I had a conversation with a fellow blogger earlier today on Windows Live Messenger, and we talked about some bloggers being hard up for publicity events. In it I mentioned that such events may never obtain the kind of success locally as it had elsewhere.

For starters, I told him I felt that way because I ain’t really interested in such blogger’s events. I also have a very small social circle as far as bloggers are concerned so it is even more unlikely I will be invited. Most of my friends and acquaintances are known primarily through more conventional means – e.g. in gatherings and functions or from courses and friend / colleague introductions. I also have to admit my blog is hardly interesting nor does it have the reach and audience base to warrant any attention. Furthermore, I find certain people active in Internet PR or social media hypocritical, pompous, shallow and repulsive (and that feeling is mutual). It sometimes give one the feeling they are more interested in gathering personal power or pursuing a personal agenda instead of doing what they claimed to be doing.

Not being sour grapes here (since I was lucky to be invited to two of the events), it appears to me that all these publicity activities are not very successful nor useful anyway when one consider the effect of the event vs effort put into the event.

First of all, I see a lot of the same old faces attending these events and thus only they write about them. And surprisingly, the more well known local bloggers are normally never present in these events. One may argue that the objective is achieved more by the quantity and not necessarily by the quality of the bloggers invited. But some bloggers really wrote nothing meaningful or useful of the event. Many a time, when one look at their posts, their knowledge of the event / product is obviously questionable, not to mention also their main objective of attending the event. In the worst case scenario, the entire ‘report’ can sometimes be nothing more than an orgy of cam-whoring. And in one such example, the photos only caught my attention because of Wong Lilin, and by then my attention is no longer on the event itself.

As far as that particular event is concerned, the organiser can some what be blamed for giving the wrong impression to those invited. If I am not wrong, dk told me that Mediacorp and SPH thought a TV series is being launched and sent the reporters for entertainment instead of the ones for gadgets. In the end those reporters end up focusing on the celebrities who are present. But what sealed its fate is when whatever bloggers’ reports produced also failed to pass on the relevant information.

Now, that’s only one of the ways how a publicity event fails to meet its objectives. In some other cases it may simply be just attendees not even writing about the event after attending. You will come to know they are there but didn’t blog because you see them in the photos of other bloggers. And that shows another serious problem… what happens if they maybe the only people reading one another’s blogs actively and constantly, with not much real traffic beyond that?

Anyway, can we blame the bloggers for not blogging about the event when they also have a life of their own beyond? After all, it was never explicit that a blogger must write about the event after they have attended. But it is my considered opinion that failing to do so would defeat the objective of the event – i.e. to have bloggers participate in the publicity drive and to reach out to their readers.

So, the combination of freeloaders at events, the lack of quality reports from attendees, plus the possibility that everyone is only linking to everyone else who are present at the event, would be sufficient enough to kill such events locally.

Consider then.. how to build a reputation as some one who can effectively utilise this form of media, when sooner or later it becomes obvious to corporates and companies that the reach from this is not only negligible but their writings (just like my piece here) are really worth shit on their own to be of any good? Where only the bottom line matters, why should more money and effort be spent to take seriously such ‘outreach’ programs locally?