New Survey: New Technology Tools Have High Acceptance Rate in Public Relations

We have just completed a survey in conjunction with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) which shows that that new communication technology has been widely accepted by the public relations profession.

The survey, “Wired for Change – A Survey of Public Relations Professionals and Students: Attitudes, Usage and Expectations in the New Communication Technology Environment,” was conducted to gain insight into how the more than 32,000 professional and student members of PRSA and the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) view the role of technology in shaping future communication practices.

You can read about the findings in the press release, and there's also a 10-minute webcast of the survey via Webmasterradio.FM.

Contiki takes advantage of facebook

I had my nose in facebook all weekend, which is proving to be way too addictive.

Interestingly, I found Contiki in a related group (though listed as sponsored) on the Explore the World group.

Does advertising belong in social networking applications? I reckon yes, if it's relevant. Contiki as a tour company is clearly offering tours that are of relevance to this particular group. so it makes perfect sense for them to be there. From a marketing perspective, they also using the site to create conversations amongst their potential and existing customers, in the very place where those users are spending a lot of time.








There's also a group for Kumuka travellers, called Kumuka Overland, although this doesn't appear to have been set up by the company - it doesn't confirm this one way or the other. Great for Kumuka if their customers are starting such groups.The rules of marketing are definititely changing.

I reckon travel companies like Contiki, Kumuka and Explore are doing a good job of using new forms of media to get to their customers. Will be interesting to see how things evolve in this space.

A new survey on influencing technology buyers

Hill and Knowlton released an interesting survey this week, entitled Influencing Technology Decision Makers.

Following a survey of 60 companies, the research found that PR can positively impact the purchasing decision.

The report highligts key trends including:

• The dominance of analyst research - and how effective analyst relations really can help to drive sales enquiries
• The power of the blog - and the growing importance of one-to-one dialogue
• The importance of the right media coverage - and which publications ranked highly in terms of IT audience credibility

It's a brief but worthwhile read.

The 50 best business blogs...according to the Times

Interesting story a few days ago on the Times Online, about the 50 best business blogs. They've categorised it by sector. Definitely worth checking out if your company is one of the companies for which there is a dedicated anti-blog.

There were a couple of amusing quotes in the line up - this from Weber Shandwick's Colin Byrne on the Olympic logo: "Of course if your initiative attracts reams of bad headlines and coverage, and thousands of people take to the blogosphere as ‘badvocates, fuelling yet more media coverage, it could be described as a PR disaster I suppose."