Category: General

Why is everyone surprised about bad blog relations?

Over the past week there’s been a lot of discussion about the paucity of good PR practice online. 

The recent Chris Anderson and Marshall Kirkpatrick episodes have created a lot of hand wringing across the world of blogs on how PR people "don’t get it".

Quelle surprise!

If you’ve ever listened to a journalist offload their feelings on the quality of engagement they get from PR people in the traditional media world, then the news that there’s a lot of examples of blog relations malpractice shouldn’t come as a surprise.image Should it?

What has changed is that poor practice is now quickly and easily published and shared online.

There’s loads and loads of great advice available online about how to conduct effecting "blog relations". 

The core tenets are pretty simple:
1) Understand these are bloggers not journalists

2) Spend time understanding what the blogger writes about and if they are willing to engage with you or your client

3) Engage with the blogger, don’t spam them.

That’s boiling it down to the bare bones, Todd Defren’s guide will give you more detail.  But the key point here is that good media relations practice is very similar to good blog relations practice.

Therefore the fact that media relations is often so poor, should prepare us for the news that blog relations is equally poor.

Of course blog relations is only the snow crystals on the summit of the iceberg.  There’s a lot more to online communications than blogs.

Recently I’ve been doing some talks with PR folks on the question of Web 2.0 and Public Relations and there’s no question that practitioners have identified this as an important professional issue.

I’ll provide my recommendations on how to get started in a subsequent post, but the best place to start is by reading some of the knowledge that’s already online.  You can’t lick this off a stone.

 

 

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PR People: Beware the list of lists

Since the dawn of PR our profession has a proud history of using lists.

We have Top Ten lists, Bottom Ten lists, in fact we have PR lists covering practically every facet of human existence.

So in the spirit of "those who live by the sword…" it’s probably no surprise that those same lists are coming back to haunt us.

Over the past week I’ve identified three categories of such lists…

 

1) The "I don’t want to be on that list" list

Wired Editor-in-Chief and well known author Chris Anderson has clambered onto his high horse (I imagine it would have to be a high horse as I’m sure it has a LONG tail… sigh… sorry I couldn’t resist) and published a list of PR e-mail addresses that he is blacklisting from his Inbox.image

Now that’s probably a list you don’t want to be on.

However, before anyone climbs aboard their own pony I should point out the Greenhouse rule of blogging.

As Todd Defren manfully (should that person-fully?) pointed out recently, the moral high ground can often become a windy, lonely place.

Instead, a whispered "tut-tut" followed by a quiet "there but for the grace of jebus" is often the best response to such incidents.

2) The "I want to be on that list but it ain’t going to happen" list

There’s loads of candidates here obviously.

Many have words like "fastest", "millionaire", "guru", and "beautiful".

However I’m taking a simpler example such as Todd Andrlik’s Power 150.

Although I’d never admit it publicly (this is just between us OK?) and while I try to discourage it, I have a penchant for "vanity surfing" a couple of times a year.

You know what I’m talking about.

Every time I check the Power 150 list I’m falling further back (currently descending past #175).

By the way, this is a good validation of the list because I’ve been running this blog on fumes for a while now and the bloggers putting in the time and effort are climbing up while I slip and slip.

I just hope we move to the "Power 550" as soon as possible.

3) The "Who cares?" list

Finally we come to the list that no one should care about.

Here I am talking about the anonymous (and gutless?) malefemale PR blogger who "retired" recently after grinding more axes than a Canadian lumberjack, without adding one byte of value to the PR community.

"It" recently came out of retirement (after nearly a full week with its hooves up)to insult a range of PR bloggers whose only crime was to have expressed their opinions (without hiding their identities).

Many of these bloggers I know and respect, in any case we should shun cowardice on this scale – no link love from here.

We’ll miss "it" not…

Note: I’m not referring to "The World’s Leading" by the way, which actually does make me laugh from time to time and tars everyone with the same brush in an even handed manner… well kind of.

Update: I see The World’s Leading is hanging up it’s HTML editor as well…

The publicist..

If you work in Public Relations you probably have an incredibly enjoyable career with the odd bad day thrown in.

When you have those days, please remember, it could always be worse…

Courtesy of Trevor Cook.

PR's Death: A broken clock is right twice a day…

A gentle yawn, a quick stretch and then a long sigh.

Here we go again.

Once again I am failing in my preferred course of action which is to resist the  knee jerk post.

I am writing about the latest “wisdom” from our favourite self-appointed PR-industry guru Tom Foremski.

Tom has a long and proud track record of proclaiming the demise of “traditional” Public Relations.

This is just the latest.  But once again I’ll re-state my view that Tom is ahead of his (and everyone else’s) time.

PR isn’t dying or about to die. 

No agency or practitioner that is worth their salt or are serious about communicating effectively on behalf of its client is going to eschew traditional media and traditional PR activities for the bright shine of the new new online thing.

Yes PR is changing, but please, let’s try and keep some perspective.

Read Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy.

It’s not about the tools.

It’s about the audience.

If your audience still (gasp) reads newspapers, then that’s still a valuable media. It may not have hype, it may not raise $400m in VC funding, but it’s bloody important.

In my opinion, Mr. Foremski’s post is pure rubbish – and I think five years writing on blogs about “New PR” and “Old PR” gives me some perspective on the matter.

I also work in PR which (shock) gives me a little more insight into the real world rather than the hyperbole and the mis-intended irony.

Mr. Foremski writer:

“Strumpette and Amanda Chapel tried to stir up changes in the PR industry and encourage a new form of PR, by openly discussing ethical issues, and all the unpleasant aspects of knowing how the sausage is made.”

Then with no trace of irony goes on to discuss Transparency.

