Recently I took part in a survey that canvassed Asia Pacific based bloggers on their thoughts and view towards PR. The full survey result can be seen here but some key findings were;

  • 84% of bloggers respondents welcome contact from PR people and businesses.
  • Electronic communication is king for APAC bloggers: 58% preferred email, followed by online comments on their blogs, as the preferred means of contacting them.
  • Similarly, emailing of press releases and interviews or discussions ranked in the top two as the preferred formats for receiving content (67% and 60% respectively).
  • APAC bloggers are not particular about who they engage with, but prefer to talk with active bloggers and whoever is closest to the story – not necessarily the traditional spokespeople.
  • Two thirds (67%) of respondents spend less than 8 hours of their working week blogging.
  • Bloggers concerns included receiving unsolicited spam from PR agencies, and were frequently critical of the content they received, feeling it was inappropriate and unusable.
  • While most bloggers ignore traditional press releases, 88% were aware of so-called Social Media Releases and indicated they were in favour of using elements such as videos, quotes, pictures and links from these releases in their posts.

I get fairly regular unsolicited contacts from PR staffers. I welcome this contact so long as it is relevant, timely and concise. I also expect to get a pretty rapid response in the event that I ask for more information, for a demo or for an interview.

PR people also need to realise that the vast majority of bloggers are unpaid, while we cherish our editorial independence, free samples, promo subscriptions and the odd free meal are appreciated :-). Having said that any blogger worth their salt will disclose anything of relevance when reviewing a product.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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