Still doubt the importance of blogs in a PR program? Even if you don't belive the importance of blogs in getting to consumers, there's now evidence that they are effective in interesting journalists. Marketing Pilgrim reports that 75% of journalists use blogs to generate story ideas.
The report comes from a Brodeur and Marketwire report and includes these other tidbits mentioned by Marketing Pilgrim:
- Over 75% of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue.
- 70% of reporters check a blog list on a regular basis.
- 21% of reporters spend over an hour per day reading blogs.
- 57% of reporters read blogs at least two to three times a week.
The survey also mentioned that 27% of journalists have a blog. We’ve actually found this to be true a couple of times when we didn’t expect it. Most journalist/blogger combo writers are easy to spot if you read their blog profile. Some blog away as unknowns until you begin talking to them. Then you find out they are an editor for the New York Times or producer for MSNBC and you're trying to remember if you said anything stupid.
So two lessons:
- Treat bloggers as classy as you would regular media. Sometimes they end up being a journalist who can put your story on the front page of a Sunday section.
- Even if you don’t end up coming across a journalist/blogger, you’ll still want to address the medium with the respect it deserves. As you see above, placement on a blog can influence the main stream media, and journalist reliance on this medium will only increase.
The full PDF can be downloaded here.
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