Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

If you follow some people’s advice, you should jump into online communications and start a blog, etc. Ask these same experts what exactly you should talk about and they’ll start to run out of steam. Be sure once you hear either of the following phrases, ‘the cluetrain manifesto’ or ‘naked conversations’, to immediately tell them to stop with the psychobabble and make it relevant to your organisation.

To be perfectly honest, the best way to learn your way around online communications is to join a popular Internet forum. For example, if you work for an Irish organisation, I’d advise you to join Boards.ie and observe how people interact on the web. You should specifically note the behaviour of any argumentative members, see how others deal with them and what gets any of them banned.

John Wagner has a very good post in the same vein, ‘Use PR sense when monitoring blogs’. One point that he raises is especially valid; responding to every single complaint may only inflame a situation. More importantly, it takes time and someone’s job could end up revolving around every single query or complaint a consumer may have.

By observing how people interact online, you can pick up on popular trends and find out how people are discussing your organisation or industry.

• By following popular discussions, you could be able to position your company very cleverly by feeding into a specific trend. For example, you could offer a product or service that could help solve a problem.
• Looking at how people are discussing your organisation or industry should give you a sense of what direction to take the conversation. Perhaps you have launched a new service and need to explain it better or your product manuel doesn’t explain how to do something.

Starting a blog is a completely foreign concept for most people and when faced with having to post regularly, respond to comments and keep track of what is happening on the Internet, it can seem quite overbearing to a lot of companies. Start simple and build your way up, otherwise it could all end up in a fiasco as you suffer a backlash from users who berate you for jumping in too soon.

At the end of the day, blogs aren’t for everyone. Don’t believe me? Even Steve Rubel says so. In a recent interview on PodLeaders, Steve admits that some companies would be better off pursuing something like a Google AdWords strategy. If you have nothing worthwhile to say then don’t bother saying anything at all.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogs, John Wagner, Piaras Kelly, PodLeaders, Steve Rubel