Archive for July, 2009

I’ve been in the PR industry for more than 15 years.  That doesn’t make me a grizzled veteran, but I have plenty of gray hairs that I keep as a badge of PR-career-honor.  And I entered the industry at an interesting time.  I accepted my first position at Hill and Knowlton in the days immediately preceding Windows, cell phones and email.  True, each of those three technological developments was already in existence, but none of them was ubiquitous. 

 When they came upon the scene, since I was still relatively young, I was able to quite easily roll with it.  Heck, my biggest client was Verizon Wireless, so I was right in the middle of the action. 

 Over the years, there have been other developments, like cable news and specialty stations becoming legitimate outlets for my clients’ news.  And then, of course, the Internet took over, and has now become the primary source of news for many of the world’s top decision-makers.

 And there are the more recent developments you all know about.  My firm, Ruder Finn Israel, has gotten involved in the social media phenomenon, creating and maintaining Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for our clients.

 So here we are, many years later, and yes, I’m still rolling with it.

 And then, there are the Blogs.  Now, let me begin by saying that I love Blogs.  My brother has a fantastic one.  The concept of creating a public venue for one to give his/her views on a particular topic or the world at-large is not only exciting, it’s the logical next step for communications.  And there have been some great ones.  For example, Bill Simmons is now a well-paid, well-respected columnist for ESPN.com because his “Boston Sports Guy” Blog was so successful years ago. 

 But I have a problem with the Blogs. And that problem is one I can’t figure out how to solve.  Here’s the conundrum …

 Blogs today are as highly respected as media.  In fact, certain Blogs are considered media themselves, such as Huffington Post and TechCrunch.  Public relations folks spend a lot of time crafting communiqués that will impact these Blogs, they way they would back in the day to elicit the attention of a Today Show producer.

 And that would be fine … if those Blogs played by the rules by which the media play.

 But they don’t.

 They don’t, because they don’t have to.  After all, they are just Blogs.

 I’ll give you an example: 

We had a client that was recently ripped to shreds – including insults and factually incorrect information – by a high-profile blog’s “guest Blogger.”  We then contacted that blog with an op-ed submission that refuted those insults and lies, and took the story further by offering a different view of the situation.  The blog’s response: “We’re going to pass on this.”

Well, isn’t that nice?  The Blog bills itself as a “newspaper,” but doesn’t have to live up to the standards of mainstream media because, after all, it is just a Blog.

Okay, so that’s the situation.  And it’s not going to change.  So the question I’d like to answer is this: What do we do about it?

In my next post, I’ll be answering that question …