To Blog or Not to Blog Are blogs effective marketing tools? Should you have a business blog? Do you even have the time and resources to blog? This might seem like a strange topic for my blog since I’m blogging right now, but bloggers (and particularly one about the sometimes nebulous topic of marketing as I am), are expected to be critical of the hype. So the value of blogging is an important question to pose for anyone considering the proposition. Let’s take a look at the current state of being a blogger and lay out some pragmatic expectations when it comes to using blogs for marketing purposes.

For those who don’t know this, the word "blog" derives its name from the abbreviation for "web log," meaning an online journal. Around the time when I started my business in 1998, usenets and webrings ruled the day and blogs, as we know them today, didn’t even really exist. The earliest web loggers were strictly "geeks" in computer labs at universities engaged in the practice. In the late 90s, the advent of web-based site software like Blogger, LiveJournal and Open Diary made it easier for any Internet user to create and host a blog. I wrote about blogs in 2001, but the masses didn’t really catch on to blogging until late 2003, and then blogging reached the übersphere of hype.

With mass blogging came more user-generated content ("UGC" aka consumer-generated media or "CGM"), and so one of the defining features of the so-called Web 2.0 took hold, a user/consumer-generated World Wide Web. No one would dispute the impact that blogs have had (and I believe will have in the future) on the way in which we all get and consume our information. Just watch CNN or any of the major network news programs on television and see how often they refer to blogs. The upcoming election will prove to be no less important to the blogosphere. As of May 2007, blog search engine Technorati.com tracked an unbelievable 71 million + blogs…and many of them are now specifically industry or business blogs.

So the question for the businessperson remains... to blog or not to blog?

Blogs are definitely important in the online marketing mix. Blogs act as word-of-mouth advertising for products and services in a way that few other online tactics can. Blogs can also create a person’s reputation. Search engines love blogs because by their very nature, blogs represent fresh, and often daily changing content. And being found in search engine keyword query search results for your company’s product or service is still the golden ticket to new business opportunities (just check out the Google search for online media buying to see what I mean).

For a business marketer, blogs provide something that few other tactics can offer: the opportunity to have a "chat" with a potential customer in a frank and casual manner, totally separate from the sales pitch. Blogs are unique conversations where qualities like personality, expertise, knowledge, and humor can be easily communicated. Blogs can provide an intimacy that a sales presentation, white paper, case study, or corporate web site just can’t do without sounding unprofessional.

On the flip side, blogging first and foremost requires a pretty serious commitment on the part of the blogger in order to have an impact online marketing-wise: you have to be willing to create fresh content on a regular basis. If, for example, I were to only post to this blog once every quarter, I probably would not develop a loyal readership nor be perceived by the citybizlist as a valuable expert – those readers could go elsewhere to read the latest news or someone else’s insights. And if you want to develop those loyal readers, what you have to say on your blog better be pretty darn interesting or different, because no one sticks around to read bad content.

Seasoned bloggers will talk about the "signal-to-noise ratio" in the blogosphere, which is one of the primary issues I have with business blogs: there’s really not enough usable, unique, high-quality, relevant information. The search engine visibility gained by blogs coupled with the enormous number of blogs out there makes for an inordinately high chance that "blores" or blog spammers, shameless self-promoters content thieves, or irrelevant blog chatterers are just hogging up bandwidth. To this end, the average blog reader has grown suspicious of content that is too "markety."

The business blogger has something else to worry about: their writing competency. It might be ok on your personal blog to misspell words or use poor grammar or sentence structure, but it’s not ok to do so on a business blog. The business blog is an extension of your company, its image and how the public perceives it, which means that a poorly written blog might actually have negative consequences for your business. If you can’t write well, hire or outsource to a copywriter or at least have a trained second set of eyes edit your work.

And of course, for those of you who think of blogging as a "cheap" form of marketing, I say you’re only partially right. If you have a prolific thinker and writer in your company who also happens to have time on his/her hands and the desire to go public with these thoughts, blogging will be a great marketing tool for you. But, since in most companies, time equals money, an in-house blogger’s time is not going to come cheap. If you instead decide to outsource your writing, there’s some more time/money to add up; and, if you decide to have a custom-blog designed and built for you (or perhaps even optimized for search engines), chalk up some more dinero.

