PR Jots: Engagement by Clients, Content Promotion, and the Balance of Human Analysis and Hard Data

This week’s collection of stories of interest to communicators includes some familiar voices, as well as a few that will probably be new to regular readers of this space. As always, we try to identify items that may not have gotten the attention of some of the big memes of the week.

• Gini Dietrich offers up some helpful advice on how clients need to actively engage with their outside communications consultants in order to build a successful relationship that generates results.
• The BBC reports on a French blogger who was fined for posting a negative restaurant review on her blog because she wrote it well enough to get ranked highly in Google.
• Colin Delany writes that political technology can’t be a replacement for a good candidate, a good message, and good timing. Although he comes at it from a political angle, it’s a good reminder for communicators of all stripes.
• Edward Kim writes in Ad Age that publishers need to be paying to promote good content. But the real point he makes is that there are winners and losers in the content you create. Identifying and promoting the winning pieces of content will make you more effective — whether you’re a publisher or a marketer.
• A survey of business decision-makers finds that human assessment and gut instinct still take precedence over analytics. It’s good food for thought about the proper balance between human expertise and hard data.