September 17, 2009

Reasons you need a blog

A number of my clients still do not have blogs as well as many major companies, and while other social media like Facebook and Twitter are stealing the spotlight, it’s time to revisit this oldie but goodie. Blogs offer several advantages and just about every type of business can benefit from the communication tool. Here’s what a blog can do for you.

Keep your audience regularly engaged
As consumers, we all have short attention spans. To stay top of mind, you have to communicate a consistent message often. Updating a blog daily or weekly offers an opportunity to reach out to stakeholders on a regular basis.

Search Engine Optimization
Blogs offer rich fresh content for search engine spiders as well as the opportunity that others may link to your posts. Just remember your blog should serve a purpose to communicate with your publics first and foremost. The SEO benefits should develop naturally from that. Saturating your posts intentionally with too many keywords will not win over many readers.

Share content with people who want to connect
Blogs offer a way to connect with customers who want to read your content. By subscribing to your RSS feed, consumers are proactively pulling information. Stakeholders who seek out your information are much more likely to become advocates than passive recipients of marketing e-mails and advertising.

Simple and efficient interaction
Blogs are a tool for two-way communication. By opening up your comments for readers to participate, you empower your stakeholders to communicate and reap the rewards of gaining valuable feedback.

Another tip, blogs can be very time consuming to maintain and post updates regularly. The PR department doesn’t have to go it alone. Consider having several employees from different departments contribute to the blog each week. Varied perspectives will keep it interesting for the reader while helping you balance out organizational resources.

Tags: blogs, PR Tactics, SEO
Posted in PR Tactics, Weblogs | No Comments »

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July 15, 2009

Tips for responding to a negative blog post

Is all publicity good publicity when it comes to social media? Well if your goal is simply to generate buzz for your brand, certainly any attention from blogs could be considered good publicity. However, in public relations, the goal is to communicate accurate information and manage reputation. So if you discover a negative blog post about your organization, you might want to take action.

This assumes that you have already taken the first very big step in social media PR, which is monitoring the blogosphere. Half the battle is simply being aware of what’s being said about you. From there, every situation will be different. However, here are some general tips when considering your response.

Do you even want to respond? The first option of response in any public relations problem is to do nothing. Obviously many times, this is not the best approach. However, consider the audience of the blog in question. Do you need to engage with this audience or will posting a response just give a blog with little credibility unnecessary attention and validation? If you decide to respond, time is of the essence. The Internet news cycle moves very quickly. Depending on the blog, you may have days or even hours before the post you need to address is archived news.

How do you respond? If you decide you do need to engage with the blogger and his/her readers, your plan of action should depend on if the blog post contains erroneous information or simply casts your organization in a negative light. In the former instance, clearing up the misinformation should be your primary goal. Post a respectful response in the blog comments explaining what was misstated and provide evidence to back up your claim. If the blog comments are not open, e-mail the blogger with the information. Do not ask the blogger to take specific action (e.g., take down the post, correct the post), simply explain that the information posted is defamatory and provide information to correct the misstatements. If the blogger does nothing to rectify the defamatory statement, you may want to consider the long-term resolution of legal action. However, in the short-term, do not threaten the blogger with legal action.

If the negative information is true, take a similar approach that you would to traditional media in formulating a message for response. Create a message that respectfully acknowledges what the blogger wrote and thank them for covering your organization. Consider offering an apology (if necessary) and point out everything positive your organization is doing to remedy the situation. Post your response in the comments section (or e-mail the blogger if comments are closed) and continue to monitor the conversation and participate as needed.

In all cases, a non-confrontational, professional approach is your best bet when relating to bloggers.

Who should respond? Some of the big PR firms who provide blog monitoring offer the full-service solution of responding to blogs on your behalf. I do not recommend this approach. If you have a PR agency, use it to monitor blogs and help formulate your message, but be sure an internal spokesperson actually posts the response and engages in the conversation. Social media is all about genuine, transparent participation in the community.

Tags: blogs, defamation, publicity, reputation management
Posted in PR Tactics, Weblogs | No Comments »

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April 23, 2008

Bloggers are curious about Obamacrombie and Fitch

It took only seconds last night of watching Obama give his Pennsylvania primary concession speech for me to notice the obnoxious guys in Abercrombie and Fitch tees standing directly behind him. It was very apparent to me that this was not a coincidence. It was late and I was already in bed, but I managed to investigate by doing a quick Google Blog Search using my iPhone. As of 11:30p.m. eastern last night, only a handful of bloggers had noticed and posted something about it. Nobody had any answers as to why or how this happened.

This is exactly the type of story mainstream media passes over. But when bloggers call attention to it, they slowly ignite a fire that can spread very quickly. I contributed my own spark to the story by promptly Twittering about it. By this afternoon, there were 90 blog posts about the A&F guys, according to a search for the keywords “obama abercrombie fitch” on Technorati. This includes posts by top blogs such as Politico and Gawker.

Will the blogosphere launch this story into the mainstream? There’s a good chance, especially if bloggers get help from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert tonight. Late this morning, the incident was posted on Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 blog.

Posted in Weblogs | No Comments »

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April 23, 2008

Back from a break

Thankfully, I am done with the research project that initiated this blog! But clearly, there is still a lot to be discussed about Web 2.0 and PR. I’ve taken a few months off to decompress from completing my master’s degree, and I have really enjoyed the extra free time. But I find myself still interested in researching and sharing my thoughts on this subject. I’ve also received a lot of positive feedback from readers who have stumbled across this blog, and I’d like to thank them for their encouragement.

So, I have decided the conversation continues on how new media is reshaping the PR landscape. I have more flexibility on what I can post now that the discussion has broadened from my original topic of opinion leaders of virtual communities. Over the past few months, I have been considering what exactly I should blog about. Given my experiences networking with colleagues, I have decided to make this blog a resource for practitioners who are still trying to get caught up on new media. According to my research findings, that includes most of us in the industry.

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November 26, 2007

PR blogs at 743 and counting

PR blogger Constantin Basturea maintains a list of PR- and communications-related blogs and podcasts on his blog, PR Meets the WWW. This week he updated the list to include 70 new feeds, listing a total of 743 PR blogs. PR Meets the WWW offers feeds for all of the blogs listed, making it a convenient place to browse the PR corner of the blogosphere. Check it out for plenty of reading material.

Posted in Weblogs | No Comments »

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