Fisking Adriana
Oh, man. There’s a lamentable piece in PR Week right now about blogging. I must say that the journalist in question, Peter Crush, has actually done a decent job of putting this story together, for the most part. I know smart people who read it and found it useful, and I’m sure others will, too. But it’s about halfway there, so to speak, and I really want to add some context and clarification to one portion in particular.
This is how journalist Peter Crush reported/reinterpreted Adriana’s words (sorry, A, hope you don’t mind this).
Adriana Lucas, founding partner, The Big Blog Company:
First of all, how on earth does a publication with as many editors and fact-checkers as PR Week end up getting one of their sources’ names wrong? Yeah, I know, it can be seen as a small thing (though I’d say that getting a person’s name right is a primary sign of respect), but that also means it should be pretty easy to get right, no?
The single most important message I have for PROs when it comes to blogs is that corporate blogging is a misnomer. Corporate blogging should not, and does not, work. Blogging is an individual activity. The worst thing to do is to start a corporate blog.
Quite right. Now here comes the context…
A corporation does not have an identity that can be captured by a single blog – the task for comms professionals is to let people in that organisation talk. What PROs must realise is that blogging is not about creating a brand, but about allowing the brand to emerge.
What the hell are PROs? This phrase is repeatedly inserted into quotations from Adriana and others, and it’s glaring (and annoying) as hell. She did not use that term, I’m quite sure.
At the moment, blogging is going through what I call the “press release” phase – not being honest about the facts. When journalists are sceptical of press releases it is because they want facts. Consumers who read blogs also want facts.
Give me strength. If Adriana actually used the word consumer, I will eat a five foot stack of press releases (without ketchup). As she wrote for New Media Age more than one year ago, the consumer is no more.
The problem is that “corporate bloggers” seem scared of facts. PROs should know that the more blind a press release is, the greater the likelihood that people will put their own spin on it. The same applies for blogs, but for more important reasons. Press releases have a limited context – but the internet gives them (ie, blogs) a context. This is what PROs should do – create context.
The problem is that communications professionals are not natural bloggers. They’ve been operating in one context, and now they need a new context. They need to forget many of their techniques and learn how and why individual bloggers do what they do. Blogging shouldn’t be treated as a commodity. PROs need to find the right person in the company who just wants to blog anyway – who will be the most sincere, with thoughts that gain currency.
Perhaps the best way to explain this is to accept that communication is like a party. Before blogs, PROs could control who they wanted to come to the party. Despite some people having louder voices than others, it always stayed civilised. The internet lets everyone join the party, and that’s when anyone seen to be trying to control the party appears fickle. Once PR professionals see this, they will communicate better.
I have been working with one of the largest pharmaceutical brands for the past year to help the firm incorporate blogging. It has been a slow process because they think they cannot control corporate communications. It has taken six months for me to convince the head of communications that he only needs to worry about controlling the context – the bias of the blogger – rather than the message per se. My formula is: bias + transparency = credibility.
I call bullshit. I have significant knowledge of this particular company, and the head of communications referenced, and there’s been no ‘convincing’ going on. These things take time because they take time, especially in a gigantic multi-national corporation - even when you have solid support at the very highest level of the company. Unless Adriana was hit on the head with a blunt object and really did say such a silly thing, Crush has misquoted her in a most unfortunate way.
People only become cynical because companies pretend to have news. If you declare the agenda, readers say, “Oh, alright”. If you say why you are blogging, and what you want to achieve, you’ll also gain attention from the people who care about you.
Remember, corporate blogging and individual blogging are a clash of formats. PR practitioners must instead test how individual blogs can come together. This is about saying things that put employees where they should be – at the forefront of the company.
I’d add that it’s not just about saying the right things; it’s about doing the right things. This is where I think many PR people do (and will) naturally struggle with getting it right when it comes to blogging and other such uses of the web. They are trained to focus on reputation, appearances, and what is said.
To borrow heavily from what Adriana and I have both emphasised to clients: If you believe that “Perception is reality” you are screwed. Why? Because you will struggle with the fact that, when it comes to this brave new world of conversation, reality is reality. You can spin all you like, but the truth matters and has a funny way of becoming known. If you have been honest and factual in your account of reality, you will come off a lot better against someone else whose version of reality is different. Make your biases known, be transparent and truthful, and you will have credibility. How many PR people truly believe in that, let alone practice it?
Filed under: Blogging, Business, Individuality vs Collectivism, Life, Marketing, Media, PR, Technology, Treating Customers Well
I just have to add, as a comment that would not have really gone with this post, that there is also a strong case for ignoring critics in some cases.
For instance, I would not deign to respond to specific claims from accusers with zero credibility. On a personal level, I tend to ignore such loons completely, reasoning that anyone with an ounce of intelligence and ability of discernment will see them for what they are. I am uninterested in what such sources have to say, let alone in giving them my time, attention, or energy. (My disinterest also seems to increase in proportion to how much time, attention, and energy they are spending on me. Heh.) Life’s too short. For a company, you probably at least want to be aware of what they are saying, especially if it is more than one uncredible source parroting the same rubbish.
Thanks Jackie, fisking is such good fun. :)
The problem with interviews with traditional media is that you never know what comes out of the wash. I enjoyed talking to Peter (and actually tried to put him off talking to me as I didn’t think I’d give him the quotes he was looking for). I know he’s done a good job for most part but I do feel a bit annoyed about the article not getting my name right. Also, I respect my clients far too much to talk about them as if they needed convincing. I explain many things that might be of use to them (otherwise what’s the point of having me around). However, they really need to be convinced already about some pretty fundamental changes happening in their profession to talk to me in the first place.
I think what Peter meant to relay in that quote was that to venture into the wild social web, I sometimes suggest things that may seem counter-intuitive to seasoned communications professionals. And so they may time some time to digest it and internalise those ideas. Which I believe is right.
Not long after I got my first journalistic job, my section editor took me to the pub, after I’d submitted my first feature, and pointed out that I’d spelled someone’s name wrong.
He explained that the most important things in journalism where: who, what, when, where and why. “If you screw up on ‘who’,” he said, “nobody will trust the rest of what you say.”