The other day, I made a point about how and why a “clip” on a blog can have greater value than a traditional media clip.
Since then, I’ve read a couple or so other posts about measurements on blogs. Communication Overtones/Kami Huyse has one; Micro Persuasion/Steve Rubel has another. (Stowe Boyd has a post about it, but I’ve not read it yet. Kami reference a few items in her post.)
For traditional media, circulation and audience rating stats are commonly used to help gauge the value of clips. Of course, if you are really tied into your client or employer, you can track “share of conversation” and changes in sales.
Ultimately, that is what we should use. But, this is not a perfect world, so we need other ways to measure the impact of clips.
I’m not going to get into how to measure blog and social media clips. If curious, I posted a brief comment at MP.
Why can blog clips have more influence — thus higher value — than traditional media clips? Essentially it is because they tend to have a better qualified of decision-maker for an audience than traditional media. By that I mean the reader seeks out the blog rather than the blogger seeking out the specific reader. (Bloggers don’t have circulation/subscription departments.)
For one, note that I state can; not do. That is because of the usual subject of the blogs we read and how that subject affects our lives play a role.
POP! PR’s Jeremy Pepper had an interesting and generally positive post about coComment. I respect Jeremy’s opinions and coComment looked interesting. So I asked for a code, received one, and I’m in. Pretty simple. But, if it would’ve taken more than a few minutes of my time, I wouldn’t have gone through the process. I would’ve waited a few days or next week.
No big deal.
So, while work-related blogs have an influence, it’s still only work. I really enjoy my job and blogging, but am not emotional or extremely passionate about my job or my blog.
However, if a parent blogger I was familiar with and respected posted a negative comment about a particular brand of child safety seat my wife and I used, you bet I would react. I’d investigate the post and, if I any reservations, we would not use our seat. Would I react the same if I saw the same information in a parents’ magazine?
Probably not as much because there wouldn’t be the personal or other bond with the magazine reporter vs. the blogger. After all, the blogger is just like me, right? Just another parent — blogging because he/she wants to. Unlike a reporter, it’s not her/his job to write about car seats and parents’ issues. Plus, ulike a magazine reporter, I could have contacted the blogger directly to ask questions.
> Unlike traditional media, blogs are much more personal. Blogs are the Internet’s version of word-of-mouth communication. And, we all know that word-of-mouth advertising has a greater influence than any other type of advertising or communication. Blog visitors are not necessarily looking for factual information. They/We are looking for information and opinions we cannot get elsewhere. If we want pure facts, there are enough ‘net resources.
> Blogs can be much more targeted; “nichely-focused.” Traditional media is pretty much broadly focused. Even trade publications go after a national or regional group. Any post — positive or negative — is viewed by a higher quality audience. Regular visitors to blogs have a strong personal or professional interest in the topics.
Now, all we need is a way to quantify the greater amount of value from a blog clip vs. a media clip.
Maybe we just need have closer ties to sales to really see what impact we have.
– Mike
Technorati tags: public relations, PR
