Comments on: How to blow just enough smoke…

By: www.goldpreise.biz

www.goldpreise.biz — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:39:22 +0000

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

By: Zoe Lavender

Zoe Lavender — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:20:37 +0000

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.

By: Jed

Jed — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:38:43 +0000

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).

By: Stephen Waddington

Stephen Waddington — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:35:53 +0000

I think its fine, so long as its transparent, and done with a degree of humility.

By: Jason Mical

Jason Mical — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:10:47 +0000

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.