What Can We Learn From The Top 25 Marketing Blogs?

11 May 2007 Written By: Jim KukralComments: 431 Comments2007-05-11+20%3A17%3A58Jim+Kukral

Marketing blogs are very near and dear to my heart. Obviously… because I’m a marketer, and blogger, myself, go figure eh?

The Viral Garden, written by Mack Collier puts out a list of the top 25 marketing blogs every week which I like to review. It’s a good insight into what other marketers like myself are doing. What they’re blogging about… why they are successful, etc…

Recently I thought it would be fun to analyze the top 25 list to see if any similarities could be found? After all, these blogs and personalities are successful for a reason correct? Why not see what they have in common and try to learn from it?

Introducing… The Top 25 Marketing Blog Analysis.

What Did You Measure?

I tried to get a feel for several things, from if they use a photo of themselves on their blog, to things like “Is Seth Godin in their blogroll”. :) Here’s the official list things I researched on each blog.

Do They Have RSS To Email Subscription?
Do They Blog At Their Name.com?
Are Their Ads On blog?
Does The Blogger Promote Twitter?
Does The Blogger Promote Linked In?
Is Their Phone Number Listed?
Are They A Book Author?
Do They Have Seth Godin In Their Blogroll?
What’s Their Feedburner Count?
Is There A Photo Of Themselves On Blog Home Page?
What Is Their Blog Worth?

Some interesting insights have come out of my analysis. For example…

$7,819,446: How much all the Top 25 blogs are worth collectively.

The majority of top 25 marketing bloggers don’t brand their names. For example, you’ve got guys like Mack Collier who blogs under the brand Viral Garden rather than at MackCollier.com.

Seth Godin is NOT in everyone’s blogroll as I assumed he would be. What’s up? Some of you have a problem with Seth? :)

The majority do not put ads on their blogs, and even those that do have smaller text link ads, etc… I’d like to hear more about this from the top 25. Why don’t you have ads on your blog?

Wordpress and Typepad rule the roost in terms of blogging platforms used. I expected to see more Typepad users.

Top 25 marketing bloggers don’t like to give out their phone numbers too much. This is a personal thing. I give out my toll-free number, but that’s just me.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more analysis down the road. Any patterns you notice?

Disclosure Policy

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Jonathan (Trust)

"Any patterns you notice?"

That I don't see Revenews, Jangro, Costpernews in the list and it looks like the top 25 is just a reflection of the people on his Twitter. But it's probably because it's more mainstream marketing and Revenews, Jangro and Costpernews is more affiliate marketing? Also what I don't get is how half of the top 25 marketers don't have their own domain name for their blog. I would think marketers knew about branding? Instead of blahblah.typepad.com, register blahblah.com

Dan

The top 25 marketing blogs all have pretty high quality Personal Brands I must say. Today, there are certain requirements for blogs, which you had named in your post and other bloggers look for those qualities when viewing blogs.

Douglas Karr

I don't understand how they are the top 25 Marketing Blogs. I keep asking that question but I don't get a response. I'm not trying to weasel in, but I've got quite a popular Marketing Blog that has much better placement.

How did they get to be the top 25?

Just curious!
Doug

CK

Hi Jim: Thanks for this analysis. A couple of things. I opted to go with "CK" in my URL (www.ck-blog.com) because that is what my audience has called me for years. Being a marketer, I listen to them so my nickname is in my blog's domain. It's also part of the branding of my business (ckEpiphany) and, as a marketer, I focus on my branding.

Also, my blog is on Typepad, not Wordpress. Just FYI.

Nope, I'm not an author...but I sure put a lot of work into creating and hosting a book club. No worries, I do it because I love it--and I do it for the community that I so love learning with and from. In a way I consider a lot of bloggers as authors being they put so many hours into publishing thought leadership on their blogs...and they do it for free.

Dan: I believe that Mack uses "Alexa" to measure the rankings. Honestly, rankings are different according to different systems (e.g. technorati).

All that said, and I say this a lot, it's the relationships--not the rankings--that matter. I've been so fortunate through my travels and others coming to NYC to meet up with so many fine colleagues and friends. That's where the value is.

Thanks again Jim, I know the analysis took a good bit of time. You rock!

Jim Kukral

Douglas, I'm not entirely sure either, but this page says the criteria.

http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2006/04/v...

"I added this nifty Firefox extension that gives a blog's Alexa ranking and Google PageRank when you visit, and I thought it would be fun to do a Top 20 ranking of the marketing blogs, a la the AP Top 25. The rankings are according to Alexa, and basically if I think your blog either focuses mainly on marketing, or marketing is at least half the content, then I added you(and the content couldn't be all news-related, like Marketing Vox). Certain judgment calls had to be made, like including Creating Passionate Users and What's Next, and not including Micro Persuasion and AdRants."

Jim Kukral

@CK, Fixing chart now (typepad from wordpress).

That book club is/was a great idea. I just wasn't able to commit the time to being so involved. Perhaps someday.

Thanks for stopping by. This analysis did take some time, but it was fun.

CK

Oh, sorry, I forgot to answer your questions:

Phone #: I had a number and then a few people abused it (I do not believe these were from the marketing community). But to get some phone calls from some weirdos wasn't worth it. We women have enough to deal with ;-).

Ads: I don't place ads on my blog nor do I blog about my clients. It's a personal decision. I do have info. on how to hire me/etc. accessible from my sidebar.

Seth Godin is not the only A-Lister that I don't have on my blogroll. I change and update my blogroll a good bit as I learn of new, great blogs. It's a big 'sphere and I really want to introduce readers to other blogs they may not have heard of.

I want to thank you again for the work you put into this. To be honest, I'm just thankful that readers invest time into what I have to say...and that they teach me so much.

CK

Jim: Book Club works on your time, man. Some members jump in and out of segments...some stay for all--it's based on knowledge share and flexibility ;-).

And a new segment airs on Tuesday, keep your eyes on Daily Fix for launch (woo-hoo!)

Toby

Jim - Very interesting. It's fun to slice and dice this stuff. Non phone numbers might indicate that the Viral Garden's Top 25 are small businesses working virtually.

I liked reading CK's story of the name of her blog. Would be fun to know the stories behind the blog titles. "Diva Marketing" began life as a column I wrote for an online pub; the pub closed its doors. I was looking for a new "home" for the column and thought it would be a fun title for the blog. Turned out to be a good tactic and has helped build a sort of 'blog brand.'

servantofchaos

Jim, I wonder how this has changed over the last 12 months. Are there new criteria by which you would evaluate the blogs? There are certainly plenty of new blogs that comprise the top 25, with new approaches to measurement etc.

Gavin Heatons last blog post..A Man's Got to Do What a Man's Got to Do