The Catalog Strategist's Toolkit
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Reviews Book Reviews
Blog Marketing: The Revolutionary New Way to Increase Sales, Build Your Brand, and Get Exceptional Results Jeremy Wright McGraw-Hill, 2006; 322pp; hardback; £14.99 ISBN 0072262516 Blogs and politics. . .
. . .and consumers. . .
. . .and companies
Honesty and authenticity
Best practice
The blogging phenomenon, although around since the early internet days, really took off during the 2004 US presidential election, when blogs, or weblogs, defined as frequently updated online diaries or newsletters accessible by the public, came to the attention of journalists, politicians and the public. News and gossip about candidates and events was distributed at a rapid speed, and those in power, including corporations, became aware of blogging as a powerful communication tool. Statistics on blogs change every day, and are only really available for the USA; however it is estimated that around 40,000 new blogs are created every day, with the number of blogs worldwide exceeding 35 million. Businesses have realised that blogs provide a way of communicating directly with their customers, and consumers, increasingly cynical about modern marketing methods, are seeing blogs as a way of turning their backs on advertising and exchanging views on products and services. Blogs can thus make or break brands. This book, written by a blogging evangelist, is billed as a guide to businesses which wish to take part in the ‘blogosphere’. The author demonstrates how companies can use blogs to engage externally with customers, using them as insight for market research and product testing, ultimately doing away with the need for focus groups, and internally with employees for an exchange of ideas and knowledge, as well as for general office communication. Wright also points out that those companies not wishing to blog themselves should be aware of the usefulness of blogs for keeping up to date with how they are viewed by the outside world and monitoring competitors and industries. He stresses, however, that the open and informal style, and the honest and authentic approach which makes blogging so refreshing, does not sit easily with many corporations and needs to be learned. There is a need to create a corporate ‘blogging atmosphere’ before embarking on this exercise, and it is emphasised that a communication purpose needs to be agreed upon. To view blogging as another marketing exercise is bound to lead to negative feedback from readers, who in turn have the power to broadcast these perceptions through the world. Throughout the book there are case studies of good and bad blogging practice, and of corporations which have used the medium for internal and external communication purposes. Microsoft and Disney Channel are
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Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice
93
Reviews
Tracking engines
Guidelines and glossary
cited as examples of internal blogging practice, whereas GM’s FastLane blog is seen as good pr
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