In a PR Week article reprinted on his blog, my colleague Steve Rubel has issued a cry to “midsize or large PR firm (e.g. 15 or more employees)” to learn about blogging. What a bunch of erudite BS!
“For all of the hype about blogs and citizens’ media,” he writes, “the PR community still has a long way to go before we can say that we’ve learned the bare minimum to stay afloat in these new waters.” I’d say that’s generous Steve.
Small Agencies and Solo Practitioners Need Not Apply
“Once our group has reached a set of best practices and/or recommendations, we will definitely open our ideas up for broader input by the PR community. We are interested, for example, in hearing what ideas boutiques and solo practitioners may have. If you blog, however, I am sure you won’t wait for that moment – which I personally welcome.” No thanks, Steve, I’m too busy doing blog campaigns for corporate clients to sit around and talk about blogging theory.
What the world needs now is not a bunch of medium-to-large-size PR firms to engage in a circle jerk about blogging practices. It needs the rogue creative types who lead every new development to show corporations how to effectively use blogs as part of the marketing mix.
Rogue Creative Types Lead
You’ll find them among the solo practitioners and small creative shops you’ve excluded from your discussion. And you’ll find some of them, like my client Sher Taton at IBM, Robert Scoble at Microsoft, and a very few others, gamely championing the cause of blogging within huge companies and making headway. They’re doing Steve, not talking.
You want to see blogs used in corporate marketing, look at Hugh Macleod’s work for English Cut and Stormhoek; look at mine for Cendant; look at Brian Clark’s work for Audi and other clients, and then you can get beyond talk and policy making. And, Steve, you’ve done good work for Vespa.
PR Agencies Have Had 10 Years to “Get it”
PR agencies have had 10 years to “get” the Internet and they still haven’t seized company web sites from corporate sales. The PR industry is not exactly rife with creative types. That’s why they don’t lead new media Steve.
I speak at many conferences about blogging and I constantly meet agency and corporate PR people rather sheepishly asking “what’s a blog?” And “omigawd, how can I possibly keep up with all of it?” Frankly, most of them should be ashamed to call themsleves communicators and the biggest firms are the biggest offenders.
Steve Rubel Issues an Erudite Call to Blogging for Big PR Agencies Only
BL Ochman | November 28, 2005 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) | TrackBack (
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Categories: Alternative Marketing, Blogging and Moblogging, Business Communications, Commentary, Corporate_Blogging, Internet PR, Internet strategy, Marketing Strategy, Worst Practices
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BL,
As one of the agencies invited to engage in this particular “circle jerk”, I have to say I had a different view of what it was trying to achieve when Steve first tabled it back in October.
You see, I thought it was about action, not more pontification. I was hoping to share ideas about how we could get our staff doing rather than talking, so that we didn’t have to rely on experts like you to tell us what a blog was.
It’s becoming clear that Steve’s project has pissed off more people than it has supporters, but I still think there is a challenge in engaging the “biggest offenders” so that we don’t need to be ashamed to call ourselves communicators.
I’d appreciate your views on how we might do this.
Niall: What you get for nothing is worth what you pay. I’m available as a consultant. Would welcome the opportunity to talk to you.
BL
Can PR drive the uptake of social media
Steve Rubel says medium and big agencies should get behind blogging, BL Ochman (hey do these two NYC dudes agree on anything?) says that’s BS and that big agencies are the furtherest behind in understanding the Internet. Which is true despite Edelman’s…
BL: I admit that I’m new to blogging and social media, but am I missing something? The “big guys” have been slow to understand and embrace social media – to me, this sounds like a competitive advantage for small firms/boutiques. I’m all for “open” conversations, but does participating in social media mean that we must give our competitors – and that is what they are, our competitors – the tools to beat us? Should David give Goliath a sling and a couple of stones, too? I think not. Those who understand and have embraced social media should be too busy helping clients to feel left out of the discussion. If the large PR firms want to play catch up, let them pay.
