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FastLane and Hass MS&L Blogworks — A conversation with Mike McClatchey

Hass MS&L Blogworks is a marriage of PR and technology services with GM's FastLane as its most noteworthy client. One suspects that this mix of PR and technology is what will carry the day in the emerging field of Internet buzz marketing.

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I had a conversation with Mike McClatchey at Hass MS&L (part of Publicis, a giant PR firm) last week. We talked about how GM's FastLane Blog had been done by their Blogworks practice, run right here in Ann Arbor. Based on our conversation, Blogworks' strategy, as illustrated in the GM case, represents an innovative marriage of PR and technology done at a large scale:

  • Blogworks has a “Movable Type server” which they use to host FastLane and other client blogs. This arrangement effectively insulates GM and other clients from technology management while still allowing a custom solution. Blogsite, another Ann Arbor company, is also an example of this strategy, though starting more from the technology end. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more integrated technlogy and PR efforts. It's clear that the value add of the technology service is to reduce complexity for clients, getting the sales pitch back to pure business value terms.
  • Hass MS&L is also handling comment moderation for FastLane. It winds up that two types of comments are moderated out of FastLane. If a customer comments on a post with specific problems they are having with a vehicle they purchased, the comment is routed to customer service for that vehicle. Inappropriate comments are also routed out. There is only a handful of this latter.
  • Otherwise, Hass's blogging strategy is similar to that of other firms. As publicly illustrated by Steve Rubel's and Robert Scoble's open recommendations to the Target chain, Hass advocates a listen first, blog second approach. This makes a lot of sense as listening is so cheap on the Internet, something I will emphasize in my May 10 talk on blogging analytics. Listening is an easier sell to businesses. They can watch without the risk of participating.

One interesting note in all of this is that Hass itself does not blog, although they announced plans to do so two months ago. The remarks on the FastLane blog have been largely positive, so one has to assume that this lack of company blogging experience has not had a negative impact.

Bud posted this on May 6, 2005

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference FastLane and Hass MS&L Blogworks — A conversation with Mike McClatchey:

» How would YOU blog on bad news? from Blogworks
Readers are hammering GM marketing executive Mark LaNeve at the GM FastLane blog for talking about a bit of good news from JD Power during a week of very bad news. [Read More]

Tracked on May 10, 2005 11:13 AM

Comments

Bud, thanks for your post & for talking with Mike about what we do. I'm happy to say that we just launched our BlogWorks blog yesterday: http://mslpr.com/blogworks --

and I'd like to add that another key part of our BlogWorks practice is advising clients on how to make blogs & bloggers part of their media relations strategy.

Laurie Mayers,
Hass MS&L

Posted by: Laurie [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 10, 2005 11:25 AM

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