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.

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.