One of my media friends in China started to write her own blog in sina.com at the end of last year. She has been a reporter in electronics and telecom industry for years. As a veteran, she is no longer satisfied with her views and opinions only known though her own media. In social networking era, everyone seems to have a dream to make his/her fame though social media.
By opening a blog in the largest online portal in China, she tends to enjoy more freedom in writing and thinking that she seldom found in her own media, which has some sales constraints from the ads clients on the voice of their editorial group. (In China, the editorial and sales team especially from trade media cannot completely separate in job functions, although this situation has changed a lot in recent 3 years.)
She even works harder on her blog, where she shares her insights on hot industrial issues and discloses inside corporate stories based on what she learnt from her own network. While her exhilaration on gaining more voice freedom and more eyeballs puts a potential PR threat to the industrial players. Some information or conclusion has already been found wrong or incomplete from her quick and superficial analysis. Her non-preciseness on her free writing and thinking easily makes companies as the victims of her voice of freedom.
I think she is not a special case. From PR perspective, we need to…
- Make a list for the sensitive blogs and keep monitoring them;
- Identify the negative messages which the bloggers disclose or keep emphasizing or repeating;
- Evaluate how big impact of the negative points will bring to the companies;
- Find an appropriate opportunity to communicate with the bloggers and try to put out fire in early stage;
- If the incorrect messages already cause a PR crisis, you have to quickly get your feet wet.
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