A User-Generated Campaign? (And Other PR Blog Jots)

Social Media and Running for President

The Buzz Bin

Geoff Livingston rates the social media efforts of the Democrat and Republican frontrunners for the 2008 presidential nomination. He ranks Barack Obama as having the best social media effort, which allows for community blogging and has a snazzy design. He also compliments Hillary Clinton’s efforts with YouTube and John McCain’s social network, “McCain Space.” He seems to think, however, that nearly all of the campaigns could use fresher graphic design, and wants to see user-generated content in the mix. “I wonder when one of these campaigns will get really smart and start letting campaign supporters throughout the United States in on the content generation. Can you imagine the power of such a peering network, especially if it was open to the public? That would be truly leveraging the power of social networking technologies.”

Turning Freelancers into hits

The Publicity Hound

Joan Stewart recommends not forgetting freelance journalists when sending media pitches, as forming good relationships with writers can lead to big hits down the road. She cites an example of a book receiving increased publicity after landing in the pages of Go, Airtran’s in-flight magazine, due to her publicist’s good relationship with a freelancer. Many freelancers have relationships with a wide variety of publications, it is important to remember the role they play when forming a media strategy. “Many of them write articles for a variety of publications, which increases your chances for publicity. If they interview you for one article, they might rely on your expertise for another article for a different publication.”

Enforcable Ethics in the Blogosphere?

PR Squared

Discussing the practice known as “blogola,” or luring positive reviews from high-profile bloggers with gifts or other offerings, Todd Deferen wonders if the blogosphere is capable of enforcing ethics guidelines, given its free-wheeling nature. The Wall Street Journal pointed out last week that bloggers are quickly becoming major influencers, but hardly any are bound to the same journalistic standards as mainstream journalists. Todd argues that it all hinges on transparency. Blogola is fine, so long as the blogger is up front about any gifts they’ve received. “If the product in question sucks, no number of happy-face blog postings will convince anyone otherwise. If the bloggers’ audience reacts disdainfully to their happy-face posts; call the blogger a “sell-out;” delete the RSS feed – then the respectable blogger will soon form their own ethics policy.”

The Blogosphere vs. Fact-Checking

Neville Hobson

Reporting on last week’s faulty posting in Engadget that Apple was delaying the release of some key products (including the heavily anticipated iPhone), Neville Hobson relates the incident to the “blogs vs. journalism” debate. Engadget jumped to post the incorrect information without checking facts, one of the weaknesses of the blogosphere, according to many. Neville points out that mainstream journalists can stumble over facts just as easily as professional bloggers, and no one should be too quick to assign blame wholly on the vehicle of the information. “This opens the door to the long-running blogosphere debate about blogging vs journalism. It includes beliefs that bloggers don’t question things before they post, whereas journalists always verify a story before they publish. It’s never as black and white as that.”

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Thanks for the fine write up. I like the blogola controversy. Todd's right in the sense that buying favorible links is not good. Blogola should be given in the sense that if your service sucks, you are blogalaling at your own risk...

I just added you to our blog roll.

[Mark Vane]

Hey, Quiet cool. BTW, I recently added a new cool News widget on my blog. Just google widgetmate. It gives a free customizable news widget that can added to your blog for latest news on the topics of your interest. Simple cut paste.