For those of you trying to convince your boss that there’s a significant upside to engaging the blogosphere, here are some additional tools.
Kevin O’Keefe lists a few of Charline Li’s many resources for determining blogosphere ROI.
I particularly liked Business Review Online’s formulas for calculating the value of a blog based on either ad revenue or lead generation.
Technorati Tags: Business Blog, ROI, Charline Li, Kevin O’Keefe, Lexblog
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 11.20.06 at 3:42 pm
There is no ROI from blogging in the vast majority of cases. Why should there be? Why can’t we do things for sheer good will and candid communications, enabling our customers to deal with us directly?
This rage for ROI is what Theodore Levitt calls a “harsh and narrow discipline” in Thinking About Management, p. 11l.
What’s the ROI on new carpet? new office furniture? business cards? company cars? conference attendance? Speaking engagements?
Some things we do simply because it’s the right thing to do, or a wise thing to do, and we should not need to justify everything to accounting departments.
Since a blog can be created and hosted for FREE, and many smart business people are using free hosting at WordPress or Blogger, what’s the ROI on Zero Investment? Pretty good, I’d imagine.
No, no, no. If some company is stalling around like idiots about blogging, while their own teens are all over the map with it, what gives? Where is the visionary leadership required in this volatile business climate where many giants are collapsing?
You blog, not for revenue streams, but for enhancing customer relations, telling your side of a controversial story, and establishing your innovative orientation.
Blogs are antiques already.
The real pioneers and entrepreneurial leaders have already moved far beyond the simple text blog, into videocasting and podcasting, super-interactivity, massive customer empowerment, technical support chat modes, videoconferencing, the multi-media Web 2.0 blog realm.
steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 11.20.06 at 3:45 pm
ROT is what you need to evaluate, not ROI which is ephemeral. Monetizing a blog can backfire.
Return On Time is the crucial point here. It costs nothing, or next to nothing, to blog, in terms of money. What is very costly, and prohibitively so in many cases, is the time investment.
You must not only publish posts daily on your own blog, but to be really effective, you should also visit other blogs and post comments at them.
That can be very time consuming.
steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 11.20.06 at 3:46 pm
ROT is what you need to evaluate, not ROI which is ephemeral. Monetizing a blog can backfire.
Return On Time is the crucial point here. It costs nothing, or next to nothing, to blog, in terms of money. What is very costly, and prohibitively so in many cases, is the time investment.
You must not only publish posts daily on your own blog, but to be really effective, you should also visit other blogs and post comments at them.
That can be very time consuming.
Kevin OKeefe 11.20.06 at 4:00 pm
You mean there’s bosses who don’t get it?
Jeremiah Owyang 11.28.06 at 1:26 am
There’s quite a few factors to throw into the pot before it’s boiled down to hard numbers.
From a Search Perspective, one ingredient often overlooked is the Search Engine Marketing benefits.
You can quantify the cost to purchase these keywords per click using artificial methods (PPC) and factor that into your blogging strategy as cost savings.
That is of course, you terms rise to the top of the results.