I’ve found some great new blogs through lists like Mack Collier’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs, the Power 150, and the Z-list. However, it strikes me that most of the voices blogging about marketing today are ones that offer advisory services (mine included)…
There’s something different about the voices that come from the client-side of the table. While many of us might have been there and done that in some fashion, these are marketers who are *doing it* right now. If you’ve ever been on the client side, you know the joy and pain of building a brand that an outsider may never know. For me, it was working for a brand that was once sold in fishnets in grocery store checkout aisles and seeing it rise to become the logo of choice for actors, musicians, and trendsetters worldwide.
So I’m starting a list to highlight the most popular blogs written by client-side marketing professionals. These are people who are doing their brands a favor by engaging customers and prospects in conversation. If you know of others who should be included, please comment below!
Here’s the draft list; let’s call it the alpha version:
- Flooring The Consumer :: Technorati authority = 504. Authored by CB Whittemore, Director of In-Store Innovation, Wear-Dated Carpet Fiber.
- Marketing Nirvana :: 424. Mario Sundar, Community Evangelist, LinkedIn.
- ExperienceCurve :: 332. Karl Long, Web/Social Media Integration Manager, Nokia.
- The Marketing Excellence Blog :: 254. Eric Kintz, VP Marketing, Digital Photography & Entertainment, Hewlett-Packard.
- cgm :: 191. Pete Blackshaw, CMO, Nielsen Buzzmetrics.
- Decker Marketing :: 167. Sam Decker, VP Marketing, Bazaarvoice.
- Masiguy :: 162. Tim Jackson, Brand Manager, Masi Bicycles.
- AttentionMax :: 153. Max Kalehoff, VP Marketing, Nielsen Buzzmetrics.
- Churbuck.com :: 148. David Churbuck, VP Global Web Marketing, Lenovo.
- Emerson Process Experts :: 130. Jim Cahill, Marketing Communications Manager, Emerson Process Management.
- Bernaisesource :: 99. Dan Greenfield, VP Corporate Communications, Earthlink.
- John Dragoon’s Blog :: 29. John Dragoon, CMO, Novell.
- Randy’s Journal :: n/a. Randy Tinseth, VP Marketing, Boeing.
Here are the ground rules:
- For now, the rankings are driven by Technorati’s authority metric. There are other metrics out there, but this is a pretty good one to start with. Your suggestions appreciated.
- Group blogs and brand blogs have been excluded. These are personal blogs, written by individuals. I intend to cap the list at 20, if we can find that many…I didn’t leave it at 13 on purpose! Your submissions appreciated.
- Blogs written by consultants, agencies, and service providers are excluded. These are brand voices.
- Updates will be irregular until we get this thing rolling. The beta version will be published in a couple/few weeks with additions and methodology changes, if applicable.
Analysis: It’s interesting that only the top blog has enough authority to make Mack’s list. There is certainly some long tail popularity in play here. And also the fact that the era of the rockstar CMO is fading. These are marketers with many different titles – level doesn’t matter nearly as much as the passion.
My advice – subscribe to all of these for now and try them out for a week or two; you’ll be a better marketer and/or advisor with the insight. The easiest way to do it is by downloading this OPML file and importing into your feed reader.
Again – any suggestions for adds would be greatly appreciated, as long as they fit the ground rules!