Blue chips and PRs joining the blogosphere
Even in Europe, big corporations and marketing departments are starting to understand the imperative of getting on board the blog bandwagon, and some have even picked up a few things about how it works. Only seven years after The Cluetrain Manifesto, this article from The Financial Times awards us with a quote which could have been taken straight out of the book:
...John Petter, BT’s chief operating officer, will start blogging in the next few weeks. He believes keeping an online journal offers a way to reach customers who are increasingly disillusioned with traditional public relations methods. “They are suspicious of ‘corporate speak’ and they want it straight from the horse’s mouth,” he says. “Especially in a big company they want to know that someone is taking responsibility.”...
The article explains that BT's decision to make its debut in the blogosphere is partly inspired by its smaller competitor Carphone Warehouse. I sincerely hope that Mr Petter will be a better blogger than Mr Dunstone from Carphone Warehouse: I must admit I found Dunstone’s blog rather dull, still too influenced by corporate speak and too much of a sales pitch. But perhaps we need to allow corporate bloggers some time to find their personal voice if that is not a contradiction in terms (though I fear it might be). I've been a customer with both BT and Carphone Warehouse, and have not been impressed with the customer service at either, so it will be interesting to see how their corporate blogs develop.
However, a blog mentioned by the FT article that I really liked was that of Richard Charkin, CEO of MacMillan, the publisher: I will definitely check it out more often, but then it's got a 'personal blog' disclaimer on it, which points to the difficulties that any corporate blog will face: how personal and open can you be when you speak for a big corporation riddled with politics and fears?
As for how blogs can be adopted in the PR-world, there’s a hilarious story over at Buzzmachine of
how someone invented a pretty PR girl named Amanda and set up a blog for her, a blog that has five people writing in her name, apparently just to check out the new ‘bloghype’ and how it might be used as a PR tool…
