I wrote in one of my previous posts regarding blogging frequency that blog traffic was far less important than traffic “quality”. In other words, who reads your posts should be the key success metric. This is especially true for corporate bloggers who want to reach customers, suppliers, analysts, journalists and employees. Unfortunately current tracking systems do not allow you to track readers. Where they are and what kind of companies they work for will remain a mystery until Nielsen and Buzzmetrics come up with an answer. One of my most frustrating experiences as a new blogger has been to rely solely on page views and other traffic metrics vs. knowing who I was connecting with.

So I decided to embark on a discovery of my readers. I connected with bloggers who linked to me, posted comments or blogrolled me. I asked who they were, why they blogged and why they read my blog. I discovered a fascinating human face of my blog traffic, made of great people who are at the forefront of a new Internet generation. Here are their stories. Post a comment to share your own story on this blog.

Juha Christensen - Chairman and CEO at Sonopia Corporation – Board of Directors at Teleca (world’s largest mobile Systems Integrator with 4,000 people), Trolltech (about to go public) and Unwire (leading mobile services provider) -USA - blogger Mobile Experiences

I am an entrepreneur, executive, board member and investor in the mobile industry. I live in Silicon Valley, but spend a good part of my time in Scandinavia and Ukraine. I blog for two reasons: a) it helps me condense the thoughts in my head into short statements and texts and b) it’s a way to have a dialog with employees, stakeholders and the industry. Blogs are today at the top of the information pyramid. You can read things here before they hit the general press, and often the analysis is better. I hope bloggers are going to get better at condensing information. I also hope they will stop writing about what they ate for lunch or dinner ;-) I read the Marketing Excellence blog because it is a premium source for marketing thinking.

David Armano – Creative Director: Experience Design/Brand Strategy, Digitas - USA – blogger Logic + Emotion

I'm a dad, husband, Creative Director and most recently— a blogger. I currently work for Digitas, an Integrated Marketing firm. I think I've been a "closet blogger" way before I started my own blog. What I mean by this is that I always spent my down time looking for related industry news that I would often e-mail to peers. Some people really enjoyed these while others didn't seem to care. But with my own blog, I now have my own mini-community of people "who care". These people are interested in what I have to say and I am very interested to hear their opinions. As far as why I read (and participate) on blogs, they simply have great content that is fresh and unfiltered. There are excellent discussions happening on blogs and they are extremely relevant to what's going on here and now. It never ceases to amaze me how a blog will cover something way before the mainstream media even comes close to it. If you want to "be in the know", you have to follow blogs.

My interest in the Marketing Excellence blog is twofold. As I’ve mentioned, I’m extremely curious and encouraged to see HP support blogging from the inside. Being a large organization with years of tradition—I see this as a very interesting move. I think it will pay off for them, and I want to witness how out all turns out. I think you have an interesting perspective on both marketing and blogging. Many bloggers are independent, so when a senior individual from a large company like HP embraces the blog community (and has some smart things to say about it)—I tend to listen and participate in the dialogue.

Will Waugh – Senior Director, Communications - Association of National Advertisers (ANA) – USA - blogger ANA Marketing Maestros

I work at the Association of National Advertisers. Why do I blog? Other than being an incredible learning experience/knowledge acquisition practice, it is a wonderful communications tool for the ANA’s activities. In the future, we see it being a collaborative opportunity with our membership. I read blogs through a reader because they are targeted to my interests and I gain more practical knowledge quicker. I am interested in the Marketing Excellence Blog to hear what a major global advertiser has to say and because you are a like minded professional. It’s not so much about what you have written yet, but the prospect of what you will write.

Emmanuel Parody – Director online business and audience development Lesechos.fr (French major business newspaper - Pearson Group) – France – blogger Ecosphere

I just left CNET Networks France after 6 years as Editor in chief and Content and production director of ZDNet.fr and the other local properties. I started to blog for two reasons: first to initiate ZDNet.fr blogs area and second to share experience. Part of my job is about audience development, web analytics for online media etc... It is not easy to find useful resources in the French press. On such topic, resources are on the web and produced by other experts, not by journalists. I am new to the Marketing Excellence blog, I first found the blog frequency story through Marketingprofs.

Jorge Luis Revilla – Project Manager HP Peru – blogger El Metaverso de JL

My name is Jorge Luis Revilla, I'm Peruvian, 29 years old, married, first kid on the way and I have a Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering. I've been working at Hewlett-Packard Perú since 1999. I am, however, also a writer at heart. I've published two books with Science Fiction and Fantasy. And of course, being a geek, I decided to start a blog last year. It's in Spanish of course and I have quite a few readers. I'm very happy to see that HP is currently supporting official blogs like the Marketing Excellence blog and even happier because the quality is excellent. I took the liberty of paraphrasing and translating your post and you´ll be glad to know that it was chosen as one of the Recommended Posts in the front page of blogsperu which is the peruvian blogger site.

Roland Piquepaille - IT Consultant and technology blogger - France - ZDNet's Emerging Technology Trends - Technology Trends - Blogs for Companies

I’m living in Paris, France, and I’ve spent most of my career in software, working for Cray Research and Silicon Graphics in the areas of high performance computing and visualization. I left the corporate world four years ago to become an IT consultant. I'm helping companies to use blogs for internal or external purposes -- and it doesn't seem you need me :-) In 2002, I started technology trends, a blog about how technology will affect our lives. This blog is now hosted by ZDNet, part of CNET Networks and continues to explore the frontiers of science and technology. I started in 2002 to share my interests "with the world." At this time, I was expecting 30 or 40 visits per day. Now, the number of pages viewed on my tech blogs oscillates between 250,000 and 400,000 per month. And I've built a worldwide network of "friends" -- and foes. I'm interested in the Marketing Excellence blog because it's pertinent and well-articulated.


