Flack's Revenge

I have always thought that corporate blogging is one of those unfortunate, oxymoronic phrases. Blogging at its best is not about corporate formality.  It is more about communicating in a voice that is genuine and authentic.

Having said that, many companies are looking to use blogs to expand their communications efforts and build online influence. Paul Gillin offers excellent advice in his post Blogging Blunders, Part I.

The first tip advises against using the blog as a dumping ground for marketing and PR content such as press releases.

Communications professionals are skilled at delivering messages, not promoting conversations. When presented with another channel, they tend to use it to push out a message. In the worst cases, these messages are nothing more than press releases. Lacking interactivity and insight, they fail to generate any reaction. Worse, they make the company look clueless about the medium.

Although I agree with the larger point, I take issue with the first sentence above; many communications professionals are involved with promoting conversations these days.

He does say PR should be involved, but relegates us to an advisory role

Contributors should be the experts within the company. They are most likely to be the ones who will have meaningful dialogue with the audience. The communications people should focus on big-picture issues like voice, topic selection and quality of writing. They should also sweat details like copy editing. Like orchestra conductors, their role is to bring out the best from the individuals in the ensemble.

With that qualifier, we are on the same page.  I tell clients that the
blog is not something that can be completely outsourced to the agency.

He also advises against using the blog for chest beating, over things like awards, saying few people will care.  I generally agree here, with a caveat.  Ideally, people will get to know you and your blog over time.  They will hopefully become familiar with the voices and personalities behind the blog.  To the extent that they care about individual contributors or the company at large, they may well want to know what you are doing and share in your excitement about successes.

Similarly, some people dislike mundane updates on Twitter about what you are doing, and others enjoy these.  It doesn’t have to be all business and deep insight all the time.  Some of the most successful blogs and widely followed Tweeters do a fair amount of name dropping, chest beating, etc.

Finally, Gillin suggests getting a distinctive look for the blog by going beyond the canned templates:

It’s difficult enough to distinguish yourself among the millions of sites that are already out there. Don’t make it worse by looking just like them.

He points out that for a small investment you can get a custom design or, at a minimum, explore the extended set of third party templates.

I offered some tips that go into more detail on this and other apects of blogging in my post Launching a Company blog in 3 Easy Steps.

There’s an interesting thread on Ajit Jaokar’s blog about WOMMA, which in turn refers to an earlier post on the topic of Agency 2.0. Although he mostly focuses on advertising, Ajit does touch on PR.

As Ajit (who I have interviewed for this blog) said in his post The Elephant in the Room:

Can agencies be a part Agency 2.0? I.e. The future of Agencies (Agency 2.0) may be out of the hands of the Agencies themselves

So these are good questions to ask: what should PR’s role be going forward (assuming there is a role) and, if so, what should the new core skills be?

We don’t want to be the proverbial technology in search of a problem; simply rolling forward and applying old metaphors to new realities may not work. E.g., print journalism is struggling to adapt to an online world in which most people expect info to be free. And, when it comes to PR 2.0, you can’t just replace media relations with blogger relations and call it a day.

I believe PR agencies need to thoroughly reevaluate all areas of their businesses. We need to look at how people are recruited and trained, the range of services, the value we provide etc.

We are moving from a world in which one of the most valued skills is simply to “get media” and all this implies (hiring armies of young people and equipping them with the minimal tools needed to pitch media) to a world in which we are increasingly becoming vested in the conversation.

This does not mean traditional media does not count any longer, it just stems from the recognition that the emphasis is shifting.

So what should the core PR skills be in this new world? We need to be able to:

• Understand the new communications channels and evolving influencer landscapes
• Master the mores and mechanics of online, social media and social networking comms
• Be comfortable with and skilled at communicating in a public forum
• Be credible and genuine, not spammers but people who and add value in public exchanges

Together these skills are much more complicated and amorphous than simply “getting media;” but it is I believe where we need to fcous and excel if we are to remain relevant and add value.

Some people will dismiss us as flacks and shills whatever we do, simply because we are paid to represent clients (ironically, some of the very same people use social media to build their own brands and shamelessly promote themselves, their friends and business associates).

But is a PR person blogging, tweeting or commenting about clients so different from an employee who blogs about their field of work and employer? Or from formerly captive journalists who are becoming “unplugged” from publishing brands and building out their personal brands?

Our fields of specialties and the clients we represent are in fact extensions of our personal brands; there is no reason why we can’t credibly engage on these topics to express our own thoughts while at the same time helping clients meet their communications objectives.

The following is a step-by-step guide for companies that want to get started with
blogging.

Step 1: Choose
Blogging Platform

There are a variety of options for blogging platforms. They range from expensive, enterprise-class content management systems to free open source software and hosted services.

It is easiest to get started with hosted options like Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress. Costs range from free to about $200/year. Premium services offer more control over the
design and implementation of the blog.

Some include built-in metrics (e.g. TypePad does).

