This is a guest post by Beth Blanchard, manager, electronic media, and Stone Hansard, supervisor, internet media.
Ever since Jay Krall compiled the inaugural list in 2009, our top 100 social media and internet marketing posts have been among CisionBlog’s most discussed, shared and trafficked content. Along the way, we’ve made some changes, from Valerie Lopez’s introduction of Compete metrics in 2010, to the addition of SEO as a topic for consideration the following year. Much like the social Web itself, our lists are constantly evolving, and this year is no different. Rather than ranking by traditional metrics, we’re using our new in-house UVPM measurement, Cision Digital Reach.
Given the social nature of this list, the change is quite fitting. Cision calculates Digital Reach by aggregating the number of quarterly shares a website attracts on Facebook and Twitter, then multiplying this sample by an average number of visits per share. This new method better reflects the way real Web users view and share content. Increasingly, the traditional concept of “reach” in media measurement is intertwined with online sharing activity, and no longer based solely on website traffic.
To create the list, we mined Cision’s media database and found nearly 700 blogs in the U.S. and Canada covering social media, online marketing or SEO. From there, we winnowed it down to blogs that primarily focus on these topics. Finally, we ranked the blogs based on both Digital Reach and inbound links. Without further ado, here are the results:
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this list mistakenly included a Germany-based blog.
Disclaimer: A question we’ve addressed often on this blog and in many of our free Cision Webinars, with all the metrics available for determining influence on the social Web, how can you determine which blogs really matter? As Jay noted in his original post, influence is subjective by nature and we’ve read a lot of great posts by bloggers who didn’t make the list. Some of them wield more influence in social media education endeavors outside of their blogs, such as conferences, Webinars, podcasts and white papers.
Know of an amazing blogger who didn’t make the list? Let us know!
