Shake Gently – advertising technology blog

ROI of blogging? as easy as counting the stars in the sky

When I started my blog a month or so ago, I had a lot of people ask “Why”.

Well, I started a blog for several reasons, really. One being a personal creative outlet, and another being, well, I have stuff to say.

So, when I saw an article today from Marketing VOX about the ROI of Corporate Blogging (a study completed by Forrester), the article got my attention.

Is it measurable? Well, yes, just as much as any other PR effort is, and the benefits of a blog is that it is much easier to determine readership. The impact of the readership, though, is a bit more challenging to determine, but it can be done.

My colleagues Jeff Risley and Mike Swenson are PR experts here at Barkley, so if you need any info on blogging or PR, feel free to drop them a line, and I’m sure they can give you more info.

Jeff gave a presentation yesterday on Barkley’s point of view on Social Media and the main takeaway for me was the opening statement below:

“You can choose not to engage in social media, but you’ll still be talked about in social media. Benefits come from being involved in the conversations.”

Well said.

Rick Lewis, a former manager of mine from when I worked at WOI Radio and Audible, proposed a few questions to me in regards to the creation of my blog. He has over 30 years of experience in a variety of executive positions in various media companies, include NPR, WorldSpace Corp, Audible, and a few others. Rick is currently the Executive Director of Friends of WLRN, Inc., a nonprofit organization created to support public radio and television stations in Miami and South Florida.

He has lived and traveled all over the world and has an opinion I have come to truly respect.

So, when he asked why I created a blog, I thought that there wouldn’t be a better way to explain it than to create a blog entry about it.

I provided an excerpt from our conversations below:
———————-
Rick:
“To be sure, many other bloggers do grind out original thinking and writing, and even original audio and video, day after day. Very few are read by more people than could comfortably fit in the blogger’s living room. A handful are genuinely influential. Some others are reputed to be, mostly because the media and other bloggers say they are, and they have the capacity to send politicians scattering in panic. But these are really nothing more then closed user groups, talking among themselves, and masquerading as Public Opinion.

In the early days of desktop publishing, more than one cynic opined that these new tools would just help more untalented people publish more junk, faster and farther, than ever before. But blogging is desktop publishing on steroids. The Census Bureau just reported that 13 million blogs were created last year. That amounts to information pollution on an unimaginable scale. ”
———————-

Rick, I agree that there is a lot of junk out there. But there is no disputing the impact of blogs and their ability to turn public opinion, for good or bad.

Whether you as an individual or you as representative of an organization is going to blog, you and / or your organization will be discussed in the blogosphere, and it is going to be difficult to ignore.

Rick, consider this your first blog mention, and welcome to the blogosphere.

Technorati Tags: Corporate Blogging, Jeff Risley, ROI, Forrester, Public Relations