Female Bloggers Influence Growing Survey Shows

Every year since 2004, Technorati has published a State of the Blogosphere report. Originally a crunching of Technorati’s numbers by David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati, the State of the Blogosphere has now grown into a full-blown survey administered by professional researchers. Last year, recognizing the rising growth of female bloggers, the State of the Blogosphere focused on “the influence of women and mom bloggers on the blogosphere, mainstream media, and brands.”

While gender was not an issue this year, one could infer from some of the results the increasing presence of female bloggers. For one, our sheer numbers are up 5% from last year. Also significant was the enhancement of the taxonomy of bloggers Technorati has used in the past and the way in which the numbers within each category have changed.

The Hobbyists, those who “blog for fun,” are still the largest group; however, their numbers were down somewhat from 64% to 60%. The category of Part-Timers has evolved this year into Professional Part- and Full-Timers. These are “independent bloggers who either use blogging as a way to supplement their income, or consider it their full-time job.” Of the total group surveyed, 18% fell into this category, whereas last year only 13% were in the Part-Time category. There was this year a significant increase in Corporate bloggers–those who blog full-time as part of their employment–growing from 1% of the total surveyed last year to 8% this year. Finally, the Self-Employed category, those who “blog full time or occasionally for their own company or organization,” which in 2010 was 21% of the total, has morphed into a somewhat different category called Entrepreneurs. The latter, which comprised some 13% of the blogosphere, are “individuals blogging for a company or organization they own.” The difference may be semantics, but the implication reflects the explosion of entrepreneurship that may be seen as a confluence of our increasing technological capability and our rocky economic situation.

If we look at how we as a genre of bloggers have grown over the past year, it seems clear that this professionalization of blogging is due, to a significant extent, to female bloggers.  “Of these Professional Full Time bloggers, 55% are a parent (and 57% of Entrepreneurs are a parent). That’s almost 10% higher than other segments of bloggers (46% of Hobbyists, 48% of Professional Part Timers, and 48% of Corporates).”

These categories become even more relevant when looking at the impact of Social Media on blogging. While Twitter usage is up in all categories, it lags for the Hobbyist blogger who is not blogging as part of a purpose-driven agenda.

Facebook is also used by the majority of bloggers surveyed (89%), about half of whom keep their blog account separate from their personal account. Google+, although relatively new when the survey was done, still has some impressive numbers, with 60% now using the site to, among other things, promote their blogs or “bring interesting links to light.” The other four social media sites most used by bloggers are LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and Stumble Upon.

Having said last year that the “the impact [of female bloggers is] perhaps felt most strongly by brands, as the women and mom blogger segment is the most likely of all to blog about brands,” this year Technorati opened the conversation up to marketers. Interviews with 111 senior level agency and brand markets resulted in some data that will be of interest to women bloggers. Specifically, when asked to name the biggest change in social media this year, “The most popular answers centered around a few major trends: brand strategy, blogging, the evolution of specific social media channels, advancements in mobile devices, developments in analytics, and the problem of information overload.”

While Technorati will be publishing some of these interviews in the future, the concensus is that blogging will continue to be a significant part of marketing. However, they also know that “blogging can have a positive or negative effect.” Using bloggers and social media in their campaigns means they are creating a conversation and that they are aware requires active participation from all.