THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE. GO TO THE HOMEPAGE TO FIND OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. arch emisou panton
	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Posted by philgomes 7:15 PM "Yes? You In The Back? You Have A Question?": I received this email today from someone who read my ExpertPR piece on weblogs. You claim that PR pros will ignore blogs "at their peril." But can you give me an instance of where you have used your blog savvy to the benefit of a client, no matter how indirect? As with any new medium, approaching blogs from a PR standpoint is best done conservatively until everyone—journalist, flack, and blogger alike—has some perspective on this "new-thing-but-not-really" phenomenon. For now, I maintain The best way to get covered within the blogging community is to get into the news sources bloggers read and rely on. (Or, at the most proactive, have a question that sincerely expresses a question that is of interest to the blog's readers, like this Blogservations reader has done.) For example, one of my agency's clients was covered in Scientific American and EETimes at the time of launch. As a result, it became the subject of a Slashdot conversation...twice! This then percolated through to several other blogs. All that exposure and we neither bothered Slashdot's editors, nor attempted to submit the link through the blog's story submission system. The Web outlets for national/metro daily papers, science magazines, major trades, broadcasting companies, and other media properties that we've all heard of seem are the most blog-referenced sources. So, at the end of the day, one's PR strategy and execution does not change too much. Depending on the nature of your announcement or the newsworthiness of your company, you'd try to reach out to those publications anyway, right? (To paraphrase Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, "PR isn't rocket science, it's brain surgery!" Seriously. People really do over-think this kind of thing sometimes. There's probably someone out there demanding a "seamlessly integrated blog strategy" out of their PR person.) I find that it's not so much an issue of PR "action" as it is "strongly advised inaction." I know that some companies have actually approached their respective PR folks with "That post from 'sausage69' doesn't reflect our positioning quite right. Send him an email and get him seeing our side of the story." (I so wish I was kidding.) Of course, doing so would only invite widespread, virally disseminated, and perpetually archived ridicule. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.