Ce blogue déménage | This blog is moving

English follows

Faites vos valises! Le grand jour est arrivé : ce blogue cesse d'évoluer sur Blogger et déménage vers mon domaine :

http://www.michellesullivan.ca/


Veuillez donc ajuster vos signets en conséquence. Je vous en remercie.

Un grand merci à Laurent Lasalle, qui a su traduire ma vision pour m'offrir un nouveau site que je trouve formidable.

_________________

Get out your boarding pass! The big day has arrived : this blog will cease to be housed on Blogger and is moving to its own domain :

http://www.michellesullivan.ca/

Please adjust your bookmarks accordingly. And thanks for reading Éminence Grise.

Thanks go to Laurent Lasalle, who was able to bring my vision to life and give me a great new website.

Le Web vidéo vu par Laurent Maisonnave

Je suis parmi ceux qui croient qu'il faut rendre à César ce qui appartient à César. Je vous signale donc la publication d'un excellent billet par Laurent Maisonnave de Vidéopresse.

Web vidéo : études de marché et chiffres clés présente les toutes récentes études portant sur le Web vidéo. Parmi les conclusions:

• Malgré le fait que le temps qu'ils passent à regarder des vidéos sur Internet a augmenté de 50% durant la dernière année, les Européens ne le font pas au détriment de la télé traditionnelle, qui se classe toujours au premier rang. (Étude Jupiter Research)
  


• Il serait possible de faire de l'argent avec le Web vidéo : les entreprises déversent en moyenne $12 /1000 visionnements. 51% des producteurs vidéo tentent de gagner du fric avec leur produit. (Étude Web Video Producers)
  
  
  
• Une étude commanditée par CBS démontre que le réseau n'en sort pas perdant en affichant des émissions complètes en ligne. 35% des internautes qui suivent leurs séries en ligne disent avoir maintenant plus tendance de se tourner vers CBS lors de soirées passées devant la télé (avec ou sans leur douce moitié). (Étude CBS)
  


• Certains prédisent que le marché du Web vidéo atteindra entre 4 milliard et7 milliard US d'ici 2012. (Étude Kelsey)

Laurent et son collègue Christian Aubry seront des notres le 3e mardi du mois d'octobre. Christian fera une présentation sur le Web vidéo qui promet d'être très intéressante pour tous les relationnistes, qu'ils soient ou non friands des médias sociaux. À ne pas manquer. Détails à suivre. Devenez membre du groupe 3e mardi Third Tuesday sur Facebook si vous désirez recevoir la promo.

CNW : l'évolution du communiqué de presse pour les médias sociaux

Divulgation d'intérêts : CNW commandite la série 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montréal, dont je suis l'instigatrice et que j'ai lancé en collaboration avec une dizaine de collègues bénévoles en début d'année. Ce blog, et donc ce billet, m'appartiennent en tant qu'individu et professionnel. Je ne parle pas au nom de mes collègues, ni de 3e mardi Third Tuesday.

J'ai eu droit à un petit scoop plus tôt cette semaine: le bureau torontois de CNW m'a contacté pour me demander la permission de republier le communiqué 3e mardi Third Tuesday annonçant la soirée Shel Holtz dans le cadre des activités de lancement de leur nouvelle plateforme multimédia, Les communiqués médias sociaux de CNW.

Question de vous donner une idée de l'évolution de cet outil, voici ce qui a été publié au mois de mai ... et voici la toute nouvelle version du même contenu. Version anglaise ici.

Quelques nouveautés:

• la possibilité de laisser un commentaire. Important de noter: en tant que client, la possibilité m'est offerte de modérer tout commentaire. Une politique de modération est d'ailleurs clairement affichée par CNW.
• les personnes ressources sont maintenant identifiées de manière très évidente, dans la partie supérieure du communiqué.
• le logo en hyperlien nous mène, non vers le site de l'entreprise, mais vers une page CNW regroupant tous les communiqués du groupe.
• l'ajout de libellés (tags) en bas de texte, question d'alimenter Technorati et delicious.
• la section 'Related Content' permet à tous de constater la popularité (relative) du communiqué en comptabilisant les hyperliens via Technorati ainsi que la visibilité delicious.

En gros, des ajouts très pratiques qui démontrent, en effet, que l'outil évolue.

J'avoue que c'est plus beau, bien qu'ils n'aient pas (pu?) ajusté(er) la taille de la police pour la rendre uniforme, comme je l'avais demandé. Personnellement, je ne considère pas très joli de voir 3 polices/tailles sur une même page.

J'aurais également préféré que les citations soient affichées ailleurs. Dans la colonne de gauche, par exemple. Question d'alléger le texte principal et de s'en tenir à l'essentiel.

CNW a choisi d'afficher la bio de Shel Holtz sur une deuxième page, qu'ils rendent accessible via un hyperlien qui se trouve sous la citation. Un peu discret, à mon goût. Je pense aux journalistes qui sont toujours à la course et en deadline.

Pas surprenant que les journalistes .. d'un certain âge ... puissent, à l'occasion, bouder les médias sociaux. Je vais devoir moi même sortir ma loupe pour lire le paragraphe de chute (intitulé 'Profil d'organisation').

Finalement, je peux me tromper, mais j'ai l'impression que la fonctionalité 'Related Content' est mise à la disposition des anglophones, seulement. Un lien, vers l'anglais alors, pour qu'ils sachent que j'existe. Si ce n'est pas déjà fait, il faudrait que le français suive. De plus, il serait intéressant de pouvoir consulter les billets dont il est question par le biais d'un hyperlien qui nous dirigerait vers le site de Technorati, question de pouvoir voir rapidement ce que d'autres en disent.

Honnêtement, la plupart de ces points remontent à une question d'esthéthique. Assez subjectif, j'avoue, mais l'image a quand même son importance.

Fait intéressant : l'interface semble avoir été produite par 76 design, une filiale de Thornley-Fallis. Avec tout le (sincère) respect que je dois à mes collègues Terry et Joe, je ne suis pas convaincue que les agences de RP apprécieront le joli logo de 76 design sur les communiqués de leurs clients.

Les membres du groupe 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montréal sur Facebook auront certainement leur mot à dire. Déjà, au mois de mai lorsque nous avions utilisé la version ultérieure de la plateforme CNW pour annoncer l'activité de M. Holtz, la communauté s'était prononcée au sujet de l'efficacité de l'outil proposé par CNW. Je vais profiter de l'occasion pour relancer la discussion, question de voir s'ils sont davantage satisfaits de cette nouvelle version. Je soupçonne que l'ajout de commentaires et de libellés va certainement plaire à grand nombre d'entre eux. Toujours absent mais souhaité, un fil RSS, la 'présence d'une communauté' et des éléments sémantiques (ex: lieux, événements).

Dans le communiqué officiel, CNW se positionne ainsi:

Fruit de l’évolution de l’actuel communiqué multimédia, le « communiqué médias sociaux » utilise les quatre plateformes de base, soit les médias imprimés, audio, vidéo et Internet, et donne aux clients accès à une foule de nouvelles possibilités en matière de diffusion de nouvelles en ligne. En plus d’étendre la portée du communiqué standard aux canaux en ligne, ce nouvel outil en accroît la visibilité dans les médias plus traditionnels grâce à diverses caractéristiques comme les citations préautorisées, les liens vers le contenu connexe, les communications bidirectionnelles par l’intermédiaire d'une boîte de commentaires, etc.

Justement, ce communiqué CNW démontre toutes les fonctionalités de la nouvelle plateforme, y compris celles qui n'avaient pas été exploitées dans le cadre du communiqué 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montréal.

On voit bien qu'en plus de la vidéo, l'audio (téléchargeable en format MP3) ainsi que des photos (en haute résolution?) sont disponibles. En tant que consultante, j'aurais préféré voir les noms de Brian Solis, de Mme Guillot et de Mme McGill-Davidson sous leur photo respective afin d'éviter toute possibilité de confusion et de perte de temps. J'imagine que les journalistes, éternellement pressés par le temps, demanderont que cette modification soit apportée.

Intéressant de constater que CNW ne choisit pas de suivre les recommandations de certains blogueurs qui se sont déjà attardés sur le communiqué 2.0, mais présentent plutôt leur contenu de façon assez traditionnelle. Ils suivent donc les conseils de Brian Solis, à cet égard. J'ai hâte de voir s'ils sont en mesure de nous accomoder, si nous désirons nous éloigner d'un format standard.

