EBlog

Do blogs influence journalists?  Two new studies weigh in.

January 18, 2008 | Posted by: Lee

There's lots of discussion out there about how influential blogs are in the B2B world.  Do the help generate leads, build relationships, provide valuable customer feedback, and do they help with press coverage.

A couple of recent studies are showing that blogs do have an impact when it comes journalist.

Arketi found that 84% of B2B journalists indicate they use blogs as a primary or secondary source for news articles.

Highlights of the study indicate that 60% say they spend more than 20 hours a week on the Internet. When asked what they did, here’s what they said:

• 98% reading news
• 97% emailing
• 93% finding news sources
• 89% finding story ideas
• 72% reading blogs
• 67% watching webinars or webcasts
  

Brodeur found the biggest impact was in the speed and availability of news.  61% said blogs had a significant impact on the "tone" of news and 50% said it influenced their "editorial direction".  Journalists didn't feel, however, that blogs had a significant impacted the quality of what they were writing.

• ­ Nearly 70% check a blog list on a regular basis
• 20.9% spend over 1 hr/day reading blogs
• 57.1% read blogs at least 2-3 times a week
• 71% have a list of blogs they check on a regular basis
• 47.7% have five or fewer blogs
• 23.3% have a regular blog list of six or more
• 29.9% have no regular list
• 27.7% have their own blogs
• 16.3% have their own social networking page
• 47.5% are "lurkers" - reading blogs but rarely commenting

Seems like journalists are turning to the web and new media as a source. But maybe that’s all they see it as - a source. The jury seems out in terms of whether they feel it improves the quality of what they’re writing.