Hats off to Alex Hawkes for ferreting out Jeremy Newman’s blog. Jeremy is managing partner at BDO and Accountancy Age personality of the year. For non-professionals, Jeremy’s blog is immediately accessible. He doesn’t fall into the trap of using this media as an opportunity of demonstrating his smart arse creds.
I was at once delighted and depressed. I’m delighted that such a high profile and senior professional should have entered the blog fray. I was depressed that Alex found him first. Which got me thinking.
Success in this medium is hard work. It is not enough to create and tend a well written blog. It is about giving attention. It is about encouraging your audience to participate in the wider conversation about issues of importance to your constituent readers. It is about putting a human face on the sometimes professional alter ego. It’s a lot of other things.
In his post, Alex asks:
I wonder how it works for BDO from a marketing perspective. Blogs reach people in a different way to other kinds of marketing, I think.
I’ve got news for Alex and anyone else who thinks blogging has to be marketing driven. Ask yourself this: Which works best, a conversation or a message? Nevertheless, Alex’s more general point is not lost. Poignantly he says:
Given the number of press releases we get from all the firms, why don’t advisers use blogs to highlight issues and give the views that they are sending out anyway? It’s another platform, and you’re less dependent on a journalist actually choosing to use your quote to reach an audience.
This is an astonishing insight, coming as it does from the news editor of the UK’s pre-eminent mainstream print media publication. It’s difficult to communicate the importance of Alex’s statement in the media context which, in the past has been so heavily influenced and driven by advertising revenue. In this case I suspect there is something else at work.
AccountancyAge has always been at the forefront of professional reporting. It does not pull punches. It takes no prisoners yet is utterly fair. That explains why it continues to succeed in a world where print media’s epitaph has been (mistakenly) written. IMO, it is a sign of genuine maturity that Alex’s blog reflects the move from foghorn to conversation. So badly needed in our profession. IMO – again. Once again Alex, thanks.
Technorati Tags: AccountancyAge Awards, marketing communications
