Different Types of Blogs

Blogging is one of the easiest and simplest ways of reaching out to your audience using the Social Media. Blogging happens to be a very effective medium for building your reputation, for interacting with your customers, for building relationships as well as for business purposes. Blogging entails not only talking about yourself, your ideas, views and opinions, but more importantly to listening to the community of customers who are interested in your and your product. By listening, you get to learn and receive more information and feedback that is likely to help you with your business and product development as well.

In this section, we shall briefly review different types of blogs that are available in Social Media Channels today. Popular types of blogs include Personal blogs, Corporate Blogs, Micro Blogging as well as Blogs by Genre, by Media Type or Device type etc.

Personal Blogs

Check out some of the famous personal blogs of Techies, Investment Bankers, Celebrities or Political Leaders etc and you will get to see the way they have built an online reputation by communicating with audience through their personal blogs. By establishing their persona blogs, they are able to talk and convey their ideas, their opinions and plans to the audience easily. They are also able to elicit response and opinions from the expert community which is equally talented and is able to provide valuable feedback. Such response and being able to read the pulse of the audience, would be of immense value to a political leader or a business entrepreneur.

Personal bloggers make it a point to share some information about themselves, their families, their attitude, lifestyle, likes and dislikes as well as the causes that are close to one’s heart etc. Such disclosure helps connect with the audience and gives a picture of the blogger as an individual. This helps connect with likeminded people and sends out a message of transparency as well as honesty, thus contributing to building a public reputation in the long run.

Corporate Blogs

All of the Corporate Companies in the world today have engaged themselves in building and interacting with customers across the globe through their Corporate Blogs. Each of the blogs are created and revolve around the vision and goal that the program is built to support. The goals and vision is again centered on the type of business and the corporate goals too.

In the technology field, you can find the best blog sites maintained by Corporates like IBM, Dell, SAP, Oracle etc. The subjects that are discussed vary from discussions on product, installations, service, applications, problem solving to new developments and several technology related issues, besides customer service etc.

In the service sector, one of the best known blogs belong to South West airlines which is used by the airlines to listen and learn from the actual experiences of the travelers, to communicate, clarify and to announce new service features, promotions, additions and customer care programs as well as to connect with its employees and more importantly to build loyalty amongst the customers.

Starbucks is another favorite site of bloggers who not only love the Coffee Experience but find it engaging to contribute to ‘My Starbuck Idea’. Starbuck has successfully engaged the customer community across the globe to have a say in the way it spearheads its business in the future. This is one way of building successful and sure shot future.

Other Types of Blogs

Besides the Personal and Corporate Blogs, one other types of blogs that you would want to check out would be the blogs that are built around a particular topic or genre which attracts contributions from the best amongst the community. Political blogs, travel blogs, blogs floated by Scientist community, Educationists and other such specialist blogs. TED Blog is an ideal example of a blog of think tank community where in the best of thinkers put forward their thoughts and the discussions build around the progressive ideas.

What are Micro Blogs ? - All about Micro Blogs

You must have heard it from one and all that no Company has a choice when it comes to being present and marketing through Social Media Channels. Understanding of the various media channels, their capabilities, the kind of audience and community that participates in a particular platform helps in designing or choosing the right mix of media platforms and channels for one’s marketing strategy using Social Media Channels.

Social Networks, Social Interaction and Social Content are some of the broad categories of Social Media Channels. In the Social Content category are covered the various types of blogs, audio and video sharing, micro blogs as well as podcasts etc.

Blogs are an effective medium for marketers to use as a platform or a sounding board to talk about themselves, their Company, their philosophy and values in addition to their ideas, their product and services etc. By listening to and sharing interaction with the audience, they can gather informative ideas and suggestions that help future product development as well as build an online reputation and brand loyalty.

What Are Micro Blogs

Micro blogging refers to a type of blogging that uses very quick, small and short messages either in audio, text or video forms. As the name implies, the messages are very short and crisp and usually refer to an present event, a comment about an event and broadcasting of a news clip etc. Though instant text messaging is the most popular form of micro blogging, video clips are also fast becoming popular too.

Micro Blogs - Powerful Medium

Micro blogging has tremendous capacity and capability to relay news instantaneously. Unleashing this power can be of great value to marketers. The power of micro blogging is evident in the cases where news of any international political event or a catastrophe is relayed to the entire world in an instant, even before the same is picked up by the news or TV media or is officially announced.

Twitter, is perhaps the most famous micro blogging medium that has caught the fancy of people all across the world. Besides this there are several services such as Jaiku, Seesmic as well as Status updates in Facebook, My Space, Google+, Google Buzz etc. are the best examples of Micro blogging services.

Subscribing to micro blogging is very fast and easy. All you need to do is to register with a site like Twitter which shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. Then it takes a few minutes for you to search for your favorite micro blog sites and click follow. Check out your contact list and navigate through to build your contacts through sending invites to friends and interested audience. By posting your own tweets on any interesting topic, event, thought or information that is likely to be of interest to your audience, you can post tweets and those interested will begin to follow you and the link keeps building.

