Here’s a scenario for you: you are a businessman from another state, or perhaps another country. Your company is doing enough business in a particular U.S. state that you feel you should open a facility there. So, you fly in to check things out. You land in the state within the last month – the peak of the elections season.

 

In your hotel that night you turn on the television. For the next three hours, you see political invective spewed of that electronic box. The ads you see tell you how bad the business climate is in that state – poor education, high crime, high taxes, lousy facilities, and a government that doesn’t care. You know it might not be true, but you figure why take the chance? So, you pack your bags and go looking for another state to locate your facility and the jobs it will bring.

 

Too far-fetched? I wonder.

 

I live in Wisconsin. We are one of the key states in the 2010 election cycle. Our governor’s office is open. Republican Scott Walker is slugging out with Democratic Tom Barrett. Our incumbent senator, Russ Feingold, is fighting it out with newcomer and businessman Ron Johnson. Plus, there are several key races for House seats and the state Legislature.

 

We in Wisconsin are being inundated with television advertising, most of it negative. Let’s leave aside the personal attacks the candidates are making on each other. I do have say that if these candidates were five-year-olds, they would be sent to their rooms for the tantrums they are throwing.

 

The majority of the rest of the advertising talks about how bad things are in the Badger state. Our taxes are too high, our healthcare costs too much, our education is system is falling apart, and there is too much government regulations. Both sides say if the other side is elected, Wisconsin has roughly the same change to prosper as the Titanic did to float after it hit that iceberg.

 

As I said, if you are a businessperson, would you put your company here after seeing those ads?

 

It bothers me when one of our own does this. If I am that businessman, I am going to tend to believe the people who live here. If they tell me things are bad, who I am to argue?

 

Plus, if you are like me, you are cynical about any elected official's ability to accomplish anything. So why take the chance that things might get fixed?

 

What particularly frosts me is the outside groups coming in and ripping my state. These are groups run by people who cannot tell you why Wisconsin loves the Packers so much, or what the difference is between a six-month-old cheddar and a six-year-old cheddar. The closest they have ever come to the Dairy State is when they land at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to change planes.

 

They don’t care about Wisconsin, its business climate and what they might be doing to it. All they care about is winning. Once the election is over, they are going to forget about us until 2012.

 

Everyone involved in the election will justify their tactics by saying what they did is for the greater good. They remind me of the Army officer during the Vietnam War who was quoted as saying “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”.”

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            Here’s a scenario for you: you are a businessman from another state, or perhaps another country. Your company is doing enough business in a particular U.S. state that you feel you should open a facility there. So, you fly in to check things out. You land in the state within the last month – the peak of the elections season.

 

In your hotel that night you turn on the television. For the next three hours, you see political invective spewed of that electronic box. The ads you see tell you how bad the business climate is in that state – poor education, high crime, high taxes, lousy facilities, and a government that doesn’t care. You know it might not be true, but you figure why take the chance? So, you pack your bags and go looking for another state to locate your facility and the jobs it will bring.

 

Too far-fetched? I wonder.

 

I live in Wisconsin. We are one of the key states in the 2010 election cycle. Our governor’s office is open. Republican Scott Walker is slugging out with Democratic Tom Barrett. Our incumbent senator, Russ Feingold, is fighting it out with newcomer and businessman Ron Johnson. Plus, there are several key races for House seats and the state Legislature.

 

We in Wisconsin are being inundated with television advertising, most of it negative. Let’s leave aside the personal attacks the candidates are making on each other. I do have say that if these candidates were five-year-olds, they would be sent to their rooms for the tantrums they are throwing.

 

The majority of the rest of the advertising talks about how bad things are in the Badger state. Our taxes are too high, our healthcare costs too much, our education is system is falling apart, and there is too much government regulations. Both sides say if the other side is elected, Wisconsin has roughly the same change to prosper as the Titanic did to float after it hit that iceberg.

 

As I said, if you are a businessperson, would you put your company here after seeing those ads?

 

It bothers me when one of our own does this. If I am that businessman, I am going to tend to believe the people who live here. If they tell me things are bad, who I am to argue?

 

Plus, if you are like me, you are cynical about any elected official's ability to accomplish anything. So why take the chance that things might get fixed?

 

What particularly frosts me is the outside groups coming in and ripping my state. These are groups run by people who cannot tell you why Wisconsin loves the Packers so much, or what the difference is between a six-month-old cheddar and a six-year-old cheddar. The closest they have ever come to the Dairy State is when they land at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to change planes.

 

They don’t care about Wisconsin, its business climate and what they might be doing to it. All they care about is winning. Once the election is over, they are going to forget about us until 2012.

 

Everyone involved in the election will justify their tactics by saying what they did is for the greater good. They remind me of the Army officer during the Vietnam War who was quoted as saying “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”.”

Blogging should almost always be the foundation of effective social media campaign. It is where smart companies establish that they are industry leaders. They do that by providing information that is both interesting and useful to readers – who the company should want to convert to customers. It is also place to interact with current customers. A blog is where people can post comments, debate points of information and make complaints. This is one of the best ways companies can find what the marketplace is thinking.

