TRUST “Media” How Real People Are Finally Being Heard
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TRUST “MeDIA” How Real People Are Finally Being Heard The 1.0 Guide to the Blogosphere for Marketers & Company Stakeholders First in a Series on New Communications & Word-of-Mouth Marketing By Edelman and Intelliseek • Spring 2005 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY n a very short time, the blogging phenomenon has drastically altered Ithe landscape and challenged traditional tenets about the control of messaging by corporations, the media, the government, marketers and company stakeholders. According to Edelman’s 2005 Trust Survey, This new and growing critical mass is peoples’ trust has shifted from authority forcing marketing professionals and fi gures to “average people, like you.” In fact, company stakeholders to think differently 56% of Americans trust only the opinions of about how they go to market. Bloggers are physicians and academicians more than they speaking and being heard in real time, and trust the opinions of people like themselves. only recently has the marketing community What does this mean? The average person begun to grasp bloggers’ impact on does not want canned, neatly packaged brands, business and issues. Because messages; the average person wants to of their speed, bloggers can and do alter engage and be engaged in conversations. the volume and tone of any conversation. And blogs—short for Web logs—have rapidly Gone are the days of waiting months to emerged as one of the newest technologies get reliable feedback on an initiative. The driving this shift. new reality is this: any blog author with a passion for what you’re selling knows what Blogs are easily published, personal Web you’re doing the minute you do it—and sites that serve as sources of commentary, maybe even before. Bloggers comment opinion, and uncensored, unfi ltered sources immediately, and marketing and business of information on a variety of topics. The professionals can quickly lose control of the best-written and most widely read blogs conversation. are characterized by their authors’ genuine passion for a specifi c topic or issue—what This white paper is an initial look at the some call “passionate journalism,” or dynamics of the Blogosphere. It’s intended reporting with an informed bias. Blogs also to inform marketing and communications serve as communities where information, professionals about the who, what, where links, opinions, videos, audio fi les, photos and how-to of blogging. If this paper has and other forms of media are easily and done justice to the subject of blogging, it frequently shared, where elaboration can also should sound a huge wake-up call. be offered, disagreements can be aired, Blogging is not a passing fad…but any and comments can be posted. Together, brand, business or organization that fails to this collective conversation is called the grasp the fact may very well be. Blogosphere, and it’s one of the fastest growing areas of new content on the Internet. Trust “MEdia”: How Real People Are Finally Being Heard 2 Table of Contents THE BLOGGING BOOM: WHAT BLOGS ARE…AND HOW THEY’VE GROWN 4 THE IMPACT OF BLOGS: CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHANGES 6 WHAT OTHERS SAID ABOUT BLOGS: PRAISE...AND DRAWBACKS 10 BLOGS THAT WORK...AND BLOGS GONE WRONG 12 BLOG SEGMENTATION: THE EDELMAN & INTELLISEEK TRUST MEDIA BLOG DIRECTORY 14 HOW TO CONTACT BLOGGERS: NEW RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR THE BLOGOSPHERE 15 TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG: KEY QUESTIONS FOR MARKETERS AND COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONALS 17 THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF BLOGGING IN GENERAL 19 BLOGGING TERMS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO KNOW 20 Trust “MEdia”: How Real People Are Finally Being Heard 3 TRUST MEDIA: HE BLOGGING BOOM: WHAT BLOGS corporations, advertisements, marketers WHY THE AVERAGE PERSON TARE…AND HOW THEY’VE GROWN and other “offi cials.”3 IS FINALLY GETTING HEARD It was obvious that blogs would go down Indeed, bloggers played a role in creating THE 1.0 GUIDE TO THE in 2004 history when dictionary publisher and disseminating information during the BLOGOSPHERE FOR Merriam-Webster designated “blog” as the MARKETERS & COMPANY 2004 Presidential campaign, fueled initially most sought-after word of the year at its STAKEHOLDERS by Howard Dean’s Blog For America Web sites. (www.blogforamerica.com), which helped recruit new volunteers and raised record Is it any wonder? Blogs are booming, not amounts of money via the Internet for only in number but also in authority and his campaign. When the world’s largest reach. According to some estimates, about natural disaster took place in late 2004 in 20,000 new blogs are created daily, meaning remote Southern Asia, bloggers in Thailand, that millions of people have their own sites Indonesia, India and other affected countries on the World Wide Web—sites that in turn quickly jumped into action (e.g., http: attract millions of readers. These bloggers //tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/) to provide foster