Learning from the Top 50 Aussie Marketing Blogs

Not an Australian myself, but I like to read good content about online marketing, regardless of geography. Thanks for sharing the list.

I have a strong feeling that occasional reports on the progress of research, written by a fairly intelligent layman with some general knowledge of agriculture to a lay body such as the Development Commission, may prove very useful, no matter what form of interchange of scientific information may be arranged between the specialist in Great Britain and the specialist in Australia.
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Stellathomas

Buzz Marketing

What I like about the list is that it shows the strength and depth of knowledge that is available here in Australia.

As you point out, the list uses global measures such as Alexa and Technorati to calculate the ranking, which works well if you have an overseas readership or a technology audience (Alexa in particular works here).

But it is good to see an Australian focus. While the basics of marketing are relatively standard, the subtleties of execution and audience are where it counts. I for one am looking forward to seeing this list grow.

Hi Jonathan, as a Brazilian-born however Australian by heart is a great pleasure to be on Julian's list for the second time (MarketingMag and BandT).
Some of the bloggers are not totally strangers to me, some I know personally, some from my reader and some are new, must to say most of them are brilliant!
We do have a massive number of great minds over here. However I feel there are a huge gap among us in terms of exchanging ideas, concepts, etc :-(
I hope we overcome this gap.
Cheers
Lucio Ribeiro
Marketingeasy net

I was having this conversation with a colleague recently. He asked who the stars were in the Australian marketing blogosphere. I responded that there weren't any aside from Darren Rowse. While not a conscious decision, I don't follow any Australian bloggers aside from Darren and yourself.

The fact that I only entered the blogosphere at the start of this year, yet managed to make the Top 10 says something about the Aussie blogosphere. Like you I was surprised & delighted, but wondering where the established players were. The answer is... there really aren't any. Hopefully that will evolve over the next few years.

No doubt there is great value in the global network you can build through blogging, but I think the trends are increasingly local.

I think already see that we are building new marketing communities that may have started online but actually will have online and off line activities.

Micro, specialist marketing communities of people who share a particular marketing passion, but who also may share specific customers, partners etc.

Let's say, social marketing around consumer products in Australia. B2B marketing in the technology industry in Australia.

At this stage, we still talk about "marketing bloggers" but really, we are simply marketers who have worked out how to use blogging tools to communicate with others.

In the meantime, my ego keeps telling me it is fun to be on a top 50 list, whatever that list is:)

I agree that Aussie blogs should and will reference local marketing issues - although I would claim that there would still be a massive overlap between local and global online marketing. My point is that I'm not sure how successful Aussie blogging is if we can barely make a dent in the global blogosphere and if marketers can't even get their own name or personal brand noticed on the larger stage? If we are using blogging to communicate to more people, are we reaching them?

If the only readers of a blog are local colleagues or members of the local marketing community, is the blog really adding much to a networking or acquisition strategy or is it merely another way of swapping ideas with the same people we already meet up with offline? I think blogging to an existing and small community with a very specific specialisation denies the real potential blogging can bring to a business. Not saying its invalid, but it's like buying a mansion and then living in only one room. You can do it, but there's so much more available.

I guess it all comes down to whether Aussie marketers are content with being a big fish confined to a very small pond, or whether there is more worth in being a larger fish that still swims through the same pond.

Jonathan. Great post.
Marketers have lots to say and they are not afraid to voice their opinion. However anything they say externally goes towards the perception of their business and brand.
A blog goes against a marketers traditional communication cycle of listen (i.e qualitative research) and respond (i.e an ad). The risk of blogging for a marketer is not much different from the risk of taking a phone call un- announced from Neil Shoebridge who is probing for information on their business. It all needs to be vetted by the internal departments.
If we change the way marketers look at their communication cycle, blogging will be the norm.
I've been in big global marketing departments most of my career and I would put Australian marketers amongst the best in the world so when they do start blogging, my prediction is they'll be right up there!

Great discussion!

I guess it depends on your view of the long tail. Do you want to have the broadcast reach of Darren Rowse? Or is your area of specialty, interest or passion more focused? Where best can you add value to your audience?

Most businesses based in Australia derive a large proportion of their revenues from within Australia. Therefore it makes sense to blog for that market. And given the tardiness of our corporates in taking up social media in any widespread manner, there is still many barriers to overcome before we are anywhere near the adoption patterns we see overseas.

There are some very smart marketers on the list ... many of whom are up with the best on the world stage. But there is a very real difference between being able to talk about social media marketing and being responsible for making it happen. The former is easy and can be done by a single person. The latter is hard, complicated work requiring a client (internal or external) willing to invest the time and money. We are not seeing a lot of that, just yet.

I agree, loving this discussion and what people are bringing to it.

As to blogging to attract local clientele, this is where i feel there is a missed opportunity. I am launching a new blog for Netregistry in the coming weeks that will discuss online marketing and SEO in the hope of attracting more Australian traffic and customers (obviously). But in order to do so, I will court a global market so that the wider blogosphere can help build the blog and give exposure. If I write about SEO, even if I mention local examples, I hope to get links (with wonderful anchor text) from high-profile and relevant SEO blogs. This raises the posts - and therefore the site - in the search engines for the most relevant phrases. And bingo, I get more local exposure.
That isn't to say that a Sydney reader of the blog would feel the post didn't speak to them. Far from it. It's just that i would have spread the post wider than merely Australia in bringing exposure to it.

I have to admit as a person very new to the blogosphere (like in the last 2 weeks), I wasn't sure whether focusing on the Australian market too much would condemn my blog to obscurity or tar it with parochialism. I'm still working it out, but I think the vibrant nature of 'local' discussion is a source of encouraging debate rather than a case of people talking to themselves.

I also think Australian marketers lag behind on fronts directly related to the speed of technology migration or penetration. For example, we had to wait for red button technology to trickle down to enough households (as well as more palatable production costs) before we ventured into the world of interactive advertising. However my experience working with multinationals (from the agency side) is that their European and US counterparts often look to the Australian market for innovation and campaigns from this market are regularly touted as 'best in class'.