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Knowing your blogger type and what type of blogs your company uses for marketing will go a long way...
...to understanding the value marketing can contribute by using blogs.
In his new book titled Blog Marketing, Jeremy Wright identifies seven types of bloggers:
The Barber: knows the right people and wisdom
The Blacksmith: like the Barber but works inside a company
The Bridge: makes connections
The Window: inside company but also talks about things outside the company
The Signpost: points out cool things of interest in his/her industry
The Pub: creates discussions to bring in people
The Newspaper: reports on news and happenings like a journalist
What type of blogger are you? And which types are most likely to achieve your marketing objectives?
If you know why you are using blogs, you will know what type you need.
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Comments
These kinds of categorizing models are really helpful. As you suggest they drive us to reflect on our natural style in order to connect those predispositions to our actual business goals.
Plus, when we do stretch for some reason from “the barber” to “the newspaper” – we can do so with some self-awareness.
Of course, self-awareness will remain a challenge for us guys. Grin
Thanks for the posting!
Posted by: Michael Wagner | 05.22.06
Unfortunately, given the neglect I've allowed my blog to suffer when my business gets busy, I'd have to describe my type as, "The Sloth."
Posted by: Jonathan Kranz | 05.23.06
There must be yet another type -- "The Anal-Retentive Hyper-Vigilant Sort."
Seriously, good fodder for thought, Roy. My guess is that Jeremy Wright talks about this, but I would be that a lot of bloggers fall into more than one bucket, depending on the goals of their blog, and what purpose it serves within their organization (or whether it does serve a specific purpose, even).
Posted by: Ann Handley | 05.23.06
Jeremy has made a great list. Makes me want to read the book right away.
I think I'm a signpost on a bridge type of blogger.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 05.23.06
I guess that makes me the Sybil of the blogoshpere.
Posted by: Jim Turner | 05.23.06
Very useful dynamic. I'm going to share with my blog readers (nonprofit marketers, and very interested in blogging). Get a lot of pushback on this issue though, the old "why do you need a strategy" that I heard in the early days of the Web.
Posted by: Nancy Schwartz | 05.26.06
Hey all, yeah the book does recognize that most people fall somewhere into between one or more categories.
The point was to help us think through what we're trying to do, who we're trying to reach and what voice is most useful in doing that.
The original draft of the chapter was a list of like 23 different 'types' of blogs (eg: CEO blog, press release blog, project management blog, etc). This seemed much easier to relate to :)
Posted by: Jeremy Wright | 05.26.06