One of the most interesting comments about my whitepaper Public Relations versus Search Marketing has come from Carina Birt of SCS who reckons I didn't make enough of the importance of bloggers.
Carina said: "I agree that many bloggers are self-promoting, short in their reach and won’t stay the course but there are many who have significant depth and reach in key areas and are frequently monitored and cited by journalists and analysts. Mutual back-slapping perhaps, but risky for a PR to ignore."
She's probably right that I didn't emphasise bloggers enough. It's just that I was trying to avoid focussing on a specific form on online media. The aim was to keep the whitepaper as a general introduction to the concepts. But ultimately in many sectors online PR activity often does centre around key bloggers.
I think blogging is a massive influencer and Carina is right to highlight that, as she is also right to emphasis that there are an awful lot - some are read by no-one and others are compulsory.
And in the case of blogs the key issue is influence, or more importantly who are the influencers. By understanding your stakeholders you are half-way to understanding who are the influencers online. By researching online and talking to people a picture should emerge of which bloggers make a difference.
Posted by: Michael Blowers | May 14, 2007 at 09:50