Category: social networking

Blogging: bad for business?

Eight days ago, Dee Rambeau, a (now-former)* contributor to the MarCom Blog, announced that he was giving up blogging. “I am convinced after 3 years of blogging,” he writes in a post aimed mainly at PR students at Auburn, “that blogging is not a positive thing for business, rather it is a negative.”

He then presents his case: that “blogs are useless and irresponsible” for public corporations, that content management systems have improved to a point where they can provide most of the value-added aspects of customer relations blogs used to offer (“Set your website up to have the ability for you to make content additions/changes right away”), that blogging is more about ego than PR, and so on. He ends with good advice to PR students (and anyone else willing to heed it).

While blogging may be bad for business, from Rambeau’s perspective, does that make it bad for colleges and universities?

* Apparently, according to Robert French, the blogger behind Marcomblog, Rambeau will continue to post there on occasion. But he’s given up his businessy blog, Adventures in Business Communications.

Blogs and the higher ed marketplace

Catching up on my higher ed blog-reading this morning, I discover two posts about blogging and the higher ed workplace.

One post, from erelevant, is an announcement that Warren Wilson College is looking for a VP of advancement. But it’s interesting that Morgan posted the ad on his blog. I’d be interested in hearing whether any candidates respond to the announcement, and whether any inquiries that begin, “I found your ad for the vice president’s position on the erelevant blog…” will make it past HR’s screening. Morgan, keep us informed, please.

The other post comes from Rob at UBrander, and it’s a lament about the substandard quality of applications he’s received for a web copywriter position.

He writes: “[M]ore than 50 applicants have made it through HR to my desk. Only four have received interviews. None have been hired.”

It seems they haven’t done their homework. But Rob has done his. Read on:

The ones who did get an interview didn’t bother to Google me. If they had, they would have found my blog, my LinkedIn profile, etc. They would have learned that I have a particular philosophy of higher ed marketing related to the IMC process. They would be able to impress me with marketing terms like “brand equity.” They would have even learned what I looked like so they could immediately recognize me when they walked into the department. Those who didn’t get interviews might have checked me out on the Web, but what prevented them from getting an interview was that I checked them out too.

A cautionary tale for job-seekers in the Internet age: Google your prospective employer. And beware what you post about yourself.