Everybody blogs now, including a lot of people that, based on the self-serving poorly-written drivel I sometimes read, shouldn’t. For digital PR, it’s become the fall back answer for clients who want to dip their toes into 2.0. Start a blog, they say! Well, Melanie says that not every person or product is deserving of one. Enter: celebrity blogs.
I was forwarded this link of 66 celebrity bloggers. Some of them are unsurprising (Michael Moore, Bill Mahr), some of them are actually interesting (Moby) and some of them are just plain confusing (why does Alyssa Milano have a baseball blog?). While I admit I didn’t have the time to run through all 66 of them, I noticed a trend: the blogs that were actually written by - or believably written by - the celebrity in question were somewhat fascinating and the ones that were solely there for tour updates or events, well, sucked.
Rule 101 of blogging is that you only start one if you have something to say. Way too many people have blogs because they think that they should have one or because it’s the “hip” thing to do, but that misses the point. Blogs are great tools, great communication tools; and Kanye West telling me to look at pictures from a Luis Vuitton party he was paid to be at is not communication, it’s advertising for Luis Vuitton. That will never be as interesting to me as a random mom in BFE Nebraska with who actually has something witty to say.
While I believe that some of these celebrities actually write and/or contribute to their blogs personally (Dave Barry, Kevin Smith, Radiohead), do they honestly expect me to believe that Kanye or Posh and Becks have anything to do with their own blogs? Please.
Identifying with fans is one thing, but using a blog solely to post pictures from tours and let fans know when the next movie is coming out? That sort of information belongs on an artist’s homepage. Celebrity blogs need to be used in the way that real people blogs are meant to be used: to let everyone know the “real” you.
