A few comments recently on corporate blogs have confirmed my view that most corporates are still working to understand whether blogging fits into, or perhaps alongside, their communications activities.

The Wall St Journal reports on the dire state of corporate blogs in: Most Corporate Blogs are Unimaginative Failures. I'd agree. Also, by definition A Corporate Blog is probably thematically doomed to failure.

Elsewhere, Intel has taken an initiative to bring a disparate group of blogging pioneers into the process by forming the Insiders Social Media Team. This step could be seen by cynics as a way of pushing yourself into the conversation, or if taken at face value Intel is exploring new ways to accelerate participation and encourage adoption of social media within the corporation. Which is still a tough assignment inside most technology organizations, never mind in other sectors.

Right now I'm having to gather some thoughts for a couple of clients about how their formal (web) and informal (blogs) channels of communication work in synchronization - or more precisely in harmonious and efficient parallel, probably not in perfect synchronization. More about this shortly.

Tags: blogging, Intel, Wall St Journal

A flurry of stories on the issues around managing social media participation for employers and, by default I guess, employees too:

BL Ochman - Does Your Company Have a Social Media Participation Policy?

News of the boys in blue and their special interest groups from OUT-LAW News - Staff Internet Policies Must be Facebook Ready, Warns expert

A cautionary tale from Valleywag - Bank Intern Busted by Facebook

Tags: Social Media, Facebook, Valleywag, BL Ochman, OUT-LAW News

I wrote about the notion of Marketing Attacks last week. It got me thinking about marketing techniques the world could do without - which is slightly different to just plain bad marketing (doubtless a far more extensive list).

I had to spend a couple of days at home at the start of this week, so was exposed to the pleasure that is automated voice spam.

The scenario is: phone rings, put down two year old, spring across the room, snatch the phone, and a cinema announcement circa 1970 tells me: "This is a free public announcement..." Obviously this encouraged a couple of expletives, which seemed to stick with the two year old for the rest of the day.

So that's #1 on my list of marketing techniques that should be outlawed.

Obviously, one on its own doesn't make much of a list, any others?

Piece here on Mashable about the use of Twitter for marketing. Nothing remarkable in that, there's lots of marketing taking place on Twitter, a little by companies promoting themselves or looking for leads or insight, but far more by Twitterers selling themselves in various different ways.

What I did like though was the phrase: Is Twitter Vulnerable to Marketer Attack - it puts marketing right up there with virus writers and phishing gangs.

Barbed comments like this are a useful prompt to remember that marketing should always add value, giving the customer information that is helpful to them. In the age of conversational marketing, this is more true than ever.

Another reason to be jealous of Cristiano Ronaldo - as if the salary, the medals and all the awards weren't enough - now its official, your girlfriend probably fancies him.

According to 12,000 European women, Ronaldo is the hottest property in world football, and they weren't referring to his potential transfer to Real Madrid.

How can I justify this post as work?

Well, our client LG Electronics undertook the research to understand what is motivating us Europeans to stay tuned in to the summer of sport ahead of us. And clearly, at least some women viewers, have a very different rationale to justify that new super sharp HD TV purchase.

Sometimes in PR, the idea, the timing and the news angle all fall into place. And sometimes all those things happen when you are aiming at a big, broad audience that spills out far beyond tech media into the consumer mainstream.

This was one of those moments for our consumer tech team. Thanks to great work by LG's country PR teams and local agencies there is coverage from Lisbon to Auckland.

Now back to pitching server virtualization as sexy.

A couple of recent articles caught my eye:

• "Marketing is the new finance" according to Google's chief economist in this AdWeek article. Google has a chief economist?
• VC tells agencies to get some serious tech creds, article in AdWeek again - creativity alone won't cut it in the future. As advertising moves from messages to engagement, technology is a critical component for success. Yes.

Courtesy of an AOL video sharing site, here is a Microsoft UK promotional video - Stay Ahead in Your Own Way - used to promote their recent Virtual Launch Experience (VLE).

It's good to see how different parts of Microsoft are promoting the VLE to their local audiences.

The video nicely sums up the benefits of virtual events to 'delegates': that you can be a stay at home Bunny Slippers expert, without having the chore of walking the exhibition floor or risking the conference coffee.

And, of course, because Microsoft UK's virtual launch site is still live - visit it here - the video is still helping to promote the content.

Since completing the Microsoft UK Virtual Launch Experience, and its global counterpart for Microsoft Corp., we have also delivered a Japanese language event. This has shown the value for large organizations of taking a global approach, with a worldwide virtual events strategy that has the capability to localize quickly and easily where it makes sense.

If you want to find out more about how the VLE was built, drop me a mail and get a copy of the case study.

Tags: Virtual Launch Experience, virtual events, Microsoft

Strange how easy it is to build very niche, very deep areas of specialization (if you have the aptitude).

For many years we have been engaged on a number of pan-European PR and AR programs with a couple of large corporations. As a result we have developed a specialization in understanding the cultural issues, organizational dynamics and operational structures that govern success in these situations.

Admittedly, that's not much of a conversation opener at dinner party, but if you work in PR or marketing and have the words EMEA, Europe or worldwide in your job title, that sort of information is like gold dust. You probably know it yourself but have struggled to find an agency tuned to play this sort of supportive, almost pure back office role.

Today Metia's Influence business was able to report on our new relationship working with LG Europe, which is just such a role. In this case our PR team is helping them promote a range of electronics products to consumers across Europe. Kindly, PR Week covered the story too.

Working with LG caused me to think harder about what characteristics are needed to be successful in these pan-regional or worldwide roles.

The work we do for LG is a good example. We work away behind the scenes, in this case seldom engaging direct with the press, and only then to a tightly defined group of pan-European media. The vast majority of the time we are working with our LG Europe clients developing creative campaign themes, originating content and developing substantiating news vehicles, which local PR managers can then very easily simply take, localize and execute with their agencies.

In these situations, our collective success is primarily measured through the coverage achieved by the country PR Managers and their local agencies, and the direct feedback one gets from local PR Managers regarding the 'service' they receive from the regional or HQ function.

In a sector, PR, that attracts more than its fair share of individuals who want to grab the spotlight (and all the credit), it takes real discipline to be prepared to succeed through the success of other agencies. If not managed successfully, it can also be a frustrating and unrewarding task, whether agency or in-house.

If you are one of those people with the words EMEA, Europe or worldwide in your job title, and share this sort of challenge, and wanted start a dialogue on this theme, drop me a mail or make a comment. Happy to share views online or chat offline.

I could even create a support group, it's therapeutic to share, isn't it?

Tags: PR, pan-regional PR, LG Electronics