In case you would not have known already, blogging and podcasting have definitively gone mainstream - kids’ and teens’ blog pretty much about everything in this post ’sex & the city’ era, including lovepain and - what a surprise - glamorous Paris Hilton. Even grown-ups like Ms. Neighbour have gotten infected by the blogging virus and are sharing recipes for the latest homemade cookie adventures while Mr. Neighbour lets you into his secrets of the perfect golf swing.
Blogs catch your eyes for a reason…
Thing is, when you start to research blogs on Technorati about topics such as ‘golf swing’, ‘cookie recipe’ or even ‘market development’ to change the subject focus a bit, you would be surprised that an overwhelming portion of the results lead to blogs set-up and maintained by organizations or individuals having a vested interested in catching your attention: most often they have products and services to sell or brands to build.
Chances are that if you are looking for insider information in relationship to a specific topic, you might find ‘better’ information on blogs than you would find on Google - well maybe not ‘better’, but rather… different. Let’s take ‘market development’ for example: While Google and consorts will lead you mostly to websites with organizations offering related products or web documents containing the keyword ‘market development’, Technorati will lead you to blog posts and addresses that actually ‘talk’ about the issue at hand and lead you to more insight in regards to your interest… As blogs are becoming an integral part of corporate e-marketing strategies - you will often find that more and more blogs that you may find through Technorati for example are maintained by organizations - my own blog is a good example for this trend.
Blogs, and the power of the ’social media marketing’ mix
Blogging and podcasting have become part of corporate strategies that can be collectively called ’social media marketing’ - the good question to ask however is: How do these new tools fit into the marketing plan? Blogging and podcasting certainly are about communication, but then what can be achieved with it - and what might be other complementary tools that may be used to reinforce its effectiveness?
Social media marketing is - among others - a method of promoting a brand: It drives and nurtures brand awareness. The brand could be a person, a product, a service or even your company! It involves making your presence known, strategically, across social media networks in a multi-channel strategy that may combine blogs, podcasts, social network sites (Such as myspace.com), video sharing or photo sharing sites to name just a few. The choice of the right tool(s) for your mix obviously depends on the type of product or service you are offering while each tool calls for specific methods to be used for it to be effective within the mix. This is where the tricky part begins: these marketing tools are so new and evolve so quickly that mastering them comes close to an art.
Blogs seem to be an essential part of most social marketing activities. There is a reason for this: Blogs have been around for quite some time now, and are often integrated into other tools of the social media marketing mix. For example, blog capacities are part and parcel of the My space (www.myspace.com), Flickr (www.flickr.com) and You Tube (www.youtube.com) community experience. New community models are on the rise… making this a truly fascinating new marketing - or more precisely - branding, PR and communications eldorado.
More about social media marketing next time - enjoy your day!
