Technorati's have just published the first part of their 'State of the Blogosphere 2010' report. Some 7,200 bloggers responded to their survey this year - this is their largest response ever.
The survey was administered in English however bloggers responded from 24 countries, with nearly half from the United States.
I often get asked how frequently should you update your blog - of the respondents to the 'State of the Blogosphere 2010' report 3% of the respondents update their blog five or more times a day - most commonly the respondents reported updating their blog 2-5 times a week with Corporate bloggers updating their blog most frequently (29% reporting that they updated their blog at least five times a day) and 54% of Corporate bloggers reported blogging more now than they did when they first launched their blog.
For those of you in PR or marketing and looking to reach out to bloggers, take note of how the respondents to the report feel they are considered - overall some 64% of the respondents felt they are treated less professionally by brand representatives than the traditional media. How are you nurturing your relationship with bloggers you approach to talk about your products or services?
I was surprised by the fact that just over half (55%) of respondents who had been approached by a brand were aware of the FTC ruling on disclosure of endorsements for bloggers (perhaps that is influenced by the geographic spread of respondents?). If you are approaching bloggers about writing about your products and services, best practice (and the law in the US) is that you should include your social media disclosure statement.
For the first time, the report surveyed consumers on their trust of and attitudes toward the media they consume. One of the questions asked in the survey was how people make a decision about recommending a product or a service - word of mouth recommendations from family and friends still ranks the highest, followed by traditional media.
When it comes to social media, recommendations by a friend on Facebook counted for 49.7% closely followed by reading about a product on a blog at 47.1%. the influence of a brand on Facebook was only 26.7% and a brand on Twitter only 17.7%. Do you understand what influences people to recommend your product or service and if it's similar to the 'State of the Blogosphere 2010' results does this make you rethink where and how you invest in social media?
Further information will be released over the next few days in relation to the full report. In addition there are interviews with influential female bloggers as part of the report - including Charlene Li, Stefania Pomponi, and Ciaran Blumenfeld. I do hope some of the future reports with the female bloggers featured in the forthcoming parts of the 'State of the Blogosphere 2010' include some non - US/Canadian based bloggers reflecting the global nature of the report.