Jed Hallam

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How to blow just enough smoke…

Public Relations

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October 17, 2008 View Comments

I’ve had a chat this afternoon with Chris, Sam and Natalie and everyone had a different opinion about blogging or talking in the online sphere about our clients or company.

Where are we supposed to draw the line when it comes to client/company promotion? Is it cool for me to say;

‘wow, I love ****, they do such a great line in leg warmers’

and be referring to one of my firms clients? No it’s not – transparency is the key. So how about;

‘I’m working with this really cool client at the moment that produce multi-colour leg warmers that help avoid DVT”

is that ok? Maybe if I worked in PR and ran a sock blog, where my readers are actually interested in socks or DVT. So, I work with a great tech client and they have an amazing product, and most bloggers and social media people are techie geeks, so that’s fine right?

I can see arguments both for and against this sort of (Stephen Waddington’s term not mine!) brand wanking.

For:

  • We’re brand ambassadors and try to push our clients into the (correct) limelight so putting our own opinions up about the client is a fast way to create some attention
  • We’re probably really interested in the product and would like to share it with fellow geeks
  • It’s nice to let everyone know how much you love your job and your company
  • Providing that you remain transparent and open about the post, who cares?

Against:

  • Is blogging about a client the equivalent of stalking people and whispering how good your client is in their ear?
  • Is it too much like backslapping? A sort of ‘oh God, my client is sooo much better than yours’ – I’m not about that at all.
  • How can you guarantee that every reader is interested in your product? You can’t research your readers with that sort of depth.
  • Blogging about how good your company is looks very brown nose – it doesn’t matter how genuine you are about it, it always sounds like brownnosing.

Then we hit more problems when we bring into the equation whether to post on a personal blog or company blog?!

Where do you stand on blogging about a client or your company? Where lies the line between selling out and muting out?

  • Hello, thanks for the good "blow just enough smoke… | Rock Star PR" post. Would it be possible, that i can write a story about this post in our local newspaper? I would be really happy if i can do this and i will give you a link from a german blog too. Please answer. Greetings Goldpreise
  • I have found myself struggling with this when brainstorming topics, particularly as my blog is in its very early stages. I don't want to set the scene that i'll always be talking about Chevrolet, their cars, their sponsorships, their activities etc.

    I think Jason makes a good point about actual interest in an element of your clients/employers work. Maybe combine that with a sense-check on frequency of specific client/employer related posts you could be ok.

    I see it as important to try establish yourself as an individual and relevant blogger and then sporadic posts about a interesting client product or service would be considered by readers as genuine.
  • Jed
    Jason, Stephen,

    I agree with you both, transparency (and an element of humility) really is the key to blogging about your own clients. I also think that this conciousness of transparency is important and is something we should be helping migrate to other industries (see Todd Defren's post re: The SEO commenting drama).
  • I think its fine, so long as its transparent, and done with a degree of humility.
  • It's an interesting question. When I was brought on at Edelman working on Xbox 360, I was already a gaming blogger. I came from a game company, and I wrote heavily about games (and I wrote games themselves!) I wasn't going to stop that simply because I started working on Xbox 360, especially because my interest in game blogging was part of the reason I was hired in the first place. However, I was always extremely transparent when I wrote about it, although I was honest. I did tend to not blog too much in the negative, but I was never much of a ranting-complaining blogger anyway, I'd rather write about positive things anyway.

    I tend to avoid writing about my clients now, and I would NEVER blog simply because I thought it would get some cheap PR for my clients. If I really think something is genuinely interesting, then I'll write about it - for example, I got to work on Microsoft Surface before it was widely known or 'in the wild,' so blogging about that opportunity was cool. But if I were to go out of my way to write about one of my current clients, a petrol company, when I don't even own a car at the moment would be dishonest unless I thought there was something of genuine interest there.

    The word we throw around at Edelman is 'authentic,' and that's how I would frame it. If I could authentically write about my clients, I wouldn't worry about it. If I couldn't, I wouldn't, and frankly I don't think it's ethical to do otherwise - although I know there are plenty in our industry who would.
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