Whether you’re a public relations specialist whose primary contact with blogs comes from relationships with bloggers themselves – not unlike media relationships – or whether you’re a diehard blog reader returning to your favorites every day for your dose of posts, blogs are a phenomenon that’s meteorically risen in significance and really can’t be ignored in PR.
Jessica Edmondson at The Moz Blog recently published a very insightful article about the power of bloggers today and why PR specialists and brands should include them in their outreach. For one thing, bloggers are influencers and their words carry tremendous weight with their readers. It’s the best of word-of-mouth marketing that also carries side benefits like purchasing influence, back links for SEO, brand awareness and more. Also, consumers flock to blogs to find out about new products and services and according to Technorati, 31% of online shoppers get their advice from or do research through blogs. 70% of online shoppers learn about products through blog posts and 61% of online shoppers say blog posts influence their purchasing decision. Convinced yet?
Even more interesting statistics from the article:
And while not everyone who blogs is considered an influencer by definition, bloggers with smaller communities are proving more influential than their celebrity counterparts, as Technorati also reports 54% of consumers believe that the smaller the community, the greater the influence.
All in all: bloggers, even the smaller community ones, are influential.
When looking more specifically at demographics, Nielsen reports that most bloggers are women, and 1 in 3 are moms. Overall, 52% of bloggers are parents. This is why you’ve probably heard the term “mommy blogger”. But more importantly, this large demographic is perfect to tap into with family-friendly B2C clients.
Learn more about the importance of including bloggers in your PR plan and what the different types of blogger relationships look like over at The Moz Blog.
