Does PR Need Some Sex Education? (and Other PR Blog Jots)

Will Advertisers Take Over Social Media?
POP! PR Jots
“Public relations vs. marketing” is an age-old battle, and Jeremy Pepper not only sees that battle spreading to social media, he predicts the marketers will win. Slick, sexy campaigns will blind clients to the importance of community building, and they will begin to see the “community” more like a “commodity.” Jeremy argues that PR ignored the web in the early days, losing the corporate web sites to marketers and advertising campaigns when they could have used it to spread positive messages about their companies. In order to win, he recommends education programs for social media in every PR firm, and an emphasis on community building (while some of the commenters also argue that PR needs a bit more sex appeal to compete with sex-obsessed marketers). “The reality is that it does not matter if PR, advertising and social media are all marketing communications - what matters is who is going to get control of social media, and make it right for clients and the agencies. In my view, it should be public relations because social media is very public and socially oriented. You cannot just pop in there and try to be part of the community, to never return again.”

Snack Time
Web Strategy By Jeremiah
I like to think of PR Blog Jots as a media snack. I imagine a big chunk of our readers are those who don’t have the time that day to sift through their feeds, and just want to read a few very good posts that hopefully cover some of the major happenings out there in the PR and social media blogosphere. Jeremiah Owyang wonders if media snackers, those digesting small chunks of data at a time and then moving on, get enough respect from bloggers or social media professionals who are up to their necks in new media for the bulk of their day. He lists the ways he tries to respect the time-strapped among us, and the ways he may not. Do you respect the media snacker? “Keeping my blog posts tight and concise, I need to work on that more, I’m known for excessive writing, and it likely scares people off. I also publish too frequently, which is also not respecting your time, as I get busier at work, that will naturally change.”

Red Cross, Disasters, and Social Media
Communications Overtones
In yesterday’s Jots, I linked to a post from Fleet Street PR pointing out all the ways that California could be using new media to communicate information regarding the wildfire situation better. Today, Kami Huyse reports on the efforts of the Red Cross to do just that. The venerable relief organization has set up a Twitter feed for minute-by-minute updates, allowed people to log into the Safe and Well Website using a cell phone, and set up a del.icio.us account dedicated to post information from the media. The Red Cross is also making it very easy to donate money to help relieve the victims of the fire, and Kami urges us all to spread the word. “Steal this post and put it up on your own blog (no credit necessary).  There is nothing like viral word of mouth to make this campaign a success and to help support the people that have lost so much to this fire.”

The CEO Blog Debate
DIGtrends
At the second Social Media Breakfast earlier this month, Larry Weber made the somewhat controversial claim that CEOs shouldn’t necessarily be blogging—he thinks the blogging efforts should be coming from lower-level employees in the thick of the action rather than the C-suite. Was he right? Kevin of Digital Influence Group (of which Larry Weber is chairman) tends to agree, arguing that just because social media has given anyone the ability to blog, doesn’t mean that they should. And shouldn’t a CEO of a major company be concering himself with more important matters? I think it depends on the company. “As most bloggers know, it’s about the conversation not just generating content. I for one would rather have my CEO talking with potential customers and creating corporate strategy then writing thought leadership posts to educate and entertain the industry or commenting on posts about the latest shiny object and how it will lead us to the Web 3.0 promise land.”

Comments

[Kevin]

Hi Sarah,

For some organizations, Social Media and blogging is something that needs time to manifest. The last thing we want to have happen is a CEO commit to blogging and then neglect the audience when times get busy or difficult. It's our job, to make sure that everyone considers the commitment and is willing to dedicate themselves to the effort. Otherwise, we end up with ghost written blogs that are just waiting to be the next hot story. Thanks for reading DigTrends and I am happy to chat about this topic with anyone as there is no "real" wrong answer.