Wayne E. Pollard, Author, “Minds Before Market Share: The Art of Public Relations”
Exactly Wayne! I’m too busy creating blogging campaigns for my corporate clients to give unpaid advice. I only wrote about this because it was so offensive to suggest that only 15-person plus agencies could have something valuable to say about blogging. And Rubel is still going on about having the right people create policies. Screw policies. Policies are what got PR into its current flacid state. All the policies in the world won’t buy an ounce of creativity.
So, BL, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
Wow. That’s a great post. I have to admit, I was very disappointed with Steve’s approach when I read it last night. But the “good-old-boy” attitude of letting a few of the “big guys” set the rules of engagement for the industry is nothing new.
As a marketing consultant and agency person from outside the New York area, it’s expected.
I can remember going to a AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies) annual meeting in 1989 and listening in awe to big agency after big agency standing up and triumphantly announcing their discovery of the “new” advertising. Their big idea was this: includ PR and direct marketing into the mix of services they provide to clients and move from “advertising” to “marketing”.
Huh?
We had been doing that for years. These guys had just figured out how to stretch their clients’ dollars while we had been forced to create “Integrated Marketing Communications” out of neccessity.
So, Steve’s approach didn’t suprise me at all. Offend me? Yes. I felt like I was being made to site at “the kids’ table” for Thanksgiving dinner. But the nice thing is that influential bloggers like you, Jeremy Pepper and others stood up and said something.
In case you haven’t noticed, Steve has now opened this discussion up to “all sizes of PR firms” and other practitioners who have something to offer.
Bravo, BL. I’ll mark this one down as a win for the little guy, thanks in no small part to you.
(I’ve also added your post to my list of posts people should read tomorrow (11/29) on my “Much Ado About Marketing” blog.
Thanks again,
Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station
Yes, I agree that Ms. Ochman made some excellent points in showing the initial arrogance on the Mr. Rubel and others.
From your post above:
“What the world needs now is not a bunch of medium-to-large-size PR firms to engage in a circle jerk about blogging practices. It needs the rogue creative types who lead every new development to show corporations how to effectively use blogs as part of the marketing mix.”
But, while you are right in the above, do you mean you are not willing to participate? Per your reply to Niall:
“What you get for nothing is worth what you pay. I’m available as a consultant. Would welcome the opportunity to talk to you.”
Please clarify if I’ve misunderstood the conversation so far: You are saying the process is not fair and exclusionary, but you are not willing to participate?
— Mike
That’s right Mike. Shocking as this may sound, I get paid for my advice about social media.
The intiial Rubel process certainly was erudite and exclusionary, and while I thought it necessary to point that out, I have no interest in participating in what I see as a self-serving exercise by all involved.
I like and respect Steve personally, but I think this exercise is one in futility. I have other fish to fry.
I was aghast at how little the PR types at the Media Relations 2005 conference in San Francisco knew about blogging. I’ll bet at least half of the ones I met had no clue what a blog was and were too afraid to find out.
I sat at a table where two PR people told me their bosses fobade them from starting a blog at their company website “becauase we don’t want people trashing us at our own blog.”
To which I replied: “Guess what? They might be trashing you at somebody else’s.”
B.L.,
Put me down on the “rogue creative” side of the ledger. I have been working 3-5 blogs a day, producing two substantial blog shows (IAOCblog and Blog BK Currents), and doing blog PR on dozens of blogs every week, yet apparently I am not big enough to contribute to the discussion.
It is a sacrifice and a public service to teach at places like PRSA and IAOC. It is a job and a privilege to teach at places like Tulane and UCLA. It is an insult to be excluded from any discussion of this new, open, transparent media. And it is a burden to keep participating in forums for people who are unwilling to participate themselves. Jump in and blog — best practices are easily learned.
STEVE O’KEEFE
Author, Complete Guide to Internet Publicity
Vice President, IAOC
Executive Director, Patron Saint Productions