In the National Association of Federal Credit Union’s “TFCU Online” article author Kate Arcieri talks in great detail about credit union blogging best practices.
As a communications consultant and one of the people posting to The Credit Union Difference blog, I have been trying to estimate the value of a blog visitor and a blog commenter.
Advertising people use “cost per thousand” as the value of an ad: the cost of the ad divided by 1,000 readers, viewers or listeners.
Public relations people struggle with the value of a positive “earned media” story placement. Some use an ad equivalency value, in other words, what we would have paid for the equivalent time or space.
Others claim the editorial credibility of having the publication write about your organization makes the placement worth two or three times more than a paid ad. We can usually figure out how many people read, watched or heard the ad, so the “per thousand” part of the equation is easy.
One of our clients asked what a blog post or comment is worth. Hmm… Is it worth more than a paid ad? Most would say yes. Is it worth more than a news story, and if so, how much more? Maybe together we can agree on a value. What would you say?