Également ... sinon plus .. intéressant de constater que la citation de Brian Solis s'applique de façon générale à tous les communiqués 2.0 et ne commente pas directement la proposition de CNW. Je serai intéressée de lire ce qu'il a à dire à ce sujet dans son blogue.

Comment réagira Marketwire, qui propose déjà depuis quelques mois la plateforme Social Media 2.0 à sa clientèle?

Lors du premier 3e mardi Third Tuesday du mois de septembre, nous espérons recevoir des journalistes à qui j'enverrai, au préalable, des exemples de communiqués multimédias CNW et Marketwire. Je serai intéressée d'avoir leur feedback.

Intéressant de voir que le communiqué évolue chez nos fournisseurs. Au Québec, sommes nous prêts à emboîter le pas?

Pitching the Quebec market : blogger relations

Names have been withheld, because .. well .. I'm making a point, not looking to single anyone out.

Yesterday, I was on the receiving end of a WOM agency's pitch. Last week, one of their reps contacted me by email on behalf of their client to see if I would be interested in .. and would qualify for .. the opportunity to review a beauty/personal care product:

Hi Michelle,

I just surfed past your blog today and thought you might be interested in taking part in a campaign for a beauty product for XYZ, a word of mouth marketing agency. Basically, we would be asking for you to try out the product and maybe make a blog post about it if it so persuades you. Working in the communications industry yourself, you may have heard our name before.

Let me know if this is something that interests you,

Cheers

After smiling at the use of the word 'surfed' and sensing it may indeed have reflected a kind of skimming over the surface, I replied:

Hi, Mine is a PR blog

Do you see a fit for your client's product?

I'd be happy to consider anything that would be appropriate for my audience. Generally, I'm read by marketing and PR professionals in Canada, the US and the French-speaking world. Not sure a review of a beauty product would necessarily be of interest to them, but am certainly open to hearing your thoughts on the subject.

Cheers

And so we went, back and forth:

Hi Michelle,
I (sic) you are interested in taking part, then that is all that matters really. Let me know if you haev (sic) some time today for a quick qualifying survey.
Cheers

As curious a creature as I am, I was certainly interested in investing a few minutes of my time to find out how mere interest could be the defining criteria for blogger relations.

A phone conversation ensued.

After a few preliminary statements, the rep explained that he was calling on behalf of his client, who was looking for bloggers willing to do a product review. He asked me a few questions, ranging from my age, to the number of hits my blog receives weekly, to my presence and friends stats on Facebook and MySpace, to my monthly budget for beauty products. I may have exaggerated on that last answer. I was afraid he'd hang up if he found out that I go 'au naturel' and that a mascara brush comes within two feet of my eyelashes about once a year, at Hallowe'en. After all, presumably he was calling me because he'd identified me as a supposed influencer in matters health and beauty. And don't we all exaggerate just a little during telephone surveys?

I found the concept of asking someone to 'qualify' to do you a favour by offering you visibility in their blog an interesting one, but let it slide.

That said, I was glad to hear the rep mention that should I accept to do the product review, I should be transparent, and feel free to explicitly mention in my blog post that I'd been contacted by his agency on behalf of the client to test a product.

Apparently working for the packaging industry would have disqualified me from the campaign. I'm thinking that perhaps having a blog that is very niche and doesn't ever ... ever ... do product reviews should also have been up there in disqualification criteria.

Regardless, it was announced that I certainly qualified, and when could I start? I politely declined.

During the course a frank conversation that ensued about blogger relations, the rep explained that the agency had had to widen its net, as they'd had a hard time finding blogs which focus on product reviews in the Quebec market. He also mentioned that a lack of French-language material was causing friction with at least one blogger. I don't doubt it.

I've had the pleasure of working with a few consultants and agencies in the ROC who have come to the realization that Quebec is, indeed, a different beast and appreciate the advantages of working with someone who has a firm understanding of the market. They need insight in order to manage client expectations and tailor campaigns to this very (dare I say it?) distinct society.

The rep was very sympathetic throughout. He and I left on cordial ... even friendly ... terms after I'd imparted a bit of insight which, I sensed, was accepted in the collegial spirit with which it was intended.

Now, I just hope for his sake that he doesn't fall on Michelle Blanc. It'll be Dyson, revisited.

While this line is starting to feel a little tired, we're all still relatively new to the social media space and my impression of my conversation with this agency rep was that while they preferred finding bloggers that fit the ideal profile, in Quebec they are forced to look elsewhere to bolster numbers.

I'm left thinking that, like many social media types I hear at conferences and events, they may be missing the point.

In a market like Quebec ... or in any small market ... do the laws of Technorati and numbers really apply? Should they rule over all common sense?

Or, in the end, does quality win out over quantity?

That, my friends, was my Carrie Bradshaw moment of the day.

______

(suite)

This blog post sat unpublished for 24 hours, while I decided what to do with it. A followup email from the rep convinced me to just go ahead and put this out there:

Thanks for the informative chat the other day.
I don't want you to think that the request for your participation was a complete misfire as we are actually targeting young, hip female professionals, ( eg. new media executives, make-up artists, personal trainers) that would have a genuine interest in XYZ. However, product blogs are adequate as well. From what i remember, you said that you maybe be able to refer some. If you could that would be great.

I don't think the request for participation was a complete misfire ... only a slight misfire. Personally, I wouldn't have included 'new media executives' in my campaign for a beauty product. I can't imagine a single serious PR or marketing blogger who would have set their editorial line aside to do a product review like this one, out of the blue. And as a reader, I wouldn't respect them if they did.

I'll spare you the details of my response to the request that I surrender my hard-won social media contacts to a competitor without compensation or apparent consideration for the investment in relationship building those contacts represent.

I hope this agency considers taking the plane in September to hook up with some Montreal bloggers and social media types at PodCamp Montreal or at the next YULBlog. Great opportunities to meet up with .. and develop authentic relationships with .. Montreal's blogging community.

PodCamp Montreal : Inscrivez-vous dès aujourd'hui

Vous êtes blogueur, baladodiffuseur, internaute, relationniste ou marketeur s'interrogeant sur ce qu'il y a de neuf dans le domaine des nouveaux médias? PodCamp Montréal, qui aura lieu les 20 et 21 septembre au Pavillon de Design de l'UQAM est l'endroit tout indiqué. Malgré le nom qu'elle porte, cette 'anti-conférence' gratuite ne se limite pas exclusivement à la baladodiffusion. En fait, comme toute anti-conférence digne de ce nom, PodCamp Montréal laisse le choix des thèmes à aborder aux conférenciers qui veulent bien y participer.

Personnellement, j'aimerais bien voir au moins une saveur de balado dans chaque session, car j'aimerais tellement ça que les montréalais quittent leur dernier atelier avec l'énergie et l'inspiration nécessaire pour lancer leur propre balado. Trop peu de francophones sont présents dans le milieu et, pourtant, la balado est tellement une belle plateforme. Et ce, sans parler de la communauté, qui est d'un dynamisme enviable. Ayant participé à PodMtl, PodCamp Toronto, PodCamp Ottawa et Podcasters Across Borders, je peux vous assurer que les baladodiffuseurs sont des passionnés super gentils et chaleureux.

Nous savons déjà que bon nombre d'entre eux se sont déjà inscrits et viendront des États-Unis et du ROC. Il y a même des autobus qui s'organisent!

Ne manquez pas l'occasion de venir voir ce qu'un baladodiffuseur mange en hiver. Vous déciderez peut-être de vous mettre au micro!

Inscription : http://podcampmontreal.org/register/

Blogue : http://podcampmontreal.org/

Hébergement : http://podcampmontreal.org/lodging/

Un grand merci aux commanditaires qui nous appuient, dont Twist Image, One Degree, Craie et CakeMail. Si vous désirez appuyer cette initiative, veuillez m'envoyer un courriel.

Au plaisir de vous y voir!

Pour encourager la relève

Oof! Là je viens de me donner un coup de vieux. Hé oui! Il faut commencer à y songer, même lorsqu'on est une jeunesse de trente quelques années. Je fais donc ma part en appuyant les initiatives de ma mentorée, Roxane Vézina.

