Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

I use blogging as a PR tool and I am a purveyor of blogs so can be considered a consumer as well. I don't think that there are many blog authors out there who aren't blog consumers themselves. I think the reason for this is that blogging is such a social exercise, you can't be one without being the other.

Blogging is probably one of the few methods of PR that focuses somewhat on honesty. With social media, gaining a faithful readership be it business based or just a hobby has to be focused on writing regularly and interestingly. Getting someone to read your blog regularly can't be faked (or not for long) because blogs are generally less formal writings and consequently more sincere. Also, blogging is probably the one area of business where the size of the organisation doesn't matter. In fact, being a smaller more focused business would probably be more successful than a big corporation.

Hello Victoria, welcome to the forum. About your inquiry to assign points, do it when you decide to close the question, else you will kill the incentive for members.

About blogging and compannies, if you have the time I advice you to get the book Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message: from Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.

This book was discussed in the book club organized here at Mprofs, leaded by the book, among the discussions you can find what some companies are currently doing to participate in social media, the opportunities and threats they have faced and lessons of sucess/failure in the blogsphere.

Go to
https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_searchResults.asp and select Book Club in category then take a look at the questions marked for Citizen Marketers, there is a lot for you.

Best Luck.

I believe a blog is a GREAT PR tool. A committment must be made to provide an informative answer to any question a reader poses to the company. Make the promise that the person responsible for the area featured in the question will respond to the satisfaction of the reader. If satisfaction is not provided, the president themselves will respond.

Company brand values can be exhibited through how the firm approaches their blog tool. Public relations is exactly that, and social media like blogs are fantastic channels of communication if they are taken seriously. They can also damage the brand if no replies accompany comments and no current posts are updated weekly.

On a personal note, I take blogging very seriously and I can tell you the exposure I've received after only 4 months has been fantastic. This includes press coverage on posts, requests for interviews and requests from other blogs to write for them and I've even gotten leads for projects from over-seas companies. Blogging is very powerful - more so than a website in many ways.

Hi victoriarich 102,

Blogging as you can see has many advantages. The answer to your question is yes Blogging can be used as an effective PR tool. But you have to first know how to incorporate the advantages of what you're writing so that like a spiders web you're capturing and retaining information from those who come to visit. You have to leverage greater benefits out of it from your customer base to your employees if you have a company Blog. There are many other ways that I use it that while I wish I could openly share this information online it really is proprietary information that took me reading hundreds of web based newsletters, listening to so many teleseminars I've since given up trying to keep track and great deal of digging and sifting through thousands of internet documents to ascertain. While we are in an information society knowing where to find the information is just as important as the information itself. But sure you can use a blogging as a very powerful tool and weapon to generate and amass a huge viewing audience for the positive benefit of your organization. I've used it a lot with multiple other tools to gain me hundreds of thousands of viewers who have brought me radio, newspaper and TV opportunities besides great business contacts. REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. I'm only an email away from you if you need my help Steve. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

*Caring Promotes Exuberance

Blogging is an effective PR Tool..See how many Microsoft bloggers there are out there...Thousands...I know that Nokia is also engaging some bloggers with their marketing campaign soon in Asia too

I will speak from experience. Without our knowledge one of our company's products was talked about on a very successful blog site. We had 18 calls to receive free samples because they had heard about it on the site. These are folks that wouldn't have necessarily seen us in a trade magazine and didn't know that we even existed. Two have already called back in and made significant purchases. Out of 32 posts, we received this response! WOW!!!

Try it out!

Good Luck,
Promo Chic