Exploring the Pew Study with an Eye to Business Implications

Yesterday I posted very briefly about the new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study indicated that most bloggers target small niche audiences and focus on their own personal perspectives.

Obviously, this bears out the long tail model that we’re always blathering on about. But what else does it mean for businesses with an eye to the blogosphere?

Let’s delve a bit.

Some general facts about the study

• It was conducted using telephone interviews.
• The sample size was 233 people nationwide who identified themselves as bloggers during a larger survey. They were called back and asked in-depth questions for this inquiry.
• The respondents were mostly under the age of 30 and split evenly among men and women.
• They were less likely to identify as white than the general Internet population.

Personal Experiences, not Journalism

The Pew study bore out the prevailing theory that the largest group of bloggers identify themselves as diarists rather than journalists. This runs counter to the practice employed by some public relations professionals of relating to bloggers in the same way that they relate to reporters.

Of course, the best public relations is always conducted through human relationships based on shared interests and mutual benefit - but the fact that bloggers are more invested in their personal experience than in journalistic ethics means that the rules are slightly different. For example, a reporter would never publish the horrible pitch letter he received from a PR representative the way that John Scalzi did yesterday.

This means that businesses need to relate to bloggers as customers rather than reporters. Since bloggers are writing from their own personal experience rather than the dispassionate third-party perspective of a reporter, it is in a company’s best interest to make the customer’s experience as positive as possible.

If a blogger writes that they are dissatisfied with your product or service, it behooves you to contact them to ask what you can do to make the situation better - just as you would if a customer wrote a complaint letter to your corporate offices. The only difference is that in this case, the complaint letter is public - and addressed to your current and potential customer base, making it even more critical that you respond.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Some blogs are run more like mainstream publications - with multiple writers and an eye for news on a particular topic. These bloggers straddle the line between diarist and journalist. If companies have a vested interest in working with bloggers of this stripe, the approach should showcase the mutual benefit of the proposal in a personalized, authentic way.

Bloggers Fact Check and Cite Original Sources…but not Always

Fifty-six percent of respondents in the survey said that they “sometimes” or “often” spent extra time verifying facts they wanted to include in their posts. This is good news, although those same numbers - if applied to journalists - would be scandalous.

It therefore behooves businesses who want to relate to bloggers to check facts themselves before interacting with a blogger. Sometimes all it takes to resolve a controversy is a calm, straightforward correction of the facts.

Blogs Gain Recognition on a Niche Level

The bloggers surveyed for this study said that their blogs were most often noticed by friends, family members, acquaintances and coworkers. They were also given some attention from fellow bloggers with overlapping interests. This bears out the “long tail” model.

This does not mean that businesses do not need to pay attention to “small-time” bloggers. Even with a small readership, bloggers are even more influential than the average customer. A blogger’s opinion about something lingers on the Web - and in search engines - forever. If a blogger posts today about a bad experience she had with your customer service, it could affect her ex-boyfriend’s sister’s decision to buy your product ten years from now.

Add up enough of those kinds of posts, and you have a problem that needs to be fixed.

Summation

Most of the time, companies should communicate with bloggers as customers who communicate very effectively with other customers in their wide social circle. Communications should always be conducted with an eye to personalized interaction and authenticity.

Thank you, Pew!

I would like to extend a thank you to the writers of the Pew study. Too often, academic writers use obfuscating language that makes research papers a chore to dissect. This study was a joy to read and showcased the findings nicely. Thank you for assigning your best writers to the task of preparing your work for presentation to the world!