“Defense” is a lot of things, very little of which is war. Winning “hearts and minds” is a major component of DoD strategy, hearts and minds both domestic and abroad. Part of this campaign includes positive messaging. Call it propaganda if you like, but it is just good old fashioned PR: media relations, community relations, and now, blogger relations.
“Recent postings to Harpers.com (here and here) by Ken Silverstein suggest that the Pentagon is engaged in a propaganda campaign, managed by junior political appointees, to seed its message among conservative bloggers.” Via D-Ring
My dad was a Marine in the late 50s and I grew up in Hawaii, so maybe I am less reactionary when it comes to getting pitched by the Pentagon. I applaud the Defense Department for doing something so completely incendiary and potentially explosive as bloggers have a tendency to be loose cannons — we’re generally hard to predict. Kudos for even trying.
Read more…
No Comments » Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Abraham
Google isn’t seeing it coming. They’re being as myopic as Yahoo! was when Google stole their lunch. In Google’s strive for ubiquitous desktop, it forgot about the stickiness of the Social Network.
“I’m starting to read my massive backlog of feeds, and the theme is clear: Facebook has grabbed the mojo stick from Google. They got Blake Ross and Parakey, for example, and the momentum is building for the company to take the platform mantle. As Fred says, fasten your seat belts.” Via Searchblog
The Facebook strategy is to build a virtual mall and then invite all the brands to set up shop inside, within the design limitations of the mall and according to mall specifications, essentially forcibly co-branding itself along everyone else while realizing that any shop that doesn’t set up shop in the mall will probably go out of business before long because the Facebook Galleria and Mall is where all the people are.
1 Comment » Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Abraham
Until now, I didn’t know Patrick Schaber or his blog, The Lonely Marketer, but he’s smart. Here are a couple pieces of advice taken from his recent article, When Blog PR Goes Bad and Then Good, reminding products, services, and brands that they are bound to get beat up online and that it is by their response that they are judged rather than on the initial slight.
My thoughts are if you’re going to open yourself up to social media meaning blogging, RSS, podcasts, etc. you have to be prepared to interact with ‘constructive’ negativity at times. Corporate blogs are no different. If you don’t interact, you instantly become a brochure that won’t keep people coming back.
My advice - be prepared for the possibility that someone wants to post content that could diminish your brand. Have a plan - sort of a ‘disaster recovery’ plan - and be ready. Remember, good PR can come from bad PR.
2 Comments » Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Abraham
I tell my clients to consider keywords and “reader-friendly URLs” when they set up their blogs and choose their Content Management Systems. There are too many “q=243,” “s=298,” and “node/218″ (or in the embarrassing case of Gadgetopia, http://gadgetopia.com/post/5993) urls in the modern blogosphere. Well, you may have called my SEO work “snakeoil,” but I am now vindicated — by Google!
Underscores are now word separators, proclaims Google: This is interesting for a couple reasons. First, because it’s just good to know. Second, because it confirms the value of keywords in the URL, as I’ve questioned in the past. Via CNet and Gadgetopia
No Comments » Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Abraham
I love seeing if “marketing conversation” becomes something. Like a meme or a term or somesuch. Well, I have found one over on Agenda Inc’s LiveFeed:
How corporations still control the marketing conversation
If you see “marketing conversation” mentioned somewhere, would you let me know?
No Comments » Posted on July 25th, 2007 by Chris Abraham
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