Peppercom and Bulldog Reporter’s Business Blogging survey certainly turned up some interesting facts about how US and UK corporations see the blogosphere:

• Almost 89 percent of U.S. respondents and nearly 83 percent of U.K. respondents believe blogs are an important     digital communication
• More than half of all respondents admitted that no one is blogging on their or their clients’ behalf (U.S.: 64 percent, U.K.: 64 percent)
• Most respondents (78 percent for U.S. and U.K.) believe that the public relations department should handle fallout from bad news breaking in the blogosphere
• However, over 80 percent (U.S.: 87 percent, U.K.: 82 percent)Most respondents confess they or their clients don’t have an official blogging policy in place
• 63 percent have not adapted their communications strategy to include proactive outreach to blogs, message boards, and other forms of digital medium
• Half of the respondents (49 percent) are not monitoring blogs and online conversations 

 

So the vast majority think blogging is an important communication medium, but they are not monitoring the online conversation and they’re not adapting their corporate communicaiton strategy to include digital and social media. But if things go wrong, PR must handle the flap. 

We’ve seen a few of these examples of PR departments and agencies putting both their traditional PR feet in their social media mouths.  It’s way past time that companies make social media and online PR training a priority.

Business blogging is an important communication medium,  It’s not going away.  Markets are conversations.  Learning to particpate in the conversation effectively is a vital PR skill today.

Listen to the podcast for a full analysis of the survey.  It’s a little slow to load but worth the wait.