Fleishman-Hillard Paris L to R: Cyrille Arcamone, Debbie Weil, Florence Giuly-Davis, Nadège Hariti, Nadia Graf and Céline Becam
Originally uploaded by wordbiz.
Had the pleasure of working with the folks at Fleishman-Hillard Paris to introduce The Corporate Blogging Book to an audience of French PR & marketing professionals as well as journalists. I made a presentation last night on Corporate Blogging (what, why and whither) at F-H’s cool office on the Boulevard Haussmann.
Paris launch of The Corporate Blogging Book
Paris in December is, well it’s always Paris and wonderful. But it was pouring rain and pitch black at 6:30 PM when the event began. A pretty good crowd straggled in nonetheless. After I spoke (in English), F-H Paris released intriguing results of their recent survey of French journalists: “What is the French media’s perception of the blogging phenomenon?”
Download PDF of Fleishman-Hillard Paris blogging survey (Note: it’s in French.)
Results of Fleishman-Hillard Paris survey of media and blogs
French journalists remain skeptical – as well as ambivalent – about blogs. A few highlights of the survey:
– only 45% of the 81 journalists contacted for the survey said they regularly consult blogs for story ideas, research, etc.
– 55% (a majority) said they don’t, citing blogs’ lack of credibility, not interesting, etc.
– Blogs most often visited by French journalists include Fred Cavazza (covers Web 2.0); Loïc Le Meur (the French rock star of blogging, heads Six Apart Europe) and Gilles Klein (writes for Le Monde – I thnk)
– French media rarely look at corporate blogs although most were familiar with Michel Edouard Leclerc’s blog – one of the few French CEO bloggers
– In contrast, 63% of the journalists acknowledge that blogs influence public opinion
– In a bit of a contradiction, 40% said blogs will become increasingly important as a tool for media (23% say they won’t; 37% weren’t sure or didn’t answer this question)
All in all, sounds like French media is in transition when it comes to acknowledging the importance of blogs.