Global PR Blog Week 2.0

By Peter Himler, Flatiron Communications, LLC | The Flack
EDITORS’ CHOICE | The Practice of PR Blogging

First the name: In deciding on “The Flack,â€? I looked at other weblogs, including those under Nick Denton’s Gawker brand, and concluded that I needed something edgy and irreverent. The Flack certainly met these criteria. More importantly, this is what many journalists call PR pros, even those at the top of our profession. If the blogosphere is a sphere of transparency, why deny the reality? Do I like the label? No. Can it be used to make a point? Hopefully.

There are days when I just can’t seem to find the time (nor motivation) to scour my RSS reader for stories that meet the self-imposed criteria for posting on The Flack. Yet, amidst client work, business development, and my daily media consumption, let alone my family, I manage to squeeze out one or two and occasionally three items a day. This summer, I even spent an hour posting from a McDonalds on the Cape, which had the only wireless hotspot in town.

To what end?

It certainly isn’t for the money. I had considered registering for Google’s AdSense, but soon became daunted by all the personal information the monopolistic money machine had requested of me. Anyway, the number of my daily readers probably wouldn’t generate much in the way of cash flow. Even gawker.com founder Nick Denton lamented how blogging remains a small business. This remains true in spite of the fact that four of his weblogs reside in the top-ten most-visited, according to a recent study (PDF) from ComScore. I wonder how Jason Calacanis’s Weblogs Inc. and John Battelle’s new publishing venture Federated Media are faring in the monetization department?

Perhaps my motivation to post is derived through some hidden desire to strike back at the countless editorial gatekeepers who over the years rudely hung up the phone on me or failed to see the intrinsic news in a story idea I was presenting. After all, if Mark Cuban could use his blog as a bully pulpit to expose the shortcomings of the fifth estate, why couldn’t I? Too bad Cuban’s Blog Maverick ranks in the top 25 of most-visited, while mine languishes near the bottom of the 16.3 million blogs currently being tracked by Technorati and others. But that’s not the point.

Even with a few readers, the viral nature of the blogosphere allows one’s voice to be heard and even amplified. I was surprised to receive a call one day from an enterprising PR Week reporter who noticed an item I had run on a typical PR quagmire. He decided to write a story using me as an expert source. Or the e-mail I received from an old colleague pitching me a story about one of her clients. It was a fun, PR-related piece and I posted an item on it. My old colleague sent it to her client as a press clipping.

Are these sufficient reasons for me to take 20-30 minutes per posting on a daily basis?

Can The Flack serve as a magnet for new clients or a positive contributor to my personal and professional brand identity? Thus far, I’ve seen no evidence of this. I will say, however, that my Google profile has changed considerably since starting the blog. I’m not sure this is such a good thing. Previously, my profile consisted mainly of the various speeches, interviews and client projects with which I’ve been involved over a long career in the PR industry. As I continue to post, those “career highlights� have slipped deeper and deeper into the recesses of Google’s results rankings.

Many create blogs to espouse a point of view or advocate for a specific cause. I have learned that this can be a doubled-edged sword in a service industry. Sure, one achieves a modicum of satisfaction by pontificating in the public domain. Perhaps others will even agree with the commentary and link to it, elevating the blog in the search engine rankings. Occasionally, one’s musings could catalyze change or a consumer movement, as was the case with the recent tirade by BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis over his issues with Dell Computer’s customer service.

Still, there is great danger in being too opinionated. What you post lives forever on the Internet. If you are looking to land a new client, it is important to know that whatever you’ve written about the client’s products or services is easily discoverable…for better or worse. I also remember what Microsoft’s evangelical blogger Robert Scoble had to say at a NYC conference about the dos and don’ts of blogging. He made the point that one shouldn’t blog if he or she is going through some personal crisis at home. (I believe he had himself gone through a divorce.) Your daily mood tends to manifest in your postings. Most importantly, your words become an open and indelible book.

As I look at other “PR blogs,� I am always impressed by their sophisticated musings on the digital revolution’s impact on our profession, which you hopefully will come to understand by navigating this PR wiki. They continue to devote a tremendous amount of space to the new, important and industry-changing digital content management tools and trends now and soon available to us.

Who’d have thought that one could instantly gauge consumer awareness and perception of one’s product, service, issue, personality, etc., by navigating a site like Technorati, Alexa or Intelliseek’s Blog Pulse? Or that the blogging community, and specifically its most linked-to denizens, have the capacity to not only influence the national news agenda, but force real change. (Just ask Dan Rather.) The blogosphere is simply the largest focus group and/or living laboratory the world had ever known. It also has irrevocably changed the top-down nature of news dissemination – something PR pros must take the time to learn about…or perish.

I believe that the long-held tenets of the PR profession (as well as its less-than-savory aspects) require greater transparency, to ensure the future vitality of the industry.

I thus see my fledgling blog as a micro media channel that aspires to shed light on the enigmatic, but still growing practice of public relations. Admittedly, the profession continues to be criticized and misunderstood by most. The choice for my blog’s title – The Flack – sums up how many still perceive practitioners. Hence, unlike many of my fellow PR bloggers, I try not to obsess about the revolution at our doorstep (though I may soon experiment with v-logging and podcasting). I prefer to opine on the tactical and ethical underpinnings of public relations and how it permeates the news and information we consume daily.

A few months ago, the living legends of our industry gathered at the behest of Jack O’Dwyer, a long-time chronicler of the practice of PR. It included Harold Burson, Daniel Edelman, Al Golin, Margery Kraus and David Finn. (Howard Rubenstein had a conflict.) Excluding APCO’s Ms. Kraus, the average age of these still-practicing PR icons topped 80! Who will inherit, advocate for, and represent the richness and contributions of our profession as it undergoes change? Lizzie, Peggy, Leslee and Ron? I couldn’t think of a greater motivation for posting every day.

About the author

Peter Himler is an independent public relations and media consultant who is the principal of a new enterprise in New York City called Flatiron Communications, LLC. Peter has a long career as a senior media strategist on the agency side of the industry, including 20 years in the WPP family of companies. He was named PR News’s 2004 PR Professional/Media Relations Executive of the Year, and the PR program he led to build the World War II Memorial was awarded PR Week’s “Public Sector Campaign of the Year.� He serves as president of the Publicity Club of New York, is active with the Center for Communication, the Museum of TV & Radio and United Way of New York City, and sits on the Boards of Advisors of the Communication and Media Studies Program at Tufts University, from which he holds a B.A. degree in Political Science and French.

{tags: prblogweek, pr, public+relations, pr+blogging}