About the video podcast, Conversations in Public Relations

Mary Fletcher Jones, Host of Conversations in Public Relations

Conversations in Public Relations features online video interviews with Washington, DC-area public relations, advertising, and communications professionals.  The series is hosted by Mary Fletcher Jones, and is found on iTunes, YouTube, the Conversations in Public Relations blog, and other sites.

Goals associated with this series include

• Provide useful and relevant, career-enriching content to the local PR and communications community.
• Familiarize the PR and advertising community with the contributions and insights of local thought leaders.
• Promote the profession in a positive, entertaining, and accessible way.

The Investment:  Conversations in Public Relations is produced by Fletcher Prince, which underwrites the production and promotion expenses of the series as a public service to the local communications community.  Guests do not pay to appear on the program and are not compensated for their appearance.  The videos are distributed free of charge.

Each video in the series represents about 20 hours of work, including scheduling guests, obtaining and resizing photos and logos, writing scripts, guest bios, and show notes, videotaping, editing, creating and inserting graphics and music, formatting for video, previewing with guests, and uploading the final versions to the blog, iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, and other video sharing sites.  Additional hours are spent promoting the show and individual episodes on Twitter, Facebook advertising, postcard mailings, and press releases.

Target Audience: Public relations, marketing communications, and advertising professionals in the Washington, DC area.  However, the podcast is downloaded all over the world and the series has a global group of Facebook fans.

Content: 5-10 minute video profiles of

• Professionals who specialize in a niche area/provide subject matter expertise (e.g., Arnold Worldwide’s Karen Riordan and Susan Rink)
• Washington PR Woman of the Year Award winners (e.g., APCO Worldwide’s Margery Kraus and Porter Novelli’s Carolyn Tieger)
• Representatives from professional membership organizations (PRSA, Ad Club, Social Media Club, IABC, STC WDC, WWPR, etc.)
• Representatives from businesses that cater to the PR/communications community (e.g., Marketwire, BurrellesLuce)
• PR Authors, bloggers, news media (e.g., Robert Deigh, Kate Perrin)
• Communications students and young professionals (e.g., Kristen Powers)
• Volunteer and pro bono work projects
• Representatives for special events, awards, and conferences relevant to public relations and advertising

Distribution: YouTube, Blip.TV, Facebook, iTunes, and other free online video distribution channels.  Conversations in Public Relations Blog. The Washington Marketing and PR Examiner.com column.

Promotion: Twitter posts, Facebook Fan page, monthly give-away for Facebook fans, targeted Facebook paid ads, postcard mailings to public relations and advertising agencies, press releases to local news media/bloggers.

Reach Statistics: Between its launch in January 2009 and May 15, 2009, the video podcast has downloaded 1,000 times through iTunes, the 31 videos on YouTube have been viewed 1,320 times, and videos have also been viewed through Facebook Video, Blip.TV, AOL Video, and Daily Motion. The show’s blog has been viewed more than 1,100 times. The show’s Facebook Page has 80 fans from all over the world, and the show’s Twitter account has 80 followers.