When the ResponseSource Enquiry Service was conceived the idea was that staff and freelance journalists would be the only people placing media requests.
Things have of course changed and journalists no longer have exclusivity over content creation like before - today citizen journalists mingle with corporate authors as well as journalists to generate the content we access online.
And so for a while we've been opening up ResponseSource to non-journalists. Perhaps the most interesting group here being bloggers. We also allow subscribing PR professionals to post enquiries.
The response from the PR community has been mostly positive with many loving the fact that bloggers are sending media requests. However some perceive that these enquiries and those from PR subscribers 'dilute' the service (please note our preferences system allows users to filter out these enquiries).
Personally, I believe opening up ResponseSource is the right way forward. While they may vary in quality and influence blogs are undoubtedly important for any brand and enquires from bloggers represent opportunities for the PR community. And now that part of the PR role is content creation, allowing PR subscribers to post enquiries reflects the changing role of PR.
Out of curiosity we took a look at the ratio of enquiries from journalists, bloggers and other senders and here are the results.
Interestingly, staff and freelance journalists still represent the vast majority of media requests - 86 per cent in fact. Bloggers represent four per cent and PR subscribers represent five per cent.
Personally, I'd prefer to see more bloggers making enquiries, wouldn't you?
We analysed nearly 20,000 ResponseSource requests sent between 1 January 2012 and 16 October 2012. Here are the results in text format:
|
Sender Type |
Share |
|
Staff journalist |
44% |
|
Freelance journalist |
42% |
|
TV/radio researcher/producer |
2% |
|
Editorial promotions |
3% |
|
Independent blogger |
4% |
|
PR subscriber to ResponseSource |
5% |
Hi Daryl, good to show the breakdown of this. We'll see more non-journalists wanting to know about information. Some of the people will produce content directly for brand publications and channels but my guess is that the requests will be just as valid. And many of these people will have been journos in the past. I've made the journey myself.
Tony, Collective Content (UK)
Posted by: Tony Hallett | October 17, 2012 at 15:08
This is quite interesting and I have noticed bloggers coming more into the fray on this. however, there is a downside to this too as some bloggers are simply out for free stuff and that is not what this process should be about it should be to help people with useful content for the paper or blog. I wonder if you guys are thinking of putting som kind of influence cap on these so PRs can be assured they are engaging with quality over quantity. Nice post.
Posted by: Chris Norton | October 27, 2012 at 09:33
You make an important point here Chris, you're right that blogger requests can vary quite a lot in their 'quality'. Having said that, they are not alone and some journalists are tempted to blag a bit too.
Anyway, this is an issue we look at all the time and I have written about it previously: http://www.dwpubsporadic.com/2011/12/our-approach-to-moderating-responsesource-enquiries.html
Posted by: Daryl Willcox | November 13, 2012 at 15:18