Earlier this week, I guest lectured on digital PR at the American University and reported on the experience, Public Relations and Communications’ Future is Bright!. I said that I would not write anything nice unless someone sent me a thoughtful email from the class.

Well, I received two nice notes, one from Juliana Serafini (who promises to email me again next week) and one from Kari Elam, who had a lot of great question.  I will not expose her questions, but the long story short is that Kari is writing for music, culture, arts, and society blogs and wonders if that it good enough as a way of writing herself into a smashing agency job in PR and I told her that while it couldn’t hurt, it is also essential for her to go a little further.

Well, here is the ‘sage’ advice I give to Kari:  Kari, what you’re doing for your current blogs is more editorial writing.  While editorial and column-writing might very well help you with a publishing career in the future — and doesn’t hurt your portfolio — I must underscore the fact that while blogging about music — being a blogger — is super-important when it comes to being a respected part of the community — the “who the hell are you?” factor, there is another more important blogging strategy to pursue if you want to end up in a top-ten national PR firm.

What you need to do, in addition to blogging is “meta blogging,” — blogging about social media, about digital PR, about public relations, about advertising, etc…  It is really important to make sure you’re always taking a step back and think not only about the what of social media but also about the why and how.

What this could look like is a blog about your studies of PR at AU and what you’re learning and how it contrasts with what you’re learning at your PR Internship. If you’re interested in music, society, the arts, and culture, explore it in the context of the Internet, of online branding, ads, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and even television and radio.  How do you see what you’re learning about traditional PR dovetailing into social media marketing and digital PR?  Can you see a continuum?  Can you maybe help the fogies of traditional PR find their way to digital PR?  If you can light the path and maybe even map the way, you’re golden.  Move to NYC and start shopping for apartments, you’ll be on Madison Avenue in no time.

However, don’t forget the basics. As a PR consultant, you will be required to know how to not simply consume content (read blogs), not only produce content (blog), but analyze and understand how to conversation works, how best to leverage and participate in conversation, and also how best to manage conversation and manage reputation.  Being a PR professional is about knowing how things work behind the curtain. And, since you are young and “cyber,” people assume that you have a valuable and important insight into the future.

PR firms are beginning to realize that “all kids get the Internet” may be true, but not in the way they thought — that “kids” get the Internet with only the level of sophistication that people from 35-50 get television — as a source of entertainment and information.

So, it is your job to publicly and prove, on a daily basis, on a blog, that you get what’s going on, that you’re current with the movers and shakers, that you have a passion for that space, and also that you will be able to prevent the future from blindsiding your PR VP and your client by keeping on top of technology, social media, new PR, and new and important channels through which you need to use to promote and protect your clients.

Your music blogging and your trend blogging and your other blogging means that you can now think like a blogger and that you’re accepted into the blogosphere — which is an important first step.  The second step is proving you can strategically and even tactically make the Internet work for your clients and your agency.

Not to insult us marketing, advertising, and PR bloggers and blogs but there is a lot of room in the Power 150 for more voices, that’s for sure.  If you start today, you may very well shoot up the list. A new voice is always welcome. Also, don’t be intimidated by what this sort of blogging means.  You don’t have to act out of your focus.  Take what you already love and then just spend some time getting meta on it — spend some time playing.  Spend some time taking the articles you’re writing elsewhere and slice them and dice them a little academically.  Do things like create your own case studies and give away the sort of campaigns you might recommend yourself.  Feel free to critique or compliment campaigns and brands and firms and agencies — especially the ones you’d like to work with.

I swear to God, you can write yourself into this business.  You can write yourself into a very fine career as a PR professional. You’re good as gold if you can prove that you’re both someone who has been trained in traditional PR and who gets digital PR; that you’re someone who gets both theoretical social media as well as practical social media.

And, good luck to you, Kari!

Jeremy Pepper just wrote a blog post entitled Can I can get a big cup of STFU please? that you should read.  The long story short is that  social media is just one part of public relations and that everything really hinges on relationships and connections (Via Marketing Conversation and POP! PR Jots):

The fact is that social media is ONE part of public relations. A SMALL part, if you are a good PR person or firm. The other parts are traditional media (while it might be shrinking, it still reaches that middle part of the country), analyst relations, events, and more.

PR is about relationships. It’s about relationships so much that Lowe’s went to Abraham Harrison for it’s recent project because of its relationships with people at Lowe and because of their relationships with bloggers. See – it’s about relationships.

It’s also about writing, about talking, about conveying a story. But, without those relationships, there’s nothing there. And, unfortunately, with the industry’s reliance on technology – let’s email, let’s launch a blog, let’s get Twitter, let’s do this and that … well, you’re failing in PR.

PS: thanks for the shout out, Mr. Jeremy Pepper. Oh, and thank you Lowe for giving us a go.

Krishna De just wrote an article called How Not To Pitch A Blogger and it is brilliant and useful — “here are three of the many mistakes they made in the pitch:”

• there was no personal connection in the email to me about why the story may be of interest to me and my readers
• they did not give me anything of value to bring to my readers – no inside scoop so to speak or an offer of speaking to me to answer any questions
• they made me click through to read the article in the press – many bloggers won’t take that extra click – and what’s more the article in the press was at best boring and certainly not newsworthy.

Busy blogger’s are like journalists – they want an inside and unique story that is going to be of value to their readers and they don’t have time to have to go into hours of research.

I personally don’t agree with the third bullet point if what Krishna is saying is that the entire pitch has to be inline.  We find that all of our most successful pitches are as long as three brief paragraphs and as brief as one, with an “extra click” in the form of a Social Media News Release (SMNR). Here are some examples we have for I Will Not Be Broken, Survivor Corps, and Life Changing Box, for example.  When it comes to email pitches, you have to have the blogger “at hello” and the trouble with big, annoying, inline content (inline in the body of the email or, egad, offered as an attachment) is that it is stuck in the INBOX and isn’t readily available to the blog — inline graphics can’t be copied and pasted to a blog post, but if you copy and paste something from a web page, it easily posts.

Offering content in an attachment or an inline pitch makes it impossible for simple posting — images and graphics break because they’re often locally hosted and not available online.

If you off-link to an SMNR, the blogger can readily copy and paste the content and also, in the copy-and-paste, include the inline graphics, images, and links in the blog post itself.

When we create a pitch and then link off the blogger pitch to an SMNR, we try to KISS — every extra link and extra paragraph and extra “rich text element” such as HTML and inline graphics that a pitch includes increases the change — the probability — that the pitch isn’t even going to get to the blogger and will end up either in the SPAM box or, even worse, stuck in the maw of the ISP itself.

