Doing a bit of blog-surfing this evening and followed a link to the Ad Age Power 150 ranking of the top marketing and media blogs.
The Power 150 was created by Todd Andrlik, who developed a simple multimetric algorithm (later expanded) based on page rank, links, subscribers, etc., to provide PR and marketing people a ranking of our own. (Being a marketing exec himself, Todd knows how obsessed we marketing and PR types are with rankings.)
I posted something about the rankings more than a year ago and, being the good PR guy that I am, decided to engage in a little self-promotion. So I submitted this blog to the rankings. I didn’t think I’d crack the top 150 but figured I wouldn’t know unless I tried.
To no one’s surprise, this blog is not listed among the elite top 150. But now the Ad Age rankings include 658 blogs, and this one has found a respectful niche in the middle of the long tail. As of today, Higher Ed Marketing is at No. 340, right between HRmarketer.com and Drew B.’s take on tech PR. (Technically, these three blogs and six others are in a nine-way tie for 338th place, as we all have 44 points.)
What really surprises me, and bothers me, is that I appear to be the only higher ed blogger in the rankings! Or at least in the top 500. I didn’t bother to surf the remaining 158 blogs, because I figured if some of the best higher ed blogs weren’t in the top 500, they most likely weren’t in the list at all.
My fellow higher ed bloggers, this state of affairs is unconscionable. There are some terrific higher ed blogs that focus on marketing and PR. Many of them are listed on my blogroll. None of them are in the Ad Age rankings. Why?
There’s no excuse for higher ed bloggers to be absent from this list. So consider this an open challenge to the higher ed blogging community to get its collective act together and get on the Power 150 rankings.
It’s as simple as visiting this site, filling out an online form and clicking the submit button. Really, how much easier does it have to be?
Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your URLs!
I’m issuing a challenge to five veteran higher ed bloggers: Karine Joly, Andy Shaindlin, Robert French, Brad Ward and Kyle James (OK, Kyle’s not a veteran but he blogs like one). Here’s the challenge:
- Submit their blogs to the Power 150 rankings, and
- Challenge five other higher ed bloggers to do the same.
Let’s get off the sidelines and into the game! After all, we are in the marketing business, right? It shouldn’t take the guy who runs the 340th most influential marketing blog to remind us.
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Now playing: Radiohead – 15 Step
via FoxyTunes
Higher Ed Marketing 
Andrew,
Thanks for the complement and the challenge. I accept although if the power of Higher Ed Marketing only clocks in at 340 then I’m not very hopeful…
But hey you never know until you try and it’s another backlink and we’re all chasing those!
Andrew, thank you for the challenge and for calling this to our attention. As I emailed earlier today, I don’t think Alumni Futures meets the AdAge criterion of “at least half the blog’s postings being on the subject of marketing.” So I had already made up my mind to skip this effort. However, I also was taken enough by Robert French’s comments to take a closer look at the criteria, and have many, many reservations.
Having said that, I do thank you for bringing me along for this, and hope there will be more discussion and debate about the blog rankings.
Thanks, Andrew, for your call to arms. I definitely agree that the Power 150 needs more higher ed marketing blogs and we’d love to have them.
I can also understand why professors – who live for research and perfect methodologies – would take exception to most or all of the metrics used in the Power 150.
Unfortunately, one perfect blog measurement tool doesn’t exist, and probably never will, which is why we use a multi-metric approach. I’m not sure if you noticed, but the Power 150 tables are sortable by each individual metric by just click the metric icon at the top of the table.
Anyway, thanks for spreading the word about the Power 150 and encouraging others to submit their marketing blogs. I advise your readers not to think too long and hard about the validity of the Power 150 and just embrace it for what it is – a fun resource and tool for measuring and discovering marketing blogs.
In the spirit of good humor and comradery, I’ll leave you with this great video about lists – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9BfLMHNhxE
Todd