Good data, thanks.

Curious on the are around trust of contact (Question 13). How do the results compare to non-bloggers?

Alex.

Firstly Richard, Many thanks for posting the results of the survey. This in itself is very rare from corporate business as they want bloggers to participate and input into surveys and discussion. Yet seem not to want to make these things into a 2 way partnership! for want of a better word.

There is a vast wealth of diverse humanity within the blogosphere, that is almost untouched by corporate business, PR professionals and most kinds of business.

Until these people climb down from their ivory towers and start to smell the coffee at ground level and interact with these people in the real world, no progress will be made and the usual media blurb will continue to spew.

Your perception when you said " The old techniques not only don't work in the new world, they erode trust and turn bloggers off". Is like a breath of fresh air, I hope that people from both sides of the fence start to take note.

Again many thanks

by the way, you really should remove the email address and phone numbers people have provided in the verbatim responses, especially as you've mapped their IP addres...

Alex.

Very interesting results coming out from this survey indeed Richard. May be some additional interesting information to add might be the geographical segmentation of the results: US vs. European. The cultural factor might underline important difference on the results. Although we have in France a strong positioning in the European blogosphere, the language barrier doesn't make me very optimistic on the level of participation to this survey coming from France...
Anyway, having some visibility on European/US thoughts might be interesting, more over if any major divergence appears at some point. Should be doable thanks to IP addresses....?

This survey is significant for more than just its findings. It shows that business is taking blogs seriously. If businesses, via their PR proxies, want to woo you, then you’ve kind of arrived. It means that people think that what you write has influence.

By the way, we (Blog Relations) published our own survey last week. We asked PRs what they think of bloggers. So put the two together and you have the complete picture.
http://www.blog-relations.com/category/survey

Like I said on my blog, I think your money quote is:

What does this mean for PR? (...) We need to help companies enter the conversation, but they can only do that with respect, humility and honesty.

It was a pleasure to take part in this survey. I look forward to reviewing the results with our PR people.

As a pr specialist, web user/writer/manager, blog reader and blogger, i am saying that to the companies since... years!

My market is Sudamerica, so i think that the blogosphere has -just a bit- less influence here than in your country.

Thank you for this study, i think that now i have a new tool and new good data to support my thoughts (and as selling arguments).

Regards.

Peter,
I think we will have to reinvent the PR business...what do I mean?
We have been one way street as well pitching or sending press releases
We will have to create relationships or we are cooked!! Thanks for writing

Guillaume,
We should look at this in a statistical fashion. Count on it soon.

DeWeert,
I am really pleased to hear from you. Push hard in South America on this topic. We should have more bloggers there.

Jack,
Thanks for writing. Hope your PR folks buy into this new world in serious way

Marc,
That is absolutely the highlight Thanks for writing send me link to your blog

Hi Richard !

Thank you for your reply to me , re the survey which I filled out - much appreciated !
It was good to see the results of same published -interesting outcome .

Thanks again ,

Sharon,
Dublin,
Ireland.

Hugh,
This is really good stuff
Thanks it is really the other bookend

Thanks for this survey

With the deal between AOL and WeblogsInc the market become more and more interesting for P&R and media Cies

Hi, boss. *8-)

I did some additional work with the raw data and ">have been entertaining myself with alternative "cuts" of the survey, learning new things in the process.

Thanks very much, Richard, for undertaking this enquiry.

The attention Edelman and Technorati have given to a zone where things are getting "blurry" is both perceptive and prescient. That you should wonder how blogs are going to impact PR is the equivalent of having wondered how TCP/IP was going to impact intranets circa 1994. In both cases, the question fetches an answer beyond the asker's expectations or imagining.

Suffice it to say that the blogform will be recorded as the first tangible, specific occasion of the Web having delivered on the promised Democratization we've been reading about since the beginning. Long after it became academic that the Web would have this effect, we had yet to see what I would describe as a *pure example* -- which would necessarily signal a TRUE paradigm shift -- and not the sort we read about in every other press release -- lol.