The more brief and plaintext the pitch is, the better.  We absolutely refuse to include more than one link from our pitches, even killing all hot links from the signature or anything else.

If you don’t have the blogger at hello, you’re done for, no matter how you do it: inline or linked-out.

Via Krishna De’s BizGrowthNews

I just posted an article onto Marketing Conversation called Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag and within minutes Stevie Wilson of LA-Story wrote the most amazing comment on the culture of swag that is commonplace in Los Angeles, California… (via Marketing Conversation)

Swag is the name of the game in Los Angeles– in a city that lives and dies by celebrities getting swag and quite frankly are the least needy for that – because they have the $$ to pay for anything given to them.

Swag has a bad connotation because it smacks of pandering and quite frankly payola. However when it comes to blogging– depending on the topic of course–one can hardly blog about a skincare line if one hasn’t tried it — or has tried it for only one week and doesn’t own up to the fact.

Gifting is somewhat different. Sometimes it’s a holiday or birthday gift that really is a “gift” between a corporate entity and the blogger for the support (if there has been support and I don’t mean Perez Hilton type support that has been advertised) that the blogger may have given. Or it can be something that the corporate entity has done to gain the attention to the brand in such an unusual and interesting way that it definitely gains the immediate attention and enthusiasm of the blogger– like a video iPod that has videos of fashion shows or make-up tips from NY Fashion Week .

In LA there is a gifting process that is quid pro quo but typically for the more visible press— which means stylists who bring in celebrities to a suite whose promoter gives them a trip or a great big fat goody bag of stuff (the same goody bag given to the celebrities)

However that being said, even the stylists get shunned despite bringing or sending in celebrity friends, clients or contacts.

Some PR and brands don’t think that bloggers count. Trust me– we can reach people faster if you are kind, polite and friendly.

Agreeing with Chris here that offering me some worthy information is well worth it — whether it’s to be written about or giving me some heads up on a trend or event that’s about to launch.

I have PR people who slip me the 411 on celebrity clients wearing the brands they represent before anyone else has it. You can bet I run that information and pronto!! Others tell me about new things just because they know I can help support that when it launches– because I can “plan” for blogs around it.

It all depends on how and what you value. I have yet to see anyone gift me something so amazing that I would jump .. Been promised things (cars to come get me and other trinkets), but they never come through– suddenly bloggers are persona not so grata.

Well, in the blogger-to-blogger dialog between Norman Birnbach and me, starting with How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White’s book then moving onto Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, then Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag, Stevie Wilson on The Swag Culture of LA, finally onto To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag:

To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag

In response to my blog entry, Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, Chris Abraham has provided additional perspective about swag in his post, “Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag.”

Check it out, but here’s some of what he said:

• “Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.
• “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.
• “What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.”
• “It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

This is very useful. I’m sorry if I misrepresented what Chris was telling me about swag.

Thanks, Norman, I appreciate the follow-up post that better explains my methodology and the implemented strategy and best practices of Abraham Harrison.

This morning, Norman Birnbach wrote an article wherein he suggests that I emphasize giving swag:

One of his tips is to “Give swag” — a point that Chris Abraham emphasized in a recent interview. The reason is that blogging is often a second career and there are few perks so swag can make a difference to get bloggers to respond.

He is not wrong, but I think I need to clarify my definition of “gift-giving.” I don’t emphasize giving away swag, necessarily — what I do emphasize is gifting — and giving ’til it hurts, “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception.” The following excerpt is from Be Generous, Not Stingy, When Engaging Bloggers:

“Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.

What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.

What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.

It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

My Director of Client Service, Daniel Krueger, wrote an insightful blog post over at Abraham Harrison’s PR and marketing blog, Marketing Conversation, called Marketing in the New Millenium. The story is in growing response to the fine article from Norman Birnback over at PR Backtalk, including Spread The Word: Blogs Matter We Just Can’t Measure It!!, Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing and On Survivor Corps’ Blogger Outreach. Check it out:

TV & print are soooo 1900’s ;). Welcome to the new millennium. We’ve been here for some time now, but I think all of the social media and new initiatives for marketing – like blogger outreach and online campaigns – are really just starting to flourish.

I am currently managing a project for Abraham & Harrison for a non-profit company called Survivor Corps. The purpose of this campaign has been to promote the transition of the Landmine Survivors Network into Survivor Corps and to promote the book, ”I Will Not Be Broken,” written by Survivor Corps co-founder Jerry White. The book is a fascinating story of Jerry’s own personal tragedy of losing his leg in a freak accident and then the rebuilding of his life. Jerry has interviewed thousands of victims and in this book shares what he and they have learned about living and thriving after a tragic event.

The main way we have handled this campaign has been through an online blogger outreach to demographics we thought would be receptive to the message that Jerry and Survivor Corps are trying to spread. Each blogging demographic we reached out to, was crafted a message for that particular group. Norman Birnback wrote a very insightful post about the method we used for this campaign and I think he hit the nail right on the head. While his article was focused on how to establish metrics in a blogging initiative, he saw that we didn’t cookie cut a mass email, but crafted our message to the particular group we were reaching out to. Two other very important parts of this campaign were the creation of multiple social networking groups and presences along with the creation of two social media news releases which basically give a “who, what, why” in a neat and tidy format.

Some companies and agencies, like Survivor Corps, are starting to look outside the box at alternative methods of reaching targeted audiences. As the blogging communities continue to grow, outreaches like this one are essential to make sure that the the group you are targeting is aware of your campaign.

Via Marketing Conversation

Firstly, if you’re in new media, social media, new marketing, publicity, or public relations, you need to subscribe to the Inside PR podcast. Secondly, before you continue embarrassing yourself professionally by using all the words you have been using incorrectly, you need to read through the Inside PRoper English archives. Seriously. You’re embarrassing yourself. The rest of this post is non-essential. Via Marketing Conversation.

OK, Thirdly: people in Canada are charming, funny, intelligent, nice, snarky, generous, proper and a little intentionally naive — and that’s an excellent thing. Inside PR is a charming, funny, intelligent, nice, snarky, generous, proper and a little intentionally naive podcast about Public Relations.

It is charming and if you spend some time with it, you will become the ideal form of what PR should be and not the dark shadowy slime, as it is often perceived. Listening to Inside PR is like going to a golf pro: you learn good form and sportsmanship from the get-go instead of going out to the links a total hack.

While I may be a gray beard in the social media and marketing world, I fancy the insight and experience that Terry Fallis and David Jones offer freely and generously on a weekly basis is a real Godsend.

