Facebook Sucks: A New Perspective
Today a comment was left on my post, Top Ten Reasons Facebook Sucks, that I thought was intelligent enough as well as amusing enough to highlight in its own post (you can still find the comment on the original post as well). This perspective comes from a reader named Simone and goes a bit beyond the PR uses of Facebook or other social networks, touching more upon another issue: Facebook’s own hype (including message and delivery on the Facebook apps front and the company’s pandering to the tech crowd). Enjoy:
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Darren Rowse on Targeting and Pitching Bloggers
As promised, here is the second half of my recent interview with pro blogger Darren Rowse, on targeting bloggers and pitching bloggers with your stories or those of your clients.
The Case for Targeting Bloggers
No matter where you fall in the bloggers vs journalists debate, Darren thinks that PRs should avoid snubbing bloggers:
“One big benefit of bloggers is that they have an ability to build real trust with readers. I’m not doubting that this can happen with journalists too but blogs can be very personal and the relationship between blogger and reader can be quite deep.”
Stupid PR Quote of the Week: May 4, 2008
Normally the “stupid PR quote of the week” will focus on rumblings in the overall PR blog party. But I’m going to kick it off again with something a little different… a quote from a book I (finally) started working through this weekend.
The Offender: David Meerman Scott
The Source: The New Rules of Marketing & PR
The Quote: “Public Relations used to be exclusively about the media.”
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Bloggers vs Journalists: With Pro Blogger Darren Rowse
Should companies and PR professionals treat bloggers as journalists? Are bloggers entitled to the same perks as journalists, and can they handle the same responsibilities? For that matter, are bloggers a threat to more traditional journalists?
I’ll be kicking off the re-launch of Naked PR by sharing some of my own thoughts on those questions, as well as those of popular pro blogger Darren Rowse.
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Quick Update on the Status of Naked PR
As you can see, I recently updated the theme here at Naked PR. After taking a few weeks to focus on other projects, I’ve decided it’s time to get things moving again here. You can expect me back to regular posting in early- to mid-May if everything moves on schedule.
In the meantime, if you happen to come across any problems with the new theme, do leave a comment and let me know, so I can fix it - I haven’t run into any trouble yet with either Firefox or IE, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
When Naked PR is officially up and running again, you can expect some changes… but still plenty of good old-fashioned rants… yep… lots.
I’m currently contacting a few folks to set up interviews to go up after the relaunch on a couple of issues from media issues and education to handling negative criticism on the Web. I’m also consulting with a few people, preparing for a post series (rather than the originally-planned report) on SEO for PR professionals.
Edit: Just to give you a heads up on some of the interviews coming up, we’ll have:
- Joe Beaulaurier of PRweb discussing how you can effectively deal with criticism of your company on the Web,
- Andreas Charalambous, lecturer in film and media studies, discussing acceptance and avoidance of new social media technologies,
- I’ll be revisiting the social media news release with Todd Defren,
- and I’ll be chatting with pro blogger Darren Rowse about bloggers vs. traditional journalists.
Fun stuff.
I’ll also be reaching out to more of the webmaster audience that I get here with informational and tutorial-style pieces instead of focusing on PR and social media issues quite as exclusively as I was for a while.
I’m also planning to have a little more “fun” with this blog moving forward - frankly calling out BS can get rather dull at times. But more on that later….
Taking a Break
First of all, I’d like to apologize to anyone who posted a comment that wasn’t approved. I believe I’ve gotten to them all now.
I’ve been away from this blog for a little while, and just want to note that I intend to stay away from it for the time being. I left because of a death in the family, followed by another personal crisis. I took some of that time to re-evaluate some things in my work and life, and decided that, as much as I enjoy this blog, I just can’t justify the time and energy right now.
Actually, to be more blunt, I suppose I’ve come to the realization that I just don’t care that much anymore about the constant stupidity in PR on the Web. Very little has changed on that front in the last year, and frankly, the energy is wasted with the same old crap being talked about over and over again.
Watching a certain blogger go from hypocritically grumbling about negative blog posts to the epitome of the whiny little bitch on the Web; watching that same certain blogger resort to censorship instead of accepting criticism and participating more actively in that lovely “conversation” on the Web PR bloggers are always talking about; watching people debate the neverending issue of marketing vs. PR; watching the cliquiest of PR blog cliquemates exposing themselves through their denials without actually being accused of anything personally… it’s all been so damn funny for the last couple of weeks. Funny just isn’t good enough at the moment for me unfortunately.
Instead, I’m going to be focusing on finishing up my book proposal, finally getting to a report on SEO for PR professionals that I’ve been meaning to tackle for a while, and of course clients and my other Web publishing projects. So as of today, I’m instituting a strict anti-bullshit policy. It’s a shame much of the PR blogosphere doesn’t amount to much more.
How Far Should We Really Go to Please Bloggers?
I was contacted the other night by Joe Beaulaurier of PRweb. He sent me a link to a post on BL Ochman’s blog. Ochman’s post was basically a critique of PRweb’s editorial guidelines, saying they should be more flexible in allowing more casual and promotional releases to be published through the service, because that’s the kind of content bloggers want. Being critical of various PRweb policies in the past, I was asked for my feedback on the suggestions made in the post.
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Blog Buzz on PR: February 11, 2008
I’ve been intentionally avoiding the PR segment of the blogosphere recently - frankly, at times it sucks the life right out of me, and being busy with real work, house-hunting, and trying to enjoy a bit of life, I just haven’t had the patience for it.
I suppose that means it’s time to dig around looking for anything even remotely worthwhile in the realm of PR blogging again. This time we’ll do things a bit differently. While we’ll still have a mix of the good and the utterly ridiculous, I’m actually going to tell you which I feel is which for a change (with blog bytes thrown in just for fun):
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Where Does IM End and Online PR Begin?
I was talking to a friend with an SEO / Internet Marketing firm today about online press release distribution. Their company (and many like them) offer press release writing and distribution services basically only for the purposes of building backlinks and getting direct traffic. I won’t get into my usual rant tonight about how poor the quality tends to be of the majority of backlinks and traffic when releases are used only for those purposes, but it did bring up an issue I used to think a lot about:
Where does Internet marketing end and online PR begin… at least to you?
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The Social Media Grinch
Sometimes that’s what I feel like people think I am: the social media grinch. It couldn’t be further from the truth though.
Here are a few things I’ve had people accuse me of or imply over the last few months at various times:
- That I hate all things social media
- That I hate all things PR 2.0
- That I have some sort of secret agenda in writing controversial blog posts
- That I’m new to blogging
- That I’m anti-conversation or anti-”joining”
Now, for shits and giggles, let’s get the facts straight. If nothing else, maybe it will put future rants into better perspective (although I hope the speculation doesn’t stop completely… it really is funny at times):
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