How does your business blog stack up? Technorati survey

Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2010 report surveys more than 7,000 bloggers for an overview of what’s going on in the blog world.  It’s an interesting read, but I’ve pulled out the tidbits that are most relevant to business bloggers.  How does your blog compare to the results?

Technorati just released the State of the Blogosphere 2010 report.  For those with a small- or medium-sized business looking to increase their presence with a blog, it’s interesting to see what others are doing and how they’re doing it (like how it’s fun to follow real estate listings after you’ve already bought a house).

If your target market is moms, there’s a section on mom bloggers, and they’ve also included consumer attitudes about blogs for the first time.

About the survey: who’s blogging?

The survey of  7,200 bloggers categorized them into hobbyists, part-timers (this was kind of nebulous), corporates (people whose job it is to blog for someone else), and self-employeds, who are probably who I think of when I imagine a small business blogger.   Self-employeds made up the 2nd largest segment in the survey after hobbyists.  Most of these bloggers either own their own business (57%) or their blog IS their business (19%).

Not sure what the other 24% are blogging about, since they are self-employed and most of their income comes from blogging, so it’s a slightly murky sample, but still probably comes close to what many business bloggers are doing.

What the self-employed bloggers said:

• 62% say they have much greater visibility in their industry because of their blog (see Kitchen & Residential Design blog case study for a prime example)
• 65% manage their blog by themselves
• 62% are blogging more than they used to because it helps their business
• 57% blog to get more business (thought this would be 100%!)
• 72% blog to “meet and connect with like-minded people”
• More than half (57%) want to blog more frequently (See Companies that Blog More Have More Consistent Sales by Hubspot.com)
• 60% said that prospective clients had read their blog and purchased products or services
• 84% use Twitter to promote their blogs
• Less than half (44%) use Facebook to promote their business (they must not be targeting moms — see below)
• 91% say their blog is their primary source of income (I’m curious about a further breakdown — is the income from ads? Affiliate deals? Selling products/services from their blog?)

Moms: as a target market and as a blogging community

If your target market is moms, this year’s report has a special section on mom bloggers.

• They blog significantly more than other bloggers on parenting and “personal musings”
• They use Twitter to promote their blogs; if they don’t use Twitter it’s because they like Facebook much more (see how Oreo is putting Facebook at the center of its digital universe, because that’s where the moms are)
• 74% comment on other blogs and hope for reciprocity
• 58% have blogged about a product they love – or hate

Consumers trust blogs more than they used to

From Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2010

As you can see from the graph above, consumers trust blogs more than random Tweets, but traditional media still fares slightly better, and friends and family, of course remain the best referral of all.

How does your blog compare?

Overall, it’s heartening to know that so many people with business blogs are seeing the benefits — whether it’s monetary or professional.  As usual, the survey showed that the more you blog, the more successful your blog is — the top 100 blogs had 500 times the articles of all the other blogs combined.  So keep it up, or ask for help!