Asia-Pacific research on how to engage bloggers

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Pursuit was recently involved in survey of 153 Asia-Pacific bloggers in conjunction with Text 100, the global PR agency we partner with.  The results of the survey (PDF) aim to help the PR industry and clients better understand bloggers in the Asia Pacific region.

We interviewed a number of New Zealand bloggers for the research.  A lot of our social media influences come from the US, so it’s valuable to have a survey from closer to home.

Key findings:

  • 84% of bloggers respondents welcome contact from PR people and businesses.
  • Electronic communication is king for APAC bloggers: 58% preferred email, followed by online comments on their blogs, as the preferred means of contacting them.
  • Similarly, emailing of press releases and interviews or discussions ranked in the top two as the preferred formats for receiving content (67% and 60% respectively).
  • APAC bloggers are not particular about who they engage with, but prefer to talk with active bloggers and whoever is closest to the story – not necessarily the traditional spokespeople.
  • Two thirds (67%) of respondents spend less than 8 hours of their working week blogging.
  • Bloggers concerns included receiving unsolicited spam from PR agencies, and were frequently critical of the content they received, feeling it was inappropriate and unusable.
  • While most bloggers ignore traditional press releases, 88% were aware of so-called Social Media Releases and indicated they were in favour of using elements such as videos, quotes, pictures and links from these releases in their posts.

Text 100’s Asia Pacific Peer Media Lead, Jeremy Woolf (a Kiwi) discussed the research and has some tips on how to engage with bloggers on YouTube:

More video comments here:

Text 100 also prepared a social media news release announcing the research, for those of you interested in this new format.

Pursuit is hosting a roundtable discussion with companies interested in talking with bloggers or blogging themselves on Friday 4 July.  Email me if you’d like to come.