Do PR agencies know how to deal with bloggers?

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Aurora

 

We are living in the digital age where the media landscape does not include

just your mainstream media like television, newspaper and monthly

magazines – but also media that has been dubbed as ‘New Media’ by many

and includes:

The micro-bloggers – who talk about a product and brand via their

tweets and Facebook status updates; and

The bloggers – who actually have a dedicated website on e-blogger or

WordPress through which they share their insights.

For the public relations industry ‘New Media’ has slowly become important

as more and more consumer studies have proven that the purchasing

customers are more likely to trust feedback they get on social networks and

consumer generated media (like blogs and forums) versus editorial content

in the media (and lets not even talk about trusting advertising!!).

Given that the digital landscape in Pakistan is also fast evolving, brand

teams and public relations professionals are fast realizing the need to

connect with their consumers via ‘new media’ – and suddenly we see an

influx of PR agencies trying to ‘woo’ a handful bloggers.

Another industry boom? Or just a disaster … ?!  Well here is my take on the

good and bad of this ‘building blogger relationship’ cycle Pakistan is going

through.

The Good

With the sudden influx of product launch invites, freebies and

exclusives, the number of people who are blogging in Pakistan is

rapidly rising.

Customers have more information platforms available for research

before making a purchase decision.

Bloggers use social media to promote themselves. This means that the

blog post (and the brand story) will be shared on Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram, etc.

The news is literally out there immediately when shared with bloggers

– with a service like Twitter, it is shared in a matter of seconds –

followed by photos and videos shared on Instagram.

Successful bloggers, Twitter & Facebook users build like-minded who

share the same interests. You can reach these self-identified audiences

with a laser-like focus to communicate client messages effectively and

efficiently – groups like Karachi Food Diary are a successful example!

The Bad

More and more blogs lack original content – and are simply copy-

pasting press releases and photos sent by the PR agencies.  (Exhibit 1

& Exhibit 2 were discovered in a 5 sec Google search) Where is the

individual opinion?

In the drive to show their clients that they do have ‘new media’

covering a specific event or launch – PR agencies are not looking at

the quality and relevance of people they are inviting to cover it.

Examples include:

A tech blogger at a sanitary napkin launch – Result: one courtesy

tweet!

Zero traffic fashion blogger at a designer shop launch – Result:

copy/pasted press release

Brand teams or public relation professionals still don’t know how to

take criticism and respect individual opinion. What is actually an

opportunity to turn to improve – is either publicly bashed for being

negative or the blogger is just never re-invited after the critique.

The growing phenomenon of bribing bloggers with ‘freebies’ –

especially in the fashion world – this challenges the integrity of the

blogger and the reader feels content is being compromised.

PR agencies are mainly focusing on the bloggers who are reaching out

to them for invites and stories –the quality opinion writers who

actually have followers and are REAL influencers remain mostly

ignored.

The issue is that new media is different from traditional media – and with

the advent of digital PR – one needs to learn the difference between the two

and how to talk to bloggers versus journalists.

Samra Muslim is Project Manager – Digital at M-Holdings. She

tweets @samramuslim

Reference :

Aurora Blog

http://auroramag.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/do-pr-agencies-know-how-to-deal-with-bloggers/