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Article Excerpt
Blogging seems to be the word on every communicator's lips these days. Companies big and small are "either already blogging or considering it, citing reams of information about how this new communication tool is expanding the connection companies have with their customers, their employees, even the media. But does everyone really do it, and does it make sense for you?
Think about who you are and who your customers are. When the market research firm comScore's "Behaviors of the Blogosphere" study appeared last August, for example, some people were quick to question some of its findings. What generated suspicion wasn't the startling headline numbers--although the fact that one in six Americans visits blogs is pretty surprising--but smaller anomalies immediately apparent only to blogger initiates. Gizmodo has more unique users than Engadget? Quelle horreur!
The somewhat arcane nature of this outrage points to problems in comScore's methodology. To describe its methodology as flawed would be harsh: Its sample panel included some 1.5 million people, a number that should be sufficiently large enough to ensure a representative group.
But it's the identity rather than the number of these panelists that cause the problems. ComScore, like any other panel-based calculator, lures its guinea pigs with techie delights such as antivirus upgrades, although it's worth noting that they're not so delightful for some--as one post on the blog of Weblogs Inc. CEO Jason Calacanis put it, "The only ones running comscores [sic] software are users that are too dumb to uninstall spyware." Well, quite.
To give comScore its due, the company does supplement its online findings with more traditional means of market research. Which is to say it probably has a dedicated unit of cold-call specialists. But who's engaging...
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