I believe I’ve said all I have to say on this one, and thanks to all of those who took part in this discussion. Since there have been no more additions to the conversation here in the last few days, I’m going to close this one up and put the blog back into hibernation. Thanks all.

But I also think the company should be listening and observing this space and their customers. They should be wanting to improve their efforts, and look to create relationships, not just ‘build buzz’.

Anyway thanks for the conversation and pushing the discussion forward!

At least that’s how I was painted. Jealous.

Then, again, take anything I say with a bag of salt, because apparently I (also) tilt at windmills. Plus ghost-write other people’s blog posts/comments, at least when they are “critical” in nature. 🙂

Jenn, please, please, please start posting again on Naked PR on a regular basis. You are SO missed in this space.

The Molson example, even though it involves a few people I know and like, seems to me to be an attempt for Molson to say they’re “doing something with bloggers” and the fact that it keeps getting mentioned as a success baffles me.

By the way, I have been a blogger since 2000 and do not work in the PR industry, though I have become interested in how PR is using “social media”. I think there’s a very real danger in only speaking to other social media practitioners (ie. the echo chamber) and this might be a good example of that.

But, judging it irrelevant is to overlook that those SM experts are also consumers themselves. They might not be experts in beer but they may be beer drinkers and through their social media expertise they reach a wider audience than a very specialized blogger. This is where social media competes with the so-called mass media. And maybe among their circle are real experts.

Any type of PR and marketing is measured by two things — reach and results. (You can also further detail your results by measuring the effort required to achieve them.)

The question we should be asking ourselves is how we can find balance. Is it better to invest corporate marketing resources on reaching an expert beer blogger who has an audience of two, versus a more generalized blogger/social media expert who reaches thousands? Among those thousands you may find many people who are even more expert than that beer blogger. Those people may engage with the non-expert SM blogger through comments, further educating the larger audience.

In the end, how many people go out and actually buy the beer based on the effort invested by the blogger relations team? What’s the return on the marketing investment? What’s the goal of the campaign? Relationships with expert beer bloggers with a small audience may be the right path if you want expert product feedback, for example. You may decide on a mix of different types of bloggers as your targets — non-expert, widely read folks who may or may not represent your overall target audience AND experts. And, hey, maybe you can get everything you want/need in one cool package — one blogger with a wide reach, a diverse audience and expertise in your subject. Then you give him/her an exclusive! This is a pretty standard media relations practice.

One final note: Traditional PR practices aren’t bad just because they are “traditional PR practices”. A lot of them arose through the application of sheer common sense.

I tell some of my friends who work in PR and publishing that they should take bloggers more seriously and let us have review copies of their books. They are beginning to recognise that the way blogs receive things can often be as influential as the way that they are formally reviewed in the dead trees.

They always ask me to suggest names and get e-mail addresses – which is too much like hard (and unpaid!) work for my liking.

Anyway, I’ve just had the idea of setting up a community website for bloggers where they can register, say a bit about themselves and what kind of stuff they’d like to be given (free of charge, natch!).

I’ve set it up, and I’m going to make it ‘invitation only’ shortly to make sure that only bloggers join – but if you’re interested, you can get in without a direct invite for now. You can see it here:
http://www.serendipstick.com

To get it going, there are two offers there already – first come, first served on both of them. I’m going to start finding more stuff, but in the meantime, join up and let me know what you think? There are only a handful of members and a few offers for now, but the more members, the more stuff I reckon we can get for each other.
Anyway, let me know what you think about it?

Brandon – Well, I’m not “back” as of now. (and sorry for the double comment – they don’t seem to be nesting properly)

And you’re right. People love freebies, and they often lose sight of ethics when they’re presented with something that makes them feel important (even if moreso than they actually are). My initial frustration was far less with Molson than with specific bloggers who were yapping about their event on irrelevant blogs without even making any attempt to tailor the posts on it to their own audiences. My annoyance with Molson stemmed from watching reps’ reactions in blog comments and Twitter where it became increasingly clear they had put permanent blinders on regarding their own targeting issues. Were they wrong in targeting all bloggers they chose? Absolutely not. But I get tired of people trying to manipulate bloggers as much as I get tired of the bloggers who allow them to–and even more, I get tired of seeing what amounts to cheap marketing (giving away freebies of any sort in the hope of some chatter) passed off as anything more significant. It certainly has its place–just don’t act like you’re doing something new and buzzworthy because of it (as Heather and I both addressed already above).

