If you’ve ever been around a blogger while they’re checking their email, you’ve undoubtedly heard the occasional groan, which is then followed by a, ”Why! WHY would I want to write about that?!!?” or a disgruntled, “Did you even READ my blog?!”
Why the groaning and complaining?
PR.
It’s no secret in the land of professional (and sometimes unprofessional) blogging, that bloggers and PRs have a very touch-and -go relationship There are PRs that love and, like, totes *get* bloggers, and then there are those who don’t. (Really, really don’t.)
The fact of the matter is, both PR-clueless bloggers and non-blog-savvy PRs are to blame for the rocky relationship between those that blog and those of the public relations persuasion.
Text 100 recently did a fantastic survey, asking bloggers how they like to be approached by PRs, and, even better, how they don’t’ like to be approached by PRs.
Whether we like it or not, bloggers need PR contacts and attention just as much as PRs need to get their clients coverage online. We need each other. So why not open up the floodgates of communication and see how we can best deal with each other?
The Text 100 survey was taken by 449 bloggers across three different regions: Europe, Asia Pacific and the United States.
What I found to be the most interesting results discovered by the survey were:
- Most bloggers prefer to be contacted by email. We do not want you texting or IMing us.
- We’re not as bothered about corporate announcements as we are news stories, product reviews or interview opportunities with key (and relevant) people.
- Photographs are the most used form of content in blogs, while podcasts are the least used.
- Europeans are the least likely, out of bloggers from Asia and America, to honor an embargo.
You can view the entire set of results from the survey on Slideshare – and even though it might not save PRs and Blogger grief with dealing with each other, it’s still interesting to know how bloggers like to be contacted.