Learned a good lesson this week about choosing apartment blog distribution in the workplace – one I am humble enough to admit.
Real Life STL Media, an entity of Mills Properties, published a post today that was called into question. Not in the way you might think. It was not by an outside source but rather an insider.
Distribution Channels Matter
Not an hour after publishing a piece of content on our apartment lifestyle blog; I received a call from one of our internal team members suggesting the content was not okay for the workplace. An assertion that I didn’t understand in the moment. But after some discussion laced with examples, it dawned on me that the content was not the problem but rather the distribution channel.
You see, several weeks ago we decided to subscribe every team member (leaving the opt out statement clearly in place – so you could unsubscribe if you wanted to) to the blog via internal work email addresses. At the time we thought that would be a good way to gain exposure. In hindsight I can see that people should always have a choice to opt in or out of what they want to see. That is as true in the secular world as it is in the professional work place.
We had two choices – tone down the content or do a mass unsubscribe.
Your always learning and adapting Multifamily Manic,
M
0 Responses
Ouch. So what is the apartment blogger who wishes to not be at the center of a controversy do?
Not a thing – we acted accordingly.
Ditto!
Melissa, YOU are not now, nor will you be, in the center of any controversy. If any controversy arises from this, it’s on Mike, not you (sorry to throw you under the bus but I think you’ll agree with me, Mike). As a blogger myself, I know the feeling you get when any issue (real or imagined) arises. But if you followed protocol on your end, which it sure sounds like you did, you won’t be at the center of anything except a top-notch drag show and a table full of drinks.
You rock Michael. Cheers –
Hey Mike,
I am not sure I completely understand the issue, (I think I do, but not sure) could you explain a bit further, as I suspect there is greater learning here. Thanks in advance for sharing.
On a separate matter, it is interesting to see Mills set up a separate entity for Media Distribution, can you share and elaborate on that? I like it a lot, and it would would seem Mills is on their wat to Branded Media?
Hi Eric,
Hope all is well.
The content was a very good story about a bar that is frequented by one of our writers. The bar attracts people from the LGBT community and is very popular in general.
Not one thing wrong with the content.
The rub comes in the way of our election to mandate the blog by opting all of our team members in via their work email addresses. On the surface, not a bad thing. It would be not unlike a company newsletter being sent to every employee in their paycheck (if we still had paper paychecks). Or sending that same newsletter via the teams work email addresses. In this case – the content might be called into question as it relates to one’s personal preferences.
We don’t want to limit the content that we are producing so it seemed like the best option for us was to opt 100% of our company email addresses out of the distribution and invite them back on an opt-in if you want to.
On the entity note – we are in the early stages of launching a full set of small business services. A plan that is about two years in the making. There will be more to come over the next four to six months starting with a meeting with our owner today. We will be sure to keep you posted.
Hope your weekend rocks.
M