On a sidenote, I’ve been relatively amused by some recent tweets.

One noting that you don’t have a right to criticize an event if you’re not giving your own case studies. Well guess what folks – when you’re a blogger criticizing how people are approaching bloggers, um no, you don’t need to cite PR / blogger relations case studies of your own. That would be like telling a blogger in another niche that they have no right to report any criticism about a hotel stay until they build their own hotel.

In another example we have a blogger essentially referring to themselves as a doer with typical back-patting rather than responding to legitimate issues with what they had to say (in a way that frankly makes no sense and is so laughable it’s not worth harping on). But anyway…

The truth is that this has never been exclusively about Molson. Why do they get the brunt of the criticism them? Because they’re the ones shouting from the rooftops that their campaign couldn’t possibly be better, while ignoring anything that doesn’t sparkle when viewed through those little rose-colored glasses. Had they been more modest, or acknowledged that they could have been more considerate towards the readers of those blogs being targeted, there likely would have been little to no room for criticism. But instead, I’ve rarely seen anything from anyone on that side of the issue who talks about anything beyond generic “influence” or the relationship with the bloggers themselves rather than the impact of that relationship on the people who really matter – the blog readers (and their potential customers).

Ferg – First, I have to give you kudos. Taking the time to stop by and comment on blog-based criticism–now that’s good blogger relations, and something I can both respect and appreciate.

That said, I certainly don’t expect that Molson takes the criticisms seriously or that it’s “important” to them. It’s been relatively clear that no one involved who has commented on any criticism or suggestions for improvement to the events / targeting has cared about doing much more than continuing to toot their own horn and say how great they are. Well, to be fair, one or two did try to answer a few legitimate questions on Heather Yaxley’s post months back (especially Adam Moffat).

You actually kind of prove my point when you say “we want to engage influencers, customers, consumers and anyone interested in beer.” As for customers and consumers, good for you! Those are relevant audiences. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t invite some relevant bloggers to the events, and those aren’t under any kind of scrutiny.

The problem is your openly-admitted target of simply “influencers.” That alone doesn’t make someone relevant to your event. And the event itself really hasn’t been criticized on the whole – it’s how you targeted bloggers.

How much time did Molson reps spend on each of these blogs, to figure out whether or not the blogger’s audience (the people you’re ultimately hoping to have “influenced” favorably towards your product or company) really care about beer or Molson in particular?

Did you bother to see if they were already brand advocates?

Did you take the time to see if they had ever actually posted about beer before on their blog, and if so, how their readers reacted to the post via comments?

I’m not saying you didn’t do those things. I sincerely hope you did (especially from the perspective of a blogger who’s sick as hell of all the lousy PR pitches for products, news, and events my readers couldn’t care less about). If you did, then those are the kinds of things I’d like to see Molson actually talking about, to back up all of the self-centric claims of great blogger relations.

Like I said, the problem most of the criticism of Brew 2.0 addresses is not so much the event itself. I’m sure it was a hoot for all involved. The problem is in the targeting – who you pursued, and more importantly, why.

Without that targeting, you’re really not offering much of value to the blogger and more importantly their readers. It becomes all about you. Good blogger relations has to be about more than that–about more than making nice face-to-face. It has to be about the end audience you’re trying to reach, and what your relationship with these bloggers can do to improve that.

Results worth bragging about are the ones that stretch far beyond that initial effort – when those bloggers stop talking about your event and instead start talking about your company news, products, etc. without you having to reach out each time. When you’re converting bloggers into brand advocates and they’re actively talking about you to an audience that genuinely cares about your company and products (as in that “influence” actually means something), only then should any company be tooting their own horn saying how great their blogger outreach efforts were.

As for Twestivals, I sincerely hope you do connect with a lot of bloggers–relevant ones that that.