Depuis quelques mois, Roxane contribue au rayonnement d'un groupe local:

Sauvons nos trois grandes îles de la rivière des Mille Îles
Nous sommes une association fondée en janvier 2008 et qui regroupe des citoyens de Montréal, de Laval, des municipalités de la Rive-Nord, ainsi que des groupes environnementaux et leurs représentants. Nous avons tous en commun d'être sensibles à la valeur et au potentiel écologique et écotouristique de trois grandes îles de la rivière des Mille Îles qui ont jusqu'ici échappé au développement immobilier, soit les îles Saint-Joseph, aux Vaches et Saint-Pierre. Nous nous préoccupons du devenir de ces îles qui nous enchantent par leurs paysages sauvages et par la richesse de la faune et de la flore qui s'y déploient.

Je vous invite à faire un tour sur le site et, si le coeur vous en dit, de signer la pétition.

En passant, je fais aussi ma part pour la Génération Y dont Roxane fait partie en m'efforçant à supprimer l'espace superflu qui suit mes points en fin de phrase. Semblerait-il que ça ne me rajeunie point de rester figée dans le temps avec mes vieilles habitudes de dactylo.

(Entre vous et moi, j'ai encore de la difficulté à ajouter l'accent à mes majuscules en début de phrase. J'avais seulement 9 ans à l'époque, mais je me souviens encore trop bien des leçons de Mme Vanasse.

Ce billet est dédié à Roxane, Sophie et Laurent.

PodCamp Montréal - September 20th and 21st 2008

Come one, come all! The PodCamp Montreal blog is starting to make some noise - we've just announced special rates at Trylon Apartments for attendees and have unveiled our cool new badge. You can check out one version to the right, and the others on the PodCamp Montreal blog.

Stay tuned for confirmation of our Saturday night event

We're negotiating some great partnerships, but are still looking for sponsors to cover costs. If you'd like to get your brand in front of podcasters, as well as PR and marketing experts, please get in touch with me by email.

Félix sur Facebook

Radio-Canada vient (?) de lancer une campagne publicitaire sur Facebook. Ils ont le tour : une belle photo du jeune Félix Leclerc avec le texte suivant a tout de suite capté mon attention:

Félix Leclerc à la télé
Revoyez la première prestation de Félix Leclerc sur les ondes de la télévision canadienne en 1953.

Comment savoir que j'ai un petit faible pour Félix? Rien dans mon profil ne l'indique. Si Radio Canada a accès à mon iLike, ils y verront de l'Aznavour et du Brel, mais pas de Leclerc (ni Félix, ni Jean ... mais ce n'est pas de Leloup qu'on parle, ici), même si Félix y est disponible. Ma relation avec Félix est personnelle, plutôt que musicale: ma grandmère habitait, avec sa famille, en haut de chez Félix à La Tuque durant les années '20. Elle était au chevet de la soeur de Félix quand celle-ci est décédée.

Mais Facebook n'étant pas (encore) assez puissant pour le deviner, Radio-Canada a dû me cibler selon mon profil de base : Montréalaise, 35 ans et plus (je n'en dévoile pas plus). Mon diplôme en Histoire, peut-être.

Tout ça pour faire, à faible coût, la promotion des archives de Radio-Canada.

Il faut dire que je les connaissais déjà, mais ça fait toujours plaisir de les visiter. Elles sont moins poussièreuses que celles que j'ai connues, à l'époque où je préparais mon mémoire.

Bref, une indication de plus que la présence de Québécois sur Facebook devient assez intéressante pour que les commanditaires francophones s'y intéressent.

Investissez 55,33 minutes

À écouter, absolument, surtout si vous ne comprenez pas encore l'impact de YouTube. Croyez-moi, ce sont 55,33 minutes très bien investies.

Présentation du Dr. Mike Wesch, prof en anthropologie culturelle à l'université de Kansas.

Pitch Engine Alpha available

Have just received my alpha invite for Pitch Engine. Not quite sure to what extent it offers a full-service media relations platform, but suspect that it is limited to providing social media release layout without moving towards actual distribution. So basically, you'd point media to this social media press release tool rather than to those offered by, say, Marketwire or CNW.

I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl.

In my quest for better understanding, I used the Google link feature and suspect I've struck gold, but for another reason entirely. Deirdre Breakenridge's blog was launched in August of last year and so far holds only about a dozen posts. Deirdre is the author of a few books on PR and social media. While her activity level is low (although picking up), the quality of her content isn't. I'd encourage you to check her out. You'll find her in my ever-growing blogroll to the right of the screen.

What the F**K is social media : Marta Kagan knows

The next time your client asks you why he should care about social media, pull up Marta Kagan's presentation on Slideshare. Kagan drives the message ... or several messages ... home in a compelling way. Clear and to the point. In other words, no f**cking around.

Thanks to Marie-Hélène Haeck, who shared this on Facebook (so I could share it with you ... and so on ... and so on).

74 of Fortune 500 companies starting to play ball

Good news. Once the big boys start tossing the ball around, the others start to pay attention and will want to play too:

74 of Fortune 500 Use Blogs to Communicate With Customers
Fifteen percent of Fortune 500 companies are blogging, according to a recent study from WOMMA member company Burson-Marsteller. Technology companies were the heaviest bloggers, with the top four industries with blogs listed as: Computers, Office Equipment; Network and Other Communications Equipment; Semiconductors and Other Electrical Components; and Internet Services and Retailing. The study included only external blogs, and indicated a reported 270% increase since Fortune 500 blog tracking began in December 2005. A full 32% of the Fortune 50 have blogs, while the number shrinks to only 2% of the Fortune 451 to 500.

Source : womma

PlanetEye

Je prépare le lancement d'un nouveau projet personnel en baladodiffusion. Contrairement au premier, qui était une série d'entrevues avec des anciens camarades du secondaire, ce projet promet d'intéresser un public plus large. J'en parlerai en plus grand détail sous peu.

Tout ça pour dire que j'ai l'intention d'utiliser non seulement Flickr, mais également PlanetEye, pour 'illustrer' mes propos et assurer un peu de rayonnement.

Toujours à l'étape beta, PlanetEye est une plateforme permettant aux mordus de voyage de partager leurs photos et expériences. Les photos sont belles, les informations intéressantes.

Facebook change de 'look'

J'ai eu droit à un avant-goût de la nouvelle interface Facebook aujourd'hui.

Premières impressions?

- Look blogue, 2 colonnes
- La pub prend sa place - beaucoup plus en évidence
- Possibilité de commenter le statut Facebook des utilisateurs
- La navigation est un peu plus longue - on ne retrouve plus tout (ou presque) sur une seule page

Ma modification préférée? L'ajout d'un engin de recherche à la section Messages. On se retrouve beaucoup plus facilement maintenant, avec la possibilité de recherche par nom de correspondant et par mot clé. Un gros irritant maintant chose passée.

C'est certain que toute refonte nécessite une période d'adaptation, mais dans l'ensemble, on s'y habituera.

WOM survey

Sean Moffit of the Buzz Canuck blog and Agent Wildfire is conducting a survey on Word of Mouth marketing. I'd encourage you to take a few minutes to complete it.

Survey available here.

How did I find out about this survey? Sean sent a message to members of his 1% Army Facebook group 15 minutes ago. He posted a blog entry about it. I imagine he's probably promoted it through Twitter as well.

We'll see how many bloggers respond to his request to promote his survey. It'll be a nice informal benchmark to measure exactly what you can accomplish when you speak to your niche.

Facebook app marketing done right

Am breaking into my holiday break with a quick link to a happy discovery : a Facebook app that actually understands the importance of proper marketing.

Too many Facebook application developers expect you to add their app just because your friends are doing it. They're relying 100% on the power of influencers.

For those of us who think for ourselves, it's nice to see a Facebook app that actually gives us a taste of what we're in for, before we sign our lives (ie. privacy) away.

Check out MouseHunt. Succinct summary, discussion board, teaser video. Finally. Someone who knows how to speak to me.

Bravo, HitGrab. Now excuse me. I'm off to hunt for mice.

FriendFeed for podcasters

I'm finding FriendFeed pretty useful. Now I learn that it can become even more so. FriendFeed is apparently testing embedded players on the platform.

Interesting blog post on the practicalities of following your podcast feeds through FriendFeed by Mark Hopkins here. Looks promising, but Hopkins concludes (and I agree) that FriendFeed will need to tweak this tool a little before it can be considered as useful as similar tools on other platforms.

Much more exciting for now, from my point of view, is FriendFeed's search capability. I've already used this feature to very interesting result. Loving it.

