Micro Persuasion

Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It's Still Very Influential

There's been an interesting discussion over the last few days about Twitter's reach. WSJ reporter Kara Swisher surveyed her dinner party and found out that no one there uses the micro-blogging site. Meanwhile Gina Trapani on Lifehacker is running a survey asking if Web 2.0 benefits only the tech elite.

Now let's look at the data. According to figures just out from Hitwise, Twitter is the 439th largest social networking site and 4309 overall. To be sure, growth is booming. But the site is still niche.

So all of the signs generally point the same way. Most of the social networking and online communities are definitely geek havens. MySpace, Facebook and YoutTube are three that have gone mainstream. So does that mean these smaller sites, like Twitter, are not worthy of a brand's time? Hardly.

Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media. Geeks pass the puck from Twitter to blogs back to Twitter. Eventually it hits Techmeme, Saul Hansell at the Times takes notice and then the whole world knows.

That's why smart companies like JetBlue and Zappos are legitimately engaging on Twitter. It's becoming a front line for customer service. At a minimum, every consumer facing company should be monitoring the chatter. Even better, participating can cut problems off at the pass or even better foster evangelists. The numbers may never tell this story. For more, see Chris WInfield's mini case study.

Study: A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted

Advertisers continue to plow a ton of money into Internet advertising, even in the face of an recessionary environment. At the Forbes Online Brand Summit this weekend, Citi projected 20% year over year growth. eMarketer is calling for a 23% increase.

Search remains the big daddy. According to eMakreter it will account for 40% of the $25 billion that marketers will spend online this year. Right behind it at 21% (or $5.1 billion) is display advertising. However, according to a new study, a giant percentage of these ads are wasted because they fall below "the fold"

The Eyetools/MarketingSherpa eye tracking study, released last week, found that about 60% of web site visitors see the ads that are 100% visible and "above the fold." Below the fold - e.g. the part of a web page where users are required to scroll - the situation is grim. These ads are visible to roughly 70% of web users, but only about 25% actually see those ads.

Let's do some back of the envelope math here. Assuming that all of the above data is accurate and that 50% of display ad impressions fall below the fold (this is a conservative guess - it might be significantly higher) that means that nearly a billion dollars in online advertising - $937M based on these calculations - is below the fold and ignored by 75% of web users.

The situation is actually be a lot worse when you factor in trust. A Nielsen study released late last year found that only 26% of consumers trust banner ads. So even if your display ads are visible and seen, they're not trusted by the vast majority of the public. That aint good news.

The conventional wisdom is that online display ads are good for branding. Well, this appears to be a myth for lots of impressions. Now factor in that they also continue to be a disaster when it comes to direct response.

This is a train wreck waiting to happen. Scoble called it back in 2006. And it further illustrates that marketers are polluting the web.

What this means - especially in this climate - is that at least $1B of what's spent on online advertising is completely wasted and is unsustainable. Advertisers are going to eventually wake up and recognize that unless it's a highly visible placement, banners get you largely nowhere.

Trust in Peers Trumps the "A-List," Study Finds

There's an ongoing debate online and in marketing circles as well over who "matters": the super node influencers or basically anyone that a particular peer group looks to for information, entertainment, inspiration and more.

This meme got kicked around in the 'sphere a few weeks back when Duncan Watts released some research that contradicts Malcolm Gladwell's theory outlined in The Tipping Point. Today, however, there's new data that to me may just reveal that Watts is right. The key factor, once again, all comes down to trust. This comes as more of the action shifts to micro communities like Twitter or Friendfed and the quality of blog content, some say, slides downhill.

Mediapost reports that a new study from Pollara found that people who engage in social networks and communities put far more trust in friends and family who are online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace "friends." Nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by "well-known bloggers."

This new batch of data largely backs up what my employer's Edelman Trust Barometer found earlier this year. Some 58% of opinion elites 35-64 in 18 countries said they trust "a person like me." Meanwhile, only 14% trust bloggers - a figure that has largely remained flat since 2006. (See chart below from our latest study.)

Source: 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer

On a similar thread, Louis Gray, who's blog by the way is amazing, crunched some numbers and he found that the top tech blogs extended their reach in feed subscribers as well as on the TechMeme leaderboard. That may be true, but who cares?

