UK companies slow to use RSS, blogs, survey finds (Update 1)

PRESS RELEASE

Whilst blogs are causing a PR revolution in corporate America, the UK has yet to get the message.

Blogs (simple syndicated websites) have revolutionised corporate communications for Fortune 500 companies like Disney, Avon, FedEx, Motorola, McGraw Hill. An increasing number of global brands realise that with 27% of Americans (according to Pew Internet) using blogs for news, it is vital to get their story out in this arena. The Vice-chairman of GM – Bob Lutz – has even started a personal blog. The technology behind blogs – RSS – means that companies can communicate faster and more effectively internally and externally.

They are not alone – in the daily Blogpulse survey – the number of global blog users has passed 10 million and is growing at 13% a week!

But in a survey conducted by the UK blog monitoring company Market Sentinel Ltd, it was found that only one of the FTSE100 UK blue chip companies syndicated their news releases with RSS – BT . And not one of them has taken the step of launching a corporate blog.

The survey was based on direct interviews with 8 companies, telephone interviews with 11 and supplemented with online research. In interviews, when companies were asked why they don’t monitor blogs and messageboards they responded that (most frequent response first):

< “We’ve got monitoring services” (meaning newswires and press cuttings services) “we don’t worry about [the Internet]“
< We use the Internet but mainly to read mainstream media (MSM), but are not aware of RSS/blogging
< We use the Internet, we have heard of blogging, we may possibly have visited blogs, but we don’t really understand what blogs are
< We use the Internet, we understand blogging, we have undergone attacks in blogs and message boards but we don’t believe that this is a problem
< We use the Internet, we understand blogging, we have undergone attacks in blogs and message boards, we agree it’s a problem but we don’t know what to do about it
< We use the Internet, we understand blogging, we have undergone attacks in blogs and message boards, we would like to monitor it but our IT department are in charge of this sort of thing

The survey found that the function of monitoring customer feedback on corporate, product and brand issues is split between different departments who often have incompatible priorities.

Market Sentinel CEO Mark Rogers thinks that the UK bluechips are missing a trick. ‘Any large company or brand receives thousands of comments and references in the blogosphere. The result is that when customers or partners do a Google search on a company or brand name they are as likely to find a negative comment as they are to find the company’s own message. The big UK companies need to get blogging.’

You can read more about business blogging in the Sunday Times

Filed under Market Sentinel, PR, RSS technology by Mark.