2010 - Public Relations Society of America

frequency of blog uses, both forms of motivation, the nonindependence of bloggers, and the use
of balanced language. The hierarchical regressions shows that although females ostensibly were
more likely to share information offline, the effect of sex was negated by time spent reading
blogs, which in turn was negated by frequency of blog use. In the final step, blogger affiliation
also had no effect, while the best (only significant) predictors of offline information sharing (R 2=
.388) appeared to be the two forms of user motivation (knowledge seeking: β = .415, p = .000;
social/entertainment: β = .169, p < .040). Thus, users might be motivated to share information
for different reasons.
In conclusion, this study suggests that blogs can be powerful communications tools that
help organizations advance their causes by providing valuable third-party endorsements
(Hallahan, 1999a, b) of products and service, both by bloggers and by the individuals who share
the information they read with others. Yet, blogs are not advertising, and it appears blogs have
the potential be most effective when they appear to be an independent, authoritative source of
information and that perception is confirmed by the use of balanced language that enhances the
credibility of the source and makes product announcements and reviews more authentic.
When incorporating third-party blog endorsements in a PR program, practitioners must
keep bear in mind that blog reading is a user-driven activity, and that readers are eager to derive
either knowledge- or social/entertainment-based gratifications. Readers also care about the
affiliation of bloggers and scrutinize the information that bloggers disclose about themselves.
Finally, they use cues such as the use of balanced versus all-positive language to distinguish
between ingenuine advertisements versus authentic recommendations.
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