Friday, August 08, 2008
Blog conversations
There’s a bunch of blog postings that I’ve marked-up in my RSS reader over the last week or so to respond to but haven’t. So I'm going to try and crack through them before dinner. Here goes on print versus online, reading lists, social bookmarking, social media promotion and an apology for a misdirected press release.
Andrew Smith has posted a critical analysis of a survey into the importance attached to online versus print by PRs. Parker, Wayne & Kent the author of the survey can’t have spoken to anyone at Rainier PR. I sat in a client review meeting yesterday for an account where we’d delivered 90 pieces of coverage (not including any syndication) over a six month period. The balance of online to print was 3 to 1. In the business-to-business sector buying decisions are increasingly made via the web. Any PR that doesn't recognise the importance of online as part of the sales process, and a critical component of SEO, is in trouble. There’s either a lot of deluded PR people around or Parker, Wayne &Kent
Dom Whitehurst questions the value of reading books versus exploring other aspects of culture. There has been a slew of social media and marketing books published recently and it is becoming almost impossible to keep up. Dom reckons that broadening his experience by exposing himself to life outside social media is far more beneficial than reading book after book. I completely agree Dom. I only ever read non-fiction books when I’ve had a personal recommendation. Otherwise scouring reviews from Amazon, reading the synopsis and watching a video summary where it’s available, is often sufficient to pick up the broad concepts. Do that and then follow Dom’s advice and go and explore other aspects of culture.
Alan Patrick questions the value of bookmarking when the web changes so quickly and Google makes it easy to track down recently visited articles. Sorry fella but I disagree. I’m a fanatical Delicious user for three reasons: (1) tagging web pages makes it very easy to revisit material on a single theme such as Northumberland or projects; (2) I’m a scrapbook and personal history junkie and love referring back and rereading material; and (3) Delicious make its very easy to share material using unique URLs based on the tag such as http://delicious.com/wadds/reading or http://delicious.com/wadds/restaurant.
Ben Matthews wonders whether people should blog and Tweet about their work and questions whether or not this form of self-promotion is appropriate. We’re in a fantastic period of social media where we’re only beginning to define the rules of engagement and etiquette. I reckon that as long as you are entirely transparent then there’s no harm done. That said my favourite blogs are almost all on topics totally unrelated to PR and social media. There is a very real danger that social media practitioners could become entirely insular but so far the crowd is self regulating and abusers are called out or ignored.
And on the subject of getting called out, anonymous Cheshire based blogger Diary of a Wordsmith pwned us this week for emailing our press release about summer silly stories. Sorry fella. To be fair I do split my time betweenLondon and Northumberland so have an acute awareness of the Westminster-led London
Have a good weekend all and thanks for listening.
Tags: Andrew Smith, Dom Whitehurst, Alan Patrick, Ben Matthews and Diary of a Wordsmith Permalink |
There’s a bunch of blog postings that I’ve marked-up in my RSS reader over the last week or so to respond to but haven’t. So I'm going to try and crack through them before dinner. Here goes on print versus online, reading lists, social bookmarking, social media promotion and an apology for a misdirected press release.Andrew Smith has posted a critical analysis of a survey into the importance attached to online versus print by PRs. Parker, Wayne & Kent the author of the survey can’t have spoken to anyone at Rainier PR. I sat in a client review meeting yesterday for an account where we’d delivered 90 pieces of coverage (not including any syndication) over a six month period. The balance of online to print was 3 to 1. In the business-to-business sector buying decisions are increasingly made via the web. Any PR that doesn't recognise the importance of online as part of the sales process, and a critical component of SEO, is in trouble. There’s either a lot of deluded PR people around or Parker, Wayne &
Dom Whitehurst questions the value of reading books versus exploring other aspects of culture. There has been a slew of social media and marketing books published recently and it is becoming almost impossible to keep up. Dom reckons that broadening his experience by exposing himself to life outside social media is far more beneficial than reading book after book. I completely agree Dom. I only ever read non-fiction books when I’ve had a personal recommendation. Otherwise scouring reviews from Amazon, reading the synopsis and watching a video summary where it’s available, is often sufficient to pick up the broad concepts. Do that and then follow Dom’s advice and go and explore other aspects of culture.
Alan Patrick questions the value of bookmarking when the web changes so quickly and Google makes it easy to track down recently visited articles. Sorry fella but I disagree. I’m a fanatical Delicious user for three reasons: (1) tagging web pages makes it very easy to revisit material on a single theme such as Northumberland or projects; (2) I’m a scrapbook and personal history junkie and love referring back and rereading material; and (3) Delicious make its very easy to share material using unique URLs based on the tag such as http://delicious.com/wadds/reading or http://delicious.com/wadds/restaurant.
Ben Matthews wonders whether people should blog and Tweet about their work and questions whether or not this form of self-promotion is appropriate. We’re in a fantastic period of social media where we’re only beginning to define the rules of engagement and etiquette. I reckon that as long as you are entirely transparent then there’s no harm done. That said my favourite blogs are almost all on topics totally unrelated to PR and social media. There is a very real danger that social media practitioners could become entirely insular but so far the crowd is self regulating and abusers are called out or ignored.
And on the subject of getting called out, anonymous Cheshire based blogger Diary of a Wordsmith pwned us this week for emailing our press release about summer silly stories. Sorry fella. To be fair I do split my time between
Have a good weekend all and thanks for listening.
