a company CEO -in this case, Josh – out, loud and proud on social media.  

Rakhal Ebeli is the founder and CEO of Newsmodo.com, an online service that helps publishers, agencies and brands connect with audiences through quality storytelling, crafted by experienced journalists from around the world. In this interview with the PR Warrior Trevor Young, Rakhal chats about brand journalism and the role it plays in the broader realm of content marketing. He discusses the trend of brands creating long-form content, and how Newsmodo has positioned itself as a go-to resource for freelance journalists and news photographers/videographers available to create content for companies and organisations as well as traditional newsrooms operating with slimmed-down news gathering personnel.     DISCLOSURE: At time of recording, Trevor was an advisor to Newsmodo.com.

Sixty-three per cent of Australian marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget during the next 12 months, according to the 3rd annual Content Marketing in Australia: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). However, marketers are still ‘learning the ropes’ when it comes to content marketing, with just under a third of respondents claiming their content efforts are effective. In this interview with Joe Pulizzi (pictured), founder of Content Marketing Institute, he extrapolates on the findings of the report, and what they mean for the Australian content marketing industry.

Mark Masters is the founder of UK-based  The ID Group, a marketing and design agency that positions companies as the authority within the sectors and communities they serve. Mark is a prolific blogger and an emerging voice in the world of content marketing. His ‘Talking Content’ series of interviews with content marketing leaders from around the world represents a goldmine of useful information on the topic. In this interview for The Connected Brand podcast, Mark chats about the power of telling stories and building an audience for your brand; he explains candidly the journey of The ID Group and how blogging played a key role in the company’s resurgence after it dipped during the Global Financial Crisis.

Adam Franklin (pictured below, right) is the co-founder of Bluewire Media and author, along with business partner Toby Jenkins, of the new book by Wiley Publishing - WEB MARKETING THAT WORKS. In this video interview, Adam explains: the power of giving away your IP (and how he and Toby give away 90-95% of what they know in terms of web marketing);the importance of developing buyer personas and writing a blog to showcase your knowledge and ideas;why a valuable piece of signature content can be an effective in building a email subscriber list for your business (for example, Bluewire uses a web strategy planning template that has been downloaded over 10,000 times)Adam also chats about why you should consider writing for other people's blogs perhaps more so than on your own blog; he also provides a simple explanation of how he sees SEO and the role it plays in web marketing today.

Steve Vallas is the social media-savvy owner of the popular Honey Bar & Restaurant in the inner Melbourne suburb of South Melbourne. In this interview with Trevor Young, Steve chats about using Twitter to build relationships with people as well as a sense of community around the Honey Bar brand. And while that works for him personally, it’s also a highly effective strategy in growing the Honey business. He says how participating on the social web has underpinned the business “in a way that I wouldn’t have expected when we opened the front doors”. “It’s allowed me to build a really strong base…allowed me to build a community around the business, that’s constantly talking about the business … constantly bringing in business,” Steve says.  

Virginia based pen, paper and ink business - The Goulet Pen Company - is using social media and content marketing to tremendous effect. In this episode of 'The Connected Brand' podcast, company founder Brian Goulet takes us through his approach to content marketing; how he got started with social media and why it is so critically important to the success of his business. LINKS:Brian Goulet’s business - The Goulet Pen CompanyBrian’s blog Ink NouveauThe article that started it all: ‘Everything You Need to Know About Social Media and Content Marketing You Can Learn From this Virginia-based Fountain Pen Company’Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It

Every now and then I enjoy getting together with Melbourne-based blogger Adam Vincenzini, the founder of agency Kamber, to chat all things social media and content marketing.  Adam is one of the brightest minds in this space. Prior to launching Kamber he held senior agency and in-house PR roles in both the UK and Australia, including  Mango Australia and Paratus Communications. In this episode of The Connected Brand podcast, Adam and I take a sweep across the new media landscape, riffing on all manner of topics associated with PR and communications, with a skew towards social media and content marketing. What happened in 2013 and where are things going in 2014 and beyond?

Cam McLellan (pictured below) is a Melbourne-based entrepreneur who has embraced social media and content marketing – and it’s paying huge dividends for his business, Open Wealth Creation (OWC). In this interview Cam chats about why the decision to give away all of his knowledge (and that of his team) – making it freely available on the web – has been a key determinant in the success of OWC’s content marketing efforts to date. He also outlines how the company’s blog is “driving a huge amount of traffic” to the corporate website and discusses why he loves Twitter and how important it is from a relationship-building perspective.  

