Corporate Blog Strategy: Feed the Guru And Expert to the Media

[Rodger D. Johnson]

On his blog, Social Media Domination, Doug Karr has written "Revelant, Frequent, Quality Content Wins." And it was just what I needed to motivate me to think about the broader strategies of blogging for public relations professionals.

He writes, "when you write frequent, relevant and quality content you continue to increase the likelihood that people will link back and reference your blog."

Survey says more Journalists use RSS

The TEK Group and Bulldog Reporter found 16 percent of the reporters surveyed said they subscribe to five mor more feeds. The report found ...

• Respondents reported that the single greatest change in journalism practices due to new Internet technology is that they can now research corporate and other news online 24 hours a day as well as access media contact phone numbers and email addresses.
• Nearly half of all journalists report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a week, and more than 85 percent report visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a month. Ironically, despite this new capability, a majority of journalists complain that when they visit organizations’ websites, it’s often difficult to find the organizations’ media representatives and contact information.
• Journalists also report a significant usage of blogs, social media and RSS feeds to stay on top of the news. While almost a third of journalists have not yet turned to blogs as a resource, more than a quarter report regularly reading five or more blogs to keep up with the subject matter they cover. Nearly 70 percent say they follow at least one blog regularly. More than 28 percent of journalists say they visit a social media site at least once a week as part of their reporting, while more than 44 percent say they visit a social media site at least once a month. Nearly 16 percent of journalists report that they receive five or more RSS feeds of news services, blogs, podcasts or videocasts every week, and about 37 percent receive at least one regular RSS feed.

• While more than half of journalists report that they never seek audio or video material from corporate websites, nearly 20 percent say they seek such material at least once a month. Among journalists working in national television, that number jumps to 25 percent (with fully two-thirds seeking such material at least once every three months), and among journalists working in national radio some 30 percent seek audio or video from corporate websites at least once a month.

• While over 75 percent of journalists report that they use their local newspapers to follow the news (followed by The New York Times at nearly 63 percent), some 64 percent of journalists report that they use either Google or Yahoo! online news services to follow the news.

Blogs provide the perfect platform that add "searchable" content to the web. When your company's experts are writing these blogs, and when you use gurus to write as well, this content journalist will have a feeding frenzy with it. But you can make the content more visible by designing a dedicated online newsroom. More about that in another installment.

Benefits of Blogs for Media Relations

1. Searchable content on Google where most people go for answers anyway.
2. Create more content journalists love. If it's good, they'll come back for more.
3. Give journalist an easier time of following your industry.
4. Eliminates using costly distribution services like PRWeb. With the right keyword combination and your inhouse media list, target the journalists you want.
5. Go direct to public, faster and cheap.
6. Journalist sometime trust company expert, but gurus are not connected with any company. When you convince those to write specifically about your clients, journalist see that as unbiased information -- pure. Not tainted by our "spin." They are more apt to use it and trust it's accurate. Ergo, they trust you more.

Read other posts in this series on blogging strategies:

• Using Blogs for Media Relations: What Types of Blogs Are There for ...
• Corporate Blog Strategy: How To Position C-Suite Blogs For Media Co...
• Why The Media Want To Hear from Your Employees