How blog is used as an effective public relations tool by startup facilitators

Abstract

Public relations has been defined as a powerful tool in building relationships with the target audience. The rise of the Internet has augmented public relations with new media including blog. In addition, the explosion of startup culture in Finland has resulted in the establishment of non-profits facilitating startups and entrepreneurs called startup facilitators. Considered as part of content delivery, blog has been adopted as a public relations tool at startup facilitators. The lack of mutual understanding and guideline for this field leads to ineffective and time-consuming practice where the organization does not accomplish its mission in advancing entrepreneurs. How blog can be used as an effective public relations tool at startup facilitators was, thus, set as the main research goal of this study. Qualitative research concentrating on flexibility and freedom of expression and non-numerical data, was used as method. Data was collected primarily with the help of semi-structured interviews with marketing and communications coordinators and managers at startup facilitators. Generally, blog is adopted for the purpose of knowledge sharing, promoting startup facilitators and their accelerator programmes and events. The active use of blog is predominant, for startup facilitators to express their opinions, ideas and eventually achieve the position of opinion leader. It rewards the brand validation positioning the organization a reliable source for entrepreneurs when starting up a business. Blog content must be relevant in the sense of startup, entrepreneurship and technology and created on the base of a network. Coupled with the content, the choice of platform (website or Medium) refers to and brings the benefits according to the organization’s priorities. Measurement taking metrics read, reach and the average time on the page indicates how the blog is working and how it can be improved.