Blog Competitor Analysis

Blogging Competitive Review
Porter Novelli 3 April 2008

Brendan Cooper, Mat Morrison
PN Digital Group
Overview Methodology
A typical public relations agency blog is written by a The competitors were global PR agencies which
senior staff member, is professional, and is poorly operate in a similar space to Porter Novelli:
integrated into the broader blogosphere.
•Edelman
The worst approach is a company-wide blogging
•Hill and Knowlton
drive with little incentive to do so and dull,
corporately-hosted blogs (eg H&K) •Burson Marsteller
The best is a combination of an aggregated •Ketchum
corporate blog allowing a variety of opinions and •Weber Shandwick
cross-germination of ideas; independent bloggers
with their own approaches and voices; a CEO blog We performed a simple quantitative analysis of
offering insight; and a landing page to bring this all over 90 blogs (see table below):
together (eg Edelman plus the aggregated blogs of
Burson-Marsteller and Ogilvy). Recency When was the latest post?
The Core They are all analytical (except for the Burson Frequency How many posts in the past full calendar month?
Marsteller blog which is intended to be solely a
news/announcement page more than a blog) Tenure Years between first and latest posts
None of them has an associated podcast Authority Technorati Authority* is a commonly-used
None of them links to a blogging policy measure of a blog's "authority" amongst its
peers.
The Almost all by senior level
Common management/directors/CEOs
Mostly professional/educational rather than
personal/selling
Almost all have blogrolls (links to other blogs)
Hardly any have creative commons (statement of
copyright liability)
Hardly any include linkblog content (automatically
generated links through social bookmarking such as
del.iciou.s) Company #blogs analysed
Most display poor integration with the blogosphere
and/or wider web Hill & Knowlton 37
The Edelman has the most integrated blogs Edelman 25

Unusual H&K has the only common blog look, feel and Weber Shandwick 15
hosting
Burson-Marsteller has the only 'news Porter Novelli 10
announcements' blog
Ogilvy PR 3
Weber Shandwick is the only company not to link to
its bloggers Burson Marsteller 2
* http://support.technorati.com/faq/topic/71
Recency
How many days old is the latest post? Lower

numbers are "better" - indicating fresher content.
A high number of abandoned blogs makes Hill &
Knowlton look very bad.
Frequency
How many posts last month? Higher numbers are

better. Porter Novelli scores well here, partly due
to two tumblelogs/linkblogs run out of Austin, but
also because of three very active European
bloggers.
Hill & Knowlton’s Frequency score is inflated by
their combined blogging approach
A ll Data Ogilvy PR Burson M arsteller W eber Shandwick Edelman Hill & Knowlton Porter Novelli
70
60
50
40
34
30
20
10 10
6
4
2 2
0 0
-10
Tenure
Between them, Edelman's Phil Gomes and Steve

Rubel have been blogging for over ten years. But
on the whole, most PR bloggers have been
blogging for less than two years.
Authority
Blogging isn't about writing. It's about getting

people to link to you. And – on the whole – PR
bloggers are very poor at this. This is reflected in
low authority scores across the board.
Edelman's outlier – Steve Rubel – has a very high
authority, but this hasn't been shared. Ogilvy's
fewer, more focused blogs have – on the whole
– greater overall authority.
Brendan Cooper is Porter Novelli's only blogger
about to break the 100 mark.
Individually, Hill & Knowlton’s blogs have almost
no authority – but their combined blog lifts them
somewhat.
Positioning
For the top three blogs in each company, we

analysed their
Integration w. Is there real purpose in blogging if one doesn't

blogosphere take into account the broader conversation that
takes place on the web? We looked at the
following questions:
Is the blog hosted inside or outside the corporate
domain?
Does it have high Technorati authority
(calculated as the number of unique 3rd party
blogs linking to the site in the past six months)?
Does it have high Google Page Rank? integrated
Does the blogger post hyperlinks in their stories?
Are there references and links to other
blaoggers? Does the blogger maintain a
"blogroll" (a public list of the blogs that s/he
reads or respects)?
Does the blogger mention a presence on other
socia media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)?
Does the blogger maintain a "linkblog" - sharing
their social bookmarks from services like Blogger Expert
del.icio.us?
Personal v. Is the site more personal or professional in tone

