Anthony Parcero asks a great question. As a PR professional how do you encourage and promote blogs without causing a backlash against you or your client.
He uses the Raging Cow episode as an example. The Raging Cow blog program was attacked and rightly criticized because a group of “viral marketeers” tried to surreptitiously gain third party endorsement through offering inducements to a range of influential bloggers. In effect it was a fake, and of course there were “thirty pieces” of silver involved.
The essence of a successful blog is honesty and authenticity. The Blogger must have the time, opinions and interest to maintain a blog. For that blog to succeed there must be an audience and you must be able to reach that audience.
When one of these conditions is missing the blog will fail, in fact if you don’t meet them all, don’t even try. For example my CEO has the opinions but not the time. But our Chief Scientist has the interest, the opinions and part of his job specification is to build dialogue with like-minded individuals. So his blog prospers, it’s not propoganda, it’s his opinions. And that authenticity works.
You can’t force a blog. You can educate on the benefits of blogging in terms of creating a conversation with your target audience, with providing valuable information and insights, but as soon as you try and exert control, the project fails.
This is the power of the blog. The real, valuable and authentic blogs invariably rise to the top. Promotion should be restricted to promoting it on your website, in your literature and creating connections with like-minded individuals. However, any covert communication should be avoided.
Right now the predominant corporate use of blogs is in the technology sector, because that’s where the early adopters are. But we are already seeing them proliferate outside technology. Take a look at Rick Bruner’s client BizNet Travel as a good example of a non-technology related blog.
Communicators must move away from the notion of control. Your ability to control the message, the medium and the desired result is being reduced every day.
Instead we need to promote a better understanding of how we communicate with people. That is the change that the Internet is bringing.
It reduces control but exponentially increases our ability to talk with our audience. In many ways the teachings of the Cluetrain Manifesto are being delivered by this new communication model.
The longer we stand knee deep in water waving the tide back, the bigger the risk that Public Relations people will be swept away and a new breed of marketing communicator will emerge.
They will operate without a covert agenda of manipulation and sleight of hand a-la Raging Cow.
Blogging and effective Blog Relations is the triumph of an honest and open approach to communication over obfuscation and denial. I’m not asking you to like it, but I believe it is the reality!
If this post if far too serious for you, enjoy the Gluetrain Manifesto:
“Markets are conversations. Conversations are markets. Markets are he as you are we and we are all together.”
Murphy's Law 