But on the other hand, there does seem to be something about blogs that would suggest that repeat visitors (is that the same as subscribers?) might be a fairly key metric. Since blogs are intended for the continual publication of new posts, repeat visitors should give you a reasonable assessment of how useful/compelling your content is. If it isn't good enough to draw people back over and over, then should it be published at all?

But on the other hand, there does seem to be something about blogs that would suggest that repeat visitors (is that the same as subscribers?) might be a fairly key metric. Since blogs are intended for the continual publication of new posts, repeat visitors should give you a reasonable assessment of how useful/compelling your content is. If it isn’t good enough to draw people back over and over, then should it be published at all?

The client ultimately decides what they think is important and what they want to measure. Nomatter what you tell them, what numbers you show them or what you measurefor them, they will ultimately decide whether or not they are happy with the results.

Clients with 500 percent increases in sales are sometimes unhappy and clients with 3 percent increases in sales are sometimes incredibly happy.

The client ultimately decides what they think is important and what they want to measure. Nomatter what you tell them, what numbers you show them or what you measurefor them, they will ultimately decide whether or not they are happy with the results.

Clients with 500 percent increases in sales are sometimes unhappy and clients with 3 percent increases in sales are sometimes incredibly happy.

I think it varies a lot by what your goals are and what it is you are trying to do with your blog. As an example, if you look at Emerson (http://www.emersonprocessxperts.com/), they have a single blogger who collates story ideas from multiple places in their company and uses real employee names/email in the entries. One of their goals, as Jim explained to me, is to get different levels of employees engaged with customers and this level of transparency helps them achieve that. Given that, their measure might be “# of emails employees receive off the blog”, which is something completely different than most blogs are measuring.

So for a company blog, it might be for this kind of employee/customer engagement, it could be used as an information distribution tool (where subscribers would be a premium), or as a seed for a forum-like interface (where comments would be the measure).

As you said, they all matter and none of them, matter. It all depends on what you’re in it for.

Pete Johnson
HP.com IT Chief Architect
Personal blog: http://nerdguru.net

ps,I’m working on that HP Blog comment thing 8).

I think it varies a lot by what your goals are and what it is you are trying to do with your blog. As an example, if you look at Emerson (http://www.emersonprocessxperts.com/), they have a single blogger who collates story ideas from multiple places in their company and uses real employee names/email in the entries. One of their goals, as Jim explained to me, is to get different levels of employees engaged with customers and this level of transparency helps them achieve that. Given that, their measure might be “# of emails employees receive off the blog”, which is something completely different than most blogs are measuring.

So for a company blog, it might be for this kind of employee/customer engagement, it could be used as an information distribution tool (where subscribers would be a premium), or as a seed for a forum-like interface (where comments would be the measure).

As you said, they all matter and none of them, matter. It all depends on what you’re in it for.

Pete Johnson
HP.com IT Chief Architect
Personal blog: http://nerdguru.net

ps,I’m working on that HP Blog comment thing 8).