Today marks the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day, a day set-aside for citizens of the world to take a moment and think about important topics such as global warming, ozone depletion, & our own interaction with the planet.  These are some weighty issues to say the least, especially as we seek to preserve the Earth for future generations.  So, for those of us in the field of PR & Marketing, as we go about our daily activities today, there are any number of ways that we can contribute to help on these fronts.

Specifically, as communicators we can each play a vital role in Earth Day in a number of ways:

1)   We can use our skills to showcase what our clients are doing for the environment: Use this as a story angle to help your clients get more press, showcase the efforts that they make locally to improving the environment & being a good corporate citizen; while earning points with their target audiences.

2)   Make our own businesses Green: There are a range of things that we can do in our own offices to help with the environment.  From maintaining a paperless office, to using recycled materials, adopting new energy efficient equipment, turning off our computers at night, & sorting our trash into recycle bins.  While each of these are small modifications, together they can add up to help make a difference in the overall well-being of the environment.

3)   Introduce Green communications tactics: By using new tools that allow you to communicate online, you can tell your story directly to target audiences with rich audio & video content through tools such as Podcasts and Webcasts.  These tactics can help to reduce the number of trips spokespeople or executives need to make, in the process reducing carbon emissions, & reaching broader audiences with your message.

Of course, there are many ways to go Green, do you have other tips for folks in PR & Marketing to consider adding to the list?  Just go ahead and share your ideas in the comments section below!

MediaBack Page’s Quick Hits for April 27th :

• Podcast Audience Up 22% Since Last Year - Podcasting News -
• iPhone is Boosting Demand For Location-Based Services - Another example of how the iPhone and its associated technologies are changing the communications landscape…

New Media & Social Media tools are the latest options for PR & Marketing professionals, they provide new avenues to reach target audiences and enhance campaigns, however they are only part of the puzzle.  While I am entirely in favor of communicators adopting new tools as part of their campaigns, I think it is most important to do so with a managed and calculated methodology, which utilizes these tools as part of a cohesive overall strategy not just as a haphazard add-on for the sake of using technology.  While these new options can provide enhancements but it is paramount for practitioners to focus on telling their stories without getting caught up in the technology.

Yes, I do advocate as I did recently on this blog that you make your message Platform Agnostic, but I do not think that in doing so you should let the technology get in the way of your goal of telling your story.  Instead, I think you need to tell your story and use technology to accentuate your message and broaden its reach.  Of course, in some situations the technology can improve how you tell your story, enriching the experience for the audience and make the story come to life or bring a level of interactivity, but it shouldn’t entirely dictate or transform how you communicate.

So, the question is how do you communicate with Web 2.0 and Social Media Tools without loosing focus on the primary goal of telling your story.  Certainly, the answers are many and the approach could be quite complex, but on a high-level here are ideas that can lead to success:

1. Define Your Story - Sure, this is nothing new, but it is at he heart of effectively crafting a cohesive approach to new and traditional media tools.  What is it that you’re trying to convey?  Who are your spokespeople?  What is most engaging about your news?  How can you bring value to your audience with the story?  Further, as you figure out how to best position your story think about your audience; how will they relate to your story?  Have you given your story a voice, perhaps personalizing it in some way?
2. Integrate All of Your Strategies - Once you have your story well developed then it is time to think about the avenues through which to tell it and to tie together all of those tactics.  If you are taking a traditional approach of interviews with print, TV, or radio then these should be used as opportunities to communicate about and further deliver the story through the various online components.  Specifically, think about what tools online might enhance your campaign.  For example, online there may be opportunities to engage social media and invite comments and responses from communities such as Facebook, Linked-In, or other niche social networking sites.  Or possibly you can build on traditional methodologies by publishing a Podcast series, which can feature your experts to bring a face and a voice to your campaign.  You might also consider using Twitter to not only promote your story, but to open up a dialogue about those issues involved, and help the audience to become involved and take ownership in the topic.  Essentially, these types of strategies, while utilizing technology will also grow and strengthen the relationship with your target audience and if utilized correctly will keep your story as the focus of attention rather than the tools themselves.
3. Cross Promote Your Efforts - Regardless of the strategies you decide to facilitate - keep in mind the importance of integrating them - making it so that one leads to the other.  Successfully integrated solutions should not only build upon and promote one another, but should help to further educate the audience throughout the process while reading new audiences with each additional venue.  If somebody hears about your story through the print media, or via Twitter then they should be promoted to visit your website to download additional materials and learn more.  The cohesive approach will allow you to communicate in the various ways that today’s segmented audiences get their news and information and to maximize exposure for your particular campaign.

