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Best Interviews and Funniest Moments from Spark Media Solutions

David Spark — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:33:35 +0000

Recently, my business, Spark Media Solutions celebrated our fifth anniversary. Business has been going great and one core part of what we do is interviewing people at live events. So we decided to put together a short “sizzle” reel of some of our favorite moments and people we’ve interviewed. Watch, I think you’ll like it.

Here are all the people, companies, and events represented in this video:

People

Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Kevin Rose, Adam Curry, Jason Calacanis, John C. Dvorak, Randi Zuckerberg, Vint Cerf, David Meerman Scott, Kara Swisher, Tony Hsieh, Jeff Pulver, Pete Cashmore, Jim Louderback, Tim O’Reilly, Brian Brushwood, Darren Rouse, Andy Ihnatko, Alex Albrecht, Bill Gates, Sean Parker, Nicholas Negroponte, Leo Laporte, Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Ian Black, Marc Maron, Jay Adelson, Haim Goldenberg, Carlos Rodela, Patrick Mauro, Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon, Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti, Marco Andretti, Will Power, David Spark

Companies/Organizations

Ignite Technologies, Ortsbo, Indycar, Dice, Yammer, Spark Media Solutions, Fusion-io, Tripwire, Microsoft Robotics, Angry Birds, Revision3

Events/Shows

Security B-Sides, Appnation, Techcrunch Disrupt, RSA Conference, Diggnation, Enterprise 2.0, Mobilize, SXSW, WTF, Witstream, GigaOM, Interop, Future of Web Apps, Web 2.0 Expo, Streaming Media West

Edited by Diana Brodie

Build Attention for Your Brand by Recognizing Others

David Spark — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:27:56 +0000

If you want people to pay attention to you, pay attention to them first. It’s how we create personal relationships, and it’s how we should create business and professional relationships as well. Unfortunately not all organizations approach it this way. Many believe they should speak first and announce their “message.” That seems to be the most important part. Always stay “on message” and make sure your audience remembers your “message.”

In today’s give-and-take world of social media, talking about yourself as you enter the room won’t make a good first impression. If you want more respect and recognition, show it to others first.

This is exactly what Spark Media Solutions did with our client Tripwire, whom we’ve worked with at the RSA Conferences. Read our full case study, “How to Become One of the Most Respected Companies in Your Industry.”

Company: Tripwire is an IT security company with a suite of software products for protecting sensitive data and critical IT systems, and detecting vulnerabilities and potential threats.

Situation: The security company was relaunching its blog to serve as a social media hub with new sharing functionality, a new design, and a new title, “The State of Security.”

Challenge: Other organizations that just announce, “We’ve got a new blog,” fall on deaf ears. Users need something to talk about. If Tripwire wanted to bring an audience to their blog they would need an anchor piece of content to act as a hub for conversation. This piece of content had to be done fairly quickly as there wasn’t enough time to do a big crowdsourcing project.

Solution: To complement the new blog, Spark Media Solutions’ recommendation was to create a list of the top 25 people in the security industry to follow via social media.

The Technique

There’s never a guarantee that a piece of content will be successful, but there are methods one can deploy to improve the value and viral nature of a piece of content. For this project, here’s how we gave our list some depth and legs:

Create context as to why these people are valuable – Explain why someone should be following these people. In our research we had found other such lists, but they were just that, “lists.” We found another list that provided context but it was close to five years old. It was definitely time to offer up an updated list.

Provide links to follow the person – Provide Twitter and blog links for each recommended influencer, but also create a Twitter list of all 25 people so with a single click a reader could follow all of our recommendations.

Reach out to the influencers for some content – Since these are the people we’re profiling, we should give them an opportunity to speak as well. We emailed each influencer and simply asked, “What’s your security tip for 2012?” After a lot of back and forth, we were able to get great tips from all 25 influencers on our list. It’s not an easy task, but it was made possible through Tripwire’s preexisting work proactively building relationships.

“We’ve been building genuine relationships with influencers in the community on and off social media for the past two years. We believe in supporting the community and value their contributions to the information security industry,” said Cindy Valladares, social media strategist for Tripwire.

Letting the influencers know they’re on the list – Influencers become influencers by promoting themselves and having others refer to them as influencers. By letting a person know that you’ve written about them, and that you’ve added them to a “top important people list,” chances are extremely high that that influencer is going to tell his/her followers about being honored. That means the top 25 security influencers are probably going to retweet this list to their audience. Meaning ultimately this list will be seen by an audience that cares about security issues.

After a lot of work, we finally produced the piece “Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following.”

Results

The blog post was hugely successful. Regularly, blog posts on Tripwire’s blog got a handful of shares via Twitter and Facebook. This post got well over 700.

“We were shocked when we saw the amount of web traffic this article drove to our site. December is usually a month with less traffic due to the holiday season, but this article contributed to about 30% of overall web traffic in the first few days it launched. Over the month, the referral traffic that social media contributed grew by 400% compared to previous months,” Valladares said.

While the sharing was phenomenal, what was more phenomenal was the amount of respect and appreciation the community, and the influencers, had for the creation of such a list. Here’s just a sampling of the hundreds of responses:

“Gotta hand it to @TripwireInc , this is an excellent list…” – JT Keating, @JTKeating
“Great list to follow.” – Kylie Heintz, @kmheintz
“Great resource.” – CSID, @CSIdentity
“The security rock star list is up. Are you following these peeps?” – Jennifer Usher, @jmanos
“A big #FF today for @cindyv and @TripwireInc for their efforts in supporting and engaging with the infosec community.” – Brian Honan, @BrianHonan
“A lot of smart security people on this Tripwire list.” – stacksmasher, @stacksmasher
“A pretty good list of #security people you should be following on twitter from @TripwireInc.” – Threatpost, @Threatpost
“Am tweetless at @TripwireInc’s inclusion of me.” – Bob Rudis, @hrbrmstr
“I’m humbled to be on @TripwireInc ‘Top 25 Influencers’ list.” – Brian Honan, @BrianHonan
“Honoured to be on @TripwireInc’s list of Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following.” – Graham Cluley, @gcluley
“Congrats to Akamai peeps @csoandy,@mckeay & @joshcorman on making Tripwire’s Top 25 Influencers list for Security.” – Karthikeyan D S, @dskishere
“Congrats to @andrewsmhay (#10) and @taosecurity (#1) in Tripwire top 25 security influencers.” – Vivek Rajagopalan, @vivekrj

