Guest Post by Patricia Handschiegel: Follow her on Twitter | Read her blog

I have a background in Internet telecom and platform business, which is the business around broadcast, broadband, telephone, media, and radio communications systems. You may have noticed these things are blurring together in the market today, or are badly disrupted or fragmented. This is happening for a reason: The Internet is here to replace those old platforms. That’s why it’s already starting to happen. It’s not a scary thing – just look at what you can do with the web now, like watch TV on your phone and collaborate. But, for businesses it presents a lot of challenges. The hardest being how to adapt a business around a new platform (the internet) while somehow still handling the old one you still have to work on.

My company, 9, is adapted to all of them and currently does business and production in more than three, including internet, TV and media. It’s a market called “transmedia” that is talked about in Fast Company this month, and was called “the future of the business” by Variety magazine in July. Transmedia sits at the intersection between Internet, traditional television, print media (magazines and newspapers), mobile, etc. Instead of focusing on one or two platforms, we see the world as one giant circle containing all and operate seamlessly and effectively across them. The reason why transmedia’s getting the attention it has been is because it is the emerging future we’re all in. Few companies are in the position where they’re focused on just one single platform. In most cases, it’s two or more. Transmedia is the approach towards it.

For companies that have to deliver a message within this environment, transmedia methodology can also make sense. It’s the concept of having a single message that’s then broken into smaller, more customized bites designed specifically to fit each of the distribution platforms you’ll be working with. From there, it’s customized to fit the habits, needs and look/feel audiences for each platform. So, if it’s web it looks one way, if it’s TV it’s another but it all ties back to a single, unified look, feel and message. The ability to do this is creating a new and growing practice space for marketing and branding consultants. My company works with consultant and media CEO Meghan Cleary, who has co-created our first franchise project with us. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for PR firms to also expand into the space as more companies eye transmedia as a solution to current and future fragmentation of the market, particularly where marketing and communications is concerned.

BIO
Patricia is a serial media and entertainment entrepreneur who founded a pioneering social media site in 2004, which she sold in 2007. She is currently the CEO of 9, a transmedia production and consulting company that builds and consults on franchise projects for traditional and digital media, entertainment and internet business. She’s the co-creator of the popular Huffington Post series The New Power Girls and Thenewpowergirls.com blog, which covers news and profiles of women startups and existing companies in web 2.0 and beyond.

Sourced from PR 2.0

This week, I was invited to speak at the Girls in Tech event in San Francisco as part of its evening discussing and exploring the nuances and opportunities defining and fueling Journalism 2.0.  I’ve supported GIT founder Adriana Gascoigne since the beginning and will always help the chapters that now exist around the world. It’s an important organization.

The evening was hosted at the San Francisco HQ of MySpace in the city’s South Beach district, which prior to their arrival, served as the early offices for the Social Media Club as it was forming.

To open the GIT New Journalism event, I was interviewed by my hero, and razor sharp witted Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal and All Things Digital. We discussed my new book “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations“  c0-authored with Dierdrre Breakenridge as well as the state of PR and social media marketing. Her questions were riveting and ensured that all guests stayed at the edge of their seats, including me, as we shared our honest and blunt assessments, predictions and solutions for an industry on the brink of either collapse or renaissance or both.

I think the audience would agree, the discussion begged for more time than we could possibly fit into the schedule. I’ll try to organize part two in the near future…

Shortly before our discussion, Kara shot one of her famous Flipcam interviews, which she shared in her recounting of the evening’s event and the discussions that defined it as well as in the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Thank you Kara!

I’ve included the video below…

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Now available! (click to purchase):

This Thursday, I’m presenting at the SVASE Startup-U in San Francisco. Hosted at DLA Piper’s new offices in San Francisco, we’ll review, “DIY vs. Outsourced PR & Social Media for Startups.”

It’s an important topic, one that will help you navigate the path from startup to success.

Seating is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot now.

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by Brian Solis, via PR 2.0

Part Two of my recent visit to the gorgeous San Francisco offices of Loic Le Meur and Seesmic.

Loic and I spent some valuable time together that proved both refreshing and invigorating. We discussed digital photography, innovation at Seesmic, public relations and social marketing, and brand building in the era of the Social Web.

The conversation evolved into a deeper discussion that tackled the subject of online community building. Loic wanted to capture and share the experience on Loic.tv, so we moved to his video studio to continue the dialogue on camera.

Loic and I also discussed my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Please watch the video here.

San Francisco – The view from Seesmic

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by Brian Solis, via PR 2.0

I recently visited the gorgeous San Francisco offices of Loic Le Meur and Seesmic to discuss his company’s roadmap, photography, how to build online communities, as well as my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge ,”Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.”

