Ryan MacMillan

In the last few weeks some of our posts (okay one of them was mine) have caused minor and unintended (natch) ructions. As a result we thought we’d better have a blogging policy so it was clear to all of us at RMM what was and wasn’t ‘on’. The policy follows;

Our blog is a marketing tool. We use it to communicate our values and some of our thinking. What then are those values, and what should that thinking be about?
Values and what they might mean:

• Civil - don’t use abusive language
• Fair - before writing a comment about someone we know or can easily identify we ask for their opinion and give them prior right of reply
• Informed - we research our facts and statements and so we are able to link to our sources
• Commercial - assume that some of our clients and potential clients have a less than firm grasp view of the digital world and how it operates - which is sometimes at variance with ours and which is why they are our our clients and potential clients. We should therefore be wary of making sweeping generalised statements about advertising agencies, brands and media owners. This doesn’t give a free reign to idiocy but rather imagine you might be sat next to them at the next industry event you attend. Make your point but make it logically and politely.
• Experienced - bringing in relevant RMM examples where we can
• In context - assume that some of our target audience have a less than firm grasp view of the digital world and how it operates (ibid). that is sometimes at variance with ours. Provide context especially when writing about new trends and technologies. It won’t make us look cool - but smart peers will know that we’re writing for a different (target) audience.

Thinking - what should we be commenting on? We want to demonstrate knowledge across digital media, technologies and audience behavior. So we should blog across;

• New developments in digital technology and our personal experiences of them
• Other blog commentary that we admire - explaining why we admire it (always identifying and linking to the original)
• Relevant (across digital media, technologies and audience behavior) news stories and our view of them

And some stylistic rules from Orwell:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.