Is there such a thing as credibility in the bloggersphere?

Social media has brought forth a revolution of epic proportions, a multi-generational audience that is now being defined by tweets, Facebook posts, video uploads and blogs. This new epicenter of technology where information can be shared rapidly with one click begs the question: is there such a thing as credibility?

It’s no surprise that social media has its vocal skeptics- anyone; anywhere can broadcast anything at an alarmingly rapid rate. Having worked extensively with blog representation, my initial thought when first looking for bloggers to represent our content was, “oh no, what have I gotten myself into.” One quick stroke of the keys and anyone can call themselves a blogger; on the other hand, blogs about your brand or product can be a great way to create exposure.  

So how do you combat faulty blogger credibility? Below I’ve listed the criteria I look for when determining a blog’s credibility.

• High Readership: The content of the blog is only as influential as the number of people who view it.
• An Active Comment Stream: Active comment streams directly relate to topic interest and conversation engagement. The more engagement, the more relevant the topic becomes.
• A Large Social Footprint:  The more social media networks a blogger is engaged in, the higher the probability more people will see the content.  
• Regular Postings: It is a general rule that bloggers who update regularly have a significantly higher unique visitor volume than those that do not.
• A Sizeable Post Length:  Posts should be at least between 2-3 paragraphs.  As your grade school teachers once said “you can’t finish a complete story in one paragraph no matter how bad your hand hurts holding that pencil”. The same goes for blogging.
• Pictures:  Visuals are key in the bloggersphere, not to mention readers love them.  Let’s face it, if someone ventures into the blogging arena, odds are they have a camera. Upload some pictures!
• Tags: This seems like a menial point but it’s actually one of the most important. Tags are used as search words in Search Engine Optimization programs which rank blogs on sites like Google and Yahoo.
• Videos: Videos are crucial for blogs; like pictures, readers love them.

Once a blog/blogger has passed the credibility-check, it’s time to get excited and embrace the online exposure they may offer you. In 2008, The Hollywood Reporter noted a case study done by New York University Professor, Vasant Dhar, and former student, Elaine Chang, investigating the impact of blogging on record sales. Tracking 108 samples of albums for eight weeks between January and March of 2007, Dhar and Chang found that albums mentioned on 40 credible blogs saw a sales increase of three times their normal average, and albums mentioned on more than 250 credible blogs saw a sales increase of six times their normal average.

As you can see, credible blogging, when done correctly, is capable of increasing both exposure and sales.

By: Jesse Garner, jesse@boltpr.com