Blogs vs. WashPost
Interesting commentary over at Personal Democracy Forum over the merits of advertising on blogs vs. WashingtonPost.com. Henry Copeland of BlogAds suggested in a debate at the Online Politics conference earlier this month that you’d hit more eyeballs with a buy on political blogs than on the Post web site.
Kate Kaye astutely points out that the raw numbers can be misleading because the comparison Mr. Copeland used dealt with page views, not unique visitors.
It really goes beyond that, though. It’s not a raw numbers question. Whether you’re advertising online or in traditional media, you have to account for the type of audience you’re trying to reach as well as the numbers involved.
Too often new media evangelists want to portray everything as a David vs. Goliath or blogs vs. MSM (mainstream media) battle. It’s like saying that the WSJ editorial page ought to exist, but the rest of the paper shouldn’t. The fact is there’s a night and day difference but they both play an important role.
A well-rounded advocacy buy will probably include blogs and the Washington Post. The notion that it should be a pure eyeballs question harks back to the Bubble Days when advertisers threw good money after bad.