Blogger Relations as an extension of PR
It had to happen. PR blog The World’s Leading reports that Prompt Communications has launched a Blogger Relations practice, alongside its traditional PR activities. I doubt they’ll be the last.
Blogging is causing headaches in the worlds of PR and AR, not necessarily because they threaten the status quo, but because neither knows how to handle them. In many ways, blogging just highlights the debate between PR and specialist AR functions. There are important and fundamental differences between PR and AR. Now Blogger Relations (BR?!) seems to create another set of tensions. Some bloggers are analysts, some are journalists, some are, well, just folk.
There are a couple of ways BR may evolve.
We may see the emergence of what ARmageddon called Influencer Relations (InfR), where all influencers are managed under a cohesive programme. BR just becomes subsumed into InfR.
My main problem with the idea of InfR is that it stops at “relations”. I prefer the holistic concept of Influencer Marketing, because it makes tangible acknowledge of, and contribution to, the bottom line. AR and PR have always struggled to measure their value in hard cash.
The other evolution path for BR is for us to realise that blogging is just a medium. True, the medium allows huge reach for previously unknown people, but same applied to ecommerce web sites 10 years ago. In our categorisation of influencer types we use the term “blogger” only in rare cases and as a last resort. Charlene Li blogs, but she’s a Forrester analyst. Seth Godin blogs, but he’s an author and speaker. Heather Green blogs, but she’s a journalist. And so on.
One final thing: on-line dialogue, including blogging, accounts for only 6% of communication. Face-to-face accounts for 77%. So before we swoon over the power of blogs, shouldn’t we be setting up practices that deal with Face-to-Face Relations?
I know some people that would benefit from such knowledge ;-)
Blogging is causing headaches in the worlds of PR and AR, not necessarily because they threaten the status quo, but because neither knows how to handle them. In many ways, blogging just highlights the debate between PR and specialist AR functions. There are important and fundamental differences between PR and AR. Now Blogger Relations (BR?!) seems to create another set of tensions. Some bloggers are analysts, some are journalists, some are, well, just folk.
There are a couple of ways BR may evolve.
We may see the emergence of what ARmageddon called Influencer Relations (InfR), where all influencers are managed under a cohesive programme. BR just becomes subsumed into InfR.
My main problem with the idea of InfR is that it stops at “relations”. I prefer the holistic concept of Influencer Marketing, because it makes tangible acknowledge of, and contribution to, the bottom line. AR and PR have always struggled to measure their value in hard cash.
The other evolution path for BR is for us to realise that blogging is just a medium. True, the medium allows huge reach for previously unknown people, but same applied to ecommerce web sites 10 years ago. In our categorisation of influencer types we use the term “blogger” only in rare cases and as a last resort. Charlene Li blogs, but she’s a Forrester analyst. Seth Godin blogs, but he’s an author and speaker. Heather Green blogs, but she’s a journalist. And so on.
One final thing: on-line dialogue, including blogging, accounts for only 6% of communication. Face-to-face accounts for 77%. So before we swoon over the power of blogs, shouldn’t we be setting up practices that deal with Face-to-Face Relations?
I know some people that would benefit from such knowledge ;-)
Labels: blogger relations, influencer marketing, influencer relations, influencers
posted by Duncan Brown at 10:25 am
3 Comments:
Hi Duncan,
Thanks for writing about us. You are right that it is still early days, and I can't see Blogger Relations remaining a discrete activity for very long - perhaps not even long enough to earn its own acronym.
Currently what we are doing for our clients is monitoring what's being said about them in the blogosphere, and advising them on ways they might think about engaging with the more influential bloggers and commenters.
It's by no means clear yet whether this kind of activity will eventually fall into the remit of PR, AR or marketing - and this is one of the things that our clients are asking us to advise them on.
Most likely it will end up being split across all three (which, in smaller companies, tends to be all one 'influencer relations' person anyway, even if it's not called that), depending on the day job of the bloggers in question. As you say, some of the bloggers we are tracking are journalists and analysts, but the vast majority are end-users of our clients' products, and thus not the traditional focus of PR at all.
One last thing - I don't think we're swooning over bloggers; just acknowledging that they're there and that their influence is increasing, and thinking about how our clients can best engage with them - if indeed it makes sense for them to do so. For now, this all that most of our clients need us to do.
Thanks for commenting, Fiona. No disagreements here!
The most interesting thing you add, I think, is your note that the majority of bloggers are your clients' customers, blogging (presumably)on their use of their technology. Whither customer reference programs if the customers are sharing this kind of info publicly...?
You've certainly tapped into a major uncertainty for tech firms - how to manage bloggers. 2007 is the first year where they really have to get their heads around the issue.
Good luck!
Thank you! So far the bloggers we're seeing are the techies, who are blogging about the fine detail of features and functions in our clients' products. It's very different from customer referencing, which tends to take a high-level, longer-term view of the business benefits brought by a specific product or set of products. I'm quite sure the two can coexist - for now, anyway.
That said, most of the bloggers we're seeing at the moment are excellent advocates for our clients' products, as they tend to be hardcore fans. In a perverse kind of way, we were a bit disappointed not to find more controversy in the blogging community - it would certainly make blog-monitoring more saleable!
Of course it might all change when CFOs and business users and the like start blogging en masse, although most people seem to find more exciting things to blog about than how their accounts software ran a bit slow today...
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