conversations, connections and new some of the fi rst on-the-scene “reporting,” relationships, and their growth shows no including casualty reports, videos of the sign of slowing in the immediate future.1 damage, heart-breaking photographs, government updates, links to relief agencies, Since the late 1990s and into 2005, blogs lists of missing persons and victims, have evolved from “under-the-radar” hospital reports and more. This shift from status to mainstream prominence, one appointment-driven news consumption to of the fastest rises to awareness of any on-demand news consumption is altering source of Internet content. The reasons are the news media landscape. many. Blogs are as easy to create as they are diverse in content. The estimated 10 Instapundit, (www.instapundit.com) a million U.S. blogs that will be in existence leading political blog written by University by the end of 2005 (and possibly 34 million of Tennessee law professor Glenn worldwide) cover a range of topics— Reynolds, attracts more than 100,000 politics, entertainment, music, art, life, love, unique visitors a day—more than the popular culture, sports, work, advertising, readership of most newspaper columnists. marketing. Asking what bloggers “cover” is like asking what people write about While bloggers rely on mainstream media on paper: whatever they want to. Blogs for their commentary fodder, they also have are a natural extension of so-called “broken” stories independently. Bloggers, “consumer-generated media”2 or “citizens’ for example, kept attention focused on journalism,” and as studies have shown, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s the public is often far more trusting of other impolitic comments leading to his eventual consumers or members of the public than resignation, and a blogger knowledgeable it is of traditional institutions, including about typefonts outed the fake memos Trust “MEdia”: How Real People Are Finally Being Heard 4 used by Dan Rather of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” manifestation—more messages to smaller leading to Rather’s apology and the fi ring numbers of people.” of four CBS staffers. Bloggers turned up the heat on other key issues in early For the advertising and public relations 2005: commentator Armstrong Williams’ community, blogs’ quick rise to prominence payments by the Department of Education poses serious questions. If bloggers were to soft sell the No Child Left Behind able to establish an infl uential presence program; the resignation of CNN news in a national presidential election in a executive Eason Jordan for off-the-record few short months, where will they turn comments he made (but were blogged their attention and scrutiny next? The about) at a forum in Switzerland; and the media? The advertising community? The true identify of Republican operative James PR community? Marketers? Corporate Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon), who managed America? Education? Government? to receive daily reporter credentials to the Analysts? Regulators? White House briefi ng room. History of blogging As a study by the journalism-focused Internet-savvy users have always had the Poynter Institute4 points out: “Bloggers— ability to create and update daily journals, and others inspired by their success— but blogs came into their own when software are forcing accountability on news made it incredibly easy to build, maintain organizations. They’re also demanding— and update a “Web log.” Those same and sometimes getting—a much bigger say technologies further allowed creators of in what’s news.” personal Web pages to link to each other’s Web pages—a practice that continues And beyond the popular, well-read, high- among bloggers today. The term “Web log” traffi c bloggers are millions of bloggers was coined by Internet writer Jorn Barger who write for a handful of readers about in 1997; the shorter term “blog” evolved issues close to them. This so-called “long in 1999, when only a few hundred blogs tail” of bloggers (a term coined in an article existed. Today, the Blogosphere contains by Wired editoreditor ChrisChris AndersonAnderson inin OctoberOctober an estimated 5-10 million blogs, and blog- 2004) represents a new phenomenon that based words were added to the Oxford should be of great interest to marketers: English Dictionary inin 2003.2003. millions of micro-communities around shared interests. What is a blog? What is blogging? For a simple defi nition, a blog is an easily Writes journalism professor Philip Meyer in created Web page, made possible by his book, The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving free or inexpensive software (Blogger, Journalism in the Information Age (University BlogSpot, Diaryland, LiveJournal/Six Apart, of Missouri Press): “There has been a drift Movable Type, Pitas, Typepad, Xanga, away from mass media to more specialized etc.) that allows a user to create a diary- media...The bloggers are the latest like Web page in a matter of minutes. Trust “MEdia”: How Real People Are Finally Being Heard 5 Each new entry is called a “post,” and Supportive technologies also make posts appear on a blog page in reverse blogging ubiquitous.