Category Archives: news media

10 Takeaways from PRSA Silicon Valley’s June Media Panel with NBC, NYT and SiliconAngle

Posted on by
Reply

Meghan Fintland, PRSA Silicon Valley Chapter’s President who is also Rubrik’s head of global PR moderated a PRSA SV panel of three journalists on June 5th at AMD in San Jose. Panelists were Scott Budman, business and technology reporter, NBC News Bay Area, New York Times Contributor Don Clark, and Mark Albertson, senior writer, SiliconANGLE Media, Inc. 

I missed the event due to a summer cold but have notes from a couple of friends who attended. Here are 10 takeaways I thought were interesting: 

  1. The pace of reporting is much faster than a few years ago. SEO and algorithms matter.
  2. News we cover is what impacts the community. (Scott Budman)
  3. AI is big but what is it all for? What is this moving towards?
  4. If I can snap my fingers, I would get rid of (the terms) “platform” and “solution.” It’s such obfuscation. Just be simple. (Don Clark)
  5. Thank you to the PR world—you are the bridge between me and the CEO, and it’s saved me a million times. (Scott Budman)
  6. Think about other angles, pitching me something related to a hot tech but maybe not necessarily what your product is. (Scott Budman)
  7. AI is impactful in software programming, chip design and test. (Don Clark)
  8. Learn the technology at a deeper level than you need to than to do just the transactional pitching. You are building your brand as a communicator, and that’s more than just what the client wants. (Don Clark)
  9. I cover the tech beat. I can come in ready to report on the newest chip, but an editor will say yeah, there’s a fire. But talking to people in the community, they’re talking about tech. (Scott Budman)
  10. (On how reporting has changed.) Politics! Tech covers China, Washington and AI, especially in semiconductors. (Don Clark)

My PRSA colleague Jennifer Yoder is penning a longer more journalistic article for the chapter’s blog. Look for that story soon.

###

Michelle McIntyre is a PR Consultant and IBM vet in Saratoga, California. She thanks Mark L. and Jennifer Yoder for their event notes. Credits: The first photo is Scott Budman and that is from the NBC Bay Area website. The second is of Don Clark and that’s his LinkedIn profile photo. Clark is also a musician.

Premium Business Advice from the Founder of Buzzfeed

Posted on by
Reply

By Michelle McIntyre

Earlier this week I heard a talk by Jonah Peretti, CEO and founder of entertainment and news website Buzzfeed, which has 200 million unique visitors monthly.

1JonahPeretti.InforumphotobyMichelle

To put this in perspective, Business Insider, which is no slouch, has 15.9 million and Time.com has 8.9 million.

A graduate of MIT Media Lab, Peretti lives in Brooklyn, NY, and was interviewed on stage by investor Chris Dixon at a Commonwealth Club INFORUM meeting in San Francisco, Calif.

As if he didn’t already have enough cool things to put on his LinkedIn profile, Peretti also co-founded Huffington Post.

Buzzfeed is known for its list format stories like The 40 Greatest Dog GIFs of All Time and quizzes like “Which 90s Toy Are You?” Its staff of 800 includes serious journalists who cover a variety of news from global terrorist threats to politics.

Because its stories are regularly shared millions of times, founder Jonah Peretti is fast becoming known as the master of virality.

Although Buzzfeed is sometimes criticized by more traditional people for its “fluffy” journalism (no pun intended), the business model works.

Here are some of Jonah Peretti’s more interesting comments and pieces of advice from the event in the areas of content marketing and entrepreneurship.

1. We optimize for content shares at Buzzfeed. You won’t click on a story to find out it is a trick. Another site might imply in the headline that two celebrities are dating, but when you click through to the story, you find out it’s not true.

2. We don’t look down on the business and advertising side of things. While the groups here are independent, they also respect one another.

3. When it comes to creating ads, we embrace innovation.

4. Regarding the popularity of video, he joked, “We are headed back to a preliterate society where soon no one will use words.”

5. Sometimes you have to be indifferent to business to serve the consumer.

6. When determining what content to run, we ask, will it change lives? Will it change laws? On a human level, we ask, does this have meaning?

7. One of the hardest and most important things is to build a great team. Startups need people with shared values and who also want to go after something big.

8. How do I attract talent? I let people do their best work and be more productive than they would be somewhere else.

9. Set up small groups of people each with a lot of autonomy. Let them build things inside of a company.

Jonah Peretti was asked what he thought of the Buzzfeed parodies, for example on Click-hole. “If it’s a parody and funny, I love it. At Buzzfeed we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

[The photo of Jonah Peretti on stage in San Francisco, Calif., was taken by Michelle McIntyre.]

###