Attention Corporates and PR agencies: read NOW!

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The NAB PR fiasco that I blogged about earlier in the week has still got ‘legs’, as they say in the football world (allegedly).

My good friend Gerry McCusker was finally granted an interview with the PR agency responsible (Cox Inall, who “coxed it up good an’ proper-like”).

As I have been banging on for a good few years now:

The communication landscape has changed!

As Hewlett Packard have just found out (tip of the battered Akubra to Gerry), ’social media’ means that your ‘little old audience’ is potentially no longer little. Nor silent. Nor acquiescent.

For goodness sake, put your egos aside and think about what is best in the long term for your business or your client’s business. If you or your agency doesn’t have the expertise involved do not be afraid to call in an expert. That’s what Clarity Communications in Perth has done with me, and I applaud their foresightedness and ethical responsibility to their clients.

As Gerry points out, it is now YOUR responsibility to check if we are recording our interviews with you, and in what form we may or may not publish them.

I strongly recommend you read Text100’s excellent survey on the blogosphere and how blogger relations should now be a definitive part of your strategy, be you client or agency.

Take note:

• The Social Media News Release [video introduction to SMNR] is key to gaining our respect. Use it, or lose it
• We want to be treated professionally, not just as an electronic deposit box for your endless releases
• We want to build up a long-term relationship with you, Mr/Ms Agency, therefore please start a conversation with us before you hammer our inboxes
• Be a part of the blogging community that you wish to engage with. If you don’t know who and what the key players and key issues are, we won’t take you seriously. And that goes for Twitter, too, as Nic Hac quite rightly points out

Several years ago Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing. It was a book that I devoured and tried to encourage clients of mine to read — none of them could be bothered.

Please don’t make that mistake yourself. Nip down to Dymocks, or order it at Amazon. Read. Inhale. Or hire me, or Trevor Cook, or Laurel Papworth, or Stephen Collins or Gerry McCusker.

Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers: Seth Godin