Summary analysis of the uses of business blogging within the Irish graphic design sector

Today I am releasing this summary report of the quantitative aspect of my research.

This research analyses the uses of business blogging by graphic design companies and graphic designers in Ireland and evaluates that usage against current best practice. 

Existing Irish graphic design blogs are surveyed, details of their activities and characteristics are collected. The data collected on each blog is categorised. The category data for graphic design companies and individual graphic designers is compared to identify any differences in emphasis and approach between them. The category information is analysed. 

In conclusion the current state of the Irish graphic design business blogosphere is evaluated. Recommendations on policies and strategies for business blogging and micro-blogging are given. An increased focus on listening and engaging with stakeholders through blogging and social media is recommended.

Please feel free to share this report and pass it along to anyone you think may be interested. 

Download the report here.

DBI graphic design companies: blogging or not?

I thought it would be interesting to look at all of the graphic design companies listed as members of Design Business Ireland website (accessed on 05 April 2009) and see whether any have a company blog linked to from their primary company website. This does not preclude their being such a blog, but where none is visible on the company website an inference can be made as to how the blog is positioned within the company’s mix of corporate communications. Of the 46 DBI members on the list, six had corporate blogs and forty had none.

These six member companies had a link to their corporate blog on their company web sites.

BFK  Most of the company web site is a news blog of projects, with multiple an RSS feeds, but no comments or social networking features.

Creative Media  A 'News Blog' link from the home page.

Penhouse  A 'Fresh Air Blog' link from the home page, with comments and an RSS feed, but no social networking features.

The Brand Union  An 'Our Blogs' link from the international home page leads to the Dublin office blog, with comments and an RSS feed, but no social networking features.

Rain Communications  A 'blog' link from the home page, with comments, social networking features and an RSS feed.

20-20 Vision  The news section of their website is in a blog, with comments, social networking features and an RSS feed.

These forty member companies had no link to a corporate blog on their company web sites.

Affinity, AKGraphics, Baseline, Big Fish Design, Blink Design, Catalysto, Creative Inc, Dara Creative, Dcoy Design, Design Associates, Designbank, Design Factory, Designers Ink, Designinmind, Designworks, Drawinginc, Eamon Sinnott & Partners, Form, Frank, Fuse Graphic Design, GSDC, HamillBosket, Huguenot, IDEA, Konnect Media, Martello Media, Mesh Design Consultants, Neworld Associates, Pica Design, Positive Design Consultants, Principle, Profiles Design & Marketing, Proviz Design & Visualisation, Rain Design Partners, Raven Design, Roomthree Design, Red Dog, Source Design Consultants, Totem Visual Communications, Zebedee Marketing & Design.

This list does not capture any company design blogs which are not linked from the company's primary website, or any personal blogs maintained by company directors or employees.

Small pieces, loosely connected

After a very quick scan through the blogs submitted after yesterday’s email request it strikes me that there are no A-list or Go-To blogs in the Irish Graphic Design sector. Only a few blogs were mentioned more than once by respondents (in what was admittedly a very small and unscientific sample).

Where are the Seth Godins, the Hugh Macleods and John Grubers of this sector? Given the small size of the Irish graphic design sector and the smaller subset one would expect to actively blog within that, perhaps small, ultra-niche atomized, personalized audiences are all that one can expect. Shirkey’s power law analysis of blogging would suggest that one or two of these blogs should have gained a broader audience and expanded beyond their initial audience.

Actions: examine the sample blogs.
— Is their content very personalized, only of interest to friends and acquaintances?
— Is their content primarily of interest only to the author (diary blog, design reference for self)?
— Is their material published on an ad-hoc basis, with long intermissions?
— Does the blog promote the designer or their business?

Irish design blogs listing

As part of my research I am going to gather a representative sample of Irish design company and designer's blogs. For now this list is unfiltered. It will eventually be categorised as personal blogs, group blogs, corporate blogs, etc depending on whatever taxonomy I decide to impose.

Update: I have decided to move the lists into a seperate dedicated section of this site and they now can be found under Blog Lists in the top navigation.

‘Twitter’ trending over ‘Blog’ on Wikipedia

I have been looking at Jeffrery Veen’s useful new site Wikirank and did a comparison of how ‘Twitter’ is trending over ‘Blog’ in searches on Wikipedia.

This interactive graph allows you to examine the data yourself, just run your cursor over it.

Twitter and Blog on Wikirank

This second graph I have generated also adds comparisons to searches for both ‘Facebook’ and ‘LinkedIn’ during the same timeframes.

Twitter, Blog, Facebook, and LinkedIn on Wikirank