If you re a regular reader of Canadian PR bloggers, you may have noticed a large orange and white banner or badge, inviting you to prove you re a player. If you haven t clicked through, and let s face it, why would you, you d have found a designed by revered ad-agency, for the (CNW).
I ll give you a few seconds to think about that.
Adverts on public relations blogs. Doesn t that sound a little counterintuitive?
Wasn t the new social, interactive Internet, web 2.
0 supposed to be the preserve of the PR agencies. Didn t we lose out on the first iteration of the web but this time round it s all ours? Wasn t that the deal we made with the devil in the pale moonlight?
If you haven t seen them, check out , , and anyone who has seen or even used them, what do you think?
Do they detract or distract from the content? Have you gotten so desensitised to ads that you re just studiously ignoring them?
Before I give my two cents I have a confession. I was approached by Taxi to run ads and I turned them down. Ads on a PR blog seemed not right.
Then I was told how much it was for and I was tempted. Not a life changing amount, but enough to buy a PVR recorder and ignore more adverts (ironic huh) on TV. Then I saw something on Wordpress terms of service about only for non-commercial use and the decision was made for me.
I m still not sure how I feel about. The money would be nice, but I m not in it for the money. I ve already been more than adequately compensated through a great job and an even better new career.
With that disclosure out of the way, here s how I feel. First off, did CNW get good value for money? I d say that the program is probably costing them around well, a fair amount.
Instead of hitting up half a dozen bloggers for ads, what if they had appraoched all the PR bloggers asking them to link to the game? If they had handled the outreach in a half competent manner (my experience with Taxi would suggest that, while unlikely, it s not outside the realms of possibility) I m sure they d have had quite the link collection at the end of it.
As a company serving the PR industry, shouldn t they have spent their marketing dollars to PR us, not on shilling us?
And what of the esteemed bloggers? What does their taking the almighty ad dollar tell us? I ve been as big a supporter of the role PR in the realm of social media as it s possible for a mid-level PR guy to be but this kind of takes the shine off it.
Why should companies bother to earn coverage, links and conversation when they can just buy it? What example does it give to our clients when the people evangelizing the use of this new form of communication as a PR tool can be, themselves, bought?
Does even the act of taking adverts sully the excellent content these guys are producing for us, or is it a Darwinian way to weed out those not good enough to be considered for adverts (and who then lose interest)?
Leaving the fact that they re all PR (or in Donna s case, communications) blogs, what about ads in general?
I started a blog to make the mistakes my clients wouldn t have to, and I d never recommend a client who wanted to start a thought leadership blog run ads. Yet , and all do.
And Mark went to become a VP at a blogging network does; doesn t. Where s the balance - is there even a balance, is it just personal choice?
Or maybe clients can use their own blogs/feeds to test their future marketing initiatives?
What would you say to or testing out a raft of new creative on their blogs/feeds?
I guess in the end the answer, as always is it depends .
So three defracted points of view from my perspective - the client, the reader and the flackette.
But they re all mine; not yours. What do you guys think?
*UPDATE* - Mitch has some , while Colin s encouraging everyone as well.
If you haven t done so already, there re some great points in the comment section (including some comments longer than this post!).
One aspect of the discussion that hasn t been broached yet is whether we should be experimenting with blogging as a technology or as a totally new approach to communication.
If the answer is technology, then my esteemed colleagues are well within their rights to monkey around with their blogs/feeds etc as much as they want; if it s as a new approach to communications then, to me, it feels like trying to fit old media practices into a new media platform.
Don t take my word for it; check out what everyone else is saying as well.
Have you ever found yourself shaking your head at the ridiculous amount of overused jargon in the PR world today?
Have you ever attended a number of talks and/or functions only to hear the same recycled phrases? Do you think our community is way too earnest?
Help is now at hand in the shape of Social Media Bingo!
Released in time for the holiday period you and your colleagues can while away the long winter billable hours by simply clicking through to one of the many excellent PR/marketing podcasts and ticking off the jargon.
Or go to your next geek dinner (they re all open invitation!) armed with this helpful little primer and have a self referential laugh as you throw in any one of the interchangable and often indecipherable phrases.
Are you the shy retiring type? Then print off two copies and challenge your tablemate to a competitive round of bingo. Oh, how you ll laugh as you interupt a member of the digerati mid waffle with a triumphant cry of HOUSE!
.
A great way to liven up even the stalest webinar, conference call or staff meeting.
Available to download and share from this very blog, , is the free pdf download for 2006!
Obviously I ll be invoking the wisdom of the crowds for version two dot oh, so leave your feedback in the comments or email me directly at e_v_lee[removethis]@hotmail.com.
*UPDATE* Thanks to the wisdom of Judy Gombita who helped out with some of the squares ( command and control was all her) as well as those who commented on from last week.
*UPDATE* Fill in the blanks with your chosen wildcard - or even your own suggestions - to allow for a multi-player session!
Have a fabulous holiday season!
All are important, but only one is critical to a business success.
I m no expert on the changing media landscape but I do hold a BA in Common Sense (HONS) that would suggest if your traditional business model is falling apart you d try to do something about it.