Regardless of the path taken, or the tool used, the bottom line is communications need to think strategically rather than getting caught up in using these new tools just for the sake of technology.  Certainly, thinking in terms of social media and tapping into these venues is an important part of today’s media landscape for business and consumer audiences, but at the end of the day it comes down to using these new tools to tell your story.

The end.

MediaBack Page’s Quick Hits for March 23rd :

• The Associated Press: Adam Carolla goes from canceled to podcast king -
• How the iPhone 3.0 Will Create a New Mobile Economy -
• Social Media Marketing Budgets on the Rise -
• Newspapers fold as readers defect and economy sours - CNN.com -

MediaBack Page’s Quick Hits for March 18th :

• Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 and the unannounced Podcast features -

MediaBack Page’s Quick Hits for March 9th :

• iTunes Celebrity Playlist Become Podcasts…with Tom Jones | Cult of Mac - Looks like iTunes has taken the next step with their “celebrity playlists” and brought them to life with a new Podcast series… at the very least this provides a unique way to gain some perspective on music maybe you haven’t thought about previously, and offers a chance to get some insight from your favorite artists…
• Column: Spinning the Web on the TV Set - TVWeek - News - TV Shows on the Web on the TV, it’s the next reality.
• Seattle paper may shift to online-only: reports - The newspaper business continues to be hit hard, in a sense more of the same that sent The Rocky packing a few weeks ago.
• NBC Is Buoyed by a Matrix of Winners - NYTimes.com - In a time of increasingly diverse audience segments - can an hour long news cast survive? Or does it in fact help the network to reach an even broader audience and extend its brand?

MediaBack Page’s Quick Hits for February 26th :

• Audio Podcast Brings Help To Homebuyers | TomsRiverTimes.micromediapubs.com | Toms River Times - A smart way of communicating about some very important decisions that homebuyers will make in these economic times.
• Small Business Administration - Podcasts - In light of the recession, with the goal of driving the economy forward with the engine of Small Business the Small Business Administration has released a new series of Podcasts.

In the past few years, there have been increasing signs that radio is on the verge of being dead.  Now, listen I love radio, I grew up listening to outlets in the Big Apple, and dialing in to win free tickets and to this day I still listen to and follow several radio stations.  However, with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the ensuing conglomeration that took place, and now with the belt tightening brought on by the economic downturn, radio has taken its final steps toward its death.  Perhaps, in time we’ll look back and mark this as the end of the corporate era of radio, and the pendulum will swing back toward community owned and operated outlets, but for now radio is changing and it isn’t for the better.

The story isn’t necessarily unique or new, as a matter of fact on this very blog we discussed Satellite radio’s demise back in early 2007.  Now, we observe a similar demise for over-the-air radio, which has changed dramatically over the last decade and given audiences fewer and fewer options, and limited creativity for professionals. Today, we find ourselves with markets that are filled with competing music outlets that serve the same audiences, syndicated talk shows, and what seems a Top 40 has been boiled down to the Top 10, which has the Jonas Brothers and Beyonce on repeat on virtually every station.  The result is detrimental on a number of levels; it’s hard for new music artists to break through, listeners are challenged to find any differentiating factor between most radio outlets, and talk radio has become monotonous making it harder and harder to find local talk shows.

After radio went through its conglomeration phase in the late ’90s, much of the creativity in radio had evaporated.  At that time at least, it seemed like Satellite might be radio’s savior, as personality after personality signed with either XM or Sirius as the two organizations set out to earn subscribers.  Fast-forward to the last few years and the climate has again shifted, and terrestrial radio outlets have had to drop even more talent and Satellite is beginning to sound like one big Juke box.

So, while it is a sad state of affairs for radio; the silver lining is the opportunity that is provided by the web.  For talent who have been tossed off the air, the web, and specifically Podcasting offers endless opportunities.  Case in point, CBS Radio on Friday flipped its man-talk outlet, KLSX-FM in Los Angeles for - you guessed it another Top 40 outlet - and left radio vet Adam Carolla without a job.  Carolla, who loves long-form talk has decided to take matters into his own hand and has launched his own Podcast on the web at The Adam Carolla Podcast.  While Carolla and his team are figuring out the new arena (and probably will be for some time) what they’ll find is refreshing; a blank canvas that will allow for endless creativity, new opportunities to engage their audiences, and the ability to reach an even larger audience then terrestrial radio.  The move is reminiscent of what Bubba the Love Sponge did after his initial dismissal in Tampa years ago; which gave him a platform to showcase his talents and ultimately sign a deal with Sirius.

While a deal with Sirius may not loom in the future for everyone, as audiences become increasingly used to finding niche content that meets their needs we’ll see new business models develop.  Subsequently, artists like Carolla will be able to enjoy that newfound freedom, while developing something that is their own and affords them the opportunity to return to their creativity and entertain audiences.