The question of targeting super nodes vs. smaller groups is all coming down to trust. While the marketplace - both marketers and publishers - continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.

Open Collaboration and the Future of Public Relations

Jonny Bentwood, my colleague in the UK, has published a very thorough and provocative white paper on how to potentially define and measure "influence." The white paper was the byproduct of a meeting we held in New York with some of the industry's deepest thinkers. You can download it as a PDF, or simply peruse each section in HTML.

As Jonny says, this is not a fait accompli but a work in progress. You responded in kind. In the week since its release, many of you added valuable thoughts that will shape ours going forward. It's my hope that we can synthesize this discussion into applicable ideas we can incorporate in Edelman programs.

The release of this white paper, in a simplistic sense, illustrates what the web does best. It allows millions of connected citizens to come together as a global brain to solve problems, shape new ideas and above all spur collaborative action. The book Wikinomics, which I highly recommend, offers a lot of great examples and case studies. Doc Searls tackles a similar theme.

New communication technologies and channels grab all the headlines. However, what's far more important and meaningful (and a lot less ballyhooed) is how the web is allowing companies and stakeholders to produce outcomes that are to everyone's benefit. Dell's evolution over the past year is one great example.

That said, public relations is generally perceived as a communications discipline. We still put out lots of press releases and generate media coverage. But that's rapidly changing as the web allows us to increasingly facilitate open collaboration between a company and its customers. Richard Edelman, our CEO, has been at the forefront of this discussion. He advocates that companies take on big issues. And that's exactly what our agency is doing through initiatives like Good Purpose.

So does that mean media relations goes away in favor of new, more open approaches? Hardly. As Jonny and I wrote in the white paper's conclusion, public relations is flexible enough to cover it all. Arguably, PR programs can span two different continua. They can included tactics that are closed or open while being intended to spur communication or collaboration. The result is four quadrants, which mix together the old and the new....

1) Controlled Communication: One-way tactics such as TV advertising, online advertising and media relations that are great for branding and visibility, but are seldom collaborative. What's old still works.

2) Open Communication: Online initiatives, such as viral videos, that are designed to generate discussion, but not necessarily produce a shared outcome. Most corporate blogs are often up in this quadrant. The more collaborative blogs move "right"

3) Controlled Collaboration: Programs that facilitate participation but are more controlled, for example numerous efforts to solicit consumer generated ads

4) Open Collaboration: Win-win initiatives that open a dialogue toward reaching a broader goal. The American Express Member's Project is a great example.

What are your thoughts on this model? I'd be interested in your ideas on how this might be implemented in programs and measured - as well as any case studies on the right side quadrants. It's not perfect and it's theory. Help us move it into action.

Charting 2007's Three Big Web 2.0 Trends

"The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time." - Abraham Lincoln

Thinking about the future is fun. It's what I am paid to do. However, I never contemplate the days ahead without the context of the past. After all, the future is always grounded in history. That's why I have become a heavy user of Google Trends.

The tool is closest thing we have to a global rear-view mirror. Blog search and conversation charts only go so far. They capture what a small subset of the most vocal, tech-savvy users are saying. Search engines, on the other hand, show us what's on everyone's mind - including the giant underwater iceberg of silent users.

Like 2006, this was a big year for Web 2.0. Here are Google Trends charts I pulled looking at three broad 2007 Web 2.0 trends, along with my comments. I chose to focus here on broad trends, as opposed to the gyrations of individual sites, which always change with fickle users. (Micro blogging is an exception because the term is rarely used so I looked at Twitter instead.)

All of the data is global in scope and only as current as mid-December. Of course, all of this is just directional. Ideally, it would be great to cross-reference all of this with other sources, like Compete.com. Still, they do provide perspective.

Trend I: Social Networking

* Data: Searches for social networking and news volume both doubled in 2007. However, more recently, the volume has started to show some signs of weakness. Meanwhile, geographically, interest in social networking from India and Singapore is skyrocketing. Search volume for individual sites, like Facebook, appear to track the broader meme.

* Insight: Social networking is evolving from a group of sites into several competing platforms that power thousands of sites. Eventually, we won't think of social networks as sites but as a feature. This data might just be the first sign of such a progression.

