Day: November 3, 2004

Kevin Dugan asks the question whether CEO blogs can really contribute to better communication with your audience or are they too risky to be of value – particularly for public companies?

He argues that other public facing blogs such as product blogs or event-related blogs might be a more effective means of outreach.

It’s an interesting question.

I think for the majority of organizations, ‘CEO blogs’ are probably out of reach.

Many CEO’s are simply too busy or have legal concerns.  However, there are probably opportunities for executive blogs.  For example Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz has been creating a lot of noise and controversy around his blog.

As with most things it’s a question for each organization. Some like Macromedia will have a network of bloggers, some will focus on one product or industry specific blog and some will force the poor executive into online writing.

Whatever the format and whoever the author(s), blogs do offer the ability to build conversations.

How you put your blog(s) together depends on your own organization and your objectives.

You certainly can’t criticize PR Week for not covering new emerging technologies. 

They’ve widely covered blogs and RSS in both the US and UK editions and Keith O’Brien has just written a piece on Wikis.

The flux of new technologies entering the market is enough to give the average PR pro a migraine. Just when one understands blogs, early adopter colleagues point out real simple syndication (RSS). Now water-cooler talk revolves around wikis, which can provide PR firms with internal communications enhancements; make writing press releases and communiques more of a team effort; and provide new opportunities for soft launches, tipping off journalists, and communicating with clients.

PR blogger and Global PR Blog Week co-founder Constantin Basturea is quoted in the story:

Constantin Basturea, PR blogger curator of The New PR wiki, www.thenewpr.com, says deploying wikis now can give firms a competitive edge. “A wiki is putting everyone on the same page, literally, and it allows people ‘to share’ the wiki’s space, plans, documents, ideas, comments, which is, in fact, the meaning of ‘communication,'” Basturea says via e-mail. His wiki is geared toward new media edification for his PR comrades.

If you’ve worked in media relations for a couple of years, you’ll be very aware that there really isn’t such a thing as “off-the-record”. While some journalists will adhere to it, just as many won’t and in truth you should only be sharing “off-the-record” comments should you wish to see it in print at a future date. At least that’s my experience and I know many PR pros who use off-the-record for just that purpose.

The next step up the command and control line is the Non disclosure agreement (NDA), where you get journalists to sign an onerous legal document that lays out when and what the journalist can write following a briefing.  It’s widely used when briefing the media on unannounced products or initiatives.

Well Andy Lark over at Sun has discovered a new media-centric TLA (three letter acronym), NFB or Not for Blogging. Seemingly a journalist invited to one of their briefings asked was the event NFB.

It’s going to be a real challenge for PR to define a NFB policy. OK, we can just say it. But doesn’t that undermine the value of blogs in the first place? Why hold an event and not allow blogging? In fact, as I discovered a year or so ago, you’d better have a WiFi network in place to enable it. Wouldn’t a ABP (Always Blog Please) be better for transparency?

I think this is a troublesome one.  If you’re briefing bloggers I’m not sure they’ll be willing to agree to that one. I think this all comes back to PR’s control issue. Rather than trying to restrict the messenger maybe we should be thinking about the best time and way to communicate.

There’s an awful lot of content being generated on how blogs are changing the very world we live in.

But what’s the reality for PR people? Are PR people using blogs? Are they pitching blogs?

I’m interested in hearing from anyone who is willing to share their positive or negative experiences from pitching blogs as part of a PR campaign.

I’m happy to shield identities to protect the innocent, but I think it would be a really interesting excercise to showcase the pros and cons of blog relations.

Any blog-related stories are relevant such as…

• Have you pitched blogs?
• How did you find the blogger?
• Was the blogger receptive or hostile?
• How did you deal with a negative response?
• What was the result?
• Were you able to track any measure of success?
• Have you started a corporate blog?
• What advice to you have?

I’d be delighted to hear from anyone willing to share their war stories, I think it would be a useful excercise in understanding how blogs are impacting PR right now.

Rest assured I’m happy to keep identities private if that’s your wish.

If you’ve experiences to share, why not get in touch with me.