Blog Your Customers

Blogging is the newest method and fastest growing trend for businesses to connect with their customers because the blogs (web logs) allow customers and businesses to instantly publish to theweb to share ideas, concepts and news.

So, What Is a Blog? Directly from the people who started blogs at www.Blogger.com, “A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly—from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction. Blog posts are like instant messages to the web.”

How Businesses Are Blogging With Their Customers

Companies are using the blogs is some highly creative ways! Check out
these four examples:

• Nokia
Nokia recently used http://www.projectblog.com to find ten bloggers, who they asked to take pictures with a free new Nokia 3560 phone, along with two months of cell service. Eight of the ten bloggers posted positive reviews on the blog. This fall, Nokia intends to roll out a bigger campaign at five colleges where advertising students will make a 30-second Nokia commercial and journal their progress on their own blogs hosted on a Nokia microsite.

• Nick Usborne
Nick Usborne, copywriting expert, author and consultant, hosts a blog for his tremendous following where he enthusiastically points out new trends, theory and discussions at http://nickusborne.typepad.com/.
• AYA Convention - AYA, an association for pilots, created an International Convention blog, which is a perfect example of an event blog. Their convention took place June 26-29, 2000, and their blog documents the activities and participants at http://www.aya.org/aya2000/daily/.
• Jones Soda - The trendy soda, which appeals to the young alternative crowd, includes blogs written by Jones Soda’s road warriors as well as the company’s skateboarding spokespeople at http://www.jonessoda.com/blogs/index.html.

Blogging Has Peripheral Benefits Is a blog right for your company? Keep in mind blogging has some hidden benefits that will become an integral piece of your marketing strategy.

Here are three of these hidden benefits:

1. Obtain Higher Search Engine Rankings Blogging has some peripheral benefits. Blogs tend to get higher search engine rankings because of fresh, limitless web content and lots of linking.

2. Create Revenue with Blogs Once you create enough traffic for your blog, you might want to consider posting ads on your blog to create a revenue stream. Since Google owns Blogger.com (www.Blogger.com), you are able to run Google’s AdSense program on your blog if you upgrade your blog from a free to a professional account. You may also investigate using BlogAds (www.BlogAds.com), a grass roots approach to blog advertising. The ad pricing is decided by the blog owner and is available for timeframes of a week to a year.

3. Blog Your Public Relations Create some buzz about your company on a blog targeted to your audience. Because bloggers are now being considered the opinion holders and trend setters on the internet, the blog is an indispensable component of an online PR campaign. Why? A blog could be the PR professionals’ way of reaching their target audience. To make it easier for PR professionals to reach them, many bloggers are adding “Send News” links on their sites.

How to Start a Blog Blogger.com, now owned by Google, is probably the easiest way to get started. In less than five minutes, you can register, choose your template and start blogging.

Some of the Internet’s best blogging services:
www.projectblog.com
www.blogger.com
www.MoveableType.org
www.Blogphiles.com
www.BlogStyles.com
www.MetaFilter.com
www.BlogRoots.com
www.blogdex.media.mit.edu

Some of the hottest blogs on Internet Marketing:
MarketingWonk (http://www.marketingwonk.com/)
Search Engine Journal (http://searchenginejournal.blogspot.com/)
WebSense (http://www.websense.com/)
Traffick (http://www.traffick.com/)

Author: Christie Turley, ThriveMarketing

Christie Turley is Principal of ThriveMarketing, a full-service marketing firm specializing in high-end website design, search engine optimization and PPC online advertising services. Thrive also offers traditional marketing services, including brand identity, copywriting, print design, and public relations. For more information, please visit http://www.ThriveMarketing.net

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