Global PR Blog Week 2.0

By Tim Fischer, Süd-Chemie AG | Blog Initiative Germany
EDITORS’ CHOICE | Challenges of Institutional Blogs

Weblogs - between social convention and technology

Several approaches have been done to assess and define the weblog phenomenon. Weblogs can be described by their social convention, its technology and its structure and content (Fischer, 2004).

This article will assume that weblogs are “a technology, or a social process culminating in an online phenomenon or even an online kind of a diary, if not to say a new form of journalism. The term is as broadly defined as peer-to-peer, to say the least. In fact, a weblog can be all of the above and none of it.” (Dafermos, 2003, p. 27) and that can be anything from a journal to a stream of consciousness commentary or even a full-blown news site. The important features are a steady stream of fresh content and a willingness to link to other existing sites as a raison d’être. Think of the Captain’s log on Star Trek and how it usually served to introduce and frame the upcoming story, and add in a very quick feedback loop. For the most part, weblogs are simple and straightforward. People can publish their thoughts, even for the first time, with almost no training.” (Chromatic, 2002, p. 28). Thus weblogs are more a social convention than a pure technology.

In combination with syndication software like RSS (really simple syndication) they develop a new, unparalleled dynamic on the web. In contrast to other web services weblogs are a mixture between pull and push media and therefore also between pointcasted (one-to-one) or broadcast (one-to-many) communication. The chronological order of content, commentary functions and RSS make them an almost synchronous form of web communication like chat or instant messaging. Weblogs therefore have in respect to other media a very high interactivity potential unlike other media. (Fischer, 2005). In contrast to email, communication partners can stay anonymous. A Blog author can allow anonymous commentary on his blog as well as web feeds via a news aggregator and RSS. Therefore weblogs are a new form of hybrid communication on the web. Although their dynamics are not as fast as instant messaging or chat, which are almost synchronous. Weblogs offer a better network and therefore information spreads more easily. This is the reason why weblogs can be so powerful for public relations communication.

Weblogs and PR Management

This article follows Zerfaß understanding of public relations management (Zerfaß 2004). The main goal of public relations is to build up trust and to communicate with non-commercial target groups. Public Relations management tries to reinforce communication with its target groups and tries to do so as efficiently as possible. Public Relations is following a classical management process with an analysis phase, a planning phase, an action phase and a control/audit phase. The four phases have to be executed under the limitations of efficient communication.

PR Analysis

Within the analysis phase PR management should analyze the relationship networks and link density between different blogs in the blogosphere as well as try to identify different major bloggers (A-Bloggers) and their topics and activities. A focus should be on topics that are relevant to the corporation and strategic items. The use of blog-monitoring services is valuable to the public relations analysis phase and helps to identify the relevant blogs and bloggers with quantitative as well as qualitative data:

Figure 2 - Examples for Blog monitoring Services

Furthermore an analysis should be done to determine whether certain blogs have already been mentioned in traditional media websites and/or whether corporate information like press releases, products, brand names, key persons, etc. have been mentioned in relevant blogs. Now the question is how to determine what a relevant blog is. As a rule of thumb - weblogs that reach a certain critical mass of links and have a considerably high link density can be considered as A-Bloggers. These Bloggers act as a strong multiplying force within the blogosphere as their comments and feeds will spread widely in the web. Blogs with more than 150 links are considered as critical within their relationship structure and tend to fall apart. They are so called social networks that have the potential to become sort of a lead media within the blogosphere yet not have considerable clout to set the agenda within the blogosphere. Blogs with a link density close to 1000 link are considered as political networks and do have the power to set the agenda (Mayfield, 2003). In addition to that within the analysis phase traditional key ratios like hits or page impressions, etc. should be looked at.

Furthermore an analysis about the different attitudes of the bloggers toward the corporation, strategic topics, etc. should be done. Currently there exist several different typologies that can be useful (see Katz, 1999; Ives, 2004; Zerfaß, 2005 for different typologies).

After having identified the potential bloggers comes the second phase.

To sum up the first phase following strategic steps should be taken:

1. Identification of A-blogger and relevant blogs to the corporation. Definition of possible communication relationships and “blog mediators”.
2. Evaluate the power of the different blogs by looking at their link density, size of network, page impressions and hits.
3. Watch social networks and political networks relevant to the corporation.

