Online Public Relations Thoughts

Sometimes I think I've been around PR too long. I get this feeling when I discover articles like this one which discusses why some blogs fare better than others. The reasons J.D.Lasica, a respected commentator, provides are obvious:

• Niche expertise. Don't speak outside the limits of your authority.
• Transparency in motives. Of course.
• Transparency in process. Providing proof is fundamental.
• Forthrightness about mistakes. What else is new?

Anyone who has passed PR 101 should know these guidelines. There is nothing new here that hasn't been known since the days of the Ancient Greeks. What this tells me is something obvious. There is not much new about blogging. The same rules for guarding and building credibility apply in blogging as they do in any other medium.

These four guidelines have been at the root of this blog since its beginning more than two years ago. Views focus on communications and PR -- areas I have worked in for more than 25 years. The point of each entry is clear -- commenting on and teaching communications principles from observing the world. Sources and proofs are listed. And more than once, I have fessed up to erring. I wasn't prescient nor insightful by doing this. I was simply and obviously following communications principles. Do bloggers know so little that a wheel has to be pointed out to them?