Most bloggers—84.5 percent are communicating about companies and their products, with 49.3 percent doing so at least once a week. But companies are not communicating with most bloggers. A majority of bloggers— 55.4 percent— said companies never communicate with them.
The survey reinforced the notion that company communication is trusted in Japan, with 70.4 percent of Japanese bloggers saying the corporate website is trustworthy or very trustworthy as a source of information on products, while 62.9 percent indicated that they find the corporate news release trustworthy.
By contrast, last year's similar Edelman/Technorati American-based study indicated that only 26.2 percent of English language bloggers trusted the corporate website, with a mere 4.9 percent saying the same thing about news releases.
"What these results show is that while Japanese bloggers are communicating about companies or products all the time, companies are not communicating with them enough, even though conventional methods of corporate communications are still more trusted in Japan compared to America," said Edelman North Asia President Robert Pickard. "This seems to argue in favor of companies supplementing their traditional one-way monologue communication of messages by engaging with bloggers online through a new two-way dialogue where conversations are key."
Seventy percent of the survey's respondents said they blog to create a record of their thoughts; 63.8 percent said that they blog to create a record of the information gained; and 58.7 percent said that they blog'to share information gained with others.
Just 4.7 percent of the Japanese bloggers surveyed said that the primary reason they blog is to raise visibility as an authority in my field.
By contrast, 33.9 percent stated in a similar Edelman/Technorati American-based study of English language bloggers last year that this is their primary reason for blogging— seemingly a significant cross-cultural difference.