This first installment of the Online Marketing Champions series features Steve Rubel, vice-president, client services at CooperKatz & Company. Rubel is also widely considered the foremost expert in integrating Weblogs into traditional consumer and B2B public relations campaigns.

Since joining CooperKatz, he has managed a diverse array of business-to-business and consumer campaigns for clients such as the Association of National Advertisers, WeatherBug, Carrier, Otis Elevator, Canon, the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York and France Telecom, among many others. Rubel also developed CooperKatz & Company's ExtremeTech America's Fastest Geek campaign, which took home a Silver Sabre Award.

Rubel also authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

In our interview, Rubel discussed the persuasion of the blog and its very integral role in advertising, brand exposure and media relations.  

eMarketingIQ: Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are now?

Steve Rubel: I currently serve as vice president of Client Services at CooperKatz & Company, a mid-size New York City public relations firm. I joined the agency in 2001. I started my career in PR during the very early boom days of the Internet at CMP Media, a major high-tech trade magazine publisher, where I worked on the in-house corporate communications team. Now, I am helping clients weave weblogs into their ongoing media relations programs. 

eMarketingIQ: You run the Micro Persuasion weblog. How did you get hooked on RSS and blogs, and what made you start the blog?

SR: I have been following/reading blogs for a couple of years, but it wasn't until sometime last year that I started to see that they had reached what Malcolm Gladwell calls The Tipping Point .

Originally personal journals, blogs had evolved into legitimate alternative sources of news on niche and micro-niche topics. The publishing tools became so cost-effective and easy to use that anyone with a passion and dedication (not to mention some good writing skills) could become an amateur journalist. I coined the phrase Micro Persuasion because I felt that some of these sites can have just as much sway on public opinion as larger, more established media brands.

Take CableNewser for example. The blog, which tracks the 24-hour news networks, is written by college student Brian Stelter. He has broken some major stories about CNN. This has helped him develop a following among media biz insiders, so much so, that CableNewser was recently acquired by MediaBistro. This illustrates how blogs and RSS feeds (a powerful publishing platform/distribution channel) are changing the media game. My interest in RSS naturally flowed from reading lots of blogs and learning that there was a better way to manage the flood of information.

Folks like Brian represent a big change for the PR industry, so I felt a need to study it voraciously. Once I felt I had a firm grasp on how blogging works, I also saw a huge opportunity to help clients roll their own weblogs so they could engage in a dialogue with audiences in an unfiltered, transparent environment. These programs were very successful (see below) and it got me even more hooked.

Finally, a few weeks later, on Sunday, April 18, 2004, I woke up one morning and launched my blog on a whim. I realized if I am talking to clients about blogs, well duh, I darn better have one! And now, less than six months later, I am getting interviewed by folks like you – what does that say about blogs as PR tools? My experience alone is a microcosmic case study.

eMarketingIQ: What do you think have been the biggest changes in marketing via the Web, over the past two years most especially in the e-marketing arena?

SR: Google changed everything. It became much easier for consumers to research, find and buy the products and services they need. Meanwhile, programs like AdWords made it easier for marketers to target these consumers just at the right moment – when they are 'in-market.'

eMarketingIQ: Of your most recent projects, which one stands out and why?

SR: The Association of National Advertisers weblogs stands out the most. The ANA is a 94 year-old trade association. CooperKatz & Company has been working with the association for eight years. At the beginning of this year, their execs agreed to take a chance on the hunches of a certain PR guy who was ranting and raving about something called "blogs". They felt that blogs could help them communicate how the trade association is working to address key industry issues facing marketers. These include legislation to restrict prescription drug advertising, the annual TV upfront and more. One of the blogs is written by the CEO Bob Liodice and the other by Dan Jaffe.

When we launched the weblogs the New York Times covered the launch, which is highly unusual for a Web site launch. The headline read – "Trade Group Goes Modern with Blogs." Today, dozens of reporters subscribe to the blog's RSS feeds. They pull quotes directly from the sites and even link to them in their e-mail newsletters as if they were news sites.

eMarketingIQ: How much impact does online marketing make for a product's or business’ success? Is it the most important way to market a product?

SR: Online marketing is pivotal for most companies because it meshes three time-tested marketing methods – branding, direct response and word-of-mouth. It enables marketers to develop marketing programs that synergize these efforts together into a cohesive campaign. That said, however, online marketing is not a panacea. Marketers should keep in mind that the offline world came first and it still holds a great deal of power, not to mention eyeballs.

eMarketingIQ: What is the most difficult thing to convince your clients they need to do, marketing wise?

SR: Believe it or not, it's to blog or not to blog. Blogging is not for everyone just yet and some organizations still understandably want to have complete control over their message. This will become easier, but there will always be some companies that blogging is not right for.

eMarketingIQ: What do you think marketing folks are missing as far as the Web and its potential?

SR: Many companies are missing the opportunity to use the Web to mobilize their customer evangelists. Every company has raving fans; its brand champions. The Web has made it easier to find these folks and make them feel loved so they actually will do your PR for you.

eMarketingIQ: What do you see evolving in the RSS/Weblog industry for marketing in the upcoming years?

SR: The future of blog marketing is that it will humanize business.

Do you remember what business was like in the first half of the 20th Century before the Information Age? I wasn't alive, but my guess is that business was fairly personal. People actually knew their butcher, their baker, their candlestick maker and everyone else they transacted with.

With each successive advance in technology, however, corporations became far more distant impersonal. First it was the phone, then the fax, then of course the Internet and email. It became harder for us to actually know the people behind the products and services we use in our everyday lives.

Blogging is significant because it is reversing this trend. It humanizes business. It gives consumers the ability to see and hear from the people inside the companies they love (and hate). And it gives companies the ability to do the same with customers.

In short, the future of blogging is public relations. This is not PR, but actually relating with the public.