Blogging is one of the hottest trends on the net. A blog (short for “web log”) is a web-based diary where the author can ruminate on whatever strikes his or her fancy. The blogger may share photos, poetry, political views, gossip, industry trends, business advice, or the latest on their personal life. By definition, blogs are organized in reverse chronological order. Many are updated daily. They can have one or multiple authors, such as a community blog.
One in five teens between 12 and 17 maintains a blog, according to a US survey. But blogs aren’t just for idiosyncratic rants by awkward adolescents. Seemingly everybody is getting into blogging - celebrities like William Shatner, gurus like Tom Peters, and world-renowned journalists like Dave Barry. And yes, the business world too is embracing blogs - from corporate giants like General Motors to small but stand-out businesses like the Savile Row tailor Thomas Mahon. I’ve caught the bug too; I blog on emarketing and search engine optimization at a.
Why are people reading blogs? A new blog is created every 5.8 seconds (Source: Pew). Not surprisingly, many of the millions of blogs littering the Web are not meant for public consumption beyond a small circle of friends or colleagues. Business bloggers, on the other hand, target a wider audience consisting of current and prospective customers, catering to their wants and needs with useful info or insightful commentary on a regular basis. Readers grow to depend on the blogger’s observations and wisdom.
Marketing guru and celebrated business blogger Seth Godin reckons there are three types of business blogs: “news blogs” which follow the latest happenings in a particular topic area, “writer’s blogs” where the blogger mostly riffs and pontificates, and “our blogs” which are merely fire-starters for conversations carried on within the blog by the community of blog readers.
News blogs keep readers up to date with news and current events in their areas of expertise or interest, only pointing out the best or most interesting stuff. Thus, bloggers whom you trust and resonate with can be a real timesaver by acting as a personal filter, cutting through the information glut. Writers’ blogs stimulate the reader’s thinking and challenge his or her preconceptions. “Our blogs” provide the reader with the impetus to join a conversation on issues that the reader cares about. In effect, it’s participatory journalism.
One in five teens between 12 and 17 maintains a blog, according to a US survey. But blogs aren’t just for idiosyncratic rants by awkward adolescents. Seemingly everybody is getting into blogging - celebrities like William Shatner, gurus like Tom Peters, and world-renowned journalists like Dave Barry. And yes, the business world too is embracing blogs - from corporate giants like General Motors to small but stand-out businesses like the Savile Row tailor Thomas Mahon. I’ve caught the bug too; I blog on emarketing and search engine optimization at a.
Why are people reading blogs? A new blog is created every 5.8 seconds (Source: Pew). Not surprisingly, many of the millions of blogs littering the Web are not meant for public consumption beyond a small circle of friends or colleagues. Business bloggers, on the other hand, target a wider audience consisting of current and prospective customers, catering to their wants and needs with useful info or insightful commentary on a regular basis. Readers grow to depend on the blogger’s observations and wisdom.
Marketing guru and celebrated business blogger Seth Godin reckons there are three types of business blogs: “news blogs” which follow the latest happenings in a particular topic area, “writer’s blogs” where the blogger mostly riffs and pontificates, and “our blogs” which are merely fire-starters for conversations carried on within the blog by the community of blog readers.
News blogs keep readers up to date with news and current events in their areas of expertise or interest, only pointing out the best or most interesting stuff. Thus, bloggers whom you trust and resonate with can be a real timesaver by acting as a personal filter, cutting through the information glut. Writers’ blogs stimulate the reader’s thinking and challenge his or her preconceptions. “Our blogs” provide the reader with the impetus to join a conversation on issues that the reader cares about. In effect, it’s participatory journalism.
Curiously, brands are notably absent from the “blogosphere” - the blogging world online. By lagging behind on this new trend, they miss a key opportunity to actively participate in the global online conversation that is currently happening without them.
Consider, for example, Pepsi’s “Pop the Music” Superbowl ad. The commercial inadvertently made a star out of Mandy Amano, a woman who appeared in the commercial for only a few seconds. Geeks the world over swooned over her. One of them rose to the occasion and started a blog in her honor, called That Pepsi Girl (http://thatpepsigirl.blogspot.com/). The blog is a testament to the power of the consumer to initiate fads and influence their spread. Where was Pepsi through all this? Not in the blogosphere, that’s for sure. But they should have been.
How about dotcom brands? They too seem reticent to join in. For instance, wine.com does not have a blog. Therefore, wine enthusiasts flock to wine blogs like y for their daily dose of news and opinion, rather than a wine.com blog. Where does wine.com figure in to Vinography’s many hundreds of posts? Unfortunately, a mere four times, and those few mentions aren’t all favorable. A wine.com blog, full of passion for wine and devoid of disguised advertorial, would over time develop a loyal following and be in a position to influence their readers’ buying decisions.
