If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can even subscribe by email! Thanks for visiting!

My favourite Sydney PR agency Text100 have just wrapped up an Asia-Pacific survey of bloggers [pdf report], asking them what they wanted and how they preferred to be contacted.

Personally, my own demands are few and quite logical:

• Copious bottles of Verve Cliq in order to motivate me to read any of your press releases
• Free business class flights and appropriate accommodation to meet with you once a quarter so you can avail me of more of your clients’ stuff
• Copious fawning and bowing at my feet from the most attractive female members of your staff.

Having been assured by Antonia Christie at Text100 that these simple demands will be met each time we meet, I then studied the raw data and findings that Antonia ’secret squirreled’ to me.

Here’s some key stuff:

• We want to be treated professionally, not just as an electronic deposit box for your endless releases
• We want to build up a long-term relationship with you, Mr/Ms Agency, therefore please start a conversation with us before you hammer our inboxes
• Be a part of the blogging community that you wish to engage with. If you don’t know who and what the key players and key issues are, we won’t take you seriously
• Be the appropriate person from your organisation to contact us — that is, the person who is actually close to this issue, not some office junior fresh out of his/her undergrad PR degree
• The Social Media News Release [video introduction to SMNR] is key to gaining our respect. Use it, or lose it
• The majority of us actually do have some ethics, and would therefore honour an embargo. You will figure out over time who won’t (and the ethical amongst us would expect you to not contact them again)
• Similarly, the majority of us do believe in disclaimers — that is, if you throw some kit and kaboodle our way, we will more than likely disclose that fact so there’s no hidden conflict of interest. Oh, and never request the return of products you send us for review — the vast majority (99.985%) of us do this for love, not money, and we don’t have the time and money to repackage everything and send it back to you.

I guess the standout, one sentence précis of this is:

It is crucial for PR people to know their target,
know what they are interested in,
offer them unique information,
and know how they like to be engaged with

There’s a whole lot more in the final report, including the stats breakdown and stuff, and even video reports.

Jeremy Woolf, Text100’s Peer Media ‘lead’ (whatever that is - see note about jargon below), offers advice and tips on how to engage with bloggers following the results of the Text 100 APAC Blogger Survey, all of which are YouTube vids:

• Jeremy unveils why this survey interests PRs
• This is a unique survey to APAC
• Jeremy provides tips to engage with bloggers
• Jeremy discusses what bloggers want

One interesting finding from the textual analysis (as distinct from the purely quantitative stuff) is this comment:

“Those who contact me should not be lost in their own jargon”

Wise words, indeed, and something we ALL as business communicators should remember!

One of my very own academic colleagues, Michael Netzley in Singapore, offered the following thought about the survey:

The survey showed that effective PR agencies need to make social media part of their DNA. …To succeed, PR professionals must increasingly become grounded in social media.

Many thanks to the be-lurgied but assuredly still gorgeous Antonia for giving me a sneak peek at the results.

You can read Text100’s news release and download the pdf report.

Currently playing on the trusty teak-walnut laminate BetterComms radiogramme: ‘Mr Siegal’ by Tom Waits. Classic line: "How do the angels get to sleep when the Devil leaves his porch light on?"

Stumble it!

Filed under: PR, blogging, podcasting, tools

6 Responses to “Text100 surveys bloggers - key findings enclosed”

1. Lee Hopkins Says:
   June 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am

   That’s not bad — Google found this post within 4 minutes of posting

2. Jeremy Woolf Says:
   June 26th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

   Thanks for the post Lee. Looks like I’ll need to review my title! The survey was an interesting exercise and we’re hoping to make it a regular thing. Also keen to get any and all feedback to ensure we (the PR industry) improve the way we work with bloggers.

   I also like Michael’s comments - is clear that understanding social media dynamics is key for all PR folks, not just discrete teams or specialist agencies.

   - Jeremy

3. Text 100 APAC Blogging Survey « Tale Spin Says:
   June 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

   [...] thanks to two of my favourite local bloggerati - the always insatiable Lee Hopkins for his story on the survey and Laurel Papworth for giving me way too much credit in her [...]

4. Paul McKeon Says:
   June 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

   Thanks Lee, there was some tweeting about this too last week: http://summize.com/search?q=%22Text+100%22+blogger+OR+bloggers

5. Nick Hac Says:
   July 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am

   “Be a part of the blogging community that you wish to engage with. If you don’t know who and what the key players and key issues are, we won’t take you seriously”

   So true! The same applies to twitter.

   http://www.shiftedpixels.com.au/blog/2008/06/who-uses-twitter-and-why-it-matters_23.html

6. Better Communication Results » Attention Corporates and PR agencies: read NOW! Says:
   July 9th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

   [...] strongly recommend you read Text100’s excellent survey on the blogosphere and how blogger relations should now be a definitive part of your strategy, be you client or [...]

Leave a Reply

Please note:
1. If this is your first time commenting using the email address you have given, your comment will be held in 'moderation' and won't appear until one of us here at BetterComms Towers approves it. This stops spammers from flooding our posts with garbage. It may take up to 48 hours for your comment to appear -- sorry!
 
2. This blog runs the WP-Cache plugin, which reduces the amount of processing our host's server has to perform on this blog. The result for you is that our site crashes less. The downside is that sometimes it might take a minute or two for your comment to appear. Please don't resubmit your comment if it doesn't appear straight away. Please be patient and try refreshing your browser after a minute or two... Thanks, Lee