Category: General

Elizabeth Albrycht and Guillaume du Gardier have unveiled New Communications Forum 2005. 

The forum is targeted at PR, marketing and communications professionals and it promises:

“…provide you with an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the future of communications. Our instructors are PR professionals, marketers and journalists who have pioneered the use of these new tools and technologies. They will share their in-the-trenches experiences as early adopters of these new communications tools.”

The conference will take place in Silicon Valley on January 26-27, 2005 and a second event will take place in France in February 2005.

There’s even a rumor circulating that I might be in France in February….

The importance of search engines in driving web traffic and promoting awareness and leads continues to grow. Because search engines are (through technology) independent in nature, this is a tailor-made opportunity for PR.

Make no mistake, you need to embrace Search Engine Optimization (SEO), understand how it works, understand how to maximize listings, use Google AdWords, Overture etc..

With that in mind I recommend you take a look at MarketingSherpa’s research report on how B-to-B buyers use search engines.  The report is available as a PDF. 

“You definitely should adjust the keyword phrases you’re optimizing for and offers you’re advertising to reflect this. Instead of just trial offers or direct orders, promote white paper downloads, canned webinar viewing, tech spec documents, and the killer-app, comparison charts of you versus your competitors (optimized for all their names of course.)”

There’s lots of interesting stuff around and I haven’t the time to write about it any detail, but here are some links:

 Shel Holtz points to a PR Week UK report on study looking at the importance of saying sorry.

 Michael O’Connor Clarke takes a deeper, more in-depth look at the role of PR in corporate blogging.

 Philip Young reports on a study that found PR people are one of the major causes of angst in a newsroom.

 Steve Rubel links to an interesting article by Terry Heaton on the “New Public Relations” – you’d never guess but blogs and the Cluetrain manifesto get a mention 🙂

 Tom Foremski reports that British PR pros are invading Silicon Valley…

Charlene Li is an analyst over at Forrester who is getting a lot of linkage these days.  She recently published a report ($349) on blogging which evaluates whether blogging is a fad or something more interesting.

She includes a list of blogging ethics, which Mike Manuel posts.

I’m in two minds about “blogging ethics” particularly given the diverse nature of blogs and the only way you can really “trust” a weblog is based on common sense and reading it over time.

However, I am a big fan of corporate blogging policies which ensure everyone is fully aware of what is acceptable practice for employees and employers. Charlene’s suggested policy includes:

1. Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog are yours alone and do not necessarily represent the views of your employer.
2. Respect the company�s confidentiality and proprietary information.
3. Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog.
4. Be respectful to the company, employees, customers, partners, and competitors.
5. Understand when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons.
6. Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments.

When it comes to blogging ethics my guide is the now sadly defunct Blogging Manifesto (courtesy of Wayback Machine).

 

A new addition to PR Opinion’s blogroll:

• Kaye Trammell is assistant professor of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University.

 

Tom Foremski over at Silicon Valley Watcher touches on how PR companies are beginning to notice bloggers.

PR companies know how to work with traditional media, but they are not sure how to work with bloggers. That indecision has led to no action at all. But now, Christina says that things are changing. �Some PR companies, and also their clients, are beginning to ask, ‘which are the most influential blogs?’�

This can be a tough one to judge. It is difficult to audit the readership of blogs. RSS feeds and the re-posting of stories and entries across the web is difficult to track. Yes, there is �trackback,� which is integrated into blogging software and can track links to a specific blog entry. But spammers have forced many blogs to turn-off this feature.

[Via Jeremy Pepper]

Footnote:

• CMO Magazine is running an online poll asking if marketers are using blogs in their marketing efforts.  You can vote here. Interestingly the result is currently running in favor of blogs (42/48). I think that’s a little high and is probably influenced by the fact it’s an online poll and referrals are coming from blogs.  I would estimate the actual figure is way lower than that. [Via Robb Hecht]

Jim Horton has penned an interesting article on reputation systems. 

It looks at how the Internet is impacting reputation and the bad news is that reputation management isn’t getting any easier online…

I am fairly old fashioned, don’t let the blog fool you.

I believe that as a PR person your job is to build relationships, offer sound advice and communicate effectively. I believe that as a human being you should treat people as you’d like to be treated.

Now when I’m at PR social events, I always find ‘people watching’ incredibly interesting. You see the amazing variety of people who participate in Public Relations. It is truly a profession that celebrates diverse personalities – which is one of its strengths in my very humble opinion.

But some things never fail to amaze me.  Take the incident at the UK’s PR Week awards where the head of a Tech PR Agency  proceeded to insult a participant’s dress sense in front of his agency folks only to discover the target was in fact a journalist for ZDNET.

Can someone tell me, what this guy was thinking? I’d really like to know.

[Via Stuart Bruce]

Update:

It’s very strange. I have managed to access SpinBunny via Bloglines but not through the usual URL. Very odd.

Footnote:

• A new satirical PR blog, SpinBunny, has emerged in the UK. However while it’s increasingly being written about, I can’t seem to access the website.  Is anyone else having problems with it? Have I been banned? I am confused. Is that link working?
• Matthew Podboy’s post on the importance of not burning your bridges is well timed…

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.