Blogging has become synonymous with online communication in the modern marketing mix, but for many marketing managers, setting up a blog can still seem to be a risky, unprofitable decision. The main reasons to set up and run a blog include:
Measurable, dynamic, powerful
Blogs, like any other web-based marketing medium, are painless to monitor and measure. The main platforms, Blogger and WordPress, offer analytical tools which provide a huge amount of information to marketers regarding visitor stats, page links, trackbacks and associated detail.
Blogs have taken off since 2008 and the proliferation of company blogs currently in existence is mind-boggling. According to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report:
‘The blogosphere has continued to expand, and we are now beginning to learn more about what powers the blogging community. Though growth has slowed, bloggers are apparently becoming pretty savvy at making money while pursuing their blogging interests.’
In terms of statistics, 133 million blogs have been tracked by Technorati between 2002 and the end of last year. This number is almost double the 72 million tracked as of March 2007 and it appears that the growth of new corporate blogs has slowed alongside the rate of new blog posts on blogs. As is so often the case, audiences are favouring quality not quantity.
Quality not quantity
Quality is always linked to content, and the most popular corporate UK blogs such as Innocent Drinks and Virgin remain focused on providing their readerships with innovative, up-to-date, engaging content – regularly.
The result is that a well-written, engaging, transparent, reader-centric blog is one of the most dynamic and powerful tools available in the online arsenal of communications mediums.
Conclusion
Blogs provide an important element to any online marketing campaign, and due to the nature of their conversational, open, transparent format, many customers find they add significant value to their perceptions of the parent blogging company. So, are you ready to blog?