Blogs are sometimes overlooked as a significant source of online buzz in comparison to social networking sites, yet consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006.

Bloggers: Who are they?

It’s no surprise that the growing number of blogs mirrors a growth in bloggers. Overall, 6.7 million people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12 million write blogs using their social networks.

So, who are blog writers and what else do they do online?

• Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
• Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
• About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
• Bloggers are active across social media: they're twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month

Bloggers: Where do they read and post?

Three out of the top 10 social networking sites in the U.S. – Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr – are for consumer-generated blogs. Blogger is the largest of these sites with more than 46 million unique U.S. visitors during October 2011, making it second only to Facebook in the social networking category, and Tumblr was the fastest-growing social networking or blog site on the top 10, more than doubling its audience since last year from home and work computers to 14 million unique visitors. Overall, these three blogging websites combined for 80 million unique visitors, reaching more than 1 in 4 active online users in the U.S. during October 2011.

Pinterest points towards evolving tastes in the Blogosphere

Like Tumblr, Pinterest is a visually-oriented social media site that is also growing rapidly, with over 10 million unique U.S. visitors in December 2011, almost double their audience from October. This growth is led by young adults aged 25-34, who are most likely to view pages on the social network. Pinterest could also be of particular interest to online retailers, as 92 percent of Pinterest’s audience also visited Mass Merchandiser sites during the same month.

To learn more about blogs and social media usage, please read Nielsen and NM Incite's U.S. Digital Consumer Report and Social Media Report.