I found this interesting story and I wanted to share it with my readers. The story is about how blogging is becoming a "source" for journalists when finding, researching, and writing stories. The author of this article is going to be presenting this talk at the DMA Association meeting coming up, but the stats of journalists turning to blogs instead of press releases and more traditional PR firms for stories is staggering.
Click Here for the Story.
I found it interesting that the author of this story used the words push vs. pull in terms of PR. I have written and used this terminology for years regarding advertising and marketing, but this is the first time I have seen someone else use it in conjunction with PR. However the strategy is the same in either case. The audience (in this case journalists) wants to pull their stories and sources as opposed to having stories pushed on them or "pitched" as the term is often used by PR firms.
This will really change the way PR firms work in the future if the trend continues. If you want to see my thoughts on this same topic regarding Internet marketing and advertising see my white paper I recently wrote on this topic in conjunction with Flash based ads and web sites.
Also a couple of years ago I came across this article that discusses the need for "corporate blogging policies" if the blogging trend continues. Basically, the thought is that PR firms can sanitize or spin stories certain ways to achieve a certain effect and it appears that journalists are pushing back against this by using blogs as sources, which they probably feel gives them a different angle to look at or a more "raw" version of the story before the PR people re-work it.
If corporations are going to include blogging as part of their marketing and PR strategies then how they use blogs will have to be formalized, just the current PR strategy is. You don't want cowboys out there in your company writing whatever comes to mind in a blog and having it become the "official" position of the company or put the company on the defense because a journalist read the blog and follows the trail.
From politics to business to life style, blogs are changing the Internet and offers a tremendous opportunity to businesses if it is implemented correctly. I offer help and consulting on this topic as well as many others and if I can be of help to your company please give me a call or email me with your questions and thoughts.
I am also working on a new white paper about blogging strategies that will be published on my web site soon. Please check that or this blog for an announcement when I have it ready. Until next time may your Internet marketing strategies be successful.
Michael Temple