Trend II: Micro Blogging

* Data: Micro blogging doesn't register on Google Trends, so I chose to compare Twitter and blogging (as opposed to "blogs" which is a much broader term). What's fascinating here is that searches for Twitter surpassed for "blogging" in April and never looked back. Meanwhile, news volume for the two are neck and neck. Twitter is particularly strong in Japan. That said, interest in micro blogging has dropped off dramatically this (nearly 50% off their peak in the spring).

* Insight: Blogging is work and the payoff (emotional or monetary) can be hard to come by, particularly for those of us who want to see a rapid return on our investment in time. Meanwhile, personal publishing is evolving because of the increasing sophistication of mobile devices and the Attention Crash. Micro blogging fosters connection with less work all while working well with mobile devices. Blogging remains important, however, as the traditional press rapidly embraced blogging, it has encouraged individual publishers to find new ways to spread their influence.

Trend III:: Web Applications

* Data: Google searches for web apps doubled in the second half of the year. That said they are dwarfed by stalwarts like Microsoft Office or Apple's iWork suite. Interest in Google Docs has flattened since they rolled out their presentation application. The US leads the way in web based applications.

* Insight: The search data seems to reflect what others have said - that web applications are not on most people's radar. This data is consistent with what Microsoft and Apple have said - people like their desktop apps. Web applications are in their infancy. It should be interesting to see if they will remain a niche category in the years ahead. The lack of the ubiquitous connectivity could be a major stumbling block.

Study: 25% of Entertainment Will Be Created by Peer Groups

A fascinating new study from Nokia predicts that by 2012 a quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups rather than coming out of traditional media.

What's unclear in my mind is where the boundaries are. In other words, what constitute peer content vs. pro content when the lines increasingly blur. Still, this is a big number and there's a lot of money at stake here to those who can create sustainable platforms that enable it all while monetizing.

To that point, TV Week conducted an analysis and found that while it's easy to get attention for your work, making money is a tougher climb. This might keep the figure from going higher than 25%.

Analysis: Why Some Web 2.0 Sites Will Never Attract Big Ad Dollars

Accountability - e.g. a company's return on investment in advertising - is an evergreen topic in the marketing community. Naturally, when it comes to the emerging sphere of Web 2.0 sites, advertisers want to sleep easy knowing that their money is generating a return. So with US ad spending on social networks expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2011, this is a good time to poke at conventional wisdom with hard data. It's not pretty.

Based on a informal analysis, my belief is that many online communities, bloggers, social networks will never attract a critical mass of advertisers because they are not set up properly to attract visitors who have a commercial intent to buy products and services. Online media is not sold this way now, but I bet it will be in the very near future.

Today, most advertisers size up community sites, blogs and social networks using traditional media buying models - namely, reach and frequency. Unfortunately, the reality is that many Web 2.0 sites, can't deliver marketers the numbers they want because of the effect of Long Tail. It's simple supply and demand economics at work. This is why efforts like the one announced by comScore and Federated Media are fundamentally flawed.

This week in New York I am participating in an all-day roundtable discussion about how to measure the impact of online influence. Edelman, my employer, is convening some of the industry's leading thinkers on this subject. It is my hope - and our challenge - to come up with new ways to measure the potential the web has on influencing purchases. Quantifying eyeballs is not the answer. We need new thinking.

My personal conviction - one that I plan to table - is that search should be the most important driver for how advertisers size up the influence of different community sites and the individuals who make them up. The problem is no one is thinking this way. Everyone is overlooking the organic impact of Web 2.0 on product-related searches in favor of quick and dirty old school metrics.

Microsoft AdCenter Labs has some demonstration technology that illustrates this vividly. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.) Their Online Commercial Intent tool uses terabytes of search data to calculate the likelihood of a web site to attract buyers.

I took a handful of different URLs and ran them through the Microsoft tool. To give you a sense of a benchmark, Amazon.com has 52% purchase intent. Here are my results (numbers are rounded) ....

