How to Measure the Value of Blogs and RSS for Your Organization Social Media Summit April

Introductions Cheryl Contee, Issue Dynamics, Inc.

Today’s Agenda Introduction The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Measuring Impact Tools You Can Use The Blogs and Your Organization

Introduction

Blog Talk What do you know? What do you want to know? (Whiteboard)

What is Web 2.0?

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Comcast Customer Service

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

NY Times Publisher; Feb "I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care, either." -- Arthur Sulzberger in Ha’aretz (via Gawker)

Collective Intelligence Wikipedia – largest encyclopedia Craigslist – 7 th largest site online YouTube – 100 million video views a day MySpace – 150 million members Flickr – 5 million members 40 (8%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging

What is a web site? a group of World Wide Web pages usually containing hyperlinks to each other and made available online by an individual, company, educational institution, government, or organization

What is a blog? A blog or “web log” is a web-based publication consisting primarily of articles displayed in reverse chronological order, typically with a strong personal perspective.

How Powerful? 70% of journalists read blogs for breaking news and story ideas 91% of Congressional offices track blogs Only 12% don’t think they matter to the media 75% of time on local blogs, 25% national blogs

More on bloggers and blog readers About 22% of American adults read blogs The median age of a blog reader is Their median household income is $60K to $80K About 50% have left a comment on a blog 80% of MySpace Users are over 18

About bloggers Eight percent of Internet users blog Only 11 percent of these bloggers talk about policy and politics – most blog about life experiences. Bloggers tend to be younger They are equally men and women and are from all over the country. Bloggers tend to be more ethnically and racially diverse.

The state of the blogosphere There are over 70 million blogs The blogosphere doubles every six months A new blog is created every half second! More than half of bloggers continue to blog after their third month ~100,000 blog posts are created every hour.

Exercise 1: 3 Ideas -- 1 Company

Blogs and Your Organizations What do you think is out there?

Break! Please be back in 10 minutes

The Impact on Communications

“Golf Blog” 79 million hits in Google

Recipe for Blogging Success Accurate, current Information Time, resources and training Readers Mission, goals and objectives Feedback Good Blog

Mission and Goals What is the mission of your company or organization? What will be the mission of your blog? What is your audience? Focus on a specific issue or topic Don’t forget the big picture. How does the blog fit in?

Example Missions To be an online community news, information and feedback for staff, participants and the press for XYZ organization’s upcoming annual meeting. To be the online destination for news, gossip and information for Wall Street experts.

Goals What are your communications imperatives? What role will this blog play in your organizational strategy? What are the expectations? What about ROI?

Setting Goals Your goals should be “SMART” Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time-oriented

Examples of Goals Fifty percent of traffic will come from other blogs within the first six months The blog will generate 100 newsletter signups each week 75 blogs will link to our blog by the end of the year.

Exercise 2 Blog Mission and Goals Discussion

Exercise 3 To Blog or Not To Blog

How Can I Use these Tools in a New Environment?

Blog Monitoring It’s not just what you say It’s also what others say About what you say

Value Prepare for news before it crosses to the mainstream media Follow and participate in a dialogue Examine the impact of your work

Where to begin Get your bearings Who are your influencers? Who are your amplifiers?

Look at the big picture The better you know the landscape of the blogosphere, the more effectively you can monitor and grow the value of your blog.

Tools Blog search engines RSS aggregators Trend charts

Break! Please be back in 15 minutes

What the Blogs Mean to Your Organization

Why use blogs? New channel of communication Connect with prospects, media and consumers Communicate directly with the public Bypass or influence the press. Improve search engine placement Connects with Web 2.0 technologies (You Tube, My Space, Flickr, Wikis, etc.)

Measurement Tools

Blog ROI – Forrester Research

ROI for GM FastLane Blog 100 visitor comments per month Focus group = $15,000/month & $180K/yr 99% ROI in 2005 (conservative), 61% in 2006 Potential 117% in 2007

Exercise 4 Circle the metrics your organization already values Star the ones they should consider tracking

Exercise 5 Using Technorati BlogPulse Demo TechPresident Social Networks

Promoting your blog Blogosphere Social Internet Your Blog

The Daou Triangle Decision MakersThe Press The Blogs

Using Web 2.0 to Your Advantage Know What People Are Saying Become a Thought Leader Multi-Message Grow Your Audience Build Your Brand Influence The Influentials

Getting Started Find Blogs Using: Technorati.com and BlogPulse.com Read Blogs Using: FireFox.com, Bloglines.com, NewsGator.com Launch Blogs Using: Moveable Type, TypePad, Blogger Join Online Social Networks Free at: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg

Questions?