So grateful to be included in the “Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time To Get Busy” book.
This book is an incredible tome of leading marketers, writers, PR folks and others on the Web. Hope you’ll take time to check it out. And below are all the fantastic folks who contributed to the book itself.
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Or can you? Simply hit this link and compile a list for yourself.
I wanted to post this wonderful thread of comments on the whole topic of PR and Mommy bloggers that relates to the original post I did here.
The post that I was responding to is here and was written by Jessica Smith (who works for Fleshman-Hillard). And then Jessica commented on my post and the comments that follow are the back and forth. I also urge you to go and read the comments that Boston Mamas wrote on Jessica’s original post – they are valuable. So is the Mom101 comment.
As evidenced by the posts/comments there is a very diverse view of PR, bloggers and social media marketing.
Thanks for engaging in the conversation with me. I am not saying you shouldn’t share who the client is or the general idea behind the campaign.
Case in point: When EA SPORTS approached me and asked if I was interested in working with them for their launch of the Wii virtual fitness game EA SPORTS Active, I said yes, thinking that I was going to get an advance copy of the game to review.
It was after this initial engagement and commitment that I then found out I would be attending a blogger trip with the other challengers involved in Santa Barbara with Alison Sweeney and Bob Greene.
My point is…if it had been shared with some bloggers that this major trip was involved from the get-go, do you think some would have just said yes for the trip and the celebrities involved?
07.18.09 at 6:04 pm Hi Jessica,
Thanks for your comment. I just have an issue with the post itself and the old way that PR views bloggers. This seems particularly to be the case when it comes to “mommy bloggers.” I count myself as one by the way because I’m a mom and have been on the Web since 1995 and have blogged since 2004. I think too often the “mommy bloggers” term is getting quantified in a disparaging way among PR people. And it seems there is a tone that mommy bloggers are just sheep for brands, when quite the opposite is true. Many of them are blogging because they’ve chosen to stay home after career-mid-career-college-degrees etc. but are highly attuned to what they want in the world and manage to blog about it as well.
There should be complete transparency in engaging any blogger on behalf of any event, or brand collaboration. In your comment it sounds like you are thinking it’s ok to leave out information to bloggers. I don’t think that is respectful of them and don’t think that starts out a good collaboration. And honestly, I think the bigger question is not, “Do you think some would have just said yes for the trip and the celebrities involved?” but rather, “Why it is that PR people seem to think that if you just throw some freebies at bloggers they should be happy to do your bidding however you feel is best.?”
I don’t think this takes into account that bloggers are by all rights driving the brands to their readers, not because the majority of them hope to get to go to some celebrity trip, but rather because they want to feature the best things for their readership. Bloggers will be here long after some of these brands implode and the readership depends on them to be as honest and authentic as possible.
Also, more and more people don’t look to “sponsored bloggers” to find out the real scoop on B2C products, because that blogger might not be as unobjective as another one who is not being sponsored or going on a celeb trip.
Looking at bloggers as simply a “mass of messengers” waiting for PR firms to come and discover them and then help them get more visibility by selling an associated brand or product, I think is a very small-minded way to view them. I also think bloggers if they so choose to help a company get a brand out across the Web should have the ability to get paid, and have the right for anyone engaging them to be upfront and honest about the possibilities.
Again, it should all be done in an honest, forthright manner at the onset.
07.19.09 at 2:41 pm Hi Nettie, I just left a long comment over at the original Jessica Knows post if you’d like to check it out – it links over to a post I wrote following a very troubling thread re: PR and blogger relations and this so called mystery element.
best, Christine
07.19.09 at 7:23 pm “why it is that PR people seem to think that if you just throw some freebies at bloggers they should be happy to do your bidding however you feel is best.”
Lord woman, I want to kiss you right now. I think there’s a challenge right now in that PR isn’t sure how they want to engage with bloggers – are they press? Evangelists? Consultants? The lines are blurred and everyone is confused which is what leads to dashed expectations and probably, “mystery” outreach.
You should edit your post to add your excellent comments.
07.21.09 at 11:29 am Hey Mom 101!
That means the world to me. Thank you so much – I’m so glad it was valuable and I love your comments!
Nettie
I love writing speeches for folks and one of the musts in speeches for business audiences is the ability to both engage and inspire during the speech.