Isabelle Juppé et les québécoises digitales

J'ai eu le grand plaisir de passer lundi soir en excellente compagnie : Isabelle Juppé et une dizaine de blogueuses québécoises, dont je faisais partie, se sont réunies -- en compagnie de quelques hommes, dont certains auteurs du Pourquoi blogueur dans un contexte d'affaires -- pour partager quelques impressions concernant l'époque numérique que nous vivons actuellement.

J'en ai profité pour me procurer une copie du livre d'Isabelle Juppé, La femme digitale. Un bouquin qui se lit très bien; j'ai parcouru plus d'une centaine de pages ce soir, le temps d'un aller-retour Rosemont /Guy.

Intéressant de voir à quel point son passage au Québec a marqué Mme Juppé et inspiré la rédaction de son livre. Je m'abstiendrai de commenter pour le moment, préférant prendre le temps de réfléchir un peu à ses propos.

Pour l'instant, je peux affirmer que l'historienne de formation que je suis a beaucoup apprécié le parallèle tracé entre l'invention de Johannes Gutenberg et la révolution numérique. J'ai également apprécié le clin d'oeil fait durant la soirée (et peut-être dans le livre - ça reste à voir) au rôle de la femme dans, d'un côté, l'organisation des salons d'autrefois et, de l'autre, la formation de communautés numériques modernes.

J'ai toujours dit que 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montréal représente pour moi la manifestation moderne des salons littéraires du XVIIe. C'est officiel, alors; je dois effectivement être une 'femme digitale'.

À suivre.

Monetizing Facebook

The Associated Press is reporting that Facebook is working with Visa to test out a new monetizing concept for the site. Not only is Visa pumping $2 million into the site's advertising platform, it's including Facebook in a campaign aimed at small business owners.

Visa will give a $100 advertising credit on Facebook to the first 20,000 U.S. businesses who download the Web application needed to join their network. The number of small businesses who already have profiles on Facebook is estimated at 80 000.

Visa will provide tips and support to the small businesses who join their network, as well as provide them with the opportunity to network amongst themselves.

AP also reports that Visa will go a step further by working with Google, The Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur magazine to offer even more to network members, from business card templates to articles directly responding to the network's queries.

July launch date. Stay tuned.

No word yet if this application will eventually extend to Canadian businesses, but if it works, it could certainly serve as an interesting model.

Isabelle Juppé commente le blogue de Moisson Montréal

J'avoue que ça fait du bien de savoir son travail apprécié. Et, pourquoi pas, un petit velours supplémentaire quand celle qui apprécie est Isabelle Juppé.

Mme Juppé commente le blogue de Moisson Montréal dans un récent billet que vous trouverez ici. Notre ami Philippe Martin, qui a bien su traduire ma vision et les besoins de mon client en outil super intéressant a eu la gentillesse de présenter notre project blogue/baladodiffusion/vidcast à la Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Bordeaux, ainsi qu'à Mme Juppé et à son célebre conjoint.

Isabelle Juppé sera de passage à Montréal la semaine prochaine. J'aurai l'occasion de la rencontrer dans le cadre d'une soirée visant à souligner la sortie de son livre La femme digitale (Editions Lattès, 2008).

Merci, Philippe, pour cette attention délicate.

La baladodiffusion (v. fr)

Je reviens de PAB2008 -- Podcasters Across Borders est à sa 3e édition et moi, à ma 2e. J'étais heureuse de présenter le projet Moisson Montréal aux participants, mais surtout heureuse de constater que le Québec a beaucoup à offrir à la communauté de baladodiffuseurs.

Nous étions 5 à présenter à PAB:

Bob Goyetche (un des organisateurs de PAB)
Sylvain Grand'Maison
Julien Smith
Marko Kulik

... ont tous contribué de façon très importante au succès de PAB2008.

Nous en avons profité pour annoncer que PodCamp Montréal aura lieu les 20 et 21 septembre 2008 à l'École de Design de l'UQAM.

Abonnez-vous dès aujourd'hui au fil RSS du site: http://www.podcampmontreal.org/. Tous les détails, y compris l’inscription à l’événement, les instructions pour soumettre une conférence et tous les détails suivront sous peu.

À ne pas manquer.

FriendFeed : à découvrir

Vous en avez marre de passer de Twitter, à Blogger, à delicious, à Flickr, à YouTube pour suivre votre réseau? Enfin, un aggrégateur de contenu qui est à la fois pratique, convivial et interactif.

Vous pouvez le découvrir ici.

Loic Le Meur présente Seesmic et les autres

Loic Le Meur, le blogueur le mieux connu en France, explique Seesmic et parle de médias sociaux, de politique américaine et d'amour au journal L'Express.

Entrevue ici.

Social media lessons learned while humming the Hockey Night in Canada theme song

I like the Hockey Night in Canada theme song as much as the next Canadian. It brings me back to a late-70s living room on Fallingdale Crescent in Bramalea Ontario, where an Irish immigrant father and his three young kids cheered for the Leafs while the true born-and-bred hockey fan was in the kitchen probably wishing the Canadiens played more often on CBC. Like a lot of people, for me the song is sweetly nostalgic.

So when news came through Bob LeDrew's blog that CBC had decided not to renew the song's licence, I thought : Oh. That's a shame. Then a split second later my social media instincts kicked in. Within a few minutes, by about 10:30 Thursday morning, I'd posted an online petition and a Facebook group. I decided to experiment a little to see if the page would grow without my network and it slowly did thanks to the popularity of the sport, of the Hockey Night in Canada brand, and to the media attention the story was receiving. Growth happened much more quickly when I recruited my Facebook 'friends' to the cause, of course.

I stopped monitoring growth and reading comments on Monday, when, as promised, I forwarded the petition to CBC's president. I threw in the Ombudsman and a few media outlets in for good measure. Then I posted the following stats on the Facebook group page :

Closing stats (11pm ET June 9):
5087 members in this Facebook group
9033 total signatures on the petition

That's all in about 3.5 days.

That same day, Peter Cheney of The Globe & Mail called for an interview. I didn't make the cut : CTV stole my thunder by announcing it had secured the rights to the song. I'm consoled by the mention of online petitions at the article's halfway point.

All in all an interesting experience.

At time of writing, we're at 5791 Facebook group members and 9518 petition signatures.

Lessons learned (or confirmed):

• Social media is a potentially powerful communications tool that not only helped this particular campaign take off but builds community. I started to realize that when I read in the petition I'd made available that I was a 'Canadian hero' for my initiative and when the daughter of the song's composer Dolores Claman wrote to thank me on behalf of her mother. I knew it by the time I'd posted those closing stats and taken a last look at the conversations happening on the group wall.
  
  
• Facebook works well for popular movements. Particularly those with strong brands and media attention.
  
  
• Since I'd limited myself to a Facebook group page, after a few thousand people had joined my group I lost my ability to 'message all' - Facebook caps this feature at 5000 members.
  
  
• If I were an unscrupulous marketer, I'd have made my Facebook group a Fan page and would now hold the profiles of close to 6,000 hockey fans in my sweaty little hands. I could start to target within my fanbase according to demographic. If I were an unscrupulous marketer who was banging my head against the wall because I'd mistakenly started a group instead of a Fan page, Facebook could help me with migration.
  
  
  
• Social media lets the 'little guy' get his story out there, for the record. Dolores' Claman's daughter opened a blog to share her family's point of view of how events unfolded after CBC started pointing fingers at Ms. Claman for the breakdown in negotiations. Madeleine Morris also used Facebook to promote her position in various related groups, including mine.
  
  
  
• Canadian hockey fans are a passionate bunch.

Stratford goes 2.0

The Stratford Festival has launched a Facebook marketing campaign:

"Hooked on Shakespeare" is a Stratford Shakespeare Festival application that allows you to: build a Shakespeare character personality profiler; find out how famous actors are connected to the Festival with a "6 Degrees of Separation" game; and test your knowledge of Shakespeare in a trivia contest (free ticket prizes awarded every month).

Also, be sure to visit our Stratford Shakespeare Festival fan page for exclusive photos and videos.

Contest : The top scorer each month will receive one pair of tickets to a performance in our 2008 season. In the event of a tie, all top scorers will be pooled with a winner randomly selected.

So far they have 138 daily active users (about 5% of their total pool).

They also have a fan page that looks like it was set up in March. 1879 members so far.