The two most interesting things I have learned over the course of my hungry learnings is that most PR experts never intended to be and that PR has a lot of PR experts and not nearly enough Social Media experts.

So, I guess I listen to Inside PR so hungrily because it constantly reaffirms what we at Abraham Harrison are doing: conversational PR; conversation PR.

I just discovered that Because the Medium is the Message placed a distant second (to Technosailer) on The Buzz Bin’s Top 12 DC Area New Media, PR & Marketing Blogs list.

I was flattered very much by Geoff Livingston:

“Looking around Technorati, I found the top ranked new media/pr/marketing blogs in the Greater Washington region. These are ranked by Technorati’s very subjective authority system. We have an A-lister, Chris Abraham, and then a bunch of indies floating between 41-86.”

I am very proud, and hoping that this blog, Marketing Conversation, starts to rise in the ranks. I am proud to see my friend Alice Marshall‘s blog, Presto Vivace, on the list at number 7! Also, congrats to The Buzz Bin for making number 5.

“Top 12 DC Area New Media, PR & Marketing Blogs
- Technosailer – 874
- Chris Abraham – 191
- Technosight – 86
- Destination Creation – 67
- Buzz Bin – 59
- Alex Rudloff – 58

- Presto Vivace – 56
- Potomac Flacks – 53
- Four Labs – 49
- Maryland Media – 48
- Mike-O-Matic -48
- 21st Century Public Relations – 41″

“Okay, you have a blog and consider yourself a blogger. The next step is how to build your prestige, your readership, and your reputation. This class will demystify the process of taking your personal blog and developing it into a popular resource. Being brilliant, funny, insightful, and inspired is just the beginning; learn how to help your hungry audience find you. 1 session,” Advanced Blogging Workshop

Advanced Blogging

Writer’s Center Workshop Bethesda, May 1^st, 2007

Description

Okay, you have a blog and consider yourself a blogger. The next step is how to build your prestige, your readership, and your reputation. This class will demystify the process of taking your personal blog and developing it into a popular resource. Being brilliant, funny, insightful, and inspired is just the beginning; learn how to help your hungry audience find you.

Instructor

· Chris Abraham, Founding Partner, Abraham Harrison LLC

o www.abrahaharrison.com

o cabraham@chrisabraham.com

o +1 202-657-403

· Blogging since 1999 www.chrisabraham.com

Short Review of Blogs and Blogging

· Ease of publishing.

· Discoverability (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server)

· Conversationality (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines)

· Linkability (All posts should have permalinks)

· Syndicatability (All content should be available in RSS feeds)

· Commentability (All posts should welcome comments)

· Okay to be subjective and opinionated (encouraged!)

· Blogs can influence culture and mainstream media

· CGM, citizen journalism, citizen marketing, new PR

Blogging Best Practices

· Short, pithy, entries

· Constantly updated

· Only one long work a week

· Shameless, assertive, opinionated, unapologetic

· Shows respect, dignity, reciprocity

· Give more than you take

· Join the conversation and community

· Assumes good intent

Reputation as a blogger

· Techniques for building prestige and influence

o Reciprocal links and linking

o Blogroll and blogrolling

o Citations

o Comments

o Pinging ping-servers

o Press releases

o Email requests

o IM and email relationships

o Drinks, dinner, lunch, or coffee

Introduction to Viral Marketing

· Word-of-mouth, buzz, viral, and grassroots

· Authentic, transparent, conversational, honest

· Ask for what you need, give what others need

· Tell people who you are and why you are there

· “Astroturfing” is not worth the short term benefit

· The blogosphere is conversational

· Message, client message, messaging

· Network of weak blogs generally win over a powerful media

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

· Google loves blogs (because Google loves text because it can “see” text)

· Google favors sites that are constantly updated (one a week at minimum)

· Make sure your blog pings: www.pingomatic.com/

· Make sure Google knows you: www.google.com/addurl

· Social bookmarking on Newsvine, Netscape, Digg, and Reddit

· Categories, tags, and tagging: del.icio.us, furl.net, spurl.net, reddit.com

· Be careful how you use pronouns (he, she, and it says nothing)

· Learn about Google Sitemap: www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

· We aware of how you use keywords in your blog (density and diversity)

· Optimize your blog like a website (meta tags, alt tags, keywords)

Introduction to Online Brand Promotion

· Blogger advocacy and outreach – top-down,

· Develop a list of blogs appropriate to your campaign

· Mommy blogs, A-Lists blogs, marketing blogs, sports blogs

· Keep a spreadsheet of all the blogs you might want to contact

· Dig into each blog looking for their contact info (not easy at all)

· Develop general message (called a message model)

· Send an bespoke email of introduction and message

· Always give more than you take: gift is key

· Keep record of all blogs and bloggers who respond well

· Delete (remove) bloggers who request it

· Make explicit opt-in request from friendly bloggers

· Don’t assume they want your message

· Reputation is based on trust and fairness – never trifle or lie

• Blog messaging and engagement – bottom-up, grassroots, organic
  • Go to a blog search engine (Technorati, Ask.com, Blogsearch, etc)
  • Type in a topical keyword, phrase, or topic
  • Visit the blogs that are talking about your market, topic, or interest
  • Where appropriate, leave a short note
  • Come back tomorrow (or as often as you can) and do the same thing
  • Make sure to message only where people might be interested
  • Inform, don’t spam

Introduction to Online Brand Protection

• User Google Alerts and other keyword email alerts to track online conversation
  • Other tools exist, such as TruCast, TruView, Buzzlogic, and other tools
• Reputation management should start long before any crisis needs management
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always an essential consideration online
• The last word counts most (especially on blog search engines like Technorati)
• Recent posts get indexed (the current conversation counts the most)
• Everything lasts forever on Google (make sure your side of the story is on record)
• Request – never demand – bloggers and blogs remove defamatory content

Important reading

· Naked Conversations by by Shel Israel & Robert Scoble www.redcouch.typepad.com

· Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

· Applied Blogging Workshop www.appliedblogging.org

· Abraham Harrison LLC Marketing Conversation www.chrisabraham.com/our-insights

One of my students, Michele Capots, from last week’s class, Blogging Basics, did a review of her experience of the class that I was very interested in reading.

I just wanted to remind everyone that the Blogging Basics Workshop is super basic, such as “what is a blog” and “how to I join Blogger?”

Anyone nearly as rock star as Michele Capots really needs to attend the Advanced Blogging Workshop or have your company hire me to come over and talk turkey, strategy, integration, promotion, marketing, outreach, SEO, optimization, social outreach, etc.

