The World’s Leading posed an interesting question last week:
Why is it that there are so few in-house PR people blogging?
It’s a good question. More than that, it’s an important question.
Balanced opinions are better opinions
The debate among PR bloggers on the shiny new new thing is interesting, but the really valuable discussion is the intersection of online and traditional PR. This is where the value is, because this is where the online world will impact our practice of Public Relations.
There is an equally valid argument to be made that the fact that the overwhelming majority of PR bloggers are on the agency side of the house, means that we are missing a valuable perspective on how the online world actually impacts Public Relations.
Maybe this is why I’m so grumpy all the time…
As someone who has played the poacher and the gamekeeper, there are as many differences between working in-house and in an agency as there are similarities – the same could be said for the benefits and drawbacks.
I don’t have the answer I’m afraid, however as usual I’m not shy to offer some suggestions…
- One potential hurdle for in-house practitioners is that they are often the public face of the company and therefore they may feel that there is a risk that anything they blog could be treated as official comment – now of course this could also be beneficial, however a fear that a mistake could be career limiting may be a factor – and it’s one of the reasons I purposely don’t regularly discuss Microsoft on this blog.
- Blogs provide a great platform for promoting thought leadership. From an agency perspective I can see why it makes a lot of sense to have your best and brightest sharing their opinions. However, there isn’t the same motivation for many companies where PR is not a core competency. It might be perceived as either a high risk activity or a waste of time.
- Finally, and this one is a stretch, perhaps on the agency side there is a greater need to look at the changing world, new developments etc., and therefore that lends itself more naturally to getting involved in blogging, where in the in-house role the challenge is different.
Maybe (or probably) it’s none of the above.
What I do know is that in-house practitioners have a fantastic perspective to share on traditional and online Public Relations – and the PR blogosphere is poorer without them.
If you’re working in-house and have a blog let me know.
Update:
I’ve been a little frazzled of late 🙂
Some immediate in-house bloggers include the irrepressible Kevin Dugan, the ever-present Colin McKay, my colleague Thomas Lutz, Dells’ Bernie Charland…..
Murphy's Law 