Social Media Library launched recently as a directory of bloggers, Twitterers and other heavy users of social media for the public relations industry.
At face value it sounds like a good idea, but as social media practitioner Jenifer O’Grady says, it risks ‘act[ing] like a plaster for PR agencies who don’t “learn” the basics, giving the contacts without the skills’.
In other words Firebrand Digital, creators of Social Media Library, appear to treat social media outlets in much the same way as traditional media outlets: put crudely, identify the editor and send them a press release. Stuart Bruce reckons the ‘gullible’ will end up spamming bloggers. I already get many press releases aimed at my blogs and I don’t mind, but I’ve yet to use one and can see why others might think of them as spam.
Bloggers do not behave like newspapers. Newspapers are collegiate, feel obliged to fill a predetermined number of pages with news (for which they have a vague definition), have an audience in mind, feel commercial pressures and, while they are often biased, have boundaries for their bias. Bloggers tend to work alone and write as much or as little about whatever they fancy without worrying too much about who, if anyone, is reading.
Public relations professionals understand what news is to a particular newspaper. They spin stories, that make their clients look good, to fit that definition. Newspapers simply print the best press releases and that happens more often than they’ll ever admit. But why would anybody simply publish a press release to their blog?
Social media is social because it encourages conversation. Bloggers write about things that interest them or have happened to them and those things do not have to be news as a newspaper would define it. People update their Facebook status with what’s on their mind and most of the time that has very little to do with what’s currently making news headlines.
The challenge is not build a database of social media users, but to engage genuinely.
Genuine engagement is a challenging prospect to many public relations people, especially those who are used to working as an adjunct to marketing; the kind of people whose work may be measured using Advertising Value Equivalents.
At the same time, genuine engagement can be incredibly fulfilling. A client who becomes a leading blogger in his or her field is a client who is recognised as an industry leader.
More useful than a list of bloggers is a Google blog alert that lets you know when someone writes on your topic of interest. And that costs nothing.