Katie: And we're back with the BusinessMaker's Overtime Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now, at this point in the show, we're going to take a listen to our on-the-road correspondent, Erica O'Grady's recent interview with quite an exceptional guy.

Esther: He is exceptional. I didn't even realize how exceptional he is.

Katie: Exactly. And we're talking about an amazing fellow named Shel Israel. He is a long time public relations professional, a number of years past. He's been very, very keen on helping businesses interact through social media and through social networks.

Esther: Right. And he has a unique perspective because he's been on the journalism side and then switched over to the PR side for many, many years. So he –

Katie: Many years.

Esther: has the perspective of both the journalist and a PR professional, which I think is important when you're practicing PR, to understand the mind of a journalist.

Katie: Exactly. And to have that real world experience. And his PR company, actually, focused primarily on start-ups.

Esther: Right.

Katie: So, I mean, here is a guy that is working with businesses that may or may not have a lot of capital funding them in their early days, and really helping them do unique and creative things to make a splash and to just plain make it.

Esther: Exactly

Katie: And now it's so exciting because he's able to use these long-learned, tried and true lessons with new and unique tools to do the exact same thing for businesses all over.

Esther: And don't worry. He actually is an expert.

Katie: He actually is an expert. No more –

Esther: A legitimate expert.

Katie: Exactly. And not just because it says so on his Twitter page. He's the real deal.

Esther: He's a real guru.

Katie: Exactly. So, Shel and Erica were discussing his latest book, which is actually called Twitterville.

Esther: That's right.

Katie: And now, in past years, he co-wrote a book called Naked Conversations with a guy named Robert Scoble, who many of you may know through way back when he was a very influential force in getting Microsoft out in the social media world, and now is running a number of businesses of his own and is kind of an online social media celebrity in and of himself. But this time around, Shel has taken much more of a focused approach on just one particular network, and of course that network is Twitter, our favorite micro-blogging space.

Esther: That's right.

Katie: So let's listen to what Shel has to say about public relations.

Shel: PR has always been filled with people that think it's hype and pitch, and it never has been. It's been about finding news in new things and giving it to people who will find that either useful or interesting. What has changed are the tools.

Esther: What I love about what he's saying is that it focuses so much on the conversation, and what actually is newsworthy. I'm sorry, but your X, Y and Z isn't newsworthy!

Katie: Exactly!

Esther: And I don't care about it. And nobody does. In fact, what I read are books. I don't read your press release.

Katie: Right.

Esther: Word to everyone out there practicing public relations. I am not reading your press release, and neither is anybody else, unless you're Nike or Apple or a Fortune 500 company. No one's reading your press releases. So, what he's saying is that there are other ways to get your message out there, if you have a legitimate message, if you have something that people want to talk about. Think about what you are trying to put out there before you put it out there, because if you don't want to read it – if you wouldn't want to read it if you were just any person, it's not worth talking about.

Katie: Exactly. And maybe this kind of indicates a really necessary shift in some middle management ideas on what public relations and marketing professionals should be doing in an organization. I mean, it's not just, "All right gang. We're gonna get this many press releases out the door, and we want our name in the New York Times, two times this month!" Rather, it's looking at your end user, your end audience, your customer, whatever it is.

Esther: Where are they?

Katie: I mean, what do they want to hear? What are they gonna find value in that you can provide them and make that connection?

Esther: As he said, what tools are you gonna use to get there? It's not a press release. It's not the traditional ways, most likely.

Katie: Now, I love looking at classic public relations, looking at the father of PR, Edward Bernays, and I love seeing the crazy creative things that this man did. I mean, he's the reason why people wear hair nets. He's the reason why kids carved Ivory soap. He's the reason why we have highways in the United States. And, watching people like that, who knew exactly who they wanted to touch and who they wanted to influence, and who they wanted to inspire, and just the unique ways that they went about things, and that was, what? In the 1920s? 1940s? And now we have this magical world called the Internet, like, what can we do? What can we inspire in people with these new tools?

Esther: Totally. There's so many things you can do, so many different ways of doing things that we didn't have even five, ten years ago, that, it's definitely revolutionized the PR world. And on the flip side, it's allowed a lot of people who think they're PR professionals, but are not, to do things that are not necessarily – maybe they're not the best practices of PR, or they're just flat out not working. So, I see a lot of people practicing PR, or thinking they're practicing PR but aren't necessarily doing that. And I also want to say that traditional public relations does still exist and does still work.

Katie: It does.

Esther: There are plenty of opportunities and plenty of ways. It's just the way you get in touch with people is different now. And the way you reach out to them. And the means in which you communicate is so much different now.

Katie: So, let's listen to what Shel has to say about this interesting transformation that some businesses are going through these days.

Shel: Businesses are going through a painful transformational period right now. They're going from getting messages out through tools that – they're really not evil as a lot of people in social media try to say – they just, they become very ineffective. If anybody out there really loves watching the advertisements on television between those little excerpts that are called programs, they're getting lonely, and they're also probably getting older. The world has changed and gotten a lot smaller because Twitter and other tools is allowing us to reorganize, to break through the barriers of geography to find other people all over the world who share what we're interested in.