Katie Paine – CEO KDPaine&Partners – USA - blogger Kdpaine’s PR measurement blog

I'm an ex-HP-er who helped name and launch the very first Laserjet - also worked on the first portable, the Touchscreen and to this day consider HP the best business education I ever received. I left and ended up starting my own PR measurement company and HP became one of my first clients and remains a client today. I started my own blog because the Institute for PR asked me to write a white paper on how to measure Blogs and thought it would be a good idea if I knew what blogging was all about before I started thinking about how to measure it. Now I read blogs to stay on top of my industry -- which includes PR, advertising, media and marketing. I blog because it’s a way to reach out to people that I wouldn't ordinarily come into contact with. Since I'm based in Durham, New Hampshire outside of my client base, there aren't a lot of opportunities to engage in conversations on the marketing issues of the day. For me, the blogosphere is like a permanent ongoing meeting of BMA, PRSA, IABC and chamber of commerce combined. I love watching it develop and change. I'll be honest and say that I started following Marketing Excellence blog because it was a window into the thinking of one of my largest clients. I've continued to follow it because I like the writing style and the thinking. Thanks for doing it.

Damien Van Achter – Journalist – Belgium – blogger Bloggingthenews

I am a 28 year old journalist in Belgium. I read blogs because they are the most prolific sources of news. I just discovered the Marketing Excellence blog through your last post and will tell you in a few weeks if I like it!

Laurent Flores – CEO Crmmetrix, board member Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) – USA - blogger Customer Listening

I am the happy father of two kids, hold a PhD in Marketing and I am a Customer-Listening Evangelist & Entrepreneur. I think that the world is made of many little villages, villages that are made of people that share interest, passion, ideas, and would like to share them with others that share the same interests...The key reason I blog to pass along my though, my passion to people that are in the same industry and have thoughts and visions.

Alain Thys – Storyteller Futurelab – Belgium - blogger Futurelab

According to my job description and business card, I’m a Storyteller at Futurelab (a boutique specialized in marketing, strategy and business model innovation). I help brand, media and agency executives ensure that the people they target actually “hear them” and “get” what their product or strategy is about. As this is usually not the case, and mostly people don’t even measure whether it is, it keeps me busy. The Futurelab blog is a project we launched to start “eating our own dogfood”. We fly around the world telling our customers they should get involved in alternative media, engage with their customers, and start a dialogue, yet out of lack of time didn’t really get round to doing much of it ourselves. What we hadn’t planned on, yet which pleasantly surprised/overwhelmed us, is that the blog is turning out as popular as it is, which now also gives us a platform to disseminate and test some of the thinking we develop. It also fits in a “bigger picture” in such that since 2000 I have had this vision of creating a virtual environment where we could bring together the “the best & brightest” from a wide variety of fields to tackle marketing innovation in a sort of creative commons for members (even tough back then I didn’t know the term CC J). The Futurelab blog is a first step in that direction. We’re hoping to take some next steps soon.

I prefer “blogs with a soul” over regular media because they are essentially faster with the news, and provide more insight. They also allow you to hear the voices traditional media typically stifles as they’re too controversial or “unpolished” or simply happen to be in the wrong place. There is so much talent and wisdom out there, and if you look in the blogs you can find it.

I got to know – and appreciate – the Marketing Excellence blog  because of your posts on the role of marketing and accountability. There are very few practitioner blogs out there (at least that I know of) who deal with this topic and while McKinsey, Booz etc. can obviously talk a good game, I always give more credence to the balanced view from the front lines. I also like the fact that you’re not one of these executives who frantically tries to try and make a name for himself or promote his company through a PR managed/vetted blog, yet come across as a “just a guy who writes what he knows and cares about”. Which imho, is the way it should be. Keep it up !!!

And last but not least…..

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and Keeper of the MarketingProfs blog, the MarketingProfs Daily Fix.

Also former journalist & creative writer who possesses enough of an addictive personality to make me completely co-dependent on my blogging. Blogging is an immediate and gratifying way to connect with others. I almost said, "...connect with your audience," because that's true, too. But blogging offers opportunities beyond that. It offers an ear-to-the-ground on a lot of fronts: connecting with customers, audiences, certainly...but also colleagues, mentors, random individuals you might never run into otherwise. It offers an opportunity to not just talk (as in traditional publishing) but LISTEN....which is critical. What's the value in that? In my mind, what's NOT to value? Expanding your own thinking & perspective. Trying and exchanging ideas. Understanding your audience. Listening. Questioning. Forming a community. Great stuff.

Why do I read the Marketing Excellence blog? You come up with great blog topics - evidenced by this idea here. Very smart idea - to "listen" to your audience and then blog back. Specifically, what I like about your blog is your comprehensive approach to it -- it's almost journalistic. In the print world, you'd make a great Executive Editor, because you're able to come up with topics and take an approach that grabs attention. Your "You Don't Have to Blog Every Day" and "Small Business and Web 2.0" chat with Duct Tape Marketing's John Jantsch are good examples of what I mean. You don't just throw random thoughts up there. You let them germinate a little, do some research, and then write very thoughtful posts.