In a previous engagement, we (the marketing folks) found ourselves frequently debating the success of the company’s blog. The problem was, the blog just didn’t have a whole lot of subscribers. Trying to explain that upstairs in the C-suite was definitely a challenge. Why, after all, would they want to put time, effort and possibly incentives in place to encourage blogging when we had such a minimal subscriber base?

The fact of the matter is, however, that subscribers may demonstrate the popularity of a particular blog, but it doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to measuring importance.

What if a blog had four subscribers? Three of them are the bloggers parents and sister. But the fourth subscriber is a journalist with the New York Times. Would that be considered a failing blog?

That is why relying solely on the number of subscribers to measure a blog’s success is a bad marketing strategy. It would be much more prudent for companies to look at:

• Activity on a blog
• How often content is posted
• Google page rank
• Technorati rank
• Search engine ranking for specific keywords