For years now Trevor Young (aka The PR Warrior) has kept tabs on what's been happening overseas in terms of social media and content marketing, collecting examples and case studies of individuals and companies that are leading the way in the space. Now it's Australia's turn! Content marketing in Australia has been picking up pace for a couple of years now. Google tells us the search trend for the term 'content marketing' is on the up, while according to one research report, spending on content marketing in Australia is set to increase by 61 per cent, with 12 per cent of respondents saying they will be 'significantly increasing' their budget this year. Obviously this augurs well for the nascent content marketing 'industry' in Australia. In this episode Trevor discusses 11 excellent examples of content marketing from Australian brands - they include major blue-chip brands such as Telstra and Commonwealth Bank, fast-growing medium-sized enterprises such as Lorna Jane and Intrepid Travel, plus smaller companies including Open Wealth Creation and TrinityP3. READ MORE

A new smartphone app-based service has just come on to the Australian market that will be of great interest to PR people generally, corporate communications practitioners specifically, as well as anyone involved in the content creation space. Called BureauXP, it's the brainchild of two of Australia's most experienced radio people - Steve Speziale and Andy Grace. In essence, BureauXP enables you to record high quality digital audio (and video) on your iPhone - and then send the file on-the-spot either to BureauXP's customised media lists, or any other database you've had set up e.g. employees, influencers other than the media such as analysts, etc. In this interview with the PR Warrior Trevor Young, Steve explains what BureauXP does and why it is relevant to the PR and communications industry, including discussing several scenarios where it might work most effectively.  Further reading - BureauXP: Real-time Audio/Video Content Creation and Dissemination Just Got a Lot More Interesting! Trevor Young (left) interviews Steve Speziale, co-founder of Bureau XP.

Author and professional speaker, David Meerman Scott, first published his seminal book 'The New Rules of Marketing & PR' back in 2007. What hasn't changed in the past six or so years, David says, are the basic strategies of marketing in an ever-evolving hyper-connected world. What has changed are the tools that we use to publish our content on the web and engage with our audience. In the years prior to launch when David was writing the book, Twitter wasn't up and running, Facebook was only for college students, while MySpace had four times the number of users as Facebook did back then, and "we had this weird thing called Second Life", David says in the interview. Fast forward to the latest edition (the fourth) of the book and it has coverage of Twitter and Facebook naturally, but also the likes of Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. Best-selling author, David Meerman Scott

In this episode I catch up with Carolyn Hyams from recruitment agency Firebrand Talent, a company that is doing brilliantly in terms of its strategic and judicious use of blogging and social media to grow its business and build its reputation in the marketplace.  Firebrand specialises in permanent recruitment across digital, marketing and creative. When it launched in October 2010, Firebrand was unknown and had no marketing budget to speak of.  Two and a half years later the company has made an impact in the digital/marketing/creative recruitment space - so much so that late last year the company won "Best Boutique Agency" and "Best Brand" at the Recruitment Excellence Awards.  Learn from the best! Firebrand Talent is a 'Connected Brand', a company that knows how to 'join the dots' of social media and content marketing, and it's paying off for them in a big way! PICTURED: Carolyn Hyams

The law can be quite murky at the best of times - sometimes black and white but often grey - and no more so than in and around social media, an area that continues to grow at a rapid rate, zig-zagging across geographic boundaries and thus legal jurisdictions.  In this interview, I chat with Jamie White, the founder and director of the Australian boutique law firm Pod Legal about this very topic, with emphasis on copyright and what bloggers, brand owners and content marketers need to be aware of when it comes to the law.  Specifically, we look at the use of other people's photos and videos on your blog or website, as well as the emerging area of content curation.Jamie is a specialist in the area of social media and technology law, and is often asked by Australia's leading media outlets to comment on cases and issues pertaining to copyright and trade mark infringement on the web.You can follow Jamie on Twitter @podlegal.   PICTURED: Jamie White, Pod Legal

In this episode of THE CONNECTED BRAND podcast, I chat with Jodie Sangster, the CEO of Sydney-based Association of Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA).  In the run-up to the recent Content Marketing World Australia event, ADMA - in partnership with event organiser the Content Marketing Institute - released a research report entitled: 'Content Marketing in Australia: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends'.(I wrote about the report here:  Content Marketing in Australia Set to Boom).   Post Content Marketing World, ADMA joined forces with the Edge content agency to convene a roundtable to 'pressure test' the survey results and enhance the research findings.  A whitepaper ('The State of Content Marketing') was produced with a view to sharing the key outcomes from the roundtable discussion.In this interview, I chat with Jodie about the findings of the original research as well as the outcomes of the subsequent roundtable session with senior Australian content marketers. PICTURED: Jodie Sangster, CEO of ADMA

I recently caught up with PR and social media gun and all-round good guy Adam Vincinzinito discuss an article he posted on his popular blog AdamVincenzini.com.The post - titled The 7 Different Types of Social Media Consultant - looked at the varying skill sets  social media specialists possess today.Adam wrote the post because he was attending meetings where the topic kept cropping up.I cornered Adam via Skype while he was on holidays on the Gold Coast for a chat about this super-meaty subject - we discuss each of the seven different types of social media specialist  - I apologise that it's a bit longer than my usual podcast interviews because the topic is so expansive, I was keen to delve in a bit deeper. If you're interested in the social media space, I think it will be worth your time!MORE: Video interview on PR Warrior Blog