Since we first began to struggle to understand its effects on our lives, our conception of the Web as medium has continuously referenced more familiar mediums, like Television etc. This has been useful and beneficial to business, because it has permitted marketers and customers to reproduce familiar forms of dialogue -- (examples being: Advertising and Customer Service). The Web has provided many exciting innovations affecting both the speed and richness of the multiform dialogue between companies and the public, but none, yet, that has invited a fundamental transformation of the relationship between them.

Blogs are going to do just that.

You can read more about it by clicking on my name.

Just as Google has understood the Evolutionary Necessity of shifting from relevancy to trust, companies are going to soon appreciate the *greatly expanded* impact of Customer Satisfaction on their success.

There are the links you can buy, and then there are links you are given...

Jack Mardack
President
profitLABINC.com

There are a pair of terms that i like to discuss (and I use to with other bloggers and):

1.new media:
I think that blog culture is present on the internet from the beggining, but the difference now we have traditional reporters writing blogs. Thats represents a shift on perception that we can see on the traditional media.

2.conversation:
I think bloggers *speak* about conversation, but difficulty *practice* conversation.
In the most cases, the tone in criticizing every detail of the big companies / society / whatever is more an invitation to fight, than opening a conversation.

The survey results are no surprise. Large firms with traditional outbound marketing communications programs would prefer that bloggers go away. Failing that these firms would prefer to simply ignore bloggers on the grounds they are NOT influential for mass marketing to consumers. To some extent I think they are right. If you have enough throw weight in terms of media buys you can overcome any influence by bloggers. Bloggers by and large right now appeal to early adopters. This may change in time, but ultiamtely there is only so much talent that is going to give itself away for free on blogs. The rest will sell their services in the market and if large firms are smart they will come with checkbooks.

Dear Richard,

A truly fascinating post. As a PR professional who does not work for an agency, I appreciate the insight.

It seems to me that the ideas of "respect, humility and honesty" should be universal factors in business (and especially PR) ethics. They have not always been convenient to pursue, but perhaps bloggers are making these factors a necessity instead of a luxury.

Best,
Allison Shapira

As a senior in Public Relations at Auburn University, I have a slightly different perspective from all of these seasoned professionals. :-) I was recently reminded of something I learned in one of my very first PR classes: the ideal objective of PR is to develop mutually beneficial relationships between and organization and all its publics. This survey is a positive step toward that objective -- I'm surprised it took us this long!

I agree, for too long PR has tried to fit bloggers into the same mold as other media, and therefore approached them the same way (with press releases and other standard PR). However, just as publics differ and require different strategies, so do media. Blogs are a uniquely important and influential medium. Your survey, along with the Blog Relations survey that Hugh Fraser mentioned, will help PR move closer toward that "mutually beneficial relationship" with a very valuable public: bloggers.

Erin,

What does your professor think of the survey?
Are bloggers afforded real consideration in your PR course at Auburn?

Sharon,

And it was truly a global survey note how many outside of US!!

Allison
Absolutely right
Those of us in business must be conscious of the trust discount currently being applied!

Ohadi,

I take a different view
I think that the influence of advertising is declining That there is real need to have views expressed in free media in order to achieve belief and trust

DeWeert,

I would like to think that bloggers will continue to be constructive critics--even robust critics--because that is key to the credibility. But you are right--they must listen to the responses to have a conversation.

Jack,
Just one idea to add
There is also trust that you must earn
Through engagement through conversation through admitting you are wrong sometimes and fixing it Be it don't buy it

Phil,

Amazing cross tabs
That authority seeking bloggers post more frequently and are more inclined to trust PR agency types
Keep it up we need further insights on this data

Do you think there's any relationship between a company's decision to start (or to encourage) blogging and its market performance? Or its
confidence level in traditional PR initiatives?

