The Value of a Blog

I've worked for a couple of different nonprofit organizations over the past few years and one thing they've had in common was that they jumped on the blogging bandwagon. And in my personal opinion, both organizations are better for it. They've been able to communicate multiple messages, talk about their campaigns, capture different audiences, and build more personal rapport with their constituents. We think. That's the great mystery with blogging — how do you calculate the value of building personal rapport with constituents? It's not exactly simple arithmetic.

However, as blogs have become more popular for corporate and organizational use, more study and research is being done to find real ways of measuring the value in quantifiable terms. Adding up staff time in developing and managing a blog with the cost for purchasing or implementing a specific tool or service is fairly clear when calculating the investments. Calculating the ROI (return on investment) is a different animal altogether. And it's an ever-evolving animal.

Beth Kanter, guru of nonprofits and social media, has a recent post reflecting on the past year of blogging and trying to assess real, quantifiable value. From measuring audience growth, to the "conversation rate," and "Technorati Authority," she gives us bloggers a lot to think about in the context of our own blog success.