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March 30, 2006

And Another Thing

By Charlie Kondek

In my last post I wrote about AND. I said bloggers write about one or two subjects AND – as in, "My blog is about guitars, sailing, Web 2.0, plantsmanship, hard-to-find tequilas AND whatever else I can think of."

Usually that "and" means comments on current events or other interesting happenings, but it also means bloggers frequently mix up the personal, sometimes deeply personal, with their other blog categories.

I mention this because here at Hass MS&L we believe not just in reaching out to bloggers on behalf of our clients but in sustaining relationships with bloggers. We know several whom I refer to as "friendly bloggers," people we talk to again and again on a number of projects, and I enjoy the professional relationship I have with them. We don't only talk shop. It's not unheard of to toss an "lol" into the correspondence, or to ask after each other's kids.

But that doesn't mean I know everything about them. In fact, sometimes I miss something important they mentioned on their blog. Part of sustaining these relationships with them means taking time to read their blogs, and to know when it's a good time to back off from a pitch.

After all, how would you like it if you just got finished posting about, say, the death of the family pet, or your divorce, or a medical scare, and then you got an e-mail from me along the lines of: "Hi, Blogger! Long time no talk to. Say, would you like to try Brand X?"

Posted by staff at 03:51 PM
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March 21, 2006

'When the Boss is Blogging' teleconference

Hey, it’s not too late to register for our WOMMA teleconference tomorrow, when Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, GM blog guru Michael Wiley and I will be talking about executive blogging. It’s the second in a series of Word of Mouth Wednesday teleconferences. It only costs $50 for non-members or $10 for members – a considerable savings over a typical blog conference.

WOMMA is the Word of Mouth Marketing Association , and you can register for any of the coming Wednesday teleconferences here. (Annual membership is $3,000 or $1,000 for businesses with fewer than 10 employees.)

Posted by Laurie Mayers at 08:28 AM
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March 17, 2006

Mapping the Blogosophere, One Segment at a Time

By Charlie Kondek
3/17/06

In attempting to understand the blogosphere and our place within it, I often feel like an explorer at the fringes of an uncharted wilderness. I plunge in and look around and make sketches of what I find, all the while trying to maintain diplomatic relations with the natives. The naturalist's motto is also foremost in my mind: leave it the way you found it. Or, from a PR perspective, enable the conversation, don't disrupt it.

But back to those sketches - what does the blogosphere look like? This comes up all the time when we take a blogger outreach campaign from concept to reality. "We have Product X. We need to communicate it to bloggers. What bloggers would be receptive to X's message?"

While many people think they know the blogosphere, it's more like the parable about the blind men describing the elephant: we all have only part of the picture, the part that we personally intersect with. We casually say we want to reach "mom bloggers" or "dad bloggers," "sports bloggers," "Gen X bloggers," "fashionistas," "gamers," "geeks." And certainly they exist. But we also find blog segments we didn't know existed. Who knew dentists were blogging, for example?

Add to that the fact that most blogs are about such-and-such AND. In other words, "I blog about fashion AND food, world events, my family AND whatever else strikes my fancy," which expands the scope of a blog quite a bit. Still, these classifications are useful, and a look at the blogroll often helps in categorizing the blog. Some blogs will always defy description, but as a starting point, mapping by segment isn't bad.

Posted by staff at 03:55 PM
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March 13, 2006

It's the conversation, stupid

Business 2.0 talks about how MySpace beat out Friendster in social networking:

The lesson there is that if you are trying to build a social network, you need to let the members express themselves however they like, even if you don't like how they are doing it.

I think the same is true for companies thinking about blogging. If you're going to allow comments, you have to let people have their opinions, even if you don't agree.

Business 2.0 also mentions how Friendster overthought its network. Again, the same is true for the corporate world and blogging. If you think about it too much and come up with every possible scenario, blogging may look and feel scary. But jump in and test the waters, and it's not so bad after all.

Posted by root at 08:34 AM
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March 08, 2006

Wal-Mart’s blog strategy

I’ve seen two stories in the New York Times in the last few weeks about how Wal-Mart is using blogs and their like in communications efforts.

1. Three weeks ago, Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro (the story was also reprinted in the International Herald Tribune ) looked at Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott’s communications with his employees in a confidential internal web site called “Lee’s Garage.” Scott solicits employee questions and answers one every week or two. The Times also posted PDFs of three years’ worth of Lee’s Garage, supplied to it by Wal-Mart Watch, who got them from a disgruntled manager.

Scott’s communications to employees are pretty frank. For example, he suggested to a store manager who pointedly asked why Wal-Mart couldn’t offer retirees medical benefits that the manager might be better off seeking employment elsewhere. I see two lessons here: Never assume that an internal publication will remain secret. And perhaps it's just as well Lee Scott doesn't have a public blog, where the questions would be tougher still.