Otherwise, it is a simple introduction to blogging 101 for folks who still use quill pens and parchment. That said, I did post an amazingly defensive comment about which I am very ashamed.

So ashamed am I that I have included it below for your amusement! (Because I am shameless as well, of course!)

Blogging for Basics April 27th, 2007 by Michele Capots blogs

“Earlier this week I sat though Blogging for Basics, a course at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Being a writer, I’ve taken many courses at the Writer’s Center over the years and was thrilled that they offered one on blogging. But what I learned is I’m not a beginner.

I’m not an expert by any means, but I knew Technorati. I knew some of the buzz words. The lingo. The class touted that I would learn how to leverage my own personal passion, my own personal artistic voice and my unique perception of the world into this online organ.

But I didn’t. I learned how to construct a blog. Literally, through WordPress. Step by step. I learned a blog should be short. And to write a lot. I could have found that out online. I didn’t learn about the words. The power of the medium. As a PR blogger, I didn’t learn what I should or shouldn’t say and the women who were there to launch a blog for their company didn’t learn how to do that either.

Apparently, I could have gone on instructor Chris Abraham’s blog and saved myself $65. All of the necessary tools are on there. And then some. There’s Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics and Blogging Needs a Code of Honor, Not a Code of Conduct. This would have been helpful when I first started blogging. The class wasn’t.

He could have said, ‘so I want to be a blogger,’ ‘here’s how to do it, what to write, rules of writing,’ and finally ‘how to be successful at it.’ Personally, that would have been helpful to me and probably to the stay-at-home mom who wants to blog about her sick child and the traveling woman who wants to blog about her exquisite journey. Instead, he was all over the map.

There’s an intermediate class next month, but I think I’ll sit that one out. I’ve decided the only way to blog is to get out there and do it. Going to other blogs, seeing what they’re doing right will teach me more than a brick and mortar class. Although I will say, during the class, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scobel on corporate blogging. From the looks of it, I just might read that.”

My amazingly defensive response, worth of shame and lots of weeping:

“I agree with everything you say. And you’re far from being a beginner. And I would rather eat broken glass and dance to ABBA than teach a beginning class that literally slows down to “how do I set up a Blogger blog” but you have to admit that the Writer’s Center is not the bastion of the bleeding edge. So, here’s some advice: in a world of education and training, Blogging Basics does literally mean “blogging basics.” Yeah, it maps directly. And, unlike, a class called Writing Basics, I also have to talk about “what a blog is” and “what makes a blog” and “what are some blog tools” and “how do I sign up for a blog” and “can you walk us through joining Blogger and joining WordPress?”

That said, I also want you to check out some other free resources:

Ideas of Chris Abraham & Abraham Harrison LLC

That is basically wherein I give the entire shop away!

Cheers for the review!

If you have ever made a blog, know what a blog is, etc, I would recommend you attend only the Advanced Blogging class.

Also, although this is a gorgeous blog, I would recommend going to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/wp-admin/options-permalink.php and consider changing your permalinks from “web URLs” to the “custom URL structure” which could change this article from http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/?p=252 to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/04/27/blogging-for-basics/ which might be longer but is a) easier to understand, URL-wise, as to its topic and it is also b) Google-nip. Also, you have lost an amazing opportunity to offer Meta tags (description, keywords, etc) and a number of other missing pieces.

Anyway, sorry to be showing off here but there is a lot more to blogging than learning how to blog and I would highly encourage you to consider attending the Advanced Blogging class.”

Blogging Basics One-Day Workshop: “Writing for online consumption is much different from writing for the page. Learn how to write for the Internet and the blogosphere in this one-day class focused on the unique and powerful way the blogosphere communicates and how you can best leverage your own personal passion, your own personal artistic voice, and your unique perception of the world into an online organ that could change the world,” via The Writer’s Center

Blogging Basics Course at Bethesda
4/24/2007 Writer’s Center Workshop

Description

Writing for online consumption is much different from writing for the page. Learn how to write for the Internet and the blogosphere in this one-day class focused on the unique and powerful way the blogosphere communicated and how you can best leverage your own personal passion, your own personal artistic voice, and your unique perception of the world into an online organ that very well could change the world!

Instructor

Chris Abraham, Founding Partner, Abraham Harrison LLC
Blogging since 1999 www.chrisabraham.com
cabraham@chrisabraham.com +1 202-657-4063

Blogging defined
A blog (short for web log) is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual and are part of a wider network of social media

What is a blog?

· An online journal (as in “periodical”)

· A web application (as in “program”)

· Easy to use (as easy as webmail)

· Communicative

o Syndicated (RSS, ATOM)

o Link aware (Trackback)

o Comments

o The “search engine advantage”

· Okay to be subjective and opinionated

· Blogs can influence culture and mainstream media

What isn’t a blog?

· A blog is not “just a website”

· A blog doesn’t require editing or oversight

· A blog does not offer privacy

o True anonymity is a myth

· A blog is not a great American novel

o Be brief and to-the-point

o Keep each post to a single topic

Why is a blog different than a website?

1. Ease of publishing

2. Discoverability (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server)

3. Conversationality (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines)

4. Linkability (All posts should have permalinks)

5. Syndicatability (All content should be available in RSS feeds)

6. Commentability (All posts should welcome comments)

Types of blogging

· Web logs – provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries

· Collaborative blogs – A collaborative blog is a type of weblog which publishes posts written by multiple users. The majority of high profile collaborative blogs are based around a single uniting theme

· Corporate blogs – A corporate blog is a weblog published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Although there are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal.

· Political blogs – A political blog is a common type of blog that comments on politics. In liberal democracies the right to criticize the government without interference is considered an important element of free speech

· Flogs – a marketing tool designed by a professional advertisement company to promote a product in a fashion one might find on a fan site or in regular blog entries

· Splogs – artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites

Popular blogging fields

· Political – Daily Kos, Red State, Instapundit, Wonkette, Michelle Malkin

· Gossip – Perez Hilton, Gawker, Wonkette, Defamer, Stereogum, Valleywag, TMZ

· Advocacy – Boing Boing, Lifehacker, Treehugger,

· Fashion – The Superficial, Go Fug Yourself, Manolo Blog

· Tech – Techcrunch, Ars Technica, Scobleizer, Joel on Software, Engadget, Gizmodo

Variations on the blog

· Photoblog – a form of photo sharing and publishing in the format of a blog, but differentiated by the predominant use of and focus on photographs rather than text

· Video blog (vlog or video podcast) – a blog that includes video. Regular entries are typically presented in reverse chronological order and often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata

· Audio blogs (Podcasts) – a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers

Where can I blog?

