A few late in the day notes from the ‘Social Media – The Death of Print?’ event last night.

An interesting mixture of PR, blogging, press and online news knowledge with these speakers…

• Mick Fealty – Blogger at Slugger O’Toole and The Daily Telegraph’s Brassneck
• Drew Benvie – Hotwire PR director and blogger at Drew B’s take on tech PR
• Simon Nixon – Journalist at financial news hub BreakingViews.com

Ged, Ben and Stephen have written up some good notes and made a fine Monday evening post-seminar bar banter effort.

The notes…

We’re all journalists?

• Drew claimed not to be a journalist and that the journalistic elements of his online life were simply a by-product of writing with passion about an area of interest. However, he acknowledged that whilst building his blog profile he did hijack news to build the audience (once he had a following, he felt more able to post about what he wanted).

• Mick felt that the way Drew consciously built the blog is journalistic ““ having a nose for a good story. (Something I agree with, having a nose for a story is what makes a good PR, blogger or journalist)

What does it mean for PR?

• It’s not about press releases anymore ““ they’re like round robins they don’t work
• Talk to bloggers as if you know them ““ if you read their blog, you should
• Bloggers work in niche’s, so do PRs ““ it should be a great relationship
• Customer services ““ should include staff, alongside those addressing email and phone contact, scouring internet forums and addressing problems there. Early adopters are already doing this and PR can be key to tracking these online conversations

What is it about blogs?

• Blogs are the stickiest online content, they’re live, rough round the edges
• Mick believes they don’t represent the death of print , more the ‘disaggregation of editorial choice’, ‘From displacement to engagement’ (and I agree)
• Speed ““ press will now quote blogger speculation while you’re saying “no comment”?, if “A lie gets half way round the world before the truth’s got his boots on”?, blogging gives you a fighting chance to chase the lies ““ Get the truth out quickly and relevantly, use it as an antibody
• Bloggers don’t have to build a full story to make a good story ““ they can just pop up a link and start a debate
• Bloggers are their own brand, both they and their audience value that trust

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 7:15 pm by Lewis Webb and is filed under Blogging, New Media, PR and Marcomms, Print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.