Harnessing Blogs - Not Exactly Your Most Trusted Friend, but Certainly a Helpful Guide

Some stats on blogs and blogs readers from a study conducted by Jupiter and BuzzLogic called "Harnessing The Power of Blogs"

- The number of those who read blogs at least once a month has grown 300% in the past four years

- Frequent blog readers (those who read blogs more than once per month) - constitute 20% of blog readers and say they trust relevant blog content for purchase decisions than content from social networking sites

- One half (50%) of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information

- 31% of readers say blogs are useful for technology purchases, other key categories include media and entertainment (15%); games/toys and/or sporting goods (14%); travel (12%); automotive (11%); and health (10%)

- For those who have found blog content useful for product decisions, more than half (56%) say blogs with a niche focus and topical expertise were key sources

-  Among respondents who say they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions, over half (52%) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase:

• Decide on a product or service: 21%
• Refine choices: 19%
• Get support and answers: 19%
• Discover products and services: 17%
• Assure: 14%
• Inspire a purchase: 13%
• Execute a purchase: 7%

- Fully 25% of frequent readers say they trust ads on a blog they read; paid search links also account for 25% of their responses; and 19% say they trust ads on social networking sites

- 40% of blog readers have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog; 50% of frequent blog readers say so

- Top activities include the following: read product reviews online (17%); sought out more info on a product or service (16%); visited a manufacturer or retailer website (16%)

- 38% of frequent readers said blog links were the top tool for discovering new blog content.

- 34% cited web search, and 11% said blog search engines were the top tool for discovering new blog content.

- for frequent readers, blog links appear to have similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39% of survey participants).

- 20% of general blog readers (defined as consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months) use blog links to discover new blogs.

-  6% of general readers say they use blog search engines to discover new blogs

- Nearly half (49%) of blog readers and 71% of frequent readers read more than one blog per session