As the has. They re pretty much held up as the leading lights of a media organisation that get s it .
They ve got a number of blogs, talk a great game when it comes to social media and offer geo-targeted advertising.
Oh, they also call their readers stupid. No, wait they probably shouldn t do that right?
And they probably really shouldn t do it when a rival media outlet is copied in on the email correspondence.
In this case, I think the situation has gone way beyond right or wrong, but into a pure customer service issue.
Your product may be fantastic, your agencies (ad, PR and interactive) may be the best money can buy but if your customer service ain t up to par, well, you re bang in trouble.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you via .
If the Guardian or Louise Taylor actually bothered to acknowledge their mail I might stop copying in Football365 who like to snigger at them but. Anyway, in pursuit of helping Louise Taylor one day write a decent intro here goes:
Okay can you tell me what surgery, for a footballer is not potentially career saving?
I mean, I am guessing they don t have operations for fun. Okay maybe they could struggle on with an ingrowing finger nail or something. But pretty much anything to do with your major limbs is an essential for a footballer.
In this case, any operation that doesn t work could mean their career is over.
To go over that one more time. Footballers get injured they then need operations.
If they don t have operations then they can t play. So every operation is a potentially career saving operation. So why do you need to state the bleeding obvious?
Or were you just trying to hype up an otherwise dull story and a dull set of quotes from Shola?
Hello, Guardian anyone out there?
Uruguayan footballer Dario Silva had surgery to have his leg amputated recently.
This could hardly be described as potentially career-saving for a footballer. I hope this answers your question. If you can come up with another one that isn t completely stupid, I might stop copying in Football365 too.
Are you serious? And nice tone you have with your readers.
I m fairly sure, as harsh as it sounds, that Dario Silva was no longer a footballer when it comes to the point of having the leg removed.
It hardly changes the point that99.9 of injuries suffered by footballers are career threatening. So hardly really worth pointing it out.
Oh and I ve copied in Football365 to save you the bother.
So it s okay for you to take a sarcastic tone with our writers when you re trying (unsuccessfully) to be smart, but not okay for us to do the same when we prove you wrong. Why is that, then, Steve?
Dario Silva may have been out of contract when he had his accident, but he hadn t retired. He was an unemployed footballer, but a footballer nonetheless, aged 32 and with several more years worth of gas in the tank. You asked for an example of surgery on a footballer that isn t potentially career-saving and I gave you one off the top of my head.
End of story - let it go.
Ahh I can see where the problem is arising now.
You wrote: So it s okay for you to take a sarcastic tone with our writers.
No, I really did mean that what Louise Taylor writes is bollocks. No sarcasm intended.
Sorry for your confusion.
And you give it up first. Go on I dare you.
Fair enough about the Dario Silva thing though.
Actually I might start calling myself an out-of-contact footballer. Or maybe an astronaut. I can t decide.
By our own argument you don t need a club, a contract or it appears, the use of your legs to call yourself a footballer.
I can think of several more appropriate things you could call yourself, Steve. At least Dario Silva proved that he could play football at the highest level, whereas the only thing you re proving is that you re not as clever or amusing as you think you are.
I get the impression you re loving this attention, but when you re in a hole like this you should really stop digging. I didn t think it was possible for you to make yourself look more foolish than you did in your original email, but you re proving me wrong.
All the best,
Barry Glendenning, Guardian Unlimited Sport.
All good natured banter that really hurts the brand and alienates it from its core audience.
Is this a case of customers being too empowered too soon? Has Steve s ability to correspond with a national newspaper and one of the world s best websites given him too much chutzpah?
Are consumers so used to shouting that companies can no longer listen to their problems?
I think it may have been Seth who said a child that asks nicely gets what she wants; a child that screams and generally carries on like a Fury, doesn t.
There must be a better way for all parties.
Sidebar - my BA is not, unfortunately, from the School of Hard Knocks.
Before I start there is a bit of a caveat emptor here - I m writing about media interviews and media training but I ve only ever conducted one session of media training and sat in on, at most, just four more.
I have, however, been reading the excellent blog and now consider myself expert enough to talk about it.
So you can blame .
As PR has grown from a line item to something of (hopefully) more strategic importance, so has the need to deliver good interview.
Unfortunately, the media s idea of a good interview (lots of contraversial soundbites) and the PR department s idea of a good interview (lots of on-message , relatively neutral soundbites) were pretty irreconcilable.
However, I think that in an era of the democratisation of media where more and more people are being called for interviews, and not just from the C-suite, the media and those who consume the media are bored with stale old rent a quotes.
No longer can interviewees use the trusted bridging technique of half answering questions before diverting them to safer ground. First (then UK Home Secretary) and then (former Canadian PM) have both gotten into some serious hot water over this.
The trick , if you can call it that, is to be charming, intelligent, knowledgable and funny so you can appeal to those watching while answering the questions and telling your own story at the same time.
Here s an example of a : Oasis Noel Gallagher interviewed by Exclaim Magazine on a number of issues from Lars Ulrich to French speaking Canadians and piracy. He s completely honest, very funny, answers all the questions and comes over as an all round good bloke.
What are your feelings on piracy, internet or otherwise?
See, I like pirates.
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