This month’s Third Tuesday may have been scheduled on a Monday evening, but it was as informative, inspiring and engaging as always. Third Tuesday was generously sponsored by Rogers and Cision Canada and hosted by Thornley Fallis at The Pilot. So far, I’ve only gone when the guest speaker is an author – Mitch Joel, Nora Young and last night, the lovely Gini Dietrich.
While sharing her insights about astroturfing, whisper campaigns and media manipulation, Gini subtly promoted her PR firm, book and blog. It was especially interesting to hear Gini’s perspective as a blogger because I initially learned about her through a Behind The Brand interview on Hot On The Street! I had to laugh when Gini told a story about meeting blog commenters at a conference and referred to them as “Spin Sucks crazies.” Don’t worry, she was just kidding. Most bloggers are thrilled to meet their loyal readers in person!
Gini began her presentation with a simple overview of how Miley Cyrus’ career is a good case study for PR pros. Kicking off a presentation with slides about Miley is a sure fire way to excite an audience, but I wonder how much longer speakers can get away with it. When Toronto has a new mayor (fingers crossed!) and Ellen’s Oscars selfie is ancient history, presenters will need to find a new pop culture reference. When I pay to see a major thought leader, I want to hear their opinion about current events, not yesterday’s news. Marketers are increasingly encouraged to explore real-time marketing, memes and news-jacking and I think keynote speakers should take the same approach when preparing presentations.
Aside from Miley, the rest of Gini’s examples were thought provoking and made me think about how far companies are willing to go to get press. Gini highlighted how much more education is needed around do’s and don’ts in PR to help the public distinguish between best practices and unethical tactics. As more businesses build e-commerce sites and incentivize product reviews, it’s imperative that people understand why the concept of paying people to write 5-star reviews is problematic. After Gini seeded ARCs of Spin Sucks to book bloggers, she found that she received glowing reviews, but minimal constructive criticism. On that note, Gini actually encouraged the crowd (who all went home with a copy) to write 3-star reviews on Amazon! Have you ever heard an author say such a thing?
Seeing how Gini responded to the audience’s questions and spoke about her own experience with such humility made it clear why Pilar from Canadian Diabetes Association named Gini as her professional role model. There are so many so-called PR and marketing experts who sell online courses, consulting services and books, but I’m skeptical about who is actually trustworthy. Meeting Gini Dietrich at Third Tuesday confirmed that she is one to follow (literally!) and a woman who I would pay to see again.
Spin sucks. Deal with it. Want to know why? Read Gini Dietrich’s new book Spin Sucks to find out!