Conversationblog

• 27.8% of PR professionals who responded "heard about blogs"...
• 42% plan to implement a blog within a year
• 31.3% of PR professionals do not see the benefit of a blog

OK, so there is a lot of room for education and training here. There is even room for blog consultants to help PR pros with their efforts. Best approach is to learn them on how to do it themselves... because if you're not blogging it is difficult to understand how this new communication tool works (and see the benefit of it).

Next findings are a bit scary:

• 31.8% say they do not have a budget to implement one (!)
• 44.4% say that the limitation to use weblog is "the inability to control the communications content (!)
• when asking for the benefits of a blog, only 7% list "receiving feedback from the audience", at the bottom of the list.

Now, I always complain to my boss to get more budget but not having money to run an effective blog..? Impossible. And not understanding (or knowing) that feedback/comments are the bread and butter of the blogosphere..

Again, it comes down to train, inform and educate I guess.

Well, I am doing my part; next month I'll be training last year PR students of the Artevelde Hogeschool in Ghent again (the next generation will be ready :-). And in March I'll do a 1H30 presentation/workshop for PR Managers of different Belgian companies through the industry association Agoria.