· Free blogging services

o Blogger www.blogger.com

o WordPress www.wordpress.com

o Friendster www.friendster.com

o MySpace www.myspace.com

o LiveJournal www.livejournal.com

o Vox www.vox.com

· Subscription blogging services

o TypePad www.typepad.com

o iWeb www.apple.com/ilife/iweb/features/blogging.html

· Install your own blog software (requires web host)

o WordPress www.wordpress.org

o Movable Type www.movabletype.org

Who is a blogger?

· Everyone!

Why blog?

· Zero barrier to entry

o Technology is no longer a restriction to entry

o Blogging is often free but is always “cheap.”

o Any type of blog host makes you a blogger

· Participate in global conversation

· “Jump the rails” to mainstream media (MSM)

What is a good blog?

· Short, pithy, entries

· Constantly updated

· Only one long work a week

· Shameless, assertive, opinionated, unapologetic

· Give more than it takes

Reputation as a blogger

· Techniques for building prestige and influence

o Reciprocal links and linking

o Blogroll and blogrolling

o Citations

o Comments

o Pinging ping-servers

o Press releases

o Email requests

Important reading

· Naked Conversations by by Shel Israel & Robert Scoble

o redcouch.typepad.com

· The Cluetrain Manifesto by Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger

o redcouch.typepad.com

· Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents by Reporters without Borders

o www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

· Applied Blogging Workshop is a collaborative blog for all of us

o www.appliedblogging.org

In response to Do PR Execs and Lawyers Have the Same Bad Rep?, Amanda Chapel responded, “Your logic is flawed at the outset (with all due respect) . . .”

The key word is ‘neutrality.’ We sell belief in things we do NOT necessarily believe in or are even believable. By definition, that’s a lie. Good people doing an honest days work promoting lies… does not make it true. You not knowing the difference between right and wrong doesn’t make stealing a car okay.”

I replied, “When you are a neutral solution, you don’t lie, you just pass through client message. That is like saying that it is the amp that is tone deaf and not the singer! It is like saying that the defense attorney is guilty and not the alleged perp, and it like saying that one should blame the soldier and not the war.”

Shel Holz is smart and insightful in his response to the bad rap that PR gets these days: “The lying profession? Please. … And who, in this era of like-it-or-not transparency, believes they can get away with a lie anyway?” Via Strumpette. My response? I feel the same way about the reputation of the defense attorney as I do about PR. Defense attorneys have appalling reps. “How the hell can you represent him? He’s a murderer! He’s a rapist! He’s a scum!”

Well, the problem is is that since the PR profession is, in a lot of ways, a neutral solution, PR tends to begin to pick up the tastes, the coloring, and the aroma of the additive, the client.

Most attorneys wish that they could “cherry pick” their clients and so do most advertisers and PR professionals. I hear, all the time, that taking on so-and-so a client would be bad for brand and I am appalled by that.

My friends over a TickleKitty, a sex shop, need New Media Marketing and WOM PR as well, but lots of folks are either too uptight, too puritanical, or too judgmental (or too attached and afraid so as to have lost some requisites: shamelessness and fearlessness, a competitive advantage in an industry that is afraid of its collective shadow).

What I love about Edelman and their respective practice heads and VPs+ is that they’re pretty shameless (though they don’t quite have fearless under control and their hubris and arrogance is off the charts).

So, since PR is itself so neutral — some call it shape-shifting or chameleon-like (there is no there there) then we take a lot of the brunt for the actions of the client. We suffer for the sins of the father…

Shel Holtz wrote on Strumpette, “Amanda also attacks PR practitioners who can’t write. On this point, we’re in complete agreement” (and I take out of context). I responded, I think it is important to speak like the locals. I was told, during my short stint at Big Agency, to keep it 7th grade reading ease. I think that is a good point-of-reference.

Here is what I wrote with regards new PR:

“Every community has its own tone, its own voice, and its own way of communicating. Traditionally, gamer sites are rude and sarcastic, backpacker sites are young, liberal and well-educated, tourism sites are older and square, and drinking sites can be cheeky. In order to be most effective in every community in which you message, it is important to get a sense of the way people talk to each other, and talking that way while still maintaining your authenticity.” Via Talk Like the Locals, http://cabraham.com/ideas/talk-like-the-locals

Well-written, scholarly, transcendent, and writerly copy isn’t the answer: clear, concise, and targeted is key. In the beltway, one needs to speak wonk, in the Valley, one needs to speak geek, and in Langley, one needs speak spook.

Snark to gamers, slogans to alcoholics, and Umbuntu to diggers.

If we base the beauty of our tongue on some sort of objective measure — say the New Yorker — then we will be perceived as insufferable and inaccessible as poor little Gore and Kerry were back in 2000 and 2004.

So, what is good writing? How is it defined? Am going back now to read the rest. Brilliant work, Shel!

I responded in-depth to a question from Charles Edward Frith that was asked over at Strumpette, in response to my long comment,

“a huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even. How do you propose to get your message to this group?” I misunderstood his question and replied as though he asked, “a huge portion of the PR, advertising, and marketing population…” as opposed to the “general” population, and so my response is based on that misunderstanding and premise… “You really can’t — the main reason that I only lasted at Edelman for 90-days is because they never used me for my expertise in Linux, RSS, SEO, geek culture, geek cred… they really just wanted someone else who “got blogs” Blogs are also the Web 2.0 platform, too. The gulf between Communication School and the MIT Media Lab is too deep.”

Here is the comment from Charles Edward Frith in full:

“I’m not sure if you’re responding to me Chris. It is OK to address people directly in orums; we call it the conversation. If you are, I am saying that there is a huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even. How do you propose to get your message to this group?

And here is my long, ranting, and misdirected response:

“You really can’t — the main reason that I only lasted at Edelman for 90-days is because they never used me for my expertise in Linux, RSS, SEO, geek culture, geek cred… they really just wanted someone else who “got blogs” Blogs are also the Web 2.0 platform, too. The gulf between Communication School and the MIT Media Lab is too deep.

They didn’t even see what I was, which was a geek first, a marketer second. I don’t know if I can share this here, but here are some of my ideas on the subject… http://www.cabraham.com/ideas — to me, it is really about both the community and also the platform.

One needs to blog — message — at both the people in the blogosphere but also to the semantic web. When I realised that www.edelman.com was anti-SEO-optimized (it didn’t care at all about search engine optimization at all!), and really didn’t care (and they were afraid of upsetting IT and the people who ran the site) I was pretty sure I had made a terrible decision.

