MASHABLE TOPS CISION’s TOP 50 UK BLOGS RANKING
BUT POLITICAL AND OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER BLOGS OUTPERFORM TECH ACROSS THE 50
LONDON, UK, APRIL 30, 2009 – Today Cision, the leading provider of media intelligence services for communications professionals, published its first ranking of the UK’s leading 50 blogs. The ranking demonstrates that technology and politics dominate the upper echelons of UK social media – and that traditional media have a strong foothold in the UK blogosphere.
Applying a proven mixture of well-established metrics and in-house expertise, Cision UK aimed to bring order into the UK’s blog chaos. The rankings show the UK blogosphere following global trends in that tech and politics are the dominant themes, but there are some slight differences which are of importance to professional communicators out there!
The UK’s top blog is Mashable, a “social networking news” site whose Scottish origins are often obscured by its elevated position among the Silicon Valley-centred tech media elite. While UK franchises of renowned US tech sites such as Gizmodo and TechCrunch also appear in the Top 10, there is a distinct political flavour to Cision’s UK rankings. Unsurprisingly, bloggers nearing household-name status, such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes, are the UK political blogosphere’s star performers, but issue-led blogs such as EU Referendum and SNP Tactical Voting also perform well in the rankings.
Also notable is the prominence of blogs associated with UK mainstream media, with the FT’s Alphaville as well as tech and political blogs from the BBC and Guardian, as well as newspaper spin-offs such as Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog, all featuring in the 50.
“Social Media is clearly of increasing importance, and the UK is taking a leading role compared with much of Europe. It is very important for PR professionals to understand how people are consuming media and how they are gathering information before they start reaching out to the social web.” said Giselle Bodie, Managing Director of Cision UK. “This ranking shows that globally relevant topics are of importance here too, despite some regional biases – hardly surprising given that UK blogs are part of a global conversation”.
“This Top 50, which will be reviewed regularly moving forward, shows the highest profile conversations hosted in the UK, but communication professionals should be careful and not misunderstand this as a readymade contact list,” cautioned Falk Rehkopf, Head of Research at Cision Europe. “The golden rules of communication apply more than ever in a social media context: understand who you are talking to – and why – before you engage.”
Click here to see Cision's top 50 Blogs rankings: http://uk.cision.com/News-Room/UK-Top-50-Blogs/
Methodology
A list was compiled using an algorithm to reflect two key measures of web popularity, inbound links and traffic measured in monthly unique users. For each blog these elements were weighted to achieve a balance between measurable impact to date (traffic) and likelihood of future impact (links as a proxy for search visibility). The list was then reduced down to a Top 50, with each entry re-evaluated according to additional metrics, notably update frequency and total number of posts. The social media data on which this research depends were provided by Radian6 technology and are a prominent feature of CisionPoint and Cision Social Media services.
About CisionPoint
CisionPoint is a web-based service platform which integrates the planning, sharing, monitoring and analysis of PR and communications. It brings together global media content, search engine optimisation technology, leading monitoring expertise and PR analytics into one single solution.
CisionPoint was launched in the United States in October 2007. It rapidly became the fastest growing on-demand PR media management dashboard application, with more than 3,500 customers signed in its first 18 months of sales. CisionPoint has been selected a finalist in three categories – Best On-Demand Platform, Best Vertical Market Business Content, and Best Online News Service – in the 2009 CODiE Award competition sponsored by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA). The platform was launched in the UK in February 2009.
About the Cision Social Media Dashboard
The Cision Social Media Dashboard is a self-service, online portal that monitors social media and delivers real-time access to coverage and related data, allowing instant understanding of your social media content and the context in which it appears. The dashboard also includes analysis and reporting tools that allow communications professionals to understand the impact of social media activity and take action based on those insights. Cision Social Media Daily Reports feature twice-daily emails listing and providing online links to all relevant social media coverage.
About Cision AB
Cision (www.cision.com) empowers businesses to make better decisions and improve performance through its CisionPoint software solutions for corporate communication and PR professionals. Powered by local experts with global reach, Cision delivers relevant media information, targeted distribution, media monitoring, and media analysis. Cision has offices in Europe, North America and Asia, and partners in 125 countries. Cision AB is quoted on the Nordic Exchange with a turnover of SEK 1.8 billion in 2008.
For further information please contact us at headofresearch.uk@cision.com
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