Auburn Joining the Blog Craze?
July 14th, 2005 by MakenzieLook what made the front page of The Plainsmen today.
Here is a quote from the article:
“We aren’t at the point of ‘if you don’t blog you’re history,’ but we are almost there,” Tucker said. “(Blogging) is a way of making your presence known to the world, however big or small it is.” - John Tucker, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Ala.
Until recently, blogging was relatively unknown and misunderstood among college students on Auburn’s campus. I was plesantly surprised to see some light shed on the subject, because I grow tired from having to explain to my friends what a blog is.
However, there are some problems with story. It is apparent that little to no research was done before the article went to print. Not one word was mentioned about Robert French and the dozens of comm/pr/journalism students that blog everyday for class. Most of us even have our own personal blogs. And we are all right here right under their noses.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Well, I’m glad they at least wrote about blogging. But, sure - it would have been nice if we had been mentioned. We have been doing this blogging thing for a year, now.
I like the Mises Institute blogs and happy to see them get press.
They have a Google pagerank (5) similar to our blogs (4 and 5). They also have 140 links into their blogs according to Technorati. That is more than any one of our blogs, but lower than the total. For instance, we have 185 total links. 90, 36 and 59.
Those numbers don’t even take into account your personal blogs, too. So, we combine to have a pretty decent profile.
My point is, we have similar ranking, reach and visibility on the Web. However, our audiences are quite different.
We get our fair share of notice, I guess. But, yes - it would have been nice to have the local attention. All the blogs were featured in the Auburn Reporter publication that goes to all Alumni.
Now, the Mises blog may get a lot of traffic, but their claim of #4 ‘blog’ in the world is very questionable. Maybe it was a misquote or misprint. ” The Mises blog is the fourth of the top five most highly trafficked blogs in the world, according to Tucker.” Well, if the reality is they meant ‘economics’ blogs, OK. I can believe that.
But, if they mean blogs overall and the claim attributed to Tucker is correct? Sadly laughable. The stats on DailyKos and Instapundit, alone, would dwarf their traffic. I’m betting it is a misquote/misprint.
Maybe some of the PR pros that have noticed your efforts will post here and let you know how they feel about your efforts. You’re doing good work. Ya’ just need to blog more often (grin). But, I digress.
Thanks, Makenzi. Take care and have a great weekend.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Well, it was a placed story. Take a step back, and re-read the article (without being miffed that you and your blogs aren’t in it.) Do you find it a little suspicious and interesting that the blogging platform is one that is not well-known, but given an opportunity to slam a well-known competitor. Does it not seem like someone did some good PR, providing the local college user to get into the local college paper?
From a PR standpoint, well done. From a journalism standpoint, the lesson is some journalists are lazy. The journalist could have Google searched Auburn blogs, and there you would have been. Or, she could have done a little bit of background, and written about the perils of student blogging - writing about drinking, college life, etc. - that would have been a good hook about being careful about what you blog.
Nope, spoon fed a story and ran with it instead.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
You also missed the big funny. The headline doesn’t really fit the story. Students? She only spoke to one Auburn student. Singular.