Scoble writes on PR via blogs today. Most PR folks I talk to are very savvy about getting blog coverage for their companies, and most have a pretty straighforward approach just as Robert describes.
However, I don’t think his "anti-coverage" strategy is really a different PR approach or trend, I think it’s just PR for a different purpose.
Companies want blog coverage for many reasons:
- Reach mainstream media journalists who are looking to the blogs for news/feature stories.
- Build awareness in the venture/analyst community.
- Build general awareness of the company among tech early adopters.
- Lay foundation of cites in preparation for future launch/news
- And many others
What the company is trying to do dictates the PR approach to bloggers. When a company is trying to get mainstream media coverage, it wants to be perceived as hot and new and news that everyone is talking about. The coordinated, tiered approach to getting the news out there makes a ton of sense in that scenario. On the other hand, if a company is trying to slowly build up a userbase during a beta period and looking for early adopter feedback, it makes sense to slowly and organically build up a base of coverage that people searching out information on the space will be likely to find.
Now that just about everyone utilizes the blogging community as a PR channel, it’s going to become more and more important for companies and PR firms to create longer-term "full blog coverage lifecycle" PR strategies for companies they want to promote successfully.