Why I Read Blogs

The first thing I counsel most of our clients to do who are interested in understanding the blogosphere is to start reading blogs.  In many cases, we help them by creating RSS feeds and selecting the initial list of blogs for them.  This was the inspiration behind the Ogilvy Blogfeeds.  Looking at the list of blogs that I read, I realized that many were in my head, some were bookmarked, and most were in my RSS aggregator - but I had lost the original context with which I added the blogs. There are many that I like, but relatively few that I visited on a daily basis.  And when I did, it was often for one of three reasons: 

1. Finding trends to inform strategy
2. Seeking Creative Ideas
3. Getting Up to Date on News

So several weeks ago I took down my original Blogroll (which I had first termed "Influencers") and yesterday I just relauched a list of blogs that I read, categorized into three main groups:

1. Trends & Insights: This is the group of blogs that I would most reasonably call my "influencers."  The blogs in this group are the ones that I turn to for new ideas, a fresh perspective on marketing and insights that help fuel strategic thinking.
2. Campaigns & Creativity: Blogs that feature reports of new campaigns and creative ideas, most often include imagery, and particularly several that offer an international perspective on campaigns (a great source of new ideas that may not have been tried in the US).
3. Latest News & Developments: Blogs from news sites as well as prolific blog posters that offer breaking reports of the latest news in the PR, marketing and advertising industries. These are the  "morning reads" I would turn to to get caught up the news most mornings.

You can find these groups and the blogs within each in the sidebar on the right hand side of this blog (just scroll down).  In addition, I put in a category for blogs from Ogilvy Bloggers that I read, and a list of Other Favourites that catches any other blogs that I don't necessarily read for professional reasons, but am still influenced by and like.  I'm already finding this grouping makes my blogroll easier for me to use - hopefully it will be equally useful for you.