Even the most successful of bloggers find reasons to discontinue their blogs. Recently at our company, we were surprised that a popular blog about search engine marketing called Threadwatch closed down. The founder cited several reasons for doing so.

If you decide not to blog, you’re not alone. A recent PRWeek/MS&L Marketing Management survey showed that only 12 percent of senior marketers thought that CGM was important to their marketing platforms. So I caution any new blogger-come-lately just to know what you’re getting yourself into before you take the big leap. Some of you are going to love blogging, while others will grow to resent that you even started.

Labels: Marketing, technology

  12:47 PM •  0 Comments •

Our Personal Invitation from Google and Other Google Goings-On Last month, I had the privilege of being invited by Google to participate on an agency panel at their Mountain View, CA campus where we were asked, in short, “How are we doing and what can we do better?” The “Google Adwords Agency Panel,” which was closed to the public, brought seven paid search marketing (aka “Pay-Per-Click” or “PPC”) agencies together with Google Product Managers, engineers, customer service and billing managers and top Google executives, for a daylong forum about the company’s online advertising products. In addition, participating agencies got a sneak preview of some of the upcoming Google products slated for release. Being asked to participate on this elite panel, after about seven years of running Google advertising campaigns, was an enormous validation of my company’s track record, experience, and knowledge.

For any company looking to learn from the success of Google, it’s worth observing that a corporation as large as Google seeks brutally honest suggestions (and criticism) directly from their agency clients. They’ve fostered a corporate culture that’s really driven by open dialogue, internally and externally, and native curiosity – you can tell that everyone at Google has a pressing “need to know” about most anything. Googlers, as they call themselves, are possessed with the need to problem solve, and to have this kind of trait so consistently apparent within an organization is, in my opinion, priceless.

Having this insight might help better explain the never-ending stream of new Google product announcements, acquisitions and partnerships. Make no doubt about it: Google is not satisfied just being the dominant search engine out there; it intends to be a media force, a multi-faceted powerhouse as ever-present as Time Warner or Viacom.

So as I observe Google’s goings-on, where I think it’ll be relevant to CityBizList readers, I’ll share my two cents. For example, only one day after I was the featured presenter at an all day workshop hosted by the Laboratory Product Association in which these marketers struggled to figure out how to close the loop from online initiatives to their customer relations management systems (CRM), Google and Salesforce.com (a leading CRM solution) announced they have formed a global strategic alliance, whereupon Google AdWords will be integrated into the Salesforce.com software. The result of this partnership will basically allow a company to run a pay-per-click campaign whose actionable results will directly add contact information into a company’s Salesforce.com database. For lead generation marketers, this kind of partnership certainly gives Salesforce.com an edge.

I’m also watching what will happen with Google’s acquisition of the online advertising technology company, DoubleClick. After outbidding and incurring (yet again) the wrath of Microsoft, Google bought the company for $3.1 billion dollars. The strategic move now ensures Google dominance in the online display advertising market previously out of their reach, which includes banners, video, and other mediums typically used for brand building. Google now also has all the pieces it needs to fully track and measure a direct response online advertising campaign, from media planning (DoubleClick’s Media Visor) to media buying (DoubleClick’s Advertising Exchange) to display ad serving and tracking (DoubleClick’ DART) to text-based ad serving (Google’s Content Network) to web site analytics (Google Analytics). Couple this with Google’s earlier acquisition of YouTube, and you have just another weapon in Google’s media arsenal.

Further demonstrating its departure from traditional search, Google has rolled out Google Audio (bid-for radio spots) and are testing Google Print (a Priceline.com-like model to offer a set price for a print ad spot). So you have to wonder, what’s next? Google Billboards? Google Milk Carton Advertising? Google Film Product Placement? Coming soon to a blog near you!

Labels: Marketing, technology

  12:44 PM •  0 Comments •