2. The Times’s Barbaro wrote yesterday that Wal-Mart is including bloggers in its media relations strategies, counseled by the PR firm Edelman. Let’s start out by saying that our BlogWorks practice reaches out to bloggers on behalf of clients to promote products and news. It’s a big new media world out there, and corporate communicators need to jump in. The Times rap is that some bloggers seem to be cutting and pasting Wal-Mart news directly into their blogs. Blogger Brian Pickrell says the Times piece is biased, but leaving that aside, I’ve gotta say, Hey, is this this news? Anybody who’s spent any time in a small-market newsroom knows that the never-ending search for fresh news often leads to cutting and pasting, or using video or audio news releases without attribution. It’s not good journalism, it’s sausage-making. But it happens.

Likewise, there are many publications with diligent reporters, editors and fact-checkers, and bloggers who wouldn't dream of pasting anyone's corporate spiel into their blog. Doubtless, some of those bloggers received and ignored the Wal-Mart pitch about health care.

In his blog, Edelman CEO Dick Edelman writes about the Wal-Mart stories, “Of course we give information to bloggers, just as PR people for generations have done with print media, and I'm a little surprised that the print and broadcast media are surprised.”

And a Slashdot poster wrote: “The interesting thing in this story is not so much the astroturfing, which is old news, but the transformation of blogging from a personal statement to a corporate bullhorn. The bloggers mentioned in the story, who presumably are able to articulate their own opinions, received Wal-Mart email and began to simply copy the PR text into the blogs. What is the use of a blog if bloggers are just going to copy sentences and sentiments from the puppetmaster's email?"

Well said. How about if we flacks keep trying to tell our clients’ stories, while bloggers and reporters keep using their best judgment?

Posted by Laurie Mayers at 01:53 PM
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March 07, 2006

Photos from PRWeek Awards ceremony

Here's a set of photos with the MS&L crew from the PRWeek awards ceremony in New York last week.

Posted by root at 12:52 PM
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March 03, 2006

We won!

PRWeek recognized Hass MS&L and General Motors last night with two top awards -- PR Innovation of the Year and Best Use of the Internet -- for the GM FastLane blog.

GM was one of the first Fortune 500 companies to launch a corporate blog, and the FastLane blog has attracted more than 1.9 million visits and thousands of comments from readers. GM's charismatic Vice Chairman Bob Lutz and other executives author the blog, which focuses on GM's cars and trucks. Hass MS&L is the agency of record. One judge described the blog as "a great new media campaign from a traditional, old-time manufacturing firm. Plus, it used the right spokesman, Lutz, to create a dialogue around product design."

Michael Wiley, GM director of new media, and Jud Branam, Hass MS&L managing director, accepted the two (heavy) trophies at the ceremony at Tavern on the Green in New York's Central Park.

Congratulations to the BlogWorks team, GM Communications and to Bob Lutz, whose passion and authority make it happen.

Posted by Laurie Mayers at 08:49 AM
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March 01, 2006

Nike's hoops blog does it old school -- one way

Athletic gear giant Nike has a new basketball blog, but there's no way to hear the squeaks of their readers, as high-maintenance social niceties such as comments and trackbacks are not featured. Plenty of large photos, though.

Posted by Jud Branam at 10:50 AM
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Detroit blogs rally over zoo closing

Metro Detroit bloggers are on the defensive this week after the Detroit City Council voted down a proposal to turn the operations of the zoo over to the nonprofit zoological society in time for a state deadline that would have provided funding for the zoo.

Some members of the council see it as a race issue with the suburbs vs. the city. (The zoo is in Royal Oak in Oakland County, north of Detroit, which is in Wayne County.)

From WXYZ-TV Channel 7's report:

Detroit City Council member Barbara-Rose Collins said, "The symbolism is that Detroit is a black city and that we’re unable to govern ourselves. So we need an overseer, the state legislature, or what have you, to step in and tell us what we must do and how to do it."
She said she will not sign off on an operating agreement until it protects Detroit’s interests and the state should not try to force them with a funding deadline.
"That is a racist attitude. I resent it very much. I’m trying not to let it color my judgments, but we’re not a plantation, blacks aren’t owned by white folks anymore," said Collins.

Jeremy at pajamazzon.com responds:

But what enraged me the most was Barbara-Rose Collins statement above. Uhm, lemme see … what year is it? Oh yeah, it’s 2006. You would think that 40 years past the social and racial struggles that faced this city, we wouldn’t have to put up with the whole “I’m black, you’re white” thing anymore. In fact, I find this the most upsetting part of the whole deal. I’m sorry that someone in your position thinks that way of your city, but seriously, comparing the State’s involvement to that of a plantation owner? It’s this kind of backwards thinking that plagues the city council.

And Melissa at Suburban Bliss has a rant:

The race game continues to prevent the city and suburbs from cooperating. It's definitely an easy way out of actually dealing with issues.

And Detroit Funk has a sad perspective on the city:

Hearbreaking news hitting the television and radio waves in the last couple days - if any of you were asking " what will be destroyed next? ", here it is.

And someone just started a blog to save the zoo.

The head of Oakland County and Detroit city council members have been bantering back and forth.

All this talk has been moving the situation in a direction it shouldn't be going. Politicians should be doing everything they can to keep the zoo open – not point fingers over who said what.

On the other hand, blogs are a great way to see/read what real people think without being filtered through a media outlet. Maybe the politicians should be taking a look.

Posted by at 10:37 AM
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