Getting Ink

What is it with the flippin' great god "google"?

Yeah, I know, it’s one of those “Cor, it’s not like the old days” posts.

But good grief, does anyone write anything any more just because it’s, like, interesting? Does anyone write a blog they feel strongly about, and fill it with stuff they think might be useful to people, or at least give them a couple of moments entertainment during the morning coffee break? Does anyone spend time linking, building a community presence and learning about stuff?

No. It’s all about SEO and the Great God Google (GGG).

As mentioned previously my PR client is launching a blog. Every single piece of advice seems to be about pleasing the GGG. Use Wordpress so GGG can see you, says one advisor. Another says remember to use keywords in all your headlines. Then someone rings up and says you need a long list of keywords, a Google sitemap and Google friendly meta-tags.

For what it’s worth, I use Typepad as a blogging platform because I find Wordpress unwieldy. A quick Google search (other search engines are available) for Sally Whittle or Getting Ink turns up this blog very easily, so I don’t feel I lose visibility by not bowing to the GGG twice a day. I have been won over by AdWords, I think they’ve been really useful to the PR client, and it’s been fascinating to see it work so well.

It’s tough for a small business and a slight technophobe pretend PR person to split the advice from the snake oil. In my gut, I still believe writing engaging content with relevant language and which is useful to other people is the best way to build a blog audience. And commenting on other blogs and getting links in and out is the best way to build visibility. The Google stuff is just icing, surely?

A quick favour

A very quick favour for anyone reading this blog - my lovely PR client* is conducting a survey into what pre-school activities are in favour among the smarter set. Since this blog is almost exclusively read by the better sort of person, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to ask my readers to take a 5 minute survey about what they like to do to entertain their offspring.

Also, there's a chance of winning some loot (ELC vouchers) as a thanks for taking part.

Click Here to take survey

* who reads this blog regularly

Happy Blog Day

I just tagged by Dan Leach as part of Blog Day 2008, which is a way for us all to share blog recommendations with our readers.

It's good timing as I've recently re-built all my RSS feeds following a small technical snafu (I deleted the wrong Google account) so I've been pruning and reviving my blog reading habits. Here are five blogs I recommend:

Forever Amber: always worth a read, and I wish my dog was as cool as Ruben. (Happy's a lab; she doesn't do cool). A recent highlight was "Inadvertently Ask Amber", a post where Amber answers all the questions that people ask of Google, which bring them to her site.

John Mayer: it's nothing to do with PR or journalism but I'm fond of a bit of John Mayer, having learned to play guitar using several of his songs, and his blog is surprisingly interesting. Take this post on why he thinks Paparazzi photographers should be regulated, for example.

Earlin' Abuse: It's a PR blog, but not at all PR-like. Which I mean as a compliment, honest. Steve asks the big questions like...Are Beards Bad?

Byrne Baby Byrne: Another PR blog, particularly well written and more interesting than most.

What do you do? written by fellow hack Diane Shipley, this is one of my favourite journalism blogs. Not least because she understands what it's like to wish you were Lorelei Gilmore.

Put away the keyboard and step away from the blog...

Did you know that a poorly thought out blog post could land you in court?

It's easy to think that boring things like libel or contempt of court don't apply to bloggers - after all, you're just expressing an opinion, right? Except you're not just expressing an opinion, you're publishing an opinion, instantaneously, to a potentially global audience.

That's something that came home to me this week when one of the PR agency blogs I regularly read published a post that was massively in contempt of court. The author had speculated on a legal case that was active (charges had been brought), and referred to an allegation that had been made about the defendent as an undisputed fact. This is very bad on several levels. 

I contacted the agency boss, who swiftly took the post down, admitting it hadn't really been properly read by a senior member of staff before it was published. I think this is something that probably happens with alarming regularity outside newspapers, which tend to have on-staff lawyers for this sort of thing. Blogs want to be first with content, they push the story up regardless, and nobody quite understands what "active" proceedings are, or the restrictions on reporting them.

But, like it or not, if you're a blogger you're also a publisher. And you need to know this stuff. Ask any professional journalist what books they can't live without and somewhere in the top five will be this - McNae's Essential Law for Journalists. It's an easy-to-read guide to the main aspects of media law, spelling out exactly what journalists can and can't do in print. If you - or your clients - are blogging, I suggest you pick up a copy.

Happy Birthday Getting Ink

The whole work/life balance thing has been seriously out of whack in recent months.

I’m grateful for my good fortune, but sometimes it’s hard work trying to fit everything in, and in my lower moments I wonder if by doing too much, I don’t do anything quite well enough. Only this afternoon, I was seriously considering ditching the blogs to make more time for the training business.

Then I realised the blog was two years old, and started to think about what I’ve gained from two years of blogging.

First, I know so many more people these days. Through blogging, I’ve had conversations with loads of PR executives at various levels of the industry. I’ve talked to overseas professors, students and fellow freelancers. That's got to be a good thing, right?