Here are three reasons to add blogging to your own marketing arsenal:
You’ll be seen as an expert in your niche. If your blog is a good one, you build credibility with your readers and they come to rely on you for the latest thinking, news and trends in your field of expertise or interest. It’s as if you become the lens with which the reader views the greater Web. Then, as their thought leader, you can influence the reader through a soft sell approach. Furthermore, a blog draws in the visitor, making him or her want to return again and again to see what new stuff has been posted.
People regard you as a human being they can relate to. The personal voice of your blog is more “real” than the voice of your company’s site; it’s more disarming and makes your company seem more approachable. People buy from people, not from some faceless corporate entity. It also gives customers an inside-view of how you think, your unadulterated opinions and point of view.
Search engines love blogs. Links are the currency of the Web as far as the search engines are concerned. A good blog garners links - in quantity and quality - yielding higher search engine rankings. No links equals no visibility in the natural (unpaid) search results, so links really are critical. Bloggers link extensively to each other within their blog posts, within their “blogrolls” (i.e. favorite blogs that they read regularly), and through a blogging feature called “trackbacks.” Blog posts are also syndicated onto other sites via a technology called RSS (for Really Simple Syndication).
But can blogging have a positive impact on your bottom line? Absolutely, if it’s done right! Just consider the success story of the Voltaic Backpack, as described in an article in Fortune magazine earlier this year. Entrepreneur Shayne McQuade received an early sample of his company’s solar-powered backpack that can charge the wearer’s cell phone and other gadgets. He asked a friend - a blogger who runs a blog called Treehugger - to blog about it, and he did. The mention on Treehugger, being just a small blog with a small readership, didn’t by itself cause a huge word-of-mouth epidemic to spread. However, another blogger higher up the blogging “ecosystem” picked up the story from Treehugger and blogged about the backpack on his Cool Hunting blog, which was then read by Gizmodo, one of the most popular blogs on the Internet for cool stuff and gadgets. Once the backpack was featured on Gizmodo, the orders literally poured in!
Consider, for example, Pepsi’s “Pop the Music” Superbowl ad. The commercial inadvertently made a star out of Mandy Amano, a woman who appeared in the commercial for only a few seconds. Geeks the world over swooned over her. One of them rose to the occasion and started a blog in her honor, called That Pepsi Girl (http://thatpepsigirl.blogspot.com/). The blog is a testament to the power of the consumer to initiate fads and influence their spread. Where was Pepsi through all this? Not in the blogosphere, that’s for sure. But they should have been.
How about dotcom brands? They too seem reticent to join in. For instance, wine.com does not have a blog. Therefore, wine enthusiasts flock to wine blogs like y for their daily dose of news and opinion, rather than a wine.com blog. Where does wine.com figure in to Vinography’s many hundreds of posts? Unfortunately, a mere four times, and those few mentions aren’t all favorable. A wine.com blog, full of passion for wine and devoid of disguised advertorial, would over time develop a loyal following and be in a position to influence their readers’ buying decisions.
Here are three reasons to add blogging to your own marketing arsenal:
You’ll be seen as an expert in your niche. If your blog is a good one, you build credibility with your readers and they come to rely on you for the latest thinking, news and trends in your field of expertise or interest. It’s as if you become the lens with which the reader views the greater Web. Then, as their thought leader, you can influence the reader through a soft sell approach. Furthermore, a blog draws in the visitor, making him or her want to return again and again to see what new stuff has been posted.
People regard you as a human being they can relate to. The personal voice of your blog is more “real” than the voice of your company’s site; it’s more disarming and makes your company seem more approachable. People buy from people, not from some faceless corporate entity. It also gives customers an inside-view of how you think, your unadulterated opinions and point of view.
Search engines love blogs. Links are the currency of the Web as far as the search engines are concerned. A good blog garners links - in quantity and quality - yielding higher search engine rankings. No links equals no visibility in the natural (unpaid) search results, so links really are critical. Bloggers link extensively to each other within their blog posts, within their “blogrolls” (i.e. favorite blogs that they read regularly), and through a blogging feature called “trackbacks.” Blog posts are also syndicated onto other sites via a technology called RSS (for Really Simple Syndication).
But can blogging have a positive impact on your bottom line? Absolutely, if it’s done right! Just consider the success story of the Voltaic Backpack, as described in an article in Fortune magazine earlier this year. Entrepreneur Shayne McQuade received an early sample of his company’s solar-powered backpack that can charge the wearer’s cell phone and other gadgets. He asked a friend - a blogger who runs a blog called Treehugger - to blog about it, and he did. The mention on Treehugger, being just a small blog with a small readership, didn’t by itself cause a huge word-of-mouth epidemic to spread. However, another blogger higher up the blogging “ecosystem” picked up the story from Treehugger and blogged about the backpack on his Cool Hunting blog, which was then read by Gizmodo, one of the most popular blogs on the Internet for cool stuff and gadgets. Once the backpack was featured on Gizmodo, the orders literally poured in!