THE Thomson holiday people have got it right. Guinness has got it wrong. L’Oréal started off badly but has made a good recovery. Most Scottish companies, on the other hand, are not even at the races.

These are some of the conclusions delegates can expect at a conference about the business benefits of blogs, podcasts and other new media taking place in Edinburgh next week.

The conference, entitled Delivering The New PR and organised by the University of Sunderland, aims to explain to a public relations audience how these new so-called “social media” can become part of their communications strategies.

Speakers include PR blogging expert Stuart Bruce; Chris Rushton, head of public relations and journalism at the University of Sunderland; and Neville Hobson, a podcasting and blogging consultant.

Bruce, who is based in Leeds, believes that blogging is a cheap way of reaching out to targets in a more personal way than advertising.

“Innocent Drinks recently started a blog basically trying to put a human face on the company, which fits in with their brand ethos.

“It talks about how Innocent buys the fruit, how it makes the drinks and so on,” he says. Innocent has also launched a blog to campaign against the VAT levied on healthy foods, which Bruce believes allows it to campaign in a more open way than traditional lobbying or public affairs.

The casual observer might be forgiven for wondering whether there is a fundamental conflict between PR and blogging, particularly since blogs attract readers precisely because they are considered to be independent and anti-establishment. Why, therefore, would anyone read a blog that was simply promoting a company’s interests?

Bruce argues that it is this apparent impediment that makes it imperative for companies to ensure that their blogs offer content which is attractive for its own sake.

L’Oréal, for instance, had to learn a harsh lesson when it launched a blog last year that was written by a fictitious customer. “Within about half a day it had been unmasked by bloggers as a fake,”says Bruce.

The experience sent the cosmetics company back to the drawing-board, but it has come back with a blog that offers the sort of beauty tips that readers “might see in a women’s magazine, which is not always about L’Oréal products”.

Bruce, meanwhile, criticises Guinness for having a blog that simply trumpets its brands and offers nothing that anybody would want to read. The Glenfiddich blog, one of very few Scottish ones, would fall into the same category.

Neville Hobson, who is based in Amsterdam, will talk about the advantages of podcasts, which he says are becoming more commonplace in business in the US and have been taking off in Britain over the past year.

One of his examples will be Thomson, whose site carries occasional podcasts from customers returning from holiday.

He says: “It’s not overtly professional. It doesn’t sound like a radio advert. It sounds like a normal person talking about their experiences. This informality can be appealing because it creates a connection with the listener.”

He will also say that podcasts have a role in internal communications. Line managers, for instance, can record instructions and send them by e-mail for team members to listen to when it suited them. “There are lots of occasions when it makes more sense to speak than to type,” he says.

Delivering The New PR is the latest in a series of events which have taken place over the past year in London, Manchester and Sunderland. It takes place at the Holiday Inn, Edinburgh, on Wednesday from 10am to 4pm. For details ring Andrew Wake on 01706 828855 .