Consumerist - 49% of visitors have a commercial intent
Gizmodo - 47%
Autoblog.com - 45%
Treehugger - 41%
Techmeme - 41%
Engadget - 40%
Gridskipper - 38%
YouTube - 38%
TechCrunch.com - 37%
digg.com - 34%
del.icio.us - 29%
PerezHilton.com - 27%
Wikipedia - 14%
Flickr - 14%
Facebook - 10%
Twitter - 5%

While a lot more analysis is needed, as you can see a lot of sites don't fare particularly well. They're set up to attract eyeballs, but perhaps - purely from an economic sense - not necessarily the right ones. Eventually ad spending will recede and marketers will place a greater focus on ROI. Purchase intent and search will play a key role. If you want to attract advertisers, start conveying that you attract buyers and make sure you are delivering on that promise.

Pew: 1/3 of US Online Adults Consult Wikipedia

According to a new report (PDF) from the Pew Center for the American Life Project, some one-third of online Americans (36% to be exact) regularly consult Wikipedia. This reflects 8% of the broader population.

Drilling down further, Wikipedia is more popular among the well-educated. Some 50% of those with at least a college degree consult the site, compared with 22% of those with a high school diploma. Pew also looked at demographics: 44% of Americans ages 18-29 use Wikipedia to look for information, while just 29% of users age 50 and up.

The Pew Report also includes fresh data from Hitwise that reveals just how popular Wikipedia is and how Google and search engines factor in.

The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR

I'm back from a brief blogging hiatus. This was my first extended break since I started this blog (Micro Persuasion turned three years old on April 19). I read a lot and thought about where I want to take this site in the next two years. If you have thoughts on this, send me an email or leave a comment. It was very refreshing to be off the treadmill for a few days. Now, it's time to get back in the blogging saddle.

One of the things I want to get back to is writing more about technology's impact on media, PR and marketing and a little less on just Web 2.0 by itself. Charlene Li from Forrester gave me just the starting point  I needed. She is out today with a new fascinating report on social technographics.

Forrester segmented the online audience into several different stratas - what they call a ladder of participation. They found that "Inactives" are by far the dominant group (52%). They're followed by spectators, joiners, critics, collectors and last but not least creators. This last cluster, according to the analyst firm, dabbles in lots of different activities but few do all of them. See the chart below for more.

This is the first report I have seen that really delves into what drives and motivates people to engage with the web. It's worth purchasing and it really has got me thinking about its impact on PR and marketing.

While extroverts get all of the attention, the thickest part of the ladder is in the vast majority of people who have no desire to participate. I imagine this number will shrink some in the years ahead, particularly as the generation that grew up with the Web enters the workforce. However, there will always be a meaty portion of the online audience that remains just that - consumers.

This got me thinking: what can the Participation Ladder teach us about PR and marketing? The answer is a lot.

If you work in either of these professions, cut the above chart out and stick it on your wall. For each program, assess where your audience sits on this continuum. Are they inactives, creators or somewhere in between? The key is to then devise the right kind of communication strategy depending on what you discover. Let's put this into action.

For example, let's say you have a start-up that has a new piece of blogging software that bloggers will love. Then you should execute a peer-to-peer program that primarily targets creators, collectors and critics while largely ignoring inactives. This means you can go guerrilla with peer-to-peer program that taps into social networks, blogging and other Web 2.0 communities. Place your chips there. Mainstream media coverage can help here too. Focus your attention on outlets that bloggers read.

However, if you have a tech product or service that has value say for all users, then clearly you want a broader mix that combines the best of new media/mainstream media, all while reflecting the ladder.

This is why I think we're really in the golden age of PR. Technology is flattening the marketing landscape, but there's always a need for smart agencies that can help guide clients in the dynamic two-way world. PR is best suited to thrive in this environment and getting the mix down is where it all starts. I am glad to be working with the leaders who are driving "PR 2.0" and this new landscape is what drives me to give my all.

The Forrester guide is the perfect skeleton, now it's PR's job to add the creative muscles and get the body moving in the right direction.

McKinsey: Companies Remain Wary of Web 2.0

Despite what some of you might think, I am not trying to be the single bearish voice among all the live streaming giddiness that is Web 2.0 Expo week. The signs of over enthusiasm - at times my own included - are however piling up in my RSS reader. Once again, it all comes back to economics. It's good to take a step back and look at the reality. It helps us move forward.