Loic suggested that we spend a few minutes discussing the book on camera to share with the Loic.tv community. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse – after all, Tim Ferriss had occupied the same chair moments before I arrived.

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by Brian Solis via PR 2.0

I almost can’t believe that this day is finally here…

Deirdre Breakenridge and I proudly announce the availability of our new book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR.”

The book is in stock at Amazon, the Amazon Kindle store, Barnes & Noble, Safari, and bookstores everywhere.

Deirdre and I spent a good part of the last year pouring our heart, soul, and real world successes and failures into this book, and we only hope that it will help you excel in whatever role you choose to pursue.

This book is written for the those facing the new intersection of all that is Public Relations including PR, media and analyst relations, customer service, product development, social media, brand and community managers, executive management, HR, journalists, bloggers, marketing, advertising, students, teachers, content publishers, and everyone in between.

Book Summary:

PR, as we know it, is a dying practice having evolved away from the public and instead concentrating its energy on broadcasting disconnected messages to “media and analysts.”

What we’ve learned and what we know are quickly fading into irrelevance and obscurity. Reporters and analysts are now sharing the stage with a new generation of influencers. In addition to a still relevant process of media relations, we now need to expand our scope of participation and outreach by also identifying, understanding, and engaging the everyday people who have plugged-in to a powerful and democratized online platform for creating and distributing information, insight, and opinions – effectively gaining authority in the process.

The very people we had always wished to reach through traditional channels are now the very people we need to convince and inspire directly in order to remain part of industry-defining and market making conversations. This is a new era of influence and in order to participate, we have to rewire our DNA to stop marketing “at” audiences in order to genuinely and intelligently humanize our story to connect with real people and the online communities they inhabit.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a critical and mandatory process to shine in today’s social economy. It will help businesses forge meaningful relationships with those who will bridge specific benefits to distinct groups of consumers in order to cultivate a loyal, vocal, and hyper-connected community of customers and influencers.

I sincerely hope that this book helps you…

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Bonus: If you happen to live near San Mateo or Palo Alto, please visit Barnes & Noble or Borders for a pleasant surprise.

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I’m off live-blogging a wine festival today (I know. Poor me.)  Kevin Dugan, whom you may know from the Bad Pitch Blog or the Strategic Public Relations blog has offered to fill in for me. Kevin was lucky enough to attend the P&G digital summit earlier this week, and here is his synopsis of the event.
- Michelle

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The first moment of truth is “the time it takes shoppers to make up their mind about a product” according to The WSJ. It’s a tight window at three to seven seconds, so P&G considers it the most important marketing opportunity for a brand.

Earlier this week I joined Peter Kim, David Armano, Jason Falls and representatives from companies including MySpace, Hulu and Google to help shape the first moment of truth with social media for 100 P&G employees.

Loads of Hope
40 nerds teamed up with 100 P&G marketers to help raise funds for disaster relief through Tide’s Loads of Hope project. And we did just that…$20 at a time. $50,000 was raised in four hours employing everything from Digg, blogs and Twitter to MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and a host of niche community sites. Tide matched the $50K for the $100K in all.

The teams that broke down into smaller groups, around specific strategies, were able to test more ideas more easily and quickly. They focused on the ones that did work and dropped the ones that did not gain traction. This is a great lesson that can be applied across marketing projects in my opinion.

The competitive, reality TV nature of the event was intense as the final minutes approached. The digital dashboards shown above were posted throughout P&G’s learning center and clearly added to the urgency of the experiment. In one view we tracked sales, site visits and conversion rate for each team while the Twitter Feed tracking the event scrolled at the bottom – all in real time.

It’ll All Come Out in the Wash
Post-event we have the predictable, armchair dissection of the event by pundits. But most critics miss the point of this exercise.

This was a starting point for P&G — a learning exercise designed to show the power of social media that organized itself transparently around a good cause.

In the process 3,000 people got a t-shirt and, most importantly, $100K was raised for a great cause. The P&G marketers that continue to participate in social media will come to understand its true value which includes better customer relationships and, done correctly, establishing a personal dimension to their brand.

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Kevin Dugan attended the P&G event and has been blogging at Strategic Public Relations since 2002. More recently he created The Bad Pitch Blog.

by Brian Solis

At SXSW this year, I am privileged to host a book signing for my brand new book written with the wonderful Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR.”

The book will be available for sale on site or feel free to bring your copy.

Hosted by Barnes and Noble and located on the Trade Show + Exhibition floor, the South by Bookstore is where registrants will find books, CDs and DVDs by their favorite SXSW participants. Book signings by industry notables are scheduled during Trade Show hours as well as artist meet and greets.

Looking forward to seeing you!

RSVP:

Upcoming.org

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