I attended last week's 2nd annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston. One of the big draws for me was the first session delivered by Paul Gillin, John Cass and Greg Peverill-Conti, titled "New Media, New Influencers & Implications for the PR Profession." Implications for the PR profession -- OK, so we finally can cut to the chase.
From the conference program:
This study explores these changes to the media and communications landscape and includes: an examination of the current PR landscape with regard to social media; what social media elements are being adopted by specific industries; defining new influencers and success stories. Based on this research, a series of recommendations for the PR profession will be presented.
Despite the fact I was disappointed to hear that the majority of respondents were "power users" (wouldn't "moderate users" add some additional perspective?), I found one aspect of the initial findings interesting -- that even those most savvy in social media are still stuck in an old way of thinking with regards to certain types of measurement. Specifically, when asked about the most important criteria for determining the relevance and potential influence of a blogger or podcaster, the top three responses were quality of content on the blog or podcast, relevance of content to the company or brand and search engine rankings. At the bottom of the list were more meaningful (or telling) measures of engagement and influence: the number of comments on a blog, syndication of the content and "longevity" -- or how long the content is discussed.
The initial conclusion, largely based upon the data points above, is that influence in the blogosphere doesn't always come from the A-list bloggers. The opportunity for communications teams is to track the path of an idea as a way to understand and determine influence. In other words, it's not always what the A-listers are writing about. It's just as important to understand what (and who) influences them. A good blogger relations program therefore should analyze all levels/tiers of bloggers -- to see how this chain of influence forms -- and engage bloggers at each level.
My own takeaway from all of this: it's not about content, but how the content creates a connection and a chain of influence. This is key essence of social media, which is ultimately about creating one-on-one relationships one-by-one.
