It Bloggles the Mind
(This article first appeared in PR Week in 2001)
Since it burst upon the public consciousness in the mid-nineties, the Internet has represented a major challenge for the public relations industry. The Web disrupts our carefully cultivated relationship with the mass media, which for decades served as our primary channel for communicating our client's messages through stories or events. An explosion of alternative sources of information on the Web occurred mostly outside of the control of the editors and producers of traditional media.
The latest extension of this phenomenon are weblogs, commonly known as blogs. These not-so-private "personal" diaries have been around since the early days of the Web, but two critical developments have pushed blogs beyond cult status. First, a number of services, such as Blogger, allow users to post their thoughts for free through a series of easy to use Web tools. Just pick a template, fill out a form, and push the button to upload. Voila. You are a Web publisher.
Second, some weblogs, such as MetaFilter or Slashdot, serve as human portals; they encourage commentary and interaction by stringing together links to content that reflect a consistent theme or opinion. As Rebecca Blood notes in her unofficial history of weblogs, these human portals reach significant audiences when they "provide a valuable filtering function for their readers. The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them."
On the surface, weblogs represent another way to monitor the motivations and interests of a specific audience. Equally important, their popularity confirms that people have a natural affinity to express themselves online, as long as you give them intuitive tools that make it easy to participate.
Organizations can incorporate a variant of weblog technology within their own Web sites to actively encourage public consensus around an idea, a product or a company. Blogs provide a natural forum for marshalling support around any grassroots initiative; they open a new channel for the public to express and communicate their advocacy. By extension, corporations that use blogs as an adjunct of their own Web sites can build a dialogue with their customers or constituents.
As public relations practitioners, we should actively seek ways to speak directly to our audiences, to find out their interests, and answer their questions. We should build our Web sites around technologies that make it simple for these audiences to respond directly to us. When we accomplish that goal, we capture the true spirit of the blog phenomenon.
Since it burst upon the public consciousness in the mid-nineties, the Internet has represented a major challenge for the public relations industry. The Web disrupts our carefully cultivated relationship with the mass media, which for decades served as our primary channel for communicating our client's messages through stories or events. An explosion of alternative sources of information on the Web occurred mostly outside of the control of the editors and producers of traditional media.
The latest extension of this phenomenon are weblogs, commonly known as blogs. These not-so-private "personal" diaries have been around since the early days of the Web, but two critical developments have pushed blogs beyond cult status. First, a number of services, such as Blogger, allow users to post their thoughts for free through a series of easy to use Web tools. Just pick a template, fill out a form, and push the button to upload. Voila. You are a Web publisher.
Second, some weblogs, such as MetaFilter or Slashdot, serve as human portals; they encourage commentary and interaction by stringing together links to content that reflect a consistent theme or opinion. As Rebecca Blood notes in her unofficial history of weblogs, these human portals reach significant audiences when they "provide a valuable filtering function for their readers. The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them."
On the surface, weblogs represent another way to monitor the motivations and interests of a specific audience. Equally important, their popularity confirms that people have a natural affinity to express themselves online, as long as you give them intuitive tools that make it easy to participate.
Organizations can incorporate a variant of weblog technology within their own Web sites to actively encourage public consensus around an idea, a product or a company. Blogs provide a natural forum for marshalling support around any grassroots initiative; they open a new channel for the public to express and communicate their advocacy. By extension, corporations that use blogs as an adjunct of their own Web sites can build a dialogue with their customers or constituents.
As public relations practitioners, we should actively seek ways to speak directly to our audiences, to find out their interests, and answer their questions. We should build our Web sites around technologies that make it simple for these audiences to respond directly to us. When we accomplish that goal, we capture the true spirit of the blog phenomenon.
posted by msockol at 8:45 AM
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