I suspect the ad purchase will cause that number to rise.

Wonder what it is in my profile that has The Stratford Festival knocking on my door (other than obvious good taste and class).

My brother's friend Zaib Shaikh from Little Mosque was at Stratford one year ... wonder if they've included him in their little 6 degrees of separation contest ... Hmm ..

Jim McKay R.I.P.

Certain journalists define their generation. I see Jim McKay as one of these. Like Walter Cronkite announcing Kennedy's assassination, or the journalists on the ground on September 11th, McKay's voice remains etched in the minds of everyone who followed the tragic events of the Munich Olympics in 1972:

When I was a kid, my father used to say Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. Our worst fears have been realized tonight. (...)

They're all gone.

And now, so is Jim McKay.

The father of David Berger, the American-born wrestler who was among the Israeli Olympians murdered at Munich, described McKay as a Mensch. It can only be a testament to the quality and humanity of his coverage that he would be held in such high esteem by a father whose greatest fear had been confirmed through his newscast.

(1921 - 2008)

Social media and the music industry

On the heels of my recent blogpost about the use of social media by music festival organisers and promoters, I was happy to hear about David Usher's CloudiD blog through Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation podcast. Usher is the former lead singer of Moist and a social media early adopter. From what I've seen, he's got a Facebook profile and has played with YouTube. He's even following me on Twitter for some strange reason. Talk about pressure to perform.

Usher's blog includes some interesting tidbits such as :

My relationship to social media is love - hate
Love-the interaction, the learning, the reading, the ever changing exchange of ideas…the community we create
Hate-that its addictive and self perpetuating-that it becomes the end, that all the reading, all the feeds, all the comments become so consuming

source: Tell me about your creativity

I'm with ya brother. I wonder if it's a songwriter's fate to rhyme what one writes ...

And serious fodder like:

The money has not left the music business, its just moved around a bit. Its gone from the labels and retail that use to distribute content to the isp’s, mobile and social networks that now distribute content. Music drives traffic and artists hold the keys to musical content. If artists could organize they could redefine the metrics of social networking. Imagine a social network that routed most of the ad revenue back to artists. Even more important that cuts artists in on the equity and multiples of the social network, based on traffic. (and just for fun add non profit component). Metrics are not cut in stone.

source: I have a dream : if artists could organize

I hope he'll let me buy him a drink at PAB or at PodCamp Montreal in September (soon to be announced). Or, why not, a 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montreal event. I'd like to pick his brain about where he sees social media and the music industry in 5 years.

Until then, I'll happily add his blog to my blogroll.

HubSpot Press Release Grader (beta v 0.86)

HubSpot does it again, with another great online tool for PR practitioners. This time, it's a press release grader. The concept is simple : you cut and paste the content of your press release into the tool, add the company name and website address and you're off to the races.

The results is an online report (with copy emailed to you) which shows you where your release falls short. Particularly useful for those of us interested in incorporating SEO strategy into our communications plan.

The report provides you with information like:

• Word count (recommending between 250-750 words)
• Link count
• Readability (minimum education needed)

Confirmation that the release includes :

• a phone number and email address
• an 'About' section
• a link to the corporate website
• an End of content marker (defined as ###)

It looks for what it calls 'Gobbledygook Words' - apparently 'unique' is one of these, overused and lacking specific meeting. Based on The Gobbledygook Manifesto by David Meerman Scott.

It conducts a link analysis which recommends the following:

• URL links should reference a permanent (not redirected) URL
• Links to the website should appear early in the release
• The anchor text of the link should match some of the words in the page title of the target page
• Press releases should generally contain on or more links that use anchor text incorporating relevant keywords

It also has a Word Cloud, where size of the word indicates frequency. This is a particularly interesting tool that allows us to be sure that the key concepts of our releases are coming across strongly from an SEO point of view. Words are clickable, allowing you to see very easily exactly where they appear in your text.

From the looks of things, the social media press release would do well, here, as long as certain conventions continued to be respected.

This tool isn't French release-friendly ... or language other than English for that matter ... which is a shame, since most of my client drafts are written in French, then translated once an official version has been negotiated. That said, it's certainly a well-presented and interesting tool worthy of consideration.

But it's 3pm on Friday, so I will now begin to consider the weekend. Enjoy!

Pour néophytes

Un nouveau livre sur les médias sociaux qui semble parfaitement adapté pour répondre aux besoins des néophytes:

The New Influencers is a book for corporate marketers and executives who want to understand and engage with the vast new channels of influence that are emerging online.
It's a book about the people who are using online media to drive what may be the greatest change in market dynamics since television. Internet-based communications platforms like weblogs (blogs) and podcasts are giving individuals the power to reach global audiences without the restrictions of conventional channels or editors. These “social media” are changing markets in dramatic ways.

L'auteur, Paul Gillin, est blogueur, journaliste et consultant média pour des entreprises en TI.

Voici un résumé du contenu.

Voir aussi ses commentaires au sujet des canadiens qu'il a rencontré lors de son passage à Toronto.

Étrangement, son bulletin électronique répertorie ses articles plus efficacement que son blogue.

Social media : those who get it and those who don't

In the most recent Pew Internet and American Life report, released May 19th :

37% (of respondents) said the Internet led them to buy more music than they otherwise might have

39% of online music buyers reach out directly to artists' websites

While offline sources continue to dominate,

56% (of respondents) say they find out about music through various online tools, such as going to a band's or artist's website or streaming samples of songs to their computers

44% of music buyers have done at least one online activity relating to their music purchase, such as going to an artist's or band's website or reading blogs about the artist or band

13% of Internet-using music buyers either post their music to a social networking site such as Facebook or post their own reviews of the music they purchase

That's free promotion, folks. Word of mouth gone exponential.

Social media being a relative newcomer to the PR strategist's toolbox, it's to be expected that there will be those who get it, and those who don't. This, despite the fact that you must be living in a cave not to be hearing about blogging, MySpace, Facebook and the like, especially if you're in the music business. Podcasting is admittedly lower on the mainstream radar, which may explain why the reaction of two Ontario festivals recently faced with a podcaster's request for media accreditation couldn't be more different.

Here's the backstory:

I met George Motoc at PodCamp Toronto. Nice guy who does a Romanian- and English-language podcast out of Toronto called Canadian Immigrant Song.

George had promoted a couple of summer festivals in his podcast so, as he says, his listeners could mark their calendars. As is his usual practice, he sent a note with a link to the podcast episode to festival organisers to let them know about the visibility received. (Wouldn't life be nice if all media did that? But that's besides the point) This time, he also requested media accreditation.

Here's his email:

Hi all,
Just to let you know that I mentioned (ed. note: insert festival name here) in the latest episode of my podcast: http://georgeradio.podomatic.com/entry/2008-04-28T20_29_01-07_00
Is there any way for a podcaster willing to cover the fest to get a PressPass?
Thanks and cheers from Toronto,
George Motoc
podcaster

Luminato in Toronto received his request as follows :

Hi George,

Thanks so much for letting me know about your podcast! And thank you for mentioning Luminato.

Yes, I am open to having a podcaster cover the festival. Just let me know what events you are interested in. I will send you a link so you can pinpoint the shows/dates/times you are available for, or interested in, and I will see what I can do for your tickets.

Thanks again George!

Laura Erika Barron
Public Relations Coordinator
LuminatoToronto Festival of Arts & Creativity

George also received a followup email from a second member of the festival's PR staff thanking him for his interest and his patience and reminding him to forward his interview requests.

Professional. Nice. Someone who gets it.

Not everyone does ...

Same request, different reaction, this time from the Ottawa Blues Festival:

Short, curt and to the point, I guess.

Hi George, Please see our media access policy for 2008.
http://www.ottawabluesfest.ca/en/index.php?page=82

I'll stay mum on questions of etiquette, for the purposes of this post. I'll also stay mum on another thing : George has asked me not to name names, so I'll respect his wish for some level of discretion. That said, I'd invite the Ottawa Blues Festival rep to out himself and join the discussion. Maybe there's something I'm just not getting.

Here's the Ottawa Blues Festival's media accreditation policy. Note the insistence on known, main-stream media:

Please note: Media representatives that provide proof of affiliation with a known, main-stream media outlet will be given access to the festival site for the day(s) they are assigned to cover the event.
Photo calls for main-stream media representatives will take place each night, 30 minutes before final acts. Access to front-of-stage photo area will be granted ONLY when approved by artist management.
We will NOT begin fielding requests for media access until June 1, 2008. If you are assigned to cover the event by a known, main-stream media outlet, send your request for access to Joe Reilly joe.wavelength@sympatico.ca; state Media Access to Bluesfest as your subject line.