professional of voice and content selection?
personal professional
Diary CEO Blogger
standalone
Edelman
Edelman's blogging programme is highly

visible to and integrated with the wider
blogosphere: three of the top five "most
authoritative" bloggers in this review are
employed by Edelman.
Edelman has a dedicated page on its website,
called Speak Up, which provides an aggregated
feed for and links to all its bloggers. The links on the
landing page leave the site to go to the blogs, which
have their own identities (look, feel, domain etc)
First among Edelman's bloggers is Steve Rubel, who
maintains the Micropersuasion blog. This is several
orders of magnitude above all other blogs in the PR
space in terms of popularity, with nearly 3,000
individual bloggers linking to it.
Unsurprisingly, Rubel's blog is one of the only two
blogs in the study that are rated as 'integrated'. The
other is also an Edelman blog: Simonsays, run by
Simon Collister, which has the fourth highest
Technorati Authority (161).
Edelman also has the benefit of a CEO who still
bears the company name: Richard Edelman. His has
the third highest Technorati Authority rating (275)
and, while he doesn't exactly sell his products or
services, he is essentially marketing his company
through his personal insights.
One very interesting Edelman blogger is Dan
Schnur, who posts on the Campaign Stops blog for
the NY Times. Whereas this isn’t his blog as such,
and he is not identified on the NY Times blog as an
Edelman employee, he is listed on the Edelman
landing page as an Edelman blogger.
What it •Allows bloggers freedom of expression

does right •Brings bloggers together into one landing page
•Offers an aggregated feed across all bloggers
•Leverages the CEO who carries the company name
•Huge integration
What it •Implication that only seniors have something to say
does •Links back to Edelman are not clear
wrong
Latest posts (Tuesday March 25, 2008)
Date 12/03/08
Title The Future is Web Services, Not Web Sites
Summary Everyone - including marketers - will need to think of
their online brands not as sites but as portable
services that can go anywhere and everywhere the
consumer wants
Date 11/03/08
Title If Everything Else Asks for Feedback, Why Not Ads?

Summary Advertising should quite easily be able to solicit two-
way communication but whether or not it does
remains to be seen.
Date 08/03/08
Title Startups That Fail to Invest in Trust Will All Die
Summary Trust is important, especially with companies that
handle data in a world of mash-ups and APIs
Date 05/03/08
Title Historically, Most Online Communities Haven't Stuck
Summary Change on the web is constant, and this means we

need to become quicker and more efficient at
relationship-building
Date 10/03/08
Title Media's Rising Digital Acuity Puts Agencies at Risk

Summary As defined by a group of super smart and engaged
folks who all made it to be part of this conversation
Employer Edelman Reviewer Notes
Location US Steve Rubel is a league apart in terms of social media and PR

blogging. His Technorati Authority and influence far exceed that of
Title Micropersuasion other bloggers in this sphere.
URL http://www.micropersuasion.com/ Positioning
Author Steve Rubel integrated
Role SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital
x
Expertise Digital marketer with over 15 years’ experience personal professional
Start date April 2006 (High tenure)
Most recent post March 12, 2008 (Moderate recency) standalone
Posts in last full month 11 (Moderate frequency)

Date 14/03/08
Title Let’s Make the Argument
Summary In the face of recession, we need to ensure clients
are equipped to convey PR’s ROI and credibility
advantages over other communications disciplines.
Date 07/03/08
Title Pam Talbot and the Development of Modern Public

Relations
Summary Now that Pam Talbot has elected to retire from her
job as President and CEO of Edelman US it is time
to take stock of her contributions to the profession.
Date 28/02/08
Title So You Are Not Perfect
Summary The importance of trust and openness, both in PR
and political spheres.
Date 20/02/08
Title Rite of Passage
Summary Description of daughter's bat mitzvah

