e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Bloggers and Journalists: Hungry for Good Information, Drowning in Bad

July 23rd, 2008

Something jumped out at me during today’s Vocus seminar on P.R. and New Media — journalists and bloggers often see each other as rivals, but they’re united in at least one very important way: both are desperately looking to fill space and/or time in their publications with good content, and both also have trouble finding it in a vast, churning sea of online information.

For online marketers (whether of products, candidates, policies or causes), this situation presents that most classic of clichés, both dangers and opportunities. Dangers in that your message is most likely going to get lost in the clutter unless it’s well targeted and timely — and even then, it wouldn’t hurt to bust your butt AND get a little lucky (e.politics had rather be lucky than good any day).

The opportunities? They lie in the online world’s voracious hunger for words, pictures and video, the flip side of the clutterstorm. For the people producing them, both a blog and a cable news channel are like the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors, constantly screaming to be fed, and journalists both amateur and professional face short deadlines and fickle audiences. If you’re a communications person and you can guide a content provider to something solid, useful and just right for the audience, you’ll be worth the money you’re being paid. Some outlets will obviously be more important than others, and mass exposure rarely hurts, but even a blog with a tiny audience can be a good pickup IF that audience is made up of the right people.

– cpd

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