Classmates' Blogs

         The first blog I chose to further investigate was Jordana's blog. Her topic is PR Research in relation to American Cancer Society, which is something I personally have a lot of interest in. I help coordinate Relay for Life both here at Quinnipiac as well as at my high school. The non-profit world of public relations truly intrigues me, because you would not think research is such a huge aspect in this area of PR. Reading Jordana's blog made me rethink that thought completely. Jordana's specific post on research results is what really changed my mind. Like she explains, ACS is constantly doing cancer research to try to find a cure. Jordana also mentions the report the American Cancer Society presents  with all results from their research within the year consissting of questions and answers, figures, statistics etc. The results from these reports show research answers such as how many expected cases of cancers they are predicting. For example in 2010 an estimated 207,090 cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed for women and 1,970 diagnosed in men. It's facts like this that can also be tracked back to the idea of crisis management situations. Having information such as over 200,000 cases of breast cancer being expected in the coming year is something that can be crisis centered, and reporting something of that nature to people is not something easy to do, but is a part of both research and public relations. Overall though I found Jordana's blog to be interesting, and very informative of the types of research American Cancer Society does, as well as other non-profits.

      The other blog I chose to read was Steph Ferris' blog, which ironically deals with the research that goes into the PR tactic of blogging. I didn't even consider research being a part of blogging, but after reading Steph's posts I can now see how blogs can even be the provider of information for companies, celebrities etc. The example she gives about tv shows for Bravo having their casts blog about the show of that week, such as the cast of "The Real Housewives" shows and "Top Chef." The differnet blogs can be found on Bravo's website. The fact that these cast members are able to blog will only help increase the audience and it will act as a type of research for the tv company because it allows them to see what aspects of the show the viewers like the most, the least and can alter the next season or spisode to be something the viewers will like. Steph also focused on the top blogger himself, Perez Hilton, who blogs daily about the lives of celebrities and other pop culture gossip. From the information that Perez puts on his blog, he's single handedly able to increase consumers interest in virtually anything he blogs about. Steph's blog opened my eyes to how blogging is become a crucial part to the PR industry. More and more companies will be taking advantage of these blogs, and in the idea of crisis management it could be helpful. If companies start to keep blogs and a crisis arises, they will be able to quickly blog their solution so the public is kept informed 24/7. Blogging is only getting bigger and bigger and will eventually be a huge part of public relations, even in the non-profit world.