Ron Ploof Interview
The holidays got in the way of getting this out as soon as I wanted to, but I’m excited to share with you an interview with my good friend and author Ron Ploof to discuss his new book Read This First: The Executive’s Guide to New Media-from Blogs to Social Networks
Ron granted me the first interview about his book and any chance to catch up and chat with him is a good thing for me. I’m honored to call him a friend and am psyched for people to get out there and read this book because I think it is better then most of the ones I’ve seen and read about social media.
Listen to the episode to find out how you can win a copy to give to your boss or another executive that you think needs to understand this stuff better.
As always if you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe in iTunes or leave a review for the show.
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Comments(6)
Hey CC,
Great interview with Ron – I’m itching to take delivery of his book which I’ve ordered from Amazon.
Not least because I will be standing in front of a bunch of clients and potential clients here in Scotland in late January to try to do exactly what Ron does – demystify the process of social media.
I certainly don’t claim to be any expert, but I’ve immersed and just plan to relay my own experiences as well as the tips, hints and useful info I’ve picked up from podcasts like yours.
I’ve already been advised these people are all mightily suspicious of social media – they think Facebook is for spotty teens and YouTube is for “perverts and weirdos” (one client actually said that to me, conveniently ignoring the fact it is porn-free and now the world’s second largest search engine).
Worst of all, most of them are utterly baffled by Twitter. They simply don’t get what possible use 140 characters can be for business.
So you can imagine the relief I felt when I visited ronamok.com and saw that Ron hasn’t only encountered all the same problems, he’s broken the naysayers down into precise groups (all of which I recognised immediately).
Not only will Ron’s anecdotes and advice help me collect my own thoughts for that January session, but I think my copy of his book will be something of a bible for me over the next six months and suspect that by June it will be dog-eared and rarely out of my hot little hands.
So if you have another copy, I have the ideal recipient in my mind – my business partner. I couldn’t ask for a better guy with whom to share running of our PR agency and our sister news and picture agency.
However, I also know he’s struggled to get his head round social media…he wants to believe and has even seen the benefit of tangible results. But at heart he’s an old-fashioned, traditional media guy and the new-fangled tools are taking on the appearance of a fire-breathing beast.
With a copy of Ron’s book to help him, I reckon there would soon be another dragon slain and another knight in shiny new armour claiming a place at the Social Media Round Table.
You know, there’s even a growing body of evidence to suggest King Arthur himself came from our neck of the woods – and not from England at all (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0728_040722_kingarthur.html).
Given Ron’s most recent (decidely Arthurian) blog post, I think your storyteller pal might just appreciate the symmetry there.
Thanks for the podcast, the blog and the tweets. Keep ‘em coming.
Cheers
Scott
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Hey CC. This was a great interview with Ron Ploof. Some of his stuff was gems, particularly the bit, about numbers aren’t the be all, it’s the passion of the audience. love the bit about techie visiting the big company. Take care, and happy new year.
Oh, boy do I have some people in mind for this. I’m going to buy a couple to put on the right desks. I plan to lead a seminar in our corporate auditorium on new / social media tools. It sounds like this book will be a good warm up to that.
I’ll buy ‘em. Pass yours on.
tailwinds,
CC (and Ron),
Better late than never, I only just got round to listening to this podcast – so much of what Ron spoke about resonated with me and my situation.
The B2B examples of successful social media use immediately challenged my thinking on current campaigns I am managing and the ones I am planning for 2010.
Within my organisation, there are a couple of books which are really starting to do the rounds (some mentioned in the podcast) with senior management and I think “Read This First” should definately be added to it!
I would love to give a copy to our Global VP of my vertical. In the near future I am going to have to do some selling of Interactive Marketing, to win budget, resources and minds of those above me.
I have the local experience, stats, success stories to support my case, but to influence top down, I think this book is an excellent tool. Many of the senior teams are aware of social and new media (even the CEO regularly references it) but do they really understand it?
I think this book could help (and me) them out.
Best,
Harry
Hi CC,
I know I’m a serious latecomer to this conversation (I just recently found you!) and the free book deal is long over, but I felt compelled to write to you anyway as an emergency case.
I work for a small company who reached a decent level of success in the last decade, and has become paralyzingly conservative since then in an effort to protect against future failure. My colleague and I in marketing are huge proponents of the benefits of social media when used correctly, and made a case for putting some of our marketing efforts in that direction. After a very long and torturous debate over about 6 months, we finally convinced the ownership to let us wade in. We created a company FaceBook page, and within weeks a number of our customers searched us out and “liked” us without any announcement or promotional push whatsoever. Customers who WANT to be engaged! Sounds like we’re off to a good start, right?
Here’s my problem: the powers that be are TERRIFIED of social media. They live in fear of the customer and what they might say or think about us. So far our posts consist of “here’s our product lineup,” “here are a couple of regional speaking engagements,” and “hey, we have a new website.” All very safe and innocuous. We are not allowed to post anything unless it is about our core products; we are not allowed to link to anything unless it is speaking favorably about our core products. They feel that uttering a single word about something that is not within our realm of expertise (aka. our core products) is over-stepping our bounds as a company and may potentially offend and/or alienate our customers. You and I both know that engaging our customers in a conversation about their wider experience – and yes, how our products can help in the grander scheme of things – is the way to go. But how do I convince them of that?
Ron’s book sounds amazing and I look forward to reading it myself. Should I discreetly leave a copy on my boss’ desk? Do you think HE can convince them to let us start actually conversing with our customers, or am I just doomed here? Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Colleen Clifford
PS – thanks for all the GREAT content and positive vibes – you keep me fighting the good fight.