Poll finds 89 percent of journalists use blogs for research

By on January 22nd, 2010 In Social Media

In case you are still in PR denial, our industry has changed and now there is some research to show just how dramatic that change is. A new survey published Wednesday by Cision and The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories.

“Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.”

On the bright side, the poll also reports that “most journalists turn to public relations professionals for assistance in their primary research. Editors and reporters surveyed said they depend on PR professionals for “interviews and access to sources and experts” (44%), “answers to questions and targeted information” (23%), and “perspective, information in context, and background information” (17%).”

No surprises for me in this survey. The real question is, what are you doing to help journalists find your clients within the social media world?

For a copy of the complete survey results, go to http://us.cision.com/journalist_survey_2009/

Comments

Marketing $ociologist Says:
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:26 am

“The real question is, what are you doing to help journalists find your clients within the social media world?”

Again, as Seth Godin states, it is a pull, not push frontier in media relations today. How many PR practitioners use Google’s blogsearch, analytics, site positions?

Here’s some key sites to achieve pull, not push
http://www.wordtracker.com/
http://www.dollarshower.com/seo-link-building-series-backlink-building-methods/
http://codex.wordpress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_Wordpresshttp://wordpress.org/support/topic/49168
http://iwebkit.net/

Homer Says:
January 25th, 2010 at 9:26 am

Many of us are pushing or already into social media for our clients, but how many in the local media are actually using social media as a resource?

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