If it was not apparent beforehand, blogs have unequivocally arrived as a credible interactive content source when Barron’s Online reviewed financial bloggers and quoted their posts, even going so far as to say ‘We simply enjoy reading this blog.’ (Source: Carey, Yakel, ‘Instant Info Speeds Up’, Barron’s Online, October 31, 2005) In addition to online journalism enhancement, this short inquiry examines reasons for blogging, specific benefits for advertisers and the role of US Hispanics in the blogosphere.

Indeed, blogs are credible to other bloggers as a source for product information (63%), forming an iterative relationship that sustains itself.

eMarketer cites reasons to blog related to social outreach and community: (Source: ‘Blogs and Business’, eMarketer, November 4 2005)

As more and more bloggers find one another based on common interest to discuss politics and trends, they start to form a virtual community. Blog-as-community was confirmed by Jason Fry who wrote about his travails at starting and maintaining a New York Mets blog. “We also wound up, to my surprise, a community in our own right. As the season ended, we got very kind comments and emails from our readers, along with entreaties to keep them company through the lonely off season.” (Source: Fry, Jason, ‘The Accidental Blogger’, WSJ.com, 10/31/2005)

According to Dennis Seda, Chief Editor of Terra Networks, “Terra’s audience is accustomed to forming surrogate families since their immediate family may be quite a distance away. It is natural to extend this adoptive tendency to online communities.”

Post on Terra Networks Fotolog: 11/13/2005:

With a clear understanding of US Hispanics’ inclination to form social communities online, Terra Networks launched a photoblog service (Fotolog http://fotolog.terra.com/flog.cgi) in early 2005 and more recently launched a text blogging service in November 2005 accessible at url http://blog.terra.com. To better serve the US Hispanic online user, Terra has made this service available in both Spanish and English. Blog communities include sports, music, and politics, among others. Historical postings are searchable and popular features include the ability to choose templates and upload pictures.

Post on Terra Networks Fotolog, 11/5/2005:

As bloggers happily continue to share information by linking to each others blogs and create a new weblog every 5.8 seconds according to Pew Internet & American Life, comScore Networks proves that this audience is rapidly growing (45% increase in blog readership Q105 over Q104) and is a premium target for advertisers (Source: comScore Networks, ‘Behaviors of the Blogosphere: Understanding the Scale, Composition and Activities of Weblog Audiences’ August 2005):

Blog visitors
- are 11% more likely than the average Internet user to have incomes of $75,000 or more
- are 11% more likely than the average Internet user to access the Internet using a broadband connection
- view 77% more pages online than the average Web user
- are 30% more likely to buy products or services online.

Advertisers are taking notice. 64% of advertisers have expressed an interest in advertising on blogs (eMarketer, 2005). As consumer generated content continues to grow exponentially through blogs and other means such as podcasts, marketers will have to find new, innovative ways to reach their target audiences.

Be a Smart Marketer. Consider the implications of reaching a prime audience by adding blogs to your marketing mix.

To learn more about how you can reach Terra.com's quality audience with your marketing message, call us at 212-354-2700.

By Natasha Funk Published November 21, 2005. If you missed past issues of Terra’s Smart Marketer Series and would like to obtain them, please send an email to: smartmarketer@terra.com.