One area that was not the focus of my study but resulted in some interesting data was the number of posts published by each corporate blog. That data is analyzed in this post although, in addition to general caveats, there are clearly limitations in looking for trends in a snapshot of data.
Almost half (49%) of all corporate blogs published no more than 5 posts during the two month period in which I studied them. In fact, 81 (21%) of the 389 blogs tracked did not publish any posts at all. The chart below shows the range of posting volume for Fortune 500 corporate blogs.
Although I am trying to present and describe the data as informally as possible on this blog, I would have liked a little more precision on this chart. It uses a line chart for a frequency distribution which is not orthodox (for good reason). In addition, the first band starts at zero and floats away from the y-axis.
I chose to use a line chart in order to illustrate the sharp downward trend because it repeated itself in data on meme size and consumer participation (see future posts for more on these). It was also a very wide distribution because of one blog (by AOL) that posted 546 times during the two month window.
Overall, 91% of Fortune 500 blogs published less than 40 posts during the two months and 80% published 20 or less in two months. The complete spreadsheet of post totals is posted on Swivel.
The chart below expands the frequency of blogs posting between zero and 40 times in a more traditional histogram format. It is possible to see the same sharp downward trend in frequencies within the 0-40 range and it is most pronounced going from zero to one post.
As I said at the top, by far the largest number of blogs (81) published no posts at all which meant only 308 of the 389 blogs included in the study published posts. Although, those 308 blogs accounted for 70 of the 76 companies found to publish blogs.
This might suggest that companies with blogs are posting with some regularity (at least every two months) but perhaps publishing multiple blogs increases the chances that posts become less frequent or stop completely.
However, it’s hard to draw significant meaning from this data because it represents a snapshot taken over a two-month period. In addition, corporate blogs with no published posts in the three months prior to July 2008 were excluded as already inactive.
A longitudinal study tracking publishing activity over a longer period of time and collecting more detailed data points would be needed to validate any observed trends on the posting activity of corporate blogs.
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Posted on July 8, 2009
My name is Phillip Baker and this is my personal blog about finding value in a world of free information.