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Cision Documents Rapidly Growing Blog Influence in Print Media Elevates Need to Develop Strong Blogger Relationships

Friday 18. July 2008 - Rapid acceleration of blog and blogger mentions in top mainstream print publications emphasizes the importance of proper blogger relations

Cision, the leading provider of media research, distribution, monitoring and analysis services, today released figures that clearly demonstrate the growing influence of blogs in the mainstream print media. A study of the top 20 national magazines and newspapers shows that over the last 5 years, the number of times blogs and bloggers are mentioned in articles has increased more than 16-fold.

Cision discovered that the top 20 national magazines and newspapers mentioned blogs and bloggers 13,066 times in the one-year period ending June 30, 2008. That compares to only 795 times in 2004 and 2,179 times in 2005.

“This stunning growth in blogger influence magnifies the importance of employing common sense when contacting bloggers,” said Peter Granat, Cision Executive Vice President. “Knowing the blogger and his/her focus is the critical element in a successful blog relations campaign. While many blogs are highly visible in their own right, the growing influence with the mainstream media elevates their importance.”

Other recent research confirms the growing reach of the blog. Brodeur Partners, a leading public relations and communications firm, noted in a January survey that 57 percent of 178 journalists contacted said they read blogs at least two to three times per week, while 18 percent said they spend at least one hour per day reading them. The PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey revealed that nearly 40 percent of the participating journalists employ blogs to find topics for stories, 30 percent use them to find experts, and nearly 58 percent use them to measure sentiment.

“As stories with origins in the blogosphere begin to spill into magazines and newspapers, the benefits of developing relationships with bloggers continue to grow,” Granat said.

Publications included in the Cision research are the Arizona Republic, BusinessWeek, Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Dallas Morning News, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Financial Times, Houston Chronicle, InStyle, Los Angeles Times, Money, Newsweek, New York Times, People, Time, USA Today, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.