Murphy's Law

Phil Gomes evaluates an article from the UK Guardian on the reality of “business blogging” or blogs hosted and written by organizations.

Whilst Business Blogs, and in particular the blogs of those companies who are publicly listed, will be limited in what information they disclose due to legal and other considerations. That doesn’t mean they won’t be useful.

Business Blogs, when well managed, provide a useful and unique view inside an organization.  They promote a level of interactive discussion between a firm and its audience well beyond that of other Internet-tools.

I think everyone wins, when corporations adopt blogging.

From the corporate perspective, you have an opportunity to outline interesting views and opinions that might otherwise have gone unheard.  Further more blogs can provide a cost-efficient means to communicating and sharing information with a wide range of people.

From the consumers’ perspective you get a more human perspective on a company. Business Blogs can also provide a useful well of information on products and services and of course it provides a real platform for sharing your views with the company.

It’s true that Business Blogs are restricted in their nature but that doesn’t diminish the opportunity they present for companies and consumers alike.

There has been a long running discussion on the roles of weblogs and its impact on traditional journalism.  Views have varied from those who think weblogs are the end of journalism as we know it, and those at the other end of the spectrum who believe that blogs have nothing to do with journalism.

As usual, the truth is somewhere in between.

Most of the 1,000,000+ blogs around the Internet have less to do with journalism and more to do with careers, hobbies and the daily trials of peoples’ pets, however there are a number of notable exceptions.

And blogs can certainly add a new dimension to journalism, but the two are not mutally exclusive. No matter what the purists tell you.

Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism provides a fascinating look at the intersection of blogging and journalism.  They have produced a fantastic in-depth report that provides excellent succinct analysis of how these two universes collide from a whole host of angles.

Given the importance of journalists to the daily lives of most PR professionals this is a highly recommended read.

The entire report (2.9MB) is here in PDF format. The Weblog section starts on page 59.  The full report includes an interesting section on “Journalism and Black America: Then and Now”.

Thanks to Sheila Lennon for the link.

You’ve probably already heard about Alaska Airline’s new spoof site, Sky High Airlines.

It’s a brave move, putting together a website that lampoons the very worst in modern air travel.  Anyone who uses commercial airlines will recognize the irony.

I think Alaska Airlines should be praised for it. Humor, when used carefully, is a powerful tool and I’d be interested to see their web traffic, I’m sure it’s measurably higher.

Marc Snyder kindly sent me on a very interesting article from the Washington Post that examines how (in political circles) negative press is having less effect on public opinions than it did in the past.

It seems people are more interested in the bigger issues, healthcare, job security and the cost of living and less interested in the views a particular politician held twelve years ago.

I think this is a problem the media are inheriting from the politicians. All across the globe, politicians pass the time taking snipes at each other, when in fact the electorate are increasingly less interested.

The answer? Like all good PR programs, understand what the audience wants and how they want it. Then they’ll listen.

Colin McKay has started a new PR blog.  Colin’s based in Canada and joins the illustrious company of fellow Canadian Michael O’Connor Clarke.

I was recently discussing with a colleague the increasing popularity of company spokespeople overloading their statements with positioning.

Here’s a made up example:

“We look forward to extending ACME’s leadership in providing fresh, cost-effective, products to consumers of hamburgers, producers of sandwiches and companies who sometimes purchase food stuffs for meetings.  We’ll deliver those products in a timely manner, where they want them, when they want them, indoors or even outdoors.”

The quote is clearly mind-numbing. Rather than focus on a clear message it focuses on trying to get a firm in as many market segments as possible and ends up losing the point.

I call this meta tagging. Meta Tags are the pieces of text in your webpage that describe what your site does.  Most people put a whole range of terms in there in an effort to get high rankings from the search engines.

[Note: Meta Tags are hidden from browsers (you can see them in Internet Explorer by clicking on “View” and then “Source”]

I think Sun’s Meta tags are a good example:

<html>
<head>
<title> Sun Microsystems </title>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”sun microsystems, sun, java, java computing, solaris, sparc, unix, jini, computer systems, server, mission critical, RAS, high availability, cluster, workgroup server, desktop, workstation, storage, backup solutions, network computer, network computing, hardware, software, service, consulting, support, training, compiler, jdk, technical computing, scientific computing, high performance, enterprise computing, staroffice, starportal, sun ray”>
<meta name=”description” content=”Sun Microsystems, Inc. The Network Is The Computer[tm].”>

So next time you hear your spokesperson come out with something similar, tell them to stop “meta-tagging”.

