Few weeks back, I blogged about “No Comment Policy: A Viral Strategy?“Through the post I was trying to understand if banning comments on a blog could be used as a viral strategy by small and medium enterprises. Or is it the forte of only thought leaders like Seth Godin?
Well! Seth commented on the post stating that it won’t work. That would have settled the dust on the issue if I would have not stumbled upon this new blog . I was just surfing through the net and got its reference from latest post on Toprankblog.
This blog also follows no comments policy. Now the question arises
Is it done to manage the traffic and make life easier?
or
Is it done purposely for viral effects?
And if the answer is yes, then can it be used by SMEs?
One of the things which Management teaches is to do proper planning for any activity. It is often said
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
So today charging up my management cells (if they exist 
), I thought to myself about how to plan for blog marketing for a company, does there exist any “What to do list for blog marketing?”
I came up with the following list. I am sure that this list is not complete and there is lot which can be added to it.
1) The Objective: Before any marketing campaign, it is important to understand the objective behind it. Its knowledge would also help to determine the success criteria for the campaign. Same goes for blog marketing. One must gauge what is the objective behind blog marketing. Is it lead generation, Is it for brand building or is it a platform to share information with the customers (both internal and external). Since the success criterions for each of these objectives are different, the clear understanding of the objective would go a long way in making the campaign a success.
2) Internet Usage Pattern of Target Customers: Tons of literature has been written about customer centric marketing, about understanding customers’ behaviour before designing any product. So naturally this had to feature in the list. J On a serious note, for blog marketing to become a success, it is imperative that internet usage pattern of target customers is studied. This would include:
i. Studying what the target audience is looking for. What is the kind of information they search for, what are the web sites do they visit, what sort of social media do they visit.
ii. What kind of language is being used on those web sites to engage the users.
Understanding of internet usage pattern would help in 2 ways:
i. Identify the keywords which target customers are using to search the information. Help from tools like wordtracker or hitTail could be used.
ii. The kind of language which would engage them.
3) Identify the identity: For a corporate blog, it becomes very important to find out the identity who would be writing the blog. Identification of identity for the blog would drive the attitude and hence the language. Clues could be taken from Brand identity prism by Kapferer which helps an organisation to identify the brand identity. I will cover the model in next post in great details.
4) Style Guide for the blog: After putting the pieces of objective, internet usage pattern and identity in the Jigsaw puzzle, it is the time for style guide of the blog. This would include the format, the design and the color combinations. By format I mean would it be like a simple diary like or magazine style or something else. Many would say magazine style or simple diary format is just an aesthetic issue and does not matter. I agree to an extent to that argument but the difference comes in at the perspective level. The thought process has to be clear before taking up any kind of format since that would be reflected in the blog as well. Design and color combinations have to go hand in hand with the objective and the identity. Here again Brand identity prism could be referred for help.
5) User Experience: You would say how could one plan something intangible and then put it into tangible form? Well I also used to think the same way till sometime ago but now I am learning how to put rich user experience into your web presence. There are many ways by which user experience could be increased. I will share one simple method of navigation. It has been found out in a research that users like to read vertical than horizontal and eye moves from left to right.
Now those are facts. But what do they signify?
Following are some of the implications:
i. It is preferred to have vertical navigation bar rather than the horizontal one. Vertical bar would make it easier for users to glance at the information.
ii. If pictures are to be included in the post, then it would be better if those are included in the upper left corner of the post as it would attract the user.
iii. Try to include the kind of words which the user is likely to use in his daily parlance. This would make him feel at ease while reading the post.
These are just the planning steps which should go (according to me ) into any blog marketing campaign. If will be more than happy if you have anything to add to this list to make it much more comprehensive.
It was a treat to read the conversation between 2 giants of internet industry in the form of an interview. Guy Kawasaki interviewed Darren Rowse of Problogger. Out of the several things which Darren mentioned, one of particular interest was use of “No comment policy” by Seth Godin as a potential viral marketing strategy. He goes on to mention that it may work for an established personality like Seth but may backfire for small bloggers.
This insight charged up my grey cells and forced me to think about how to use “No comment policy” for viral effects. Since the interview appeared on Sun’s Place for Small and Medium Businesses, I thought to myself, Is there any way by which small and medium enterprises involved in blogging for building brand can use this policy? Or is it only for thought leaders who define the contours of the industry?
I am not too sure about its usability for SMEs but would love to learn from you all.
What started off as a personal diary around a decade back, has evolved into a solid and cost effective medium of marketing. This is the beauty of leveraging technology for solutions. Its not only technology that evolves but the same technology can be reused in different ways for different needs.
Blog has done precisely that. And continues to do so. It can be a window to the outside world for an individual to pen down his or thoughts or for corporations and brands to reach out to their customers.
A lot has been done and talked about the ‘personal’ usage of the blogs. I would talk about the ‘next generation’ usages of the blog.
Blog is increasingly becoming a tool to interact with customers. And this is perhaps the only medium which allows you to have two way interaction, its not just a business talking to the consumer, the consumer too can get back to the business with his or her views and thoughts.Not many corporate houses do this as yet in India, but there is a lot of possibilities on blog for soliciting customer feedback and reviews.
Another use of blog is when the product builders and the think tank behind an innovation,idea or a service reach out to the users talking about the product,writing out unbiased reviews about it and giving out sneak preview of upcoming changes and upgradations. A wonderful example of this is 1000nerds, a blog where the geeks from the Kodak share their views,expertise and upcoming trends in the field of digital imaging and invite people to join them in the discussion. At the end of the day they are creating a brand buzz for themselves.
These were indeed quick bites, I would talk at length about these in upcoming posts.
Keep Blogging!
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