Remember when the tail-end of December was quiet?  Those days are long gone, it seems.  I’ve been flitting about the country with little time for blogging, but I have been trying to keep up with the latest goings-on in Social Media and now offer my quick take on these flare-ups.

Chris Brogan and Izea (pay-per-post): Over this past weekend, Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang wondered aloud about Chris Brogan’s sponsored blog post about K-Mart, which was coordinated by the PayPerPost spin-off, Izea.  Brogan discussed the issue at length, as well. 

Does a well-known, trusted blogger like Brogan sully his brand by accepting sponsored posting assignments?  As Jeremiah originally tweeted: “Transparent, Yes. Authentic? Debatable. Sustainable? No.”

My take:  Full disclosure = carte blanche.  With disclosure “covered,” the community gets to decide how much credence to give the post, and to the blogger.  Jeremiah is right that it is probably not sustainable, i.e., if all of Chris Brogan’s post became paid-for, he’d lose brand equity and readers.

TechCrunch and the Death of the Embargo: Yesterday, Arrington informed the PR industry that TC will now routinely break embargoes.  We’ve been warned.  He also went into the typical rant about shitty PR firms.  To his credit, Arrington does at least seem to recognize that it is often clients’ demands that spur some of the most spurious behaviors… but then again, a GOOD agency will reject those client pressures.  

My take:  We can debate the merits of Arrington’s decision.  We can secretly wish that all PR firms could agree to “cut off” TechCrunch for a month, to see how it impacted coverage.  But it’s Michael’s blog and he can rant if he wants to: the job of PR has always been to adapt to the media’s need.  The PR agency’s only job with regard to TechCrunch is to advise clients of the new policy and plan accordingly.

I feel bad for the PR ninny who tells his client that TechCrunch will honor embargoes and then has to go back and explain why their sacrosanct news was so quickly and publicly unsealed, i.e., they didn’t know about the new policy cuz they weren’t paying attention.  You know that’s gonna happen.

Do Brands Belong on Twitter?  This issue was raised in a Mashable post. Some folks maintain that brands shouldn’t create personality-free Twitter accounts that simply spam corporate news, or that don’t allow fellow tweeps to “know” an individual within the company.  And some misguided purists still just dislike the idea of brands hanging out in Social Media forums at all.

My take:  I am more aligned with the follow-up Mashable post by Lon Cohen.  Twitter is opt-in.  If you care to interact with a brand via their Twitter presence: go for it.  Find it annoying?  Buh-bye.  Meanwhile I’d point to the folks at Dell, Comcast and my friend Lacy at RealNetworks (client) who strive to be helpful, human and creative online.  This can only help a brand’s image.  (Granted, the Twitter audience is still relatively small — but its influence is disproportionate: there are a ton of VIPs on Twitter.)

Tempests in a teapot?  Perhaps.  But these kerfuffles are important in helping us navigate a true course in Social Media.  In an area that is still so new, everything is important.  This is how rules are made.

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