New Marketing needs to understand ping servers, online communities, cirtual worlds, RSS, RSS2, ATOM, GData, tags, labels, Google juice, the semantic web, gadgetization, what “slashdotted” is, why del.icio.us and digg and reddit and Newsvine and Stumbleupon are important. They need to grok Revver and Vox and Facebook and they need to know what “WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Xoops, Joomla, phpBB, etc” are.

This isn’t just “how to IM Kos” — this is about Internet Forensics and fisking and unintended consequences and blowback and counter-messaging.

There is a lot more going on than just “activating email lists” and “creating a blog.”

And we have not even talked about Prediction Markets, we have not talked about message boards, we have not talked about YouTube (it is a community, not a video site, at its heart), or Flickr (same thing, it is a community and it is not Photobucket).

New Media Marketing and New PR needs to know what Web 2.0 is, not as a buzz word or as hocus pocus. It is a platform, it is an emergence, it is a honey pot. It is “build it and they will come,” but only if it is cool and and compelling, and always in beta, and never loses focus of the users’ needs.

Actually, Yahoo and AOL are getting their game on again. Google gets it in its source code. Why are PR and marketing firms so risk averse? Why, to quote you, Mr, Charles Edward Frith, why is there a “huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even?”

And when I say that, I am talking about Edelman, I am talking about NMS, I am talking about Ogilvy. It is our responsibility as media professionals to be so expert in the technology, the protocol, the culture, and the passion (called passion chamber, as another term for the blogosphere’s echo chamber — and I own www.passionachamber.com, actually) so that this population doesn’t have to.

A population that universally adopts iPods, Plasma HDTVs, and DirecTV with TiVO is not gadget allergic.

What Old PR and Old Media might be really great at is taking an ubergeek like me and working with me to translate all of this cool stuff to the 7th grade reading ease so that new media and web 2.0 can better connect. This will be more and more important.

Unfortunately, when it comes to influencing the influencer, that person is not the “population” — that is a person who thinks that “salesmen” and “PR executives” and “advertising folks” are a bunch of wankers who don’t get it, wouldn’t know cool if it hit ‘em in the face, who are too focused on what people think about them to ever allow people to get to know them, to be authentic, and to be open.

The bad PR that PR has felt for years: snake oil salesmen, hustlers, pretty boys, spin-doctors, and inauthentic, opportunistic liars is exacerbated in the rarefied web where all of these things are not tolerated at all — and to be honest, nobody has to.

Lots of PR people I know tell me that they have to be risk-averse and they have to pull punches because the PR world is incestuous and to be honest, burning bridges is a death blow to one’s career. I am told the same thing by folks in the Valley who are afraid of insulting the silicon Gods.

Coming from a place of fear is just plain unacceptable. At the end of the day, I am a Linux SA who loves to hack PHP and MySQL and so really, I am neither a Valley wag nor am I am PR lifer. Most of my consulting deals with my niche of genius and I don’t see myself as ever getting too tarred or feathered — never to the point where people will cease hiring my counsel… even if it is on the down low after my name is mud.

So, I am not really tolerant when it comes to this PR sycophantism. The Internet and the bloggers and the people who matter now don’t play that. I know reporters and they do surely covet and protect and are jealous of their career arcs. And this fear for career and for immortality is easy to coerce and control.

Web 2.0 is not about control. The X factor in new marketing is that people really have no career arc, people online really cannot be kept in the kind of sycophantic blackmail that is common on Capitol Hill, on Madison Avenue, on K Street, and also in Silicon Valley.

When Edelman has to block Strumpette from 2,000 laptops and desktops held in their worldwide network, then maybe Edelman and the like aren’t as new media and new public relations as they would like to preach.

You can’t have it both ways. The only two things that the Internet doesn’t suffer: fear and hypocrisy. And from what I have been seeing, there seems to be a lot of both of them, both in Old PR and Marketing as well as in “new marketing” and “new media PR.”

Anyway, I am ranting. I have a call soon so I am going to stop now and click on “Submit Comment.” Thanks in advance for indulging me. I am going to rewrite this a little and post it on my blog… cheers for making me thing and making write! I have been way too busy to take the time to really download.”

I teach blogging workshops for the Writer’s Center and four of them are coming up. They all have spots still available. On Thursday, March 1, I teach Blogging Basics at Glen Echo from 7:30PM-10PM; Blogging Basics at Arlington Arts Center on March 6 from 11AM-1PM; Advanced Blogging at the Arlington Arts Center on March 13 from 11AM-1PM; and Advanced Blogging at Glen Echo on March 15 from 7:30PM-10PM. Come join me.

People ask me what I think about “full disclosure” and “blogger ethics.” My answer always is, there is no obligation for any blogger to follow the ethical standards of journalists or public officials. Bloggers are bloggers because of the true freedom of speech. Freedom of speech doesn’t demand truth. But, if bloggers want to keep the trust they’ve been given by their readers, then they had better be open, honest, authentic, and transparent.

That said, the trust relationship bloggers have built and enjoy with their readers is quite a powerful feedback. That relationship is the market force that keeps bloggers honest, not ethical standards or requirements. Ultimately, I demand rigorous reader discernment — caveat lector, let the reader beware — and do not suffer morons gladly.

Here are some previous articles that I have written about the topic:

Blogger Ethics Coverage:

The New York Times Code of Ethics is Mandatory for Journalists Not Bloggers

Caveat Emptor et Lector Repost

Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics

Bloggers do not Aspire to be Journalists

Pay Per Post Coverage:

Vanity Advertising on PayPerPost is Addicting

Edelman Ethics Coverage:

In Defense of Edelman over Bribery Charges

Not a Bribe with Disclosure and Transparency

BL Ochman Gets the Vista Edelman AMD Bribery Scandal

I Think I May Have Jinxed Edelman PR

Andy Sernovitz of WOMMA Blames the Victims in Edelman Controversy

What I Would Have Done if I Were Edelman Me2Revolution

Paul Mooney on and the New York Times’ Silence about the Edelman Bribe

Microsoft Did Not Bribe Bloggers Reports Microsoft

Journalism Gods Agree with Me on The Bribe

My good friend George Brett sent me to read Long Tail PR: how to do publicity without a press release (or the press) and I have to admit that the article is an excellent question but there is no there there. In fact, the article might just opening Pandora’s box. I have some answers . . .

