The tried-and-true marketing and PR departments may one day make the
endangered species list, thanks to a rush of business interest in blogs and
RSS feeds.
Weblogging -- or blogging -- is taking social networking to new heights.
And with the improvements to the technology, personal journals are now
supplying tens of millions of bits of information every day. Now business is looking to leverage the trend, with even multi-million dollar corporations looking for cheap and effective ways
of getting their message out are using the technology to their advantage.
While it is difficult to calculate exactly how many individuals are using
Web sites as journals, Blog Census
estimates that there are roughly 2.1 million likely Weblogs, with at least
half of them in English. This is certainly an opportunity for the online marketer to consider.
Netscape originally designed RSS -- blogging's main backbone -- as a format for creating portals for online news organizations and entities. Though it had been deemed
excessively sophisticated for this primary mission, Netscape abandoned of
its development when the company pulled out of the portal business. The
addition of XML, and Atom have augmented RSS, making posting and retrieving information easier than ever.
Now RSS reader programs of all sorts can offer a variety of special features,
including combining several related feeds into a single view, hiding items
that the viewer has already seen and categorizing feeds and items. Mobile
devices may also turn out to be a key client for syndicated content. If a
feed is customized enough to be useful to an individual, they may well want
to read that feed from wherever they are (e.g. an SMS message telling
an online bidder that the auction they bid on has just closed).
The rise of RSS has some asking whether online businesses need to rethink their marketing strategies, when employees themselves are distributing corporate info and branding just as effectively -- if not more -- than normal marketing practices.
"Business can use syndication as a communications channel to their customers, partners, or employees," said Anil Dash, vice president of Business Development at Six
Apart. "The combination of update notification when information is updated or changed and the ability to deliver content to a person on any device or in any place is extremely compelling from a
business standpoint."
Corporate Blogs Compete
How can your e-commerce business tap into blogs? Even if you're a small operation, consider the ways that they're being used effectively by large corporations.
For example, some of the major IT players have all their hats in the ring early. One
of the largest projects is Microsoft's Channel 9. Launched in April, the community was built in two to three weeks and includes text, video and a
collaboration site, or wiki . All are used to
humanize Microsoft.
In some cases, blogs are used to connect special classes of users -- such as customers, affiliates, developers, or partners. For
example, HP sponsors a blog for its HP labs engineers. Dell
has a company-sponsored Linux blog. And Web graphics
software maker Macromedia keeps its developers informed
through a series of feeds.
"Companies can take advantage of this technology to build that direct
line of communication to multiple groups, such as consumers, suppliers,
investors, etc.," said Matthew Bailey, Web marketing director with the Karcher Group. "Taking advantage of this direct line of communication can help a company appear to be 'in touch'
and directly concerned with the readers.
Sun has also tapped into its sales channels through its blogs. Using blogs during the
company's recent JavaOne conference, Sun executives promoted an auction on
eBay that centered on a dozen Opteron-based workstations, which had yet to be
revealed or advertised.
No Fear
Blogging also empowers customers to discuss businesses and brands they use online -- which might seem frightening to online sellers new to the concept.
"This technology allows any consumer to be able to
create an opinion site. If they have any marketing savvy at all, they will
be able to quickly accumulate an audience of like-minded peers to discuss
the company," Bailey said. "This is a critical group for companies to
target, as these are either a very dedicated group of consumers, or a very
disenfranchised group -- both of which must be served."
So how should merchants contend with social media? Lisa Poulson, a business consultant with Kirtland Enterprise Group, suggests businesses not fret the trend, but rather, seek to learn from it. For instance, viewing public blogs can help online sellers better understand their target market
"There are a lot of people who have a lot of opinions about every
corporation, and they're having conversations," Poulson said. "That's free market research.
A corporation that is afraid of the participation that comes with conversation has larger problems. With social media, corporations lose control of when news gets released. That's OK."
"PR firms love to control the message, control who says the message,
control who has access to the message, who says the message and the timing
of the message," she added. "Blogs upset the apple cart in all four ways. But
building that credibility and trust are still the basis for that individual
relationship."
In the case of Channel 9, Poulson said that the issues being discussed
are not the voice of Microsoft directly, but of its user base. In that case,
she points out that third-party sites can then give validation to the
company's message, or at least serve as a public domain for discussion and
valuable customer feedback.
Michael Singer is a managing editor at sister site internetnews.com, where a version of this story originally appeared. internetnews.com editor Craig McGuire contributed to this report.
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