Another sign that the economic recovery is moving along nicely is the launch of a new marketing journal. CMO is a IDG publication aimed at senior marketing professionals.
The magazine combines case studies with a lot of opinion and informational pieces. Initial stories include a case study of Schnieder National and articles on new technologies, metrics, branding, and what’s wrong with marketing.
Ned Lundquist’s excellent JOTW newsletter has a “Pimp My Job” blog, which provides an outlet for PR people to vent their unhappiness at their current place of employment.
It makes for interesting reading….
Jim Horton is the original purveyor of online aggregated PR content. Along with his blog, he maintains the ever-popular Online Public Relations directory and regularly shares his knowledge on a whole host of PR areas. He’s recently penned a six-page introduction to media relations (PDF). As always, it’s worth a read regardless of your experience or area of practice.
“Any PR practitioner who has worked with reporters knows how difficult it is reach them. Some reporters never come to a phone or answer e-mail. So, why contact reporters at all? Increasingly, practitioners aren�t. They employ an amorphous group of communications skills and techniques in areas such as corporate communications or marketing communications or investor relations or employee communications. Handling reporters is often consigned to media relations specialists. But failure to work with reporters can hurt a company, as Wal-Mart learned.”
USA Today re-publishes an article on how PR can provide marketing support for entrepreneurial firms.
The Globe and Mail looks at how the NHL is beating the players with PR…
“The players also are competing against a formidable public-relations machine. In addition to using the league’s staff, commissioner Gary Bettman has retained New York powerhouse Howard Rubenstein.”
Robert A. Kelly has an article on how PR is still a mystery to some people. I’d estimate it’s a mystery to most…
Askmen.com has an article on a career in Public Relations. They summarize as follows:
Upside:
- Not a routine
- You get exposure
- Adrenaline Rush
Downside:
- Long hourse
- No social life
Alice Marshall tackles a story from Infocom on how to avoid being seen as a flack. She points out that she is a flack 🙂
Corporate blogging or employee blogging is an emerging area of Public Relations.
It offers many benefits to the employer, from providing your audience with a human face to your organization to offering a valuable R&D outlet where in political parlance, you can “fly a kite” and see how people react to a new product or service idea.
Of course there’s a flipside. When you provide a more informal access point to your audience there’s the potential for issues a-la Friendster.
There’s a fine line here. If you insist that corporate blogs go through a rigid approval process, then the likelihood is that they will lose the very quality that makes them valuable – namely their individuality.
Steve Rubel notes that Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s highest profile blogger has instigated a media policy, where media interviews must be passed through the company’s PR firm Waggener Edstrom. Furthermore he’s posted an FAQ on the matter.
I see this as a very positive move.
Obviously the nature of business is that employees must be aware of the sensitivity of what they write. It’s a similar issue to what emerged when e-mail and web access became common place. Many people were concerned about the risks. In response most firms have an formal policy on the acceptable use of work e-mail.
Similarly, every organization should have guidelines in place for employees who wish to blog (Examples: Groove Networks, Sun Microsystems, George DaFermos).
Microsoft have clearly noticed that Scoble is a high profile blogger, who has a lot of interaction with the media. As a public company they have to make efforts to manage that element – as they would with ANY employee.
As long as Waggener Edstrom don’t become a bottleneck then I think this move is a good thing – and a further sign that blogs can provide an ideal platform for promoting your organization and your ideas. You don’t have to be a maverick to blog….
Murphy's Law 