There was plenty of kudos for the list, the expert tips, and congratulations to people who made the list. It was clearly an honor to be on this list as Richard Bejtlich admitted on his blog and said this about Tripwire:

“Tripwire is one of those technologies and companies that everyone should know. It’s almost like the ‘Xerox’ of security because so many people equate the idea of change monitoring with Tripwire.” – Richard Bejtlich, EthicalHackers.info

Next steps

This article was a precursor to Tripwire’s social media strategy for 2012 which includes a major engagement at the RSA Conference to be held in San Francisco at the end of February, 2012. This will be the third year Spark Media Solutions has covered the event, publishing our videos and articles about the event on the Tripwire blog (Check out our coverage from the 2011 RSA Conference).

Now that we’ve identified the top 25 influencers, had conversations with them, and in many cases interviewed them in past events, our next step will be to follow up with an interview at RSA.

The relationships Tripwire and Spark Media Solutions have built with infosec influencers have become critical in our need to reach out to them, converse, and get their opinions.

“Part of our strategy is to allow infosec influencers to freely share their opinions and points of view, regardless of whether they align with Tripwire solutions. We’ve built a relationship of trust, where we hope they benefit from the platform we provide,” Valladares said.

When you have a true relationship with a person, initiating requests, such as interviews, are far easier to make and result in greater acceptance.

Beyond honoring top influencers and interviewing them, we’ll continue to look for more ways to create content that showcases their wisdom.

“The goal is to look for opportunities where both parties succeed, Tripwire and influencers. We want all participants to be seen as key resources that are providing the community with valuable information about security,” Valladares said.

Stock photos of cropped heads courtesy of Shutterstock.

Build Strong Industry Relationships Through Content Marketing

David Spark — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:37:09 +0000

Last week I got to appear on Murray Newlands’ show “Future of Engagement.” We talked about how content marketing has become all the rage as of late. It’s been around for a while, but I’m happy that everyone thinks it’s “all the rage” because it makes my company appear a little more hip. Regardless, we talk for about six minutes on content marketing, how it’s necessary to be visible when people are trading information via social media and seeking it via search. That’s why we stand by our credo that “Content is the currency of social media and search.”

Content also becomes a point of contact, an icebreaker, or development step for relationship building.

Watch the short interview, especially to see the absolute worst angle and close up of my giant misshaped head.

This Week’s Beancast: The End of CES and Who Defines Decency

David Spark — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:04:10 +0000

Last night I recorded this week’s episode of the Beancast with host Bob Knorpp (@TheBeanCast). We discussed digital branding, the end of CES, who defines decency and people not wanting to talk to brands. Joining me and Bob on the show were Bill Green (@mtlb), Creative Strategist, BFG Communications (Host of the Adverve podcast and The Adverve Blog), Tonya Hall (@tonyahallradio) host of Tonya Hall Radio, and Tom Martin (@tommartin) Founder, Converse Digital.

Listen to the show (Time: 1:02).

Tips to Energize Brand Advocates

David Spark — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:20:51 +0000

Earlier this year I produced and reported at an event for Zuberance, a tool that helps companies energize their brand advocates. Tons of marketers and social media goons were there, and offered up some fantastic advice. Here are all the videos and their advice.

	How Do You Energize Brand Advocates?
	Build a relationship with an Advocate like you would with a friend
	How do you convert a passive fan of your brand into an Advocate?
	Advocates love brands and brands love Advocates
	Give Brand Advocates special access
	How JetBlue built long lasting relationships on their 10th birthday
	The ongoing confusion between Advocates and influencers
	Microsoft knows that their customers sell their product better than they do

Creative Commons photo attribution to ThinkPanama.

CASE STUDY: Build Your Brand Through the Wisdom of the Crowd

David Spark — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:47:59 +0000

This is a story of how Spark Media Solutions helped its client, Dice, build brand awareness and industry respect by proactively gathering and publishing the knowledge of its industry peers.

Company: Dice is a recruiting site for tech. Recruiters and employers are Dice’s customers as they pay for tech job listings and to gain access to Dice’s specialized niche tech database to find the best talent.

Situation: Dice had recently relaunched its resources blog (resources.dice.com) and was sponsoring a conference held at Facebook called the ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit (#RIS11).

Challenge: Dice wanted to showcase its social recruiting expertise plus gain recognition and further traction from recruiters, HR bloggers, and influencers, whether they were at the event, viewing the event’s live stream, or just watching the social media channels.

Solution: Ramp up excitement before, during, and after the event by producing valuable media for and about the recruiting community. The value comes via the content itself, but also through soliciting members of the community and promoting their ideas and knowledge. To simplify our efforts and make it clear what we were doing, we focused the majority of our content on a single theme. We asked everyone, “What’s your most innovative recruiting tip for 2012?”

The innovative element was critical because it tied into the theme of the conference, Recruiting Innovation Summit. Plus, we knew if our content was going to have any value we needed to entice participants to offer up new ideas, not the same ones recruiters have heard over and over again.

Ultimately we decided to create four media assets:

Giant tip article: Crowdsource and write a huge list of innovative tips for recruiters. Aim to publish at least 30 tips because that seemed to be a critical number for search and for social media recognition.
Speech bubble photos: Take photos of people holding up speech bubble white boards and chalk boards with their innovative recruiting tip and their Twitter handle. The recruiting community is heavily involved in Twitter so this was a good avenue to utilize.
Compilation video: Produce a video of many people answering the question, “What’s your innovative recruiting tip for 2012?”
Industry luminary interviews: Conduct one-on-one interviews with industry influencers about innovative recruiting and other relevant industry issues.

We were able to achieve all four goals:

We published a monstrous tip article, 30 Innovative Recruiting Tips for 2012 to Dice’s Employer Resource Center (resources.dice.com)
We shot, produced, published, and tweeted out 100 photos of attendees holding up their innovative recruiting tip for 2012. As these photos were being produced they were displayed on a screen for everyone in the conference to see.
We conducted and published one-on-one interviews with 6 recruiting industry luminaries.
We shot and produced a 3-minute video of people offering up their innovative recruiting tips for 2012.