According to a thoroughly researched report from the McKisney management consulting firm, executives are wary of investing in Web 2.0 initiatives. The reason continues to remain fear. This goes beyond a willingness to engage in blogs. It also extends to internal wikis. The enterprise is afraid of letting go of the command and control structure.

That said, there is investment. McKinsey says that money is following web services. I wonder if RSS is beating out other initiatives.

The story also notes that a generational gap between Gen X/millennials and the older guard could be at play here too.

The marketing environment has changed, without a doubt. However, it has not done so enough to force everyone yet to adapt how they communicate. Over time they will. It just is going to take longer than we would all like.

This is a big part of what motivates me and why I love my job at Edelman. We have a long road ahead of us to help big companies get over their fears and see the value in participating in the conversation. I am with the right company to make this happen quickly.

Remember, lots of prognosticators and pundits were ahead of their time in the 1.0 era too. The reality was back then that we needed more people on broadband. Every exuberant time brings with it projections that go too far. Some of that is here today. That doesn't mean that there hasn't been a shift.

Majority of Americans Feel Bloggers Play a Valuable Role

According to a new poll by iFOCOS and Zogby, a majority of Americans (55%) feel bloggers are important to the future of American journalism. Further, 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role. I am not quite sure of how they distinguished the two in the poll, but the results are certainly positive. The survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.

New Stats on Spam in the Blogosphere

The eBuity Group has crunched the numbers on the state of spam in the blogosphere. Their key findings:

* 53% of all pings is spam, 64% of all pings from blogs in English is spam

* 56% of all pinging blogs are spam

* Blogspot continues to be heavily spammed

* Most spam blogs are still hosted in the US

Tagging Gains US Fans

AP reports that Americans love tagging. The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 28 percent of Internet users have tagged content, and 7 percent have done so on a typical day. Get the full report here.

Track Web Site Analytics with RSS Feeds

I run a number of web statistic packages on my blog. These include Google Analytics, Statcounter, Sitemeter, Ice Rocket and Blogbeat (now part of FeedBurner). They all lack an important feature I have longed for - RSS feeds. No more.

Clicky, my new favorite analytics tool, has just added statistical RSS feeds. You no longer need to log in to get your data. Clicky has four feeds you can subscribe to They cover: visitors and page views for the last three days, your last 30 visitors, the last 30 incoming link referrers, and last 30 search referrals. These are private feed URLs - unless you choose to share them. (Hmm, imagine if we all did.)

Here's where this gets interesting. If you add any of these Clicky feeds to an online RSS reader that caches the posts, you can surpass the imposed limits. This means if you wanted to you could get a feed for every single one of your visitors.

Referral and search data is invaluable. It tells you where your traffic is coming from. Page view figures, though important today, are becoming less relevant. It's all about interactions, not views.

The folks at Clicky know the analytics world is changing and they are preparing what sounds like a terrific new tool. It's a site spy that works in a similar to fashion to the digg Spy. This will provide a live look at what people are clicking right now.

Here's a look at screen grabs from the Clicky RSS feeds...

Edelman Study: Blog Readership in Asia Far Outpaces US

Walk the halls at Edelman and what you’ll often hear discussed is that the vertical, top-down, one-way model of communications – as the sole blueprint for PR – is no longer. It has been augmented by a new horizontal, peer-to-peer approach.

This new paradigm, of course, requires a different set of skills than what we’ve relied on for the last 50+ years. Further, in the Information Age communicators need to think both globally and locally. (This was one of the big things I personally learned since joining Edelman almost a year ago.)

This week Edelman published its fourth white paper on blogging. This one is focused on the impact of the conversation both globally and locally. It offers corporations a guide on how to navigate the global blogosphere.

Our StrategyOne research arm conducted an ambitious survey in Japan, China, South Korea, Italy, the UK, US, Germany, Belgium, Poland and France. We analyzed how often people are reading blogs as well as how many of these individuals are influencers. Finally, we looked at the press to see just how often they cite blogs. The white paper includes lots of data, country by country analysis and an essay on where we see blogging going from here.