Audio & Video Podcasting

As the technology is evolving, the social media channels to have adapted to multi-media technology. The latest in the Micro blogging platform are the pod casts and video messages. It is no doubt that audio and video contents especially a video can deliver a message more effectively than a simple text message.

Podcasts are nothing but the channel of delivering audio message to the interested community/audience. What makes podcasts different is that the delivery mode of the podcasts. Podcasts consist of recorded audio files that are delivered to the subscribers device. The subscriber then has the freedom to choose the time and place when he would wish to listen to the broadcast. The point to be noted here is that the choice of engagement lies with the audience and not the originator of the message or the marketer.

Providing information to the audience, customers or subscribers using a video clipping or short film is also possible through micro blogging. A picture can say a thousand things more effectively than a text message and it is able to capture the attention of the audience instantly. This medium when used effectively can be most powerful in spreading awareness, brand building and building loyalty of the customers as well as in helping the prospective customers make up their mind to go for your product. The power of the visual medium can be seen when instant videos of customers talking about their live experiences about an airline, hotel or any product is circulated amongst the members of the community. Such video clips show the actual reality and are effect the community a lot more than text messages and thus engage them instantly.

Going through YouTube as well as other videos of commercial business organizations like Home Depot or Charity etc provide valuable clue and understanding of how to use micro blogs effectively.

Micro blogs, especially the podcasts and videos are being used by Social sector, NGOs as well as health and education sector etc very effectively for, the medium lends itself to a global delivery at negligible costs.

At the end, it is helpful for the marketers to remember that these Social Media channels hold great influencing power as well as contributory power of millions, not to forget their global impact and reach.

Social Media and Quantitative Tools

Social Media Marketing has rewritten the marketing methods and theories like never before. Technology has enabled online marketing. When we refer to selling online we mean E-Commerce but when we refer to using Social Media Channels for marketing purposes we are essentially referring to advertising and marketing to customers through the different platforms.

Availability of multiple platforms, multi media options as well as various marketing tools makes Social Media Channels highly interactive with the customers.

Use of quantitative tools like Ratings, Reviews and Recommendations as well as other scoring methods like voting etc are highly beneficial in engaging the customers as well as getting to know what they think about you and your products and such feedback can be highly valuable to any marketer.

Recommendations

If you look at the way that we all behave while deciding to buy any product, you will see that invariably we wish to check with friends and family, especially with someone who has the knowledge of the product or has used the product to see what he or she thinks. In marketing language we call them the influencers. If someone you trust or someone who is an authority on the subject happens to recommend you a particular product, you are likely to go ahead and make that choice in favor of the recommended product.

In the case of Social Media Channels too, innovative options of Rating, Voting, writing Reviews and Recommendations are in vogue. Check out the various websites and channels and see the various kinds of options that are available for recommending a product. Popular methods used are very simple systems like clicking on Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down or using options like ‘Digg’ etc. Then there are the Net Promoter Scores too that are employed to show the degree of recommendation.

Recommendations from an already customer or an authority carries a lot of weight. From another view point, the number of recommendations can mean a higher rating too. When people start recommending your product and are ready to make their opinion known, you are building a community of people who are willing to pledge their loyalty to you.

Offering Recommendation option can send out the right message to the customers and those who are watching you online. Allowing the community to speak about you shows well on your part and adds weight age to your online presence as well as reputation. Just like how the referral system works in case of pharmaceuticals and other products, recommendations too add weight age to your product in the particular category.

Now days all product catalogues and online selling sites provide recommendation options as a standard tool while many other sites offer voting options. Voting can be used in lieu of rating or recommending a particular product and one can also use description based voting too. Recommendations can also be qualifying in the form of - Recommend, Highly Recommend and so on.

Those who are learning about Social Media Channels and marketing will also do well to know that there are several agencies and professional content providers who are available for writing reviews and recommendations etc on commercial basis. Using such methods to augment the ratings and reviews will not pay in the long run for the user community is smart enough to realize the same in no time. The paid for content can easily be detected by an experienced blogger or surfer. Such gimmicks will bring down the online reputation of the product and the promoter over a period of time. Social Media Channels are very conscious of the social mannerisms, online behavior as well as ethical and moral standards that are upheld on the variou

Use of Quantitative Tools in Social Media Channels

E Commerce, online brand building and marketing using Social Media Channels is one of the most modern developments in Sales and Marketing fields. In fact no business can afford to ignore or be absent from this medium. As long as your audience and customers are present and discussing about their experiences about your product or your competitor’s products and services, you will need to be present there.

Social Media consists of various platforms that are grouped loosely under Social Networks, Social Content and Social Interactions. In this section of the article we will be exploring the employability of some of the quantitative tools such as Ratings, Reviews and Recommendations in Social Media Marketing, with an aim to understand the utility of these tools from a marketing perspective.

