Blogs and Public Relations Today

Mindy McAdamsUniversity of Florida

What is a blog?

“A personal Web site where somebody self-publishes an electronic journal, often linking to other things on the Web that strike the author’s fancy”—Steven Levy, Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2004

What is a blog?

Blogs are all about:

• Spreading ideas

• Increasing your status (as a blogger and as an expert)

The blogosphere

“… there’s a new force—spearheaded by people who work for no bosses and whose prose never sees an editor’s pencil—that provides the water-cooler fodder for the larger high-tech community. Its power extends not only to high-tech cool-hunting but also to what’s politically correct, geek style.”

—Steven Levy, Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2004

The blogosphere

“The blogosphere is a tipping-point machine.”

—Doc Searls, blogger, quoted by Steven Levy, Newsweek, Dec. 20, 2004

Ideas are like viruses.One blogger catches the germ, and then … others come to his or her site and catch it too.

Blogs about public relations

• Micro Persuasion

• CorporatePR

• POP! Public Relations

Blogs from corporations

• Adobe

• Wal-Mart

• General Motors

• Chrysler

Whose blog is this?

PR firms that have blogs

• Edelman

• Hill & Knowlton

Two recent cases

• Kryptonite bike locks

• Dell Computer

Kryptonite locks

• Largest U.S. cycle lock manufacturer

• $30 million a year in bike lock sales

• Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004: Message about Bic pen and the lock posted on bikeforums.net

• By Thursday that week, 170,000 people had seen that message

Kryptonite locks

“Incredibly, Kryptonite’s site … still has nothing about this issue, a week after the story broke, despite the homepage ironically proclaiming ‘This is the place to get the most information about our products …’ ”

—Rick E. Bruner, Business Blog Consulting, Sept. 17, 2004

Kryptonite locks

“Had they responded earlier, they might have stopped the anger before it hit the papers and became widespread.”

—Andrew Bernstein, CEO of Cymfony, a data-analysis company

Kryptonite locks

What we learned:

• Today’s corporations must keep a close eye on Web activity outside the major media channels

• Fast response to a crisis must include Web communication

Dell Computer

• Jeff Jarvis: An “A-list blogger” who writes BuzzMachine

• June 21, 2005: Jarvis posts first complaint (in BuzzMachine) about his new Dell.

• Title: “Dell lies. Dell sucks.”

Dell Computer

• June 24: Having sent the computer back, Jarvis receives a repaired computer. It also doesn’t work.

• Jarvis blogs his bitterness.• Many other people contribute

their own stories of poor customer service from Dell.

Dell Computer

• Aug. 17: Jarvis’s “open letter” to Dell appears in Buzz Machine.

• Aug. 22: Jarvis gets a refund.

Dell Computer

“Obviously, Mr. Jarvis’s experience could’ve been handled better.”

—Jennifer Davis, Dell spokeswoman, reported in Online Media Daily, Aug. 23

Dell Computer

What we learned:

• The effect of the blogosphere can be like a disease epidemic.

• Once your clients or customers get the chance to testify in the public space of the Web, you will need to respond quickly and expertly.

What you need to know

• Employers today expect young people to know a lot about theInternet.

• The most valuable knowledge about the Internet is how people communicate on it and through it.

• The “buzz” online eventually goes offline and affects non-Internet users too.

Thank you!

Handout:

http://mindymcadams.com/guest/

E-mail:

mmcadams@jou.ufl.edu