This study uses the Delphi technique to ask public relations experts how Web logs (blogs) are changing the practice of public relations and how educators can prepare students for these changes. Respondents agree that blogs are a powerful new medium, creating new audiences, and that as a media outlet, blogs have changed how public relations professionals work. Findings suggest that students must develop online conversational skills, learn to communicate with bloggers, and learn to use blogs to monitor issues. However, panelists said that educators should not require students to blog because forced content skews the transparency of the blogosphere.
Public relations is an academic field that must keep current with changes in the profession. One change is the proliferation of Weblogs, online journals known as blogs, which offer chronological postings of news and opinions. Although blogs have been around for only about ten years, the number of blogs has increased dramatically from about 30,000 in 1998 to more than 70 million.
Blogs, which provide alternative sources of news and information, offer both opportunities and threats to public relations practitioners. Some call blogs the new Fourth Estate because they allow anyone with access to a computer to publish news and spread information in real time. Trammell and Keshelashvili compare the power of blogs to the power of the printing press. "One need not own a printing press or a broadcasting station to reach large audiences anymore. One of the latest tools in personal publishing is the Internet-based blog."
Many bloggers using this "power to publish" are self-proclaimed "citizen journalists," while others want to vent, share opinions, or write about their lives. Blogs have become a powerful tool in the world of new media. From a public relations perspective, blogs can spread positive information to benefit an organization or spread negative information that can destroy a reputation and cost an organization millions of dollars. To help illustrate the potential public relations power of bloggers, note the following high-profile original news and/or public relations information in blogs:
Reputation. Blog postings about racist comments of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott led to Lott's resignation.
Stock prices. Postings by technology blog Engadget claiming Apple would delay its release of the iPhone and Leopard operating system proved wrong, but caused Apple's stock to drop about 5%.
Global Aid. The 2004 tsunami in Indonesia was reported firsthand by eyewitnesses and other citizen journalists on their blogs, which affected the way the news was reported.
Politics. During the 2004 elections, many candidates used blogs. Since then, the use of political blogs has grown, but not without some negative consequences. Democratic hopeful John Edwards hired two bloggers, who resigned after making controversial comments. Blogs also played a big role in Edwards' admission in August 2008 that he had an affair.
Significance of Study
In recent years, hundreds of articles about blogs and their use in public relations have appeared in trade and professional publications, newspapers and magazines, and online -- especially in blogs about blogs. To lay the groundwork for this study and to understand how blogs can be used in public relations, it may be helpful to identify categories of blog usage, as chronicled in these articles.
Direct Communication. Two-way communication is one primary PR use of blogs. In reaching a target audience, the personal and unfiltered voice of a blogger can be more persuasive and more effective than the filtered message delivered by a third party through traditional media. And, with the number of traditional media outlets declining as some media corporations, such as the Tribune Co., file for bankruptcy and cutback on reporters, blogs are becoming even more important. For example, PR Week calls blogs a "new twist on traditional media channels" and says that blogs are "to communications what radio was in the 1920s and 30s, television in the 1940s and 50s, and newspapers in the 1960s and 70s."
Corporate and Employee Blogs. Direct communication between companies and their customers can be accomplished with a corporate, company, or employee blog. According to Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, which provides a list of companies that have business blogs, only sixty-four or about 12.8% of the Fortune 500 companies had blogs as of November 2008.  Some of these companies include Boeing, Cisco, Dell, General Electric, Ford, and IBM. As to the popularity of those blogs, beginning in May 2008, Mario Sundar at Marketing Nirvana began publishing his list of the top fifteen corporate blogs, based on popularity as ranked by Technorati, a blog search engine that indexes and ranks blogs. Among the most popular blogs are Boeing, Kodak, General Motors, Yahoo, Dell, and Adobe. These blogs show that a corporate blog does not have to be written by the company CEO. The Boeing blog is written by Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing, while a recent Delta blog was written by employee Dell Weingarten, who works in airport operations and has been with the company for more than twenty-five years. However, when it comes to corporate blogs, public relations professionals say that it is important that the blog's author be clearly identified and that the blog be authentic and transparent.
Monitoring the Blogosphere. Traditional PR firms, including Ketchum, Edelman, Burson-Marsteller, Inc., and others offer services that help clients monitor blogs and track, manage and shape their reputations. In addition, a number of specialty companies, such as said Wot and Brand Titan, deal specifically with online reputation management. Increasingly, public relations professionals must spend time monitoring and responding to blogs, including blogs by traditional journalists.
Traditional Media. Increasingly traditional journalists look to blogs for story ideas. As Robert J. Key points out, "Don't just talk to the media, become the media" by telling your own story in a blog. That might also be a good way to reach traditional media because a recent survey shows that 70% of journalists get story ideas from blogs. For public relations practitioners, this means that a favorable blog post could become a favorable story in a mainstream media.