Results

For a conference that had only 200 attendees our recognition extended well beyond the people in the room. Along with Dice’s premier sponsorship at the event, including a live stream and tweet-up sponsorship, the reach of all our content was in the tens of thousands of views.

The photos received over 33,000 views and the article received hundreds of shares via social networks.

More important than the numbers was the community’s commentary on what we were doing. Here is just a sample of what people said about our monstrous tip article and compilation video:

“A must read!!” – SHRM Long Island, @SHRMLI
“LOVE this list.” – Riviera Advisors, @RiveraAdvisors
“Great Article!!” – Tricia Folliero, @Folliero
“Really great list of recruiting tips – definitely worth a read for hiring managers/recruiters.” – Kate Matsudaira, @katemats
“Good find!” – Hiring Solutions LLC, @HSLLC
“Some old, some new, all good.” – Amy Rubin, @RubinTime
“Great read for any recruiter.” – Sam Rahbar on Facebook
“Insightful info to share with job seekers also.” – Arnita Tucker-McFarland on Facebook
“Great video of #recruiting #tips from #ris11.” – People Science RPO, @People_Science

We were most visible with all the speech bubble photos we were taking.

Those photos turned out to be our most retweetable content:

“Love what @EmployersonDice is doing w/the photos & the tweets at #RIS11. Great way to soak up insights.” – Blair Hite, @BlairAtVolt
“Have you seen the tips and pictures on @EmployersOnDice? love the effect.” – Bill Boorman, @BillBoorman
“@EmployersonDice I’m loving the photos on Flickr!” – Danielle Z. Moseley, @Dzittel
“Wow! Tons of great tips from great recruiters!” – Jennifer McClure, @JenniferMcClure
“Loved the content, Joy (photographer), and the photo format was perfecto!” – Lisa Thorell, @LisaT2
“Brilliant concept brilliantly executed” – HRExaminer Staff, @HRExaminer
“Genius way of showing them!” – Mark Sullivan, @sullivanmarkd

To extend the length of our coverage we chose to publish the six one-on-one expert interviews weeks after the conference.

What we learned

Whenever Spark Media Solutions takes on a new media production effort we make a note of what works and what doesn’t work. We wanted to share some of that knowledge with you. Here are some of our takeaways from the project and the event.

Recruiters are outgoing people that are happy to participate in a fun project like our whiteboard speech bubbles.
The whiteboard project had valuable content and built in virality. The content of each photo was a tip that was tweeted out with a person’s handle who inevitably retweeted the photo to their followers.
The question, “What’s your most innovative recruiting tip for 2012?” requires a lot more thought and contemplation than can be captured in a quick sound bite on camera or on a whiteboard with limited space. While answers were good and valuable for the video and speech bubbles, they weren’t comprehensive enough for the bigger article. The answers we had crowdsourced before the event were more thorough because there was a lot of back and forth, follow up questions, and people had more time to compose their thoughts.
If time permits, it may be better to publish the article before the event so we would have had some relevant content to point back to from all the photos we tweeted out. This was not the case here given our quick turnaround. Each published photo on Flickr allows you to add some links. While we pointed back to the main blog, it would have been nice to point back to an event-relevant article.
To pull off this project you must have the right balance of aggressiveness and charm in person and online. This is critical for success. It’s a subtle balance that has to be played correctly to get the content you want.
People really enjoyed seeing other conference goers at the event on the screen. It increased participation in the project and reduced our need to explain what we wanted them to do. They got it immediately.
Proofread people’s boards before you photograph them for two reasons. First, we needed to be able to read recruiter’s tip and their Twitter handle because we retyped everything again in Flickr and Twitter. Second reason is to catch handwritten typos. There were many cases where people had spelling mistakes on their whiteboards. We caught all but one and were lucky enough to fix that error in Photoshop.
The mere fact that we were so visible capturing content in photos and video made Dice a beacon of influence at the conference.
A good time to get people to participate is during the pre- and after-party.

John Sumser, HRExaminer

While the community recognition Dice received was fantastic, the best acknowledgement came from noted industry pundit John Sumser of HRExaminer who in his article “Branding 2012” said, “Dice.com showed up in Palo Alto and changed the dynamics of conference marketing.”

“Dice used the Recruiting Innovation Summit to announce its material entry in the social media sweepstakes. By building a treasure trove of links, content and connections, they raised their profile in ways that most marketers can only dream of,” said Sumser.

The reason marketers dream of this kind of recognition is because they’re still doing “marketing.” Our approach is to create editorial media that puts businesses in the center or lead of key industry conversations. Content, not marketing copy, is the currency of social media and search. We produce a lot of media at conferences and trade shows simply because it’s one of the best methods to gather and produce a lot of content very quickly. While handing out water bottles and swag may be valuable for name recognition, we find that at a conference or trade show creating content is a far more valuable technique for building industry visibility and deep relations.

11 PR Tips for Startups

David Spark — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:51:37 +0000

What’s involved in doing PR for startups?

That was the very topic du jour at the panel discussion “PR for Startups and Small Business” produced by PR Summit Chat, held just last night in San Francisco. I was the moderator, and on the panel were:

Adrienne Arieff, founder of Arieff Communications
Neil Vineberg, founder of Vineberg Communications
Eric Savitz, Forbes’ San Francisco Bureau Chief

Here are 11 tips that came out of the discussion:

PR Tip #1: Are you ready?

There are so many questions you have to ask yourself before you talk to a PR professional. Make sure you can answer the questions, “Are you original and unique” and “Are you ready to actually work with a PR professional?” A good PR professional won’t just take you on just for the money. They want to take on a client they can succeed with. They don’t want to fail either.

You have to be mature enough as a business to handle public scrutiny. So don’t choose PR until you’re ready. Don’t overreach. Be realistic.

