Megan

 Just in case anyone is wondering whether I have fallen off the face of the earth, I have decided to make an update.

 Since I am now in the actual writing part of my thesis, I have been doing all of my work in a wiki instead of a blog, because it is much easier to organize and edit that way.

 The writing is going well, and in due time I will be linking my thesis here for all to read.

Bob Wyman, CTO and co-founder of PubSub, wrote an article on what he refers to as Prospective Search Technology and how it can be used in PR.

Basically, one of the underlying problems with many blog search engines is that they can only search past data. Search engines like PubSub help to eliminate this problem by instead searching in real time. This prospective searching is a way to keep up-to-date on subjects of immediate interest. The items that come up in a given search are constantly updated as new information becomes available.

Sites like this are crucial for good PR content management. BY using prospective searching, PR professionals can be continuously updated on a given situation, which will then allow them to react to it more quickly. It can help them get ahead of the trend or head off a crisis. Also, PR practitioners can gather information a situation before it hits mainstream media. Since rapid response is an important aspect of PR, sites like PubSub will play a valuable role in this field.

An article at Mutually Inclusive PR cites an excellent idea for PR bloggers. The author, Eric Eggertson, suggests that one way that PR blogging can be improved is to create a master list of things that generally appear in PR blogs. Then instead of having to type it out, a blogger can just cite a number from the list.

 Besides being an interesting idea for bloggers, this list is also helpful because it shows some of the issues that PR bloggers currently face, such as whether or not PR is dead, or how blogging will affect things like press releases. This list is a great resource for anyone wishing to examine some of the issues associated with blogging and PR. It also gives bloggers a bank of ideas to pull from if they happen to be stumped for an idea of what to blog about in a given day. Plus, since it is a Wiki, new ideas can be constantly added, which will enhance the list and give birth to new topics of debate.

Recently, Shel Holtz posted about a blogger survey that showed some unbelievable statistics. It basically claimed, among other things, that 55% of corporations are blogging internally.

 While this sounds like quite an impressive statistic, this survey has many flaws.

 First, there was no report of the methodology used. That means the readers of the survey do not have access to the sample size, how the sample was chosen, the demographic data of the respondents, or the percentage of error of this survey. Also, as Holtz points out, because the survey was publicly accessible on Survey Monkey, then it is likely that only people who work for companies that blog responded to the survey. This oversight on the part of the surveyor skews the results.

 Something needs to be done to correct this problem. If someone really wanted to figure out how many corporations are blogging, then they need to systematically sample a random selection of corporations and send them the survey instead of making it publicly accessible. They also need to report their methodology and percent error. Surveys can be difficult to conduct, but a proper method can ensure more accurate results.

An article in the Wall Street Journal about Measuring the Impact of Blogs brings up some interesting points.

Even with a large amout of data about blogs, it is hard to determine the impact of blogs, because the numbers can be deceiving. Some people create a blog and then never post in it. Some people create blogs simply for the purpose of publishing pictures or sharing information with a small network of people. Some privatize their blogs so nobody else can read them.

 I think in order to truly begin to measure the impact of blogs, more survey research needs to be conducted. People need to be asked how they use their blogs, how often they blog, and general opinions on the practice as a whole. Also, demographic data needs to be collected to determine who is blogging and what sort of people use blogs for what purpose. Numbers are a good start, but there needs to be more qualitative research in order for people to fully understand exactly what kind of impact the blogging practice has.

While looking for more blogger surveys, I stumbled upon this blog survey weblog, which appears to be a collection of data from a number of different surveys. What I found most interesting was the distributed population survey. It shows that the vast majority of bloggers are female, and more than half of bloggers are between the ages of 13 and 19.

 This is astounding. Livejournal alone has 1.6 million teen blogs.

Most of these teen blogs are simply personal weblogs where they post about their daily lives. However, they are still in the blogosphere, and they already have the potential to one day becoming business bloggers.  Perhaps if people want to see PR and business practices supported by blogs in the future, then educators should begin targeting this age group and teaching them the other uses of blogging besides personal use. Then when they get to the college level or beyond, they will already have the skills they need to become quality bloggers.

In an attempt to figure out what needs to be done to bridge the gap between bloggers and PR people, Richard Edelman distributed a blogger survey to gauge people’s opinions on the matter.

 This survey was good because it asked basic questions about why people blog in the first place, and how often they blog, and then went on to ask about how people feel about blogging about other companies and about being pitched by PR representatives.

The blog results showed that there are definately some trust issues between bloggers and PR practitioners. It appears that part of the issue is that a lot of bloggers have never been contacted by a PR representative, which means there has not yet been an opportunity for trust to be established. So one way that I see that bloggers and PR people can begin to bridge the gap is for PR people to become more active in the blogging community and establish relationships with the people they eventually want to pitch to.

I have written several pages about the rules for writing a good pitch for blogs. This Marketing Roadmaps article explains how to effectively engage with bloggers to send them company news and announcements. Like with sending good product or service pitches, the company needs to read the blog and become familiar with the interests of the blogger.  Then they need to decide which blogs make sense to include in their announcement. After that, they should send a brief note asking permission to send announcements to that blogger.

These are great guidelines that are easy to follow. If a blogger agrees to recieve the announcements, then they may find something in those announcements worth blogging about. Plus, if the company continues to read the blog and engage the blogger, it will establish a good relationship for when the company has future pitches or announcements.

 If a blogger denies a request to receive announcements, then the company will know not to waste its time there and can move on to interested bloggers.

 

I read an article at PR Opinions about Blog Relations. This is an interesting topic that I hadn’t really thought about before. The article talks about how, as a PR practitioner, how you can promote blogs “without causing a backlash against you or your client.”

It basically says that the good blogs will self-promote, and I agree. A good blog is one that is truthful, relevant and interesting.  People made aware of such a blog will ultimately spread the word on it, and not on the poorly executed ones. Blogs pretty much speak for themselves, and an effective blogger can control the message to bring the desired result. Bloggers should not try to promote their blogs beyond maintaining the qualities of a good blog. If they try to force the blog on people, it will most likely fail. Instead the blogger should maintain the rules for an effective blog, and the people will come to it.

I recently learned about Moblogging, where people can post to their blogs from their phones. This in itself is great technology, because it allows users to make blogs posts when they may not have access to a computer.

 Well, the people at Blogger have taken it a step further. Now users can place a call to their blogs and post audioblogs directly from a phone. To me this is amazing and extremely useful. Moblogging is handy, but when someone has a lot of information that they want to put on their blog, it can be hard to type it all in on a phone keypad. Audioblogging is so much easier. It allows for stream of consciousness type posts where the blogger can update readers on the spot and have a record of it for future reference. This is a great way for people who don’t have access to a computer to get information out.