| Wednesday, 10 February 2010
10:33 |
More than 133,000,000
blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002 and around 77% of
Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann. It’s
clearly a vital medium to comprehend for anyone looking to spread
ideas.
Without further introduction, here are 70 usable blog stats from
the
2009 State of the Blogosphere (a sampling of professional and
hobbyist bloggers):
Demographics of bloggers:
- Two-thirds are male
- 60% are 18-44
- 75% have college degrees
- 40% have graduate degrees
- One in three has an annual household income of $75K+
- One in four has an annual household income of $100K+
- Professional and self-employed bloggers are more affluent:
nearly half have an annual household income of $75,000 and one
third topped the $100,000 level
- More than half are married
- More than half are parents
- Half are employed full time, however ¾ of professional bloggers
are employed full time.
- Around half of bloggers are working on at least their second
blog, and 68% have been blogging for two years or more
- 86% have been blogging for at least a year
Motivations of bloggers:
- 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way
they measure the success of their blog
- Bloggers are most likely to describe themselves as “sincere”
(75%).
- 16% describe themselves as snarky.
- 71% say they blog at least in part in order to speak their
minds.
- 72% say they blog in order to share their expertise.
- 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
- 53% of professional bloggers are interested in attracting new
clients from blogging.
- 72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested
in attracting new clients.
- 19% are concerned that their employers might disapprove of
their views on their blog.
- For most bloggers (81%), even if the economic downturn has
disrupted lifestyles or lives it has not changed the kind of topics
or themes they write about.
- 63% of respondents say that blogging has led them to become
more involved with things they’re passionate about as a result of
blogging.
- Respondents report that blogging has had chiefly positive
impacts on their personal lives; just 6% say that relationships
with friends or family members have suffered as a result of
blogging.
- 42% have become friends with someone they’ve met in person
through their blog.
- 15% say that they have more executive visibility within their
company as a result of blogging.
- 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more
(including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
- 35% – including 43% of part-timers – plan to one day publish a
book.
- Part-Timers, Pros, and Self-Employeds are blogging as much as
or more than ever (73%, 76% and 80%, respectively), while Hobbyists
are blogging somewhat less.
The how of blogging
- 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.
- One in five bloggers report updating on a daily basis.
- The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
- When looking at bloggers by
Technorati Authority, higher Authority bloggers are much more
prolific content creators, posting nearly 300 times more than
lower ranked bloggers.
- The majority of blogs use tags (85%).
- Bloggers are very familiar with the technology they use to
publish on the Internet – only 2% of all respondents say that they
don’t know how their blog was built. (This data confirms
“geeks”
are the new influencers.)
- 13% say that they built their blogs themselves from
scratch.
- 59% of respondents use a free third party hosting service.
- 82% of respondents say that they post photos to their blog,
making images the most popular form of multimedia.
- 13% of all respondents say that they never post any
images/videos/audio to their blogs, preferring to just use
text.
- Of those who use media other than text, 73% say that that they
also create the photos, video, or audio they post themselves about
half of the time.
- 75% of those who use syndication syndicate full content.
- 20% of all users report having updating their blog or adding
content from their mobile device.
- 59% percent report doing so at least somewhat more this year
than they did last year.
- Fewer than 10% of bloggers say they don’t know the traffic to
their blogs.
- Bloggers participate in an average of 5 activities to drive
traffic to their blogs.
- On average 27% of a blogs page views come as referrals from a
horizontal search engine.
- 74% of all respondents use a third party service to track their
site traffic. Google Analytics is by far the most popular tool in
the space.
Blogging revenues
- 72% of respondents are classified as Hobbyists, meaning that
they report no income related to blogging
- Of those who have monetized their blogging to at least some
extent:
• 54% are Part-Timers
• 32% are Self-Employeds
• 14% are Corporates
- 15% say they are paid to give speeches on the topics they blog
about.
- 51% of Corporates – 58 respondents – report receiving a salary
for blogging.
- Evaluating positive and negative cashflows, the mean profits
for blogs with reported revenues is $57,369.20.
- 89% believe that it is important that the advertising placed on
their blogs align with their values.
- More than 2 out of 3 bloggers monetizing their sites leverage
self-service ad platforms.
- Comparing 2008 to 2009 there has been a 68% increase in the
number blogs with ad tags installed.
Blogging brands
- 70% of bloggers are talking about brands on their blog
organically.
- 46% of respondents post about the brands they love (or
hate).
- 38% post brand or product reviews.
- Part-Timers, and Self-Employed bloggers are talking about
brands at a much higher rate (80%), with one in three posting
reviews at least once a week.
- 71% of all respondents who maintain blogs for a business –
their own or one they work for – report that they have increased
their visibility within their industries through their blogs.
- 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a
positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
- 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of
their blog
Twitter and blogging
- Just 14% of the general population use Twitter – but 73% of
respondents in the 2009 State Of The Blogosphere survey do.
- 52% syndicate their blog posts to their Twitter Account, and
41% do so while also posting tweets that are not associated with
their blogs.
- 26% of bloggers who also use Twitter say that the service has
eaten into the time they spend updating their traditional blogs –
though 65% say it has had no effect.
- 35% of those who do not use Twitter say it’s because they do
not understand the point . And 54% report that they don’t feel the
need to broadcast their life, despite the popularity of “personal
musings” as a blog topic.
- Blogs with greater than 100 page views a day received on
average .83% of their page views from Twitter referrals. This
referral percentage was constant as the audience size of the blog
increased.
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