5 (free) tools to measure the success of a corporate blog

Here are five tools (via Stephan Becker) to measure the success of a corporate blog. A measurable ROI is a key driver for the launch of any corporate (or CEO) blog, so these are useful - if not definitive. The comments are mine:

1. Google Analytics

I love Google Analytics (it's free, BTW). Great for looking at visitor stats (unique visits, time on site, etc.), geography (what countries are your visitors coming from) and - perhaps most useful - sites that are referring traffic to your blog. These referring links give you a heads-up on where your blog is being mentioned in mainstream media or by other bloggers.

2. RSS Analytics

He cites FeedBurner. Use it to find out how many folks have signed up for the email updates for your blog (note: you can see the actual email addresses) as well as  how many have subscribed to your RSS feed.

3. Number of podcast and videocast downloads

Useful only if you are posting videos and/or podcasts to your blog.

4. Links pointing to your corporate blog

Type this into Google's search box: link:mycorporateblog.com

So for example: link:fastlane.gmblogs.com  (2,350 links) or link:blogs.sun.com/jonathan (9,080 links).

Stephan doesn't mention Technorati rankings but for what it's worth, GM's Fastlane blog ranks (as of today) #10,781 on Technorati and Jonathan Schwartz's CEO blog ranks #766 - out of over 100 million blogs. (This blog currently has a Technorati rank of #7,823.)

5. Number of Comments

This metric is always tricky as it's somewhat unpredictable. Remember that the ratio of lurkers vs. readers can be as high as 90:10 (only 10 percent leave Comments). So there is no exact science to evaluating your number of Comments.

Stephan makes a good point: "Controversial or ‘hot’ topics are more likely to generate feedback just as much as well thought through and professionally written blogs." In other words, you often don't know what will ignite commentary from your readers. In addition, it depends how tech or blog savvy your readers are.

Yes, I know that sounds impossible to some... who is *not* blog savvy these days?? You'd be surprised. It's often necessary to educate your readers on how and why to leave a Comment. A well-written Comments Policy (links to policy for Sony's new Electronics Blog) can do just that.

Useful Links

Top 5 sources to measure the success of your corporate blog by Stefan Becker

Blog Writing Tips from Lorelle VanFossen

5 Tips to Run a Corporate Blog from Steve Rubel (on Wired's Wiki)

Comments

[Yehuda Berlinger]

Debbie,

The sites measure only traffic to the corporate blog. Yet you call the post how to measure the "success" of your corporate blog.

A corporate blog is not like a personal blog which depends on advertising. My own corporate blog can have no hits at all and still be successful, if people are subscribing to it.

The job of the corporate blog is not to sell itself, but to sell the company: whether that means service, personality, products, or position is dependent on the choice of the company.

So these locations will not measure the success of a corporate blog, except tangentially.

Yehuda Berlinger
http://withoutawire.blogspot.com

[Ryan Sasaki]

Hi Yehuda,

While I agree with you, these are still some useful tools. Specifically feedburner, it doesn't measure your traffic, but your subscribers by both RSS and email.

Further while not directly measurable, I think traffic suggests how successful your blog is. If no one is visiting, chances are things aren't really going well. And good luck justifying to your boss that blogging is worth your "company" time if google analytics shows that no one is visiting.

I think it's one of the biggest issues in corporate blogging. So many people in a given company just don't get it, and they think that traffic means all. Therefore if you don't have hits, people think it is a waste of time.

[Easton Ellsworth]

Good point, Yehuda. Yet, Debbie's right in saying that these and other free tools can help businesses understand whether their blogs are worth the time and money.

[Toby]

Debbie - thanks for the recap of these "tools" and concepts that can certainly help determine if "success" was met. However, as savvy marketers well know, determining what is "success" (e.g., establishing goals and objectives tied into a master marketing plan) is the first step.

So while Yehuda is right that the statistics may not be a direct measure of success, they are definitely an important indication. For example, if one of your goals is to establish the CEO blogger as a topic expert in France it would be important to know how many people from France or French bloggers are visiting/linking to your site. If there are few referrals from France and no communications from French companies, than you at least understand that a challenge is how to increase visibility with French bloggers who may be influential to helping meet your goal. It might indicate that you should be more engaged in those communities where you can develop relationships.

[Stephan Becker - Intelegia]

Dear Yehuda,

Thank you for pointing out the “non-tangibles” that helps determining the success of a corporate blog. Your comment hits home as you are addressing the essential question of ‘quantitative’ (tangibles) versus ‘qualitative’ (not-so-easy to obtain tangibles) marketing analysis. In an ideal world, you would try to get both, budget permitting. From a marketing-centric point of view, the easiest and probably first tools to use to get an idea if corporate blogging activities are successful is to focus on the quantitative metrics - and then to take this as an indicator for improvement, if necessary (and where possible). In my opinion, metrics are an important part of the ‘corporate blog success equation’ or as Debbie puts it: “And good luck justifying to your boss that blogging is worth your "company" time if Google analytics shows that no one is visiting.” Its a tough world…:-)

I wish you a pleasant day, Stephan.

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