And by the way, when I say the folks at Luminato get it, I'm not kidding. Check out their online 'Share Your Festival' contest.

As for George, nice guy that he is he still plugged one of the Ottawa Blues Festival artists, Adrien Belew, providing a link to his MySpace page. I checked him out. Not bad. Wonder if his music's on iTunes ..

The Shel Holtz Report

Last night, Montreal had the pleasure of welcoming Shel Holtz to its monthly 3e mardi Third Tuesday event. Shel's an interesting speaker and a good storyteller. His talk about the role social media .. particularly blogging .. can play within and beyond the walls of a corporation is certainly timely in a market such as ours, where agencies and CEOs are starting to explore social media strategies.

One story that stuck with me is the following:

On my walk home from elementary school back in the early 1960s, I frequently stopped at the corner liquor store and bought a one-cent Bazooka bubble gum. The gum was usually great (unless it had gone all hard), but what I really wanted was the Bazooka Joe comic that came with it. One of those comics has stuck with me all these years later. I can’t say why, but it has. In that strip, Joe is walking down the street at night when he encounters a fellow on his hands and knees under a street lamp.

“What are you looking for?” Joe asks.
“A quarter,” the character says.
“Where’d you lose it?” Joe queries.
“Across the street,” comes the reply.
“Why are you looking here?” Joe wonders.
The fellow answers, “The light’s better.”

The insistence that organizations cannot embrace social media for one reason or another is the equivalent of looking for the quarter where the light’s better: Companies prefer the comfort of message control over the messiness of conversation.

source: Shel Holtz

Shel's point is well taken. It's certainly not by ignoring conversations that happen online that they don't exist. Companies need to, at minimum, be monitoring what's being said about them using tools like Google Alerts, and talking about whether a more direct use of social media tools for internal or external communications might not be appropriate.

We'd take notice if things were written about us in the paper, wouldn't we? Why not consider keeping an eye out for what's being said ... and archived ... online? After all, Google has a long memory.

Hipsters, Scenesters, Artsers and SEO

CT Moore has some interesting things to say about SEO in this weekend's blog posting, including the fact that using bold for Michelle Sullivan Communications will make Google like me even more.

To sum up his thinking, I present to you his SEO strategy recap :

So, what I’ve done for SEO here is:

• emphasized certain keywords by emboldening them: Montrealer, hipster, geekster, and scenester (as far as I know, I just invented artser, so it doesn’t really count).
• employed those keywords extensively throughout the body of the text
• wrote a post that was longer, rather than short — Google love 1,000+ words, not that this post was that long, but generally, the longer, the better (more to index)
• leveraged internal linking: that’s linking to stuff I want indexed, using anchor text and alt tags so they rank for the keywords I want them to.
• and linked out plenty so that (1) the internal linking doesn’t look spammy, and (2) others notice that I exist and possible link me back either soon or down the line, in the long-tail, after they’ve discovered and followed me for a while

So thanks CT. And thanks to Julien, Rudy and Casey for doing whatcha do. Oh. And for helping me with my Google juice.

Now I just need to fill up this space with a longer post with, oh, say 1000+ words.

If only it weren't so late. If only I weren't so tired.

Shel Holtz at 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montreal Monday May 26th at 6pm. Be there.

Shel Holtz is coming to Montreal

If you're in Montreal next Monday (May 26th), be sure to drop by 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montreal for a special session with Shel Holtz.

If you can't make it (so sad) then feel free to leave your 'I've always wanted to ask Shel this question' questions here, in the comments of this blog, and I'll be happy to ask them on your behalf and report back to you.

Le monde selon Reuters

Yet again, thank to CNW, I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting event yesterday, this time with Robert Melnbardis in the offices of Thompson-Reuters. Melnbardis held court, covering a variety of topics centering around the ways in which Reuters is adapting to a media world in full technological mutation.

Take-aways :

- Reuters is working with a new platform with bells and whistles that allows its journalists to follow stories of particular interest to them

- We need to write releases with newsy headlines, because Reuters' automated system is programmed to pick up content and publish it as-is on the Reuters site. These early texts are revised by journalists and editors in a second phase.

- Stock code in release headlines is important (see above).

- Hyperlinks are available on the Reuters platform and, in fact, they are able to receive full multimedia social media press releases.

- Many of the headlines of generated in Reuters' India offices, so, again, be sure to specify currency, as the default for $ is USD.

- Simplify the process : get key messaging and facts as upfront as possible to make the journalist's job easier

- Reuters avoids the CEO quote, as they find them vacuous, not adding anything to the story.

- Reuters will cover local stories, but only if they have global implications. While Robert used to cover the Montreal Jazz Fest, he doesn't have the resources anymore. He will assign reporters to the Toronto Film Festival, however, because of its economic impact. This is where deals are made.

- Reuters is always looking for experts, so are open to pitches of this kind

- Context is vitally important to Reuters. For this reason, they will avoid unnamed sources and will not propagate rumours. They are very careful to specify sources, as well as situating quotes and facts in time.

Interesting for those of us looking at social media and social media press releases :

- Reuters' system already breaks our releases into point form key messages - the social media release would save them that step while allowing us to be clear about the messaging we're trying to communicate.

- Reuters is a media company which also sees itself as a tech company, constantly investing in new technologies

- Robert believes that multimedia will become increasingly useful, as Reuters prepares to launch its new editorial software in the next few months, with more video and graphics.

- Reuters is investing in citizen journalism. At the start of the war in Iraq, Reuters had 17 journalists on the ground. Since giving cameras to locals, they can now say that they have 150 people supplying them with photo and video.

Robert's wish list for improving relationships with PR reps:

- be easily accessible - give him your cellphone number

- implement a call-back policy

- be attributable

- be clear and transparent

- provide context (ex: if talking about layoffs, don't just give numbers, but explain the impact as proportion of employees, financial impact etc)

The Reuters Summit is an opportunity for PR reps to have their CEOs sit down with Reuters journalists for a one-hour Q&A session. Upcoming summit sessions include Technology, Media and Telecom, happening in NYC, Paris and Tokyo. It is possible to participate in these sessions by telephone. These are by invitation only, but pitches help get you that precious invite, so be sure Reuters has your CEO on their radar screen.

A big thanks to Robert for taking the time. I'd encourage everyone who hasn't visited a newsroom in the last couple of years ... whether they be fresh-faced or consider themselves to be experts ... to sign up for a tour as soon as possible. Technology is changing the way journalists are working and we're going to be aware of these change if we want to keep up.

Gestion des attentes

Dans un monde où Paris Hilton est la cible des paparazzis pour la moindre niaiserie, il n'est peut-être pas surprenant que nos clients, qui s'investissent corps et âme dans la réalisation de leurs projets, soient déçus quand leur nouvelle ne fait pas la Une de tous les quotidiens de la province et que le nom de leur entreprise ne monte pas aux lèvres des Derome de ce monde.

Mais leurs attentes sont parfois loin de ce qui est réalisable. Les campagnes de notoriété prennent du temps. La crédibilité ne se gagne pas du jour au lendemain.

Comment bien gérer les attentes de nos clients?

On penserait que la franchise et que la mise en garde suffirait pour calmer les ardeurs et mettre les choses en bonne perspective.

Et lorsqu'ils semblent bien comprendre mais demeurent quand même déçus quand leur nouvelle ne prend pas plus d'importance que le décès du pape au Téléjournal? (Je vous jure, ça m'est arrivé). Eh bien à ce moment là, j'avoue que je baisse les bras. Quoi dire à un client dont les attentes demeurent irréalistes? Ou, ce qui semble encore pire, se plaint d'une présence et une couverture médiatique qui aurait ravie n'importe quel autre client?

Grunig et Langdon ont peut-être une partie de la réponse. Selon Pierre Bouchard:

Scott Langdon propose de s’éloigner de l’évaluation de la production pour se concentrer sur les changements de comportements des publics ciblés. Scott utilise la formule : From output to behavioral outcome.

Si vous avez des trucs à partager pour affronter cette réalité qui semble grandissante, j'apprécierais vos commentaires.

