Today SageCircle is launching a new directory for tracking the Forrester analysts who blog. You can find it in the left-hand navigation menu section Directories. Look for Blog Directory – Forrester.
The reason why a directory is needed even though Forrester has a blog home page is how they have organized their blogs. Forrester’s analyst blogs are centered on particular “roles,” which is now Forrester’s standard approach to research management. Forrester blogs are typically team written with various analysts contributing posts. That causes a problem for people, end users or vendors, who want to know which analyst posts to which blog. The blog home page lists the blogs, but not the analysts who contribute to them. Therefore SageCircle has done the work of identifying which analysts contribute to which blogs and put that information in our Forrester blog directory.
But wait! There’s more! Some of the Forrester analysts have personal blogs where they post significant commentary as well. So we are including the personal blogs as well.
While our research was mainly to find names for the directory, we did gather up some other interesting tid-bits about the blogs as well.
Contributors – Most of the blogs have multiple contributors. However, there are a few (e.g., The Groundswell and IT Leadership Asia Pacific) that are the domain of a single analyst. In some cases while multiple analysts contribute there is one analyst that does the majority of the posting.
Volume – Most blogs have a low volume of new content, two or three posts a month at most. One has not seen a new post since last October.
Cross Posting – Some articles are cross posted to more than one blog. That is why some analysts have multiple entries in the directory (e.g., Ray Wang). This simply means that a particular post is perceived to be useful to more than one job role. What is more interesting are the Forrester blog posts that originate on the personal blog of the analyst and then appear on a Forrester blog. This cross-posting between the firm blog and the personal blog really blurs the distinction between what is an “official” comment versus a “personal” opinion.
SageCircle Technique:
- AR teams should cross-reference their analyst lists versus the Forrester blog directory to identify analysts blogs they should be monitoring
- Teams should establish a process for monitoring and measuring social media activity by their key analysts
- AR should have a formal policy for commenting on analyst blogs
Bottom Line: Analyst blogs are an increasingly common and important source of commentary. If AR teams have not implemented a formal approach to adopting social media, then it is important to at least start a pilot project.
“Launching a Social Media Strategy: A SageCircle Workshop” is designed for AR programs looking to incorporate social media into their AR Strategic & Tactical Plan. Social media is rapidly transitioning from being a playground for individuals to an important tool for business. Some tools like blogging have been around for awhile, while others like Twitter are still emerging. Regardless of the current start of the art, many hundreds of savvy analysts and AR professionals are using these and other tools to improve relationships, generate intelligence, and enhance conversations. Click here to learn more and register.
Question: AR – Do you monitor analyst opinions expressed on their blogs? If no, why not?
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