The Blog as a PR Tool

Master marketer Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

A blog is a fast and easy PR tool you can use to promote your knowledge and expertise to a wide audience.

But like other PR tools, blogs should be used for specific reasons and with the hope of achieving particular results. Writing a blog for the sake of seeing your name on the screen is not publicity. It's vanity. Just like issuing a news release when you have nothing to say, a “content-free” blog does little to establish or enhance a positive reputation for you or your company.

Here are some tips for blogging the right way and for the right reasons:

• Create a comprehensive list of your knowledge, expertise, or services. Then prioritize the topics that are most important to you and write what you know about.

• Follow the blog posts of others to see what they have to say on the topics you want to write about. Instead of simply repeating that they’ve already said, find something new or interesting to write about the matter. Posting new and original material will help you stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, you are more interested in being an echo chamber instead of a fresh voice.

• Depending on the blogging platform you choose to you, you can have a big say in deciding how large or small you’d like your potential audience to be. If you think bigger will be better, and then include a link to your blog on your Web site, social media platforms, e-mail signature, etc.

• Decide how much feedback, if any, you want from your audience. While encouraging dialog among followers of your blog can lead to a larger audience, you also run the risk of losing control of the nature and focus of the content. This is not a bad thing if you want to build an online community, but it could also be frustrating if you think “your” blog has been hijacked by others.

• Plan your blogging activities as if they were like any other important part of your marketing activity. Because they are!

• Experiment with different blogging formats (e.g., word-based versus video-based) before making a final decision about the kind of blog you want to do. If you are more comfortable in front of a keyboard instead of a camera, then launching a YouTube-based blog will not be best for you. How you blog will dictate the platform you should employ.

• If you already have an established reputation, reinforce that image with appropriate blog posts. If you are just starting out in business and have no brand, think long and hard about what you want people to know and think about you. Then take steps to ensure that the content you post does not stray from that desired reputation.

• Keep current on trends and developments in your industry, profession, or areas of expertise. To receive the latest news, set up Google Alerts for key words, phrases and topics you want to follow.

• After you’ve had an opportunity to try your hand with blogging, have an honest conversation with yourself about the experience. Does blogging make sense for you? Is it something that you really want to continue doing, or has it becomes a drag? Every PR activity should be done for the right reasons. Don’t let your blog become a slog.

The Experience Stack

A race is on to deliver "the experience stack," says Mike Wadhera in TechCrunch.

Mobility has fundamentally changed computing, he says.

While desktop computing was all about your timeline-based profile (think Facebook), mobile computing is about in-the-moment self-expression (think Snapchat).

With the onrush of mobility, "You are not a profile. You are simply you."

We've all become, in effect, amateur auteurs. 

"The stories we tell each other now begin and end visually, making the narrative more literal than ever," Wadhera says.

Providers are racing to monopolize mobility by building a pile of immersive toys he calls the experience stack (pictured here).

"The full stack is in service of capturing and communicating real-world moments," Wadhera says. "Reality is its foundation. As you move up, the layers transition from physical to logical. At the top is the application layer made up of products like Snapchat Live and Periscope."

Tomorrow’s toys will boggle our storyteller's brains, Wadhera says.

"Our online and offline identities are converging, the stories we tell each other now start and end visually and investments at every layer of a new stack are accelerating the development of experience-driven products. Taken together, these trends have cracked open the door for a new golden age of technology."

What, No Online Community?

Event planner: What, no online community?

If true, you're falling behind, says BrightBull's Ricardo Molina.

Worse, you are:

• Wasting money on attendance promotion. Like lists and media partnerships, online communities provide a direct road to your target audience. But unlike those roads, communities don't need as much maintenance. "Once built, a community will thrive with just a little care and attention."

• Letting competitors poach your attendees. First-movers usually win. "When your competitors start a community first, all they have to do is say that it’s there and people will join because it’s something new."

• Forgetting about brand loyalty. Communities provide value added. So members "automatically feel good about your brand."

• Failing to lead. "Why would they think of your event as being 'the one' when you don’t run THE online destination for your niche?"

• Skipping customer insight. Insights from a community let you read the industry's pulse, and drive product development, marketing and sales.

• Leaving money on the table. Exhibitors are eager to brand themselves year-round on communities. Why not offer them yours? One large international bank spends half its marketing budget on content partnerships.

Bezos Rekindles Old Paper

Amazon founder and newspaper owner Jeff Bezos' thumbprint continues to appear in the online version of The Washington Post.

Having trouble finishing long articles? You can now use a gadget to enter your email address at any point. The Post will send a URL that lets you pick it up later where you left off.

We can expect more Kindle-like add-ons to appear in The Post, as Bezos dabbles deeper in journalism. 

"The transformation may not be apparent on the surface, but the Internet billionaire has ripped up and revamped the technology underpinnings at The Post since buying the storied daily in 2013, while investing in the newsroom with more journalists, video offerings and tools for digital storytelling," AFP reported in January.

Bezos' investments might be paying off.

Last December, readership of The Post's website overtook that of The New York Times.

Mankell's Last Post

Henning Mankell, author of the Wallander crime stories and the masterful novel Italian Shoes, died of cancer last October.

Before he died, he wrote a series of articles for The Guardian about dealing with the disease.

The last of these, "Eventually, the Day Comes When We All Have to Go," appeared the week of his death.

The 67-year-old wrote with candor about his chemotherapy and his third year with an "incurable companion."

"How has my life changed?" Mankell asked. 

"Despite being spared most of the side-effects, except for the ever-present fatigue that reduces my energy to about half of what it used to be, I usually don’t notice the tumour I’m carrying in my left lung. At the moment, it is neither growing nor shrinking. I’ve had times of feeling short of breath but not any more. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m afflicted with cancer, as it doesn’t make itself known."

Mankell in fact believed he could stave off death, and that gave him some hope.

"There are, of course, dark times. A deep darkness of worry, loneliness, fear. Nights when I wake up and cold winds sweep in. I know I share this with everybody who is affected by severe illness."

His final words were stoic, just like his characters.

"Eventually, of course, the day comes when we all have to go. Then we need to remember the words of the author Per Olov Enquist: “One day we shall die. But all the other days we shall be alive."

If you've never had the pleasure, read one of his novels.