Guy Kawasaki has posted some interesting statistics that should be of interest to any organisation considering the effect blogs could have on their business. For any marketing and PR people who haven’t yet studied the power of blogs and networks involving ‘influentials’, it’s about time they started…
After just 30 days of blogging, Guy noted that:
- Amazon sales rank for his book has gone from position #1,500 – 2,000 up to between #500 – 750
- Web site page views per day have increased from 400 to between 800 – 1,200
- After linking to somebody else’s site, their page views per week jumped from 321 to 38,946
This ties in nicely with Richard Edelman’s recent essay The Me2 Revolution describing how, in the world of communications:
“…the pyramid-of-influence model has been gradually supplanted by a peer-to-peer, horizontal discussion…”
And whilst I’m in quote-happy mode, I recently read Orson Scott Card’s ‘Enders Game‘, on a friend’s recommendation (that would be the good ol’ peer network in action) and the following quote seemed, well, fascinating:
“There are times when the world is rearranging itself and, at times like that, the right words can change the world… The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win”
…from a book originally written in 1977, a conversation between two children deciding to use ‘the nets’ to publish articles that will get people talking and challenging political decisions:
“Peter, you’re twelve.” “Not on the nets I’m not.”
There was me thinking The Cluetrain Manifesto was ahead of its time.
And from the power of words to the weakness of words. Whilst writing this, a documentary has just started on the TV: Challenger: Countdown to disaster. Having just read Edward Tufte’s excellent ‘Visual Explanations‘, I’m not expecting too many surprises. (The book uses The Challenger shuttle disaster as a case study in what can happen if you don’t present your data clearly and someone does not want to hear what you are trying to tell them.)
Joining Dots 