I'm attending Blogging Success Summit 2011I've had the pleasure of listening to recordings from the Blogging Success Summit 2011! It is wonderful and as promised, I will share my recap of each course here on my blog and recap of additional bonus materials with newsletter subscribers.

There are still weeks left and I still have many recordings to go through, but today's post is on the keynote from Richard Jalichandra (CEO of Technorati) on the state of the blogosphere.

First, let's talk briefly about Technorati.com. Technorati is a blog directory service (in short a search engine for blogs) so you definitely want to get your blog claimed there. And it's free!  Go to www.technorati.com and click on JOIN, and you'll be on your way!  This is a wonderful site and you should take a look around and find all the popular blogs posts on specific categories.  Another site I like to visit is www.blogs.com (and then it's top ten blogs lists at www.Blogs.com/topten) which is site created by SixApart (owner of TypePad). I also had the pleasure of creating one of their top ten lists (Top 10 Blogs on Blogging) where I specifically chose blogs that were not pushing a book or product or service, but more on just plain helping you out.

Okay, so let's get back to Richard's wonderful presentation and keynote on the state of the blogosphere.  You can find the report here, on the Technorati site, but he spoke a lot about the following topics:

  • Blogging and social media
  • Classes of bloggers
  • Blogs and brands
  • Consumer attitutude and trust
  • Women bloggers and their role in the blogosphere

Technorati conducted research on the blogosphere (2010 report). Technorati has 1.5 million registered blogs and sampled 7200 bloggerss in its survey, as well as interviewed 1000+ consumers. In short, the majority, blog about brands, and of the 20 professional bloggers interviewed (where we'll review classes of bloggers in a moment), the #1 success factor is being passionate about what you are blogging about! According to the survey and 2010 Blogosphere report, the blogosphere is strong and growing into a mature media channel. There are 100s of millions of blogs.

Professional Bloggers

However, it is the mass creation of professional bloggers, those who make money blogging, and who are generating an overwhelming number of page views. Professional bloggers make up 35% of the 1.5 million on technorati (which equates to about 300,000). Professional bloggers:

  • Deliver caliber content (many have worked or still work in media or as a journalist)
  • Blog a lot! Up to 500 times more than the average blogger with some up to 30 times a day!
  • Are mobile! They use new technology, such as smart phones and tablets (like the iPad) to generate even more content spontaneously and whenever they feel the urge.
  • Use social networking sites to drive traffic to their blogs (Facebook and Twitter leading the pack by a landslide, but Linked In, YouTube, and Flickr are highly used as well).
  • Are educated.
  • Maintain 1-3 blogs.

Classification of Bloggers

Although 35% are professional bloggers, there are other classifications as well (click here for more info):

  • Hobbyists – make up 64% of the blogosphere. They do not report revenue from blogging and blog for fun.
  • Part-timers – make up 13% of the blogosphere where blogging is not their only means.
  • Corporates – make up only 1% and are those who blog full-time for a company or organization.
  • Self-Employed – make up 21% of the blogosphere where 65% manage their blogs themselves.

While 11% report blogging is their only source of income, for many part-time and corporate bloggers, it is a supplement to their income.

What do people blog about?

While the majority of bloggers are hobbyist, they most popular answer is "brands". They blog about what brands they like or don't like. And since hobbyists make up the majority of bloggers in the blogosphere, this impacts brands because bloggers influence other bloggers (its viral).  

Corporate bloggers write about their company or organization they represent and self-employed bloggers, like myself, write about their business expertise.

Part-timers may also be paid by brands for a review, however this number of paid postings is now decreasing due to the new FTC guidelines (click here for a non-technical explanation).

Another note is that brands need to take blogging and bloggers more seriously and need to show them respect. Bloggers write passionately and about brands. Two-thirds felt that when approached by brands, they were treated less professionally. This needs to change as bloggers have a great impact on brand reputation.

What do consumers think?

Consumers care what bloggers have to say!

  • 46% trust traditional media less.
  • 34% take the information on blogs more seriously
  • 39% use blogs to get their source of information
  • 29% use from Facebook as their source of info (from friends)

Greatest percentage still trust family and friends the most! Yeah! Social media (such as blogs and Facebook) are gaining consumer's trusts compared to the traditional types of media (such as magazines and newspapers).

Driving Traffic and Making Money

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are greatly used to drive traffic to blogs and other sites. They are the leaders (87-88%). Linked In is the #1 business network used to drive traffic, YouTube is #2, where Technorati is #4.  Again, mobile networking greatly impacts this as people tweet and post from their smart phones all day long.

More and more bloggers are using display ads and ad networks on their blogs (1 in 4 blogs, 25%, use an ad network) where 38% of bloggers feel display ads work the best. Technorati Media is an ad network you want to check out! Other revenues and avenues are through affiliate links, search ads, and Google AdSense (which is dropping in popularity due to the growth of display ads and other ad networks).

Other traditional ways of driving traffic to your blogs is to post comments on other people's blogs and using tags/keywords in your posts.

The impact of women bloggers (known as Mommy-Bloggers)

First, Richard mentions that Mommy-Bloggers isn't really appropriate as only 5% of women bloggers are the mothers writing about parenting. Many write about entertainment, life style, travel, and health. I write about blogging and how to help you make the most of your blog and share "how-to" tutorials!

  • 81% post weekly
  • 20% of posts from tablets or smart phones
  • 92% higher use of Facebook
  • Use twitter
  • Mostly blog about brands
  • 28% used to work in the journalist type field.
  • 33% still do work in media type field!
  • 72% say they take blogs more seriously

The Bottom Line

Blogs are growing rapidly and there are more and more professional bloggers arising; educated bloggers delivering caliber content and making money blogging. Brands need to be aware and treat bloggers with more respect as consumer's trust is also changing. Blogs are gaining on the traditional, media sources of trust (magazines and newspapers for example).

Last but not least you should be using Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites to assist in driving traffic to your blog!

There was so much discussed during Richard's presentation that I highly recommend you read the full Blogosphere 2010 report on Technorati where you can also view all the statistics and colorful charts on the State of the Blogosphere.

Until the next time…Happy Blogging!

Heather Wright-Porto
www.BlogsByHeather.com 

P.S. Up next in this new Blogging Success Summit SERIES is on Content Marketing and keynote from Joe Pulizzi (author of "Get Content. Get Customers.") 

 

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