
Blogging is big business. According to research by Universal McCann earlier this year, 184 million people worldwide have started a blog while 346 million people have read one. In terms of people who use the Internet, 77 per cent have read blogs.
It’s a phenomenon that started across the pond, the term blogging being a contraction of the term ‘web log’ that, in essence, is an online diary where people set out their thoughts and opinions.
B2B Marketing put some questions to a broad panel on the issue of blogging, from senior marketers to technology providers, to those who specialise in creating blogs for business clients. Without question, all agreed that blogging is here to stay. Why? Because from a business point of view blogging enables a unique type of interaction with customers, clients and associates. Moreover, many believe a blog of some kind could soon become a must-have for businesses in the B2B sphere – after all, if potential customers are talking about their brands online, they need to be talking to them, projecting their brand in a positive manner and influencing the debate.
Denise Cox, a newsletter specialist with Newsweaver, thinks blogging lends itself particularly to the B2B environment. “In B2B, decision-makers use the Internet to research products and services. Fresh content offered from blogs means a better opportunity to be found online. Blogging also provides a critical profile during the time you need to keep the company’s brand, expertise and knowledge front-of-mind as business decision-makers are assessing what’s available in the market.”
1. How does it fit in the marketing mix?
All the experts agree that where blogging fits into the overall marketing mix is key. Eaon Pritchard, head of digital at Geronimo, says, “First off, blogging is not about technology or even about publishing. It’s about connection and conversation. Relationships between people and brands are products of conversation.
“Branding is now about managing complexity. The ways and speed with which information and content is discovered, processed and shared has changed dramatically – if you don’t start defining your brand within this context, pretty soon someone else will. Authoring your own blog and contributing to others is a way to establish and maintain an open channel of communication between you and clients.”
2. Should all companies be blogging?

Jon Miller, vice president of Marketo, says, “Buyers want to buy from trusted vendors that can demonstrate they understand their problems, so it’s important to establish thought leadership from day one.”
While blogging has worked for Marketo, Miller isn’t convinced it is the right marketing fit for all businesses. “Blogging is very important, but it requires significant passion and time commitment to be truly successful. So many companies are jumping on the blog bandwagon today; only the most passionate authors will stand out above the noise.”
Richard Bush, MD of Base One Group, argues, “If your customers are likely to be active online and if there is a thriving online community within your audiences then the potential is huge. You should only do it if you have people who are doing it for the right reasons and that are willing to commit to it.”
3. How easy is it?
“The technology involved is relatively straightforward,” says Mark White, a blog consultant at Better Business Blogging. “Essentially, you can opt to host a blog yourself – WordPress is an obvious example. Or you can choose a hosted blog, such as Typepad.”
The techies we spoke to about setting up a blog agreed that capital outlay was relatively low when weighed against possible returns. Anil Dash, chief evangelist at Six Apart – the company behind popular blog platforms Movable Type Vox and Typepad – says, “People who run businesses are used to investment involving technology being difficult, expensive and fraught with risk. But the great thing with blogging and social media tools generally is that because they are relatively inexpensive and easy to set up, you can afford to experiment and try different things without taking any huge financial risk.”
4. What content should be included?
Words that cropped up with all the experts were ‘genuine’, ‘authentic’, ‘different’ and ‘human’. Pritchard says, “People want relationships to be with other people, not corporate communications but all over people are craving real human interaction. That means a real, authentic voice. A blog is not an advertising channel.”
Bush adds, “The first thing to remember is that it is the bloggers speaking, not the company. They have to be free to say what they want, warts and all. You cannot censor your bloggers, so trust is critical. Length is important, and a shorter piece is typically better than long. What is more important however, is relevance and timeliness. If the subject is currently being talked about elsewhere within the blogosphere and you are able to reference other blogs, it will produce better results.”
5. What content should be avoided?
Press releases, advertising blurb, promotional material – don’t use your blog as a blatant sales tool. Miller says, “It’s important to avoid anything promotional. More subtly, your blog should have a tone, style, and quality level that together make up your ‘promise’ to subscribers.”
6. Should my company have a policy on what bloggers can write?
This question provoked a mixed response. Many who answered agreed with Bush that bloggers should not be censored on any grounds. This could sound like a recipe for anarchy, yet Dash suggests otherwise, pointing out that it was possible to put inside company information into the public domain – email being an obvious example – long before blogging came along.
“Yet bloggers themselves – because they are relatively new – tend to inspire a lot more fear than other media,” he says. “I recommend that if there are any questions employees have about blogging, employers should give them a place to contact in the company so that if they ever have an question along the lines of ‘should I share this?’ or ‘how should I phrase this?’ then they have somewhere to go to ask that question. Just knowing that contact is there makes them think about whether what they are blogging is appropriate.”
7. Can I expect to see a return on investment from my business blog?
Miller certainly thinks so. “Absolutely. In terms of investment, it costs almost nothing in terms of hard dollars. The biggest investment is time. And for that, we get improvements to our awareness, reputation and even lead generation. One thing to bear in mind, is that blog readers tend to be early stage leads. It’s important to be able to nurture those relationships over time so if and when they do enter into an active sales cycle, you’ll be top of mind.”
8. How will blogging evolve?
Commentators agree that integral to blogging’s evolution will be a desire by businesses to take control of their online brand. As social media marketing matures, businesses will recognise the importance of having a sdistinctive online voice, through which they can deepen their relationships with customers and associates.
Dash discusses how many companies have experimented in piggy-backing their brands onto some of the well-known social networking sites, but argues that blogging will ultimately supersede this. He says, “For any company, the most effective form of communication is the one they control – you don’t ever want your brand to be subordinate to another brand.
“In the future we think every corporation will have a social network or similar feature on their own site that forms a two-way connection to other sites. Here, a business can communicate with its community of partners, customers or potential customers with the kind of authenticity and credibility a blog can provide.”
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