Two Swedish Eyes on Media and Public Relations
All you ever wanted to know about how to handle PR people and journalists. Not!
Examples:
27. Press invitations should always be delivered with as much fanfare as possible. If you can figure out a way to send three or four teasers in advance — the more cryptic the better — do. Journalists love puzzles.
57. Always make sure to send an individual copy of every press release all staff writers and editors on a title. Otherwise they might get jealous.
Via CorporatePR.
The free market think-tank Timbro continues to secure its grip on the Swedish part of the blogosphere, and the only op-ed blog, Svenska Dagbladet’s PJ Just Nu is naturally happy to report about it. Yesterday PJ Anders Linder reported on a new libertarian blog, by Johnny Munkhammar from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Munkhammar has written op-ed pieces together with Timbro’s Johan Norberg and had books published by Timbro. On his blog, Munkhammar links to both Timbro and Smedjan. Maybe there is something in the nature of blogs that libertarians are particularily quick to pick up. Either way, any parties opposing the opinions that Timbro et al are bringing to the market, is way behind in the blogosphere.
Footnote: I have previously reported about libertarian blogs like nyliberal.se, Dick Erixon, Johan Norberg and the connections between them and PJ Anders Linder, here, here, here and here.
Richard Edelman, the CEO of PR agency Edelman, has started a blog.
Update: Richard Edelman’s blog hasn’t exactly gone unnoticed in the PR blogosphere. Most seem to think that it is positive for the industry that one of the largest PR agencies now has a CEO blog. And of course, so far we are impressed that he blogs, not what he blogs about. That will hopefully come later.
See Technorati rank for Edelman blog.
Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971
Advances in technology has made it simple to communicate with thousands of people at the push of a button. Email newsletters cost close to nothing to produce and send to a number of clients and prospects. But the greater the opportunities, the greater the risks. If you are for example a PR agency – an expert in communications – you need to check that your email newsletter works across different types of platforms and browsers. In Sweden we have three letters (å,ä,ö) that sometimes gets you into trouble, like in this newsletter from a Swedish PR-agency (the three letters above are replaced by others, turning the whole text into gibberish).
Editorsweblog writes about a new study from University of Southern California’s Center for the digital future. It identifies ten trends that shape America’s digital future:
1. In America, The Digital Divide Is Closing, But Is Not Yet Closed As New Divides Emerge
2. The Media Habits Of The Nation Have Changed, And Continue To Change
3. The Credibility Of The Internet Is Dropping
4. We Have Just Begun to See the Changes to Come in Buying Online
5. The “Geek-Nerd” Perception Of The Internet Is Dead
6. Privacy And Security: Concerns Remain, But The High Levels Are Changing
7. The Internet Has Become The Number One Source For Information For Internet Users
8. The Benefits and Drawbacks Of The Internet For Children Are Still Coming Into Focus.
9. E-mail: “E-Nuff” Already?
10. Broadband Will Change Everything – Again
Trend number three is somewhat worrying, but not surprising. From the press release: “most users trust information on the Web sites they visit regularly, and on pages created by established media and the government. The information that users don’t trust is on Web sites posted by individuals.”
What conclusion can we make from this regarding for example blogs? I guess that blogs still can be considered credible, since you find your favourites that you read on a regular basis and you trust these sites, while you need to have a sceptical approach to blogs you are not familiar with.
Deutsche Welle has taken on the gargantuan task of selecting the world’s best blogs. The Swedish edition of InternetWorld did a halfhearted attempt a year ago to list the 5 best bloggers in Sweden, and in my opinion at least two of them don’t belong on that list (any longer).
Since the Swedish blogosphere has developed rapidly during 2004, I think it is time to introduce a proper award. The award should be presented by InternetWorld, or even better, marketing pubs Resumé or Dagens Media, which would show that blogs are not just geek stuff anymore, but a real communications channel for individuals as well as for polticians, corporates and organizations.
Then divide the award into several different categories like “best private blog”, “best professional blog”, “best design” and “scoop of the year”. That would hopefully accelerate the pace at which blogs are spreading through Sweden. The blogosphere could need a push. In my opinion Sweden is lagging behind other countries in terms of blog acceptance. Since when did we become such IT laggards?