Marketing strategies and tactics have multiplied in the past decade, due largely to the Internet becoming a bona fide marketing/media channel. One tactic starting to become popular is blogging. This post explores the rationale behind writing a blog to promote a company or brand.
As with all marketing tactics, a blogging plan should be developed within the overall marketing strategy, that dictates the online marketing plan and specifically a social media strategy. Everything is integrated and a blog is an ideal platform to create content for use in other SM channels such as Twitter (tweet announcements of your latest post), Facebook (link a post to your Facebook Wall/photo album/etc.), or YouTube (support a post topic with a video). A blog also boosts SEM through an increased online presence.
Blogs require regular posts, usually daily or weekly. A blog post must focus on one topic and provide insights, opinions, links and other relevant material on that topic. The benefit of a blog is that it creates a dialogue with readers so the author of the blog can learn what people think about the topic. They are a simple and effective research tool to tap into the minds of people who care enough about your company/brand to respond to the post.
A blog about a company or a brand would be aimed at existing and potential customers. It can describe interesting features of the company/brand, behind-the-scenes information, anecdotal stories supplied by customers, or news about upcoming launches or updates. In fact anything that gives the public something more than they would normally find on a company web site or an advertisement. Often they are quite conversational in tone and not ‘hard sell’; from this point of view it can serve as key element in customer relationship management.
Writing a blog requires copywriting skills. It should not be left to a junior staff member – or the CEO/CMO who has grand visions of his/her own writing skills. Think of it as if you were publishing a magazine and employ professionals to handle the briefing, writing, editing and publication of the blog.
The research is starting to indicate how much blogging is helping SMEs to market themselves. A 2009 study of 1500 clients by HubSpot revealed some startling statistics; read about the results here.
I found a delightful example of a small town cookie company that was literally saved by a blog. Do you know of any company/brand blogs that are achieving success in some way? Or is there a blog that is not performing too well? Please share your experiences and examples here.
Posted by mktgbytes 
