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Like many new media and technologies, blogging is best learned by blogging. One can read bloggers, study suggestions and think about it, but, in the end, one blogs or not.
This is a lesson learned during 20 years of working with new media and technologies. For many, there is no clear reason to take a step into the unknown and they shouldn't. For some, there is a chance a medium or technology might be useful, and they should plow ahead systematically.
I started blogging for personal and professional reasons. It:
* Forces me to stay up with communications.
* Lets me think out loud where my thoughts are open to criticism.
* Serves as a daily complement to my web site online-pr.com.
Two of these three reasons apply to anyone.
If there is a criticism of PR in general, the field has been slow to look at how new technologies and other disciplines fit into the hard work of communications. Note the absence of the PR industry in the PBS Frontline examination of marketing that is on-air now, whether you agree with the program's point of view or not. Most of what researchers are doing focuses on how communicators should frame and present issues effectively. Isn't that what we are supposed to do? Note that researchers emphasize repeatedly the need to listen to consumers.
We say we listen, but do we listen well? Do we set aside assumptions and learn what is really happening? Steve Rubel made a strong case for blogging and listening yesterday. There is no need to repeat his argument. There is room for testing blogging to see if it works as a listening device, and it doesn't cost much to do.
The danger is that blogging can become blathering — a way to spout rather than to learn. Blogging tends to bloviating by the nature of what it is.
Blogging should spark discussion. Discussion should spark fuller examination of assumptions and ideas. It should force honest practitioners to look again at how they consider the world. Unfortunately, as a reader of many blogs, that isn't often the case — not yet, anyway. But, there is room to experiment and to learn.
If there is one tip I have learned already from blogging, it is to get away from a focus on what blogging is and can do. I have learned more about PR by looking across industries and news events to examine communications issues contained in them. Blogging records a journey into the world rather than into a new medium. You might find the same.
Ah, James. Many are confusing the blogging “medium” with the message, as has happened with the web, and one presumes, with TV, radio, the telegraph and the quill pen.
Is blogging effective as a communications tool? Of course, as are most forms of expression, if they are used in a targeted, strategic fashion. And by that I don't mean anything nefarious, just that there must be clear goals set for the outcome — whether it be intelligence gathering or information dissemination.I haven't yet seen too much of this approach to utilizing the “blogosphere” by corporate communications types (although the politicos seem to get it).
Al: I agree. We in PR are still sorting through the usefulness of this tool and talking far too much about blogging rather than getting on with it.
There are target audiences to whom corporations can speak regularly, such as customers and suppliers, to let them know what is happening and to build relationships.
Blogging is not the only way to do this. A web page can do the job as can targeted e-mail. It's a question of finding a tool that works for the client and then starting.
There isn't much to be gained by hanging back until everyone else has joined in.
Jim,
I, too, wondered where PR was in the PBS series on Persuasian. Al & Laura Ries, in their fabulous book, “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR” — which Steve Rubel recommended in his PowerPoints on blogging for the PRSA seminar — seem to indicate that PR is much more effective than advertising in the modern media environment. Yet PR was not even invited to the table in the Frontline program. And my experience with clients is that marketing has all the money and PR has but crumbs that fall off the table. Without funding, how can PR succeed? And without a fundamental belief in the value of PR, how can it possibly get funding?
Also, as far as listening goes, do blogs really facilitate discussion? Many have suspended open comments, most bury the comments, and some, such as GoogleBlog, never had comments. Open comments can mean open liability for a corporation. Many corporations disabled feedback links on their web sites because they could not deal with the volume and nature of communications they received. How will blogs be different?
STEVE O'KEEFE
Steve: It is my understanding that PR was invited to appear on the PBS program but no CEO of a PR company agreed to do so. This needs checking, however. The chicken-egg problem has long been a bugaboo for PR. My feeling continues to be that the field should not let that hinder it. However, that's easily said and not easily done. As for comments, I agree with you. I don't have them activated on my blog because there has been little interest in commenting so far — sadly. Yet, I continue to stare at the moon and hope. At least I won't go blind waiting.
Hi Jim
I feel blogs and any new technology today is much more challenging to promote because of post-bubble skeptics. Many CEO's and businesses were burned in the dot com melt down. It has made corporate America more cautious towards new Internet technologies. CEO's today are still pushing for ROI. Blogs have to be demonstrated as a cost effective medium. By eliminating the Webmaster, (who doesn't want to give up control of his domain) companies can reduce web admin costs and beat their competitors in getting a message out.
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