PR and Blogosophere
Posted November 21st, 2006 by Kelby
This week’s Holmes Report contains an excellent article on public relations in the blogosphere. I won’t summarize the article as Paul does an excellent job examining the conversations in place, but basically it examines whether PR pros have a place in the blogosphere or if recent PR miscues demonstrate that PR needs to run hard and fast away from digital relations. Personally, I think PR definitely has a place (and not just because that is what I am paid to do) and that many firms and individuals are doing excellent work on behalf of their clients, building relationships and publicizing their messages.
The joy and pain of the blogosphere is its open nature. When you mess up, everyone knows. Much like the same phenomenon that prompts travelers to slow down when they see an accident on the highway – everyone wants to take a moment to see the carnage and tell their friends about it – bad PR stories spread far and wide and fast. When online PR is done well, the only people who know are your client and the audience they talk to (blogs, communities, etc.) who are interested in what your client says and benefit from the new or expanded relationship with your client.
Edelman and its WalMart fiasco is a prime example of how not to do PR online, but that same firm does outstanding work for other clients and is a leading voice in the PR industry for digital media relations. Shift, and its work with Tom Foremski and the new media press release, is another example of a firm taking an active and vocal role in setting online best practices. Other PR pros doing excellent work in this medium are taking a less vocal role, but are quietly building relationships with their clients and bloggers. People like Tom Foremski, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Liz Gannes, and others who may not know my first name, but they now know those of my clients who swim in their pond – and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.
Regardless of where you stand, or think you stand, on the online digital PR scale, I recommend that you read Paul’s article. In addition to providing some useful suggestions on how to best communicate online, it gives an interesting perspective from those like Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and the Dreamland residents in Second Life who have encountered “bad” PR.
