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Richard Edelman is blogging
Along with a XHTML/CSS redesign, Edelman PR launched a weblog written by CEO Richard Edelman.
A good idea? Definitely. Done right? Almost.
It’s notable that Edelman is even doing this. Marketing folks (PR, advertising) are feeling particularly threatened by weblogs — we’re stealing their audience and undermining their dishonest tactics. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but despite the enormous potential of weblogs for marketing, the industry hasn’t really caught on. And a field like marketing — where ideas rule and thought leadership plays a huge role — is the perfect arena for using weblogs. It has certainly worked with web design, which is typically (but not always) connected to marketing in some way.
Imagine an agency that won its clients not by showing their wall of Lions or their flashy work, but by demonstrating their mastery of marketing (advertising, PR, whatever) on their weblog. (This is sounding awfully familiar.)
Anyway, the point of all this is to say “bravo” to Edelman. Welcome to the party. It’s a good start, but Edelman’s CEO blog has room for improvement. A few ideas:
- Write shorter posts, more often. You won’t build a loyal readership around one post a week. Shorter posts will be more accessible to readers, and easier to get together.
- Keep it casual. Edelman’s three posts so far have been pretty dry. Conversational language works best on a weblog, and brings out your personal side.
- Tell us why. So far, I can’t tell much from Edelman’s blog. I know who its by, and that it’s about PR — but nothing more. Give us a tagline or one-sentence description so we know why you’re here, what you plan to talk about, and what we can expect.
- Network. You do it in person, so do it online. Read other weblogs, leave comments, email bloggers. This will generate traffic and make you a bona fide part of the community. (If you’re the CEO of a major PR firm and don’t have time, maybe one of your employees could spend an hour a day doing this.)
They got a lot right — RSS, permalinks, open comments — but it still feels a little dry. A greater sense of activity, paired with writing that is more direct and accessible, will do a lot for Edelman’s new weblog.