The influence of blogs

At the recent Unicom conference on Social Network Tools, I showed a chart illustrating the declining influence of analysts and journalists on IT decision makers (ITDM). The chart also showed the recent increase in influence of bloggers. The chart caused a bit of a stir.

Our research shows that the average ITDM apportions no more than 45% of influence to analysts and journalists. The remaining influence is spread over numerous influencer types. Bloggers show the biggest increase, from zero in 2004 to 8% in 2006.

Stowe Boyd, a blogging guru, claimed in the conference that in the US the influence of blogs now exceeds that of analysts and journalists. Can this be true?

Firstly, there is some overlap between the two communities. For example, Forrester’s Charlene Li and Business Week’s Stephen Baker have highly rated blogs. It will be interesting to watch the transition from traditional analyst/journalists media (reports, newspapers, etc) to blogs.

Secondly, from my (so far, limited) look at blogs, the main audience for bloggers is … other bloggers. Are ITDMs reading blogs? Do CEOs read blogs? Or are they still influenced by more traditional sources? Clearly it depends on the individual and the market. But my thinking is that the influence of blogging is limited, other than within the blogosphere.

Finally, are we seeing the emergence of a truly new type of influencer – the blogger? Or are we seeing the use of a new medium (the blog) which allows existing influencers to become more obvious?

My sense is that blogging and other social networking tools are similar to the worldwide web in the mid-1990s. Those businesses that colonised the early web pioneered the new media, worried the old guard and promised to the change the business world (remember the “New Economy”?). But most early adopters failed, and the web became a mainstream tool for all – nearly every business now has a web site.

So blogging will, in time, be done by everyone (or every business). It’s this interim, disruptive time that makes blogging interesting now. Geoffrey Moore would say that blogging is in “the chasm,” – blogging is about to climb out into mainstream adoption. And its distinct influence will dissipate accordingly.

Why blog, and why this blog?

On September 20th & 21st I attended a conference on Social Network Technologies, aka blogs, RSS, wikis, etc. The event was well attended, and had some blog “gurus” presenting (Stowe Boyd, Hugh McLeod). I came away from the conference enthused, and this blog is the result.

At Influencer50 we have noted the decline of traditional influencers such as industry analysts and journalists, and the rise of other influencers, such as blogs (this was the subject of my conference talk).

The primary reason for this blog on Influencer Marketing is to debate how the influence of blogs works. A few things seemed to be apparent at first blush:

- Bloggers are not separate from other influencers – it’s often the same people expressing themselves through a new medium. Bloggers can either be existing influencers using blogs, or new influencers, influential because of their blogs. In the future will all influencers be bloggers?

- The influence of blogs is in part related to the number of links, but also to the credibility and authority of the blogger. Blogging increases market reach and frequency of impact for influencers, but not quality of impact or closeness to an end-user decision. Blogging may increase some elements of influence, but not all.

- Identity of a blogger is critical to its authenticity, and therefore its influence. Anonymous blogs beg the question, what is the blogger trying to hide?

What I’m also interested in is the relative influence of blogs. It’s stated widely that only 10% of those that read blogs ever post comments. If 90% of people that read blogs don’t comment, presumably they are communicating through other media. So, which ones?

Anyway, let the thought process begin…