Most of you are fully aware of social media but to many of our clients it is the new kid on the block, so to speak.

Metrica works with many clients that have celebrity brand association, for example James Brown London. This is a good example of a client that is seeing bloggers fast becoming as influential in their field as most journalists. Mario Lavandeira, AKA Perez Hilton is renowned as one of the most powerful and most recognised names amongst celebrity gossip. With an average of 198 million page views a month (according to Quantcast) and advertising space on his homepage fetching up to a staggering $54,000 a day. 

Celebrities fear the wrath of this blogger who started his site from a laptop in a coffee shop. He has his favourite celebs and then there are those who dread his comments. Perez Hilton was voted second on the ‘Web Celeb 25’ in 2007. He is fast becoming a celebrity in his own right, no longer simply invited to press events, he now walks the carpet with the other celebs and is frequently cited as a source in UK gossip magazines.  

So how do PRs measure the impact of blogs such as Perez’, on their clients?  At Metrica, and particularly in the consumer team to which I belong, we firmly believe in normalising social media and using appropriate measures in much the same way as the rest of your media coverage. Daunted by the ever increasing number of blogs? Similarly to having key media lists in traditional media, a good way to start measuring blogs and the impact they have on your audience is by tracking a select list of influential blogs to your client.  As the consumption of conventional media is declining, it is even more important to focus on the quality and impact of social media. 

In the same way that a PR would reach out to a journalist who was making negative remarks about their client/brand, they should do the same with a blogger. Perez Hilton was continuously making negative remarks about Victoria Beckham, so she went and had lunch with him!  She showed him that his perception of her was completely not true and since then she has been one of his ‘favourite’ celebrities.  

Whilst social media is new to some people, it doesn’t have to be frightening.