“What do you do? Stick with the world you know, and continue calling and emailing releases to the traditional press (trying not to notice that their ranks are shrinking and influence waning)? Start spamming bloggers, too, and hope for the best? Or just treat alpha bloggers like traditional press and shower them with love, while ignoring the rest?” asks Chris Anderson.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Online Brand Promotion AKA Long Tail PR AKA New Media Marketing by Chris Abraham

Firstly, do not abandon traditional methods. Even in a world of virtual online communities, the telephone, the IM, the Press Release, and the email still have their place.

Secondly, There are two methods for locating Topical Online Communities, a Top-Down Approach and a Bottom-Up Approach. Generally, a hybrid approach is most effective, but many promoters prefer one over the other.

The Top-down Approach

The Top-Down approach assumes that the influential conversations happen in online communities with a focused purpose and stated topic. For example, if you want to reach travelers you should first focus your outreach on travel blogs, travel wikis, travel portals, in travel newsgroups, and travel bloggers. This strategy is an essential part of online marketing.

Finding online communities using the Top-Down Approach is easy. Several sites can aid in helping you find topical online communities. Here’s how to do it:

Go to Google and search for your topic. Be sure to place your topic phrase into quotes to limit your results. For example, “travel blogs,??? “travel Wiki,??? “travel forums,??? “travel podcasts,??? Google uses algorithms that help the tops sites show up at the top of the listings, generally favoring blogs, communities, message boards, wikis, and portals.

Go to Technorati and use the above topic phrases to search for topical blogs in the directory, http://technorati.com/blogs/; try the same phrases by searching in tags, http://technorati.com/tag.

Go to BlogPulse and explore their list of top blogs, http://www.blogpulse.com/06_09_18/topWeblogGroup.html, for on-topic blogs
Go to Technorati and take a look at their list of top popular blogs, http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/ with an eye to finding blogs with topical content that jibes with the mission of the online marketing campaign.

Visit Truth Laid Bear’s Ecosystem, http://truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php, to explore the top blogs and scroll for blogs that are on-topic.

Visit Share Your OPML to see what the most popular sites are, http://share.opml.org/: Top feeds, http://share.opml.org/rankings/, Top podcasts, http://share.opml.org/toppodcasts/, and top subscribers (I am currently 34th), http://share.opml.org/prolificsubscribers/. There is a loose correlation between top subscribers and most influential bloggers.

Get ready to bookmark the sites you find compelling as you will need them later. Go through the listing and take note of the sites you find that are interactive online communities, including blogs, message boards, forums, wikis, and so forth.

The most influential blogs, forums, and wikis are also the most difficult to influence. The owners, bloggers, moderators, and administrators are busy and used to being contacted. Many of these sites are corporate-owned and unlikely to be receptive to messaging. In the few cases when they are receptive to messaging, they would be even more receptive to messaging were that message to be perceived as popular and organic.

In other words, the most influential blogs are loud, busy, noisy, and fully-funded. They have defined roles, queues, workflows, and advertising packages. They’re also interested in being perceived as being editorial, objective, and discerning.

It is entirely possible to build a relationship with a major player, a major influencer, over time, but I recommend that until a online brand promoter gets some experience, some hours in the cockpit, and starts building real, organic, and intimate relationships online (like getting them in your address book and on your IM list where you feeling comfortable emailing or IMing them) then there are better ways to get your message into delivered into online communities, specifically, the Bottom-Up Approach.

The Bottom-up Approach

The bottom-up approach can be started today. Yes, today. The bottom-up approach doesn’t care at all about who is talking or where they’re talking, just what they’re saying.

For general results, check Google, MSN, or Yahoo; for blogs check Technorati.com (http://www.technorati.com), Ask.com (www.ask.com/?o=333#subject:bls|pg:1), Google Blogsearch (blogsearch.google.com/), IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com), Feedster (http://www.feedster.com), or BlogPulse (http://www.blogpulse.com)
Type in either a relevant topic phrase or search for sites that link to Your company.com (technorati.com/search/www.your company.com and www.ask.com/blogsearch?q=your company.com)

Go to the blogs that are talking about or linking to your topic or your company
Where appropriate, leave a short note about your take on their article or post in the comments field and maybe mention what you’re doing at your blog. Lead with comment and content — give the blogs the gift of your insight rather than go around promoting yourself… the latter is SPAM!

Record the URL of each comment in a spreadsheet in order to be able to return. Return to the comment the next day to see if there has been any response to your comment. If there has been, it is important to be responsive. Be conversational – a member of the community – and answer any and all questions or queries that may arise about your company, video blogging, or traveling.

Return daily to Technorati and Ask.com and do the same thing.

Please be considerate, and make sure to leave comments, content, and conversation only where people might be interested (i.e., “inform??? – don’t “spam???).

Collecting Online Communities

Whether you use the top-down approach or the bottom-up approach, your searches should be collected, organized, and aggregated into a master document. By far the most important and useful document you will create is your collection of online communities. The first time you build one, it will be a time-consuming pain the ass.

In the case of the Top-Down Approach, it will be easy to do, since these sites are generally focused on a single topic and easily categorized. With the Top-Up Approach, it is important to not add all of the sites you have recorded in your spreadsheet of comment URLs above. Be sure to only add sites to your universe that have proven to mention your general campaign topic more than once. For example, although my blog, Chris Abraham, http://www.chrisabraham.com, is a general blog, I have blogged a lot about automobiles, http://www.chrisabraham.com/automobiles; and, in the case of BMWs, I am devoted with http://www.chrisabraham.com/bmw/ and http://www.chrisabraham.com/e39_5series/. Even though my blog isn’t about either autos or BMWs, it is a safe bet that I, as a blogger, would be very open and receptive to automotive messaging. And in the case of GM, I have indeed been messaged, http://www.chrisabraham.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?tag=GM.

Choose your sites wisely, well, and selectively. It is okay to start off small and build out over time. Alternately, you can load every community and the kitchen sink into the document and then prune based on the effectiveness of the online messaging and outreach is on a per-site basis.

The document that you create will never be set in stone. It will be dynamic and always changing as online communities come and go every day. The document can be as simple as a notepad document or as complex as a database-backed application. I use Google Spreadsheets since it is an online service and I can share it with a client and access the spreadsheets anywhere.

They can be very simple documents and kept in one big lump or broken into separate documents based on the type of online community, such as Blog, Forum, Portal, Newsgroup, Social Network, or based on the topic of the online community (communities of interest, practice, action, circumstance, position, or purpose), such as travel, drinking, gaming, file sharing, or cars. I prefer to organize all of my communities into lumps based on interest or purpose (travel and tourism). My collections of topical online communities, or universes, live in spreadsheets, one-per-topical focus.

