Edelman and Technorati Japan have released the results of a blogger survey (PDF, 37 pages) (press release), based on the same questionnaire used for the survey published in January 2006.
It’s good to see that the limitations of the survey are clearly stated this time (the previous study had serious problems in this area).
PS: Memo to press releases fans: they’re big in Japan! :) (details in page 29)
On July 7, the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily’ Dog has published a piece about a recent poll on how corporate PR should manage “angry bloggers“. The article stated that the online poll
asked more than 300 communicators to choose one response to the question, “Who should respond to angry external bloggers—media relations or customer service?”
The fact that “46 percent of respondents believed bloggers should be ignored, or managed by customer relations departments” caused a storm in the e-cup (thanks for this expression, Richard!).
I contacted Roy Miller, president of Dallas/IABC, and asked him if I can get access to the original questions posted on the chapter’s website. He responded promptly, and sent me not only the original questions, but also the number of people who responded to each question. Here they are:
Number of Voters: 50
Period: June 1st - July 2nd, 2006Question: Who should respond to angry external bloggers – media relations or customer service?
1. Definitely media relations. They are the company spokespeople. - 21 votes (42%)
2. Customer service. Bloggers are not members of the press and should be treated like any other consumer. - 16 votes (32%)
3. No one. Bloggers should just be ignored. - 7 votes (14%)
4. I don’t know. - 3 votes (6%)
5. Neither. This responsibility doesn’t belong to either of these teams. - 3 votes (6%)
A couple of notes:
And another thing: here’s the quote attributed to Roy Miller, president of Dallas/IABC, in the press release:
“Corporate communicators must accept and acknowledge a blogger’s ability to spread information– the good, bad and the ugly. Ignoring them and not responding quickly just sets up an organization to be-best case-inaccurately represented; worst case, to be demonized. Treat bloggers with the same respect and responsiveness you’d have for any member of the media.“
Prescient words. So, why didn’t Roy commented on the blogs writing about this topic, in order to prevent IABC’s inaccurate representation? I really don’t know.
To conclude: a misleading press release issued for an irrelevant “quick poll,” reproduced -without verification or correction- by an online publication and dissected by bloggers who didn’t had access to the original results manages -without any base on facts- to portray the Texan IABCers as communicators who “just don’t get it.” Nice reputation-building exercise.
Note: I promised Roy Miller that if he wants to post a response to this post (or to any other post on this issue) I will offer him the space of this blog.
Back in March 2006, Cymfony was announcing the launch of a survey -done in partnership with Porter-Novelli and Russell Research- on corporate blogging best practices. Now it looks like the preliminary results are in, although the survey continues to be online (hm).
With the risk of becoming a bore with my obsession on survey reporting practices, I’ll say it again:
I hope the final report is going to include a detailed explanation of the survey’s limitations (self-selection, nonprobabilistic sample, lack of control over the survey instrument, etc.), and that the conclusions will be qualified.
I hope Cymphony and Porter-Novelli are not going to pull a Guidewire or an Edelman/Technorati with this survey. (If you don’t know what I mean, please follow the links below.)
Update: Jim Nail responds in the comments.
Related postings:
Edelman and Technorati have published the final report on their blogging survey, titled “Public RelationSHIPS: Communications in the Age of Personal Media” (PDF). There are two introductory pieces written by Richard Edelman and Peter Hirshberg (Technorati’s Executive VP), and there’s an interesting comparison between the “old” and “new” PR school.
The page dedicated to the survey’s methodology has an incomplete list of limitations. Here’s what’s missing:
Disappointing, especially since the problem of survey’s limitations has been discussed in the blogosphere. A timeline of these discussions is available here:
Updates:
Note: The initial title of this posting was “Edelman & Technorati blogger study released — what’s missing from its methodology“. The entry has been edited.
Mike Sigal, co-Founder and CEO of the Guidewire Group, has posted the following comment in response to my criticism and questions about the Group’s recent survey:
Hi Constantin,
Thanks for the critiques. Our goal as a research firm is to provide information that will explain emerging technology markets, so your feedback will help us develop more robust products in the future. I’m going to post a couple of general comments in response to your post and others as an update to the original post, but I wanted to answer your questions directly:
1) The primary goal of the survey was to explore why and how corporations were adopting blogs. That’s why we promoted the survey via press release and to the blogosphere…because we wanted folks who were blogging to answer it. The fact that such a large percentage of the sample were either already blogging or had plans to blog (and frankly the fact that a huge percentage of the adopters started in 2005) is what lead us to conclude that corporate blogging has already turned the corner into hypergrowth.
2) No guarantee. That’s why we were explicit about the sample and methodology. What surprised us was the distribution of titles/roles that responded to the survey.
3) It’s relevant to the corporate world because there are actual examples of ‘real’ companies that are using blogs and other social media tools for significant business benefit. There were terrific examples at BlogOn. Given that most coverage of blogging outside the blogosphere has been extremely light on corporate case studies, benefits, etc., we wanted those folks trying to learn something about social media to know that SOMEONE is looking into it. Hopefully it will cause MORE people to look into it.
4) The reaction at BlogOn to our annoucement (we only showed the adoption curve…the Executive Summary was put on everyone’s seats so they could read it) seemed pretty positive. In my at-the-show conversations with attendees and speakers, they we’re all pretty enthusiastic that we were drawing attention (both via the show and the survey) to corporate adoption and benefits, rather than the same old debates about journalists vs. bloggers, media transformation, etc. We’ll be posting the podcasts and webcasts from the show in the near future, so between that and the folks you mentioned getting back to their offices and deciding they want to post about the survey…I’m sure you’ll be able to come to your own conclusions.
Again, thanks for the feedback. And if you have suggestions about what we should investigate and/or how to improve our methodology…we welcome them!
Mike Sigal
Co-Founder and CEO, Guidewire Group
Try to say this with a straight face:
The vast majority of companies (89%) are either blogging now or planning to blog soon.
Are you LOL? ROTFL?
Anyway, the staggering, unbelievable, hard to believe “statistic” is one of the results of a Guidewire Group “survey” called Blogging in the Enterprise, sponsored by iUpload.
To its credit, the Guidewire Group is transparent about the survey’s methodology (links added):
The “Blogging in the Enterprise” survey was fielded for two weeks in September 2005. The online survey was open to public participation, encouraged by direct email to a random sample of 5000 CMO Magazine readers, a press release announcing the survey, and unsolicited postings in various blogs and blog search engines. 140 individuals responded to the survey.
(Source: PR Newswire press release)
(Missing: the fact that those completing the survey were eligible to enter a draw to win an iPod Nano or a complimentary registration to BlogOn 2005.)
A couple of questions about the survey:
Side note: there’s no difference, essentially, between Guidewire’s survey and the Edelman/Technorati recent survey. In fact, Guidewire was more upfront about the study’s limitations then Edelman (we’re still waiting for Edelman’s official report about the methodology, two weeks after the results were released). But the effects of self-selection are more visible in Guidewire’s survey.
Resources
Reactions from the blogosphere
(More to come.)
Media coverage
(Just a list of conversations I’m following.)
The survey:
Blog entries:
In the media:
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