9 out of 10 bloggers are reportedly talking about brands. Obviously that is important to consider in a time where opinions are easily swayed and conveyed (and shared) on the web through blogs and social media.

The State of the Blogosphere has been analyzing blogging growth and trends for 6 years. This year, the study specifically looks at brands in the Blogosphere, professional blogging activities, how bloggers are making money, the importance of Facebook vs. Google to bloggers, and the impact of market trends (like smartphones) on the blogosphere. 

So how are the top bloggers gaining new audiences? What’s the best way to monetize? How should brands go about targeting and engaging bloggers? These are a few of the questions the report aims to answer. He said the number one question he gets asked is ‘how do i become a famous blogger?’ As for the state of the Blogosphere, "It’s never been stronger," he declared.

Accompanying him on stage was Wendy Hutter, Senior VP and New York Managing Director at Penn Schoen Berland, which contributed to the report – the largest blogger survey ever – 7,200 bloggers with an additional consumer survey of over 1,000 people.

Some interesting stats from the presentation as presented by Wendy:

- a third of bloggers have worked in traditional media. 

- 87% of all bloggers use Facebook.

- 81% use Facebook to promote their blog.

- 64% use to interact with readers.

- 45% say FB is a more effective traffic driver than a year ago.

- Pros are more likely to have a separate FB Page for their blog. 

- 73% of hobbyists/88% of pros use Twitter

- more than half link Twitter to their blog.

- One third of twitter nn-isers say they prefer fb for short updates and posting links

- 34% say Twitter is a more effective traffic driver than a year ago.

- 33% say tablets an d smartphones have impacted their blogging style

- 15% are using less flash and 7% are using html5 more often

More Brand and Revenue stats from Jalichandra:

- Half of non-corporate pro bloggers write about brands

- a fourth of bloggers overall, post pdouct or brand reviews monthly

- a fifth of bloggers post weekly

- 71 percent only write about brands and products whose reputations they approve of. 

- a third boycott products.

- 1 in 5 not only blog about them but advocate their audience to boycott products as well

- half of pros and a fourth of hobbyists have been approached by a company to write about their brand or products

- 64% of bloggers say they are treated less professionaly by those brand reps than are the traditional media

- one in four blogs with ads now use an ad network. that’s up from one in 5 in ’09 and one in 8 in ’08

- 54% increase in number blogs with ad tags from ’09 to ’10

- Display ads 27%, search ads 25%, affiliate links 25%, paid postings 6%

- Best-performing ads: 38% say standard display ads perfom best on blogs

- 47% allow rich media, 33% allow paid advertorial posts

"Bloggers are most influenced by other bloggers," Jalichandra said. Check out Technorati for the full report, which includes a lot more info. They’ll be releasing three articles and a dozen interviews with prominent women bloggers. 

Staty tuned to WebProNews for more ad:tech coverage. 

Facebook recently made it a point to show users how to use the social network to keep up with the news. Users can simply become fans of their favorite news organizations’ pages (feel free to include ours in your mix), and group them in a "news" list just as they would create a group for friends or co-workers. The bottom line is; spending more time on Facebook getting news headlines is spending more time on Facebook period. There is also talk of Facebook  working on its own web email service. Again, more time spent on Facebook.

One way Facebook could capture even more of its users’ time, is if it introduced a "blog" tab. Facebook currently has a "notes" tab, and quite a few people do use this. It’s a similar concept, but what if it was given more prominence and renamed "blog?" A blog tab might keep Facebook users even longer. First of all, the users blogging with it would obviously be sticking around to write their posts. In addition, their friends and fans would be sticking around longer to read those posts, which would generally be much longer and require more time than the average status update.

Would more people become bloggers?

I suspect that the word "notes" doesn’t quite resonate the same as the word blog in the minds of many Facebook users, although for all intents and purposes, the feature operates like a blog. You can post longer-form content for your friends and fans to see, and they can comment on it, while it all remains in tact in one spot for future reference. Not only could the addition of a "blog" tab keep Facebook users around longer, but it could have a significant impact on the Blogosphere. Simply calling it a blog and having it available right from any user’s profile page might just inspire.

Is social media killing blogs?