Date 13/02/08
Title A Business Model Premised on Frequency of Use
Summary Critique of the FT business model to maintain
subscription revenue while opening its walled
garden to the general conversation on-line
Reviewer Notes
Employer Edelman
As CEO, Richard Edelman tends to present his ideas on a weekly
Location US basis, which makes them high quality. Whereas he doesn't exactly
sell his products or services, he is essentially marketing his
Title 6AM company through his personal insights.
URL http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/ Positioning
Author Richard Edelman integrated
Role President and CEO
Expertise Marketing and reputation management personal professional
Start date September 2004 (High tenure) x


Date 21/03/08
Title David Miliband, British foreign policy and the
internet
Summary The first in a series of essays about British foreign
policy under David Milband
Date 21/03/08
Title In case you forgot me... here's 8 things you might

not know
Summary Completing the 8 Things You Didn't Know About Me
meme courtesy of Antonio Gould.
Date 13/03/08
Title Internet and Ideology Part 3 – Society
Summary The emergence of social mobility was also a new

development based partly on individual’s new found
power of self-determination.
Date 10/03/08
Title Prudential nick the RSS logo!
Summary Anyone else noticed that Prudential's lazy ad

creatives have nicked the universal RSS logo??
Date 10/03/08
Title Internet and Ideology Part 2 – Economy
Summary The ideological shift in politics, economics and
society that occurred during the transition to
modernity 200 years ago with modern analogies
Employer Edelman Reviewer Notes
Location UK Adopts an academic approach to often complex arguments. A lot

of theory, taken from history, applied to the modern social media
Title Simonmsays… 'revolution'.
URL http://simoncollister.typepad.com/ Positioning
Author Simon Collister integrated
Role Head of Digital Culture and Emerging Media
x
Expertise Creative campaigns via online and offline media and networks personal professional
Start date February 2006 (Moderate tenure)
Most recent post March 21, 2008 (High recency) standalone

Hill & Knowlton
H&K’s blogs are uniform, dull, very poorly

integrated and lacking professionalism
The most striking aspect of H&K's approach is that it
is the only company to offer its employees a
completely consistent, hosted blog platform under
the title 'Collective Conversation.'
This landing page is similar to Edelman's in that it
brings together all its bloggers with an aggregated
feed, but links go to bloggers that all use the same
basic H&K template and a directory within the H&K
domain.
While this enables H&K to retain control over the
look and feel of the blogs - and therefore its visual
brand identity - it does introduce a bland, corporate
feel to what should be a vital, personal experience.
There is also the feeling that H&K embarked on a
blogging initiative without having first sourced its
bloggers or provided incentives or ownership. Of
the 44 H&K bloggers listed, around half don't have
a Technorati entry at all (that is, they don't appear
on the Technorati database). Of the remaining, only
four have Technorati authority scores in double
figures, the highest of which is Niall Cook at 43.
Furthermore, Niall Cook and David Ferrabee fly
perilously close to being personal bloggers rather
than professional, for example writing about their
kids' birthday parties and Easter eggs.
What it •Recognises the importance of blogging
does right •Attempts to protect brand integrity and consistency
does •Lack of incentive/ownership shows in low activity
wrong
•Overly formal look and feel
•Very poor integration
•Bloggers come close to personal, not professional
Date 12/03/08
Title The worst social media of 2007?
Summary Observations on a recent award for 'worst social
media' - his opinion is that it stops brands who want
to do the right thing from even trying
Date 06/03/08
Title Pot calls kettle black
Summary Notes from the London College of Communication

for the Flat Earth News debate organised by Press
Gazette.
Date 10/03/08
Title Software as media
Summary Young people are going online and using the

software already running on the Net like Facebook,
Flickr, Gmail, etc. This should scare media
companies who lose advertising revnue.
Date 01/02/08
Title Today's Big News

Summary Packed final manuscript of new book
Date 19/12/07
Title Christmas Party Shennanigans
Summary Video and commentary on the H&K Christmas party
Reviewer Notes
Employer Hill & Knowlton Has written a book on social software in the enterprise – quite
possibly this accounts for the lack of recent posting.
Location UK
Title Change and Internal Communications

URL http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/niallcook/ Positioning
Author Niall Cook integrated
Role Director, Netcoms
Expertise Combining marketing and tech to develop and identify markets personal professional
Start date December 2004 (High tenure) x

Posts in last full month 2 (Low frequency)

Date 16/03/08
Title There's more to digital PR than social media
Summary Digital offers unique challenges, and here is a list of
some of our intiatives to tackle them
Date 03/03/08
Title Experienced PR Professionals wanted in Ottawa...