As a recent graduate, I had blogs exposed to me through one of my clases. Our professor believed very strongly that this is where PR is heading and he taught us that blogs, when used properly, can be a wonderful tool for real and true communication with a target public. As you said Mr. Edelman, it creates a two way street instead of the traditional one way. I think that can only help an organization to understand its publics and clients.
The way the blogesphere polices itself is unique. It regales honesty and transparency and if you try to enter as anything else, you will not be welcomed. I think this study will go a long way towards the molding and shaping of PR for the future. Where blogging is utilized and understood, and respect and honesty are paramount.

Thank you for your reply. Belief and trust do indeed abound in "free media," but so do conspiracy theories including some offered by mainstream news media. Take the case of the Pocatello, ID, television weatherman (KPVI-TV, an NBC affiliate) who claims the strength of recent hurricanes was the result of a Russian made generator used by Japanese mobsters. Here is the URL for the AP story as published by USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2005-09-20-wacky-weatherman_x.htm

Consumers will need new ways to differentiate truth from fiction as blogs proliferate. The public relations industry has an opportunity to play in that space as I will describe below.

Currently, blogs are enabling technologies used by early adopters and the blog movement contains some of the same idealistic enthusiasm associated with the early days of the Internet. Having been involved with online technologies since the mid-80s, and being an "early adopter" myself, I see an echo of the opening of the free Internet with Gopher text technologies and today's use of blogs. Instant messaging and chat sessions have following the same arch of "liberation" travels.

As to what this has to do with advertising, I think the public relations industry can certainly benefit from what's going on with blogs. Smart advertisers will realize that consumers have many source of information about products and that the "throw weight" of a mass marketing campaign may be an inefficient use of dollars if consumers tune out the message due to credibility issues. Today's New York Times contains a report that cites a statistics from Ford Motor Co.
which is that 80% of consumers do all their comparative shopping online.

See New York Times, BUSINESS | October 10, 2005, At Newspapers, Some Clipping By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE Jobs at newspapers across the country are being cut as advertising and readers move online.
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2005/10/10/business/10paper.html&tntemail1=y

However, what if, hypothetically, consumers are suddenly subjected to the madness of crowds as bloggers take up a single report that FORD stands for "fix or repair daily." What would Ford's response be? How would it use current or emerging online tools to respond to this problem? I think the answer goes beyond creative advertising and goes to the issue of transparency. The best case, which I assume you know well, is the pharmaceutical industry's reaction to the tylenol cyanide cases.in 1982. Using free information the case is laid out at the
Wikipedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tylenol_scare Here is
what the Wiki write-up says about the case.

"Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of McNeil, distributed warnings to hospitals and distributors and halted Tylenol production and advertising. On October 5, it issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products; an estimated 31 million bottles were in circulation, with a retail value of over US$100 million. The company also advertised in the national media for individuals not to consume any products that contained Tylenol. When it was determined that only capsules were tampered with, they offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules already purchased by the public with solid tablets.

Johnson & Johnson was praised by the media at the time for its handling of the incident. While at the time of the scare the market share of Tylenol collapsed from 35% to 8%, it rebounded in less than a year, a move credited to J&J's prompt and aggressive reaction. In November it reintroduced capsules, but in a new, triple-sealed package, coupled with heavy price promotions, and within several years Tylenol had become the most popular over-the-counter analgesic in the United States."

Hopefully, none of your clients will ever have to deal with such an extreme situation. My point is that mainstream public relations firms can embrace the lessons from Johnson & Johnson and from the new online media to deliver their client's messages with greater transparency.
This will be needed not just because it is wanted by the consumer, but also because it ought o be part of the branding strategy of the client. It will align the product or service with a cause, which is truth in advertising. That after all is what the bloggers are looking for and any client who can capture the public's attention successfully with that approach will be bottom line benefits.

Bloggers who push advertisers to be open and transparent are really offering them the opportunity to enhance their brands. The influence of advertising does not have to decline if it takes advantage of this opportunity where practical.

