PR blogging and the influence sphere
It dawned on me, after running across and scrolling through the Novell Open PR site, how valuable it is for PR operations to actively utilize blogs as an information distribution channel. I've had the pleasure of working with a fair share of talented PR firms who have a thorough knowledge of the business along with the contacts and connections to make things go. However, driven by the increasing effectiveness of the web as a communication platform, more independent individuals have been able to establish themselves as influencers. Currently, it has become imperative to reach as many of them with as much up-to-date information as possible.
In today's connected economy, your next client, contact or referral can come from just about anywhere. With that in mind I am firmly convinced that PR firms should begin view blogging as a highly effective manner of getting the ball rolling as it relates to disseminating news and information. Some companies already invite top bloggers to conferences and the like in hopes of leveraging their reach. I think that's a sharp move, but I also know that some of the same folks (plus others) can be reached by consistently stepping into their domain and allowing your voice to be heard.
For every briefing request/alert that comes Entiva's way through traditional methods (direct email from an associated party, dedicated news site, PR wire, etc.), there are probably three more companies, products, or projects that we follow a link to from someone's personal post, hear about informally from a contact/colleague or just plain stumble upon during traversals throughout the blogosphere. And check this out, 95% of the time that I discover a valuable tidbit it's courtesy of someone else who has nothing to gain directly from putting it out there. That says a lot considering coagulating information from disparate sources is part of what I do for a living.
The days where small, insulated groups of people controlled the flow of information for entire industries are dead and gone. The reality of today's situation is that it's critical to reach those who best reach others. Sometimes this entails going the Gartner route but mostly it's about reaching the edges of the influence sphere. From there things have a way of finding their way to the right persons in the right amount of time, with hardly any prohibitive overhead.
I know I don't have any qualms whatsoever about scraping RSS feeds from PR sources and I'm pretty sure others are in the same boat. Maybe it's time for more PR operations to step it up a notch and make this an option. Maybe not, but there's more to lose by not exploring the possibilities.
I absolutely agree with you. Blogging is still completely underestimated in concerns of effective PR an viral effects.
Posted by: Seo Agentur | October 05, 2007 at 09:39 PM