I know I’m doing too many blogging-related posts, but this is the last one for ages I promise (unless something, you know, blogger related crops up!) because they’re not that interesting for anyone who isn’t a blogger. But, it’s the best and most effective way I have of getting a message out and there is definitely a message here!
The latest trend is for PRs to employ social media specialists to work with bloggers – fantastic idea, except not for the anomalous bloggers like me who work across two genres. That’s no easy task in itself, but I’m very much starting to resent being shunted over to the blogger side while I still have print work going on. I love being a blogger – I’m more blogger in my soul than print writer for sure – but for one job I need one thing and for blogging I need another thing. Or rather, for blogging I just do my own thing.
I can see an emerging pattern of brands trying to ‘contain’ bloggers, which I don’t see as any part of the way I blog – I’m not actually containable in that respect because I will blog how, when and about what I choose regardless, because that is what BBB readers have come to know and hopefully like.
What it boils down to at the bottom line is that some brands are hesitant to give me information for print, in case it appears on my blog and they’re not quite, er, ready, whatever that means. They lose print exposure and I lose credibility. In some cases, where I have been especially asked, of course I’ve held back on blogging a product that I have seen early for print purposes. I will only blog a product in that situation if it is already on-line somewhere..what with the web being world-wide and all that. And also what with PRs and brands thinking that anyone with a blog can’t actually see Women’s Wear Daily.
Relationship building with PRs is absolutely key – it is often years in the making, hence my hesitancy to be pigeon-holed as purely blogger. It doesn’t seem fair somehow that after years of working with PRs – and it is not always easy – that a new person swans in and I have to start all over again, and also have minimal contact with people I really like (in some cases, I’ve known them for years and years). I don’t have the heart for it to be honest, and it’s awful when they’re all bright, shiny, enthusiastic and new and I’m like, oh, whatever. Not fair on them either really.
So yet again, the social media message is that one size does not and never will fit all.
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