No, but it’s hard to say that use of sites like Facebook and Twitter (and now Google Buzz) don’t lend to less blog posts being created. If nothing else, it’s simply a time issue. It is easy to push out a quick status update if you have something to say. It’s easier than blogging. For longer-form content, blogs are generally the better option, which is one reason they are still alive and well. But if Facebook had a blog tab, the social network could cut into the Blogosphere even more, given its huge userbase, while establishing itself as a go-to place for blogging (another area in which Facebook could compete with Google, I might add. Don’t forget that Google owns Blogger).

If Facebook did this, it is very unlikely that all current bloggers would immediately go running there to do their blogging, but Facebook users who may not already be blogging may find the urge to do so when that tab is right in front of their faces. And frankly, I’m confident many current bloggers would go running there. Facebook is a powerful tool for building an audience or expanding upon one. 

It works on MySpace. Look at director Eli Roth’s blog, for example. He gets a lot of engagement there (although he hasn’t updated in several months). Facebook is another animal altogether, and its growth is unprecedented. Just look at Facebook’s latest round of stats.

Facebook is frequently adding and changing features, as any user can certainly attest (for better or for worse). It is not hard to imagine them doing something like this. For the record, the company has made no mention of going such a route, to my knowledge. There are currently ways to blog within and around Facebook if you look hard enough, but if Facebook made blogging a focal point, I think it could take off, and perhaps lend to the concept of Facebook as a news source, and even add greatly to the Blogosphere by encouraging more blogging. 

Should Facebook Have a blog tab? Would you use it? Share your thoughts.

Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money (and only some of them want to, which I think is awesome). Instead of brands and products, they mostly share “personal musings” (53% of hobbyists), and 76% blog to speak their minds. 72% of bloggers fell into this category.

“Part-timers” were most likely to mention brands and products. They blog to supplement their main income. 15% of respondents, most part-timers blog to share their expertise or attract new clients.

“Self-employed” bloggers, 9% of the survey respondents, blog full time for their own company or organization. (Corporate bloggers, 4%, blog for someone else’s company/organization—including their employer.)

Despite the focus on products and brands, bloggers felt that the free goodies weren’t the most important benefits from their blogs—gaining visibility (individually or for their business) and bringing in new business were the top two benefits cited by bloggers surveyed.

What do you think? Do you blog about brands? What benefits have you seen from blogging? Which group do you fall into?

Comments

“That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?” [empahsis added]

Cleland addresses more of the concerns here.

Update: The new FTC guidelines have come out today. The FTC says:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

Bloggers can be fined up to 11,000 per post for not disclosing when they receive payment or free products from a company they’re writing about.

Original Article (05/20): We’ve known for some time that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) intends to start regulating blogs and social media with regards to word-of-mouth marketing (aka blogs and social media). An article from BusinessWeek this week looks at the FTC’s intentions to regulate advertisers who are paying bloggers to write glowing reviews (whether that be in the form of cash or free stuff).

"The world’s more ambitious bloggers like to call themselves ‘citizen journalists.’ The government is trying to make sure these heralds don’t turn into citizen advertisers," writes BW’s Douglas MacMillan.

Some bloggers are of course taking issue with the idea of such regulation. But there are more than a few points to consider. Carlo Longino at TechDirt writes:

"It’s as if the FTC is trying to mandate credibility, and this raises a couple of interesting points. First, audiences generally seem pretty adept at rooting out when people are being paid to talk nice about a company or product, and there are plenty of examples of company’s payola schemes getting found out and causing a backlash against them. Second, why do bloggers get singled out for special treatment? Plenty of old-media reporters get freebies tossed their way, but the FTC doesn’t seem to think they deserve the same level of attention."

A post from Susan Getgood at Marketing Roadmaps actually looks at official documentation (pdf) from the FTC. It’s quite a lengthy document, and published in 2007, it’s the most recent document from the FTC on the issue. She sums up three main points from the document related to bloggers:

1. Liability for false statements in a sponsored post

2. Disclosure of receipt of free product

3. Anti-astroturfing. Requires disclosure of material interest when making an endorsement.

For each of these, she pulls quotes from the official documentation. Keep in mind, this document is a request for public comment. Getgood takes the stance that bloggers are perhaps blowing the effects of such regulation out of proportion.

