Swimming Ostriches
Recently, some critics have been of the opinion that blogging is useless and a sign of no life. Although I might disagree, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And if I'm honest, a year ago I probably shared the same position.
But Hallelujiah I have seen the light my brothers and sisters! Praise the Lord! (It happens when you fully check out something and then form an opinion.)
I apologize for preaching to the choir as you already get it as you are reading this. So please forward this to any friends, family and/or colleagues who need to be converted!
In all seriousness, I've found writing for the CMA blog to be greatly rewarding. It's allowed me to write about something I'm passionate about and get others viewpoints as well. And the other regular contributors and guest submissions have been highly informative and entertaining.
Unquestionably, there are certain blogs that I read regularly just to stay up to date on things in the digital marketing realm. And I feel I'm a lot better for it in terms of general awareness.
Does blogging work for companies? Good question. Since I don't work for any agency per se I'll give you a client-side opinion from the peanut gallery.
In most cases blogging does work. What do I mean? Look at last year's Mesh conference. They event sold out and there were over 500 attendees. If they charged on average $300 per person, that comes out to about $150,000 in revenue. Here is the kicker. They spent zero on marketing or advertising. No radio, no print and definitely no television. Mesh was promoted strictly through blogs and word of mouth. Imagine their bottom line looked with marketing costs.
Now I do not suggest that the aforementioned media are useless. Nor do I advocate you solely depend on blogs to advertise specific events or campaigns but ignoring them entirely may be foolish as so aptly noted in the great video above.
If you do decide to jump into the blog pool from an advertising perspective, I would caution about one thing. Be careful which blogs you associate yourself, your company and your brand with. They come in all kinds of stripes and colours after all. Content targeting works but has limitations. For example, if you promote vacations to Mexico on a blog and someone there writes about recent tourist deaths there or how they sufferred from an upset stomach while on vacation....well...you get the point.
One thing I can say with confidence is that blogs are not going away. They have not hit critical mass yet and are still very much in the early adopter phase. This in spite of the fact that over 55 million are out there. Yes, you read correctly, 55 million blogs are already in cyberspace. There is a lot of noise as one friend so aptly observed but you can tune it out.
Personally, I would never call another blog crap or its writer a loser. Not because I'm Canadian or being politically-correct but it's not my place to judge another blog. Someone else may be excited to regularly write about their dogs and have hundreds/thousands of dedicated readers.
So If I'm smart and have some marketing dollars to invest, I might test advertising on such a blog or podcast if I sell pet food. Don't worry, I will not send you a consulting invoice Ralston Purina. Consider this pro-bono work.
Some major companies now have their own corporate blogs. Mine doesn't but that may change in time. Should yours? That is something you need to determine and decide for yourself. At a minimum, why not try out the space and see what happens?
If you don't have the time to start your own blog or a corporate blog, why not join a collective such as the CMA blog, One Degree or others out there that reflect your interests and passions. That's what I did and I don't regret it for a minute.
Bloggers are also becoming major influencers. This is important to remember if you play in the digital economy. One thing I recently learned from folks who specialize in SEM/SEO (Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization) is that search engines love blogs. Especially that really popular one. Go figure.
Lastly, If you blog you can come off as someone knowledgeable and it does wonders for your own personal brand. Even if you really are not (present company included). My father once told me that if you write about your passions, you are more likely to be well received. That is why I will never write about statistics, celebrity gossip and/or computer programming.
Sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich when it comes to blogging is at your own peril. So why not stick your toe in the water? You might discover that even ostriches can swim.
