PR firms show growing interest in weblogs

Public trust in ‘real people’ is raising public relations firms’ interest in online personal journals to promote brand names and run political campaigns. A new study looks at the new era of “mass personalisation” and professional word-of-mouth marketing.

Growing popular enthusiasm for – and more crucially, trust in – blogs, is attracting the attention of marketers and PR firms eager to promote corporate brand names. Politicians have also jumped on the bandwagon as blogs typically enjoy a high degree of trust from their readers.

Leading global PR firm Edelman and Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm and blog provider on the internet, have published the first ever extensive study on blogs.

Entitled Trust “MeDIA”, the study promotes itself as a guide to the ‘blogosphere’ for marketers and company stakeholders. It argues that the blogging phenomenon is challenging traditional views about the control of messages by corporations, but also by politicians. 

The report notes that blogs played a role in disseminating information, recruiting volunteers and raising money in support of candidates in the 2004 US Presidential election. 

Politicians themselves have started to surf the weblog wave to try to increase their public trust ratings, sometimes, it seems, as part of a carefully crafted crisis communication plan. The highly unpopular former French PM Alain Juppé – now temporarily withdrawn from political life after being entangled in legal difficulties – is keeping contact with his supporters through his weblog. 

During the Prodi Commission, Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy very efficiently used personalised letters as a tool to give the public some insight into the way trade negotiations work. 

Under José Manuel Barroso’s Presidency, Institutional Relations and Communication Commissioner Margot Wallström has also got down to publishing her own blog. The site enables the commissioner to convey her personal thoughts on politically sensitive issues such as the EU draft chemicals reform (REACH) and climate change (EURACTIV, 17 Jan. 2005).

To the authors of the Edelman / Intelliseek study, the growing importance of blogging on people’s opinion should not be considered as a passing fad but should rather act as a wake-up call. 

But the tip also comes with a warning. As highlighted in the report, blogs can become a company’s worst PR nightmare as their freedom of speech allows information to get quickly out of control.

For interest groups or political campaigners, one possible pitfall of using blogs is the practice known as ‘astroturfing’. The term, described in the Edelman/Intelliseek guide, amounts to fake grassroots-type people creating weblogs where an agenda-driven organisation, agency, think tank, government agency, etc. pays them to say good things about it without revealing that they’re getting paid.

Read more with Euractiv

French liberal group defends Bolkestein directive

In an interview with EURACTIV, liberal association Liberté Chérie has condemned the "deceit campaign" run by French politicians and media across the board on the Bolkestein directive.