Tags: Andrew Smith, Dom Whitehurst, Alan Patrick, Ben Matthews and Diary of a Wordsmith Permalink |
Comments:
Tut. Who you calling' a fella? A quick check on my profile would have shown I have yet to grow a penis...
Thanks for the mention Wadds. I think all books are awesome really, I just hate the reliance on a few 'key' ones.
Books are quite useful. I've got three of them propping up my bed where a wheely-jobby fell off :)
Books are quite useful. I've got three of them propping up my bed where a wheely-jobby fell off :)
@wordsmith_for_hire - Shamed again. We must move on from this subservient relationship whereby I'm constantly apologising to you :-) And to be fair, you do blog anonymously, so who is to know what's real and what's not.
@dom - agree, just read synopsis on Amazon.
@dom - agree, just read synopsis on Amazon.
"Dodgy"?
Excuse me?
So rather than researching the issues prior to building the questionnaire, including questions that achieved quantitative and qualitative responses, asking open questions, building the survey from scratch, enabling options to gain further validation for - and insight into - respondents' answers, distributing the survey to 466 random PR professionals, receiving 105 responses, asking for further feedback to the emails that were sent out, speaking to people over the phone and in-person about the issues raised, reporting back to respondents, offering full access to the questions and data tables at http://www.pwkpr.com/downloads/Online_Offline_Survey.pdf so that we contribute something to the industry, and placing some interesting and compelling statistics into a news release, you have some constructive feedback about how we should have done it differently?
Of course, we know that all surveys and research - whether conducted by schoolboy or scholar, a research assistant or a large research organisation - are flawed in some way and we would never be arrogant enough to suggest that our processes are perfect. That there are flaws in all research is a given.
But let's face it - fella - we could've just relied on doing a quick survey over Facebook and come up with some fairly trite results which tried to nastily squeeze an already troubled young woman into a headline for our own benefit.
But that'd be a bit pathetic, wouldn't it?
Some company's done that here:
http://www.rainierpr.co.uk/news/amy_winehouse_news.html
Whoops, sorry! That was you.
Excuse me?
So rather than researching the issues prior to building the questionnaire, including questions that achieved quantitative and qualitative responses, asking open questions, building the survey from scratch, enabling options to gain further validation for - and insight into - respondents' answers, distributing the survey to 466 random PR professionals, receiving 105 responses, asking for further feedback to the emails that were sent out, speaking to people over the phone and in-person about the issues raised, reporting back to respondents, offering full access to the questions and data tables at http://www.pwkpr.com/downloads/Online_Offline_Survey.pdf so that we contribute something to the industry, and placing some interesting and compelling statistics into a news release, you have some constructive feedback about how we should have done it differently?
Of course, we know that all surveys and research - whether conducted by schoolboy or scholar, a research assistant or a large research organisation - are flawed in some way and we would never be arrogant enough to suggest that our processes are perfect. That there are flaws in all research is a given.
But let's face it - fella - we could've just relied on doing a quick survey over Facebook and come up with some fairly trite results which tried to nastily squeeze an already troubled young woman into a headline for our own benefit.
But that'd be a bit pathetic, wouldn't it?
Some company's done that here:
http://www.rainierpr.co.uk/news/amy_winehouse_news.html
Whoops, sorry! That was you.
# posted by 
: 8:50 AM
: 8:50 AM
Thanks for the comment, and no need to be shy.
You've fallen for a tabloid trick I'm afraid. I asked a question; I didn't make a statement - "Dodgy survey or are PR people deluded?" Likewise: "There's either a lot of deluded PR people around or Parker, Wayne & Kent’s survey is flawed." Your research approach was spot on, and the results are what they are, shame on the industry. Fair play.
I'm not going to defend our Facebook survey. No need. We were totally upfront. It enabled us to trial Facebook as a survey mechanism, and we published the results as a bit of fun to gain some coverage in the silly season.
Amy Winehouse isn't troubled. The woman is a genius and I reckon she knows exactly what she's doing.
I clearly caused offence, so apologies. It wasn't intended.
You've fallen for a tabloid trick I'm afraid. I asked a question; I didn't make a statement - "Dodgy survey or are PR people deluded?" Likewise: "There's either a lot of deluded PR people around or Parker, Wayne & Kent’s survey is flawed." Your research approach was spot on, and the results are what they are, shame on the industry. Fair play.
I'm not going to defend our Facebook survey. No need. We were totally upfront. It enabled us to trial Facebook as a survey mechanism, and we published the results as a bit of fun to gain some coverage in the silly season.
Amy Winehouse isn't troubled. The woman is a genius and I reckon she knows exactly what she's doing.
I clearly caused offence, so apologies. It wasn't intended.
OK, we're not really going to agree re: whether I fell for any sort of trick; the innocuous nature of asking questions in editorial; the connotations of any use of the word "dodgy"; Amy Winehouse's well-being or the rights and wrongs of using her in a press release.
However, rather than go into any of that stuff, just to say I really do appreciate the apology, and the explanation that the offence caused was unintentional.
I too apologise for the robust nature of my retort.
All the best.
Post a Comment
However, rather than go into any of that stuff, just to say I really do appreciate the apology, and the explanation that the offence caused was unintentional.
I too apologise for the robust nature of my retort.
All the best.
# posted by : 2:29 PM
: 2:29 PM
