PR blogger Trevor Cook has written a fascinating piece on blogging.
It takes a balanced look at the potential for blogging and has been published in the Australian Financial Review.
“Blogging attracts people because it is cheap and easy, great fun and informative. It offers a heady mixture of individuality and community participation yet it is much more than this – it is changing the way we share information and opinions.”
Jon Udell over at Infoworld has previously provided some interesting insights into how he sees PR in the age of blogs playing out.
On Monday he posted some really interesting thoughts on how blogs impact his work as a technology journalist.
“The basic pattern is simple: a story gestates in blogspace, appears in print and online, and then matures in blogspace.”
“Of course in the trade magazine business, there is a whole profession dedicated to helping me do that. When a story appears on the editorial calendar, I’m swamped with phone calls and emails from PR folk who want to supply me with analysts, executives, domain experts, and customers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I sometimes accept these opportunities, and in some cases, I learn from them. It’s dangerous, though, to be led down the path of least resistance. So I rely on the blog to find other people who have important things to tell me. As you can imagine, this makes PR folk really nervous.”
Recommended Reading.
The problem with a well executed, well financed marketing/PR campaign is that your success can often be counter-productive if the product or service doesn’t meet expectations.
One of the best examples of this was the 1985 launch of New Coke. Here was one of the world’s most loved brands 
launching a newer, and according to taste tests, better product. It got saturation media coverage around the world and the launch was executed to perfection. Only one problem, consumers hated it.
It was launched in April and by July it was pulled. People didn’t like it and the story of the failure of New Coke got more press inches than the initial success. Coke spent millions and learned an important lesson… or did they?
Now Coke is facing it’s Tylenol crisis. After a successful, �7 million launch of its Dasani bottled water on the UK market, it has had to pull the water because traces of bromate, a cancer-causing chemical have been found in the water. Furthermore it has transpired they were simply taking common tap water and putting it through a “purification process”. This process which at the launch was described as a “highly sophisticated purification process based on Nasa spacecraft technology”, was in reality the same process found in the most popular domestic water purification units
This is clearly the nightmare situation for the PR professional, particularly when the tap water doesn’t have bromate and there’s a cost differential of 0.03 pence for the tap water and 95 pence for a half litre of Dasani.
It’s also an interesting example of how the geographical barriers for crises are falling, this story has been covered all over the globe: UK Story, US Story, Australian Story, New Zealand story, African Story.
From the BBC:
Judith Snyder, brand PR manager for Dasani, confirmed “municipal” water supplies were used but said the source was “irrelevant” because it “doesn’t affect the end result… We would never say tap water isn’t drinkable….It’s just that Dasani is as pure as water can get – there are different levels of purity.”
It looks like Dasani has a different level of purity alright. Another example of how good PR and marketing can be wasted if the product doesn’t live up to expectations. A true PR nightmare.
Constantin Basturea has a great collection of links to some recent thinking on blogs and their impact.
Phil Gomes also has some interesting blog links including some recent research on the accountability of bloggers
Jim Horton points to an interesting story on how the growing use of search engines can have negative, as well as positive effects on your business.
A story from the San Francisco Examiner on how Sutter Health is trying to tackle its image problems
The Detroit News profiles local PR firm Clear! Blue
Meanwhile it looks like MarketingWonk has had a major redesign.
Well after a few days away I’m back. Nothing like a few days hard work to put things in perspective.
First up is a fantastic interview by Ben Silverman with Kelly Larabee the head PR at Skype.
I always find it fascinating to hear the opinions of other PR practitioners. Kelly has some interesting thoughts.
“The basic rule with journalists is to assume that their not 100% focused on your single issue and to achieve the results you want and the beneficial story, you have to be able to provide perspective and deep context. In providing the back-story, you have to be honest, straightforward and willingly give insight to the opposition�s information and view � all without overly spinning as this time is the foundation of your credibility.”
Julie Daniel provides some useful tips on managing your inbox and boosting your productivity – something we can all do with. (Thanks to John Pocaro for the link).
“But, if your in-box makes your brain hurt, do yourself a favour� go through and delete the things you don�t need and file away the things you may want to refer back to later.”
On a related subject, Dan Gillmor re-iterates the importance of the e-mail subject line if you want to avoid the delete key.
With Spam levels continuing to rise, the subject line could be the single most important element of successful e-mail marketing – focus on it!
Phil Gomes points to a story from the New York Daily News that reports Jayson Blair’s book has only sold around 1,400 copies. Hurrah the purchasing public is getting sense!
Phil is also quoted in an article in eContent Magazine on how RSS can reduce information overload.
Gomes says, “RSS is incorruptibly opt-in. No one can force an RSS feed down my throat. I’ll simply unsubscribe.” The RSS model puts the subscriber in complete control of the subscription process. You only subscribe to the feeds you want, then you can unsubscribe by simply deleting the feed in your news aggregator.
Dan Gillmor, as most of you will know, is a very influential technology writer who hosts an incredibly popular weblog. He had over 3 million readers of his blog last year.
He also happens to be one of the most thoughful people on the impact new technology, such as weblogs and RSS, will have on journalism.
If you’re working in Public Relations his thoughts are hugely relevant. While obviously the effects of new technology on journalism are important for media relations, these same technologies will also impact other areas of the PR profession from Internal Communications to Community Relations and beyond.
He is currently writing a new book called Make the News and in the best traditions of interactive journalism, he is requesting feedback on the book as he’s writing it. He currently has four chapters online and is looking for readers to identify areas he’s missed or correct any factual errors.
Dan is eating his own dog food.
Take a few minutes to visit, read and participate.
Thanks to the ever prolific Colin McKay over at Canuckflack for the link.
John Cass has an interesting post regarding the issue of negative publicity on the Internet.
In particular he looks at the fact that now you can quickly and easily (through web sites, weblogs and RSS) provide your own version of events. Then, if or when a crisis or negative issue arises, people have a ready source of information reflecting your views.
I think one of the major reasons that the Internet and weblogs provide such a valuable PR avenue is that you can reach your audience directly and to paraphrase the Cluetrain, build conversations with them. If you can successfully cultivate that relationship with your audience, then you will be in a much stronger position should an issue or negative comments from a third party arise in the future.
Prevention is far better (and more profitable) than cure.
“I think that just as people can throw mud at you, you don’t have to wait for more. Companies that react quickly to bad publicity and crisis communications can mitigate such bad postings.”
Constantin Basturea has created an excellent aggregated RSS feed that publishes the latest postings from practically every PR blogger (except those without RSS feeds or those using Atom).
Unfortunately PR Opinions isn’t in there, like its author, its RSS feeds aren’t well formed 🙂
Check out the RSS feed it’s a useful summary – but don’t forget to come back here!
Murphy's Law 