Best of the Blogs

FROM: Justin Hunt's Bloggerati

Traditional PR types and communications professionals who were formerly journalists are finding it difficult to handle bloggers.

Someone I know who recently left a large corporate media communications team explained that if you are speaking with traditional journalists, you know who they are and there are assumed rules governing the relationship that you can rely on. With bloggers, communications professionals can feel completely in the dark.

I recommend going on to blogs, specialist search engines such as Technorati, searching blogs in your sector and reading them. Then you and your team need to draw up guidelines - probably with independent help - for engaging with bloggers. That is just the start. Once you start posting comments, you need to be able to handle replies.

Peter Kim's blog (beingpeterkim.com) has an interesting list of firms using social media marketing, including blogs, which have overcome their stage nerves.

SUBJECT; Ensuring brands battle it out

FROM: Mel Carson's Digitales

Watching TV over the past few weeks, I've seen a number of ads with clever tactics to drive users to their sites.

Direct Line is telling people to remember that you won't find it on price comparison sites and that its best prices are found on its own site. I can't remember who the other two are, which doesn't bode well.

One refers to itself as a search engine, which is a marginal description if you ask me. The other has about 15 actors repeating the name of the URL, so it is infused into everyone's subconscious but mine.

Fascinating how they're trying to influence the viewer into trying their "route to policy" rather than anyone else's and thoroughly pleasing that they "get" the relationship between TV ad viewing habits and online behaviour. I wish more industries and brands would step up to the plate.

- For more Media Week blogs: www.mediaweek.co.uk/blogs To blog for Media Week, e-mail rich.sutcliffe@haymarket.com.

This article was first published on Media Week