Quantitative Tools are Helpful to Marketers

A look at Social Media channels gives us a feeling that the same applies to and consists of individuals who contribute their experiences, opinions and such contributions leads to building a content that is based on consensus. While this is largely true, the same can also be viewed from a entirely different perspective of that of a marketer and to use the same channels and discussions to build a relationship with the customers, to build brand awareness and loyalty and finally to influence the prospective customer to buy your product or service.

If you think that the Social Networks and other media are all related to personal discussions and subjects, you may be right. But go through all of the content that is generated in the various channels. You will see a lot of discussions taking place about politics, news, economy as well as about health, travel and more importantly about the personal and recent experiences of the people. Such discussions about one’s experience and the other’s discussions, comments etc will always include their experience of a product or a service that they recently engaged with. Chances are that the products could be yours or your competitors. Alternatively you might want to explore the platforms to see where the community is talking about the products that you are interested in and dealing with and target that particular community to build your program further.

Application of Quantitative tools such as Ratings, Recommendations and other such tools as a part of your online marketing efforts are useful to you as the marketer as well as to the audience. As a marketer you get a chance to listen to what your customers are saying about your product and your competitor’s products as well. You can use the insight gained to improve your product further and also enhance the experience for the customers. Precise information gathered from the qualitative tools can tell you a lot about what your customer likes, what he doesn’t like and what he finds useful etc. Imagine what this feedback can do to improve your product and your business.

Customers Benefit from Online Quantitative Tools

The online ratings tools help advertise your product effortlessly to the new audience and prospective customers as well. When a customer is in the process of building awareness and gathering information to make a decision to purchase, he is likely to bank heavily upon the ratings and recommendations of other users. Traditionally word of mouth publicity has always been an effective medium. So also in case of Social Media, the recommendations and ratings are effective in helping the prospective customer sway his decision to buy your product.

Though the quantitative tools appear very effective and useful, caution has to be exercised in managing and controlling the same, for without effective controls in place you might end up inviting unwarranted feedback/advice that might be harmful for your reputation.

To understand the effectiveness and modalities of the application of quantitative tools, take some time to study various sites that offer ratings, reviews and recommendations and make a list of your observations as to how they are useful to the audience, to you as the marketer as well as how to introduce, monitor and control the entire online process.

Usage of Quantitative Tools in Social Content

Social Media as a platform for marketing provides for continuous innovation, thanks to the evolving technology. No other medium gives you the kind of direct and interactive opportunity as do the Social Media Channels. Though the medium is seen to be belonging largely to the audience who discuss, participate and contribute to creating content, online marketing using the same platform has gone places. Today no brand worth its name can afford to ignore or absent itself from the platform where its customers are present and are discussing about their preferences, likes, dislikes and experiences etc.

As in the case of traditional media, Social Media too developed the concepts of online advertisements which continues to exist and grow in the form of pop ups, banners and other multi-media clippings. Online advertising works out to be very cheap and at the same time has the capability to reach out to larger audience. In the second phase developers introduced embedded marketing applications that engage the customer directly and let him tell what he thinks of your product. Use of quantitative tools such as Ratings, Recommendations and Reviews have become highly effective means of giving the voice to customer’s opinions, preferences and feedbacks.

It helps to understand briefly how these Quantitative tools work in the context of both the customers as well as the marketers.

Ratings

Check out any information about any product or service on the Social Networks and you will see the ratings that appear below the same. Books, photos, Hotels and movies etc are some of the most popular categories which are rated by the audience.

Providing a mechanism and asking the audience to rate the particular offer, product or service is one of the most popular ways of measuring what the customers think of the same. It reflects the overall opinion of the audience with respect of their expectation of the product or service and with respect to what or how the product/service is expected to perform.

A highly rated movie tends to build into a buzz and the publicity around the same tends to spread faster and wider within a short period of time. Many people who wish to watch a movie over the weekend are likely to look for the ratings and choose the movie accordingly. If you check out the movie ratings system, you will normally see five stars being used for rating the movie from excellent to good, three stars for an average move, and so on. It is quite likely that you will not bother to check out the movies that have below two star ranking.

Ratings can be a good barometer of how well the product is accepted and liked by your customers and it also measures the fulfillment of Customer Expectations. On the marketing front, the ratings speak for your product and it is there for all others to see. Just like word of mouth publicity, the ratings too help in bringing you publicity which is good or bad depending upon your product performance. This is not all, rankings help you to gauge the customer’s moods and expectations better. You get to listen and watch your customers talking about your product as well as your competitor’s product as well and such information about your competition can give you very many insights into your business.

It is quite likely that many marketers would shy away from getting anywhere near using such ratings and other tools. This can only mean that they are missing out on opportunities of getting valuable feedback as well as publicity. As long as the aim is to receive and act on the feedback and to work on making your product offering better, there is no need for any hesitation in using such feedback mechanisms.