Blog marketing

Blog marketing is the term used to describe internet marketing via web blogs. These blogs differ from corporate websites because they feature daily or weekly posts, often around a single topic. Typically, corporations use blogs to create a dialog with customers and explain features of their products and services.

Many organizations use blogs with their user community. This allows them to share and preview product features, functions, and benefits before the products are released. Blogs are an excellent way to gather feedback and to make sure products meet the needs of users. Blogs have become the next generation marketing tool to corporate websites which merely post collateral and do not provide any interactive feedback. Blogs are also supplimentary to a User Group. User Groups happen annually for example while blogs provide users constant daily and weekly feedback.

Blogs are Basic websites which are updated Regularly. They act as a Private news interface for any Company / Website. With regular updates being handled by the company executive team, product marketing, and product strategy teams. The need for fresh content on the web makes the Blogs a preferred destination for Resources. Blogs have been focused as a primary platform for Marketing since the early 2006.

What is a Blog?

"Blogs are web sites that allow you instantly publish content about a certain topic or theme."

Blogging then is defined as the act of publishing content with blog. But...publishing content with a blog and publishing with a regular web site are like night and day both in how they work and in what they are used for.

So what is the difference then between a web site and a blog?

A regular web site is designed to publish content for all manner of reasons. Regular web sites are static and infrequently updated. Regular web sites are great at content delivery but they can also be impersonal in how they publish content and inform their audience.

Blogs are instant publishing tools that allow you easily update your content often. Blogs are said to be dynamic content delivery systems and even content management systems. Blogs are published as two-way conversations that are more personal than web sites and are humanized by the voice of the very human blog publisher who is generally the one actually publishing content and responding feedback from readers. [http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com/blog/HowToBlog101/_archives/2004/12/13/204384.html]

Blogging Tools

Blog Marketing has evolved since the start of Blogger. There has been various Blog Software options on the Web today which are free, the most popular among them being Wordpress and Blogger. Blogs are also available in Content Management Systems like Joomla (an open source CMS).

Blog Marketing versus Traditional Collateral Marketing

Blog Marketing

*Interactive
*Collaborative
*Community
*Online User Group
*Frequent Updates
*Smaller digestable topics
*More of a personal approach
*Blogs can include links to collateral as well as webinars

Traditional Collateral Marketing

*Collateral can be too boilerplate
*Collateral must be downloaded from a website
*Collateral and corporate websites often do not change
*Cost of producing collateral may be an inhibitor for start-ups
*Time to Market
*Impersonal

References

Blog Marketing, Jeremy Wright, 2004 [http://www.amazon.com/Blog-Marketing-Jeremy-Wright/dp/0072262516/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218119954&sr=8-1]

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Hardcover)by David Meerman Scott (Author) [http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Marketing-PR-Podcasting/dp/0470113456/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218119954&sr=8-2]