How Is Blogging Helping?

No, really... What is blogging doing to help marketing? Customer communications? Innovative ideas? How is it helping tell the story?

What types of marketing advances are being accomplished? How are we helping ourselves?

THE POSITIVES

INFORMATION SHARING
Blogs have offer marketers a way to exchange thoughts to a broader group of folks than normally could be reached. We've formed little town centers... gathering spots... each with their own set of topics.

ONLINE NEWSLETTERS
We've created online newsletters where editors can share their perspective on a topic, link to those who are like-minded, and challenge those who disagree.

BROADER PEER BASE
We're able to meet and discuss topics with folks from around the globe. Normally you would only be able to reach folks at your own company... or professionals you'd meet at a conference... or at professional organization meetings. Blogging is a nice way to network.

These ways of connecting are great. They allowed us to broaden our peripheral vision...

But...

THE QUESTIONS

TALKING TO OURSELVES
We've formed small communities, but we're still talking to ourselves... I feel like we've formed on-line clicks... A new version of chat rooms. Other than sharing stories in our own group... What are we doing to share our perspective outside of our group? (If you're not in the chat room, you'll miss the conversation).

ARE WE MAKING A DIFFERENCE?
But HOW is blogging helping us? Our profession? Most effective groups have found ways to organize themselves... form some rules... create process... ensure different folks have different roles... drive a common vision among the group. Should we be better organized either as individuals or as a whole?

I'm not suggesting that we have to unite and lose our individuality... But what are we currently accomplishing? We seem like armchair quarterbacks... back-seat drivers... We view the world from behind out keyboards and make observations and ponder to one another...

What can we do to make ourselves more productive? How can we best use this new tool?

Comments

[Dustin]

Blogging encourages critical thinking. It makes us take our foggy concepts and boil them down into something that can be communicated through pixels on a screen. I wonder how many new authors and gurus will be discovered because of the developmental tool of blogging.

I find the blogosphere to be an incredible educational resource. I've learned more about marketing by reading blogs than I did in four years of college. So, that gives me a thought. What if there were an aggregate of blogs divided into "degree plans?" Each blog could represent a course. The capstone classes could involve creating, developing, and promoting one's own blog. It could be considered earning not an MBA, but an MBE (Masters in Blogging Education).

[Jayme Maultasch]

I don't think we are talking to ourselves but rather to a self-selected group of interested parties. I work in advertising and I am a regular reader of this blog and many other PR/Marketing/Advertising blogs. I'm not concerned that people that don't work in these industries or have an interest in the category aren't reading these blogs. I read these blogs for the same reason I diligently review Ad Age and Adweek.

I love the idea of an MBE from the post above but structuring the MBE seems anathema to the blogosphere.

[Steven]

The benefits of blogging for marketing are the same as the problems of blogging in general. Blogging does not encourage critical thinking, it encourages writing whatever you think without regard to whether it is true or whether you are in touch with reality. At the same time, readers of blogs tend to believe whatever is published in their favorite blogs and propogate the misinformation in their own blogs.

So while you are able to get information out about your products and services using a method that people are willing to trust, competitors, unhappy customers and even disgruntled employees can make false and misleading statements that will be believed as well.

Even the comments posted on this article imply that blogs are so trustworthy that they can be a source of a "degree" in marketing. The power of blogs is out there for good or bad.

[Dustin]

I disagree.

Apparently blogging does encourage critical thinking and not everyone believes what bloggers write. If you don't believe me, read your own comment. Blogging creates an environment in which you can test, criticize, adjust, and partially validate concepts.

Misleading information may be propigated throughout the blogosphere, which is all the more reason to be active in the arena so you can counter lies with the truth. This is more easily done through blogs than it is through traditional media. (How many of us can have our own TV/Radio station to counter mistruths in the media?)

Do you believe that college institutions are the only bastions of credible education? Especially in marketing you will find outdated models, superfluous academia, and very basic conventional wisdom. Maybe not a bad place for someone to experiment with the idea of launching a career in marketing, but definitely not the place to perfect that career.