Katie: So the first thing that comes to mind after hearing Shel speak is "It's a small world after all. It's a small world –" I mean, thanks to tools like Twitter and Facebook and any other social network out there, geography doesn't really matter any more. I mean, it's really this global community. It's reaching out –

Esther: Skype. Goodness gracious!

Katie: to – yeah. I mean, it's reaching out to people in creative and very special ways that, yeah, it doesn't matter if it's your local new reporter anymore. It could be some mommy-blogger living in Utah. It doesn't even matter. The fact is that you don't have to use those old, tired methods of communication anymore. You get to be you.

Esther: Right. And they're also really expensive. If you're a company that has millions of dollars to spend on advertising on a yearly basis, or maybe you have millions to spend on a monthly basis, congratulations to you. Make us useful at that.

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

Esther: But what about Mom and Pops, or what about even small to medium size businesses that do fairly well, but can't spend their money on very expensive production quality ads? It doesn't work. There are so many other ways to get your message out there, that, like I said, traditional advertising still has a place and it still does work, but not for most businesses. Not for 99.9 percent of the businesses out there. And while we're trying to promote business and promote entrepreneurs, I think it's important that we tell people this because there are so many ways to get out there and to make your message heard.

Katie: Exactly. And it's not that you need to solely be relying on a Twitter account. I mean, it's all about that healthy combination of offline and online marketing and PR. Like, for instance, I don't know if you've heard of this company, Naked Pizza. And this is a company that started out this small little pizza company and they have grown an enormous fan base primarily using Twitter, their blog, and Facebook, and I mean they're just a pizza company that uses healthy products and yet somehow they've made this global splash and people are fanatical about them.

Esther: I think we can also talk about Coffee Grounds in that way.

Katie: Coffee Grounds, yeah, a local coffee shop in Houston, Texas, that has gone from a fun little place that has live music, good coffee, wine, beer, and all that good stuff, to a place that has enormous community –

Esther: Community significance, for sure.

Katie: Community significance.

Esther: And has also gotten major national press coverage – I wanna throw that out there – through the tools that they're using. They're not pitching to magazines. They're not calling reporters that they don't know. They're doing what they do best, and getting their message out there in a way that they know best, Facebook, Twitter, talking to people, holding events. I think we have to talk about events as being a very significant part of a campaign because –

Katie: Real live events with actual people in the same room together.

Esther: Exactly. They hold lots of great events that bring people together, different sects of the community, and make it place for community and a place for collaboration.

Katie: Exactly. Exactly.

Esther: So, that's why they've become so popular. And, getting back to his quote that he just gave us, especially with the advent of Tivo and DVR and technology that allows us to fast-forward through every commercial, how many people would sit and watch a commercial now? It's killing advertising in that way, unless you watch live television, because you vote for America's Got Talent, or whatever. But, how many people actually watch commercials anymore because they want to?

Katie: People will still watch commercials, but only if they're so freaking amazing and gorgeous and awesome, but then that's totally giving these major companies that have gi-normous ad budgets the upper had. It has to be this cinematic experience on your small screen.

Esther: Well, commercials almost have to be viral videos now. They can't just be commercials. They have to be viral videos that they can put on YouTube and spread around the world.

Katie: Or even if they're not viral videos, they need some sort of aspect to them that can be interactive. So maybe it's sending you to a link to create dancing Christmas elves with your head on them, or maybe it's encouraging you to put some sticker on your car, and if they catch you you'll win a free Vespa or – I'm just making this up. But it's not just a company speaking to consumers; it's the community. It's us talking to one another, growing with and for one another. And I feel like Shel. With Twitterville, with Naked Conversations, he really sees just the true heart and soul behind social media tools to do just that. That's pretty amazing. So be sure to run to your nearest bookstore to pick up a copy of Shel Israel's new book, Twitterville and if you'd like to listen to the entire interview with Erica O'Grady and Shel Israel, jump on to thebusinessmakers.com and search for Shel, that's S-H-E-L Israel. And now it's time for our business survival tip with Carl Kleimann from Odyssey One Source.

Carl: Hello, business owners. This is Carl Kleimann with the business survival tip from Odyssey One Source. As a business owner or manager, you recognize the importance of making good hiring decisions. For most businesses, quality employees have become far more important today than machinery, raw materials, and even technology. So this begs the question: Does your company have a formal hiring policy? Do you begin each employee search with a formal job description that clearly outlines the job requirements and have you considered which sourcing methods are most likely to attract the best candidates for your business?

An Internet job board appeals to a different audience than a sign posted at your place of business. Follow a script when interviewing candidates in order to make a valid comparison and to help you avoid asking questions that can get you into trouble. And finally, conduct a thorough background investigation and drug screen on each new hire in order to ensure their integrity.

I am Carl Kleimann, and this has been another business survival tip by Odyssey One Source, ranked as the number one professional employer organization two years running by the Black Book of Outsourcing. For more information on this and other tips for employers, please visit OdysseyOneSource.com.

Katie: You're listening to the BusinessMaker's Overtime Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And when we come back, more from Katie and myself.