Ragan Report Rant Rips Bloggers

Ragan Report editor David Murray rips bloggers in his editorial, claiming that bloggers are "hysterics" who are "increasingly frustrated that most of their colleagues just aren’t paying enough attention to blogging, darn it!"

Shel Holtz writes a very reasoned response to Murray's rant, noting reasons why blogging weilds a certain amount of influence:

-- Bloggers report news the mainstream media misses or ignores, often forcing the media to cover stories they otherwise wouldn't. US Senator Trent Lott's remarks about Strom Thurmond, which led to his loss of the Senate leadership, is a good example.

-- Many reporters have turned to bloggers to promote their stories, hoping to drive traffic to their publications' web sites.

-- Bloggers have corrected misinformation reported by mainstream media, most famously Dan Rather's claims to have documentation of US President George Bush's failure to fulfill his National Guard service.

-- Readers have turned to blogs for information. For example, authors who can't get reviewed in mainstream book review publications have seen sales increase when bloggers have reviewed their works.

-- Similarly, popular blogs have served as platforms to complain about institutions and their products and services, influencing opinions and affecting reputations.

One of the many good reasons for that, in addition to the ones Shel so eloquently outlined, is that blogs are perhaps the most effective tool ever for improving search engine placement.

When the blog and the company website are well-integrated, better search engine placement leads to more website traffic. And, if the site is well-done, that leads to more sales.

Put "PRSA 2004 Conference" into Google's search bar. You'll see that two of the top 10 results are from my blog's challenge to PRSA to add blogging to the program. Which they did. It took all of three days to cause a turnaround. That's one part-time blogger (me) influencing a 20,000-member organization of communicators who should, but don't,
know enough about the Internet to imporove their search engine placement.

Bloggers have influence beyond their passion. Any communicator who doesn't learn to work with those influencers is missing a huge opportunity.

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Tracked on December 8, 2004 1:45 AM