Summary Hill & Knowlton is looking for experienced mid-level
(Account Director) and junior comms consultants
Date 27/02/08
Title Real Threats. Real Plans - Crisis Communications in
a 2.0 World
Summary Reporting from the Toronton Disaster Recovery

Information Exchange on fundamental changes
afoot, mostly driven by digital.
Date 14/02/08
Title Epitaph for the now-defunct Halifax Daily News...
"I'm on the Internet"
Summary Link to a video relating to the recent shutdown of the

Halifax Daily News.
Date 12/02/08
Title Alberta election campaign heats up online...
Summary The web is still having an increasingly powerful
impact on how politics is conducted and in the way
Employer Hill & Knowlton voters inform their decisions
Location Canada Reviewer Notes
Title Brendan Hodgson
Brendan has a tendency for convoluted English and, therefore,
URL http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/brendanhodgson/ arguments. His posts are very long and there's often the subtext
that he's building up a pitch rather than engaging in conversation.
Author Brendan Hodgson
Positioning
Role H&K Canada's Vice President, Digital Communications
integrated
Expertise Implications of digital and social media on corporate
communications, crisis, issues and reputation management.
Start date October 2005 (High tenure) personal professional
Most recent post March 16, 2008 (Moderate recency) x

Posts in last full month 6 (Low frequency) standalone
Date 16/03/08
Title Child's play: Facilitation is easy compared to
birthday parties
Summary Business facilitation rules as applied to a group of
12-year-olds having a sleep-over party
Date 10/03/08
Title Counterknowledge: It's what you know to be true...

that ain't
Summary Theory of counter-knowledge, applied in personal
and professiona life
Date 10/03/08
Title What happened to the Fourth Estate?
Summary Now employees not only have access to all the

news paper reports available at the drop of a hat,
they can see what anyone, anywhere is writing
about their company
Date 04/03/08
Title Customer service: what the detail communicate

about you
Summary Personal experience of poor customer service from a
bank
Date 28/02/08
Title Corporate communications, culture and... death?

Summary Observations on cultural differences
Employer Hill & Knowlton Reviewer Notes
Location UK (Northern Ireland) Well written, very personal tone of voice, giving professional
insights from personal examples. Has also published a book,
Title Change and Internal Communications People Power (http://www.lulu.com/content/1136271).
URL http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/davidferrabee/ Positioning
Author David Ferrabee integrated
Role MD Change & Internal Communications
Expertise Internal communication and change strategy personal professional
Start date May 2005 (High tenure) x


Burson Marsteller
Burson Marsteller's programme

demonstrates a variety of approaches but
poor integration
Burson Marsteller has three very different blogs: one
from its CEO, called'“The century's most influential
PR figure" by PRWeek; one aggregated blog by
various contributors; and, uniquely, a
news/announcements blog.
The CEO blog by Harold Burson is infrequently
updated, with a post on average once a month.
However what it lacks in frequency it makes up for
in quality: his posts tend to offer sage insights into
PR and communications, even more so in the digital
age. It does not register in the Technorati database.
The aggregated blog, called Digital Perspectives,
initially shows a good attempt at integration, with
Twitter and Flickr feeds, but doesn't tend to interact
with other bloggers, hence a low integration score.
There's a strong element of cross-posting here - in a
good way - in that each strategist tends to pick up
on what another is saying and offering alternative
viewpoints or tie-ins. As a result there's a wide
range of complementary information to suit many
different audiences.
The news/announcements blog is an interesting
departure. While it also doesn't have a Technorati
rating, it does link up to news announcements and
other online media, and as such is an online press
centre that pulls disparate sources together.

