David Bowen in the FT has an interesting piece on business blogs (ft.com) , which although it is skeptical about the genre, also confesses that he is planning to start his own blog. He points out that the interesting thing is that a blog really depends on being genuine and open, and not just engaging in corporate puffery. So he gives low marks to Boeing, but high marks to Edelman. That is a perfectly valid point. Companies are struggling with blogs, mainly because it involves ditching a lot of the language they are used to, and adopting something much more informal instead. Only a few are getting it right so far.

Most of the PRs taking our Blog Relations Survey had never "pitched" a blogger, even though they thought that there were influential blogs out there. Others commented that journalists read blogs and that they are a good route into the mainstream media.  Another said that you don’t "pitch" a blogger per se, you enter into a dialogue.

Well here’s a cunning strategy for PRs. The thread came via Backbone Media where John Cass gives a good summary. Basically the PR does some research on which blogs a particular journalist reads. He then starts to write relevant comments and trackbacks on those blogs, and thus lures the Journo into his web of contacts. Tricky, huh? I suppose you call it ‘profiling’ your target.

Read the full details on Media Metamorphosis where you will also find this advice which makes it sound less devious: "So, how do you get taken seriously by bloggers? The easiest answer is to jump into the pool and become a blogger yourself, but use your blog strategically and join in with other existing conversations."

Of course you need your own blog to be able to leave ‘trackbacks’ in the comments sections which lead back to you. You also really need to blog to understand the blog culture.

Of course this may work for more than just journalists. There are some pretty influentual bloggers out there, including CEOs of big corporations. In the film "Wall Street", the thrusting young broker, Bud Fox, found out the date of Gordon Gecko’s birthday. Well you can find out a lot more about a CEO, including the way he thinks, by reading his blog.

I think this is legit. Blogging isn’t just about publishing and reaching a big audience. It’s about networking and making new contacts whom you get to know over the web. As a journalist, I am far more likely to listen to somebody I know, than somebody who gets in touch with a story out of the blue. Patience is a virtue. It’s best to cultivate over time. Use blogs to build valuable business relationships.

Google is boldly going where no search engine has been before.  It’s signed a deal with NASA.

When most blogs publish they "ping" the blog directories to update and list their posts.  That’s partly why the blogosphere is so speedy.  The traditional search engines take a while to get round to listing new pages.

Here’s "pingomatic’s" chart of the daily pings it receives.  You’ll note a steep climb in September.  My best guess is that  it’s the Katrina effect which really got people blogging like mad.  Big news, especially in the USA, is productive for blogs.  

Many podcasters  are trying to work out how to make money from their efforts.  According to this interesting article in Wired News, Grape Radio is "gulping down" about $1000 a week in sponsorhip.  The show is, of course, about wine.  It seems that carving out a product niche could be the way to go. 

Businessweek’s Blogspotting has a podcast interview with Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. The Huffington Post is a ‘combination of a 24/7 news service and about 400 bloggers’. The primary role of the blog is to provide "instant commentary." It began publishing in May. It now has a million unique visitors a month.

They send blogs each day to Yahoo and AOL, and have just started a syndication arrangement with Tribune Media. Soon they will launch a weekly satirical news show on television and the net. Their main problem is dealing with comments. They have a backlog of 15,000 comments in moderation.

All this, and it sounds like they have around a dozen staff on the payroll. I remember when I started work on an online publication in the dotcom boom. I walked into the office on my first day and found that they had 50 full time staff. They hadn’t even launched.   After their first (and last) year, they had blown £10 million, mostly on advertising. Blogs have certainly changed the economics of online publishing.

It was interesting to see how rapidly word of our PR survey spread. It seems to prove a couple of things - that the blogosphere has really speeded news up - and that blogs work well in tandem with the traditional media. Sometimes it is hard to define what is commercial publishing, and what is a blog . They are on a level playing field in terms of instant news.

In the past, only big news stories were reported ‘as they happened.’ A survey like ours would have languished a few days until a journalist on a weekly or monthly publication found a space or a quiet moment to write it up. Ours was ‘out there’ instantly.

I published at 11 pm GMT on Monday, sent out a few emails about it, and went to bed. In the morning, I woke up and found that The Blog Herald had posted an accurate summary, and that Micropersuasion had given us a link. By the time I had my breakfast,The Media Guardian was on the phone. I had a chat with their reporter, Dominic Timms, and he turned around a news feature article with accurate quotes and information by lunchtime. Around morning in the USA, Businessweek’s Blogspotting was on the case, and I received a phone call from Red Herring Magazine, asking permission to use our data next month.

Information was turning up on blogs everywhere. Some of it accurate, some of it a bit off the beam in terms of facts and figures. I’m not complaining, but you do notice more when the story is about you or something you’ve worked on.

At some stage, the newspaper with the longest history in the world, The Times had picked up the story. They didn’t mention the source of the survey, which was a bit odd, but it was a nice surprise all the same.