At this stage, you only need Name, URL, Type, and Focus. That said, spending extra time to figure out the full name and email address behind the blogger, message board, or Wiki, is worthwhile when you define online influencers or an online advocacy and outreach campaign.

Defining Online Influencers

It’s easy to figure out which blogs, portals, and forums are highly popular and highly influential; it’s harder to figure out which of these communities may be receptive to your marketing efforts. By looking at the Internet through the lens of the Top-Down Approach and the Bottom-Up Approach, you will start to formulate a realistic understanding of the online community landscape as it pertains to your company. You will also learn which communities and which bloggers consistently blog favorably about your company. Once you have this sorted out, you can start building a relationship that becomes personal and builds over time. Before long, they’ll be on your IM list, in your Address Book, and you’ll know all of their birthdays and the name of their spouses and kids. You, a corporate shill, are becoming part of the online conversation and you are building online equity and real online trust. You will be able to ask favors and grant favors. You will even eventually meet one for lunch. It will happen. It happened to me.

Prospecting Bloggers

While exploring the blog search engines for relevant company-related content, take note of particularly friendly blogs and bloggers. Also take note of any blog and bloggers who are actively embedding your company code into their blogs. If a blogger consistently uses your company, comments on blog posts, or has ever given a positive or neutral review of your company, consider asking the blogger to be part of a select list of folks who will receive news, updates, upgrades announcements, and other company news with the understanding that when the news is received by the blogger, the blogger can do whatever they want with it. This is why it is important to make sure the blogger (or message board owner) is committed to liking your company. If you have an agency to conduct blogger prospecting and the online advocacy, be sure they know the form and content of the messages you would like to be conveyed. The prospect may or may not blog about the news. The hope is that the prospect will decide to blog about the news, either positively or neutrally. Once the email goes out, however, you have no control of what is done. If you have any second thoughts about the prospect being a friendly, don’t do it.

Reaching Out to Online Influencers

Every day, go through the universe to each blog, message board, social network, and social bookmarking site and use either the built-in search form to search for discussions about your company, your competitors, or choice keyword phrases, looking for relevant content.

Consider joining the conversation only if there is something worthwhile to contribute. Only enter the conversation if you can answer a question, clear up a misconception, announce news that would be considered interesting to the members, offer a promotion or discount, or contribute to the conversation with expertise or insight that would add true (and not just promotional) value to the conversation.

Activating Bloggers

One a list of friendly and like-minded bloggers have been assembled, organize them in an Outlook Contacts folder. don’t hesitate to reach out to individual bloggers and friendlies informally in order to build a connection and a conversation. It is important to make sure any formal outreach is carefully considered before moving forward.

When it is time to reach out and message to the list, there are several things to consider before emailing. The most important thing is to make sure you have something important to share or a gift to give. This can be in the form of something simple, but there always has to be a reason for reaching out.

One way to make the connection feel more intimate is to use Outlook’s fine email merge to send out an email. Listservs and mailing lists can be seen as too impersonal, as are formatted newsletters-looking missives. After sending out one of these group activation emails, be sure to respond quickly and personally to each and every personal query and response you may receive.

The primary goal is to build a relationship between other bloggers and your company’s community. The secondary goal is to have the community blog about your company organically on their own; saying whatever it is they want to say.

Ideally, if everything is done above board and transparently, and the prospects are tried and true, then any and all coverage will be either very positive or at the very worst, neutral in tone.

Anyway, this is a work-in-progress so please pop me an email to cja@well.com or leave a comment below if you have any feedback.

I believe that Edelman, on behalf of Microsoft and AMD, was completely transparent with all the blogger-recipients of those gifted sexy Ferrari laptops; I also don’t believe that Edelman, AMD or Microsoft demanded good reviews, merely hoped for the best. Via Wired, digg, MSTechToday, Laughing Squid, Scobleizer, istartedsomething, Slashdot, BL Ochman, Robert Scoble, Crunch Gear, WebPro News, WebMetrics Guru, Marketing Canapes, Tech Crunch, notgartner, and Ed Bott.

Edelman is in the business of promotion and Microsoft is in the business of sales; influencing the influencer is key in a new media Cluetrain market economy of tipping points and markets as conversation.

If you Don’t Have the Latest Hardware with Tons of RAM then Vista is a Pig

The biggest techies don’t often have the best gear. These Ferraris show off Microsoft’s pig of a bloated OS, Vista, in the light both Microsoft and Edelman demand. They may be guilty of trying to load the deck, but I doubt they’re guilty of bribery.

Although I only worked on the Online Advocacy team in Washington for three months, I was alway instructed to engage bloggers thusly, “Hi, my name is Chris Abraham, and I work for Edelman on behalf of Wal-Mart.” My responsibility was to be transparent to the blogger. After that, it was the blogger’s responsibility to pass it forward.

Edelman Needed to be Hands-Off Once the Delivery Was Made of the Laptops

One might say that it was Edelman’s responsibility, a la noblesse oblige, to review the bloggers and their blogs and to remind those bloggers who had yet to disclose their gift (the way that PayPerPost does now).

If Edelman did all the follow-up due diligence then the gift would be tainted. It wouldn’t be a gift. The product, software, and the chip wouldn’t be speaking for themselves. It would be as if the gift was, in fact, a bribe. Additionally, bloggers are not journalists. Although Edelman is required under their WOMMA and industry responsibilies, bloggers can do whatever we want. We’re not held to disclosure requirements since we’re private citizens.

The blowback here has less to do with Edelman, AMD, or Microsoft. It has to do with the bloggers. The bloggers who failed to be fully transparent broke trust with their readership. I discuss this in my article, Whether Journalist or Blogger, Honor the Trust You Have Been Given, “so, what he means is that the writer, be he a proper journalist or an improper blogger, is judged of course what he writes but also by what he does.”

If you demand transparency and disclosure, you could also require any number of things. I think, in terms of strategy, it is a better strategy to identify the influencials, the make the offer of the gift, to be completely transparent, and then to allow the recipient to either disclose or not. It is such a tar baby. Edelman would have been damned if it did or damned if it didn’t.

I Believe that Edelman did Exactly the Right Thing in the Case of the Acer Ferrari Laptops

What is Edelman’s responsibility when it comes to enforcing transparency? My responsibility to bloggers was to be transparent on three levels: my real identity, my real company, and the company for which I worked. The expectation here was that the blogger just might post my entire email online, so no funny stuff. (Yes, that example was shameful, that’s for sure. But I made all of those mistakes so that you don’t have to.)

Here’s another, another, and another.

UPDATE: Microsoft wants their laptops back.