PR folks: Time to Listen – Global Bloggers Tell It Like It Is

Jeremy Woolf — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:53:28 +0000

We all make presumptions. That’s human nature. After all, we’re analytical creatures and we’re wired to form opinions based on multiple stimuli. But in the PR business, sometimes these assumptions can be flawed. And I must confess, we don’t challenge them often enough.

This was the thinking that led Text 100 offices in 21 countries to survey almost 450 bloggers. We all read blogs. We’d all met with bloggers. And we’d all managed PR programs that touched blogs and bloggers. But, in doing so, we’d also worked on assumptions. We’d assumed we understood their preferences for content and contact. We’d assumed we understood what they were looking for from our clients, and how they wanted to engage with them.

In some cases we (thankfully) were right. But the global survey we announced today in Hong Kong also told us that in other cases, we’d missed the mark.

But first up, a caveat. While the very nature of survey like this does lead to sweeping generalizations (especially when we’re trying to draw conclusions across loosely knit geographic “regions”), there are some core truths that we can extract. So, what did we learn?

Text 100 Global Blogger Survey Report Final

View more Microsoft Word documents from Text 100 Public Relations.

In the 12 months since we surveyed bloggers in Asia Pacific, we’ve seen more PR people contacting bloggers, we’ve also seen more bloggers indicate they’re happy to be contacted. This is great news, but it does come with a warning. And that warning, put simply, is give us what we want. Corporate press releases are still spamming their way into the in-boxes of the world’s bloggers. I don’t have to explain why this is approach is tragically flawed.

They also told us they liked social media news releases – and that they’d seen more of them used over the past 12 months. Encouragingly, the majority said they’d use content from this type of release in the coming year. If you take nothing else out of this post, take this point to heart if you’re looking to get cut-through via a mass communication.

What was also interesting is that many of these views were universal. Bloggers were more similar than different in many areas. For example, they typically like emails, want photographs and, most importantly, want something unique for their community.

When it came to who they trusted for information, our global bloggers were also united. “Other bloggers” were the number one source – and they also wanted data via RSS. Two lessons here – you’re more likely to be listened to if you’re part of the blogging community. And if you want blogger eyes on your content, deliver it through RSS.

But the differences were interesting. As we drilled down into each of the 21 countries, we found unique trends that will help our teams and their clients work better with their blogging communities. One point to note that will help shape tactics is the amount of time bloggers typically spend blogging each week. We found that most Asia Pacific bloggers spent less than nine hours each week blogging – while two thirds their North American counterparts exceeded this. So bloggers in Asia are typically part-timers – which means adapt your tactics (and expectations) accordingly.

So where do I think the next 12 months will take us? Hopefully to a point where PR people realize that bloggers are influencers – not (typically) broadcasters. They create and attract communities around their content – and need to be treated as individuals. Only through the creation of a shared agenda – providing the right content in the right context – can our clients hope to play an effective role in these influential communities.

Jeremy Woolf

Global Social Media Practice Lead

Hypertext » Survey

PR folks: Time to Listen – Global Bloggers Tell It Like It Is