I hope these comments will be helpful.

DanYurman
djysrv@gmail.com

Yes, there hasn't been a lot of "humanity" in corporate voices of that sort. Yet, consider a few fetchable exceptions -- people like Jobs, in whom "failure" becomes a Message for the company, but not as "failure", of course -- but as Failure Transcended.

A reluctance to bring their execs as fully-dimensional humans to the Web has created a gap between companies from which customers feel it's *people* talking to them and companies from which the *speech* is so sanitized, so committeed that there is no feeling of human interaction whatsoever.

Now that customers (in the broadest sense) are feeling the power of their own outreach, of their own voices, in the "out there" of buying things online, there will be pressure to "come down" and engage them at that level.

Like a bazaar.

Before coming out to San Fran, I worked in New York for a little tech PR firm called Technology Solutions. Then I worked a little at Fleishman-Hilllard, out here -- but that didn't go so well. I'm difficult for entrenched processes to digest -- lol -- :)

May I interest you in the services of profitLABINC.com -- ? -- If you were concocting a "Blog Practice", I think I could help you to bill it at $300/hour with ample client satisfaction.

And, as you might expect, after you tool around my sites a bit, I've been playing in some rough-but-tough-making neighborhoods, where the lessons in traffic management are priceless. I put myself into your conversation with such a hope.

Warm regards,

Jack

My question is this:

How do agencies and account executives adapt in the new digital, conversational world of PR? I address that topic is Global PR Blog Week 2.0 - http://www.globalprblogweek.com/ - Blogs & Public Relations Firms ? Challenges, Resistance, Opportunities on September 22 (Thanks Richard for participating). It seems to me that how agencies deliver, value and price services will be altered by online communication and the demands of the new conversational PR and journalism. Many of the networks and top print media outlets now have Internet reporters who monitor on-the-spot news coming from bloggers who are trumping traditional media. Bloggers form their own media network that organically forms around news and then dissipates. A ?smart mob? (a Howard Rheingold term) of global PR bloggers has emerged to monitor PR agency advances on the Net and to act as a beacon for the new practice of digital communications. There are many brilliant pieces posted on Global PR Blog Week 2.0 (from the ?smart mob?) that address PR and blogs from every conceivable angle, from many locales around the globe. Blogs have helped bring the great latent talent in this business to the fore. The Edelman/Technorati survey shows that blogs and bloggers are misunderstood and under used in the PR mix. That?s because it is neither the ?shotgun? nor the ?rifle? that works in online communication (blogs). It is the conversation. So how do you convince a client that paying you a healthy sum is justified for you having several beneficial conversations? The challenge for agencies is to justify the value of the time spent, and to train AE?s that being a respected member of a ?community? has greater lasting value than a ?placement? in a top media outlet.

David,
We are looking at this
As part of our analysis of trust data over past six years
Does performance correlate to trust in company then onto blogs!!

Jack,

Give me a few weeks we are sorting through our staff on WOM so Nov 1 pls

hanks for getting back to me, Richard.

It's an interesting -- but I believe entirely coincidental -- fact that companies that blog have lower share performance than companies that do not. Maybe in a case like GM's, the decision to blog was driven by some dissatisfaction with traditional messaging. But otherwise I suspect it's no more relevant than a share price comparision of firms with CEOs who answer their own email vs. those who don't.

In any event, I'd like to quote from your PR survey for the article.

I was Sun Microsystem's outside PR counsel in 1984 (the firm I founded was Waterside Associates), and boy, things were much simpler then. ("Open systems vs. Apollo's proprietary architecture -- THAT was an easy battle to win.) But now it's no longer just about crafting and delivering a message, but about co-creating a conversation and a message in partnership with customers and others.

I believe your survey will have broad impact on the PR industry, as it should. And it will (of course) also deepen your reputation as a thought leader in this area.

