Forrester OKs blogging ROI

SO YOUR LITTLE brain is whirring and rattling with odd thoughts. Ideas for great inventions, stunning insights, witty puns, in-jokes and closely-argued analyses of complex matters are meat and drink to you. But you're working for the man and there's just no time freed up for you to show off your writing chops.

Usually, you'd just say, "OK, no problem, I'll get a job at The INQUIRER". But you live somewhere odd, like abroad, or you need real money so what do you do? Write a blog, right? Unfortunately your boss wants you to work for a living so that's out of the question too, right? Not any more it's not, you lucky person.

Your chances of advertising your piddling thoughts just got a ton better because analyst firm Forrester Research has posted its Return On Investment document for blogging, allowing you to cost-justify your noodling and doodling in a way that will impress even those hatchet-faced droids in finance.

As the Forresters note, "Many large companies stand on the brink of blogging, yet they are unwilling to take the plunge. Others, having dove in early, now face the challenge of managing existing blogs without the ability to show that they effectively support business goals. While blogging's value can't be measured precisely, marketers will find that calculating the ROI is easier than it looks. Following a three-step process, marketers can create a concrete picture of the key benefits, costs, and risks that blogging presents and understand how they are likely to impact business goals. This, in turn, enables marketers to answer the key questions, such as whether to blog or not to blog, or to make smart choices about an existing blog."

The catch? Not the "dove in early" that even INQUIRER editors might have caught, but the fact that the research will set you back, wait for it… $379.

Ah well, back to the daydreams. µ