Amanda Chapel started a blog today. She wants to build her name and her traffic. So she writes a post about Steve Rubel, asking people to take bets about how long he’ll last in his new job at Edelman.
She sends the following pitch to me and a host of other bloggers trying to stir things up.
Place You Bets, Ghoulish Office Pool Spreads
Filed Sunday, March 26, 2006
Guess Rubel’s Exit Date and Win Big
http://www.strumpette.com/
I happen to eavesdrop in on a conversation on the shop floor down at the “image factory” last week. About six of our young chicks were sitting around the lunch table cackling. The topic of course was clients… and boys. The chit chat touched on “March Madness” and oddly turned to Stevel Rubel of Micropersuasion fame. Well, turns out there is a hot office pool presently and it’s not the Final Four; it’s how long Rubel will last at Edelman. How totally catty… but how absolutely fun! Apparently, it’s not limited to our office. It’s ended up inboxes[sic] throughout our network globally.
Here are the particulars: The pool obviously is by date. The calendar starts May 27th, accounting for a standard 90-day grace period. It’s $25 a square.
Read More: http://www.strumpette.com/archives/66-Place-You-Bets,-Ghoulish-Office-Pool-Spreads.html
Dear Amanda: Yes, it’s totally catty. Not, it’s not absolutely fun. It comes across exactly like what it is, piggybacking on a big name to try to build your own reputation. Yecch. Sorry, but I find your tactic unappealing at best and unethical at worst. If you’d like to build an audience, build up some original content with credible sources.
Here’s some advice about how to make your blog stand out.
“Everyone and Her Dog Seems to Be a Blog Consultant”
B.L.,
Right.
Regards,
– Amanda Chapel
Amanda: Among the clients to whom I consult on blog marketing are IBM and Cendant.
Regards,
BL
BL, it IS original content. How many blogs out there are just repurposed content and link posts? This was at least creative and funny.
And, it’s easy to write such posts when you have never attacked a company for not getting it.
Every dog has its day, including dog character blogs. Today was Amanda’s.
Shall we all start name dropping clients and prospects, now?
Whether or not Amanda is fishing for comments is actually not the issue at hand here, it’s that she was sharing something that went on in her presence. There are probably a billion other things that have gone on in public relations that she has the opportunity to share – And should the blog continue, tipsters, will surely show up. Sure, the Bad Pitch Blog serves a purpose, but it, too, relies on comments and tipsters to survive. Wonkette serves, or rather, served, a big purpose when it showed up – commentless, I might add – and was a huge success, telling the story to those who were Outside the Beltway (Sorry, James Joyner). There was demand for it, even if people didn’t realize they were interested in it in the first place.
What was important here was not that Amanda was asking people to take bets – it was that she was relating that other people were already holding a pool.
Oh, and it’s “tack” in that usage, since we’re all catty tonight.
Tom: I’m not dropping names for the sake of dropping names. That’s totally unnecessary. Amanda implied that I was just another blog consultant. I thought that record needed to be set straight post haste.
I’m not interested in a cat fight and I’m not interested in knowing who Amanda slept with. Time will tell whether she has anything to say that’s worth reading.
Understood on your perspective. What I’d be more worried about is what starts happening when the folks within PR start tipping off Amanda.
They might. I don’t think much of the way PR is practiced by 99% of flaks, as anyone who reads this blog probably has discerned.
To me, what Amanda’s doing is just a giant leap backward for women. There are other, much classier, ways to draw attention to your content than using pictures of yourself with your clothes off and bragging that you’ve fucked your boss and your clients. Way TMI.
The one who smells like a rose is Steve Rubel because he joked with her about her post and ignored her on his blog. Way to go Steve.
Now I’ve spent entirely too much time talking about this strumpette. I’m on to the next big thing now.
How To Get Ahead
Just one post young, a new PR blog has garnered a lot of attention, both in links and in comments. For all you PR students out there, especially the women, here’s apparently the winning formula: Piggyback on a big name
B.L., I think you have it exactly right, it is a mean spirited driveling blog thus far. Kudos for calling her on it.
I hadn’t even heard of this blog until a mass email from her arrived in my mailbox this morning. To be honest I haven’t looked at her blog and I’m not going to until I see other bloggers referencing it for its content, and not what she’s (not)wearing.
But I do find it odd that you disagree with her tactics, ie going after Steve to boost her traffic, yet here you blog about her, and give the addy for her blog.
Aren’t you giving her the traffic that you claim she wants? If you disagree with what she’s doing, why not follow Steve’s example instead of just blogging about it?
Drive-by Blogging: My PR Blog Neighbours Are Revolting!
The appeal of snarky, bitchy blog posts is undeniable. And, quite frankly, reading blogs would be boring without some of the raw entertainment of celebrity-style journalism thrown in for good measure. So I’m not entirely sure why I have such a negative…
yes, i could have ignored her. and from now on, i will.
BL, your contention that women need to live their lives for other women is a million times more offensive than anything Amanda has on her blog. In what world are women so weak that they need ask another woman to base her individual choices on what is good for them?
Jackie: Amanda seems not to be a woman, or a real person of any sex for that matter. the blog appears to be a hoax, possibly by someone within Edelman. have you googled the name?
surely you jest when you say that i contend that women ought to live their lives for other women.
get a life. and please, feel free to go naked online whenever and wherever you like.
BL
‘Your’ Strumpet
I try to avoid blog feuds like Black Death, but I became so intrigued, I decided to blog about it.
Someone calling “herself” Amanda Chapel started a blog called Strumpette. This person started off on the wrong stiletto by going after, in …
BL, did you not say this? “To me, what Amanda’s doing is just a giant leap backward for women.”
BTW, when will you tell the real story of how you first found out about business blogging? I’m curious to see if you’re one for giving credit where it is due, since we’re talking ethics here. (And since when is it ethical to be so deeply unpleasant to someone who challenges your viewpoint?)
I’ll miss Their smelly skag skank drooling troll attacks, these 5 fat white unemployed guys in Chicago or thereabouts who hide behind a North Korean (or Italian?) female avatar.
Excuse me while I weep into the skid marks.
~~ Copy & Paste Post Troll Destroyer ~~
Take 5 unemployed guys who love Andrew Keen and toss in Mark Rose for good leisure, add Brian Connolly as the butler of undisclosures, and what do you get?
Stum (guitar) Pette (dog) to the rescue, saving the New PR from foul language and juvenile attack vectors based on Oligarchy, Corporate Butt Kissing, and Anti-Cluetrain churlishness!
And a love of great hiearchical achievements of “professional, elitist, non-populist” genius, like opera and command and control structures immune to Of the People, By the People, For the People.