Second, having a wider professional network means that I’ve learned a lot – tips and tricks about interviewing, finding case studies, using social networks, micro-blogging. All stuff I don’t think I’d have known about without the blog.  I’ve even learned some HTML, albeit quite primitive.

It’s hard to quantify, but I do think the blog has helped me make a living as a freelance journalist. I’ve had leads for training workshops through the blog, and only today I got a lead for media training through LinkedIn, via a contact made through – you guessed it – blogging (thanks, S!). I've commissioned journalists I've met through the blog, and had commissions back in return.

On balance, probably worth it. But I’d be interested in what some of my readers think they’ve gained from blogging. Is it worth it for you? 

New ones for your blogroll

A new (anonymous) PR blog that looks like it might be worth a read - PRotagonism.

I especially liked the blogger's perspective on PR disintermediation, which is basically a posh way of saying what to do when hacks no longer as you to arrange their interviews. Yes, it removes a lot of boring grunt work, but it makes it harder for PRs to ensure clients stay "on message" apparently. Really? Maybe that's why Danny and other hacks are increasingly looking to disintermediate those pesky PRs.

And some random PR bloke known as "Pinny" has launched a blog here. It's about Blue Peter and football, from what I can tell.

Rule No. 1: Don't be skeevy

Thanks to Bad Pitch Blog for teaching me a whole new word to use when talking about co-workers and PR types: skeevy.

If you don't want to be skeevy (and I think  you already know without looking it up that most of us don't) BPB suggests there are six rules to successful blog pitching:

1. Read several posts on the blog
2. Search the blog for your client or relevant industry terms to check for relevance
3. Subscribe to the RSS feed to boost audience metrics
4. Leave a comment on the blog that is relevant and isn't a pitch
5. Check how the blogger likes to receive PR information
6. Send the blogger an email unrelated to your pitch

Sounds like a lot of hassle, doesn't it? But as BPB points out: the price of getting it wrong in a 2.0 world is potentially much higher than for mainstream media. Piss these guys off, and they really could tell the world about it.

Should PRs be talking to bloggers?

Following up on the story last week about prominent Tom Coates telling PRs to stop sending him press releases, I read an interesting post on the subject on Stuart Bruce's Wolfstar blog.

First, I wondered how the headline will go down (it starts "stupid, lazy PR people"). Then, I noticed Stuart says bloggers are now being incorporated into the media databases that PR types use. Tom has commented on the post, wondering just how the heck his blog got into a PR database, and who exactly was reading it. We hacks expect our details to be collated and sold, because this is our job. I'm not sure how many bloggers would say the same.

What this makes me wonder is whether the media database companies are asking permission from bloggers before including them in databases. Are they informed of what information about them is being sold, and given the opportunity to view, amend and approve it? Shouldn't they be? Or is the fact that you publish online taken as tacit consent that you're open for any commercial message PR wants to send your way?

(Stuart also raises the valid point that media databases should only ever be viewed as a starting point for your own research in any case. Couldn't agree more. When I worked on staff, I used to get endless calls for colleagues who'd long since departed. Hacks move around so frequently - and fill in the surveys sent by Romeike and the like so infrequently - that the databases can never be 100 percent accurate.)

Are you sending releases to blogs? Read this.

Back in October 06, PRBlogger named Tom Coates one of the UK's most influential bloggers for his site, PlasticBag.org.

Since then, Tom says he has been inundated with press releases from PRs eager to get their messages out on his blog. It's not surprising - an increasing number of PR types think that blogs are an important means of distributing stories and engaging with the public.

But guess what? Tom isn't a hack and he isn't being paid to receive your client's news. And he's a bit hacked off with the idea that he is.

Like Drew says,  perhaps it's time to start thinking outside the press release box if you want to engage with the blogosphere.

The Bully Blogs

* UPDATE - TWL tells me this category is genuine but tongue in cheek, which is fair enough. Ha ha. *

Browsing through the blogs this morning using my brand new RSS feed (I know, get me, I’m like totally 2.0) I noticed TWL is doing its own awards for PR types, the Flackenhacks.

One award caught my eye: TWL invites PRs to nominate the journalist they least like telephoning, who is hardest to please, or generally least pleasant to deal with:

which is the hack that you’d rather email than pick up the phone to, though you know you’re never going to get a response? ... Silences on the phone that seem to drag on like a Chelsea v. Man U cup final? Give us the name ...anecdotes welcome too.

Is it just me, or does this have a faint whiff of playground bullying? Certainly, there's no category for hacks to nominate the most annoying PR of the year, the best PR stalker, the most dishonest client mouthpiece, the most blatant spam merchant.

The odds are that the winner of the award will take it as a badge of honour (I'm so good at my job that PRs quake in their boots when calling) but there's a chance they won't. This is a bunch of people ganging up on someone and it's worse because they're doing so from the comfortable vantage point of anonymity.

Or am I missing something?