PR Tip #2: Find PR pros through your peers, competitors, and journalists

I’m constantly asked for recommendations of PR professionals. The way most of us discover great trusted talent is to talk to our peers. That’s the obvious first step, but if you’re impressed with how the press is handling one of your competitors, call them up directly and ask who their PR firm is, or you can find that at the bottom of any of their press releases on their website. Call the PR firm directly and explain who you are and don’t pitch yourself to them (that would be a conflict of interest), but ask for a referral of another PR firm. Even better, talk to a journalist you respect, and ask them for a referral. They’ll tell you the people they actually listen to, which is a great barometer of the type of PR professional you’ll want.

PR Tip #3: What press do you want to reach and when?

A strategy of “We want to be in Mashable and Techcrunch” is not a strategy. There are times in the cycle of your business that you’ll want to talk to the press and the press will want to hear from you. For example, when you’ve got a funding round, sites such as VentureBeat and GigaOM will want to hear from you.

PR Tip #4: What audiences do you want to reach?

PR agencies have specialties in certain areas. You’ll want to choose an agency or individual that has experience in that area, and most importantly can prove it to you.

PR Tip #5: Test your idea out

Before you formally interview with a PR firm, tell your story to journalists and other PR reps who have a lot of experience in your industry. Couch it with a “I’m not pitching you, I’m just telling you to get your feedback.” Listen and refine your story. This will get you better prepared to work with a PR agency.

PR Tip #6: Showcase the people in your company

Everyone on the panel talked about the importance of the people within your company. Tell the stories of their background and what got them to the point of creating this startup. If the founder isn’t dynamic, find the members who do have great stories to tell. These are the kinds of tales journalists love to hear.

PR Tip #7: Ambush a trend

If you see something happening in the news or a big movement happening, and you can be at the forefront of it, then jump on the opportunity. You can ride that wave of public interest. I wrote about this at great length on Mashable in the article, “Trending Topics: 5 Ways Companies Used News Trends for Business Success.”

It doesn’t always have to be part of a larger corporate strategy. You could just have a great point to make on a story that happens to be in the news. If your company’s CEO can speak on that topic, then you need to pitch him immediately. Don’t wait. If the story is breaking at 8am then you need to pitch that your CEO is available for an interview on the topic right away.

PR Tip #8: Customer stories only go so far

I pushed the panel to answer the question, “Don’t you want to pitch a story of a customer using the product?” I was surprised to discover that’s not that big a deal. While it’s nice to have a customer case study, that can’t be the entire story. It’s not enough. There needs to be something more.

PR Tip #9: Collaborate with another (bigger) company

A bigger company that’s been in the game longer than you, and they’re bigger than you, can give you an exponential effect on your PR efforts. Look for partnership opportunities with different aspects of your product.

PR Tip #10: Publish yourself

I wrote an article entitled, “Why Corporate Blogging is Like Selling Uncut Cocaine” where I argued given the ease of self-publishing and distribution, the PR process can be damaging. The process of PR is flawed in that every point of communications your story is “cut” thereby diminishing its purity. A company tells its story to a PR rep (-CUT-). The PR rep then tells that story to a journalist (-CUT-). The journalist then writes the story (-CUT-). Conversely, the company could create its own blog, publish its own stories, and often the journalist will see the story exactly the way you want it represented. And if they want to refer to it they don’t need to go to their memory, they can pull specific quotes.

Another tactic is to guest blog on another more popular site. While this will get you phenomenal recognition, you can’t actually sell your company in a guest/contributed post. You have to talk about an industry issue that doesn’t come off as you pitching the company.

PR Tip #11: Don’t do it alone

Messaging and positioning is an art. Unless your previous work was working in a communications firm, you simply haven’t done it enough, and you need a communications firm to walk you through the process of communicating with an audience and the press.

Your advice?

What’s your advice for startup PR? If you’re in a startup, or done PR for startups, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of experiential tales. Please share them here in the comments.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

30 Tips on How to Interview Like a Journalist

David Spark — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:00:08 +0000

As a 16-year tech journalist and founder of a brand journalism business, I’ve conducted tons and tons of interviews. While I have “lots of experience” I also realize it’s a synonym for “I’m getting stale.” In an effort to reboot my interview style, I decided to look for inspiration from other journalists.

This article began with me questioning fellow journalists for their best advice on how to interview. What follows is some of my own advice, but a ton more from industry colleagues on how to conduct a journalistic interview for print, blog, radio, TV, and films.

TIP 1: Find a good interviewee

D’uh, right? When you do have control of who you’re interviewing, seek out a good subject. You’ll never know just by looking at them, so ask around. Sometimes a PR person will help you. If you’re shooting video ask who is dynamic on camera.

“The truth is that some people have a good story to tell on a subject, and others don’t. Some people are naturally talented at being interviewed, and others aren’t. If you find a good interviewee, you won’t need all the other tips,” said copywriter Star Zagofsky.

TIP 2: It’s your job to research

This was the most oft repeated advice, when it’s possible. In many of my run-and-gun style interviews, I don’t know who I’m interviewing until I meet them. But, I do know the event I’m going to and I can research that.

In the cases when you do know who you’re going to interview, know the answers to basic questions such as the individual’s background, hot topics, what the person has worked on, currently working on, and what they’re trying to promote. If the information isn’t readily available online, ask their PR rep or publicist, if they have one.

When you exhibit your knowledge “the person knows you took the time to do so and they then provide a much better interview,” explained journalist Joan Wenner.

“The value of doing a tremendous amount of research is being able to ask questions very few others have done. This alone sets you apart from the rest and can win you not only a subject’s respect and attention, but material no one else has ever gotten,” said author Caitlin Kelly.

While being prepared is generally good advice, Larry King has repeatedly said in interviews that he never researched his subjects. I don’t believe those claims.

TIP 3: Let your preconceptions go or not?

Being prepared is good advice for any job, but you need to leave room for discovery, or shouldn’t you? I got conflicting advice from journalists who suggested you start with the end in mind or know at least 80 percent of the story before you even begin.

“Know the outcome you want in advance and let that outcome drive the questions asked,” advised journalist Rachel Franco. “What are the main objectives of the piece being written and what questions do you need to ask to arrive at those objectives?”

This is good advice if you just need to finish your piece quickly and plug in some quotes. But the problem with this interviewing and production process is you end up publishing your preconceived notion as to what the story is. You’re not giving the story any room to grow.

