How important are blogs? To me? To decision makers?

I’ve been busy. Really busy. Too busy to blog.

Is this true, though? How important is blogging to you? How important should it be to me?

The truth is, if you’re going to blog you should commit time and resource to it. I haven’t, lately. My bad (as they say). As luck would have it the projects we’ve been working on recently both had interesting perspectives on blogging.

The projects show that bloggers are now emerging as influencers in specific niche areas. A year ago it’s doubtful that any bloggers would have appeared on our top 50 list of influencers. Senior decision makers, in general, didn’t read blogs. This has changed, not in a big way, but blogs are now firmly on the list of decision maker reading. There are some infrastructure reasons for this. The adoption of RSS makes reading blogs easy nowadays, even for busy technology buyers. More likely, the adoption of blogging as a communications mechanism by already well-established influencers encourages adoption of the medium, which then prompts wider exploration of the blogosphere.

The main reason, we think, for growth in blogger influence is that the influential bloggers are getting out more. They attend conferences, they write articles in mainstream media, they consult and advise. In short, they engage in more ways than just on their blog. This, we think, is the primary reason why bloggers are increasingly influential.

What’s also interesting is that, in general, bloggers refer to other bloggers in a self-referencing cluster. This is why bloggers appear to be highly influential – they increase the number of links and references from blogs by increasing links and references to other blogs. For most, though, their influence is restricted to the blogosphere and few have escaped into influencing the real world, and real decision makers.

Daft question #3 - Are bloggers influential?

I get asked this all the time - are bloggers influential?

The only polite response I use is to answer with a question - "Influential on whom?"

In a client project we did earlier this year, there were zero influential bloggers (on UK CIOs in large enterprises).

In a case study for the book, there were dozen of influential bloggers (on tech-focused database administrators).

So the next time you see this sort of nonsense, ask yourself "Influential on whom?"

Then worry about how you might measure influence (clue: it's not the number of links...).

HP's Lusher on AR and social media

Carter Lusher, AR head at HP and ex-Gartner analyst, posts on the use of social media by analyst firms (synopsis: not enough) and wonders on the impact of blogging on influence from analysts. Great issues.

The current position, as I see it, is that bloggers have relatively little influence on CIO-level execs and business folk. They do, however, have influence in the more techie arenas. Big generalisations, of course, but it seems to hold for most markets, and makes a reasonable starting hypothesis. Demographics are also an important feature of socila media's reach (but this may be changing: if The Archers are podcasting, anyone can...). Country differences also exist (e.g. France is generally more blog-friendly...).

It's important to recognise that bloggers are often influential because of their "day job" and just happen to blog nowadays. Richard Holway is a good example. Blogging is a means of access, and it allows previously inaccessible people to gain exposure. So you find DBAs and developers emerging as influential bloggers - their influence is expanded out to the web, beyond the confines of their employers.

In researching case studies for the book, I discovered that blogging and other social media need to be dedicated activities, with time and budget allocated. Otherwise it's just dabbling, as Carter points out in IDC's approach.

The key question is always, influential on whom? If analysts are trying to influence CIOs then there is no immediate need to blog, because CIOs generally don't read them. James Governor is successful because he aims at the more techie audience, and is thus more influential on that audience.

The trick, then, is to monitor blog readership closely, and to respond when the sitation changes.

The most important question about influence

It’s not about who has the influence.

The question is, influence on whom?

Most studies of influencers are lists of important or high profile people. Fair enough, except there is no discussion on the scope of their influence. What decisions are impacted by their influence? How can you tap into their influence? Are these influencers influencing my customers?

Here’s another example of a nicely researched and presented example, this time looking at the top 50 influential bloggers (allegedly). Have a look through, then count how many bloggers on list do you think are influencing your target market today. My prediction is, not many.

If you start Influencer Marketing by looking for people you think are influential you end up missing the point. It’s not for you to decide.

Instead, put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Who are they listening to? What do they read? Who are they following? My expereince is that you can only do this by asking them.

Otherwise, you’re just guessing, and probably guessing wrongly.

Improving the influence of your blog...?

You may have detected from previous posts here, here and here that I'm doubtful of the influence of blogs. There are influential blogs, for sure, but finding them amongst the mountain of drivel is hard. And blog links are a crude and inaccurate mechanism for determining influence.

So I'm intrigued to see the emergence of a comment rating utility, SezWho. Basically, it's the same facility that allows readers to score the usefulness of a review on Amazon. "Was this review helpful to you, Yes or No?" In the same way, blog readers will be able to rae comments - "Was this comment helpful to you, Yes or No?" In that way, readers will be able to see who posts the most valuable comments.

I also think that commenters will think twice about what they say before commenting, thus improving the overall standard of comments. And thus the usefulness, and therefore the influence, of the blog should increase (all other things being equal).

More on the influence of blogging

Who’s got time to blog? It’s been 2 weeks since my last post (forgive me for I have sinned…). But I’ve been busy doing … errr … work. Two major deliveries coinciding, plus recruitment and web site redesign has distracted me somewhat, and diverted me from the blog task (which I tend to fit in where I can anyway).

Importantly, I haven’t had the time to read other people’s stuff, which is how I form opinions, so nothing to rant about.

I’m coming to the impression that people who blog either don’t have regular (or full) jobs, or that blogging is their job. It’s no coincidence that most blogger give up after six months – they just don’t have the time. When Scoble et al tell us that you’ve got to blog often (= daily) it’s no wonder that most succumb to normality.

This then limits the influence that blogs can have. It’s the people who have “proper” jobs – consultants, analysts, regulators, academics, etc - that carry most influence. From Influencer50 research, we see that few blogs have influence, and those that do come from other sources. Influencers blog, more than bloggers influence.

Blogging for bigwigs?

The Economist runs a story (subscription required) on the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, featuring the promotion of blogging for CEOs. The conference theme is “The Shifting Power Equation” – a reference in part to the rise of social media as an influential means of communication.

Should CEOs blog? Seth Godin, a marketing hero of mine, thinks not. Quoted in the article, he says,

“Blogs work when they are based on the values of candour, urgency, timeliness, pithiness and controversy. Does this sound like a CEO to you?”

Few CEOs blog, and those that do seem to do so sporadically. I guess they’re busy running the company.

It begs the question, who in a firm should maintain a corporate blog?