 Dot Journalism has an interview with FT.com editor Tracy Corrigan.

 Media Bistro has an excerpt from a book that’s bound to be a huge seller during the holidays – “Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq.” [Link courtesy of Tom Mangan]

 A good turn deserves another someone once told me.  I think. Well in that spirit I’m happy to highlight Tech PR firm Shift Communications who are providing “pro bono” PR services to Women in Technology International an organization focused on helping women in the technology industry to connect. I’m not sure why they didn’t announce it as “Free” but if you’d like more information the locus delicti is here.

 

All previously reported, Red Herring is back, online anyway.  Hurrah for that. It would be interesting maybe even ironic if Red Herring led the upturn in this economy.  From talking with a wide variety of people it seems there’s a lot more optimism about.  Let’s not go any further than that!

Richard Bailey and Jeremy Pepper have been writing about the use of Adobe Acrobat documents for online press rooms.

Here’s some additional thoughts on information formats online.

HTML

All press release posted on your website should use plain old HTML.  This means they can be read by anyone with a browser, and they can be easily copied and pasted into other documents.  Also remember to include your media contact details with every release. There�s a disturbing practice of removing PR contact details from posted press releases, but I think you should make it as easy as possible for a journalist to contact you so include those details.

Adobe Acrobat

While your press releases should be posted as HTML, it can be useful to also (not instead of) provide them in Acrobat format.  Why?  Well often HTML pages don�t print very well, so providing them in Acrobat solves that problem.

Microsoft Word

Never, ever publish press materials (or any other materials) as Microsoft Word documents.  There�s two primary reasons for this.  Firstly Word documents can contain viruses, but more importantly there are many documented cases of internal comments and changes being included, unbeknownst to the creator, in a published Word document. Don�t do it.

Plain Text

Sending press releases by e-mail should be done in plain text, end of story.  Save your funny fonts and your bright colors for children.

Attachments

For the love of God, Jehova etc. do not send press releases in e-mail as attachments.  No matter how many journalists flag this as a pet peeve, people still do it. Break the chain.

One of the major reason behind why I started this blog eighteen months ago was the dearth of good, relevant and regular PR-related content online.  As all the PR trade magazines moved to a subscription model, more PR content disapeared.

This blog was simply to be a kind of respository for PR information, with a few opinions thrown in.

In the intervening period we have seen an explosion in PR blogs.  Reading the usual suspects this morning it struck me that right now we have loads of intelligent PR people, writing interesting views and pointing to interesting content.

It’s fantastic that all this content, across most verticals or disciplines, from education to technology and journalism, is now available in your browser and in some cases your RSS reader. It’s also great the see all the various writers cross-referencing and discussing many of the issues.

Of course there’s always room for more, so why don’t you start a blog?

Anyhow here, in no particular order is some of the more interesting discussions taking place at the moment across PR blogland.

 G2B Group is looking at  the state of modern television broadcasting.

 Kevin Dugan covers RSS and the media (Kevin pay the $10!)

 Jim Horton writes up an BRAve PR stunt in Michigan <groan>

 PR Machine evaluates the importance of your CEO

 The Minnesota PR Blog covers Subway’s new advertising and an event in October offering PR people in Minnesota some insight into the local political process

 The ever vigilent PR Studies is covering effective press rooms

 Pop! Public Relations has an interesting post on a new RSS service for PR people and the move from large to small agencies – don’t get me started on that one 🙂 

 MediaMap as always have a load of news on media and PR moves

 PR Bop covers the 78-year old drag racer

 Jenane Sessum is (ahem) covering a Ketchum story!

 As predicted, PR Fuel, is tearing along, covering Zoos, Ketchum, Waggener Edstrom and Microsoft.

 Elizabeth Albrycht is looking at PR e-mail and expect some more dialog with Agency Analytics!