Reading the PR-focused blogs (like this one) that populate the Web would lead you to think that blogs and wikis have emerged as core tools in the public relations profession, as commonly applied as press releases and media pitches. I already thought this was presumptuous, but the talk I gave yesterday at The Conference Board’s Corporate Communication and Technology Conference reinforced the notion that the PR blogging community is a niche and not the norm.

Most of the talks I heard barely referenced blogs and only one mentioned wikis. So when it came my turn to talk, I asked: How many of those in the audience didn’t know what a blog is? About a third of the audience raised their hands. (Later some told me that while they knew what a blog was, they were still vague on the concept.) Only two or three hands went up when I asked who knew what a wiki was.

While the audience at the session is by no means a scientifically valid sampling of the profession, it’s still a revealing result. The Conference Board, whose conferences aren’t cheap, tends to attract senior-level people. There were a lot of VPs in the room, based on a look through the attendee roster.

Yes, blogs and wikis will be important, but the insistence of some in the profession that these tools are already vital elements of PR efforts is premature. Our audiences need to be using blogs and wikis before we can count on them as tools of influence, and PR practitioners themselves need to understand their nuances and subtleties to apply them appropriately. It’s tough to understand the subtleties and nuances of a communication tool if you don’t know what it is.