Quick'n'Dirty podcast faces off with the NHL
Needless to say, I hijacked most of the interview from my poor co-host Aaron Strout, and hammered DiLorenzo with all kinds of questions ranging from the change in his role from traditional corporate communications to social media, what the NHL is doing with social media to make hockey no longer a "secondary" sport in the U.S., as well as how they balance the naysayers of commissioner Gary Bettman while still allowing him to be open online.
Both Aaron and I have to give DiLorenzo credit for doing something that no previous guest had yet done: turned the tables on us. He asked how we thought the NHL was doing with it's Twitter / social media presence. I suggested that an improvement would be having a quirky social media lady live tweeting from the San Jose Sharks locker room, but that got shot down pretty fast. I had a serious answer as well, but you'll have to listen to hear it.
Hockey fans will really want to hear this interview, so listen to the replay.
Prior to our interview with the NHL we talked about our social network of the week, which really has expanded to include anything social network-related these days. Our choice? Twtvite. Twtvite is a pretty cool tool that simply allows tweet-up management. It started as a very basic service that used to force users to tweet out what they RSVPed to certain events. I whined about that often on Twitter and caught the attention of Felipe Coimbra, Twtvite developer, who urged me several times to give the service another try, claiming that several improvements had been made. I did and the results were good. Listen to learn more about why Aaron and I both like this service very much. It's snazzy.
Since we were in the mood to provide compliments, we also highlighted our favorite Twitter user of the week, which was Brett Petersel / @brett. Petersel is all over the Web and has a pretty good reach in terms of networking and information. Aaron waxed that Petersel is consistently providing good information via retweet. I marveled at how much he actually looks like Christian Bale in person. Definitely worth a follow, for either reason.
Finally, it was time for a point / counterpoint that really wasn't much of a debate at all, but still worth a listen. Aaron asked if brands should pay to be present at South By Southwest Interactive, which I couldn't intelligently answer because I've never actually been to SXSWi. Give a listen to find out what Aaron thinks. Hint: Aaron works with a lot of big brands, so if you represent one it would be smart to heed his advice.
That's all, folks. This week join us at 3PT/6ET on Thursday while we interview Sarah Molinari of Home Depot about the company's social media and strategy. See you then.