Into the Void

This is the first post in the new category Meta, which will be, of course, blog entries about blogging. The purpose of this post is to clarify my own opinions and practices with respect to advertising.

Dear Leslie,
Thank you for participating in the Edelman/Technorati blog survey. We conducted this study to:

• Better understand bloggers’ attitudes towards corporations and PR firms
• Help clients understand why and how they should engage the blogosphere

Technorati contacted tens of thousands of active bloggers via email, blog posts and the networks of discussion and links those posts generated. The survey generated 821 responses during the week of September 26, 2005.
[..]
Thanks again for participating.
Richard
Richard Edelman
President & CEO, Edelman
richard.edelman@edelman.com

My answers:

1. The primary reason I blog is to Create a record of my thoughts. The secondary reason, of course, is to occasionally engage like-minded readers in conversations on a topic.
2. I post Every few days. I tend to post in bunches when my cognition and energy are up.
3. I write about companies or their products Less than once a week. I usually share by email with friends. No reason I can’t cc: the blog.
4. Yes, I would like samples to write about in my blog. I occasionally do this on another web site, specifically with books related to bipolar disorder.
5. I am contacted by bona fide companies or their reps Daily or almost daily. I’m only counting contacts from real businesses, not spam with a fake email address.
6. I most often actively interact with Product teams. These people are more likely to engage in dialog than PR people, and they’re usually pretty enthusiastic.
7. Companies usually contact me with Form email. I don’t generally finish reading an email that isn’t written to me personally. Oh, I can tell if vendor is using a mail-merge program.
8. Messages that come from an outside PR group generally go in the junk folder unread. These groups are less concerned about a product’s reputation and more concerned with whether they can sell me one. I trust them about 1 out of 10. Eudora has a very nice integrated SPAM filter.
9. Messages directly from a company are more likely to be read, and I’ll even pull them out of the junk bin if they contain solid information – technical details – about a product I’m interested in. I’d say I trust them 6 out of 10.
10. I have wondered whether to correct inaccuracies in a way that draws regular readers’ attention to the change. Perhaps Leave the error but append a correction is the best way.
11. If I post misinformation, I’d like a company rep to Post a comment. On web pages they must use the contact form.
12. I like to talk tech with Mid-level employees who work on research and development.
13. A blog endorsed and produced by a company is Occasionally trustworthy.
14. A blog by an employee is better, Somewhat trustworthy. Although they must toe the corporate line, they are more likely to talk about their experiences using the product.
15. I trust technical data from Company web sites. I rely on friends for product reviews.

What does all this mean?
Well, it means that the line between advertising and reality is blurring. We must decide right now whether to become whores for the products we use every day.
TAGS: Edelman, spam, corporate whore