Blogging takes lots of time
This is one of the conclusions of a survey published by Nora Ganim Barnes, from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Her report, Behind the Scenes in the Blogosphere (PDF format, 60 pages, 1.32 MB) suggests that blogs will make or break your business. Here are the major — and somewhat unsurprising — conclusions of this report which was conducted with the help of of 74 business bloggers: Blogs take time and commitment; Blogs must be part of a plan; A blog is a conversation; Transparency, authenticity, and focus are good, but bland is bad.
Before going any further, here is the introduction of this long — but very interesting — report.
Blogs will make or break your business. They have the power to disseminate information and host global conversations on any topic. Every publication from Business Week, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal […] warns businesses that blogging is not an optional endeavor. Those that don’t will not survive.
As it’s pretty difficult to summarize such a dense report, I’ve decided to include only two images extracted from this survey. The first one shows you how much time a successful business blogger spends on his/her blog on a average day (Credit: Nora Ganim Barnes).
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This second diagram is even more interesting because it tells you that the vast majority of the bloggers interviewed for this survey don’t see any downside for having a blog — except that they spend lots of time to manage it(Credit: Nora Ganim Barnes).
And from the conclusions of this must-read report, here is a short quote from the author which summarizes her thoughts.
Blogging takes time, commitment, and honesty. In return connections are made that are personal and strong. Blogs are not a fad. They are no longer even an option. Those businesses that choose to remain outside this online conversation, will be sidelined. Eventually they will become extinct.
Do you agree with these conclusions? Does your company or organization have a blog? And if not, why? Please tell me what you think.
Source: Nora Ganim Barnes, Chancellor Professor of Marketing, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, June 2006
July 10th, 2006 at 832
Yes, I strongly agree with the conclusions. In fact, I am very relieved to read this study and realize that I’m not the only one who finds writing worthwhile blogs to be time consuming. Since my blog is medical I check the facts and references many times. Other than fact checking, it is difficult to find the time after a long day of seeing patients. So why write it at all?
I enjoy it, learn from it, and in 3 months I have reached 39,000 people in contrast to my office where in that period of time I can only counsel 1200 people.
Once again you have been helpful and I have learned some thing from your post.
Thank you.
July 11th, 2006 at 1835
Taraneh,
It’s sometimes difficult to measure what can be the impact of a blog. But reaching 30 times more people with your blog than with your daily practice is a real achievement.
Roland.
January 11th, 2007 at 1351
[…] A few months ago, in “Blogging takes lots of time,” I introduced you to the research work of Nora Ganim Barnes, Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Now, with her colleague Eric Mattson, she has just completed a study of the Inc. 500 and their use of social media. Their report is aptly named “The Hype is Real: Social Media Invades the Inc. 500.” […]