Crisis Communications. One lesson learned from the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2007 when thirty-two people were killed is that bloggers can and will write first-hand accounts of such events, and the mainstream news media will monitor blogs for information during a crisis. This means that blogs can and might become a key source of news. Blogs provide an immediate and effective way to communicate, and some PR experts suggest creating a "lockbox" blog or "dark" blog that can be activated if a crisis strikes. Other experts argue against creating a blog during a crisis, and instead emphasize the need for ongoing communication through already established channels, including blogs and other social media.
These categories are by no means an exhaustive list of public relations blog uses. Other uses include product launches, internal communication, employee blogs, special events, and more. In addition, many public relations professionals have their own personal and professional blogs.
Objectives and Method
This study has two primary objectives. First, it seeks to learn more about current practices relating to the use of blogs in public relations. Second, the study seeks to learn how educators can incorporate blogs into the curriculum so that students can stay current with the profession. To accomplish these objectives the study used the Delphi research method, which consists of a series of questionnaires administered over a period of time, seeking opinions, feedback, and forecasts from an expert panel with the goal of arriving at a consensus. This method dates to the 1950s when it was used by the RAND Corporation. The Delphi method is particularly useful for forecasting and has become a popular research method during the past twenty years. It has been used in many fields, including health care, information sciences, public administration, medicine, technology diffusion, and curriculum development.
Using the Delphi Technique
The researcher's first step was to identify qualified, available respondents, by contacting representatives from major public relations agencies and explaining research objectives. Representatives were asked to nominate someone to serve as a respondent. Twenty respondents were identified; the researcher contacted each nominee to explain the project and the Delphi method. Then, a follow-up letter was sent via e-mail, including an estimate of the amount of time respondents would need to invest in the project. As a result, three of twenty experts declined to participate. The remaining seventeen included top executives, such as a deputy-managing director and a senior vice president from two top global PR agencies, as well as two internationally known PR consultants. 
Results
(1) How Blogs Are Changing the Practice of Public Relations. Respondents agreed blogs are a powerful new medium, creating new audiences. As a mass media outlet, panelists said, blogs have dramatically changed the manner in which public relations professionals perform outreach campaigns by allowing them to target very narrow and specific audiences. Blogs represent a changing mass media climate and rise in power and influence of the individual in shaping public opinion, respondents agreed. Therefore, blogs have expanded the PR practice because PR professionals do not just target the mainstream news media with their efforts; they must consider the citizen journalist, who has a blog. Therefore, respondents agreed that traditional PR is changing because blogs are forcing PR professionals to adjust timing and how they announce news and to whom they announce news. Speed is of the essence, they said. As one panelist commented: "Because of the speed at which news can post, then spread, PR professionals not only have to plan around that speed, but have to react to that speed as well."
Building Relationships. Practitioners must master "blogger relations" just as they mastered traditional news "media relations," panelists said. However, panelists said practitioners should not communicate with bloggers as they would with traditional journalists. Bloggers need to be treated differently than traditional news media, although the desired outcome is the same, they said. One way bloggers and traditional news media can be treated the same is by making social media press releases available to them. Such press releases are aimed at online journalists as well as bloggers and podcasters. Another way bloggers can be treated the same is that practitioners should read the blog and get to know it, just as they would read the work of traditional journalists and get to know what interests them before pitching a story. To be successful, panelists said that practitioners should contact bloggers individually and make it clear they have read their blog, then ask permission to send information.
Dealing with Traditional News Media. Increasingly, traditional journalists have their own blogs, and panelists said that a key point to consider is the traditional journalist having roles as a journalist and as a blogger. These roles can be very different; blogs give journalists an outlet to share opinions, which they may not be able to do in traditional news media. PR practitioners should monitor a journalist's blog and encourage clients to post comments and get involved in the conversation, panelists said. Clients can also link their blogs to the journalist's blog and give their own commentary about the journalist's topic. Media relations has changed on both the PR and news media sides, panelists agreed, because the news media know news may be broken on a blog if the traditional journalist does not "pick it up." This puts more pressure on traditional journalists to find and break news. Still, panelists said in some ways, blogging with traditional media is not new because public relations had already shifted to online conversation through e-mail.
Researching and Monitoring. Students need to learn how to conduct research and to monitor issues in the blogosphere. Panelists agreed that increasingly PR professionals are spending a great deal of time tracking issues and keeping up with online comments about clients, and about issues that affect their clients. Therefore, this is an important skill for future practitioners. Panelists point out that monitoring blogs is a relatively simple task that can be accomplished by setting up keyword searches at Technorati and by subscribing to each search's RSS feed, and then checking those feeds daily. Panelists suggest that PR educators create assignments that require students not only to monitor specific blogs on a regular basis, but also to monitor specific issues, companies, and organizations. Panelists also agreed that a segment on social media should be included in public relations textbooks. As for other teaching tactics, panelists suggested that educators should build a library of blog case studies.