Blogging and PR learn to co-exist

by Sarah McDonald
The explosion of social networking and user-generated-content on the internet poses big challenges for the world of public relations.Life was simpler when the perceptions of people and brands the industry was trying to control came mainly through the mainstream media.Although word of mouth has always had some influence, it is now becoming more important as online social networking booms.So how will the public relations industry deal with a phenomenon it has little hope of controlling?Bob Burton from the Centre for Media and Democracy in the US is sceptical about the role public relations has to play in blogging.He said PR tends to hype itself as being a solution to whatever the latest challenge is to clients or potential clients. Although corporate blogs will proliferate, that doesn't mean they will have the impact that independent blogs enjoy."The credibility of blogs, like anything else, relies on people treating their audience with respect by being upfront. Then people can decide by themselves about how to interpret the information."If you have no vested interest, people will give it more weight."But public relations companies argue that their job is to guard their client's corporate reputations and that the online community can have a huge positive, or negative, influence on this reputation.David Farrar, whose kiwiblog.co.nz recently hit a record high of 15,000 unique visitors a day, said he's definitely aware that PR firms pay attention to what he writes.On several occasions after reporting on what other people think about products, he has been offered them to review for himself.His advice to PR people is to be careful how you treat bloggers."If you ring up and harangue a blogger, they're likely to post about it."Ogilvy PR now includes blogging in its service offer to clients. This can include getting executives up with the play on the size and scope of the blogosphere, monitoring blogs for mentions of a company and analysing the opinions expressed, and helping with writing company blogs.Although it's impossible to control everything written on the web, the successful handling of corporate blogs can give companies a human face, provide a means to communicate with consumers and offer them the opportunity to tell their side of the story.TBWA\Whybin PR managing partner Kelly Bennett considers blog monitoring a part of carrying out market intelligence for a client. TBWA\Whybin PR has used MySpace for a launch.The Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (Prinz) annual conference in Auckland next week includes a workshop on social media and the tools and tactics PR people can use.