PR and Blogs
One of the things that struck me as I read Scoble & Israel is how well blogs worked in the PR world. And then I was reminded of recent incidents involving Edelman and Wal-Mart.
It seems that this is a delicate balance that PR professionals must learn and I’m not so sure many are. I think too many times it is a bullet point on a PR plan without real understanding of what a blog is and what it should do. It is often linked with the wrong goal. For example, “create buzz in the online world about X product” - rather than attaching it to a useful goal such as “create an arena for my customers to talk to me and me to talk to them.”
I worked briefly for a PR firm in DC and many of the senior executives failed to understand how blogging could actually help them. Many of them were busy, not just with their work but with their families and personal lives and did not want to take on an additional work task. At the time I was there, many of the higher-ups in our corporate office were asking that some of the SVPs blog. Our CEO (of the North American office) began keeping an internal blog that we could post on. However, none of the SVPs at the DC office could be convinced of the power of blogging. I wish I had known about “Naked Conversations” then. One of the executives was the person primarily responsible for bringing in new business. He had a lot of contacts. He had run the DNC at one point - he is connected. After reading this book, I think he would have done well to establish a blog that that showcased his unique knowledge in politics and communication. No, he is not the only person in DC that knows about politics and communication, but we were (and are) the only major PR firm in DC that is not blogging in the public arena.
We are not establishing a conversation in anyway with people who might want or need our services. Blogging is an easy and great way to showcase our talent and what we can know that is different from Fleishman, H&K, Ketchum, etc. Alas, our executives live in their ivory towers and do not see how it could benefit them. Surely, Gillmor would chatise them as well. I cannot think of anyone we have read, either online or in text, that would say this was a smart move by my former employer. If only we could have Jarvis come in talk to them about having “new relationships with the public”, and Scoble and Israel could just read their book. Could we convince them to blog?
In fact, I think Scoble and Israel would encourage our CEO to open the internal blog to the outside world, or issue a blog to every employee (like they describe at SixApart - pg 61). I do not think that the corporate culture is such that blogging would not be accepted so much as it is not really understood as a tool.
Maybe what they really need is some younger executives? Nah…