Strumpette was the most opaque PR blog on the roll. 

Hiding (I suspect) his identity Strumpette didn’t try and champion change, instead it was purely an attack vehicle for someone with an axe to grind.  Don’t mistake a grudge for open discussion.

Contrast Stumpette with “The World’s Leading” which takes a wry look at the business (in the UK) but is at least funny and even handed – everyone’s a target.

I’ve written various posts that address this issue of PR’s death, but given people still keep writing them, I think it’s OK that I keep rebutting.

Update: Some other good commentary added

Foremski-link:

Strumpette-links:

PR around the world…

Many years ago (I can’t believe it’s only three) we had the first Global PR blog week.

It was a fantastic undertaking and the first time that PR bloggers from around the world came together, worked together and delivered some pretty good content.

News is out that Constantin is kicking off Global PR Blog Week 3.0.

Hurrah!

Send him feedback on the format of the event, volunteer your time, your expertise etc.

This is a worthwhile venture and you my even show “experts” that there’s life in the PR business yet 🙂

The changing face on online marketing…

McKinsey have released a survey on how companies are undertaking marketing online and how they see the market changing over the next three years. [Free registration Required]

I won’t regurgitate the entire survey here as the report makes interesting reading.  Spending in online marketing is (unsurprisingly) expected to increase.

In 2010 respondents expect a majority of their customers to discover new products or services online and a third to purchase goods there. A majority of the respondents also expect their companies to be getting 10 percent or more of their sales from online channels in 2010—twice as many companies as have hit that mark today. These expectations appear to be driving plans for future spending, at least in some areas.

By 2010 respondents believe that the top activities customers will be undertaking online are:

  1. Searching for information
  2. Becoming aware of new products
  3. Using services (support, after-sales etc)
  4. Comparing prices
  5. Buying products and services

Why blogs expand the mind

You know, we live in crazy times.  We lurch from crisis to crisis, balancing meetings, launches, deadlines and work-life balance while often struggling and failing to keep a perspective on what is really important.

Blogs have their drawbacks, there’s loads of ill-informed opinion positioned as expertise.  There’s too much content and not enough time.

But at the same time you can get lucky and blunder into something fantastic that without blogs you probably would have missed.

If you haven’t already heard of Randy Pausch, you will in a minute and it’s worth the wait, believe me.

I found out about him while catching up on the writing of some of the people I met and saw at the Podcamp Ireland event in Kilkenny last weekend.

Reading Grannymar’s blog I stumbled onto Stephen Neill’s blog Paddy Anglican and that’s where Randy Pausch comes in.

Randy is a professor at Carnegie Mellon, and at the age of 46 has discovered he has terminal cancer.

He decided to give his last lecture in public, not just to close the book on his career but as something for his kids to have, to understand his values and what he stood for.

Watch the news report below and you can also find a link to the full lecture at the end of the post.

An incredible man and a fantastic opportunity for us all to stop and think about where we are, where we’re going and what’s important.

So while there’s loads of rubbish filling blogs all over the Interweb, don’t forget there’s some gold nuggests there for those with some time.

You can watch the full lecture here.

Podcamp Ireland – Kilkenny

Well I was up nice and early for a Satuday for a drive down to the lovely city of  Kilkenny to attend PodCamp Ireland.  There’s been a number of new media events in Ireland over the past year or so.  It’s great to see the emergence of a growing number of people in Ireland with a passionate interest in this subject matter.

I’m have to admit I’m always a little uncertain with the whole “unconference” theme.  Being an old corporate fart I like my structure 🙂 The event – even for an unconference – was well organized and of course as it goes on you become more comfortable with it.

I’m delighted to report that Neville was in attendance and it was good to catch up with a range of people including Bernie, Krisha De, Michele Neylon and Dean Whitbread – as well as my colleagues Clare and Martha who I hadn’t seen in over 14 hours…

PodCamp Ireland, Kilkenny City, September 29th 2007

While Ireland isn’t leading the way in bringing new media to the masses, there is clearly a lot of passionate people innovating, evangelizing and most importantly thinking about the potential of these tools to reach and communicate.

I couldn’t help thinking that there’s a lot of value for – in the absence of a better term – traditional marketers – to attend these events – in a delegate capacity.

There’s great discussion and everyone is open to sharing opinions and ideas – which in my book is incredibly valuable in helping to broaden the mind on the potential of new media. 

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it even if everyone hasn’t yet discovered the joy of Live Search. 🙂

Boring = Relevant

A PR practitioner* once told me that when you start to get bored with your message that’s when it’s just started to reach your target audience and that’s when you have to stick with it.

It’s a wise nugget to remember.

When you think of Web 2.0 (snooze…) you don’t often think of blogs – they’re boring – they’re not on the bleeding edge.

But that’s a good thing.

While investors and entrepreneurs are hosting 2.0 love-ins across the world, the humble blog is continuing to be quietly and efficiently adopted.

Recent research – I’m coming to it late but that’s the great thing about holidays –  from the UK of 300 companies with more than 250 employees, sponsored by Inferno PR, found:

  • 50% of UK companies now undertake some form of blogging
  • 64% of UK corporate blogs have been launched in the last 6 months
  • 86% of companies that have a blog credit it with generating more business opportunities for their company
  • 66% of managers in the survey have visited blogs in the last 12 months
  • 80% of blog users visit blogs during working hours
  • 33% of blog visitors will access a blog on a daily basis

Find out more (and how to get your hands on the full report) here.

 

*Last week I was talking to a friend of mine who was recently doing interviews for someone to facilitate business meetings, and he made the comment to me that every single one of the people he interviewed (most had a mixture of broadcasting, lecturing, sales backgrounds) claimed to have “done” PR.

Sigh.