Navigating the Blogosphere
by Julian Gratton
In less than a decade, blogging has grown from a niche interest to an influential worldwide phenomenon that is challenging traditional media assumptions. Facilitated by the introduction of simple to use blog hosts, people with no technical skills except the ability to write well or passionately can find an audience for their views.
Famous examples of blog journals include those writing in the aftermath of momentous events such as the Twin Towers attack and the invasion of Iraq; infamous but popular was the daily diary of a London call girl, Belle de Jour, that spawned both a book and the recent ITV series with Billie Piper. Blogs are often used to put forward controversial views or anonymous revelations – the Government is still hunting the troublesome Civil Serf blogger, said to be a senior Whitehall civil servant, who is revealing damaging details of how the centre of power really works.
The Guardian recently published its Fifty Most Influential Blogs Worldwide, and several notable British sites featured, including Girl with a One Track Mind, Zoe Margolis’s frank personal journal; Holy Moly, the UK’s most visited celebrity gossip site; Hecklerspray, the British alternative to Perez Hilton, and The Offside, rated the best ‘serious’ blog in football. 
More relevant for marketers, many of the sites rated by the Guardian offer opinions on products and services. Engadget is the world’s most popular blog on gadgets and consumer electronics, a highly influential source of information and reviews. Stylebubble, by 23-year-old fashion blogger Susie Lau, has become so important to the fashion industry that Chanel invites her to product launches. It is estimated that there are more than 75.2 million blogs worldwide. Well respected blog search engine Technorati currently indexes 112 million and estimates that 175,000 new blogs appear every day. Many of these blogs have short lifespans, making it hard to judge the numbers of successful and active blogs that survive, but a range of search engines have emerged to help consumers choose.
Two factors make blogs attractive from a marketing perspective: the chance to interact with customers and prospects is a powerful tool for constructive conversation. Secondly, the content-rich dialogue that blogs generate through the original posts and the responses from readers are picked up by search engines and improve rankings. What terrifies marketers, and still causes many large companies to shy away, is the difficulty in policing these online conversations. When Dell first opened up a blog dialogue with its customers, it was inundated with criticism and negative posts. To its credit, Dell has worked hard to respond to such criticism and now treats all feedback as valuable input.
Below are just a few examples of companies that have made blogs work either to sell individual products or raise the profile of their company and employees.
Product Blogs
One of the most effective ways to make money with a blog is product blogging. Essentially, your blog is built around selling one or more products, either directly from you or via affiliate programs and joint ventures with others. Here’s a few product blog success stories.
Mahindra Tractors
Mahindra Tractors stole Market share from Deere, the No1 Tractor Manufacturer in the US, a tough task considering that Americans love to buy American. Their strategy is simply: Turn Deere owners into Mahindra believers. As a result, they created ‘The life of a farm’ Blog… it’s the story of a regular farmer and how his Mahindra tractor plays a big part in his life. It’s the ultimate product placement, and offers a way for new customers to connect with the “Americanness” of the Mahindra brand and associate with it. It’s a brilliant testimonial in a category where peer reviews are likely to matter highly.
Clip-n-Seal
Textura Design, a Seattle Web-design firm and holding company, is using blogs 
almost exclusively to pitch its Clip-n-Seal system. Staff at Clip-n-Seal are encouraged to blog about the company and product. This blogging has helped increase their website’s organic ranking which has meant new markets have come to them too… new markets that have also suggested ways in which they could use their Clip-n-Seal system… these have included Scuba Divers, Nuclear Labs and Dairy Farms. To help encourage this further Clip-n-Seal has extended the blog to include an Industrial Design section to encourage more innovative applications for Clip-n-Seal.
Corporate Blogs
An external corporate blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services as well as to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. According to corporateblogging.info, a corporate blog can be responsible for:
- establishing a company as a thought leader in its sector
- providing tips and insights on potential new products and facilitating feedback on existing products
- allowing an outlet for good company news, and a chance to ease bad news into the ether
- foster internal communications and creative brainstorming.
But for many, the most obvious and compelling reason to start and continue a corporate blog is to establish a direct relationship with customers in a context that can build trust over time – something all the advertising in the world can struggle to accomplish. Here are just a few examples of how other companies have used corporate blogs.
Marriott Hotels
JW Marriott Jr. is 75 years old… so you would think that blogging would be something he would leave to the younger, more tech savvy, people in his Empire. But in a series of steps he has taken to keep Marriott Hotels relevant in the fast-changing hotel industry, he has decided to start his own blog. Here he talks enthusiastically about Marriott Hotels and how he believes that former Scouts make the best employees “I’m always excited to have former Scouts come work for Marriott because I know the lessons they’ve learned from scouting, such as leadership and teamwork, will make them great employees for our company.”
Sun Microsystems
Genererating over 4000 hits a day, Sun Microsystems CEO Jason Schwart’s weblog features insights into the company and it’s products. The blog is also his own personal mouthpiece and allows him to share his views with the world as well as inform people both in his company and in the I.T. industry what Sun Microsystems is doing around the world.
A brief history of blogs
The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Hall
By 2001, blogging was enough of a phenomenon that how-to manuals began to appear, primarily focusing on technique. Established schools of journalism began researching blogging and noting the differences between journalism and blogging. By now blogs such as DailyKos.com (an American political Blog) were getting up to 1 million hits a day.
To date there are a total of 75.2 million blogs, with around 120,000 more started every day. These blogs are responsible for 1.5 million new posts being done daily.
Tags: Belle de Jour, Billie Piper, blogging, Blogosphere, Blogs, Clip-n-Seal, corporate blog, DailyKos.com, Deere, Dell, Direct Marketing, Engadget, Girl with a One Track Mind, Hecklerspray, Holy Moly, Iraq, Mahindra Tractors, Marketing, Marriott Hotels, Perez Hilton, Stylebubble, Sun Microsystems, Technorati, Textura Design, The Guardian, The Offside, Twin Towers attack, Web 2.0 Marketing
