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Professional Blogs and their Impact on Communications

by Steve on Mon 09 May 2005 07:39 AM PDT | Permanent Link

The Professionalization of Blogs - Implications for Communications

Back in March Newsweek ran an article about blogger Jason Kottke quitting his day job and becoming a professional blogger. At the Institute for the Future we’ve been following the emergence of professional blogs for several years. By “professional” I mean blogs that are authored by people who blog for a living or blog as part of their work. While this definition is not precise, my aim is to differentiate between blogs written for fun or as hobby, and blogs written to make money or support a business.

Professional blogs are already common. ProBlogger reported that the 30 most trafficked blogs all have income streams. Roughly 85% of Technorati’s Top 100 are professional blogs by my definition. In many segments professional blogs already dominate in terms of traffic and influence. Gizmodo and Engadet, for example, have more traffic and links than all the other consumer gadget sites combined.

There are many factors driving the rapid growth of professional blogs. The cost of setting up and maintaining a blog is very low, and the audience reach potential is high. The advent of advertising based business models has created revenue opportunities for entrepreneurial bloggers, and blogs can now monetize a quality audience. Blogging is also seen by many as an interesting job opportunity with an appealing lifestyle.

The growth of professional blogging has attracted both new media entrants and traditional media companies. Micro-publishing start-ups such as Gawker Media, Corante, and Weblogs, Inc. are producing professional blogs on a wide variety of topics. Traditional media firms are also adding professional blogs at a very rapid pace, with Business Week being one of the latest to blog.

Product information and industry information blogs are particularly attractive to blog publishing entrepreneurs. These tightly focused sites – like Gizmodo and Engadget in consumer electronics – have audiences that advertisers are willing to spend money to reach. Because of this, many of the existing professional blogs target product or industry information (Silicon Valley Watcher and Auto Blog are two of many examples)

I believe that over the next few years most product categories and industries will be “covered” by professional bloggers. These blogs will be better resourced, more professionally produced, and will likely have more compelling content than amateur or hobby blogs. They will also be more aggressive about site promotion and traffic generation. Like Gizmodo and Engadget in consumer electronics, professional industry and product blogs will have larger audiences and greater influence than amateur blogs.

It is important to point out that I am not saying that amateur blogging will not thrive and grow. Just the opposite, I think amateur blogging will continue to rapidly expand. However, in areas that will financially support professional bloggers I think the professional sites will attract relatively large audiences.

Corporations will need to identify professional blog sites that cover their products and industry and develop programs for working with these bloggers. Customers and other stakeholders will increasingly use professional blogs as part of their product and company research efforts, and these blogs will impact corporations much like traditional media has done in the past.

The questions I have on this topic are:

1. Does this view of professional blogs make sense?? Do you agree or disagree with this?? How big and influential to you think professional bloggers will become??

2. Should corporations try to work with/influence professional bloggers, and if so how??

3. Do you think regular people will be more likely to read and interact with professional or amateur blogs??

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Steve

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Re: Professional Blogs and their Impact on Communications

by Jennifer Rice on Mon 09 May 2005 04:23 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Steve, good post and questions. My thoughts are that yes, professional blogs will continue to multiply and grow. Second, that companies should be aware of them and participate, but we need to be very careful using the "influence" word. Bloggers don't like to be influenced by companies, and readers definitely don't like the idea that a blogger is being influenced. Blogs are independent voices that build trust through authenticity and transparency. All that said, a corporation should assign someone to monitor and participate in outside communities (forums and blogs.). Know what's being said about your company and don't hesitate to participate in that community. For example, if you're GM, you'll want to read and participate on Autoblog. Participation means saying, "hey, we're listening, we appreciate the feedback and we're working to improve. I'll keep this group posted on results of your comments." No defensiveness, just listen and respond. It's all about engaging in dialogue.

Re: Re: Professional Blogs and their Impact on Communications

by Steve on Mon 09 May 2005 04:31 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Jennifer:

Thanks for the comment. How much energy and effort do you think a corporation should spend on monitoring 3rd party blogs and forums versus creating and running their own outward facing blog?? Do you think one effort is more valuable than the other??

Re: Re: Re: Professional Blogs and their Impact on Communications

by Elizabeth Albrycht on Fri 13 May 2005 07:56 AM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

These are good questions, Steve. I think that initially, for many corporations, monitoring is the first step into the blogosphere. Then add participating in to the mix. I think that it is probably more important right now to monitor and participate vs. having your own blog. That being said, however, when you comment it is always nice to have a place to link back to. A blog then becomes an obvious choice.

Re: Professional Blogs and their Impact on Communications

by Franz on Mon 09 May 2005 09:41 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Interesting points, Steve. Although there is something to be said for the informal, uninfluenced blogger, who is authentic, we are starting to see more professional involvement, perhaps most importantly because the professional can usually write. Recently I have been approached internally with the question 'who can blog for us?', implying that we want to get a journalist, or some sort of professional who can make the case. Where then does the idea of authenticity go?

Sadly, in answer to your question, i think that people will prefer to read the professionals, just like most people don't follow true amateur athletics. Examples like BusinessWeek show how publications are starting to understand this. Another question is if there is an economic model for this, if that advertising model can work. Certainly people will be even less likely to pay a fee for something that is seen as so 'informal'.

If blogging continues to its upward evolution, i think it will become increasingly professional.

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