One of the biggest takeaways is that blog readership is far higher in Asia than it is in the US. Some 74% of Japanese read blogs, followed by 43% in South Korea and 39% in China. In the US, it’s about 27% and its even less in Europe. Blog readership is significantly higher among influencers - people who for instance, contact a political, attend a public meeting etc.

You can download the entire report here (PDF) or browse it interactively. As always, we’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Tags: Edelman

For Teens, Most Social Networking is Not So Social

Conventional wisdom says that teens dominate social networks. Not so. The oldies are crashing the party. The vast majority of those who frequent these sites networking sites are over 25 years old, according to comScore.

OK then. Social network sites must then be about being social, right? Again not so. According to new data from The Pew Internet Project & American Life Project, some 55% percent of teens who publish to these sites do so through restricted profiles and pages. Further, 66% of teens who are socially networked have their profiles blocked from view by anyone but their friends.

Comscore Clings to a Page View World

I have no reason to pick on the fine folks at comScore Media Metrix. However, despite some recent indications that they want to change, it seems as though they are clinging to the days of yore when hits were all that ruled.

Consider this analysis published yesterday by Ars Technica. The piece reports: "comScore has said that they are working on new metrics that will also take into account the trappings of Web 2.0, including interactive AJAX-driven web pages which do not necessarily generate page views." That doesn't sound like bad news, right? Wrong.

Further down in the piece Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore Networks, added: "While page views will not altogether cease to be a relevant measure of a site's value, it's clear that there is an increasing need to consider page views alongside newer, more relevant measures." Abraham, however, doesn't say what that solution is. The reason could be such metrics could have severe ramifications for comScore's business model, which feeds off a hit-driven economy that's dying.

Comscore needs to wake up and realize that we're in a Long Tail world where top 10 lists matter less. Marketers want to know about the influence circles within the niches that matter to them - and those niches are often tiny. The time is now for comScore to open up to the little guy.

Quantcast is going to eat comScore's lunch. They recognize that partnering with the crowd is essential to measuring it. Comscore seems to slow to adopt to this model and it's highly possible they will become irrelevant in this world if they don't change fast.

Tags: comscore, metrics, pageviews, disruption

Canadians, British Read Blogs More Than Americans Do

Comscore Media Metrix conducted an analysis of the percentage of the online population that reads blogs. They covered Canada, France, Spain, the US, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy and Germany. Guess what? The US ranks fifth in terms of the percentage blog readers among us.

They also looked at the most popular platforms and Windows Live Spaces is cleaning up. When I was at Microsoft last week the team said that Spaces has 120M users who have created 60M spaces. In aggregate the Windows Live Spaces blogs accumulate 2 billion page views per month. Here's another nugget: six million new photographs are uploaded every day. (Microsoft is an Edelman client but we don't work on Windows Live in the US).

Quantcast Adds Comparative Charting

Quantcast continues to get better and better. They are really going to give Alexa a run for their money. The methodology is stronger on Quantcast because they qualify publishers and they don't just rely on a silly toolbar. They work with advertisers, publishers, ISPs and advertising networks to get hard data on millions of Web sites.

The gang at Quantcast has added added a bunch of new goodies, including comparative charting, traffic trends and siteographics that tell you what similar sites people in their panel are visiting. I bet they're not only going to give Alexa trouble, but I also think that folks like Nielsen and comScore should be nervous. This is powerful stuff and I find I am tapping into their site almost on a daily basis.

Here's a screenshot from Quantcast showing some stats on Daily Kos...

Technorati Tags: Quantcast

Survey Takes the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogosphere

Envision Solutions conducted a survey of several hundred healthcare bloggers earlier this year. The free report, Taking the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogosphere, is now available. Here are the key findings...

* Many bloggers are writing for altruistic or personal reasons, i.e., to share their experiences or educate others

* A number of bloggers hide their identity to protect themselves, friends, family, patients and careers

* Many respondents view their fellow bloggers’ statements with a critical eye. However, they are confident most bloggers will make it easy for them to access a range of perspectives via their blogs

* About half of those contacted by PR professionals write posts based on information they receive from them

* Respondents are split on whether running advertising compromises the integrity of healthcare bloggers. However, many are willing to invite advertisers to appear to their blogs

Technorati Tags: Healthcare