BLOGthenticity

The Gourmet Station debate has led Paul Chaney to opine:

Tell you what, let’s take the gloves off…the marketers vs. the geeks and the pundits. If a business blog “civil war” is to be fought, let’s enjoin it now.

I knew this would happen at some point. Some of the marketing/pr/consultant bloggers for hire are all getting their collective blog knickers in a rare old twist.

I’ve never seen so much mixing of metaphors with the idea of pushing the blog envelope outside the letterbox, or words to that effect, rather rampant. They’re also rounding themselves into a little group and soundly praising their blog practices. It’s just blog PR when all said and done and it’s also nothing particularly new. Don’t start thinking this is some revolutionary new blog strategy. It just makes it easier to ghost write for more clients.

Now why should everybody be getting into such a blathering lather over such a trivial wee matter as somebody deciding to use a character to blog behind? Why would they be defending this as a tactic and spinning the idea of them being the true blog pioneers?

There’s one helluva difference between those who blog as a business and those who blog their business. The consultants et al fall into the first category and people like myself fall into the second.

Yes, we probably share quite alot of common ground as to what we perceive to be essential blogging strategy, but there are a couple of differences when it comes to raising the blog flag and seeing who salutes.

I understand fully that T. Alexander is part of the Gourmet Station branding exercise, but I’d wager a hefty couple of quid that everyone would be going ballistic over Ronald McDonald blogging on behalf of Mickey D’s. I also wouldn’t dream of inventing some odd character such as The Tinman to witter about steel plantpots.

And this is where the purists, the geeks, the pundits, the anal obsessives and the non-consultants have the upper hand, I’m afraid.

You see, blogging is about your customers/clients being able to make connections with real people within your business. It allows you to see behind the facade - cut through the bunkum etc. This isn’t some antideluvian business blogging mantra that requires to be smashed and reconstructed to present yourself as a blogging maverick.

It’s a quintessential part of what blogging is. It’s what sets blogging apart from all your other forms of existing marketing. I’m sure we could all read about Ronald McDonald teaching us how to flip a burger, or about what their cows graze on and yes, it might be interesting, informative, entertaining and relevant, but it’s Ronald McDonald ffs. The idea has to be kiboshed before the business blogosphere starts imploding over whether a Ronald McDonald blog should have comments enabled.

You have to lay foundations in order to build anything and then you don’t tinker with them. By all means change the paintwork once in a while - even build an extension or two, but you can’t play with the keystones for fear the whole structure comes crashing down.

Did God present the Ten Commandments along the lines of ‘Thou Shalt/Shalt Not…..’, or ‘Thou Shalt/Shalt Not until you see fit to think outside the box’?

This isn’t a case of the look-back bores opposing new and innovating ideas. If anything it’s those who argue the merits of the fictitious blog character who are harking back to a bygone era. Oh, and let’s not labour under the misapprehension that the idea of exposing and expanding your brand is some kind of innovation. This is about certain parts of the business blogging community pushing their own business model for creating blogs.

Business blogging is possibly still at a stage where the keystones are still setting in the concrete. It’s essential that we ensure folks don’t go up and start wiggling them before they do set.

Oh, and if we are to have a business blogging civil war let’s be careful who gets caught in the crossfire. I honestly don’t think it’s fair that Gourmet Station should be left plucking out the shrapnel even if they did agree to it. But, at the end of the day, if we’re going to allow certain quarters to push the boundaries to the extent that anything goes - even to the point where key blogging concepts start to suffer - then blogging as we know it, Jim is finished.

Filed under: BLOGthenticity, Paul