How to Talk like a PR Blogger

Cruising the PR blogosphere has not only taught me so much about social media and the PR industry, but also some PR 2.0 lingo. Next time you're catching up on your PR industry RSS feeds, you may come across some words and phrases unfamiliar to the noob PR student.

snarky - I've seen this word used a lot and had no real idea what it meant beyond what I could gather from context clues. luckily one of our texts, The New Influencers, provides a definition in the glossary! Paul Gillin defines "snarky" as "Early twentieth century British slang for 'to nag' or 'to find fault with.' In the blogosphere, it is frequently used as an adjective for cynical or sarcastic" (pg. 222)

snake oil - a term I've seen tossed around by those who hate the idea that PR is using social media as a cure-all for the industry's woes or to discount those entrepreneurs who think their Web 2.0 startup is going to be the next MySpace. This one I had to look up on Wikipedia: "The expression is also applied metaphorically to any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality."

"drinking the Kool-Aid" - seen this one in multiple places as well. Urban Dictionary gives us this definition: "A reference to the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called "the Jonestown Massacre", 913 of the 1100 Jonestown residents drank the Kool-Aid and died. One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side." or "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly". The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense to indicate that one has embraced a particular philosophy or perspective."

Urban Dictionary example:
Chris: I'm thinking about attending a PETA rally
Donna: Whatever you do, don't drink the Kool-Aid!

Want some examples of this lingo in action? Type in any of these words into your RSS search and I'm sure you'll come up with multiple blog posts including these phrases. Try it yourself! As always, if you have more to add then please comment and submit your definition!

New Influencers: Tools of the Trade

At the risk of being redundant (Shane beat me to it :P ), I thought Chapter 9 of The New Influencers was the chapter the reader was waiting for the whole time: the chapter about making all of the aforementioned tools work for you and what steps a marketer/PR pro could take to get started integrating social media into their practice.

Lemme break it down for you, based on the chapter, because lists are beautiful:

1. Keeping track of the buzz: check out Nielsen BuzzMetrics to see who's talking about you and your product. Set up some Google Alerts to monitor what the media is saying.
2. Read up on the Big Boys (and Girls!) of Blogging: Search for the influencers in your market by searching your company and products on sites like Technorati and BlogPulse. Technorati has a mysterious way of calculating the "authority" of a blog, which apparently "is determined by a proprietary formula that factors in inbound links and the activity level of a blog" (pg. 165). The chapter also highlighted Opinmind, where you can do a search and it will come up with two lists: those who spoke favorably and those who didn't - I searched "Mac" on there and got some stark results.
3. Keep tabs with RSS and social bookmarking: Now that you've found a slew of influencers (bloggers, podcasters and the like), you can keep up with them by bookmarking articles, etc. using tags on a site like del.icio.us where you can tag everything pertaining to your company and products, as well as add your own commentary as to why you saved that link. A cool feature is seeing how many other people have saved that link and what their comments were. Check out how others are tagging pages that reference you: "they're a small window on how others see you. They can help you spot opportunity" (pg. 170). Tag the good and the bad news. This can help you organize the points of contention people have with your company. For following blog and podcasting discussions, set up an RSS feed for those sites and get all of your reading done in one place - but don't get carried away!

So now you know a little bit on finding and keeping track of what's being said about you, and now you're in on it? So how can you reach out and get involved? That's for another day/post, but in the meantime, here's some good advice about starting with the right perspective and how to not pitch to bloggers.

The Five Commandments of Blogging

According to Paul Gillin's 2007 book The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media, he describes the "emerging standards" of blog maintenance that are a "kind of a Five Commandments of social media". Let's discuss:

1. "Thou shalt link" - couldn't agree more. Nothing gets my goat like reading an interesting blog entry that is sadly without any links. The importance of links are two-fold: (1) it hearkens back to "citing your source," and not linking to where you pulled your quotes or what other blogs you mention is unprofessional and could be considered stealing! and (2) links direct your reader to where they can learn more about the topic of your post that would be of interest while giving yourself some credibility.

2. "Thou shalt not diss" - disagreeing is expected, but disrespect is uncalled for and in the end will only hurt yourself. Be civil in your disagreement will lead to a much more productive debate on your part - set an example!

3. "Thou shalt be transparent" - this kind of honesty is what makes blogs so interesting to read. Posting with integrity and fairness will come through in your writing. Sure, bloggers are leaving themselves open to attack, but comments and emails about your post and addressing them will show that you value the feedback you receive.

4. "Thou shalt comment" - what's the point of the interactivity of blogs if no one comments? Join the conversation and give your opinion or offer further information about the topic. This is what creates a lively discussion and a more engaging blog to read!

5. "Thou shalt not blather" - like I'm doing right now. My high school English teacher had a saying that he would always say when a student asked how long a paper should be:
"Your paper should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to be interesting but long enough to cover the subject." Now that is a good simile.

In order to be taken seriously, I think you as the blogger must take your work seriously. These are some good guidelines for conducting yourself on the internet, which is relevant to this class since most students are new to blogging and don't know where to start or what's expected of a good blog post.