Grunig, vu par Langdon, vu par Bouchard

Malgré nos meilleurs efforts, nous ne pouvons être partout. Voilà pourquoi je tente de partager ce que j'apprends dans les ateliers et conférences auxquels je participe ici, dans les 'pages' de ce blogue. Et voilà pourquoi j'apprécie ceux qui font pareil.

Pierre Bouchard nous parle cette semaine de l'atelier La pensée de Grunig, offerte par la SQPRP en collaboration avec McGill la semaine dernière. Ayant été celle à qui Elizabeth Hirst avait proposé la conférence il y a environ un an, à l'époque où j'étais toujours membre du comite du développement professionnel de la SQPRP, j'aurais bien aimé pouvoir y être, car Elizabeth en parlait avec grand enthousiasme. Heureusement, Pierre a pu être là à ma place pour nous livrer le compte rendu que vous trouverez en série de deux .. et bientôt trois (sinon plus) ... billets très intéressants.

Je vous invite à faire un tour .. et d'ajouter Pierre à votre blogroll ou aggrégateur, car ses billets sont toujours intéressants. Merci Pierre!

Media take-away : breakfast chat with journalists

Robert Melnbardis of Reuters and Martin Vallières of La Presse were on hand at this morning's CNW breakfast conference and I have to say it was worth hauling my tired carcass downtown at 7:30 this morning to attend.

Some take-away items of particular note:

- both Cyberpresse and Reuters are in the process of revamping their web presence. Reuters will unveil something next month, which Cyberpresse will be doing the same in September. La Presse's Affaires section will become dynamic .. I almost wrote more dynamic, but really, that would presume that it was dynamic to start off with. I think Vallières would probably be the first to admit that a nice burst of fresh air will do that online section a world of good.

- La Presse's online and traditional newsrooms will be physically moving onto the same floor in La Presse's St Jacques offices, in order to better work together. A concrete sign of how important online media presence has become.

- Getting financials out as early as 6:30 am is a practice Melnbardis encourages, as it gives him time to research the companies he's covering before attending press conferences mid-morning.

- Melnbardis exhorted financial PR professionals to stop being so provincial : Reuters offices around the world receive our financial releases, so we have to start being very clear as to which currency we're using right in the top paragraph of our releases. So if your quarterly earnings are in CAD, be sure to say so, because Reuters' Man in Mumbai wants to know.

- Reuters also wants to see corporate websites with clarity of presentation and quick links to current and past financials. Melnbardis stopped short of giving concrete examples, which is a shame, because a good model always helps sell a concept to a client à la 'Well Melnbardis likes this site, so you really need to rethink stubbornly refusing to do the same, Mr. X.'

- Reuters is also pushing multimedia - it is now accepting photos from citizen journalists, even going so far as to provide 'civilians' with cameras - and invites us to follow suit. In fact, both Reuters and La Press were supportive of the concept of social media press releases with hyperlinks and multimedia. Melnbardis confirmed to me after the event that providing a video of press conferences online would be a valuable resource to members of his team unable to physically attend our clients' events.

- Surprisingly, both Melnbardis and Vallières seemed at a loss to explain the virtual disappearance of the press conference, saying that they appreciate them as long as they offer added value, such as access to directors and upper management. They definitely don't want a rehash of the press release. They seemed to come to the conclusion that the press conference is a dying art form because PR professionals want to be sure to control the message. I didn't have to get out of my seat to defend our profession, as my former employer and colleague Ahmed Galipeau did the honours, stating what I imagine most PR professionals in the room were thinking : we don't do press conferences because no one comes. Interesting that such a disconnect in perception and cause and effect exists between our two professions. Would be worth exploring further.

A little bio info:

Robert Melnbardis is Editor-in-Charge, Canadian Equities at Reuters News, where he has also been the Montreal-based Quebec bureau chief since 1995, covering business, politics, general news, culture and sports. Mr. Melnbardis manages a team of equities reporters across Canada who report on the country’s publicly traded companies.

Martin Vallières is back in Montréal after spending several years in Toronto as economics, business and finance correspondent for La Presse. He also spent two years at the Washington office. Before joining La Presse, he worked for ten years as journalist and editorial assistant for the business weekly Les Affaires.

On a personal note, I have to say I was silently pleased to note a photo of Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe from my April 21st event at Moisson Montréal being used as stock footage on Cyberpresse and within the pages of La Presse. Vallières had it up during his presentation. No one knew but me, but I have to say I love that feeling you get when you're the only one in the room with a little secret.

Mitch Joel, freelance journalist

The Montreal Gazette has a new freelancer on the payroll - at least I presume they're paying him ..

Montreal's English language daily is has begun publishing excerpts from Mitch's Six Pixels of Separation blog, starting with 'The seven highly effective corporate blogs', originally published online on April 19th.

Congrats, Mitch!

Nouveau podcast : Réno-éco, de Moisson Montréal et la CECD

Mon client, Moisson Montréal, vient de lancer sa première baladodiffusion, en co-production avec la Coalition énergie et construction durable (CECD). Disponible sur le blogue et via iTunes depuis cet après-midi, Réno-éco vise à faire partager l'expertise des experts en bâtiment et construction durable de la CECD avec le grand public, mais aussi avec l'industrie de la construction, les décideurs publics et les propriétaires de bâtiments des parcs industriels du Québec.

Je dois dire que ça fait bien plaisir de réaliser un projet qu'on prépare depuis longtemps. Le blogue est beau, les entrevues intéressantes et le podcast sur iTunes. La vie est belle.

Facebook contest pages

One potentially interesting use for Facebook is for contest promotion ... and one interesting use for contests is buzz creation. Everyone loves a good contest. The combination of the two can give an interesting result.

One such example is the Frank Sinatra - The Chairman of the Board contest:

Frank Sinatra passed away 10 years ago on May 14th 1998. To honor Frank Sinatra, we are having a World-Wide contest. Enter now! You Can WIN!... no matter where you live! WIN *** all 6 BRAND NEW *** Frank Sinatra collections.5 DVD collections and the release of a CD with 22 remastered and remixed Reprise hits. Enter before May 14th 2008 - and if you win, you'll get a bonus prize of the Best-selling book "The Way You Wear Your Hat"

Admittedly, not a huge budget here. There are no million dollar prizes or trips to Vegas. But there's definitely enough to attract true blue Sinatra fans, which is the point.

Who's behind the contest? Fan pages make that challenging, as, contrary to Group pages, site creators aren't listed.

My guess? All you have to do is ask the eternal crime fighting question : Who benefits?

Dave Domenicano.

Toyota sales manager by day, crooner by night, Dave does a pretty mean Sinatra impression, if his tribute videos are any indication. And his video is front and center in the Sinatra fan page.

Not a bad way to get your name circulating among true Sinatra fans. Better yet, as a Fan page administrator, Dave now has access to a great marketing combination : Sinatra fans living in the Montreal area.

Now I like Sinatra as much as the next chick, but I really joined this Fan page to see how long it's going to take for an invitation to Dave's next show to pop up in my Facebook inbox or in the advertising bar.

Meanwhile, Dave's probably going quite nicely with the Amazon and Google ads on his contest registration page.

Pas fou le gars. Bada bing.

Podsafe Anji Bee and drop.io

Anji has got a very nice Brazillian podsafe music selection online since March.

Unfortunately, my brain just can't seem to turn off lately, so while listening I kept reading and stumbled on a little gem in one of Anji's posts. She mentions that Adam Curry turned her on to drop.io, which, among other things, allows podcasters to swap promos.

Maybe someone at PAB will explore this a little and let us know what's up. Meanwhile, here's a piece from Techcrunch, which leads us to an even cooler drop.io app called Voice :

Every drop page has a phone number and extension associated with it. Call the number, dial the extension and record an unlimited length voice message (subject only to the overall 100 MB file size limitation). The file will appear momentarily as a MP3 file on the drop page.

How practical is all of this? How useful is it to be on drop? If anyone out there is using drop.io, let me know what you think.