Conversely, if you do your research but not force any guidance and just listen, the story can take many surprising twists and turns.

“Journalists need to learn how to make their minds blank. Don’t have any preconceived notions of how you’re writing the story,” said marketing sociologist, Richard Kelleher. “You keep your mind open and you learn so much more. You never know.”

TIP 4: Make them comfortable

Almost everyone who offered up advice talked about the importance of making the interview subject feel comfortable. There are many ways to do this, and it helps to do as much as you possibly can. Place them in a comfortable location with friendly surroundings. Be professional and friendly – not pushy. Let them know if you’re a fan. And when all else fails, tease them a little bit.

Steve Calechman, journalist for Men’s Health will joke with his subjects early on to loosen them up. For example, at the beginning of the interview he asks for their title. If it’s really long he’ll say, “Well thanks for the time. That’s all I needed.” A quick relaxing laugh and both are ready for the interview.

TIP 5: Small talk and softball questions

Still running on the “Make them comfortable” theme, many journalists advised a little “small talk” upfront or to throw out a few “softballs” to begin the interview. A “softball” question is simply a non-challenging question that often gives the person license to brag about themselves or their work.

Author Karen Jones of “Death for Beginners” throws away her first question.

“You don’t really care about the answer, you just try to get the person loose and comfortable with you,” said Jones.

If you’re lucky enough to land multiple interviews with a key subject, organizational communications expert Cory Kelly suggests you don’t get into your tough questions until later.

“The more rapport you have with your source the more likely you are to get him/her to cough up the sweet stuff every journalist dreams of getting,” said Kelly. “So don’t rush in with the big guns unless absolutely necessary.”

TIP 6: Send a list of questions beforehand or not

Depending on the type of interview and the audience, it’s sometimes a good idea to give a skeletal list of questions so the interviewee can prepare appropriately. Some preparation is good so they can have their facts handy. But don’t give them all your questions as you still want some spontaneity in the interview.

Prior to the interview, Bill Roth, Founder of Earth 2017 will ask his subjects, “What are the three key points you want to get across in this interview?”

He then discusses those points with the subject and asks, “Are those really the key points and if so, what are key facts or insights that support their point of view?”

Roth says it often helps the interviewee focus and relax and it helps him frame the interview questions appropriately.

If your interview will be on camera and you’re looking for reactions to questions, then it’s not a good idea to give them questions beforehand.

TIP 7: Let them know what you’re going to do

When I conduct an interview I let them know what I want out of the interview, how long it’s going to be, and where it’s going to be published. This is all important information as to how they frame their answers (e.g., Answer in a sound bite or long form?) and the interviewee knows the audience they’re speaking to (e.g., Is it a general audience or an industry-specific audience?).

“If they’re plugging their book (or movie, etc.) tell them the ground rules about how you plan to work the mention, website, etc. into the interview so they don’t have to look for an opening to plug it, which can throw off the flow,” said Robert Dolezal, CEO of Consultiq.

TIP 8: Warn them of the bright lights

I shoot a lot of video interviews and I use a very bright light. Like moths to a flame, almost every subject will stare right into the light if I don’t warn them. So I do warn them just before I turn on the light.

But I can’t just say, “Don’t look at the light” because they won’t know where else they should look. Since I like to do a lot of first-person point-of-view (POV) interviews, I’ll say, “Look into the lens, don’t look at the light” and then I’ll turn on the light.

TIP 9: Mimic body language

A few journalists talked about the importance of mimicking an interviewee’s body posture and slowing your own breathing pattern. Mimicking can also be that of dress. If they’re formal, you should dress up. If looser, adapt to that as well, said Caitlin Kelly.

TIP 10: Ask to spell and pronounce their name and title

Ask the interview subject how to spell and pronounce their name even if you’ve seen it in print and heard it on TV.

“It might be Journalism 101, but I take nothing for granted and it seems to build a trust and confidence,” said Steve Calechman.

TIP 11: Establish reciprocity

There’s a great scene in the movie “Tin Men” in which a young aluminum siding salesman is learning the tricks of gaining the trust of a potential customer. The old successful salesman explains that when no one is looking drop $5 on the ground. Wait for your “mark” to discover the $5 and say, “I think you dropped this,” to which you’ll respond, “I know it’s not mine, it must be yours.” That small investment, and showing real concern for the potential customer, generates an enormous level of trust.

Similarly, Cory Kelly has a trick to “get the interviewee to give you something…anything. I’ve acted like my pen was broken just to get one from an interviewee. Instant investment.”

TIP 12: Record the interview

I’m always stunned when I meet a journalist I highly respect who doesn’t record their interviews. As someone who can type incredibly fast, I still can never get all the quotes correct. You must record your interviews for many reasons:

It’s the ethical thing to do – Your notes are never going to be 100 percent accurate nor is your memory. When you don’t record the interview, you will get the quotes wrong.
You can actually have a conversation – If the subject is constantly waiting for you to finish scribbling/typing your notes, it won’t be a natural conversation, and you’ll have a hard time pulling out natural responses.
You can focus on the subject – You need to be looking at the subject when you’re interviewing them. If you’re constantly looking at your notepad or computer, you can’t do that.
You reduce the fear of being misquoted – “Fear of being misquoted is a key resistance people have to being interviewed,” said Susanne M. Alexander, Relationship & Marriage Coach at Marriage Transformation. “To help people relax and talk to me, I run a tape recorder and I assure the person that I’m taping to be able to quote him or her accurately.”

TIP 13: Don’t let them answer off mike

“If it is a ‘live’ interview, don’t discuss the main subject before going on the air, as the spontaneity will likely be gone when the mike is live,” said Bill Jones, actor and radio personality.

This is good advice for any interview, live or not, especially if it’s being recorded on audio or video. Before I conduct a video interview, I’ll chat with the subject as to what we should discuss. If we hit on a subject quickly, and they’re excited about it, they’ll just start launching into their answer. I will quickly yell, “Stop! Let’s get this on camera” as I know they’ll only be able to give me one good passionate response.

TIP 14: Test your equipment

Every journalist makes this mistake once.

