STATS: What's a Blogger?

from Research Brief by Jack Loechner

Bloggers are younger and higher percentages are Hispanic & African American than the general population. A higher percentage of Democrats than of Republicans are blogging.

Now that Blogging might better be called a market segment rather than a market niche, it's useful with regard to positioning the marketing message to understand what a Blogger looks like, as distinguished from the rest of the population. According to the BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, 26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of those:

• 53.7% are male
• 44.7% are married
• 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position
• 10.4% are students.

Bloggers tend to be younger, averaging 37.6 years old, compared to 44.8 for adults 18+ (the "general population"). Ethnically:

• 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian (vs. 76.1%)
• 12.2% are African American/Black (vs. 11.4%)
• 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%)
• 20% of Bloggers are Hispanic, compared to 14.8% of adults 18+

In addition, Bloggers report a lower income ($55,819 vs. $56,811) and are better educated (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2).

Political blogs are becoming increasingly common, especially in this election year, where 24.6% of registered voters say they regularly or occasionally blog. Political affiliation of regular/occasional Bloggers look like this in 2008:

• 37.6% of Libertarians regularly/occasionally blog
• 26.9% of Democrats
• 25.7% of Independents
• 22.9% Republicans

Analysis of Bloggers shows that they are using most forms of new media significantly more than the average market.

Regular/Occasional New Media Usage (Top 5)
	% of Regular/Occasional Bloggers	% of Adults 18+
Cell Phone	93.0%	87.5%
Instant Messaging	75.3%	49.3%
Download/Access Video/TV Content	72.2%	45.0%
Video Gaming	66.9%	47.5%
Text Messaging	65.5%	45.2%
Source: BIGresearch, January 2008, N=15,727

Although Bloggers are more likely to use new media, the analysis finds that more conventional forms of media trigger their Internet searches. Magazines, at 51.6%, rank highest, followed by:

• 48.8% reading an article
• 46.1% broadcast TV
• 44.5% cable TV
• 42.5% face-to-face communication
• 39.7% newspaper

Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch, concludes ?"Bloggers are a diverse group and not who you would expect…"

For more information, please visit BIGresearch here.

Ed: Reality Learning