Business Blogging: U.S. vs. Europe

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I was directed to an interesting research report (via Micropersuasion to Neville Hobson) this morning, conducted by the UPS Europe Business Monitor – a survey of 1,459 business leaders from 15,000 companies located in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK – showing, among other findings, the level of understanding and use of blogs by responding executives.

While responses indicate that European companies are behind the U.S. in their awareness and adoption of blogs – the actual adoption of blogs by those responding is quite low; 2% responded that they write blogs; 11% said they read blogs and 37% said it wasn’t something they were aware of – it’s hard to compare apples to apples directly, because at the current time there’s no (at least as far as I’m aware, but please enlighten me if there is) comparable study of the U.S. that asks the question in quite the same way.

However, we can at least look to sources like the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki to see that still, only 4.6% of Fortune 500 companies operate a corporate blog. When compared to 2% of European executives reporting they blog, it is higher – but still not so much higher as to show that either region has truly grasped the potential blogs offer.

But I can say, at least anecdotally, that the findings of the UPS survey are generally in alignment with what we find among our clients’ companies. Awareness of blogs is growing, but not yet so much among corporate executives. In fact, the conversations we have are typically being driven by PR, marketing and product groups as they seek new and powerful ways to communicate with customers. Executives are getting interested, but I’d venture a guess that some of those 15,000 executives who say they don’t blog, aren’t really aware etc. actually work for companies that do use blogs!

So what’s the lesson here for communicators? I want to stress two things. One is that no matter where your company is, it’s still very early days for peer media in the corporate environment. And if Europe is, at the moment, behind the U.S., once they grasp a concept they will quickly drive towards optimum use; especially in those markets such as Germany and the Netherlands, where interest is at fever pitch. So you’re not really behind (at least not that behind), even if the statistics make it seem that way.

And second, corporate use of peer media should be holistic. Peer media understanding, a peer media culture, needs to be embraced at all levels in an organization to truly infiltrate and ring authentically in the blogosphere. So the process for public relations starts with education, not only for PR and marketing groups, but for executives as well.