I have a interesting example of this if you have the time. Marcomblog, a blog started at Auburn University where students and PR/Marketing pros converse with each other, had a person claiming to be a Publix employee, respond to a post made by Josh Hallet regarding Publix. In the post there were some potentially libelous comments that the blog operator quickly took out. It's a long thread, but it was an interesting and entertaining exchange.

I do agree though, if the misinformation isn't checked immediately, then it could spread quickly because of how fast the blogesphere moves.

Richard,

My apologies, I may have given the wrong impression in my comment. I do understand from conversations with agency people at GM and reading their blog, that GM is reading the comments on their blog. However, my point was that the customers who comment don't know that that GM is reading their comment because they don't receive a response back from GM. Customers perceive their comments go into a black hole. Now if you are diligent you can find several posts on the GM blog that mention GM executives reading comments on the Fastlane blog. I just don't think that every customer reads those posts, so the perception is for many customers that GM does not listen. See my post and two interviews with two GM customers on the subject.
http://blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com/archives/2005/09/the_gm_blog_les.html

Hi Richard,

I've been blogging a bit about the legal line between journalist and
blogger. Sen. Richard Lugar this week said that the federal shield
law, as currently written, would not protect bloggers.

This creates a majorproblem, as far as I can tell.

Beyond that is the issue of
blogger/journalist/influencer when it comes to PR (your study helps in
that area). But I plan a few more discussion pieces on trying to
determine where PR people put their resources. How do you measure the "influence" of a blog versus the "influence" of a New York Times
article? When you're on the front lines pitching, where do you put
your efforts?

I'm curious to get your thoughts. You may also be interested in a
piece I wrote about how the producers of SciFi's Battlestar Galatica
are using podcasts, blogs and forums to connect with the audience.

http://mediametamorphosis.blogspot.com

Best,
Chuck Tanowitz

>

So many bloggers are really new form of media Not simply consumers
with attitude I like the federal shield law for journalists I would
like it to apply to bloggers

But I see your point legal insulation for a few (Lugar approach) and the many (Edelman approach) which public officials will not support If we define frequent bloggers as qualifying as journalists does this work???

Using the long tail Technorati definition those
with over 5,000 hits a week

I've been talking with Dan Kennedy, formerly of the Boston Phoenix and now a visiting professor at Northeastern. His take (which I'll blog on later) is that we need ot look at "journalism" not the "journalist."

To me it seems like a semantic line that is just as difficult to define. But it sounds like you're heading in that direction as well.

Chuck

Richard, many thanks for your hand in today -- :)

Warren and I chatted productively. One topic of long discussion was how to pitch the services of a Blogging Public Relations practice to prospective Client Bloggers. The short answer is you don't pitch them -- you simply tell them -- ;)

Force of Conviction (to close the deal) + Proof of Effect via Metrics - hits, comments and links (to inspire a feeling of money well spent.)

Unlike Burrelle's clippings, which always felt absurdly insubstantial to me against the money spent, Blogging PR "wins" will build an asset into the future.

For the client with shy execs, or for whom a personal blogger is not appropriate, there are also services. If you enlarge the definition of "blogger" to allow for something closer to an "editor", it allows for a broad range of content types and multiple writers. The CEO could have a weekly "column", instead of the burden of sole contributor to bear. Just brainstormin' -- ;)

Jack Mardack
president
profitLABINC.com

Richard, you must know Elizabeth:

"Cynicism is a difficult beast to slay. It's not clear from your post where you think cynicism is encamped, Elizabeth. Let's assume you mean "cynicism" the way a Marketer would use it -- meaning simply... "Ain't buyin". In that case, the only possible cynics are in the eyes of anybody trying to sell something. And that means the consumers who ain't buying from business and the businesses who ain't buying from other businesses."

Am I the only one who hears a gong?

Jack Mardack

We would be honored if we could be added to this blogger. We are from the World Business for sale is the leading independent businesses for sale listing service
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