I go back and forth about whether this site should be purely professional or partially personal. Most people seem to think the most effective way to have a blog is to keep them separate and stick to a certain topic. I understand the reasoning; however, I do not stick to a certain topic and I am not purely professional.
Something that seems lost in the public relations profession is a sense of genuineness. Lately, the public relations I have encountered seems less about the passion for real and effective communication and more about a pretense of popularity. As a person who strives to be real and really is incapable of being anything less than that, the PR professionals I have met touting their own skills to other colleagues, PR professionals, agencies, companies, etc., is getting a little annoying - to the point that I have considered leaving the industry.
But I do believe in PR. The need for a liaison between a company and the press, the need to present your company in the best light possible in all situations, to use tools to let more people know about your company and why it is worth their time, to come up with new and creative ideas to talk about companies, the list goes on. These are all things I believe in. And when done well, PR is a good thing.
PR’s foundation is that it works as an advocate for a company/client. We present our company honestly and someone else writes the story to further increase credibility. It is the unforunate PR debacles and PR phonies that continue to sour the name (I’ll refrain from listing the ones we all know).
Bottom line - law school you cannot have me yet, or maybe ever. For now, I’m choosing PR. And I will continue, daily, to fight the battle to remain a real PR person. Not one full of “spin” or “fake smiles” or “cliché headlines” or “bloated follower counts.”
If you find yourself spending more time retweeting your latest blog with slightly altered copy than helping your organization, maybe you should just consider promoting yourself full time.
First, very nicely done. Great layout (not that it matters) and, more important, for your first post, great content (that matters);).
Regarding Law School, if you want I can put you in touch with a lot of attorneys who don’t practice and will freely share why they gave up on their profession.
Regarding PR, the good news is you are just ahead of the curve. It is no longer about the spin or fake smiles, cliche headlines and, Lord knows, bloated follower counts. It is about relationships now more than ever.
Keep up the great work. Oh, business vs. personal, I say have it be a reflection of who you are. I would assume that includes business and personal topics. Most important, keep it real and keep it positive.
Look forward to the next post!
I am so proud of you! I feel like a momma bird - watching her fledgling leave the nest. So glad the site is live! I know you’ve worked very hard on it and it really shows. Congrats!!!
Abs the website looks GREAT! Just wanted to let you know I’ll post the pics from this weekend on my mobile me account and you can download the ones you want. I’ll facebook you the link!
Wait… why are the posts from aarong? Abby, did you pick Aaron Garcia as your online blogging pseudonym?
Re Kellan: Yes, I’ve always wanted to be male and Hispanic. How can you see that? Ya, it’s a bug. Aaron initially uploaded WP to my domain and for some reason it won’t let the admin be the author. Working on it. Leave it to you to catch something like that ;).
You did a great job on your website! I’m also very proud of you and I really am your momma bird. You’ve worked hard on this and it shows. I will enjoy keeping up with you through your posts.
I completely agree with Sir Handy. Which is good, since he’s far more qualified on all of those subjects than I am.
You’ve been added to my reader. I hope this subscription is bold often.
The folks who are saying that the most effective way to have a blog is to separate personal from professional and to strictly focus on a topic are either morons, or liars, or (most likely) both. If you are passionate about your profession, it’s impossible to be impersonal. If you are indifferent about your profession then why bother blogging - it certainly won’t be worth reading. Hardly effective.
This idea, in fact, is the secret of the myth of the “personal brand”. Those that believe in the personal brand find themselves so incredibly unremarkable as they feel the compulsion to fabricate something they can pretend is interesting… something, uh… professional…. and uh… focused on a topic.
Fortunately Abby, you have something infinitely better to offer the blogosphere than a personal brand: you actually ARE interesting. The moment you stop being at least “partially personal” on your blog, I’ll stop reading. Until then, of course, I’ll be hanging on every word.
Congratulations on finally launching your long anticipated online persona. Oh, and as always, ditto whatever Handy said.
-Matt
ABS, Its perfect! I look forward to reading regularly
I feel like I should have a profound comment…but I just don’t….precisely why I DON’T have a blog.
WordPress passes the author’s ID through the RSS feed such that when the post is displayed in an RSS reader, it will show who posted each blog entry. Just consider me an end-user tester for the site, free of charge :-p.
Ditto with what Matt Galloway said… especially the part about what Handy said
Unfortunately, this site was not “much anticipated”, but I am interested in following along with you. I rather enjoyed the this post and I think it does an excellent job of setting the stage.
The great thing about personal branding that everyone forgets is that you don’t get to choose your own brand. You can have goals, but at the end of the day, who you really are will show through and that is what people will use to decide what your brand is.
Best of luck and ditto what the Handy/Galloway-braintrust have to offer.