User generated content: some clues about why they do it

Snaps to Greg Verdino for this one - he wrote a great post about a new answer to the question: why do people blog?

This cool PDF summarizes the findings - which vary considerably by individual. For a true appreciation of just how diverse the motivations of bloggers are you've got to read the whole thing.

I was interested in how many "pull" marketing applications are mentioned - blogging isn't just about "purshing" your message out via soapbox, it's a great way to run an idea up the flagpole for initial reaction, as well as stay in touch with customers (or "fans").

Appropriate that the survey was fielded via a blog, of course

Comments

[musAlbumf]

Cool site!!!

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[John Young]

"More marketers blogging than real people"? Good heavens, no! I think this perception is one of the effects of the sheer size of the (okay, I'll say it) blogosphere. Our coping strategies are to create vectors through the enormous soup of information available out there.

Those vectors are blogrolls, friend links, targeted technorati searches RSS subscriptions, and pretty soon the world has shrunk down until it seems like you and your globally-distributed mesh of friends just like you _are_ the Internet. I'd suggest spending time with the "Random link" feature of Technorati to get back out there into that soup of bloggers and knock down the horizons.

As for my feelings about blogger motivation, I've been through all the stages during six years and 600 posts, and I'm a little more cynical than you guys. When I was teaching the LSAT for Kaplan, we did a survey of law students about their motivation for going to school. 100% of students claimed that THEY were going to law school to improve the world. 80% of them were just as sure that EVERYONE ELSE was there for the money! :)

Just like the horses in Plato's Phaedrus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(Plato)
...every blogger has two motivations. The "white horse" motivation is what you see in the PDF: connection! conversation! a feeling of community!

The "black horse" motivation is good old ZOMG LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME, EVERYBODY! For a marketer, attention is bankable. What would 80% of marketing bloggers think their friends are in it for?

Both motivations are a real part of blogging -- as a card-carrying Internet Attention Whore, I ride the black horse as much as anybody, and more than most -- so I don't want to sound dismissive. Or at the very least, not hypocritical. When you get right down to it, the motivations for blogging _in general_ are the same as being human _in general_.

I find myself agreeing with Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing, that content isn't the catalyst of the New Intarw3b. CONVERSATION is the catalyst -- content is just something to talk about.

[Greg Verdino]

Hey Jeff - thanks for the snaps.

Laura - I often ask myself that same question and fear the answer may be "yes" (I've seen some data that points to marketing and politics being the two most active blog categories), but in this case I should note that CK's survey was conducted among marketing bloggers only. Even so, I don't think the motivations would be much different among bloggers of another stripe.

[Laura Rollins]

This is a great snapshot of blogger motivations!

But, it does leave me wondering if there are more marketers blogging than "real" people...