I learned this week that Candice Crawford has joined Midwest Sports Fans as a volunteer blogger. Let’s make one thing clear: I’m not writing this post because Candice Crawford is the younger sister of celebrity Chace Crawford and happened to be a former beauty pageant crown holder and has now decided to blog. For those who know me, that is way too shallow of a topic for my views on how Social Media is impacting the marketing world. What I find interesting about Candice Crawford joining the writers at Midwest Sports Fans is that she is a traditional journalism student who is just flat out being smart about her approach to her future career.
I learned of this event as I follow Midwest Sports Fans. Candice was out the door with a great post about Pioli’s move to the Kansas City Chiefs. So, I immediately begin to ask, why are journalism students and television reporters joining volunteer blogs? Don’t newspapers, television stations, and universities have their own online outlets for blogging? So, I started to do some research by simply “Googling” and asking questions about Candice.
Candice Crawford’s career goal is to be a television sideline sports reporter. As an intern for The Blitz in the summer of 2007, she showcased her reporting drive as she kept up with the dynamics of The Dallas Cowboys both in the locker room and on the field. She has the education, proven ability, and the camera presence to stand out. So why join a sports blog when the cameras are rolling?
Traditional media is under severe pressure these days. One of those pressures comes from the Internet. A key mistake that traditional journalist sand media moguls alike have made in the era of the Internet is to approach it with the strategy “simply posting online is good enough”. That’s not what social media and blogging is about. The blogosphere is built on etiquette and undocumented rules that can literally define a blogger’s reach. When asked to speak on a panel for the Dallas Luxury Marketing Council this past year, several publicists in attendance asked how to approach bloggers. My response revolved around authenticity, which was a core theme in journalism and publicity alike long before the Internet. Moreover, Internet writing styles have to accommodate both readers and search engines alike.
I reached out to blogger Jerod Morris who runs Midwest Sports Fans and asked about the recent additions to his volunteer writer staff. One is Scott Reister, who is a television sports reporter out of Yakima, WA. The second, obviously, was Candice Crawford.
“We’ve had several higher profile writers inquire into Midwest Sports Fans over the past few months. I partially attribute this to the pressures being placed on traditional journalist to expand their horizons. As with any of our writers, I work with them to integrate them not only into our blog and its relationships but to other forms of social media where we have a presence such as Digg,” commented Jerod Morris, an online marketing professional and sports blogging enthusiast.
Social Media is changing the way we consume information. In many cases we turn to the Internet for the most up to date news. Whether it be live following of the bombings in Mumbai through Twitter or trying to validate rumors of a player trade through a sports blog, the Internet has changed the name of game. Smart journalists and students alike are getting out in front of this and in many cases it is in the blogosphere versus traditional media websites.
