Many of us are ready to recognize social media as a standard subset of our B2B and B2C communications channels. Even the slow moving Fortune 500 is adopting public-facing blogs, according to SNCR. So it’s time to stop thinking about analyst-written blogs as a novelty and start thinking about them as part of standard analyst business practice. One of the central topics we can start talking about openly is vendor sponsorship. That’s right: analyst-written blogs as vendor sponsored content.
In the analyst business at large, most (maybe all) communications channels contain a portion of sponsored content. The mix varies by firm. Some don’t license any content to vendors. Others license any and all content. Most firms are somewhere in between.
Sponsored content represents a mature, steady stream of income for many analyst businesses. I doubt many of us were around when the first vendor co-branded analyst report was circulated as a sales tool. Lots of us were around to witness the first analyst appearances in vendor-sponsored microsites, webinars and podcasts. These are commonplace today. We accept them — even mine them — as a natural part of everyday communications channels.
Why imagine that blogs will be any different? Or Twitter? There’s nothing about blogging as a communications channel that makes it a poor match to sponsorship interests.
Think about it. Some analyst firms won’t buy into sponsored blogs / blog content, some will. The question is, will you buy-in?
Popularity: 3%
September 21st, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Not all Barbara…
Some us do pretty well by bucking the trend, by never accepting vendor sponsorship, we do so by providing unbiased - unadulterated - opinioned research to technology buyers.
Its a myth that analyst firms can’t survive without vendors propping them up. The truth is rather that vendor money is easier money.
Best
Alan
September 21st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Dana Gardner has been running a sponsored blog on ZDNet for some time.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/
As with most decisions analysts make whether to put content in front of a paywall, it will depend on how the analyst butters his (or her) income bread (vendor vs. enterprise client). The perceived bias issue is still there, but it’s not a new one.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Alan,
You’re highlighting an important point — and I agree. Licensing content for promotional use is a choice, not a given, in putting together an analyst business plan. I contend that many firms do make this choice. You are not one of ‘em.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Rob,
You know, many of the people I speak with are initially appalled at the idea of sponsored analyst-written blogs and Tweets. Agree, the issue is not new.
You’re onto an interesting example with the ZD influencer blogs. We assume that traditional church-and-state separation of editorial and sales keeps the ZD bloggers “pure” from sponsor interests. Are we going to assume the same about publications / situations where there isn’t a separate sales function? Or, where there are only a handful of people in an analyst company?
September 21st, 2009 at 1:28 pm
It’s all about disclosure - I don’t have an issue with it as long as it’s clear who’s paying.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Chris,
Disclosures about blog sponsors will work best if the analyst firms are somewhat consistent in how they do the disclosing.
Otherwise, disclosures can get lost — whether not delivered thru syndication widgets, RSS feeds or lifestreams. Or the disclosures get buried in cluttered blog designs.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Barbara,
Agree completely.
But there’s also an element of caveat emptor in the research industry. Someone is ALWAYS paying - the question the buyer needs to ask is who - and why.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 am
Barbara
Many thanks for initiating the discussion. There’s an interesting compare for me between blogging as an independent and as part of a large organisation (IDC in my case). While I used to get stats once in a while, I now get continuous feedback on visitors allowing me to build a really good readership from users. Also ‘Influence’ has better value when it’s with genuine user decision-makers than from other analysts and I think we (I) have a better way of aiming and trimming our analysis for them. As for realising the commercial opportunities of advertising, we need better tools perhaps.
Best Wishes
Martin
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
Martin,
You’ve sketched out the authentic influence of social media — the everyday conversations that lead to relationships that in turn enable influence. That is the type of influence that people generally want to see come out of analyst participation in social media. The people I speak with, at least.
Sponsored blogs and micro-blogs will put that dynamic into a different context.
I don’t think we’ll have clear lines separating sponsored and organic posts. For example, live Tweeting is already supplementing events and webcasts. It’s going to be very blurry - which analysts are compensated, which are passionate and a bit overboard, and which ones are just doing their thing.
IMO: Social media advertising is not a viable revenue stream for most of us. On the other hand, sponsorships have proven a good way to earn a stable income, as evidenced by Tom Foremski and his Silicon Valley Watcher and many others.