Social media like Twitter and blogs, just as search engines, still play an important role in information collection. We have always known that this is the case for potential clients during the preparation of their purchases.

Even journalists and bloggers call on to the social media more and more. For that matter it often happens that “serious” media and journalists seriously miss the ball and write news reports based on one simple tweet as various recent examples have indicated.

But the trend is unstoppable. A Dutch survey conducted on 215 journalists and bloggers by ANP Pers Support, Marketingfacts, LEWIS PR and Stichting One indicated that more than half of them have a Twitter account.

The study also determined that search engines, mainly Google of course, is also often used to searching for news. 82 % of the respondents use Google precisely for this reason. 99% of the journalists and bloggers use Google to find background information.

Journalists also use bloggers to promote their own writing: 83% do this.

Yet journalists still seem to attach much value to classic press releases and four out of five expect “that the press release won’t disappear from the media landscape”.

We have known for a while now that search engines are used as sources of background information.

This is in any case good news for companies: they are now certain that it is worthwhile to blog, tweet and to work on their SEO and online PR to get in the “media”.

J-P De Clerck is a content, conversion and social media consultant. You can connect with him on Twitter or via his site.