•Leverages the CEO who carries the company name
•Unique complementary news/announcements blog
•Encourages cross-germination between bloggers
does •Poor integration
wrong
Date 18/03/08
Title Radiohead Trust
Summary Radiohead continues trusting their fans have

partnered with Aniboom
Date 12/03/08
Title Southwest true to its word…
Summary A perspective on Southwest Airlines handled a crisis

using social media
Date 12/03/08
Title Let your customers do the talking…
Summary More about the Southwest Airlines situation
Date 11/03/08
Title All Top?
Summary Guy Kawasaki’s launch of AllTop.com. The site

serves as an aggregator of stories across numerous
topics and is essentially a magazine rack for the
web.
Date 03/03/08
Title Bridging Key Tenets of Silicon Valley to Digital in

Action
Summary Takeaways from the next phase of Burson-

Marsteller’s internal training initiative.
Reviewer Notes
Employer Burson Marsteller
There's a strong element of cross-posting here - in a good way - in
Location US
that each strategist tends to pick up on what another is saying and
Title Digital Perspectives offering alternative viewpoints or tie-ins. As a result there's a wide
range of complementary information to suit many different
URL http://www.digitalperspectiveblog.com/ audiences.
Positioning
Author Multiple integrated
Role Digital strategists
Expertise Interactive and digital communications advice personal professional
Start date June 2007 (Low tenure)

x

Date 28/02/08
Title On Being 87 and Still Engaged
Summary Personal take on how his age affects his job role
Date 04/01/08
Title A Matter of Definition

Summary The internet will enhance its effectiveness and, to
some considerable extent, change the way
messages are delivered to various audiences.
Date 19/09/07
Title Who’s Counting?
Summary On BM's business model of acquisition sparsity
Date 30/07/07
Title "Lobbying" is Not a Dirty Word
Summary Defence of the US first amendment on freedom of

speech
Date 07/06/07
Title Let's Not Sell Ourselves Short
Summary The value of PR as opposed to its price
Reviewer Notes
This is very much the 'words from the wise' approach. Infrequent
postings that take a very broad view and deal with big industry
Employer Burson Marsteller issues.
Location US
Title Harold Burson's Blog
URL www.burson-
marsteller.com/Innovation_and_insights/blogs_and_podcasts/h
arold_burson_blog/ Positioning
Author Harold Burson integrated
Role CEO
Expertise “The century's most influential PR figure." (PRWeek) personal professional
Start date February 2006 (Moderate tenure) x

Most recent post February 28, 2008 (Low recency) standalone

Date 24/03/08
Title Jason Schechter on Communicating During a
Financial Crisis
Summary Link to his recent Fox appearance
Date 24/03/08
Title Andrew Goldberg Returns to B-M to Lead US

Corporate Practice
Summary Andrew Goldberg has been named Chair of B-M's

U.S. Corporate Practice.
Date 24/03/08
Title Theresa Rice to lead B-M's US Hispanic Practice
Summary Teri will now lead the firm's U.S.-based Hispanic

outreach capability
Date 18/03/08
Title Monitoring Blogs and Web Chatter During a

Product Launch
Summary B-M's Chief Digital Strategist Erin Byrne provides

PRWeek some interesting perspective on monitoring
web chatter during the launch of a new product.
Date 29/02/08
Title Corporate Responsibility in 2008 by Eric Biel
Summary Article on the firm's Corporate Responsibility efforts.
It also appears The PRNews Guide to Corporate
Employer Burson Marsteller Responsibility 2008.
Location US Reviewer Notes
Title Burson Marsteller Blog This is the only news/announcements blog so far and as such is
essentially a newsroom for bringing together online media.
URL http://www.burson-
marsteller.com/Innovation_and_insights/blogs_and_podcasts/B
M_Blog/default.aspx Positioning
Role Multiple
x
Expertise Multiple personal professional
Start date February 2008 (Low tenure)
Posts in last full month N/A (Low frequency)

