This morning I had the pleasure of presenting the agency perspective on blogger relations with Mike Masnick from Techdirt. Mike prefaced his portion of the presentation by saying he may be controversial with his points, but there wasn’t any arguing coming from me – he’s completely right. PR people need to respect the rules of the venue and engage in blog conversations if they want to be heard. And for any PR folks who are reading this, please don’t pitch Mike.
There’s a brief recap of what we talked about over on the WOMMA Summit blog (yes, I used the word “Asshat” in my presentation). E-mail me if you want a full copy of my presentation. There are also pictures from the conference over on Flickr (not mine though).
I’ve also joined in on Mike’s discussion about the FTC ruling about word of mouth marketing. There are valid points being made, join me if you wish. Basically the FTC said you must disclose if you’re getting compensation for products.
Finally, in case you haven’t heard, WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz announced Monday at the conference that he’s leaving the association for greener pastures (we call it entrepreneurship) when his contract expires on April 1, 2007. Best of luck to him, the man has taken a start up and made it into a 330 company-strong association. I have absolutely no doubt that he will do well.
Tagged: WOMMA, Mike Masnick, Techdirt, blogger relations, FTC, Andy Sernovitz
David,
Great to meet you and share the presenting stage. I think you’re right that our two presentations complemented each other nicely. One person came up afterwards and suggested the two of us team up and go on the road with our presentations. 🙂
Thanks for joining the conversation over at Techdirt too!