Today is a confessional blog post.

Confession: I’m an idiot.

Okay, that’s being a little harsh on myself. But I sure felt like an idiot when I sent a note about I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster to my good friend Joe Bua, a superlative teevee blogger …

… and he responded by telling me he hasn’t blogged since July. To be exact, July 13. Wrote Joe (in part):

Has absolutely no one noticed that I haven’t written anything on my blog since July? Seriously. I even sent out emails to ppl (not you, you’re not on that email list) and no one, NO ONE has figured it out. Yet. Still. I just got tired of it. I get inquiries every day. Many of them. Anyway, sorry … not your fault. I am kinda pissed that there wasn’t any negative reaction to my not blogging anymore.

So here’s why I’m an idiot. Well, two reasons. Number one, I wasn’t checking Joe’s blog every day. It was great. Joe’s a terrific writer. He should be working for — well, for whoever he wants to. Number two, I didn’t check Joe’s blog before I sent my suggestion to him.

All of which says a coupla things about the worlds of blogging, outreach to bloggers and online communications in general.

First of all, if you’re a blogger you should probably assume that once a blogger, always a blogger, so get used to it … at least where your email is concerned. Joe gets inquiries every day because his hard work got him on all sorts of mailing lists for teevee people. It’s a lot easier to delete those emails than it is to delete one’s name from all sorts of mailing lists.

Also, you might want to think about maximizing your push marketing. Sure, people will find you blog, but are you making your feed available via RSS? Are you sending out a regular newsletter? Are you pushing links to particularly notable content out to relevant audiences? If audience really matters to you, you need to keep reaching out to that audience on an ongoing basis, otherwise when you disappear they won’t notice … because they haven’t really been noticing all along.

Now, a word for you people who, like me, do this thing called media relations: Are you even paying attention to the lists you use?

As a blogger, I get all kinds of email from all kinds of people. I’ve even gotten spammed by Tea Party organizations. (Yes, spammed, in the very legal sense, too: I never signed up for their lists, they just added me and started mailing to me. When I asked them how I got onto their lists, they couldn’t tell me. But that’s another rant for another time.) But like once a blogger, always a blogger: It’s easiest to simply delete the email I don’t want to read.

The problem is, we’re all rushing through the day and the week at hyper-internet speeds. Corners get cut all the time, and when corners get cut mistakes get made and people look stupid and people get annoyed.

I don’t know how to slow down this runaway train, but I do know this: We all need to take a deep breath and slow it down and take a little more care with the email we send. Let’s make sure it’s sent to the right people for the right reasons at the right times.

Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s make sure it’s not riddled with typos, either.

Happy Monday.

The Anti-Social Media asks: “How boring is Google+?”

Good question.

How do you support an executive who keeps hearing about social media but hasn’t gotten his or her feet wet yet? Maria Ogneva has some answers over on Mashable, but one element is missing:

Be authentic.

Executives should not be getting involved in social media if they’re trying to create some sort of PR-dept.-scrubbed image of themselves as opposed to trying to create genuine conversations that address customer concerns with straight answers.

In related news: That infographic up there was created last year and can be seen over here.

Over on Fast Company, Brian Solis posts about the 2011 State of Social Media. Lots of stats to be found there, including nuggets like this: “53 percent of active adult social networkers follow a brand.”

Now, that may be, but I’d like to know more. Does “follow a brand” mean they clicked a brand’s “Like” button on Facebook, or are they paying attention to what a brand has to say?

I think it’s the former … which actually has very little to do with the latter.

Erik Hauser of the superlative Experiential Marketing Forum gives a heads up about this AdAge article detailing how Chief Marketing Officers are having profound issues dealing with “a flood of data, devices, social-media and media channels, paired with their own worries.”

Erik’s advice: “Spend your or your client’s money creating positive, highly engaging brand experiences where your audiences spend their time. When in doubt get great counsel to help and shift back to basics.”

My $.02: The article could have been written in 1998. History is beginning to tell us that large companies in and of themselves are not likely to become as nimble and responsive as they need to be in order to leverage all the new media tools out there … but they can work with agencies and consultants who are. By taking something of a leap of faith and actually trusting them, despite the fact that they’re probably viewed as corporate outsiders, those companies can gain more by trying to control less.