“Content” & Blogging: The Marketers Perspective.

I write this post because many people ask me about “Content Marketing” and how blogging would help their company. This is an introductory post and in this post, I’ve not mentioned any particular brand as an example.

 

 

 

What do we mean by “content”? Content refers to everything we see around. That you are reading this text on your screen or printed on a paper, is content. Similarly, all audio and visuals that we are surrounded by, is content, trying to communicate to us something; building or changing perceptions, adding value or wasting our time. This communication is used to brand a company or a person; the reach of which is quantifiable and ready to be analysed.

“Marketing” is a jargon which simple terms, mean – reaching out to more people. To reach out to more people, every company needs to communicate; and to communicate effectively, strategies are made; communication channels are created; money is invested; success parameters are set; analyzed.

Communication on behalf of a company is primarily required to make it reach more people creating a perception (branding exercise), boost sales, reputation handling. The communication channels are – print media (newspaper editorial and advertisements, hoardings, books, brochures etc), online media (Social Media, Blog posts), broadcasting media (TV advertisements and shows, radio channels).

Every brand consultant has their own strategies to make a brand work. There is nothing right or wrong about it if the numbers generated make the client happy; the numbers when translated to money makes my clients very happy. Per my limited knowledge, a branding strategy should ideally involve usage of all communication channels in a synchronized way.

Example 1: First the newspaper reports, then newspaper advertisements and social media promotions need to start. Hoardings are put up and then Influencers do the follow ups and the final conversion takes place.

Example 2: First Influencers are made to write for a substantial amount of time. Then newspaper editorials are written, advertisements are published. By the time the hoardings come out, the brand recall is created.

Influencers are people who have a considerable number of “followers” connected to them. Their work is to re-distribute content and convert the followers to customers for the company. Influencers cater to different target groups and need to be chosen wisely.

Bloggers have “readers” connected with their blogs and others following them on social media. They create content, which is archived on the internet space and could be re-distributed at a regular interval of time.

Influencers do not necessarily need to be bloggers, but bloggers are expected to be influencers. With the growth of social media and all the information overload that we have – the concept of blogging as a communication tool has been challenged many times.

 

 

If people use search engines primarily Google, bloggers are there to stay. Popular bloggers have their own followers; they are expected to give link backs to the client. Their articles are there to remain forever archived and are found when searched on different engines over the internet.

Every social media channel has its own USP. A business needs to understand which channel to use to get most ROI. Influencers and Bloggers, require to be a personal brand relevant for the business to be hired.

A social media campaign has its own life cycle. Advertisements on traditional media are expensive with less Return on Investment (ROI). But both has its own space and role in the landscape.

Why should I engage bloggers if I can reach people by Facebook/Twitter? 

Facebook or any Social Media platform does not offer you an archival value. It is generated and pushed down under a thousand other updates, not to be discovered later. Your brand comes to a person’s notice and then disappears. Whereas a bloggers’ post remains on the blog. If it is a popular blogger, it might appear on Google’s first page results when someone would search for it.

While you could boost your posts on Facebook, but not always does it establish the brand’s domain authority; especially when it is a startup. In such case, a relevant blogger comes as an endorsement.

There have been cases where Influencer Marketing failed. The archival value of a blog post has always contributed to a brand’s image, over a period of time. The link backs from popular bloggers might help your company website SEO.

 

 

When should I engage social media influencers? 

When you are doing an event and you need short term benefits and want to get the word across quickly. Even while doing so, check the kind of engagement the influencer has and the audience s/he caters to.

 

If you need long term benefits, hire the correct and relevant bloggers.

 

During an event should I do Live Blogging? 

Ideally yes. “Live social media updates” by relevant social media influencers might bring more crowd to your event instantenously and keep the rest of the world updated about what is going on. “Live Blogging” with the session details would provide to be an instant press release for the media to take a note of, in case it is required. It also serves as a documentation of the entire event for the next years.

 

What do you mean by “Popular Blogger”? 

A blogger whose blog posts are found with generic keywords and those who get good amount of traffic on their websites. Ideally something above 5000 unique visitors is just decent. You could check any bloggers’ approximate data by searching them over SimilarWeb.com.

 

That’s it from my end for now. Do ask me questions and it would be my pleasure to respond to it. Leave a comment and if you like what I wrote, please share it.  Thanks.