General Motors (GM) is one of the contributors to the 'blogosphere', which is doubling every six months – it has a new blog, FYI, for giving voice to more employees and is hoping to increase the conversation.
Its Fast Lane blog has been the exclusive domain of senior executives, particularly Bob Lutz, and the intention with FYI (fyi.gmblogs.com) is to give a voice to more GM employees, spread the conversation about GM and continue to get better at listening and maintaining the dialogue, says Michael Wiley, GM's director of New Media.
While the new blog will no doubt attract critical comment by GM observers who seem to see underhand PR practice behind corporate blogs, I think GM has earned significant credibility with how it uses social media (blogs and podcasts) as a means for genuine engagement with people. And it's a good tactical move among other communication activity to help change people's perceptions about GM. A bold move that deserves success. Neville Hobson in WebProNews (www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/blogtalk/
wpn-58-20060420NewGMBlogLaunches.html).
Jennifer McClure's article in the Daily Dog this week (www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/issues/1_1/dailydog_barks_bites/
3811-1.html) addressed this issue of PR being involved in corporate blogs.
Public relations is about forming and nurturing relationships with the public. We all need to remind ourselves of this from time to time. If PR can re-focus on creating relationships - instead of creating and communicating static messages while trying to make sure that nothing negative is ever said about our organisations - then it makes perfect sense for PR to be at the hub of corporate blogging and other new participatory communications initiatives.
Yes, the tools are different and the rules are changing. PR people do need to let go of that 'static message' idea. Corporate blogs (www.expansionplus.com/impr/busi_blogging.html) and enterprise RSS Feeds (www.press-feed.com) are effective business communication vehicles that work in this new online world. They build relationships with your audiences. They reach early adopters who influence others. And as such they should be in the toolkit of marketing and PR professionals.