One of the best speeches I’ve seen in the past couple of years was the one that Al Gore delivered at Disney during a business conference I was covering. His opening line was, “Hello, I’m Al Gore and I’m a recovering politician.” With that singular line he held the audience’s rapt attention.
Self-deprecation is a surprisingly good tool in the current economic stratus because we all need a bit of a lift when it comes to surviving these challenging times.
Gore’s past speechwriter and best-selling author, Daniel Pink, noted three important elements in speeches, during an interview with Tim Ferriss who asked, “What are the necessary ingredients of a good speech?”
Pink said, “I’ve said many times that the three essential ingredients in any good speech are brevity, levity, and repetition.”
(To see the full Ferris interview.)
Effective speech giving is being able to naturally and authentically incorporate the real you into the speech. We all long for true connection especially in these days of Web 2.0, 3.0, 80.0 and beyond, we still want to be inspired and genuinely touched.
When I interviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin, I asked, “What is the most rewarding thing about being a historian?” and her response was, “It is a great gift to really get to know people through their letters and speeches because that is often where you will find the real person behind the historical persona.”
One of the best things you can do when you prepare a speech is to be a real person.
A stunning and still inspiring speech was Pierre Omidyar’s keynote speech, in that speech Omidyar says,
I’ve referred many a potential client to these two YouTube vids produced by the folks at CommonCraft.com , so wanted to share them with folks who might read my blog as well.
The first is “Social Media in Plain English,” and the second is “Twitter in Plain English,” you can hit both and get a good basic idea of how social media works and how to use Twitter.
Also, it’s the first week of December which means you should be actively coming up with a tips-focused article, blog post or press release that gives your top five tips for the New Year in your business arena. If you’re a book author and you’ve penned a book on networking, then why not do a release on PRWeb.com or Marketwire.com titled, “Five Ways to Boost Your Networking for the New Year.”
Great article today in BullDog Reporter on the importance of companies being a part of social media initiatives in terms of marketing and PR. Brian Pittman is a fantastic interviewer and this article is very insightful.
Speaking of 2.0 initiatives:
1. Does your company or CEO have a blog? If not, why not?
2. Is your company twittering? If not, why not?
3. Does your company have a Facebook presence? If not, why not?
And remember with all three things above, that having those is only the start. It’s a marathon on this “long tail” 2.0 race and you need to be ready to stay in the race for the duration.
Sally Falkow is a brilliant guru of all things PR and here’s a very interesting post she did on her blog about corporations and social media.
Excerpt, “75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are eager to get involved in social-networking initiatives for marketing or customer relations purposes, but 50 percent of those campaigns will be classified as failures, predicts Sarner. What are they doing wrong?
“(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won’t have a mutual purpose, and they’ll fail,” Sarner said.”
Great post on how PR should evolve from public relations to public relationships by Jerry Michaelski.
I had a tough week last week and while in a meeting with a very respected PR practitioner whose been in it for more than twenty years, we came up with a list of what PR can and cannot do. I thought some of those might be good to share.
1. PR is not guaranteed coverage. Hiring a publicist means they will do their best on outreach to a certain number of designated sites agreed on by both parties. It does not guarantee in any shape, form or fashion coverage for those sites.
2. PR is not easy.
3. Generating a press release does not mean the press release will get coverage.
4. PR is not pay for play. Espescially in terms of reaching out to bloggers, each blog list is customized and it is completely up to the bloggers as to whether they choose to cover your book, event or news.
5. PR is arduous and good PR does not happen overnight. Again, in terms of reaching out to bloggers they actually READ the books they are sent, so getting a mention on a blog site from the initial outreach can oftentimes be a lengthy (but well worth it) delayed posting. In terms of bloggers you also have a great opportunity to actually connect with someone who truly is vested in covering what their readership wants to read about. It’s a wonderful thing that bloggers READ the books they are sent, so be patient instead of impatient when it comes to them possibly posting about your book.
6. Bloggers do not exist to be marketing entities for your next book, project or venture. They truly are citizen journalists and should be respected on the same level. That means they decide when, if and what they will cover in terms of your book, news or event.
7. PR is public relations not marketing, not fluff without a news hook, not advertising relations. It is public relations.
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