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Phil's Blogservations
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Posted by philgomes 7:53 PM
Why I Hate The "A-List" MentalityA whole bunch of people are talking about this article from a magazine I don't read.
Reminds me of something that started early in my career. Something I called "Wall Street Journal Syndrome."
Even as a junior employee, it astounded me how a PR team could pole-vault over every expectation and every conceivable measuring stick, only to allow themselves to get beaten up for not getting a "hit" in the corner office's favorite elite publication.
Wow, Johnson. Our share-of-mind is up. Our competitors are de-positioned. We are the perceived leaders in our market by a country mile. Inbound inquiries based on our announcements are incontrovertibly tied to gains in revenue and customer retention. BUT YOU DIDN'T GET ME IN THE STRATEGIC JOURNAL-TIMES, SO YOU HAVE FAILED!!I thought things would've changed. I mean, the advent of social media is what kept me in PR, even when people were looking at me as if I grew a member on my chin after reading my early writings.Nope. You see, these days, we have the so-called blogger "A-list," a desire to achieve same, and, as Henry Rollins once said, it's just a case of the mouthwash swishing over to the other cheek.
Sure... On one hand, people who "get it" say that it's not about pitching "elites" and such but, on the other, there's just so much energy about "A-listers" or "influentials" or what-have-you. Compound that with some fairly insincere denials that such status matters, and you've got a recurring cerebellum-itch that vexes this funny-looking bald man to no end.
Communicators love to say that they have a word-of-mouth strategy. They love to say that they "get it" when it comes to blogs. Oh, but if only the prevailing philosophy — to say nothing of the execution — came anywhere close to these lofty ideals.
It's the Blog Fairy Dust, or "Flavor Aid" to some. It's the magical stuff that lets you and an uncritical audience believe that you have a "Web 2.0" strategy based on horizontal, open, word-of-mouth principles when — in reality — all that you're doing is taking the elite-based strategies you learned in traditional PR and trying to shoehorn them to online communities. Here, the fact that the publishing mechanism is a blog and not a printing press has changed little insofar as the philosophy of your approach is concerned, but you'll still tell your client/boss that you have a "blog strategy."
Make no mistake: You're still doggedly focusing on elites, which is fine in some PR scenarios but insufficient here. The fact that the "influential" you're communicating with has a self-funded blog rather than a paycheck signed by Dow Jones does not mean that you're suddenly cluetrained.
If we hide behind euphemisms, we will never improve our industry's perception, capabilities, or real value and we will indeed end up saying that the BL Ochmans, Dave Taylors, Tom Foremskis, and Russell Beatties were right all along.So, hear it from Mr. Technorati-Rank #19,520:The day you start caring more than two squirts of whizz about your ranking or A-list status is the day you have lost control of your blog — and, with it, your online identity — since that desire to achieve and maintain status will inevitably color what you write and how you write it!!!And there's no Easter Bunny either.Before some of you start running around thinking that I've just written the most career-limiting thing of my young life, hear me out.
I know that people pay for PR, in large part, because they desire higher visibility. Seeking to achieve A-list status is certainly part of this. I have no quibble with that.
But, is who you are and what you write about — your credibility — worth changing in order to achieve this? Because that's what is at stake if you ever think to yourself "I believe [X], but I'll be less popular if I write it. The best thing to do is [Y], but people will hate me and I'll never be an A-lister EVER!!!"
Is it not enough to be a resource for your particular community, however small it is? (Jaffe's got the right idea: "I don't need Jaffe Juice to be considered anything other than a trusted and respected resource with high value content.")
Most of all... Can't you do it for fun?
Of course, visibility and credibility are not mutually exclusive variables. It's perfectly reasonable to consider that someone became visible because he or she was credible in his/her domain of expertise. However, the converse — credibility coming from visibility — is a fallacy.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, blogging, a list, wom, word-of-mouth
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This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL.
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