[Tom Asacker]

Great questions Paul. I believe that your instincts are right on. So test them. Create a small, online survey and find out who's reading these marketing blogs and why. My guess is that it's independent professionals boning up their intellectual capital, and not executive managment looking for insights to implement. And as far as developing an advertising model and selling eyeballs to advertisers, just ask Fast Company how that's working out.

[Aleah]

Good overview of the malaise some of us are experiencing with blogs. Isn't that always the case with anything that's overexposed. Great for awhile, then we start questioning its worth.

I use the blog to facilitate projects and raise our profile in the community. I feel we have been successful in this. I don't use it to sell, make friends, or replace action. It's funny that you should mention armchair philosopher. Yeah, it is like going to the salons or cafes and sitting around with peers, talking about the problems of the world.

Thing is, you are either the kind of person who acts or the kind of person who talks about acting. If you are one who takes action, the blog, like conversation with peers, can only help make those actions more successful, more thoughtful. That's the goal.

[johnmoore (from brandautopsy)]

This is an interesting thread. Blogging is not the end game by any means. It’s one more step on the marketing evolution chart inching us closer to having open, genuine, and meaningful conversations with customers.

While we hear about the increasing reach/adoption of blogs/blogging, we still have a LONG way to go before we drive old school, top-down marketing practices onto the endangered communications list.

Then again, blogging is just a tactic and not a strategy. Having more open, genuine, and meaningful conversations is the strategy behind blogs. A more effective tactic will no-doubt replace blogging as a better way for more business and people to get real and be more open.

[Chuck Nyren]

I've been thinking about your question...and realized I've done too much thinking about it.

The simple answer is this: I slog through a handful of advertising/marketing blogs every day or so - this one, adrants, ageless marketing, a few others -- and I hit a few new ones when I come across links that entice me. And each time I make this ethereal trek I pick up one or two very valuable pieces of information.

That about covers it. What more is there to say?

[Toby]

Great thread. Every once in awhile we do make a difference. You post an idea. I take the heart of that and spin it into something that makes sense for my brand. Got a trackback tonight that someone did exactly that. It was very exciting so see something tangible that occured from an 1 idea from 1 post. I'm betting this occurs more frequently than we realize.

Dustin - you might be interested in this class that Alex Brown is teaching at Penn. Students are required to maintain a blog about one of the BA's fav marketer's 4 Ps. Very innovative. Check it out - http://mktg411-011-s1.blogspot.com/

[gabe chouinard]

I think the primary purpose of maintaining a blog (as opposed to the reader-side) is to build a personal network to provide those things we all need: criticism on our wilder thoughts, and a rah-rah section whenever we need one. I look at blogging as a kind of writer's critique group - you take away what you want, and discard the rest.

Has anyone actually changed an opinion by reading a blog?

I think you're right, Paul, when you say that one problem is the "talking to ourselves". Until I can see blogging actually affecting companies, I'm going to be skeptical. I mean, how many people read Tim Sander's LOVE IS THE KILLER APP? And how many people are now lovecats?

Influence doesn't count until it makes its way to the boss, you know?

[[no author]]

"There is no executive or overseer. There are only relatively simple units, each doing its own relatively simple job. A unit's job is simply to receive input from its neighbors and, as a function of the inputs it receives, to compute an output value which it sends to its neighbors...
...It is this pattern of connectivity that constitutes what the system knows and determines how it will respond to any arbitrary input."

David E. Rummelhart, "The Architecture of Mind: A Connectionist Approach" in Foundations of Cognitive Science, Michael I. Posner, ed.

I happened to be reading this (Geek!)just before I came across this post.

Rummelhart's call for a more "brain-like" concept of cognitive architecture kind of mirrors my ideas about the blogospere. As smart as it's connections. Often smarter than it's individual units.

Key to the idea: Emphasis is placed on the weight assigned to connections and how that weight is modified by experience.

The implication is that better, more valuable learning networks(read blogs)come with experience and are not necessarily determined by the strength of individual units.