You record an interview, so excited you got some superstar on tape, and then you go back to listen or watch only to realize you screwed up something simple and you’ve got nothing. Everyone has done this. We hit ourselves and then learn from our mistake. We never do it ever again.

Try to avoid that one bad mistake and always test your equipment. Make sure it’s recording properly. Do a ten-second recording of your own voice and play it back. If everything looks and sounds good, you’re good to go. And repeat your testing throughout the day. Simple things like mike jacks falling out can happen and you end up recording nothing.

TIP 15: Ask open ended questions

Many of the journalists I spoke to talked about the importance of asking open ended questions such as, “Tell me what you saw” or “Why was that a tough decision?” Avoid questions that solicit a yes/no answer. They’ll never provide any insight.

Journalist Sandra Lamb will often quote the interviewee, “You said, ‘…’ and then ask, “Why do you believe this to be true?”

TIP 16: Don’t try to fill the void

Long form interviewing requires a lot of patience. If you traditionally do quick “got to get the sound bite”-style interviews, you may become frustrated with long form interviews.

“Unless you’re live, let them answer the question before you interrupt,” said Robert Dolezal. “Listen to their answer rather than read your question list.”

“Don’t be tempted to fill the void with another question if there is silence, give the subject time to answer,” advises Leslie Lowes, producer at Penultimate Productions.

Self-proclaimed washed-up journalist Karen Gutierrez adds, “What the subject says in that moment could be the best part of the interview.”

TIP 17: Ask the reflection question

Most of my interviews are with people in technology industries that are trying to accomplish something. Any attempts in technology are always fraught with unseen difficulties and wonderful surprises. Two great questions that I ask, that require reflection are “What were some of the unexpected hurdles” and “What were some of the unexpected benefits?”

Similarly, I’ve heard Jesse Thorn, host of “The Sound of Young America” advise the use of a “looking back” question. He’ll ask a successful person, “Looking back at where you were when you started this journey, where did you think it was going to lead you?”

TIP 18: Ask questions for which you already know the answer

“Don’t necessarily ask questions about things you can find out on your own, but don’t necessarily shy away from a simple question that may yield a great quote or sound bite,” said journalist Rachel Franco.

I will often prep a question with, “I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to hear your take on it” because even if I do know the answer, I won’t have the interviewee’s insight on it until they answer it themselves.

TIP 19: The interview is a conversation with you

If you’re doing a long form interview, you want to transition from a formal interview to making the subject feel they’re having a normal conversation.

“Make it seem they are only speaking to YOU,” said Bill Jones, “Look the person in the eye.”

To get that natural conversation moment, Star Zagofsky noted how Ira Glass, host of “This American Life,” gets very involved with the story.

“He’s not afraid to interject or put his gut reaction on display,” said Zagofsky. “Instead of asking something like, ‘So what happened next?’, he’d ask something like, ‘Wait, wait…so you were huddled there, and what was going through your mind?’”

TIP 20: Reboot an interview

I loved this technique recommended by Jesse Stanchak, editor of SmartBrief on Social Media:

“If an interview is going badly, I’ll sometimes try to reboot it by thanking the participant for their time, and engaging in a little small talk about when the article is running, other projects they’re working on, etc. I’ll try to keep the small talk going for a little while longer than I would normally. Then I’ll say, ‘Actually, I thought of one more question for you, can we go back on the record for moment…’ Most of the time, they’re more cooperative in the second go around, after they’ve spent a few minutes talking to me as a person. Even though I’ve told them we’re back on the record, it’s often hard for the subject to get their shields 100 percent of the way back up. Of course, there is a very small chance for this technique to backfire, as the subject can always say they’ve got to run when I ask if we can go back on record.”

TIP 21: Ask about feelings

“If you want your interviewee to be expressive, ask about feelings,” said Andy Wasley, Editor of So So Gay magazine. “How do you feel about x? What was it like to do y?”

“Always remember to ask why. Why do you do what you do? What motivates you,” said Karen Gutierrez. “Sometimes the answer seems so obvious you may forget to ask. Yet if you don’t, you’ll find a hole in your story later. It’ll be missing its soul.”

TIP 22: For revealing interviews, share your story first

Carren Strock interviewed more than 100 women for her book, “Married Women Who Love Women.” She found that by sharing her own story, the women were more comfortable to share their story which resulted in excellent interviews.

“Some women even confided to me that they’d never told their therapists as much as they had told me,” said Strock.

TIP 23: Throw a curve ball

When my company Spark Media Solutions got the assignment to cover IndyCar Racing, I was very excited, but then realized we were going to hit a difficult challenge. My reporter, Pat Mauro, and I quickly realized we were asking the same questions to drivers over and over again. We needed some more original questions.

Jesse Zitrin, a Ballpark Enterprise Manager for Juma Ventures, says that in sports the questions grow very routine as the same events are repeated regularly.

“But most ballplayers tell us they’ve never been asked questions before about which teammates should go on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ or what’s in their iPod during workouts, or what rule they’d make as commissioner,” said Zitrin. “In short, think about what they’re likely asked all day, then find something from a different, more imaginative angle.”

TIP 24: Repeat back the story in the middle of the interview

With the writing I have to do for tech industry trade publications, I’m often listening to and then in my writing regurgitating very complicated technical processes. While the person who is telling the story understands what he’s saying, they may not fill in all the blanks when they’re telling their story. Often as we’re part-way through an explanation, I’ll pause the interview and say, “Let me repeat back to you what you just said to me, to make sure I understand.” This is a really good exercise as it requires the interviewee to listen to their own explanation and see if they’ve left anything out. Which they almost always do. But it’s also a good exercise for the interviewer because if you’re lost halfway through, you’ll be fumbling, tuned out, or not know what question to ask next.

TIP 25: Repeat questions in different ways

Steve Calechman offers up this advice for getting the best information out of your subject:

“I find that good information doesn’t necessarily come at first, so I’ll ask the same question in a different way a few times. I also don’t mind asking obvious questions if I don’t know or understand something. In both instances, I’ll qualify myself with, ‘I know that I asked you this before,’ or ‘This might be a stupid question.’ If I recognize my cluelessness, I find that people are more than happy to help out and appreciate that I’m trying to be thorough.”