Many people swear by WordPress because its open source roots
have resulted in a wide array of add-ons and options. The Fusion
blog is based on Blogger, and this blog uses TypePad
Professional.

Step 2: Blogging Concepts – Themes, domain, and design

There are many options when it comes to blogging concepts. How you approach this should also influence your decisions regarding the design and domain name. These decisions, in turn, will determine the results the blog can help you achieve, e.g. in areas like marketing and SEO.

The most successful blogs are organized around compelling themes that have specific audiences in mind. Many blogs are associated with individuals rather than corporate
entities. Either way, the blog(s) can help further the company’s communications goals. I do not feel that anonymous blogs, or blogs that appear to be little more than an extension of the company website and marketing department are particularly effective.

The blog theme should influence your choice of domain name. Domain names that include the right keyword(s) for your space can boost SEO results for the blog. Using a sub-domain of your company website URL can boost traffic for the site, and the website in turn should boost traffic
for the blog. I recommend including a link (or links) to the blog(s) on your home page.

To really separate the company brand and website from the blog, you should get a totally separate domain name. This will also in general be a shorter string and thus ostensibly easier to remember and enter.

The theme can also influence the design. Unless you are trying to make the blog blend
in with the company website (which, again, I do not recommend) you will need
to decide on things like color scheme, graphics, content selection and layout.

Most blogging services make it easy to pick and arrange content and design elements. It does not cost much to create a distinctive and appealing design that looks more impressive than the standard templates offered.

Step 3: Launching the Blog

Once you have selected the blogging platform and chosen its
theme and design you are ready to launch the blog. The specific steps will vary based on your
choice of blogging platform and the options and add-ons you use. Some of the steps required to set up and
design the blog may have already been completed as part of Step 2 above.

In general, you will want to make sure the following items
are addressed before publishing the first post:

1. Roles
   and Permissions – This should be addressed if there will be multiple
   contributors and/or if the person who sets up and maintains the blog will
   be different than the one who posts content. You will need to specify roles and
   editing/access rights.

2. Domain
   name mapping – If you have secured a domain name for the blog or want it
   to be a sub-domain of your company website, you will need to make sure
   that domain name mapping or redirection from the domain of the hosted
   service is in place.

3. Publicity
   options – There are a variety of feeds and pinging mechanisms that should
   be set up. These alert search
   engines and RSS news readers/aggregators when you have a new post.

4. Commenting,
   trackbacks, social sharing – There are various ways in which these
   elements can be enabled. Having
   them set up correctly can boost participation in the site and sharing of
   the content.

5. Metrics
   – You will want to make sure that you have a way to track where traffic is
   coming from, pages visited, search terms used, RSS feed consumption,
   etc. As mentioned above, some
   platforms have metrics built in.
   Otherwise, it is fairly easy to sign up for and start using free
   services such as Google
   Analytics, StatCounter and FeedBurner.

There, that’s it! Once
the above steps have been completed comes the fun (and often challenging) part:
ensuring a steady stream of fresh and interesting content for the blog. Also, there are a number of ways to promote the blog and
drive traffic to it, which I will be covering in a future post.

There was a fairly lengthy piece in the NY Times yesterday about evolving PR practices: Spinning the Web: PR in Silicon Valley.  It specifically focused on how tech PR is changing, framing the topic by taking a look at Silicon Valley companies and players.

I thought the article did a pretty good job of summarizing some of the forces that are changing in the profession, and of documenting evolving PR practices.  For example, it describes the growing importance of social networking connections and Twitter and positions traditional tools such as press releases and press tours as perhaps passe’. According to the article:

Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley
meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on
technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices
on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a
transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to
permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and
particularly in Silicon Valley.

The article was ironic on a number of levels; first it describes newspaper circulation as “old metrics” and said these are sometimes viewed as less important than “the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter.”  I am not disagreeing, just saying that this is funny seeing this in the pages of the NY Times.  At the same time, the article is generating buzz in its own right, and I am wondering how many of the people mentioned within do not value the coverage.

Although it does nail some of the changes taking place in the profession, in my opinion, by focusing on Brooke Hammerling (one hyper connected gal) as being emblematic of these changes, it still feeds into the cliche’ of the PR person as a fixer and implies that relationships are the only thing that counts.

Her extensive network amongst the tech elite would seem to be of great value if you are raising money, or are otherwise trying to forge connections in the tech world but I wonder how much the average corp tech buyer (or tech consumer) really cares about these tech influencers.

The article described the launch of a new consumer tech Web service and explained the logic behind end-running the tech blogs:

“Why shouldn’t we avoid them?
They’re cynical,” [Roger McNamee} says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would
probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs.
“That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the
difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.’ ”

As Brian Solis said in his post on the article

As the New York Times article leads you to believe, everything in PR focuses on the launch

in his piece on the article, Scoble had this to say about the “right reason” for eschewing tech blogs in the launch that was described:

Because people who will use your product don’t read those tech blogs and they don’t read the influentials who read those sites.