I recently participated in the Technorati Poll for their ‘Annual State of the Blogsophere‘ research, to which I am thankful they offer to us. Something that had me quite perplexed was their results of who blogs most between men and women. Perhaps not many women participated in the poll, which is a possibility. I just happen to see so many female bloggers in my circles and men in these circles are rare. I suppose that would depend on which circle of the blogosphere a website like Technorati was aiming for.
Another item up for debate is how many of these females are self-employed. Perhaps you are one of these women who blogs and don’t consider yourself self-employed, but if you sell advertising on your site or use affiliates and are generating an income, then you are self-employed as a blogger. I think it would be interesting to poll the female bloggers in the circles I have been involved with and see where the State of the Family Friendly Blogosphere stands on some of these issues.
They did, however, discover a good amount of bloggers have been approached by companies to review products on their blogs and the bloggers reported that they wouldn’t review a product that didn’t have a good reputation. Bravo to the bloggers! Maybe the Blog with Integrity Campaign was a great asset to the blogosphere afterall.
While blogging with integrity is a valuable part of the blogosphere, we need to continue to expect those companies to value the voices and influence of the bloggers. According to the Technorati poll, a majority of those polled agreed that bloggers are not treated with equality by companies requesting reviews. You would think these companies would realize how valuable a blogger’s voice and influence is in the internet world today. I know that out of the handful of companies I have contacted in the past few months about advertising on blogs, over 75% admitted they had no desire to work with bloggers for advertising let alone any products for reviews and giveaways.
Do these large companies not realize the draw the bloggers have in this World Wide Web? Maybe it doesn’t matter to them, afterall they do still use television and radio. It is interesting how many families are developing their own businesses through the use of Etsy, Ebay, and their personal websites and these families do understand the importance of the influence bloggers have. A small business and a few bloggers can make a powerful team with a large reach. Which leads me to ask this question, “Why bother with these big companies who don’t take us seriously, when we can focus on the ones who do?”
Then the part of the poll that was a no brainer… family and friends are trusted most.
How to Comment on Blogs and How Not to Mess it Up.
Jainey was trying much too hard to be the best barista at the tiny coffee shop on the corner of Main and Spruce. She arrived fifteen minutes early for every shift and stayed fifteen minutes later. She wanted to make sure her boss noticed how committed she was to her job and to the shop. [...]