The Seven Best Social Media Blogs Going Into 2010

There are number of very good blogs across the blogosphere that discuss social media in a variety of ways. The following seven blogs have done a particularly good job of talking about the ins and outs of social media throughout the last year and have brought real, unique insight to their readers. I expect big things out of these bloggers over the next year.

The Brand Builder Blog

The Brand Builder Blog is an amazing resource for marketers, especially if looking into ROI and how it relates to social media. Olivier Blanchard, the voice behind The Brand Build Blog is a leader in the conversation about ROI, which becomes immediately obvious after reading one of his posts or watching one of his videos. What I really enjoy about Olivier is that he isn't afraid to call out the snake oil marketers who call themselves "social media gurus" and offer misguided notions of ROI.

Social Media Explorer

Jason Falls writes Social Media Explorer and does a great job of educating his readers about the newest trends in social media. Jason is always in the know when it comes to the important social media technologies and the important figures across the industry. The best part of Social Media Explorer is that when a reader comments on a post he/she is more than likely going to get a response from Jason. He truly embraces the social aspect of social media and makes sure his readers get his attention.

Logic + Emotion

This is a blog that had tremendous insight into the social media landscape. Logic + Emotion is David Armano's personal blog. David is a great teacher and incorporates some of the better social media visuals you can find. My favorite part of the blog is David's willingness to share his personal story and business evolution. Over the last few months, readers have been taken through the journey from Dachis Group to Edelman, but all while learning about social media.

Marketing Pilgrim

Though not all posts are about social media, many of the posts at Marketing Pilgrim either focus on or have elements of social media. The stories often stretch beyond to all internet marketing and advertising. The market insights and trends that are discussed on Marketing Pilgrim are unparalleled. I can always count on them to keep me informed of the demographic information for various platforms.

PR 2.0

Brian Solis, the voice of PR 2.0 and principle at FutureWorks does an amazing job at providing readers with real wisdom about the social media landscape and how it applies to marketing or PR. Its clear after reading one of Brian's posts that he has amazingly experience and knowledge of the industry. He can speak about small business, large brands, b2b, b2c and much more. The best part about the blog is its willingness to predict the future trends of social media. Brian isn't afraid to go out on a limb and state what he believes is the wave of the future.

Instigator Blog

You'll find more than just discussion about social media at the Instigator Blog. Ben Yoskovitz talks about start-ups, general business and of coarse social media. He is always on top of the newest technologies and practices.

Britopian

Michael Brito is one of the more experience social media professionals out there. He has an impressive resume and brings that experience to his posting. What I enjoy most about Britopian is the ability to not only discuss social media technologies, but the culture of social media and digital marketing.

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Breaking Down Technorati's 'State of the Blogosphere'

This year Technorati has rolled out their "State of the Blogosphere" in a five-part series. They'll be posting one part every day throughout this week. Thus far, they have posted "Who Are the Bloggers?" and "The What and Why of Blogging."

These two parts alone have a host of information to digest, critically analyze and apply to your social media knowledge. In an effort to highlight the most important stuff, I'll be breaking down the info and asking a few questions along the way.

Methodology:

Technorati collected data from Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates who conducted a survey of 2,828 bloggers nationwide. They also gathered data from 11,000 active Lijit publishers (bloggers using the Lijit search widget) and 2.5 million blogs connected by link to these Ligit bloggers. This data collection method is somewhat biased because it takes a certain type of blogger to decide to download a Lijit widget. It becomes immediately less likely that casual bloggers or bloggers who see no value in Lijit can contribute their input to the survey. The correction for this of adding blogs who are linked to Lijit users helps a fair amount but still isn't an entirely valid and random representation of the blogoshpere.

Realisticially, it would be an enormous undertaking to get a representative and random sampling of blogs so I can't complain too much about their choice of blogs.

Major Points:

1. The state of the blogosphere is strong

2. There are 4 types of bloggers

• Hobbyists: 72%- This group blogs for fun and don't make any money from blogging
• Part-Timers: 15%- They blog to supplement their income, but don't use blogging as a full-time job
• Self Employeds: 9%- People who blog full-time for their company or organization
• Pros: 4%- Also listed as blogging full-time for their company or organization, but apparently don't blog as many hours per week

3. Bloggers are educated and in good standing financially:

• 1/3 of respondents has a household income of over $75K
• 75% of bloggers have a college degrees
• 40% have graduate degrees

4. People who have worked in traditional media are migrating towards blogs. 35% of all respondents have worked within the traditional media as a writer, reporter, producer or something else

5. Bloggers are beginning to use mobile devices to blog, but it is still not a common practice:

6. There is a significant increase in professional blogging. This means blogging for the purpose of gaining income, business connections and increased revenue is on the rise.

7. Blogging has been beneficial to individuals careers and work goals. 58% of respondents said they are better-known in their industry solely because of the blog.

8. The volume of blogging is on the rise. 57% said they plan to blog even more moving forward, which included 74% of 18-24 year olds.

My Observations:

1. The growing number of "professional" bloggers is changing the face of blogging as we have known it for the last 10 years. Technorati asserted that only 36% of of professional bloggers discuss the political and social implications of their topics. The topical and neutral stances of professional bloggers have created a trend of less emotional, opinionated posts, which is what blogging was founded upon. I'm a professional in the social media world so I understand the idea of professional blogging, but I would hate to lose the passion and opinions that blogging is synonymous with.

2. Technorati tried to play to the dichotomy between traditional and social media with survey questions lke "are blogs better written then traditional media?" Bloggers didn't fall into the trap. Based on Technorati's data, bloggers were resistant to the notion that trditional media is either failing or decreasing it's content quality. Its important that a mutual respect remains present between the two parties because as each day passes the lines become more blurred.

3. Technorati found that "30% of those who are blogging less say it's because they are devoting more time to microblogging and social networks." In other words, bloggers are writing less because they are networking and having fun on sites like Twitter and Facebook. This is a very important trend. Does this mean that blogging is on the decline? Are other platforms rising up to destroy the blogosphere? I'm pretty sure the answer is "No." Other platforms are actually being tied into the blogosphere to help promote individual blogs. Twitter and Facebook updates are riddled with links to blog posts. Still, the next wave of technology could make blogging a pastime much in the way of chat rooms.

Technorati has been struggling to regain some of the prominence it once had. This report provides great data for all those marketers and social media junkies out there, but is it enough to bring Technorati to the top again? I guess we will have to wait and see what the next three parts of the report have to say.

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