"So what’s the big deal? Doesn’t this all make sense?" she asks. "It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, but apparently to some: businesses do not always act in the best interests of consumers. Sometimes they even lie. That’s why we’re in a recession."

So I ask you, what do you think of the FTC’s intentions? Do you think regulation is in order? Comment.

Okay, you may have picked up on my sarcasm. What I really meant to say is that truth these days is a highly collaborative endeavor. I can’t possibly corner the market on that, and beyond my network of sources-who-shall-not-be-named (and how’s that for “journalist integrity”?!), I don’t hope to find all the facts. I have to run with what I can find fast, and hope that we can find the full set of facts as commentators come forward. Oh, and I guess we should hope that people read the comments, too, if I can’t find the time (or enough interest) to do a followup.

Dang. That snark’s still in there, isn’t it? Well, that’s the two sides of the debate the New York Times raised this weekend. The NYT accurately points out that the blogosphere is regularly aTwitter (*snort*) with rumors, from a single source—or none at all. Many of them don’t pan out to be true; some do. The implication here is that blogging is an unreliable medium (and that if you want “just the facts, ma’am,” you should stick to the bastion of journalistic integrity. Because they’ve never gotten anything wrong, you know).

Jeff Jarvis is taking up for the defense, saying that (newsflash!) blogs and mainstream media are fundamentally different. Whereas MSM tries to collect “all” the truth (as if that were possible—and let’s pull an Indiana Jones and just stick to facts, mmkay? If it’s truth you’re looking for, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall), blogs see fact-finding as a collaborative effort. So while bloggers make a good-faith effort to check sources, there’s nothing wrong with reporting what they know (especially since even in the NYT’s examples, the bloggers like Michael Arrington acknowledged that they didn’t have much corroboration in their posts), and finding the full set of facts in the comments. It’s the process of journalism that’s important rather than finished product.

Personally, I don’t think either side is totally right, except that they both acknowledge this: blogs and mainstream media are different. Arrington might want to take on the NYT, but his reportage is a completely different arena than that which the NYT operates in (and no, I don’t mean tech startups). The fact of the matter is that reporting rumors is par for the course in the blogosphere and verboten in MSM.

And that’s okay. I think people understand that when they turn to each type of course, and people largely get what they’re looking for.

What do you think: is blogging questionably reliable? Is MSM hopelessly fettered by old-school mentality?

Comments

In May 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon at $75 million, to much confusion in the blogosphere. At the time, eBay was taking a “wait and see” approach before integrating any of its holdings with the sharing and discovery toolbar. Just under two years later, with the help of well-known VCs, the service is returning to its roots as an independent start up, including bringing the founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, back.

Camp, who will take the CEO role, said in the release:

We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths

*forehead smack*

It took them two years to see that there were “few long-term synergies” between a way to navigate to web pages people like and an online auction service? What were the short-term synergies?

Wait, wait—don’t tell me. There were 75 million short-term synergies, huh?

If I had to bet, I’d say that the price was right at the time for a popular and well-hyped web service. But since then, the value has tumbled with the rest of the economy—and since their then-parent couldn’t figure out what to do with them anyway. Buying themselves out of the eBay stable still probably left StumbleUpon with a net gain.

Meanwhile, eBay continues to struggle with its direction with its VoIP service, Skype, and finding the long-term synergies there. Is the popular telephony service the next to leave eBay’s fold?

What do you think? Is StumbleUpon better off on its own? Why did eBay acquire them in the first place?

Comments

The idea of the company with no revenue model giving economic advice has become the subject of ridicule throughout the blogosphere. But let’s give Williams the benefit of the doubt.

Look at how Twitter has grown and continues to do so. No, they do not yet have a revenue model in place, but are promising one in the near future. There is a chance that the Twitter guys know what they’re doing.

I seem to recall a certain search engine that has become kind of popular thoughout the years, and managed to get a lot of people using it before unleashing a certain PPC advertising platform.

Still, the skepticism is understandable. But perhaps Evan’s product and ties to the masses through that product played a role in his selection. Clearly it’s a good medium for getting questions/concerns from the public. It’s good enough for Jimmy Fallon and Cameron Diaz. Ok, that’s probably a bad comparison.

Update: Evan Tweets from the White House: