People read blogs, makes sense

Part of working for an icon of publishing means that we have access to cross industry talent. There are frequent, informal presentations put on by the marketing and publicity team leaders of the various imprints, where such talent is invited to impart new techniques or foresight onto our teams. The latest was a visit from Lauren Cerand who is an independent public relations representative and consultant based in New York and her talent —generating initial buzz and building sustained attention for projects and individuals online has placed her clients in major print and broadcast outlets including National Public Radio, The New York Times and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Lauren was perfect. She introduced herself and her background (a child of publicity for labour legislation in the US who traded politics for culture) and then gave three very good examples of how she creates relationships with bloggers to generate awareness of the books and authors she represents. While Lauren covered a plethora of common challenges and benefits to using blogs, I appreciated that she contextualised the defense of blog marketing and PR in the context of change patterns in cultural consumption. That the way readers interact with media is changing, and the value which was once placed in broadsheet book reviews is now being exchanged for the more inter-personal dialogue that stems from online communites, whether networked or disparate. I like to view this as the emergence of a certain salience in consumption. But it is also my view that this can only happen online, made possible by the interactivity of the medium; the act of reading and consuming, and marketing while consuming. Lauren also touched on this.

Something that struck me as the 40 or so women and 3 men (have you forgotten PR) exited the 7th floor meeting room was the event itself. One of the reasons Lauren was invited to speak to us was the fact that this is brand new territory for publishers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand no other publisher is truly out there interacting with bloggers in a real way (US and UK). I say 'real' to express the extent to which publishers doggedly hound after other media (print and broadcast). Looking back on my experience, magazines across Canada having been doing this for years. In fact several base their mere existence on the awareness they can only generate through the affordable online community of bloggers. What have publishers been doing for the past 3 years? I recommend all publishers get out there and read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson now and feel ashamed for not thinking of it first!

Justin Renard, Puffin Marketing Officer