Mike Manuel pinged me about their new hire over at Voce Communications: Josh Hallett. If you're familiar with Josh you realize what a great move this is for Voce.
This move got me thinking though. Smart PR and Marketing companies seem to be gobbling up respected communication experts who are also blogger. This trend has been going on for several years now, but are some companies like Voce and Edelman (which has over 30 active bloggers) on the verge of becoming media companies?
Where's the line? At what point does their collective voice become a Marketing force unto itself? It used to be that PR agencies were hired by the amount of reporters in their Rolodex. Are we entering a time where an agency might be hired because of their stable of bloggers?
I'm not speaking about unethical influence by the company bloggers. All the bloggers I know would never use their personal blog to pimp their client. These bloggers do talk about their clients though. They do share their lessons learned with the rest of us in order that we can all learn together.
Does knowing that Mike works on the PlayStation account influence someone when they are deciding between a PS2 or an XBox? Does the fact that Steve Rubel (Edelman) works with Microsoft influence someone to give Vista a try (probably not since Steve is a Mac guy).
I think these are questions that will only be answered with time but I do think that agencies and bloggers need to be aware that these could become issues in the future.
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