Anthurian who remains among the living where we once bumped cubicles, has an interesting approach to steering PR clients who want to get in on the blogging thing in the right direction.
Since Anthurian knoooowwwsss that not all clients (read: probably none) are ready to strip naked of logos and messaging and streak through Blogaria in the buff, he's advised them to offer a service that bloggers can get some use out of, and to ADMIT that their blogs are, well, not for real.
SO, the stragegy if I read it right is to offer some help by giving bloggers a service or application they can use in their blogging, but, Mr. Big Corp., as for your own "corporate" blog, don't try to make it into something it's not, something that we'll all see through in a fly's sneeze. (Do flies sneeze? I was trying to be southern.)
No one likes the kid at the party who acts like Mr. Cool bringing the Cool beer and then he walks in with a six-pack of Bud in cans. Generally, that's the kid you give oregano-wrapped-in-rolling-paper joint to so everyone can laugh at him when he starts acting stoned.
Not that I would know. YES, so don't be the fake cool kid. Instead, admit who you are, brand the shit out of your corporate blog, and then hussle us off to some ACTUAL cool places that we'll actually care about. And we might ACTUALLY think kindly of you.
Good, Anthurian. I can live with that. Thank goodness for all of us that you still have a say and a voice in the big-wide-world-of-marketing. Because I know what we could all be in for if, well, some were left to their own devices.
And you don't know HOW BADLY I WANT TO DO SOME SPOOF BLOGS OF MAJOR HOME IMPROVEMENT AND LEADING IT SOFTWARE AND CONSULTING COMPANIES RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY CREATED THESE SPOOF BLOGS IN MY MIND, AND SO IF I DO SO UNDER AN ASSUMED NAME PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IT ISN'T ME! (See, I'm kind. I left off the industry of the client you're really talking about.)
But I can say whatever I want, because it's National Libel Day!
WSHEW!
So, thanks to my take on Anthurian's post, we have step-one advice for corporations interested in this hip-new-blogging thing: ask your employees if anyone blogs and let HIM OR HER run the project and the strategy, or at least don't breathe without HIS OR HER (i.e. Anthurain's) say-so.
