There is a huge gap between how PR Managers and journalists view the importance of online technologies for communication, according to a survey (pdf) by Glide Technologies. Journalists say that the Internet is the most important source of information about a company, still PR Managers put it at the bottom of their list, after face to face, phone conversation, press conference, press event and PR agency. It indicates that PR Managers value relationships higly, while journalists are more interested in getting the information, with or without relations.
The survey has several interesting findings, for example, 56% of the responding journalists claim that they have seen an increase in the number of press releases the last two years. Almost half of those, say that the volume has more than doubled or tripled. Only 14% of journalists find at least half of all press releases to be of genunie interest, while 88% of PR Managers claim that their press releases are accurately targeted.
When PR Managers want to track which journalists actually reads their press releases, they pick up the phone. The vast majority, 82%, call or contact the journalist (calling to ask “have you read the release I sent you” surely has to be the number one pet peeve of all journalists), while about one in five use some kind of IT tracking.
I can’t help but think that these findings confirm that PR practitioners who adopt blogs and RSS will have an advantage over laggards who stick to “wine and dine PR”.