Beyond the Beacon post: Why Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg should blog more often
I’ve fallen out of love with Facebook as of late, for personal reasons that occurred previous to the Beacon fiasco and are not connected to its privacy issues. At one point I didn’t even log in for over a week! Perhaps that’s why I missed out on all the drama and infringements on personal privacy? That said, I haven’t been able to ignore the blogstorm that’s been brewing for the past two to three weeks due to consumer outrage at the ramifications of the new advertising platform.
After numerous incendiary blog posts and media commentary on the issue, yesterday marked a turning point as we finally saw a personal response to users from the man himself on Facebook’s official blog: founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It was great to see Mark finally addressing the issues through a medium that really speaks to the Facebook community. And then I noticed his painfully obvious lack of involvement in Facebook’s blog…
On the Facebook blog, Mark has only written 4 posts in the past year plus. Yup, that’s right. Just shy of one per quarter. And all but the first post (which describes the change in the social network’s name thefacebook.com to just Facebook, in addition to forward looking thoughts on the future of the site) are reactive responses to negative rumblings from the community.
It makes me uneasy to see that nearly all of Mark’s blog posts have disagreeable associations attached to them. It would be great to see more positive posts that demonstrate his ability to communicate with users via the Facebook blog beyond using it as a personal apology page. Granted, there are a ton of other Facebook employees blogging regularly about exciting new developments in the platform, but Mark is the most publicly visible spokesperson for the company which makes his blogging presence on the site that much more important.
We’ve got to give Mark at least a few Brownie points for attempting to be transparent about Facebook’s problems with the few posts he has written. However, it would be a wise PR move on his part to communicate more frequently about Facebook’s journey as a company. Like it or not, Mark is the most public "face" in Facebook, and given Facebook’s role at the center of the social media spectrum, his active participation in the conversation isn’t just advisable, it’s essential–and not just when a crisis brings the heat.
John Biggs of CrunchGear Tells Us His PR Christmas Wish
This morning, John Biggs of CrunchGear posted on what PR people can do this Christmas to make him happy. A lot of these tips are just plain common sense that can never be over-repeated, such as:
- Don’t lie
- Don’t waste time
- Know who you’re pitching
The other tips that John includes are just great fodder for how to approach CrunchGear intelligently. This is a must read for all PRs. Let’s give John what he’s wishing for, and hope that his perception of the profession can change from viewing us as largely underhanded Grinches to gracious Santas bearing gifts of interesting products and gadgets he can actually write about. 
Hat tip to Peter Himler at The Flack.
Important Words for the Young Workforce from Brazen Careerist’s Penelope Trunk
Yesterday while on my nightly run, I tried giving up my usual jogging tunes and replacing them with the Forward podcast, managed by my longtime friend and fellow PR blogger Paull Young. I have to say, tunes were not missed and I thoroughly enjoyed the mental stimulation of the podcast coupled with the energy of the run.
For this edition Paull interviewed Penelope Trunk, author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success and a career columnist at Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance. The interview was an incredibly inspirational listen, and provided a great deal of encouragement to us 20-somethings trying to make a living and change the world while we’re at it.
I suggest you listen to the interview for yourself, but Penelope made two particularly important points that I want to highlight:
1. Today’s workplace allows you to prove your worth through your performance and industry insight, not just how many years you’ve been in your business
2. The above is a gift not afforded to our parents or any other past generation
I thought this was important because too few of us realize the power we have in our hands to really showcase our talents in a new and exciting way. We should cherish this privelege. We no longer have to drudge through a career for X number of years trying to catch a break. Now more than ever, we have the ability to become thought leaders by contributing to the knowledge base for our respective professions. How can we do this? It’s as easy as expressing our opinions intelligently and respectfully, whether it be through blogging, internal discussions with our managers and team members, or conversations with others in our profession.
I’m also very interested in updates on Penelope’s upcoming business venture with young career bloggers Ryan Paugh and Ryan Healy, BrazenCareerist.com, which will be a network of bloggers writing about the intersection of work and life. This will be a great resource for those just entering the workforce, and I can’t wait to check it out (the Web site says it is “coming soon”).
