New Media and Public Relations: The Influence of the Blog
It seems that everywhere I look lately I am bombarded with blogs and articles about blogs. I find the blogosphere to be very intriguing because people have so embraced this new medium of expression. It causes me to wonder who has time to read all of the information posted on the web. I, for one, only read this blog consistently. I simply don’t have the time to read more. But once I enter the world of a public relations practitioner, reading blogs will likely become a part of my daily routine.
While it’s easy to dismiss blogs as a Wikipedia- esq source of information (non-scholarly, no credentials, anyone can create them), they can wield a surprising amount of influence. Granted, many (if not most) of the personal blogs on the internet see very little reader traffic, but the popularity of a blog can increase seemingly exponentially over night. An example of this is detailed in an article I read in the Wall Street Journal, titled "How a Blogger Put Himself in the Middle of Mark Foley Story; Bill Kerr Set Out to Discover the Name of a House Page and Caused a Big Fuss." (You may have to sign in to the library website to view it.) A recreational, conservative blogger, William Kerr, was able to track down the identity of the page to whom former Representative Mark Foley sent sexual messages. It took some sleuthing, and he was able to uncover it thanks in part to a glitch on the ABC news website, but he blew the lid off the page’s cover. According to Mr. Kerr, his blog went from 32 hits a day to over 40,000. The widely known Drudge Report even linked to Kerr’s blog.
As public relations practitioners, we are often charged with reputation management, and we are responsible for keeping pace with the media coverage surrounding our clients. Blog are one grassroots medium that are difficult (if not impossible) to manage, let alone monitor all of them. How do you think you will handle the issue of blogs about your clients?
I’m not trying to say that blogs are bad for public relations. Indeed, they can be a very effective new media technology with which to reach your publics. They can be more effective than traditional advertising, and companies are beginning to include blogs in their marketing plans.
Blogs and public relations were a hot topic recently at the PR for Games Conference held last month in
What’s your take on the influence of the blog on the public relations field? How can you manage reputation through blogs? Do you think the blogosphere is here to stay, or are they a fad that will eventually pass?
posted by Meredith @ 10/17/2006 08:59:00 PM
5 Comments:
This relates to chapters 9 and 10 in Cutlip, Center, and Broom.
Blogs, Blogs, and More Blogs
I can’t seem to escape this topic. The more I read, the more info I see on blogs. I’m expanding on my last entry with updates on the relationship between PR and the blogosphere.
I recently read an article about a company, Collective Intellect, which is taking Technorati’s blog summaries about companies to a whole new level. (You can access the article via this website: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6128340.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed ) Collective Intellect is targeting corporate public relations and Wall Street investors by combing blogs, news sources, websites, and chat rooms to get clients information on the public’s view of their company before it hits mainstream media channels and affects the company stock prices. Obviously there are fees associated with this service, and some question whether or not the company will get information to its clients before it ends up on the wires, but it is an interesting concept that reinforces the power of the blog in the marketplace.
Also, on Friday, Edelman communications was exposed for writing “flogs,” fake blogs on its customer, Wal Mart. The blogs had appeared to be written by independent supporters of customer Wal Mart. Oops. For a profession so devoted to reputation management, perhaps industry leader Edelman should have considered the implications of this news coming to light before engaging in such shady practices. (Read more about the story here: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=49505&Nid=24192&p=82937 )
Today’s Alligator featured an article on a project to chronicle the “concert blog” of the wall on 34th street. Until I read the article, I didn’t consider the wall as a channel to communicate with publics, but it does function in that manner to some degree. Granted, the messages rotate frequently as they are painted over every few days, but it is a reasonably effective grassroots method of communicating with the students and general public in Gainesville. What are your thoughts on the wall as a blog or communication tool?
Find the story here: http://www.alligator.org/pt2/061023wall.php
I think that the blogosphere is here to stay, like it or not. It is true that there is no way that one person could read every single blog, or possibly attain all of the information. But, blogs create an environment where those of a certain area of interest can come together and discuss their interests. Cutlip says, “Public relations practitioners are increasingly turning to these new media players to reach Web-savvy publics, both trying to attract blog coverage and by creating their own blogs as a part of a communication strategy” (pg. 254). Practitioners need to become aware of blogs and their relevance to their corporation in this day in time as the public turns more and more to the web for information.
Depending on your PR situation, blogs can be relevant to upholding the corporation’s reputation if handled appropriately. The problem is that anyone can start a blog that contain reputation damaging information that may not be true. Practitioners need to make their publics aware of blogs that actually represent the ideas and views of their organization, so that other may not damage their reputation.
Also, blogs can be an excellent way to understand public opinion. Although it is not scientific, bloggers are usually not shy about expressing on the internet what they really feel about a situation or corporation.
As Catherine notes, blogs are here to stay. The popularity of facebook, myspace and other personal blogs indicate just how “hip and trendy” they are. Classes in universities implement blogs to share and express opinions. This is a great place to speak out your voice, even if you’re the shiest person in the universe. Expressing opinion is the first step in communicating, and analyzing voices for a specific topic is another way to understand public opionion. For this reason, it is almost surprising that public relations people did not consider blogs as a tool to communicate effectively with its publics any earlier.
As our textbook indicates, use of new technology will increase work efficiency, and speed, while reducing the cost (p.285). Without doubt, blogs are among one of them. Anyone can create a blog and because of the anonymous nature of Web site postings, people spill out their soul on this certain spot. The only drawbacks for blogs, as Meredith and Catherine point out, are the lack of credibility, overwhelming amount of postings and much existence of junk information.
Due to the pros and cons of blogs, I think this method will be effective to maintain positive internal relationships, as far as public relations wise. In a situation were emotional expressions are concerned, there is not right of wrong. Pure opinion exists, and it’s essential for an organization to know what their employees are thinking. After all, these people are the face of your corporation, and keeping them happy will pay off long time. External relations, however, need to deal with facts and credibility is a focal factor for reputations management. As much as blogs are effective to reach a sea of people in a short period of time, false information and negative elements also travel fast. In fact, the more negative the information, the faster it spreads!
While it is important to monitor blogs to be on your toes, reaching out to external publics via blogs may be an initial step towards disaster. Then again, neglecting blogs to reach external publics also create a problem since this is, as Cutlip summarized, the effective and cheap way to communicate. It will be a struggle for public relations practitioners to find the balancing zone for this new media channel.
It seems that most of our discussions here have covered horizontal territory of blogsphere. Now let’s talk about how deep blogs can go.
As the number of bloggers and postings increases by geometric progression, what people do now is that they bookmark blogs which have the most latest and in-depth information about the topic of their interest and receive continuous feeds update. Often times those leading blogs provide information much faster and in more detail on specific topics. Those leading bloggers are the very “innovators” and “early adopters” who are at the starting point of information diffusion (Cutlip et al., 1999, p. 262).
Therefore, a key for public relations practitioners to deal with information chaos in blogsphere might be to find those leading blogs. Once you find a trunk of the tree, it’s rather easier to picture the flow.
FYI: Blog Network List provides list of blog ranking. They even show the value of the listed blog networks in $$! Have a look.
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