TIP 26: Get them to talk about what they really love

Before the interview begins, Mark Grimm of Mark Grimm Communications likes to probe ahead of time to find out where their passion lies. He’ll ask simple questions such as “So what do you do for fun?” or “What makes you really happy?” to help guide his questioning.

Karen Jones finds that musicians and athletes will have a hobby and “asking about this hobby can lead to answers about who they are as people.”

TIP 27: Trick them into getting the sound bite you want

“If you want something very specific it’s sometimes necessary to use a bit of cunning,” said Andy Wasley. For example, he’ll ask, “Would you say that this was the best event you’ve been to?” If the subject answers, “Yes” then your copy can read, “(The subject) said it was the best event he/she had been to.”

TIP 28: Let the interviewee ask their own question

At the very end of your interview, after you’ve asked all your questions, ask one final question.

“Is there anything else you would like to add?”

Susanne Alexander claims this technique almost universally results in the interviewee providing the best quote.

TIP 29: Let the interviewee review the article for accuracy or don’t

As a journalist we’re always striving to provide the most accurate information possible. So often, after seeing an article in print, people will complain about being misquoted or the information being wrong.

Letting someone review your piece before publication is a highly debatable subject as giving over your article to the subject for review may cause it to lose its actual journalistic flair. But at the same time, if it’s wrong, it won’t be journalistic at all. It’ll simply be wrong and that will be far more damaging.

My personal policy is I’ll let subjects, if they ask, review quotes and certain facts I mention in the article. I will not let them review the article. I have though had PR people ask me this and I find that request seriously steps over the line. See my article “How to make sure journalists get your story correct.”

Bill Roth swears by the review process. The result of this best practice, he says, is that 50 percent of the time the review will result in catching an error made by either Roth or by his interviewees.

TIP 30: Practice, practice, practice

“A lot of experience can be gained by practice. Get a recorder and interview some people you know quite well for practice before trying it for real. Listen back and do the next one better. This will help you gain confidence in your technique,” said Leslie Lowes. “You will know when you have done well, because the material you have obtained will tell you that.”

Conclusion: Now what are your tips?

While this is a long list of tips from a lot of great experts, it’s far from an exhaustive list. Remember, I need some advice on how to shake up my own technique. So can you offer up any tips for me and your fellow readers?

Most of the Dice interview photos are courtesy of Robert Martinez.

Creative Commons photo attributions to Internews Network, conservativeparty, Keith Allison, ItzaFineDay, elvisripley, pedrosimones7, ChrisMRichards, chrisschuepp, Robert of Fairfax, and magnusfranklin.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

What brands do you advocate, and why?

David Spark — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:13:50 +0000

OK, it’s been a while since SXSW, but I have a collection of really fun videos that I produced for Zuberance, the brand advocacy group, at the uber-geek event that I’ve compiled together here for your viewing enjoyment. My first video is my favorite as I got lots of great answers to the question, “What brands do you advocate, and why?” And then the next three are my other favorites from SXSW.

	SXSW Attendees answer, “What brands do you advocate and why?”
	Implicit vs. explicit brand advocacy
	Dave Carroll on creating an international fan base through “United Breaks Guitars”
	Building advocates through loyalty and family

And here are some more videos about brand advocacy from SXSW 2011

	Advocating products that make your life easier
	You usually become an advocate for a product that makes your job easier
	Excellent customer service creates Brand Advocates
	How the Grateful Dead enabled fans to spread advocacy
	Should brand advocates own stock in the companies they love?
	The Bob Lanier/Imelda Marcos of sneaker collections

Stock photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Top 9 unsubstantiated accusations of brand journalism

David Spark — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:00:15 +0000

For more than 16 years I’ve been a traditional journalist, writing, producing, and appearing in more than 40 media outlets in print, radio, TV, and online.

I also own a custom publishing/brand journalism firm called Spark Media Solutions.

While everyone can define journalism, not such the case with brand journalism. Both are forms of editorial content. A brand journalist’s goal is to help their brand be seen in the center of an important issue by creating valuable industry and issue-related content that people seek out, want to consume, and engage in debate.

Definitions of brand journalism vary widely and sadly there are many derogatory unsubstantiated accusations. I compiled this list of ways I’ve heard people describe the brand journalism industry.

I eagerly throw this article up for discussion. Please feel free to refute my claims, substantiate the accusations, or feel free to add some others that I haven’t thought of.

With that said, here are my top 9 unsubstantiated accusations of brand journalism

1. Brand journalism is a form of content farming

A brand creates content to be seen. They want to rank high in search engines. If they’re creating content and want to rank high in search engines, then they must be a content farm, right?

This BS syllogistic logic has no basis, yet it’s assumed all the time. This assumption may come as a result after seeing a brand deliver bad content. Content farms are known to flood the Internet with content (valuable or not) all in an effort to game search algorithms so that the content producer ranks high in search engines. This is no longer so easy to do as Google has rejiggered its algorithms to sidestep the content farm technique.

The “content farming” claim can be said of anyone creating content online. Everyone wants their content read, seen, and to appear on the top of search results. Why would a brand’s content be any different?

And just because the content is poor, doesn’t immediately define it as a content farm. Like with anything, sometimes it just sucks.

2. Brand journalism is pay to play

Traditional journalists are paid to create content within the publication’s given editorial spectrum.

Brand journalists are paid to write within the brand’s given editorial spectrum.

Both types of journalists have editorial mandates. That mandate is made clear to both the author and the reader. For example, someone reading a Harley Davidson magazine will know that the content will be slanted to talk about everything Harley and Harley lifestyle, not how wonderful Honda motorcycles are. That editorial mandate is extremely clear to everyone producing and consuming and therefore the Harley-slanted content is perfectly appropriate and very much still journalism.

My business operates just like any other business on the planet. We get paid for our products and services. Sadly, many communications firms think bloggers are tools to be used as you can just “get” them to write about you.

3. Brand journalism is not journalism

It may be fear of brand journalism or outright jealousy, but I hear journalists I highly respect slam brand journalism by speaking of it as not journalism. For example, during a SXSW panel session on brand journalism, NPR “On the Media” host Bob Garfield said, “Perhaps the name for panel should have been: ‘Brand Not Really Journalism: The Rise of Semi-Journalism.’”

