There isn’t a PR conference that has been held in the past two years in which someone didn’t, inevitably, bring up the death, or at least change, apparent in public relations.

Many are quick to point out that PR isn’t dead, just different than it used to be and responsible, in part, for that change, is the influence of the blogosphere. Blogs have long since passed the point of novelty and have become a media with which brands would be remiss to not engage. Yet traditional media relations strategies are, in this case, as dead as PR is said to be.

“Blogging has democratised publishing,” Ann Longley, head of Onlinefire, the social and digital arm of the Eulogy! Onlinefire agency group, says. However, she notes some of the challenges relating to blogs, “But they’re not trained professional journalists working in the context of wider publication.. So if the bloggers have a large audience, they can become very powerful and can be seen as media owners in their own right.” This then may lead to a trickier relationship in which bloggers seek compensation for writing about products or brands.

Yet the benefits may outweigh the obstacles. Rich Leigh, co-founder of Bloggabase, an 18-month-old platform featuring an opt-in system for bloggers who want to build relationships with communicators, says the niche audiences and specialties blogs provide is a major attraction to brands.

“We all know that you can reach an audience through a journalist, but when these bloggers have got an incredibly niche blog, you have to ask ‘Do I want to be in the Telegraph or on BBC Breakfast where only a small percentage of people will actually care, or this fitness blog where they’re incredibly engaged and want to hear about my product?’ All these bloggers have a huge audience, their audiences want to hear about what they have to say.”

The attraction of a vocal, focused audience is swiftly becoming apparent in media relations as brands engage more and more with blogs. BuzzFeed may be the most prominent brand engagement with online publishing as it features content-driven brand-sponsored posts. Longley also points out a blog-first campaign, #awkwardconversations, done by the Department of Health, now known as Public Health England, with MEC UK and Channel Flip to engage young people about awkward or sensitive subjects relating to health. This kind of campaign, she says, drives deeper engagement with the topic because it sparks conversation among the target audience, as opposed to the standard, traditional media approach of pushing the message out through different channels.

Leigh says finding the right blogger is an important step in the process. “Bloggers are passionate about their sector and you have to respect that. The focus now is taking the time to find them.” After the heavy-lifting is done, he says, brands can begin to focus on strategy.

Leigh sees Bloggabase as solving a fundamental problem in the world of blogger relations – finding the right blog and the the right blog that wants to hear from brands. That process is something that can cost too much time for the busy communicator and may be prohibitive to brands thinking about building relationships with bloggers. With 10,000 opted-in bloggers, the platform solves that discovery problem and allows brands to begin building relationships from the get-go.

Blogger relations is still evolving, particularly as platforms evolve, Longley points out. For communicators, it’s a learning process and a redevelopment of media relations strategies, but in the end, what’s really required is the same as when engaging journalists – strong working relationships.

The media world, in response, has its own challenge to respond to the blogosphere. Longley says, “It’s disruptive to traditional media. The media landscape is more fragmented now, and it’s very interesting how traditional media has responded to those challenges. Traditional media has an role to play in the aggregation and curation of non-professional content and data journalism is on the rise. The Guardian’s Reading the Riots is a classic example. Traditional media is going to have to work harder to deliver value consequently driving further innovation.”