An introduction to Blogging
In a twist of fate, I had started to write about blogging recently when a contact of mine (Mark from steam and pressure) asked at a breakfast meeting 'what is blogging'? To many the term has no meaning while to others it is their livelihood. How can something which only started in ernest at the turn of the century now be one of the 'must do' activities on the web. Before we move on, let's start at the beginning...
What is blogging?
Put simply, a 'blog' is an online journal. The term comes from the word 'web' and 'log' (as in log book) but has been shortened to blog over the years (the term was first used in 1997 - see screenshot) Here is the Wikipedia Weblog Definition
Blogs are designed to be easy to set up and even easier to maintain by giving anyone familiar with word processing a way to air whatever is on their mind to anyone who cares to read. There are now dozens of Blog providers, most of whom are free to use, and the most common tools used are Blogger (owned by Google), LiveJournal andMoveable Type. (read about the pros and cons of each blog provider)
There are now unofficially over 50 million blogs in existence worldwide and the number is growing at a phenomenal rate as the interest increases from, not only home users, but businesses, advertisers and journalists who start to see the real benefits in blogging. These blogs, have spawned over a billion posts on every subject you can think of; from the run of the mill industry happenings in 'web world' (e.g. Search engine watch blog) to the blog of a call girl based in London although some journalists say this the Belle De Jour blog is not true.
One marketer has said that "you cannot afford to close your eyes to them [blogs], because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself". Quite a bold statement.
So why all the fuss? How is this new craze going to affect how your business other than give yourself a new way to vent your anger about the new speed camera down the road?
Why is blogging important?
Traditional news and media is controlled by the news, print and media agencies which dictate what information is presented and how it is presented. If a news article needs to be put into the public domain, it must be sliced, diced and manipulated until an editor is happy for it to be presented to the audience.
The beauty (or downside) of the Internet is that anyone can access it and contribute if they so wish. Blogs empower users. They allow anyone to tell their story without having to go through a journalist or editor. Businesses that could previously control the way they presented themselves to their audience can now by underdone from the inside by their own employees (an employee at Google recently got sacked for blogging)
The way of delivering news and information has now changed, possibly forever. This may all sound very far in the distant future to the humble surfer, but how is 'the latest craze of the Internet' going to affect business, more importantly your business?
A real world blogging example
GM Motors are a worldwide motor company. Contacting the powers that be is never going to be an easy task so giving feedback on the latest models would traditionally be achieved through automated phone lines, letters to the customer services or to the guy in the garage. The chances are this feedback would have little or no impact on the next model or range released as the message would get very diluted, the more people get involved.
So when the vice chairman Bob Lutz of General Motors decided to launch his own blog (Fastlane Blog), many at GM must have thought he had gone mad. What could he possibly benefit from opening himself up directly to his customers? The answer - a great deal.
By blogging regularly, he won many plaudits for not only embracing what is still a very young technology but for being able to communicate with his customers directly via the comments section (which allows anyone reading the blog to have their say), allowing him and the General Motors team to get feedback directly from those who buy from him (be it positive or negative his blog gets, on average 40 comments per post).
This opens a new avenue of being able to gather feedback from those that matter, regardless of location or circumstance, which can then be used for future product or service improvements, at a greatly reduced cost.
Business benefits
This simple example can be applied to any business small or large and can be a useful, cost effective way to communicate directly with those that matter. Other benefits include:
- Increasing brand/product awareness
As time goes by, more and more people will likely read your blog. Your blog shouldn't be seen as an excuse for you to shout about how great your products or services are at every opportunity, they are about opinion. Use your blog to inform your visitors but if the chance comes up to advertise what you do, why not take it?! - Find out about the competition
Spending just 10 minutes a day can open your eyes to what your competition is up to and the most important things happenings in your industry. Why not use this as an opportunity to research what other competitors are up to and how you can differentiate yourself? - Reach and communicate with more customers
Nearly everyone has access to the Internet in some capacity. If you advertise your blog to your customers, they will be able to contact you by simply leaving a comment and at the same time you will be able to talk to them directly, without any middleman. - Reduce website costs
As mentioned, some blogs are free to setup and maintain meaning that you can have an online presence for the time it takes you to set it up (which is generally less than an hour). - Achieve high search rankings
The majority of the blogs which are built can be indexed by search engines. Due to the quantity (and normally quality) of content created, search engines can identify that your blog is particularly focused on a subject and therefore appear high in the results list. - Test out new ideas
Because you are communicating directly with your customers, you are able to gather their feedback from any ideas which you have before you start to develop them, not only reducing your R & D costs but also helping you to develop a more marketable product.
The future of blogging
Of course, many see blogging as something which will disappear but I am not of this school, having blogged myself for some time a number of years ago. It allowed me to contact the people who mattered easily and allowed a cost-effective way to gather their thoughts and build relationships with them. Now that blogging has become so widespread, other opportunities are possible;
- Increase brand awareness through Guerrilla marketingIf your visitors start to read your blog on a regular basis the opportunity to influence people cannot be ignored. Guerrilla marketing has already been used by some of the big players. Google for example, launched their new email service, Gmail, using pure guerrilla marketing and without advertising once. Users joined through invitation only and now there are over 2.5 million gmail accounts worldwide.
- Reduce advertising costs
Generating a large number of readers means that the use of traditional methods of marketing can be reduced (such as TV or radio) and your target audience can be reached far more cost effectively. As technology becomes more pervasive in modern society, more avenues present themselves to advertise products and services (online marketing is on the increase) due to the increased usage and reach of Internet. The cost of advertising using these mediums is significantly less than traditional advertising (it can cost up to £100,000 to produce an advert for TV) whilst still allowing you to put your message across to the people that matter. - Reach and communicate with more customers
Nearly everyone has access to the Internet in some capacity. If you advertise your blog to your customers, they will be able to contact you by simply leaving a comment and at the same time you will be able to talk to them directly, without any middleman.
How do I start?
The best place to start is at one of the free blog suppliers such as Blogger or by reading this article by an actual blogger on how to start a blog.
To get into the 'blogsphere' you'll need an easy way to subscribe to the blogs that matter and for this you'll want a blog reader or 'aggregator'. If you use the FireFox browser, this is simply a matter of dropping a link into your Favourites toolbar. If you're using something else, you'll need another bit of software such as Bloglines or Feedreader (read more about blog aggregators) but this will only take about 5 minutes to set up.
Alternatively you can contact us on 01202 853610 and we'll give you some advice on how to get up and running.
Conclusion
The future of blogging in the mainstream remains unclear but if the advocates are to be believed then the future looks bright (read more: Blogs continue to gain traction). More and more people each day create, write and read blogs that it can only be a matter of time before the reach the masses in the same way that email has (around 40,000 new blogs are created per day). Even Bill Gates has said that blogs are good for business and 'has advantages over other, older ways of communicating such as e-mail and websites'. When someone in such a position of influence says that, you have to start to take notice.
Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of this type of technology, as opposed to email, is that users have to 'opt in' to read information rather than having it given to them. As the technology grows and matures, it could become the way to communicate as email continues to be blighted by the spammers. Blogs could of course suffer the same fate of email, that of blogspam, but we all hope not.
Whether blogs will really take over other means of communication such as email remains to be seen. The way to find out? To keep reading the blogs of course
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