According to the 2008 State of the Blogosphere from Technorati, a little more than half the companies in North America do not have a blog. So that means that just under half do. Why are they spending their time blogging?
Lynette at the MIndless Babble Blog says that based on the Technorati numbers, blogging should be a part of every business’s marketing or PR strategy:
- 46% of all bloggers are professional bloggers. This may mean that they’re writing a corporate blog, or simply writing about the industry that their company is in, while not necessarily mentioning their company at all.
- This equates to just over 84.5 million bloggers that are, in essence, business bloggers. If your company doesn’t have some kind of blog presence, that’s potentially 84.5 million businesses ahead of you when it comes to reaching your target audience.
- Online sales in 2007 totaled $260 billion. Blogs are known to increase awareness of new products and offers from companies. Less than half are utilizing this, which means that 1 out of 2 companies are losing a large part of $260 billion dollars of online income.
If your company is still wondering whether to blog or not to blog, take a deeper look at the data in the State of the Blogosphere. And take a look at your industry and your competitors. What are they doing?
Of course not every one of the 84.5 million businesses that are blogging are your competitors. But some of them probably are. Using a cost effective PR like a corporate blog can pay big dividends, if it is done right.
At the very least you must be tapped into the blogosphere and listening to the voices that matter to your business.
