Beyond the press release and to the blogs?

In an earlier post I wrote about how Public Relations (PR) is finally waking up to the power of blogging. The Media Guardian just this week claimed that PR is finding the ‘blogosphere’ the ‘perfect environment’.

In the Guardian one reason advanced - by Katy Howell (partner at Immediate Future) - as to why PR should get into blogging is that “only PR understand a crisis”.

According to Howell PR needs to both proactive - building a conversation with bloggers and other “taste makers”, as well as be flexible enough to be able to react to crisis.

She points to Pizzahut’s name change to Pastahut and that the blogosphere was not impressed by this - they saw it as a publicity stunt. They could have engaged bloggers by sending them menus, and including them in the conversation before they announced it Howell says.

A great idea.

Dell did much the same when they endured the Dell Hell media fire storm.

If you don’t yet know about it here is the story. A couple of years ago, media professor and commentator Jeff Jarvis blogged about his frustration with Dell’s customer support. He wrote Michael Dell, Dell’s founder an open letter on his blog.

The bottom line is that a low-price coupon may have gotten me to buy a Dell, but your product was a lemon and your customer service was appalling.

I shipped back my computer today and only — only — because I wrote an email to you, Mr. George, did I manage to get a refund. I’m typing this on an Apple Powerbook. I also have bought two more Apples for our home.

But you didn’t just lose three PC sales and me as a customer.

Today, when you lose a customer, you don’t lose just that customer, you risk losing that customer’s friends. And thanks to the internet and blogs and consumer rate-and-review services, your customers have lots and lots of friends all around the world.

I blog. And I shared the story of my Dell travails here. The topic resonated with hundreds more people. Go read the many comments here and here. Too busy? Then have an intern or an MBA do it for you.

And then have them read all the many posts of other bloggers who pointed to my posts and shared their dissatisfaction with your products, service, and brand and, in many cases, announced that they were no longer going to buy your name…

Ouch!

But Dell responded brilliantly. By sending technicians to reach out to complaining bloggers and solve their problems, they earned a positive buzz from the blogs in return.

Bloggers do post about brands spontaneously. And the correct engagement can prod them into action. (Unlike paying for posts which is in my opinion not real word of mouth.)

Technorati’s recent survey shows that bloggers do post about brands a lot.

But besides a crisis and being proactive there are much more PR agencies can do with blogs.

Lexis PR’s head of digital Chris Cook says in the same Guardian article:

“We believe PR is the natural home for the production of branded content. PR is about generating compelling stories that secure endorsement from third parties and drive conversation and engagement with brands. Good branded content should follow the same rules.”

Mmmm… Chris appears to be saying that just like advertising is becoming more content like, so is PR. Perhaps ad agencies and PR agencies are converging on the same territory? Content.

According to the Guardian this approach is demonstrated by the work of another PR firm, Onlinefire. Onlinefire is engaging football fans with an widget (a little application) - with links to personalised Football stories - for BBC Radio 5 live.

The widget has by all accounts been a success. It has been distributed to football sites and blogs such as clubfanzine.com, which has driven twice as many referrals to 5 Live as from bbc.co.uk itself.

The take home here is that PR companies can create awareness via content as well as any ad agency.

But have another look at Chris Cook’s definition of PR:

“PR is about generating compelling stories that secure endorsement from third parties and drive conversation and engagement with brands.”

This generation of compelling stories may have been correct in the past, but seems slightly at odds with current thinking on how companies can best communicate and have a conversation with their customers today.

To appreciate how best to engage customers its important not only to use blogs. It’s important for PR officers or those responsible for public relations in business to start blogging themselves.

That was the other thing that Dell did to escape from Dell Hell. Jeff Jarvis later wrote about Dell’s conversion to the conversation for BusinessWeek:

“Dell started its Direct2Dell blog, where it quickly had to deal with a burning-battery issue and where chief blogger Lionel Menchaca gave the company a frank and credible human voice. Last February, Michael Dell launched IdeaStorm.com, asking customers to tell the company what to do.
…
Dell blogger Menchaca has led the charge in convincing bloggers that “real people are here to listen,” and so he diligently responds and links to critics, and holds up his end of the conversation. “You can’t fake it,” he says. Dell’s team is stanching the flow of bad buzz.”

But as I posted previously, engaging customers directly through business blogs is very different from doing a press release.You can’t fake it. And neither can you be economical with the truth. That is something old PR will have to get used to. “Generating compelling stories” - especially ones that are not authentic - is old hat.

“That change in perception just doesn’t happen with a press release,” Menchaca says.

PS:

Apparently the Guardian got bits of their story wrong. According to Onlinefire’s blog:

The widget was developed by award winning design agency clock. We were brought in to take their awesome widget out to the masses, which we have done with aplomb, if we do say so ourselves - generating more than 1.5 million downloads since launch.