Social Media is a term that often refers to websites such as MySpace and FaceBook. However there is another form of social media that is a little less organized, and you are reading one of them now.
A Blog, which is short for Web Log, is a way for anyone without any cash investment to have a spot on the internet that they can update and keep as current as they wish.
Blogger (also known as Blogspot) and WordPress are the two big players in the Blog World. I write, edit, and manage 5 blogs. This one that you are reading is business focused and is updated at least 4 times a day, 7 days a week. We are getting between 100 and 200 visitors a day on business days and slightly less on weekends and holidays.
The other blog that I update twice a day is more of a local, personal blog. Earlier this year I promoted other local blogs, with a link to a different one each night, until I hit 100 local blogs.
I actually found it challenging to find 100 local, active blogs even though there were 1600 registered for Fort Wayne, Indiana on the Blogger system.
For connections to all 5 blogs that I operate, click here to go to ScLoHo.net and you can click on each title and check them out.
During the election, many of the cable news networks were promoting their blogs as a way to interact with the host and other viewers. Google has a Blog Search feature. Many, or most, newspapers and news organizations have a blog.
This is not just a product of the United States, but truely is world wide as is the internet, hence the term World Wide Web.
For more details, take a look at this from Mediapost:
There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, says the report, yielding disparate estimates, but all studies agree that blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream. Reports in 2008 include these estimates:
comScore MediaMetrix reports: (August 2008)
- Blogs... 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
- Facebook... 41.0 million
- MySpace... 75.1 million
- Total internet audience... 188.9 million
eMarketer says: (May 2008)
- 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
- 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12% of Internet users)
Universal McCann finds: (March 2008)
- 184 million world wide have started a blog
- 346 million world wide read blogs
- 77% of active Internet users read blogs
Wikipedia defines the Blogosphere as the collective community of all blogs. interconnected and socially networked. While discussions in the Blogosphere have been used by the media as a gauge of public opinion, Technorati isolates the Active Blogosphere as the ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation.
But, says the study, as the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs.
Technorati tracked blogs in 81 languages in June 2008, and bloggers from 66 countries across six continents, finding that Bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day. Blogs have representation in top-10 web site lists across all key categories, and have become integral to the media ecosystem.
The key findings included such things as:
- Personal, professional, and corporate bloggers all have differing goals and cover an average of five topics within each blog
- They use five different techniques to drive traffic to their blog.
- They're using an average of seven publishing tools on their blog and four distinct metrics for measuring success
- Bloggers ae receiving speaking or publishing opportunities, career advancement, and personal satisfaction
- Bloggers are using self serve tools for search, display, and affiliate advertising, and are increasingly turning to ad and blog networks.
- Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently
- 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate)
- Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers
- One-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates
| Global Snapshot of Bloggers | |||
|
| U.S. Bloggers | European Bloggers | Asian Bloggers |
| Male | 57% | 73% | 73% |
| Age |
|
|
|
| 18-34 years old | 42% | 48% | 73% |
| 35+ | 58% | 52% | 27% |
| Single | 26% | 31% | 57% |
| Employed full-time | 56% | 53% | 45% |
| Household income >$75,000 | 51% | 34% | 9% |
| College graduate | 74% | 67% | 69% |
| Average blogging tenure (months) | 35 | 33 | 30 |
| Median Annual Investment | $80 | $15 | $30 |
| Median Annual Revenue | $200 | $200 | $120 |
| % Blogs with advertising | 52% | 50% | 60% |
| Average Monthly Unique Visitors | 18,000 | 24,000 | 26,000 |
| Technorati, State of the Blogosphere, October 2008 | |||
| Segment Snapshot of Bloggers | |||||
|
| Personal | Corporate | Professional | With Advertising | No Advertising |
| Male | 64% | 70% | 72% | 66% | 66% |
| Age |
|
|
|
|
|
| 18-34 years old | 52% | 45% | 48% | 53% | 45% |
| 35+ | 48% | 55% | 52% | 47% | 55% |
| Single | 36% | 24% | 31% | 34% | 34% |
| Employed full-time | 52% | 51% | 55% | 49% | 56% |
| Household income>$75k | 37% | 49% | 42% | 40% | 37% |
| College graduate | 70% | 74% | 74% | 69% | 72% |
| Average blogging tenure (months) | 35 | 35 | 38 | 35 | 33 |
| Median Annual Investment | $100 | $200 | $150 | $100 | 0 |
| Median Annual Revenue | $120 | $250 | $300 | $200 | 0 |
| % Blogs with Advertising | 53% | 64% | 59% | 100% | 0% |
| Average Monthly Unique Visitors | 12,000 | 39,000 | 44,000 | 46,000 | 4,000 |
| Technorati, State of the Blogosphere, October 2008 | |||||
| Global Bloggers by Gender | ||
|
| Female | Male |
| Personal Blog | 83% | 76% |
| Professional Blog | 38% | 50% |
| Age |
|
|
| 18-24 years old | 9% | 15% |
| 25+ | 91% | 85% |
| Single | 29% | 36% |
| Employed full-time | 44% | 56% |
| Median Annual Investment | $30 | $60 |
| Median Annual Revenue | $100 | $200 |
| % Blogs with advertising | 53% | 54% |
| Sell Through a Blog ad Network* | 16% | 7% |
| Have Affiliate ads* | 41% | 32% |
| Have Contextual ads* | 61% | 73% |
| Technorati, State of the Blogosphere, October 2008 (*Among those with advertising on their blogs) | ||
In 2004 when Technorati started, says the report, the typical reaction to the word ‘blog' was ‘huh?' Today... the blog has forever changed the way publishing works... anyone can be a publisher. The issue is no longer distribution, it's relevance.
For additional information, please visit Technorati here.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment