Survey Results - Some way to go for sceptical PR's before they can embrace the blogosphere

The purpose of the survey and interviews which I conducted at the end of last year, was to establish the current perceptions of blogging as a PR tactic within the public relations industry.

The results showed two very clear trends.

Firstly, PR's as a general rule 'get' blogging. They understand the benefits of blogging and they are very aware that as a form of communication to stakeholders it can be very valuable.

• 94.4% agreed or strongly agreed that blogging can humanise a company.


• 93.8% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘corporate blogging is a failure if it does not improve sales or increase a company’s share price’.

PR's also showed that they understood that there are rules when it comes to blogging. The majority of PR’s agreed that there are a number of key principals for blogging which make a good blog. For example, a fundamental part of successful blogging is openness and honesty.

• 96.9% said that being open and honest about your company in a blog is vital if the blog is to be successful.

The PR's surveyed also showed that they understand the importance of interactivity within blogging.

• 100% said that to some extent it was important to provide a feedback or comments function (60% said it was very important, 40% said it was important/somewhat important

This last stat is not necessarily that surprising - web 2.0 has become a ubiquitous term over the last few years and the technology has evidently deeply permeated the PR industry.

However, the second trend which I found is that whilst PR's clearly understand the theoretics of blogging there is still some way to go in the implementation of this theory.

• 50% said that ghostwriters could be used to provide the content for corporate blogs
• 50% of PR's stated that employees should only be allowed to blog if there was a formal set of guidelines which they had to follow
• 50.8 % said that they would not trust their clients to blog without their direct input
• Just 3.1% said that bloggers should have no restraints on their blogging practices.

These results show that a large number of PR's are still sceptical of the potential for blogging, they lack trust in their clients and they are reluctant to relenquish control. As an industry if we are to embrace web 2.0 and utilise the benefits then we need to move beyond the more traditional notions of what PR does and can achieve. The technology and expectations of consumers is moving on - so must we.

I'd like to finish this post with two quotes. The first is from a senior director of a PR agency who I interviewed as part of the investigation. The second from Scoble and Irael's excellent book on blogging Naked Conversations Both offer excellent insight into this topic.

“People have to bear in mind when they are thinking about blogging that it is a different paradigm from the old ‘press release’ style of doing things. We are starting conversations rather than broadcasting information, this can make it exceedingly effective for PR people but is also far more difficult to understand and implement and I don’t think that a lot of PR people are really utilising the practice to its full potential. We as PR people can’t control messaging any more - it’s a fallacy to think that we can exert full control. It’s not about an individual holding back, its about organisations understanding that they live in a transparent world and everything that they do, good or bad will ultimately get back in to the public domain. It’s more about managing that, than trying to hide things. The concept of trying to hide anything is foolish. "

“Blogging is one huge word-of-mouth engine. Instead of being relegated to the back seat, it now is efficient, powerful and fast enough to drive the whole car. Actually, two cars would probably be more accurate, because it drives our directions – outbound and inbound. Blogging lets you listen to what people are saying about your product, company, or category and gives them the opportunity to respond. The result is that your business becomes connected to a new kind of smarter, more efficient word-of-mouth network.”

If you're interested in reading more about this research project then check out the link this - this should (Google Documents) permitting take you to the full research paper.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfqh3pck_14f5h7wmdt