In August, we invited 50 PR professionals from around the world to fill in a survey about how they regard blogs as a business communications tool. We are now pleased to publish the results which are filed under their own category on The Angel Blog.

It’s a bit of a two pronged sword. Six out of ten PR people  believed that a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied customer could use a blog to damage a company’s reputation. But eight out of ten PR PROs also think that blogs, if used correctly can be a useful communication tool for businesses.

Meanwhile, although 56 percent of PRs say that they have never pitched a blogger, 46 per cent of those same people think that there are already a "good number of influential blogs."  Perhaps they could be doing more to get their message out to them.

We focused on PR PROs for our survey because we thought that they should be able to provide a leading indicator of how businesses will take to blogging over the near future. After all, this group of people speak to businesses about their communications strategy on a daily basis. Besides which, the PR profession has taken to blogs in a big way - as is clear from the fact that many are active bloggers themsleves.

It is perhaps fair to say that the 50 PR PROs who took this survey are, in the main,  more blog-savvy than the profession as a whole, although the sample does include those who say they know little about blogs.

(By the way, Blog Relations, despite its name, is not a PR agency. Matthew and I are both professional journalists and we are in the business of providing media content, as well as help to businesses with blogs and podcasts.)

While this survey was in progress, two companies, Dell and Land Rover, were both experiencing the wrath of bloggers with gripes against their products. It was becoming clear that both these companies had underestimated the danger from this quarter.Over half of the PR professional surveyed believed that businesses in general have not yet woken up to the threat posed by blogs.

But on the brighter side, a majority of PR professionals also believe that blogs  can be an opportunity for companies as well. Overall, eight out of ten believe that businesses could benefit from setting up their own blogs. This seems liks a big number and it certainly took us by surprise. Perhaps it is because so many PR professionals have benefited from their own experiences of blogging.

We’ve managed to squeeze a good deal of data out of a relatively short questionaire by looking at it from this angle and that. It’s all published here in full detail. We hope you find it interesting.   The fact that many of those taking the survey were kind enough to leave on-the-record comments has helped us to round out the picture.  We hope you find it interesting .

Sorry I am turning off comments because of persistant spam attempts on this post

Sample of 50 PR PROs

The most striking conclusion is that PR Pros see blogs as posing a significant threat to corporate reputations. 64% agree that a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied customer could use a blog to ignite a full blown crisis. 58 percent of respondents agree that businesses have not yet woken up to the threat posed by blogs.

A number of PR commentators emphasised that companies can mitigate the danger by being aware of what bloggers are saying about them. Joel Cere, Vice President at Hill & Knowlton in the UK, says that monitoring blogs is "a prerequisite in crisis preparedness" while Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication and Technology in the US writes that companies must "adapt to the speed of blogs and learn to address them."

Several respondents point out that blogs can be a conduit into the mainstream media. Sarah Forrester, a British based publicist specialising in PR for media companies, says, "It’s interesting that controversial items that are aired/exposed on these sites often end up in the printed media anyhow. What that proves is that it’s a much more immediate way of disseminating information - which surely is an issue for any business."

The only commentator to give an outright dismissal of the alleged threat from bloggers is Neil Boom of Gresham PR in London: "Why are blogs any different from any other form of company pressure group or mad crank?’ he asks. "If companies waste their time trying to deal with bloggers they will tie themselves up in knots."

Stewart Bruce of Bruce Marshal Associates in the UK was not aware of Boom’s comment when he wrote: "The PR who ignores blogs is an even bigger fool than those who think blogs change everything."

Tom Murphy, a long established PR blogger in Ireland, takes issue with the concept of blogs with the proposition: "The idea of blogs as a "threat" is, in my opinion, looking at the wrong perspective.

Overall, a total of 82 percent of the PR PROs taking the survey agree that there are either "quite a few" or "many" businesses that could benefit from setting up their own blogs. (48 percent for "quite a few" and 34 percent for "many").

"Blogs represent an opportunity for firms to better communicate with their audience(s) either directly (via employee or corporate blogs) or indirectly (via pitching third party blogs)," says Tom Murphy, while
Joel Cere, vice president Hill and Knowlton in the UK, notes that “Blogs are instrumental for executive profiling, thought leadership and building a rapport with stakeholders."

Blogging is seen as opening up a dialogue with stakeholders and this is seen by many as the main benefit:

"If we take the time to properly understand the value of a two-way conversation that a blog-platform offers, they can become a tremendous asset," says Matthew Podboy, co-founder of Voce Communications in the USA. Morgan McLintic, Vice President of Lewis Global Public relations in the USA, adds,"You never know, you might even learn something from your audience - which is the beauty of blogging and true communication."

But blogs can be hard work. Katie Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners in the US, emphasises the commitment required by blogging: "Like other marketing efforts, blogs require time, talent and money", she says.

Some more words of warning: Siobhan Aalders,  Director of APCO Europe, says that the main challenge for a company is to create "credibility" for the blog. Neil Boom of Gresham PR is scathing about companies that ‘pose’ as bloggers. "I think it’s dishonest,’ he says.