Week 5 reading

Since I love "The New Rules of Marketing and PR," I'm going to have to write my post about the reading for this week. I really enjoyed reading the steps on how to step up a podcast. It sounds so easy to do, yet I'm sure the cost of the equipment to make a podcast is fairly expensive; so not everyone could do it. I do agree with Scott's thought on show preparation and how this is one of the most important parts in setting up a podcast. I used to subscribe to the IndyCar podcast and although this was about a year ago, it seemed to be fairly sloppy and not organized. Yet, companies would benefit greatly from starting their own podcast and doing it right. Scott gives the example of the Student Loan Network and their podcast on financial aid for college students. No wonder this podcast and company gained such success because it's our generation that is powering social media!

Moving on to a more interesting topic posed by David Scott, which is the idea of podcasting surpassing radio. Although Scott says that broadcast radio is very different than podcasting, he also mentions the unique qualities that podcasting offers in comparsion to radio. Podcasting can essentially reach millions of people and doesn't have to stay within a limited geographic range, like radio. Radio also need a great deal of advertising to stay afloat, whereas podcasting does not. So the question is, will podcasting really replace radio? In an article by James Lewin, a UK study shows that those radio stations that embrace podcasting may actually increase their audience. Research firm Ipsos Mori found that "15% of people surveyed said they listened to more live radio since they began downloading podcasts, and 39% said they were listening to radio programs they did not listen to previously." This article and more statistics can be found by clicking on a UK study. Even though this study was conducted in the UK, I think that here in the United States our radio stations would benefit in a similar manner. I don't think radio stations will completely be replaced. I know that radio streaming on the Internet has increased as well as satellite radio, but I believe traditional radio will stick around, maybe not as strong as in the past, but just like newspapers radio will always be around in some shape or form.

I'm a nerd and have to admit...I love New Rules of Marketing and PR

After reading the sections assigned....haha I found an interesting point that I wanted to expand on. In "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" David Scott talks about the challenge of allowing employees to blog at work. The "legal eagles," as referred to in the book, are afraid that secrets about the company will be revealed. Companies also don't want their employees to comment on blogs because it could be negative. However, David Scott makes a point and that is blocking the technology is not the answer. After working at Children's over the summer, (I'm sorry I keep referring to my internship) I found that our Internet access was very limited. We were banned from YouTube and Facebook, just to name a few. I understand why several organizations feel it is necessary to prevent certain forms of social media, but according to David Scott "freely published blogs are an important part of business and should be encouraged by forward-thinking organizations." I agree that companies should guide the way their employees behavior and not put guidelines on blogs.

On a separate note I realized that I am guilty of using the so called gobbledygook adjectives. Even during my internship I occasionally used words such as flexible, robust, etc. in a few of my projects. However, if I remember correctly I believe my editor caught these words and told me that unless you this is factual information, you should not use these words. What a coincidence! David Scott wrote about the same thing in New Rules in Marketing and PR. So I'm absolutely in love with this book!