RIP Hélène Richer

Il y a de ces collègues, devenus amis par la force des choses, qui nous marquent indéniablement. Hélène Richer était de ceux-ci. Webmestre responsable du portail corporatif de Microcell Télécommunications/Fido et ma voisine de bureau à l’époque où le maître de Fido était André Tremblay, Hélène impressionnait par la richesse de ses connaissances, par son professionnalisme et, pour ceux qui réussissaient à la connaître, par sa grande générosité et sa gentillesse sans bornes. J’ai beaucoup appris d’Hélène et conserverai toujours une grande affection pour celle que je considérais mon amie, même si on ne se voyait plus tellement souvent. Combien de fois me suis-je dite ces derniers temps que je devrais l’inviter à prendre un café … avant de replonger dans les dossiers qui me tiennent archi-occupée depuis des mois? Je tenterai de me consoler en gardant en mémoire tous les bons moments passés en sa compagnie.

Les adieux sont difficiles. Il me semble approprié de lui rendre ce dernier hommage sur le Web avant de prendre l'après midi pour moi, au soleil, loin des dossiers qui m'accaparent et qui me font négliger ceux qui me sont chers.

Merci Hélène. Merci pour tout.

AGC Communications lance son blogue

Félicitations à mon ancien patron Ahmed Galipeau, à Serge Vallières et à tous les employés du cabinet AGC Communications pour le lancement de leur blogue.

Je sais que vous avez des choses à dire et j'ai bien hâte de vous lire!

La sous-valorisation de la profession

Se pourrait-il que la sous-valorisation de la profession des RP explique la quasi-absence d'hommes inscrits aux programmes universitaires en communication?

C'est un peu cruel de vous lancer ça comme ça, après une petite absence et sans développer davantage. Mais bon - voici ce à quoi je réfléchis de ces jours-ci.

Quand j'ai soulevé la question lors d'une conférence offerte par Alain Charbonneau à la SQPRP hier soir, on m'a proposé d'autres hypothèses qui me semblent insatisfaisantes, du moins à première vue. Je vais devoir y réfléchir davantage. À suivre.

Jour de la Terre: un moment de réflexion

J'ai fêté le Jour de la Terre en travaillant dans mon jardin et en pensant au blogue de Moisson Montréal et la Coalition énergie et construction durable.

Google Analytics m'indique que:

• 63% des visiteurs se dirigent -- naturellement -- vers la page principale du blogue, tandis que 6% passent par la page Participants pour en apprendre plus sur Moisson Montréal et la CECD

• les visiteurs passent, en moyenne, 6,20 minutes sur le site et visitent 3,24 pages

• 99 visteurs uniques, dont deux Américains, ont visité le blogue depuis son lancement mardi dernier
  

On verra ce que diront les statistiques demain : The Gazette a publié aujourd'hui l'adresse du blogue en fin d'article, à la Une de la section Affaires. La publication de l'adresse sur Canoe a permis à 5 visiteurs de trouver le blogue.

À partir de demain, nous commencerons à diffuser une série d'entrevues vidéo avec Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, Thomas Mulcair, Marguerite Dion et Laurent Paquin, entre autres, sur le blogue et sur des sites de partage de vidéos en ligne.

Le point-ca atteint 1 million

ACEI/CIRA a annoncé cette semaine que le domaine point-ca a atteint la barre du 1 million.

Les Canadiens, qui forment l'une des nations les plus branchées dans le monde, utilisent l'Internet en nombre croissant, tant pour des raisons personnelles que professionnelles ou commerciales. L'atteinte du million de noms de domaine point-ca témoigne de la forte présence du Canada sur l'Internet et de la popularité des sites Web canadiens.

Nouveau blogue pour Moisson Montréal

J'ai lancé mardi un blogue collaboratif pour Moisson Montréal et son partenaire, la Coalition énergie et construction durable (CECD).

Le public pourra suivre l'évolution d'un projet pilote de mise à niveau énergétique du bâtiment industriel de Moisson Montréal à l'adresse suivante: www.moissonmontreal.org/blog. Ils y trouveront des billets rédigés par des experts en construction durable ainsi que des entrevues audio et vidéo.

En tant qu'administrateur du blogue, je m'occupe de sa gestion et rédigerai seulement les courts texts explicatifs qui accompagneront les entrevues. Autrement, tout billet est rédigé par son auteur. Le fait que ce blogue soit collaboratif devrait nous assurer un contenu régulier sans que le projet devienne un fardeau pour les entrepreneurs et experts de la CECD.

Ayant eu l'occasion de parler avec un nombre d'experts qui participeront au blogue, je peux vous dire qu'on verra du contenu très intéressant dans les semaines et mois à venir.

C'est bien parti. Cet après midi je rencontre des chefs d'équipe des différentes spécialités pour leur offrir la possibilité d'obtenir une vitrine pour leur industrie en participant au projet de blogue.

À suivre, alors.

Pour ceux que ça puisse intéresser, un communiqué de presse annonçant le lancement du blogue aux médias est disponible ici.

Ces communiqués qui vont directement aux poubelles

Stéphane Guérin, consultant en e-business et marketing Internet, tient Le techno-blogue à Steph et a aussi lancé Tout le monde en blogue, un palmarès des blogues francophones.

Un récent billet m'a interpellé : Aux poubelles les communiqués de presse.

À lire.

Et à lire, aussi, son 5 règles à suivre pour téter un blogueur et son Quoi de neuf avec le social bookmarking francophone.

Citation du jour : C’est comme recevoir des circulaires alors que l’on a le collant « pas de circulaire svp » sur notre boite aux lettres.

Projet de blogue Moisson Montréal

Je vous parlerai d'un nouveau projet de blogue pour Moisson Montréal dès son lancement, lundi prochain.

À suivre!

Website grader

It really is quite amazing the number of tools out there to help you ensure you're getting the right amount of online visibility. One is Website Grader by HubSpot. Here's what it had to say about this blog:

A website grade of 90/100 for eminencegrisemontreal.blogspot.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 90% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness.

Readability Level: Secondary / High School

This score measures the approximate level of education necessary to read and understand the web page content. In most cases, the content should be made to be simple so that a majority of the target audience can understand it.

Congratulations! This domain is registered for more than one year.

Google and other search engines like to see domains that have been registered for extended periods of time as this shows a commitment to the domain name. It also is an indicator that this website is not a temporary spam site.

Google PageRank: 4

“Google PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important.”

0-3: New sites or sites with very minimal links
4-5: Popular sites with a fair amount of inbound links
6: Very popular sites that have hundreds of links, many of them quality links
7-10: Usually media brands (NYTimes.com), big companies or A-list bloggers.

Google Indexed Pages: 356

This number is the approximate number of pages on eminencegrisemontreal.blogspot.com that have been stored in the Google index. The Google web crawler will visit the website periodically and look for new content for its index. Generally, the more pages your site has within the Google cache, the better.

Last Google Crawl Date: April 02, 2008 @ 06:10 AM

Google will periodically crawl websites looking for new and updated content. In general, you want Google to crawl your site as often as possible, so your new content shows up in Google search results immediately.

Traffic Rank: Top 17.74%

Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings. Your website has an Alexa rank of 2,661,167 which is in the top 17.74% of all web sites.

Inbound Links: 3,093

One of the most important measures for a website is how many other sites link to it. The more links the better. Having links to your website from authoritative resources on the Internet helps you rank higher in search engines since these links are an indication that your website is trustworthy and contains good content.

Not sure how I got 3000+ links ...

Now, the report also says Eminence Grise isn't listed in Technorati, so I'm not 100% convinced about its accuracy, but the information it holds certainly gives food for thought.

How does your website or blog rank?

Douglas Institute : Making great use of social media

The Douglas is a world-class institute, affiliated with McGill University and the World Health Organisation, which treats people suffering from mental illness and offers them hope and cure. Its teams of specialists and researchers continually advance scientific knowledge, integrate it into patient care, and share it with the community to increase awareness and thereby eliminate stigma around mental illness.

The Douglas Institute has been quietly experimenting with social media in interesting ways. Marie-France Coutu and her team have created what I would consider to be an evolved online media kit, making use of You Tube, flickr, Google video and podcasting to provide media with a dynamic information package relating to Alzheimer's disease. Launched in January, in support of Alzheimer Awareness Month, this social media press kit is a terrific example of how PR specialists and their internal or external clients can make great use of new communications platforms.

The Douglas has also launched a series of blogs and podcasts, with experts providing insight on mental health to the community.

According to the website:

Douglas blogs must meet one of the following objectives:
Educate the public about mental health issues to demystify mental illness.
Share knowledge about mental health (in care, research or teaching) with workers and scientists in the health field.

I can't wait to see where they go with this and I'm hoping the Douglas PR team will accept to share their key learnings at an upcoming 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montreal.