What blogging is not is another way to continue using the same tired marketing and sales strategies. It not a place to virtually pound your chest. You should not be bragging about what good job your company is doing. You should not be demanding that potential customers buy your products because it will make them younger, cut their bills, or help them lose weight. If I want to hear that kind of nonsense, I’ll turn on the television.

Sadly, I read a lot of blogs that contain that kind of content. I only read them once, though. The writers don’t understand that blogs are not a vehicle to continue to do what no longer works. That last point always mystifies me. The old methods are dying, but there are some marketers and public relations people still use them. I think they want to be able to tell clients they use social media. What they are doing is the metaphorical equivalent of using a hammer on a screw.

The reason social media has become so effective so quickly is because it has inserted honesty into the mix. People respond a lot better to the truth than they do to hype. It wasn’t marketers who did that – it was customers. I think customers have always wanted honesty from people they bought from. It existed in the days of smaller stores when customers dealt with same people everyday. It largely went away with the rise of mega-stores and mass advertising.

Blogs are major reason that honesty is being returned to marketing. Today, when a company is caught doing something dishonest, it usually shows up in the blogosphere pretty quickly. Remember the most important lesson of public relations – it most definitely applies to blogging – DON’T LIE. YOU WILL GET CAUGHT.

Besides building a brand platform, blogs are valuable for another reason – search engine optimization or SEO. As I have said before, the idea is to make sure your company comes up on the first two pages of Google. The more different mentions of your company on the web, the higher your Google ranking. A blog is a good way to increase company mentions.

What a good blog can also do is move people from customers to evangelists. If you consistently provide good, honest content, positive buzz will circulate. Your blog will be recommended by your readers. If they use your service, and you back up what you say, these people will tell others about how good your are. They will evangelize for you. That’s what you want to happen – third party endorsements. That kind of endorsement carries a lot of weight with consumers.

Okay, so if I haven’t scared you off of the idea of doing a blog – either a personal or corporate one, here’s what you do.

Incidentally, I am going to more than one post on blogging. It is too big of topic to do justice to in one post. This week, I will cover the mechanics. Next we will talk about the actual writing.

The first thing to do is choose and design a platform. Most web design companies can incorporate a blog format into your website – that includes do-it-yourself site design programs. If you decide to keep the blog separate from your corporate website – or you are doing a personal one – there are many free blog platforms available. Two of the most popular are Google’s Blogger and WordPress.

If you are interested, my blog is Wordpress. My web designer – Joao Moraes of Sao Paulo, Brazil – likes the platform. I own the PR101.biz site. I did that for branding purposes. If you are a corporate blogger, you absolutely should own the domain. It is part of your brand identity. For the personal blogging, it depends on your goal. If you are going to blog out something personal, I do not think there’s any reason to purchase a domain name. But, if you are trying to build a personal brand, by all means, buy the domain name. Same reason as companies – it will become part of your brand identity.

I would also suggest you have a link to Twitter, so people can tweet about your blog. Include an RSS feed so people subscribe directly. Also, add Google Friend Connect. People who will really like what you will friend you. These are evangelists.

As for choosing a URL, I recommend using something that describes what you are doing. There are two reasons this blog is called PR 101: one – because who gives a damn who Jeff Cole is; and two – PR 101 describes my purpose in writing this blog. It is a primer on public relations, marketing and social media. It seems to work – I have built a large readership.

The tricky area – and I admit I stumbled on this one – is emailing a link to your blog. I would suggest you ask people to opt in before you send it out. I sent my blog link to a large list of people and gave them the option to opt out. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have had them opt in first. A few people viewed what I was doing as spam. I got reported as a spammer and got in a fight with my ISP. It is not worth the hassle, so don’t do it.

Okay, you have the whole thing set up. What next? Here’s what I suggest – map out 10 or 15 topics. I had 26 topics scheduled when I started. In that way, you have a road map. You won’t have to scrounge each week for a topic. It saves a lot of headaches. Once you get into to it, topics will suggest themselves.

As for choosing the topics, the rule is all of writing is to “write what you know.” If you are an auto mechanic, write about cars. You are building a brand platform through your blog, so you want to demonstrate your expertise. Now, here’s a key – don’t hype yourself. As I said, people don’t like that. Talk about properly maintaining a car, or when to change your oil, or when to replace a car’s tires. Show you know your subject well. I would much rather go to a mechanic who has a blog and shows he knows the subject.

Now, another key – publish on a regular schedule. I post once a week – always on Monday. It is important to do this. You want your readers to know that each Monday or Tuesday or whenever, that your blog is going to be there for them. We humans are creatures of habits. We like schedules. It bothers me when I get interested in a blog and then it disappears for a month or two. Not cool. If for whatever reason you cannot post on your regular day, tell your readers in the preceding blog, or in a very short post.

There’s a lot more to cover. Next week I will talk about the actual writing and blogging etiquette.