Ads, marketing flowing to blogs

LAS VEGAS--The future is looking brighter for bloggers.

In the next five years, a majority of advertising and marketing professionals expect to spend more money on so-called conversational media--or online media that encompasses things like blogs and podcasts--than on advertising through traditional media such as newspapers or magazines, according to a recent study from the Society for New Communications Research, a think tank on new media.

"These are large and small agencies we talked to," Jen McClure, founder and executive director of SNCR, said here Wednesday at the first BlogWorld conference.

She said her research group recently asked roughly 260 agencies about their plans to advertise and market in conversational media. Today, a majority of these agencies said that they spend about 2.5 percent of their total budgets on conversational media, but by 2012, they plan to tip that percentage to more than they spend on traditional media, according to SNCR's study.

Right now, the Web is home to about 110 million blogs, with about 120,000 new blogs created every day and about 1.5 million new daily posts, according to the blog-tracking and search site Technorati. Of those, a third are English, a third Japanese, and the rest are a broad mix of languages. Although the growth of blogs has slowed in the last year, their importance and visibility among traditional media, companies, and entrepreneurs has only increased, according to McClure.

McClure said that SNCR hosts an awards program for excellence in new media. And last year, most of the entrants were blogs. But this year, her group has seen an evolution of blogs among the entrants.

"Now, blogs are moving toward doing more dynamic things like podcasts, videos, Facebook applications, and Second Life treatments," she said. "These kinds of sites were more effective than just a blog."

[jenmcclure]

Re: Ads, Marketing Flowing to Blogs

Hi Stefanie -

Thanks so much for attending my session with Andy Wibbels at BlogWorld Expo yesterday.

Just to clarify, our study included not only representatives from agencies, but also advertising, marketing, public relations and corporate communications professionals internal to their organizations from both large and small organizations.

Here's more information and data points from the study:

Of the 260 respondents:

* 70% are currently spending 2.5% or less of their communications budgets on conversational marketing

* Two-thirds plan to increase their investment in conversation within the next twelve months

* 57% project that in five years they will be spending more on conversational marketing than traditional marketing

* 23.8% believe that spending on conversational marketing will be the same as traditional marketing in five years

* In total, 81% of all respondents project that by 2012 they will spend at least as much on conversational marketing as traditional marketing.

Here's a link to more: http://www.newcommreview.com/index.php?s=joseph+jaffe

Best wishes and many thanks for your interest in this study!

Jen McClure
Executive Director
Society for New Communications Research