Ogilvy
Ogilvy offers a variety of approaches with

better integration than Burson Marsteller
Ogilvey runs one aggregated blog linked to its PR
website, with independent bloggers linked to that
blog.
The aggregated blog, called 360 Digital Influence,
brings together bloggers from across the company.
While this could, like the B-M blog, show cross-
germination of ideas, it is unfortunate that, like H&K,
many of the bloggers have posted once only.
Notwithstanding, this blog is the only one outside of
Edelman to register as 'well integrated'.
The top two independent bloggers are Rohit
Barghava and John Bell.
Rohit has the second highest Technorati Authority
(731). He seems to attend a lot of events and
therefore his blogging comprises his take on these
events. He has also written books, including
"Personality not included."
John Bell runs what looks like a very interesting
blog, illustrating different ways in which to map
digital influence. However, if this is his project, he
would appear not to have cracked this particular nut
yet: he just describes other approaches, not
Ogilvy's.

•Encourages cross-germination between bloggers
•Good integration

does •Lack of incentive for bloggers shown in low activity
wrong
Date 19/03/08
Title Everywhere Mag and the Arrival of the User
Generated Magazine
Summary His passion for travel, how most websites miss the
mark, but Everywhere Magazine seems to hit
Date 17/03/08
Title The Blogstar Delusion: We're Not As Famous As

We Think We Are
Summary Bloggers can be tempted to think they're rock stars.
They're not.
Date 11/03/08
Title Johnny Bunko And The Anatomy Of A Great
Business Book
Summary Don't bother with books about tactics - you can get
all that online. Strategy is what you need.
Date 11/03/08
Title 6 Reasons Twitter Rocks and Sucks Simultaneously
Summary Twitter has achieved utility status - that is, people

depend on it. Here's what's good and bad about it
Date 10/03/08
Title 10 Easy Ways to Piss Off A Blogger
Summary As defined by a group of super smart and engaged
folks who all made it to be part of this conversation
Reviewer Notes
Employer Ogilvy
Rohit seems to attend a lot of events and therefore his blogging
Location US comprises his take on these events. He has also written books,
including "Personality not included."
Title Influential Marketing Blog
URL http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/ Positioning
Author Rohit Bargava integrated
Role Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy & Marketing
Expertise Combining "traditional“ with social media interactive marketing personal professional
Start date June 2007 (Moderate tenure) x


Date 19/03/08
Title How Search Engine Marketing Can Help Measure
Word of Mouth
Summary Notes from the Search Engine Strategies Conference
& Expo in New York
Date 18/03/08
Title Small Business + Blogger Experiences = Gold
Summary Small businesses can get a real boost from blogging

Date 14/03/08
Title Adriana Gascoigne: An Entrepeneurial (sic) Mind
Summary Interview with Adriana Gascoigne
Date 13/03/08
Title Investigative Journalism 2.0
Summary How the Eliot Spitzer story has unfolded online

Date 11/03/07
Title Media buying 2.0
Summary Analysis of announcement that there will be one
cable network across the US
Reviewer Notes
A nice example of how several bloggers interact to produce a

variety of styles and opinions. It's just a pity that most of them have
only posted once.
Employer Ogilvy
Location UK
Title 360 Digital Influence

URL http://blog.ogilvypr.com/ Positioning
Role Multiple
x
Expertise Multiple personal professional
Start date Mayr 2006 (Moderate tenure)

Date 16/03/08
Title Social Media Visualizations
Summary Interesting new schemes read about in MIT's
Technology Review
Date 16/03/08
Title Portuguese Social Media: Two Stories of Success

Summary Profiles of two Portuguese social media experts
Date 11/03/08
Title Verge NYC 08: Hightlights from the Morning
Summary Commentary on the Ogilvy Verge conference at the
Times Center in NYC.
Date 07/03/08
Title MashMeet DC & Mashable the Brand
Summary Commentary on the Mashmeet at his offices.

