Technorati has released its annual State of the Blogosphere report, and the results from 2010 tell us that blogging isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, the world of blogging is growing to include more and more influential voices every day. This is an audience that can have a significant effect in word-of-mouth marketing and brand advocacy, but according to the report, 64% of bloggers believe they are treated “less professionally by brand representatives than are the traditional media.” In fact, only 33% of bloggers who responded to the Technorati survey indicated that a brand has ever approached them to write about their business, products, services, and so on.
Sounds like a significant opportunity is being overlooked by most brands. Instead of brands engaging bloggers who have established broad reaches across the online space, many brands are still ignoring bloggers. Given the fact that, as the 2010 State of the Blogosphere reports (see the chart below), bloggers are more than willing to write about brands they approve of, proactively interacting with them can only help a brand.
More specifically, bloggers write about their personal interactions with brands (both online and offline) and about company rumors they hear as evidenced by the data in the chart below.
If they’re already talking about your brand or brands like yours, why not give them more great information to share? Find the bloggers that are talking about products and services related to your own brand and interact with them. Building a band of brand advocates with the help of online influencers, including bloggers, can have a significant impact on your long term brand goals. It’s amazing what an online conversation can grow to. Use those conversations to your brand’s advantage before another brand does.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your opinion.
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
