The past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the role of PR in the blogosphere as we’ve worked on the next generation of our “buzz media” services.

I’ve heard the argument that PR will a victim of the growth of blogging as businesses who traditionally turn to agencies like Topaz go the direct route. I’ve heard the argument that PR people (and other marketing folks) are obstructions to business blogging, slowing or misdirecting the process by overcontrolling.

I subscribe to the “PR as blogging facilitators” position. I believe enlightened PR people (and there are more and more of us every day) will embrace blog relations as an extension of our efforts to help businesses reach current and potential customers, partners, employees, media and other target audiences. Much of the “traditional” PR work we do to help raise visibility and establish clear, compelling position for organizations — crafting story ideas, identifying influencers and determining the best way to deliver the story to those influencers — can be applied to blog relations. the rules are quite different from those that apply to traditional media, but i’m convinced PR professionals will adapt (hey, we’ve all adapted to the new world of instantaneous, online media coverage).

But PR people need to take the initiative — they need to embrace the opportunity and not look at blogging as a threat or another group’s responsibility.

That’s how we view blogging here at Topaz — an opportunity to extend our reach and help our clients achieve their business objectives. Not only is this good business — it’s one of the most exciting developments I’ve seen in two decades of work in this profession.

[Editor's note: the first publication of this article included a typo: The second-to-last paragraph of the post should state that PR people not look at blogging as a threat or someone else's problem. The mistake has been corrected above.]