Rob Ashwell 2.0

I’m loving some of the kerfuffle that is growing about blogging. Radio 4, yesterday, had a great piece on the need for trusted sources and trusted opinion leaders with bloggers all too frequently missing the mark. Add into this PR Week’s (yes, for a second time I’ve admitted to reading something in it - sorry) piece on targeting them and we have a great debate forming.

To summarise PR Week:

Bite, my old agency’s new director of digital says ‘yes bloggers are commenting on issues and should be approached’

Meanwhile Stephen Pritchard highlights that ‘targeting bloggers will only stretch resources and make contact with other journalists weaker’.

I have to admit, I’m still stuck with Stephen on this one. PR is about generating influential coverage. Whilst there are blogs out there that are truly well informed opinion leaders (Jon Schwartzer of Sun for one) I still feel that bloggers are best reached through the press.

Is it me or does this next bit sound a bit Jerry Macguire?

PR execs can be great protagonists of spam, like the term or not, and if we are to avoid this getting worse we should be concentrating on a handful of contacts relevant to our clients not going for the scattergun approach.

That said, if a blogger is one of those truly important contacts then definitely, build the relationship and get to know them, don’t just be on of Sally Whittle’s Katies.