Date 05/03/08
Title Social Media 201, 301 and AP-level0
Summary Commentary on a blogger's post about metrics
Reviewer Notes
Interesting blogger but the absence of an archive facility made this

blog very difficult to navigate.
Employer Ogilvy
Location US
Title Digital Influence Mapping Project

URL http://johnbell.typepad.com/ Positioning
Author John Bell integrated
Role Leader, global 360° Digital Influence team
Expertise Scouting the next wave of innovation that can help business personal professional
Start date May 2005 (High tenure) x


Ketchum
Ketchum launched a blog in 2005, hosted

at http://personalizedmediablog.com/
However, this blog seems to have disappeared and,
while live, seems to have drawn negative comments.
What it •Blog started some time ago
does right •Interesting web address
What it •Did not survive

does
wrong
Weber Shandwick
Weber Shandwick displays a curious

concentration on politics and personal,
rather than PR and profession
W-S is the only company that doesn't appear to link
to its bloggers at all. It does however have quite a
large roster of independent bloggers, 14 in all, with
the top three having fairly high, consistent
Technorati scores (40+).
The three top W-S bloggers are Luke Akehurst, Colin
Byrne (CEO) and Conall McDevitt.
Luke Akehurst and Conall both focus on politics, and
Colin Byrne's biog also mentions premier political
links (such as press officer for the Labour Party). It is
curious that their three top bloggers should
concentrate on politics rather than PR!
Colin Byrne's blog also stands out in that he's the
only CEO to write more about personal topics than
professional - the countdown to his baby's birth, his
thoughts on 'the truly dreadful Heather Mills',
insights into daytime TV and public transport.
•Offers a CEO blog
What it •Does not link to its bloggers from its own website
does •Implication that only seniors have something to say
wrong
•CEO's blog is overly personal
Date 25/03/08
Title Paddick blows a gasket
Summary Lib Dem London-mayoral candidate Brian Paddick
has joined the foaming at the mouth contributors on
the Guardian's comment is free
Date 25/03/08
Title Tibet
Summary Critique of letters in the Guardian about Tibetan

politics - most of them would appear to have been
written by Chinese sympathisers
Date 25/03/08
Title In defence of Kim Howells
Summary UK Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells should be

applauded for standing up to press and trades
union criticism
Date 25/03/08
Title Corrections Column
Summary Tory commentators and journalists are both way off

the mark about internal Labour matters
Date 24/03/08
Title Council by-election results
Summary Listing of the local results
Reviewer Notes
Employer Weber Shandwick A very unusual blogger in the PR space - almost exclusively
focusing on politics, also extremely active, tending to post many
Location UK short pieces.
Title Luke's Blog
URL http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/ Positioning
Author Luke Akehurst integrated
Role Director, Government Relations
Expertise Labour activist since 1988 personal professional
Start date May 2006 (Moderate tenure) x

Posts in last full month 35 (High frequency)

Date 18/03/08
Title Eat my shorts
Summary Insights into daytime TV given that he can't change
the channel
Date 17/03/08
Title I me me mine
Summary Completely impartial take on the 'truly dreadful
Heather Mills'
Date 12/03/08
Title Branding, Britishness and the Bionic Woman
Summary His thoughts on what would be a suitable British
symbol - the flag, reclaimed from the far right
Date 07/03/08
Title T minus 11
Summary Run-up to the birth of his baby
Date 06/03/08
Title Funny old world
Summary Personal experiences of inadvertent comedy in daily

life
Reviewer Notes
Strange mix of the personal and professional. Question: does a

CEO's authority diminish with such a blogging approach?
Employer Weber Shandwick
Location UK
Title Byrne Baby Byrne
URL http://byrnebabybyrne.com/
Author Colin Byrne Positioning
Role CEO, Weber Shandwick Worldwide integrated
Expertise PR and communications
Start date October 2005 (High tenure) personal professional
Most recent post March 16, 2008 (Moderate recency) x

Posts in last full month 6 (Low frequency) standalone
Date 18/03/08
Title Webcasting police man
Summary The Chief Constable of Merseyside police regularly
posts a webcast on topical matters. Using a webcast
cuts out the middle man (media) and gives
Merseyside police total control over their message
Date 25/03/08
Title Pointless flag flying