That’s not much better than the original session title: “Brand Journalism: The Rise of Non-Fiction Advertising.”

Is that fair? Starting a discussion about an industry by putting them in the hole? Why not title the session, “When is the best time for brand journalists to stop beating their wives?”

Sadly, all of the public discussions I’ve seen about brand journalism question the validity of the industry. Why? You don’t see this happening with any other industry.

“Doctors, are they really treating patients or are they hiding behind a lot of expensive machinery?”

The validity question may have to do with some people perceiving the term “brand journalism” or “content marketing” as oxymorons.

4. You can’t trust brand journalism

Most companies want third-party validation for their work because the general consensus is that an article from a third-party has more validity than someone saying the same thing, but working for the company. That’s true for marketing. But when you’re trying to get inside information, someone who works at the company will be able to tell the “inside track” story, unlike a third-party journalists. Some consumers really value that type of content.

5. Brand journalists are marketers in disguise

There is a dividing line between brand journalism and marketing.

If a brand journalist starts just touting a company with no supporting evidence, then they are no longer acting as a journalist. They’re writing marketing copy. Readers can tell the difference. And a writer knows when they’re being a journalist and when they’re asked to write marketing copy.

6. Brand journalists don’t hold the same ethics as traditional journalists

All industries have their bad eggs. In a tit-for-tat fight, it is much easier to find more unethical cases of traditional journalism than brand journalism. Still, I don’t let the stories of Jayson Blair and the UK’s News of the World cause me to write off all journalism as crap.

So when you do find a single case or two of a brand journalist creating crap or being unethical, think first of the many more cases you know of traditional journalists doing the same or worse. It’s not appropriate to bring down an entire industry with a couple of anecdotal pieces of evidence. A traditional journalist wouldn’t do that.

It’s up to the individual journalist and media entity, whether backed by a traditional media outlet or brand, as to how high their quality and ethics will be. And then it’s up to the consumer to validate that quality and ethics. Like with everything else in this world, there’s good and bad journalism and brand journalism.

7. Brand journalists don’t disclose relationships

I’m sure this has happened. I couldn’t tell you when, and I don’t know if anyone else could tell you either. Unfortunately, it’s introduced as the “norm” for brand journalism with absolutely no evidence.

This year at the PRSummit in San Francisco, I heard AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher write off the whole notion of “paid bloggers.” Without any evidence Swisher said that paid bloggers often don’t disclose who’s paying them. She then said that if you want to do that, “more power to you.” It was extremely dismissive and she showed absolutely zero evidence to her claim. Kind of ironic that someone of her stature would behave so non-journalistically when arguing the journalistic credibility of a paid blogger.

I get the sense that traditional journalists feel they have the right to throw out all the rules of journalism (e.g., Who, What, Where, When, and How) when they speak about brand journalism.

Like with anything, sometimes people don’t disclose who is paying them. Again, I can’t tell you when and if that happens. The operative word here is “sometimes” not “the norm.” And you can’t call something the norm if you can’t even yank out one piece of evidence.

After the Swisher comment, I moderated a panel at the conference on “How to Approach Bloggers” and the question of “paid bloggers” came up and whether paying a blogger diminishes the company’s or the blogger’s credibility. I took that as an opportunity to explain that I’m a paid blogger and what I do is get hired to create content. Simply put I get paid for my work just like everyone else in the room is paid for their work. And like everyone else I disclose who pays me. It’s not a difficult concept to understand and accept.

Why are people so bent out of shape when bloggers are paid? Why is it assumed that by default they’re not disclosing their relationships like other people do when they’re paid for their work?

8. Brand journalism is a threat to journalists

“An advertiser that acts like a journalist could be a mole, trying to trick an unsuspecting audience into consuming and believing whatever crap a brand wants to spew,” said Kyle Monson, a former technology journalist and editor at PC Magazine and now Content Strategy Director at JWT. This quote was echoing his journalist friends’ skeptical concerns now that he’s taken on his new “Dark Side” role as brand journalist.

I respond to this concern with the response of “When have you been fooled?” When has there been a situation where you personally, not the unsuspecting masses, been fooled with something that you thought was purely journalism and it turned out to be fully advertising?

In the aforementioned panel discussion, “Brand Journalism: The Rise of Non-Fiction Advertising,” Monson squared off against Bob Garfield explaining that brand journalism is just a means of teaching advertisers how to be publishers.

“We are not making journalists obsolete by integrating them into agencies. We’re teaching agencies and brands how to be publishers,” Monson said.

“The marketing guy in me says ‘cool!’ The journalist in me wants to punch you in the face,” Garfield replied.

I find Garfield’s reaction shocking because custom publishing (which has been rebranded as “brand journalism” or “content marketing”) has been around for decades. As someone who hosts “On the Media” he knows plenty about it. What is it about the holy institution of journalism that they are the only ones that have access to publishing? Even before the Internet made it so cheap to produce and distribute content, brands were still being their own publishers. Journalists don’t have a special license like doctors to practice journalism.

9. Brand journalism is a threat to the ad industry

In my discussion with Monson, he agreed that he gets animosity from the ad industry because they believe brand journalists are trying to change the way the ad industry operates. Admittedly, it’s only his anecdotal evidence.

Whether true or not, what is known is the traditional means of advertising are becoming less and less effective. Forced interstitial advertising is less and less available. Social and search are the new areas of discovery. If you want your company to be seen in those spaces, you must create content. Content is the currency of social media and search.

While PR and advertising can be great amplifiers, you can’t be visible in search and social without content. If it’s only an advertisement that doesn’t provide the elements of information or entertainment, it simply won’t be traded in social spaces and it won’t be visible in search.

Conclusion: Question accusations

I’m hoping that by reading this article you’ll start questioning these unsubstantiated claims. I would love it if you’d agree with all my retorts, but instead I want all readers to act as journalists yourselves and question the authenticity of my claims and any other claim made about brand journalism, whether positive or negative.

Why did the person make that claim? Outside of a single anecdote or a couple of personal experiences how can that person make such a statement? If the person is a journalist, ask them to back up their statement with sources and facts and not blanket opinion. If they truly are a journalist they should have no problem responding to such a request.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.