Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Rocking social media isn’t enough. You have to rock the world.

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In the course of my correspondence with Mark Ragan yesterday, he mentioned a blog post titled "25 Women Who Rock Social Media."

Among the social media-rocking sisters was one Lauren Salazar. Here's why Lauren rocks:
Lauren-salazar-150w

"Her experience as a writer and editor for The New Yorker and New York Magazine have helped prepare Lauren Salazar for her current role as the Social Media Manager for Weight Watchers.  Lauren uses the same personal touch with the community management at Weight Watchers that she does with her own Twitter account.  She does a great job of creating a true engagement by finding a way to really connect and relate to her audience. …"

It used to be that writers and editors came to corporate communications when they wanted to get married and have kids after 10 fun years at the Virginian-Pilot.

E.B. White, on the other hand, edited an employee newsletter at a silk mill—for a few weeks, before quitting out of fear that the job was too easy and would make him soft.

And once a young David Murray, then editor of The Ragan Report, interviewed for a job in employee communication at Aon Insurance. The corporate communication director tossed a copy of The Ragan Report across his desk and said: "You write this. Why would you want to write our shit?"

I've always seen corporate communication work as being exactly as honorable and worthy as its practitioners. I've known more than my share of whip-smart communicators, and I've seen some profoundly good communication.

But now here come the best and the brightest, fresh and enthusiastic, from the most respected publications in the world, to "connect and relate" to the the customers of Weight Watchers. Well, they damned well better rock social media. I hope they use their brains and energies and hearts to rock their employers, too.

Update: And thanks to Writing Bootista Liam Scott, who was so distressed by this item that he dug into Salazar's background. It appears that "25 Women Who Rock Social Media" blogger Lee Odden may have pumped her up a bit when he said she was a "writer and editor" at The New Yorker and New York Magazine. According to her résumé, she spent "Fall '06" as a "creative services intern," where she "developed integrated campaign pitches, executed special event marketing … and provided copywriting support for advertising sales staff."

She did more editorial work at New York Magazine; among other responsibilities, she did "beat reporting for citywide retail, fitness, restaurant, and nightlife venues."

So I guess we can't expect Ian Frazier to be rocking social media at Zappos anytime soon. But we do expect Lauren Salazar to punch above her weight at Weight Watchers.

Brand journalism redux: My two perspectives, diametrically opposed

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Last month we shared our first impressions of "brand journalism," a would-be trend in marketing and journalism. (Note especially Mark Ragan's thorough and thoughtful contribution, in the comments section.)

Meanwhile, the fine folks at my publisher McMurry.com have posted my snarling, devastating mockery of the idea as "more silly than sinister."

We all remember where we were when we first heard the term “brand journalism.”

No we don’t, because the first time we heard those words, they beaded on our brains like so many other foolish notions that caffeine-crazed or boozy marketing people think up in manic desperation to justify to their clients or to their God what they’re trying this time.

And then, right next to it at McMurry.com, they ran my passionate defense of the brand journalism, as "the simultaneous solution to marketing problems and stubborn social ills":

Brand journalism will reward so many good things that business so often runs from: plain talk, human vulnerability, public listening ….  And if a transparent, humanistic, journalistic ethic becomes the norm in marketing, companies that practice it will gain ground on or even kill competitors less generous of spirit and big-minded.

And speaking of big-minded: I do feel like giving props to McMurry for making room for such opposing opinions on the corporate website, which many organizations feel compelled to make into airless sanctums of corporate wisdom.

My little dueling editorials aren't quite brand journalism, I reckon.

But they'll have to do have to do until brand journalism gets here.

Brand journalism: Thrilling new strategy, or a insane attempt to kill two stones with one bird?

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Last week it was "content marketing" that I asked you to weigh in on. (And thanks to those who did; a full report to you on that this month, I promise.)

This week, it's  "brand journalism" we're on about (as we say in the U.K.).

What's this? It's a notion based on several consecutive ideas:

1. Nobody's listening to corporate marketing anymore, because it's not credible.

2. Nobody trusts mainstream media anymore, because it's not relevant, and increasingly it isn't even well funded.

3. People need a feeling of being well informed, and they'd like to read something on the way to work in the morning.

4. So how about if corporations used their deep pockets to do credible journalism that also reflects well on their brand? Hey!

What is brand journalism? As far as I can tell—and as I suggest in a column over at McMurry.com—it's a concept specifically designed to blow the mind of an adman's son who splits his energies between freelance journalism and corporate communication.

Wait a minute: Blow my mind, or make me rich?

Writing Bootologists, I appeal to you: Can corporations ever produce sustained, compelling, useful journalism that also sheds a warm glow on their brand?

Talk to me.