Blogging Competitive Review

Porter Novelli 3 April 2008Brendan Cooper, Mat Morrison

PN Digital Group

Technorati Authority* is a commonly-usedmeasure of a blog's "authority" amongst itspeers. Authority When was the latest post?RecencyHow many posts in the past full calendar month?FrequencyYears between first and latest postsTenure

Methodology

The competitors were global PR agencies whichoperate in a similar space to Porter Novelli:

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Edelman

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Hill and Knowlton

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Burson Marsteller

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Ketchum

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Weber Shandwick We performed a simple quantitative analysis ofover 90 blogs (see table below):

Overview

Edelman has the most integrated blogsH&K has the only common blog look, feel andhostingBurson-Marsteller has the only 'newsannouncements' blog Weber Shandwick is the only company not to link toits bloggersTheUnusual Almost all by senior levelmanagement/directors/CEOsMostly professional/educational rather thanpersonal/selling Almost all have blogrolls (links to other blogs)Hardly any have creative commons (statement ofcopyright liability)Hardly any include linkblog content (automaticallygenerated links through social bookmarking such asdel.iciou.s)Most display poor integration with the blogosphereand/or wider webTheCommonThey are all analytical (except for the BursonMarsteller blog which is intended to be solely anews/announcement page more than a blog)None of them has an associated podcastNone of them links to a blogging policyThe Core A typical public relations agency blog is written by asenior staff member, is professional, and is poorlyintegrated into the broader blogosphere.The worst approach is a company-wide bloggingdrive with little incentive to do so and dull,corporately-hosted blogs (eg H&K)The best is a combination of an aggregatedcorporate blog allowing a variety of opinions andcross-germination of ideas; independent bloggerswith their own approaches and voices; a CEO blogoffering insight; and a landing page to bring this alltogether (eg Edelman plus the aggregated blogs ofBurson-Marsteller and Ogilvy).* http://support.technorati.com/faq/topic/71

#blogs analysed Company

2310152537Edelman Weber ShandwickBurson MarstellerOgilvy PRPorter NovelliHill & Knowlton

Recency

How many days old is the latest post? Lowernumbers are "better" - indicating fresher content. A high number of abandoned blogs makes Hill &Knowlton look very bad.