1. 5 5 ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Publishing Blogs

2. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. What Is a Blog? A blog is a website that has regular updates (or blog posts) where the most recent updates are displayed first Blogs often allow readers to leave comments and respond to the blog posts A blogger is then a person who administrates, writes, and updates a blog 2

3. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Distinguishing Features of a Blog What distinguishes a blog from other types of social media? They are: Publishable Findable Social Viral Syndicatable Linkable 3

4. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Everyone Is a Publisher The online space has changed from a read web, where people would go to the Internet primarily to consume content and information, to a read- write web, where it is possible to create in addition to consuming content With publishing tools so accessible, anyone can be a publisher, and as a result there are millions of blogs, websites, and podcasts published In addition to creating interesting and relevant content to publish, part of the strategy must include how to build an audience and where to syndicate content online 4

5. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Figure 5.1 Number of Blog Readers 5

6. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Marriott CEO Blog Unlike many other corporate blogs, Marriott On the Move provides the CEO an avenue to share stories, and information on the business and to develop a likable public personality. On the website both audio and text versions of the blog are available. The blog gives a sense of camaraderie with the CEO that workers enjoy and has generated some tangible monetary gains, reflecting more than $5 million worth of revenue from bookings that originate from the blog. 6

7. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Marketing Benefits of Blogging Blogging has several unique advantages: Communicating with (potential) customers - The audience rewards thoughtful posts and fully developed ideas Word-of-mouth marketing – By making messages portable and easy for others to link to or share, creating new topics, and providing a center for conversation Receiving feedback - Due to its comments feature, a blog makes it easy for viewers to respond to the topic at hand 7

8. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Linking a Blog to Marketing Objectives The difficulty of blogging successfully is why over 50% of blogs are abandoned within the first ninety days When deciding on whether to start a blog and what the goals of blogging should be, it is important to consider the overall marketing goals and objectives A half-hearted blogging attempt may be worse than nothing at all, so it is crucial to set a long- term strategy before creating a blog for social media marketing 8

9. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Creating a Content Strategy Ask yourself, “What subjects related to my brand is my audience passionate about?” The best strategy to building an audience is to be as niche and specific as possible The future of publishing and content creation lies in serving niche markets effectively on a large scale In order to build a blog’s viewership and influence, the blogger must focus on specialized content that is not easily replicated 9

10. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. “If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.” —Cluetrain Manifesto, “Thesis #75”

11. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Engadget Engages Engadget is an extremely popular multilingual blog network updated multiple times a day with the latest news stories, opinion articles, and rumors about gadgets and the world of technology. Engadget’s innovative coverage of tech gadgets and the latest developments in the tech industry propelled the blog into the consciousness of those interested in consumer electronics. Today, Engadget ranks in the top fifteen most popular blogs not only in the United States but around the world, eclipsing its rival Gizmodo. 11

12. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Tips for Successful Blogging Use catchy titles Update frequently Keep posts focused Invite comments Promote the blog Engage with others Avoid negativity Stand by the content Cross promote 12

13. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Monitoring the Blogosphere One of the primary benefits from blogging is to learn about the “tone” of the online community with regard to certain subjects One crude metric for public sentiment is a look at how many views that posts on different topics generate BuzzMonitor is one example of free software with powerful monitoring applications Developing knowledge about public sentiment and response on other blogs makes social media marketing efforts through blogging much more fruitful 13

14. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Exercise: The Huffington Post: How a Single Voice Became Many In developing the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington had to quickly prove that a liberal blog site could not only capture but sustain a sizable readership before investors or advertisers would make any commitments. Ms. Huffington’s two objectives were obvious: drive traffic to the blog site and keep them coming back. 14

15. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Exercise: The Huffington Post: How a Single Voice Became Many The staff of the Huffington Post became adept as news aggregators in identifying the most compelling content on the web that matched its left-leaning editorial slant and eventually hired in-house reporters, columnists, and investigative journalists to create original news items. Today, the Huffington Post is the number one blog in the blogosphere.53 It has over 9,000 bloggers,54 with approximately 25 million visitors every month. 15

16. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Review Questions 1.Arianna Huffington drew on some of her celebrity contacts early on to popularize the website. Do you think a person without her connections could have been equally successful? What strategy changes would a non-celebrity have to make to succeed? 2.Do you expect that AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post will have a largely positive or negative effect on its viewership? Name some pros and cons, and compare them. 16

17. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Review Questions 3.Beyond Arianna Huffington using her celebrity contacts, what other strategies did the staff implement to make this the number one blog in the blogoshere? Can these same strategies be applied to other blogs? Explain why or why not? 4.What are the possible strategic marketing benefits and drawbacks of the acquisition of the Huffington Post by AOL? Explain. 17

18. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 18 HW Find 3 blogs that you would be interested in following. 1. Why are you attracted to reading them? Give at least 3 reasons also, attach the links. 2. What is the topic they are blogging about? 3. Pick one of the blogs and comment on a recent post. Share a screen shot of your comment on the blog.

19. ©2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Blog examples 19 http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/fashion/533781/ best-fashion-blog-and-twitter-feed-longlist.html http://techland.time.com/2012/10/22/25-best-blogs- 2012/slide/never-seconds/ http://perezhilton.com/tag/celebrity_blogs