Blogging for Non-Bloggers

One of the more valuable PR services I offer my agency clients is ghost writing. So many executives are truly thought leaders in their industries, but sometimes they need a little help in communicating their messages in a way that is understandable to a broader audience. This is especially true in energy and high-tech marketing, where many a CEO is a brilliant engineer who wants to tell his story in "tech-talk" and it needs to be written in...well, English! While I haven't put it into my formal bio, I do think sometimes I should have "translator" in my job description. Clients can give me their ideas and supporting details for an article, I write it in the voice that makes sense for that particular media and audience, and the client gets the nice byline when it appears in the press.

The latest form of ghost writing I'm seeing requests for is blogs. While blogging is certainly not rocket science, it does require a certain conversational tone that executives are sometimes not used to using in communications with broad audience groups. Not only do you have the issue of style, but sometimes the CEO is such an evangelist for his product that he can't see what other content might be of interest to readers. And of course, there's the issue of time. Some clients are excellent writers with great ideas, but they just don't have time to maintain a blog that requires updating on at least a weekly basis.

That's where my firm comes in. First, we are able to help a client decide if blogging even makes sense for the organization. Is there enough to talk about week after week? Are they open to feedback/comments that are part of the interactive dialog blogging creates? Can someone at the firm dedicate the time to help us build a content strategy and then participate in brief interviews with me or my other writers to get the info we need to write the blogs themselves?

Once a blog concept is developed and a strategy for integrating it into the rest of the marketing and PR mix is established, we can get started. We take the client ideas, "translate" them, format them and publish them as blogs. As we often do in our media relations work, there's a good chance we'll probably throw in a few story ideas of our own, based on what's going on in the market . The end result? Blogs that are fresh, up-to-date, readable, relevant and effective in establishing our clients as thought leaders in their industries.

For more information on Linda Wise Public Relations & Marketing and our communications programs, visit http://www.lindawisepr.com/.

Good Advertising, Bad PR?

Marketers, wake up! Yes, your job is to drive sales, but you should be doing that through responsible communication with your target market! Remember that old adage "the customer comes first"? Companies that put that into practice in a real way come out ahead, and one way in which to do that is to ensure that your advertising is not thwarting your public relations efforts.

Let's take last week as an example. It is the day on which all of America is holding its breath, waiting for Congress to pass legislation that will bail out the failing mortgage and investment banking industries to the tune of $700 billion. Oh, and by the way, what is being blamed for this national crisis? Corporate greed, especially lenders going after people who couldn't really afford the home loans they were applying for. The "get 'em in cheap and they can worry about the eventual rate hike later" mentality.

You cannot imagine my shock, upon opening my computer browser window, at what ad appeared across from the economic crisis news story on Yahoo!

My first thought was, "Does the greed ever stop??" This ad may have been an effective way to drive applications for home loans, but the effect from a PR perspective was dismal. It had a completely negative effect on my opinion of this firm, as it seemed to illustrate exactly what had gone wrong with our economy.

In contrast, I opened the Houston Chronicle the next morning to see an ad by First Community Credit Union that was positive from both an advertising and PR perspective. It spoke directly to the now fearful public "YES, your funds are insured!" and it also asked for business "YES, we are lending!" The body copy went a step further to communicate key messages such as the credit union's core values and the fact it has been in business for over 50 years. It also addressed the audience's specific needs by mentioning it had hurricane relief loans available.

Kudos to First Community. Their ad shows they care about their company but they also care about their customers. Good advertising. Good PR. No wonder they've been around for so long.