In my post Crossing the Blogging Chasm on Fusion PR forum last week, I wrote that blogging is crossing the chasm into mainstream adoption. Many different types of people blog. This means you need to dig deeper than the simple fact that someone blogs when considering how (or even if) to engage the person, and be a bit smarter than just striving to “go after the blogs.”
But let’s look at it another way. Does the fact that someone blogs say anything interesting about them? E.g., I blog, and enjoy blogging. Does this fact say anything about my identity? Should I feel any kinship with other bloggers, despite the fact that we might come from wildly different backgrounds and focus on different things?
For starters, it is pretty clear that most people who blog also read blogs, and communicate with other bloggers. BlogCatalog (inactive), a social network for bloggers (of which I am a member), was founded on the idea that bloggers share a common bond.
Further, the power of interconnected blogging networks has been proven. For example, Bloggers Unite campaigns have shown that bloggers pull together toward shared goals.
And most people are familiar with Netroots, i.e. “political activism organized through blogs and other online media,” according to the Wikipedia definition.
Although the above efforts are not marketing driven, I believe they do show the powerful and potentially viral nature of the technology.
Savvy marketers and communicators will increasingly add how people communicate to the types of demographic data they collect. The mere fact that someone blogs may not by itself be that interesting, but what about the ability to target upper income left leaning bloggers? Or car buffs who use Twitter or Facebook?
The really smart marketers will learn how to leverage the greater networks of these new communicators. This type of intelligence will guide marketers towards leveraging extended communications networks, allowing them to target these communicators, ideally by using some of the same tools.
