Edelman Wins PRWeek Blog Competition

If there’s any validity to this competition, that would be the headline at the end. Alas, that’s not going to happen, so we will announce the real winner now.

All other PR bloggers are nibbling at the edges, Richard Edelman is square in the center, week after week, post after post. He deserves recognition for the most important, insightful, useful and consistent blog focusing on public relations.

When Richard started 6 AM four years ago “blog” was still a new term. As the namesake of the world’s largest independent PR firm, he was a visible and vociferous proponent of social media and the “new” PR. He staked his ground early with “Pioneer Thinking” and Edelman flourished because of it. Along the way Edelman made some very public mistakes; they were also taking the biggest risks. Through the mistakes, apologies and corrections, we all learned.

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The Shellacking of the Flack

What is going on with the shellacking of The Flack by Beyond the Hype in the PR Week blog competition? The lopsided results point to several problems with this competition that the PR industry, in its slap-happy embrace of anything that creates PR for PR, is not willing to acknowledge.

There is no criteria for this competition. It is not for the most effective, worthwhile, important or insightful blog. You are asked to vote simply on impulse or prejudice.

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PR/Media Week in Review 08-10-2008

Combat PR

I should have known better than to go mano o mano with a Marine. Frank X. Shaw at Glass House, President of Waggener Edstrom and former Marine public affairs officer, creamed PRBlogNews in the first round of PRWeek blog competition last week, 58% - 42%. Late Thursday afternoon we were knotted at 50/50. An hour or so later The Flack IM’d me to gloat about how badly PRBlogNews was being trounced.  What happened?

These online surveys are suspect.  Any 12 year old can game the results and legitimately Wagg Ed, I am sure, has more than enough computers company wide to click the boss to victory. Or, as “TJA” comments, I did myself a disservice by bashing the competition, even in good fun. Considering the results, perhaps he’s right. But then we wouldn’t be having good fun - we would simply be spinning PR for PR and there’s way too much of that.

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PRBlogNews Voters Disenfranchised

” …. this is feeling a lot like a presidential election where it doesn’t matter who you vote for because the results are pre-programmed.” That’s the comment, among many, that sent us reaching out to the lawyers. 

For two days now friends, clients, and the media have complained to us about the difficulty of voting for PRBlogNews in the PRWeek blog competition. Yesterday at approximately 4:00PM EST PRBlogNews was 50/50 with Glass House and then irregular voting patterns emerged that lead to a surge by Glass House. This coincided with outreach by a Wagg Ed shill that suggested the reported Naked PR practiced there was about to be uncovered.

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Time for change - Vote for PRBlogNews Now

The PRWeek blog competition has been a revealing exercise in the PR business examining itself. As if we needed further proof - we are a stilted profession with no sense of humor and no imagination. Basically, that is why, no matter how hard we try, we are unable to grab a measurable piece of the advertising/marketing budget with this newly packaged “social media” hoohah.   

I am sure that Frank X. Shaw at Glass House (my opposition) is a fine and honorable man. His bio says that he was public affairs officer in the Marines, he heads the Microsoft business, and he is president of a PR firm that has grown into a well-known powerhouse. It’s just that his blog posts are flat out boring and typical of an exec who must protect his turf, watch his back, mind what he says, not rile clients, appease the employees and pretend to be insightful and informative. That’s okay, it’s good for the President to have a blog, but let’s call it for what it is.

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PRBlogNews in battle to the finish

Forget global warming, genocide, recession, floods and fires. The battle of the century is taking place now and PRBlogNews is trailing in the early returns. We need your vote to overcome the early lead of the Glass House blog, authored by Frank X. Smith, President of Waggener Edstrom.

Unfortunately, there has been some confusion about how to vote in this competition.  It’s actually quick and easy: Click the image above or go to the PRWeek blog competition page here.  Scroll down until you see the widget above. Click on PR Blog News and your vote will be instantly recorded. Send a message for change: Vote PRBlogNews.

PRBlogNews Greatest Hits

Forget McCain - Obama, the big vote for top dog PR blogger starts tomorrow, Wednesday, August 6, PRBlogNews against the lame Glass House blog. Click logo on the right or here to vote PRBlogNews. Voting ends Friday, August 8, 5:30 PM EST.

Why vote PRBlogNews?

Okay, I am a sporadic blogger, prone to fits of inspiration, long bouts of malaise, and I don’t do the incessant link-love cirle jerk thing necessary to pump up the social media ratings. I am not even a fan of social media -  I would rather eat a three day old hot dog out of a street cart than go to the Social Media Club.

So, we have a bit of an attitude. This is New York and it’s required. No excuses. We also break the BIG stories, like PR & LSD - a long strange happy tradition and Don’t eat the brown acid. Look around the cubicles of Waggener Edstrom these days and you might notice naked account executives tripping and writing far out PR programs thanks to PRBlogNews.

We don’t swallow the PR of the PR business - Burson digs itself deeper - and we stand up for flack rights when reporters try to assert their delusional superiority - Nocera to PR: Screw You.

Jay Rosen, academic social media pundit and tenured huckster took umbrage with our post: Jay Rosen - I Can Do Whatever The F@#k I Want . Jay’s adult response: Rosen: Mark Rose is a clown. Use that as a headline for your next post.

Okay, Jay, I’m a clown. I don’t take myself, or this business, seriously. See Is there no humor in public relations? Transitive Nightfall. Now with Extra Diamonds.

And the bigshots of the business notice us, sort of, unless they don’t:

Mark, you denegrate yourself  … Richard Edelman

Thanks for being such a great ambassador for PR … Howard Rubenstein

Mark Rose. Who he? … Jack O’Dwyer

Glass House is a corporate blog by a corporate guy who wants to say he has a blog. How many of those do we need? Do the right thing. Vote PRBlogNews now and send a message to the PR Man: we want change we can believe in!

PRWeek Blog Competition is a Joke

PRWeek has announced its Blog Competition and PRBlogNews is one of the lucky 32 in the running. What, you didn’t know there are 32 PR bloggers? There aren’t. The other 31 are imposters, has-beens, hacks and hucksters. By process of elimination, PRBlogNews is not only the best PR blog, it may be the only PR blog. 

In posts this week we will dissect the first head-to-head competitor we face - the Glass House blog by Waggener Edstrom (sounds like a play by Henrik Ibsen) Worldwide President Frank X. Shaw.  Anybody with a middle name of X. should be automatically “X”d out.

For now, here is a snapshot of some of PR blogs in this sorry “competition” (no link love here). 

PR 2.0? We’re already on PR 3.0. Solis should archive his blog and find another gig.

Richard Edelman 6 AM? Richard has 2,400 fawning employees who must read his droll blog or else they don’t survive until 7 AM. Unfair.

Micropersuasion - How did Rubel get on this list? He doesn’t write about PR, wouldn’t know PR if it smacked his Twitter. His blog should be renamed Microconfusion.

Blogservations - How much can we stand Gomes aching about how he doesn’t like to blog? How many Edelman white male bloggers stacking this deck?

Digital Influence Mapping Project - Grandiose title masks Ogilvy big agency psycho social media babble. I don’t know what Bell is talking about … it’s not PR.

more later …

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