Rick Bruner, President of Executive Summary Consulting spoke at a session titled Blogs: A Powerful Tool for Gathering Market Intelligence. The session was part of the DMA/AIM net.marketing conference and exhibition, which focused on advances in interactive marketing.
The Four Types of Successful Blogs. Bruner kicked the session off to a start by briefly describing what constitutes a blog (short for “web log”). There are currently several blogging technology solutions available, including Google’s popular Blogger.com.
Bruner noted four types of successful blogs:
1. Thought Leadership Blog. The though leadership blog allows the blogger to distinguish himself or herself as being a well-informed industry professional. One good example is Alan Meckler’s Weblog.
2. Customer Relations Blog. The customer relations blog engages with customers. For example, Macromedia’s weblog offers product updates from Macromedia product managers.
3. Peer Marketing Blog. Peer marketing blogs are typically ways for marketers to get the word out about their products. Everybody’s favorite doll Barbie is an example of a peer marketing blog.
4. Media Relations Blog. The media relations blog is a great way to augment a press section. Geared towards the journalist audience, media relations blogs contain press releases while still maintaining a personalized feel.
Given these examples of successful blogs, many business owners are left wondering whether blogging is right for their businesses. What are some reasons to have a blog? Bruner said, “Blog stands for Better Listings On Google” because Google favors regularly updated content. It’s also common for breaking news to be featured on blogs. (Perhaps you’ve heard of the Drudge Report.)
Becoming the Top Blog. People also use blogs for gathering information related to a particular industry. Bruner advises business owners to read industry blogs. If your industry doesn’t have a blog, go ahead start one! Gizmodo.com is a niche blog covering the technology industry.
Next, he said, it is important to track blogs in order to become aware of what’s happening in a particular industry. Technorati is one prime example of this.
It is possible to syndicate blog websites and subscribe through XML syndication. If your business doesn’t have a blog, do something blog-worthy to get more active attention in the blog world. For example, a van was recently stolen from the chocolate beverage company Yoo-hoo. Yoo-hoo mentioned the incident on its company website and contacted some bloggers to discuss it on their websites as well. Naturally, the bloggers thought the theft was hilarious and created a buzz. The heavy blogging provided plenty of press for Yoo-hoo.
It is important to interact with bloggers. Treat bloggers as you would treat journalists. If you send them a press release, send a link rather than the actual content, as they’ll probably end up linking to it anyway.
A Few Good Blogs. Need some inspiration? Here are Rick’s examples of a few good blogs:
http://www.instapundit.com/
http://www.boingboing.net
http://www.gawker.com/
http://www.wonkette.com/
When asked whether it’s possible to monetize a blog, Bruner replied without hesitating, “No.” Why? Because blogs are basically just a great marketing tool.
There are, of course, some people who do successfully monetize blogs. Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report became a blogging millionaire through paid advertisements that make a lot of money due to the high number of site impressions. Meanwhile, political blogger Andrew Sullivan managed to raise $1,000 through one fundraising event.
Another possible solution might be the micropayment model. Bloggers can monetize posts for low prices per view and, with enough site traffic, potentially make profit.
The moral of this story: if you have a very high-traffic blog site there are ways to make money – but effective examples are few and far between.
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Garrett French is the editor of Murdok’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.
