Comments on: How to Work with Travel Bloggers

By: Nancy Brown

Nancy Brown — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:58:17 +0000

Thanks for your comments @Durant.
At some PR agencies, interns and entry level account coordinators are building media lists. Typically, they have little experience with bloggers and their websites, therefore, using Alexa as a weeding process is effective.

While I appreciate your recommendation of Quantcast (and I will add it as a resource in the post) you are assuming that most bloggers have installed the necessary coding required to make the analytics work. You are more html savvy than the average blogger!

By: Durant Imboden

Durant Imboden — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:16:46 +0000

Nancy, I can understand why a PR person might want to see Google Analytics numbers, but Alexa rankings are next to worthless (they’re too easily gamed), and Compete numbers are even worse. The ONLY valid use for such numbers is to exclude sites that don’t even register on the scale. In other words, a site with an Alexa ranking of 50,000 or 100,000 might have a decent amount of traffic or it might not, depending on whether the owner has made an effort to boost the ranking, but a site with an Alexa ranking of a million (or not enough data to result in a ranking) can be assumed to be next to invisible.

Another useful metric is the “U.S. Demographics” table at Quantcast.com. Go to Quantcast, type the domain of a site into the search box, and scroll down to the demographics data. The page shows how a site stacks up against Internet averages for things like age, gender, income, and education. It also has raw data on audience percentages in each category. Quantcast’s circulation numbers are suspect (ours are usually off by at least a third, compared to Google Analytics), but the demographics numbers are given a fair amount of credence in media-buying circles.

By: Caz Makepeace

Caz Makepeace — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:19:06 +0000

Great points Nancy. Some simple changes in the way the PR/blogger relationship works can bring about huge positive results.
We have worked with some really great PR companies who get it. It is always a pleasure and we make sure we provide plenty of value back.
We love receiving emails from PR reps who have obviously taken the time to get to know us and our site and who make sure we are a good fit for their promotion or product. It can’t just be about stats and reach, you have to be RELEVANT

By: Nancy Brown

Nancy Brown — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 22:02:06 +0000

@Matt
Thanks for the feedback. I checked out Trendscape.com. Always good to know about additional blog stat sites.
Agreed that bloggers need to present professional content.

By: Matt Potts

Matt Potts — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:03:51 +0000

Hi Nancy,

Very good information also for the entreprenuer without a PR budget. Thx! I would like to add Trendscape.com to the resources available for checking blog stats.

While I like to check stats first – and believe it should be important to PR professionals, to me it is more important that the blogger presents content professionally. A post here mentions that blog posts remain on-line, and are not “one time” snapshots. This is a critical consideration for viral PR; and perhaps a point that should be emphasized by PR professionals reaching blogs.

Matt P. (archport.com)