Steve Rubel and Brian Solis (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com

Brian Solis and Steve Rubel represent two very different approaches to blogging.  Most bloggers in social media know them. According to eCairn, they along with Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Brogan, and Dave Darmano have a 3 percent share of the social marketing community voice.

In many ways they are quite similar. Both are early adapters, both are innovators, and both understand promotion. But where Brian is master of  the long form, Steve recently dropped his top rated  Micro Persuasion blog for the Steve Rubel Lifestream, “with more bits and fewer posts.” Steve now posts a few times a day. Brian generally posts a few times a week. Brian’s recent post in response to Claire Cain Miller’s New York Times article Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley reflects his style.

In announcing last month to “direct all of my online publishing energies to one hub, The Steve Rubel Lifestream,” Steve took a gamble.  Now Steve is essentially his own online news feed of daily links, insights, photos, videos and more on emerging technology. (I should add that Brian is now using Posterous, the same platform driving Steve’s Lifestream.)

So where does that leave us social media bloggers? Steve’s success was one reason I started blogging. At the time, I had misgivings about blogging and was reluctant to abandon time tested opeds and articles. But now I am comfortable with the traditional blog format and am reluctant to abandon it.  Of course calling blogging traditional is kind of funny given that it is still a relatively new phenomenon.

In my opinion, in the age of Twitter with its 140 character limits, the best way to blog comes down to how you process information. Do you like in-depth analysis or bursts of information?  Do you want a soundbite or a speech? Do you want to have the details to draw your own conclusions or do you want conclusions drawn for you?  

In truth, a lifestream is very bloglike, but it does challenge the orthodoxy that governs many traditional blogs. Rubel believes “the approach is different…People don’t have time to read as much as they used to. There’s too much competing for our attention…Blogging began to feel too slow and methodical.”

Brian may beg to differ.  And BTW, the changing role that blogs are playing is not lost on Brian. In a March Techcrunch piece, Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere? that has generated 215 comments, he wrote: “While blogs are increasing in quantity, their authority–as currently measured by Technorati–is collectively losing influence.” 

The answer is bloggers have many ways to deliver information.  

In the end, the two forms will mutate into something entirely different, but for the time being, they provide very different models to manage information and opinions. Perhaps the model is Jeremiah who when I posted had 48,089 followers, a rather incredible 16,073 updates as well as several lengthy posts several times a week.

But make no mistake about it, whatever form blogging takes, it will remain incredibly labor intensive.

Let me get back to you.

With the inauguration of Barack Obama a day away, it is worth noting the communications strategy that helped get him to the presidency.  In last month’s New York Times Magazine, there was an excellent analysis on how the Obama campaign mastered the media. I think it is very useful for communications professionals who wish to embrace both openness and message control.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say you can’t control the message in the age of new media.  While you can’t dictate what bloggers say about you (and it behooves you to pay attention to what they are in fact saying), you can control what you say and how you say it.

As the Times reported, “Obama’s New Way organization was grounded largely on Old School codes — notions of loyalty, aggressiveness and discretion.” If there were any disagreements, power struggles or hurt feelings you would never know it.  Perhaps that is the luxury of a winning campaign.  Losing campaigns tend to spout leaks.

Interestingly, Obama’s control of the message coincided with an “open” embrace of new media. In the course of the campaign, the Obama team showcased a number of new-media applications designed to project a sense of open-book communications to the public.  While clearly not ignored, traditional media had to compete with new forms of communications including Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

For examples, check out slides 37-41 from Online Community Best Practices by Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research.

The Obama campaign made news by directly communicating with voters via email and text addresses for major announcements and taking advantage of websites like fightthesmears.com to defend against rival attacks.

And what did openness mean to the Obama campaign? According to the Times, it was about the campaign’s willingness to make the candidate, senior staff and information (from policy positions, donors lists, and birth certificates) available in a manner that “bred a feeling of real-time connectedness between campaign and voter.”

In short, they provided access to information to those with the least amount of access – the public.

For corporate communications professionals, the Obama campaign demonstrates that even the most open and transparent communications efforts can be disciplined.

As Jonathan Kopp wrote me

Obviously, a balance has to be struck. The campaign clearly respected and valued peer-to-peer conversations among voters. And they earned people’s respect and trust by providing the information and tools that helped those conversations flourish on MyBarackObama and at offline gatherings. The campaign-to-voter conversation is a different story. That’s where message discipline and consistency come in to play.

Jonathan is a partner at Shepardson Stern & Kaminsky, an integrated communications firm that was on Obama for America’s national media team and the campaign’s agency for youth.

In the age of conversations, with decentralized communications and multiple spokespersons, losing control is a palpable fear.  And in fact your message will be lost or muddled without guidelines.

New media gives you new ways to reach your audience.  It’s immediate.  It’s personal.  It’s about creating a “non traditional” corporate image.   But it isn’t carte blanche for employees to say what they want.  They should be fired for using abusive language or revealing proprietary information. The Obama campaign was relentless in staying on message.

Disciplined also means not wavering when embracing new forms of communications.  The Obama communications team understood its value — using it imaginatively and consistently.  It was not a gimmick used on an ad hoc basis.  New media was integral to Obama’s message and central to a large portion of his supporters.

Perhaps in the end, one of the lasting legacies of the Obama campaign may very well be its understanding of the power and novelty of new media as well as its ability to use it as a fulcrum to drive its message.

Let me get back to you. ]]> http://www.bernaisesource.com/blog/2009/01/lessons-from-the-obama-campaign-%e2%80%93-controlling-the-message-in-the-age-of-open-communications-reposted/feed/ 0