Open Publishing - Blogging for Business

Contents 1 Introduction 2 History 3 Examples 4 See Also 5 References 6 Contributor

Introduction

Briefly, blog is a web-based diary or journal which is written in a personal tone. It allows bloggers to provide links to other websites and enables readers to leave a comment on each entry. Blog is a cost-effective tool which can enhance two-way communication between bloggers and readers. When a company adds blog into its marketing program, it not only provides information to its customer but also receive feedbacks. In this way, the traditional official monologue becomes a dialogue.

A survey of blog trends which has been done by America Online (cited in Dulles 2005) shows that 44% of respondents say they read others’ blogs in order to obtain a new or fresh perspective on the news. It indicates that blog is now a significant information source for people. The following are the reasons that companies should blog (Moskowitz 2005):

• To put a human face on the company: Consumer today is tired of the polished advertising message. Small, personal and quick-response communication channel like blog can gain their trust.

• To obtain free market research: The reaction and feedback from consumer can be valuable information of marketing strategy and product development.

• to offer a "Buy In" that increases customer satisfaction: People are bought in the cmopany’s world once they comment on the firm’s blog. They are more likely to be satisfied with its product and service.

• to leverage opinion leaders' influence: Marketer can design the blog to target opinion leaders, key customer, and industry expert. And then use these people’s influences to reach more consumers.

• to gain on the Big Dogs: Blog not only helps to enhance the brand recognition, but only increase the traffic of official websites.
  

History

According to Blood (2002), Mosaic’s New Page which appeared in 1993 might be the progenitor of the blog formant. The term weblog was created by Jorn Barger in December 1997. After that, Peter Merholz said that he was going to pronounce it as “wee- blog�? in his blog, and then the word blog has become an alternate term of weblog.

Many journalists believe that blog will develop rapidly in numbers and importance in the nearly future because it is so easy. As Tim Bray (cited in Cone 2005), a technology director, says “people flock to things that are easy to use and deliver quick result�?. Indeed, Google (cited in Swinburn 2005) pointed out that blog is the fastest growing medium in the world. There are currently 11.5 millions blogs on the Internet, and the number is added millions per month. Blog is now employed to many areas. People use blog to chronicle daily life, provide information, make political statements, promote products, give tutorial, keep in touch with families and friends etc. The wide applications of blog have changed people’s behaviour online, and some companies have started to take advantages of it.

Examples

AskDaveTaylor is a good illustration of blogging for business. Taylor sells his book online to make a profit. His book covers the domain of HTML, XHTML, and CSS etc, but he set up a blog to answer all the questions which are relevant to computer from his blog-readers. The purpose of it is to build his personal credibility and reputation online before selling the book. Once people trust his knowledge and skills, they are willing to buy his book or introduce it to others (Taylor 2005).

See Also

• Open Publishing - Online Journalism
  
• Open Publishing - Open Content
  
• Open Publishing - Ethics
  
• Open Publishing - Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
  

References

Blood, R. 2002. The weblog handbook. Boston: Perseus Publishing.

Moskowitz, R. 2005. Five reasons to blog. www.imediaconnection.com/content/5229.asp (accessed October 02, 2005).

Cone, E. 2005. Rise of blog. www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1397,1789118,00.asp (accessed August 11, 2005)

Swinburn, A. 2005. Enter the blogosphere. www.bandt.com.au (accessed October 02, 2005).

Dulles ,V 2005. AOL Survey Says: People Blog as Therapy. home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050916005103&newsLang=en (accessed September 18, 2005).

Taylor, D. 2005. Blogging for business. Boulder County Business, 24 (1): 1-2. (accessed August 10, 2005, from ProQuest: Business (general) database).

Contributor

--Chih-Yen Li 23:11, 9 Oct 2005 (EST)