Summary The ubiquity of tricolour flags in republican areas to
commemorate the tenth anniversary of the
agreement
Date 21/03/08
Title Good Friday 1998
Summary As SDLP’s Director of Communications, his sleep (or
lack of) and events during the day
Date 20/03/08
Title Panic in the market and running with the bulls
Summary A cross-post shared with a colleague on the subject

of trust in the marketplace
Date 19/03/08
Title Macca mess and pacca lies
Summary Mills, Obama and the McCanns - apologies
everywhere
Reviewer Notes
Employer Weber Shandwick
Like Luke Akehurst, strong political element in his work.
Location UK (Northern Ireland)
Title O’Conall Street

URL http://oconallstreet.com/ Positioning
Author Donall McDevitt integrated
Role Weber Shandwick Northern Ireland’s Managing Director
Expertise Political advisor personal professional
Start date August 2007 (Low tenure) x

Posts in last full month 28 (High frequency)

Appendix 1: Boxplots
Max
Boxplots
We collected 366 data points.

We're using boxplots as a simple way to depict
and compare the data.
Plotting the average of the data would obscure
useful information about the dispersion and
skewness of the data. A few high-value bloggers
(Edelman's Steve Rubel) for example, would
disguise the fact that generally, Edelman performs
less well than expected.
Minimum The lowest value observed
Interquartile Range The "middle 50". Half the data points observed fall IQR
(IQR) into this range. It gives a good picture of the typical
Median
data profile.
A measure of "central tendency“
10 Median
Maximum The highest value observed
Min

Blog Competitor Analysis

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Blogging Competitive Review

Porter Novelli 3 April 2008

The Edelman has the most integrated blogs Edelman 25

How many days old is the latest post? Lower

How many posts last month? Higher numbers are

Between them, Edelman's Phil Gomes and Steve

Blogging isn't about writing. It's about getting

For the top three blogs in each company, we

Integration w. Is there real purpose in blogging if one doesn't

Personal v. Is the site more personal or professional in tone

Diary CEO Blogger

Edelman's blogging programme is highly

What it •Allows bloggers freedom of expression

Title If Everything Else Asks for Feedback, Why Not Ads?

Summary Change on the web is constant, and this means we

Title Media's Rising Digital Acuity Puts Agencies at Risk

Employer Edelman Reviewer Notes

Location US Steve Rubel is a league apart in terms of social media and PR

Start date April 2006 (High tenure)

Most recent post March 12, 2008 (Moderate recency) standalone

Posts in last full month 11 (Moderate frequency)

Title Pam Talbot and the Development of Modern Public

Summary Description of daughter's bat mitzvah

Expertise Marketing and reputation management personal professional

Start date September 2004 (High tenure) x

Posts in last full month 10 (Moderate frequency)

Title In case you forgot me... here's 8 things you might

Summary The emergence of social mobility was also a new

Summary Anyone else noticed that Prudential's lazy ad

Employer Edelman Reviewer Notes

Location UK Adopts an academic approach to often complex arguments. A lot

Start date February 2006 (Moderate tenure)

Most recent post March 21, 2008 (High recency) standalone

Posts in last full month 16 (Moderate frequency)

H&K’s blogs are uniform, dull, very poorly

Title Pot calls kettle black

Summary Notes from the London College of Communication

Summary Young people are going online and using the

Title Today's Big News

Title Change and Internal Communications

Start date December 2004 (High tenure) x

Posts in last full month 2 (Low frequency)

Title Experienced PR Professionals wanted in Ottawa...

Summary Reporting from the Toronton Disaster Recovery

Summary Link to a video relating to the recent shutdown of the

Most recent post March 16, 2008 (Moderate recency) x

Title Counterknowledge: It's what you know to be true...

Summary Now employees not only have access to all the

Title Customer service: what the detail communicate

Title Corporate communications, culture and... death?

Employer Hill & Knowlton Reviewer Notes

Expertise Internal communication and change strategy personal professional

Start date May 2005 (High tenure) x

Posts in last full month 10 (Moderate frequency)

Burson Marsteller's programme

What it •Allows bloggers freedom of expression

Title Radiohead Trust

Summary Radiohead continues trusting their fans have

Title Southwest true to its word…

Summary A perspective on Southwest Airlines handled a crisis

Title Let your customers do the talking…

Summary More about the Southwest Airlines situation

Title All Top?

Summary Guy Kawasaki’s launch of AllTop.com. The site