PR Planning

The planning phase defines which communication concept and which communication approach will be used in order to participate in the blogosphere. With respect to the general strategic goals of a corporation and its derived communication objectives different steps can be taken in order to convey corporation messages or to participate on the blogosphere. I suggest a three step approach. Due to the nature of blogs and bloggers it is best to first gather some experience with this highly dynamic communication environment before actively taking part with an own blog. Therefore the following steps should be considered:

1. Blog Relations: Building up relationships with existing A-Bloggers and potential political networks.
2. “Blobbying”: i.e. starting with blog lobbying activities by actively participating on relevant political network blog or A-Bloggers and trying to post own opinions and/or supplying the blogger with relevant material about the corporation. However this is not without risk. It depends on the attitude and motivation of the blogger whether an active approach is suitable or not.
3. Corporate Blogs: Finally after having gained some experience with bloggers and blogs it might be useful to start with an own blog. Also here certain steps can be taken - starting with an internal blog, building up project blogs, than consider to build up external blogs like employee blogs or CEO blogs. However the use of the right blog also depends on the communication goal and -style of public relations and what the means are. The following table summarizes this idea.

Figure 3 - Use of Corporate Blogs for different PR measures (Fischer 2005)

PR - Actions and Audit

In this phase the developed strategy should be executed and in the final phase again be controlled taking the same measurement as in phase 1.

Further discussions

This article briefly highlighted the different aspects of strategic planning and blogs. Hopefully during the discussion more questions will arise to discuss the matter of PR and strategic planning for weblogs further.

Bibliography

Chromatic, B. A./Krieger, D. (2002). Running Weblogs with Slash: O`Reily Associates, Sebastopol.

Dafermos, G. (2003): Blogging the Market - How Weblogs are turning corporate machines into real conversations, http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/dafermos3.pdf

Fischer, T. (2004): Corporate Blogs - Seifenblase oder Bereicherung?, http://www.diegegenwart.de/ausgabe40/corporateblogs.htm

Fischer, T./Quiring, O. (2005): Weblogs - Ein neues Kommunikationsphänomen zwischen Laienjournalismus und professioneller Berichterstattung, in: Der Fachjournalist, Nr. 3, S. 1-4.

Fischer, T.(2005): Unternehmenskommunikation und Neue Medien - Weblogs als emergierendes neues Medium und dessen Bedeutung für die Public Relations Arbeit, Diss., München, in print

Herring, S. C./Scheidt, L. A./Bonus, S./Wright, E. (2004): Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs, Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS’04) - Track 4, Hawaii, 2004.

Ives, N. (2004): Marketing’s Flip Side: The “Determined Detractor”, in: New York Times, 153 Jg. Jg., Nr. 27.12.2004, S. Section C, S. 1, Column 3.

Katz, J. (1999): Here come the Weblogs, http://slashdot.org/features/99/05/13/1832251.shtml

Mayfield, R. (2003): Ecosystem of Networks, http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2004/09/engadget_a_href.html

Zerfaß, A. (2004): Unternehmensführung und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit - Grundlegung einer Theorie der Unternehmenskommunikation und Public Relations, 2., ergänzte Auflage, Wiesbaden.

Zerfaß, A./Bölter, D. (2005 in Vorbereitung): Die neuen Meinungsmacher - Weblogs als Herausforderung für Kampagnen, Marketing, PR und Medien, Graz.

About the author

Tim Fischer studied business administration at European Business School (ebs), Oestrich-Winkel and worked as assistant teaching professor at ebs and at VWA in Ulm and Stuttgart and as a consultant for the automobile and IT industry focussing on the areas of Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communication and Services Marketing. From 2001 to 2004 he headed the Corporate Public Relations department at Süd-Chemie AG, Munchen being responsible for internal and external communication of the public specialty chemical company. After writing his dissertation and doing his master of business administration on Corporate Communication and New Media with a special focus on weblogs at the Institute for Information, Organisation and Management in Munchen he is now working as Vice President Marketing at Süd-Chemie AG. In addition he is an active supvervisory board member of H. von Gimborn GmbH, Emmerich and member of several PR related works groups. He is co-author and publisher of the following blogs: www.prblogger.de and www.bloginitiativegermany.de.