Blogging is the way to go!

Never really had the time to blog because work is busy. But it seems ironical now that its work that got me started blogging. I am tasked to do some research on how blogs and podcast can be a novelty tool in marketing the exhibitions and conferences we organise. I did a lot of readings on the internet to find out how this medium can be effective in reaching out to our target audience. I thought it would be an interesting way to submit my findings on the blog to my Director, as this would be an excellent way of letting her experience the mechanics of a web log (portmanteau – blog).  

I’ve chosen to sign up an account with WordPress because this is the blog software that is highly recommended by the blogging experts; easy to use and highly customisable, good for corporate blogs. Phila please read my findings below J Blogs and podcast are considered as social media. Social media are describe as the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. 

Definition:
Blogs are arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.   Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on photographs, videos, music (MP3), or audio (podcasting). {definition on Wikipedia}
 
Features: 
- A subscription service can be placed on the blog so visitors can subscribe to receive notification when your blog has been updated (this subscription service is known as RSS – Really Simple Syndication). This feature is important to pick up regular readers. 

- Most blogs on the side will have the most recent post, posts can be arranged by categories and archives by months (all these will translate to easy navigation for visitors) - Under each post, there will be links that will allow visitors to post comments  

- Backlinks enable you to keep track of other pages on the web that link to your posts. For instance, supposeAlice writes a blog entry that Bob finds interesting. Bob then goes to his own blog and writes a post of his own about it, linking back to Alice’s original post. Now Alice’s post will automatically show that Bob has linked to it, and it will provide a short snippet of his text and a link to his post. What it all works out to is a way of expanding the comment feature such that related discussions on other sites can be included along with the regular comments on a post.   - Allows you to customise design of the blog page, by choosing from pre-design templates. Customise the side bars menus by linking to other related website, blog links etc.  - Intergrated stats system which gives you up-to-the-minute stats on how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, which posts are most popular, and which search engine terms are sending people to your blog. (Note: only available in some blog softwares) 

- You can have group blogs with multiple authors who are allowed to post or contribute.  

Advantages:
- Allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog  - Blogs are a way to connect with target market on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships on a regular basisBecause blogs are updated frequently, they allow ‘your voice’ to come through more easily than a static website. They also allow target market to dialogue with you, which helps build a stronger connection with them as well as providing you with the opportunity to hear what they are looking for in terms of services. - Blogging can be an effective method for gaining credibility, building your reputation, attracting more clients, and acquiring more exposure

- A blog can be a great compliment to a traditional website because it helps to increase website ranking in the search engines

- regularly updates of new contents on the blog means the search engine robots will visit often thus, your rank in the search engine.

 -  If you put links to your website in your blog, then when the search engine robots read that link in your blog, they will VISIT your website too. The opposite is also true – when the robots visit your website and find a link back to your blog, they will visit your blog.

- Ultimately increasing the possibility of potential prospect visiting your website and blog when they do a search for related services we provide  Pitfalls of a Corporate Blog:
- Contents of the blogs has to be interesting, informative, pertinent to the industry etc. It should be positioned from the reader’s point of view and not as an “online brochure,” with every post focusing on one of the company’s offerings. This would mean zero interaction with its readers and no reason for the readers to interact with the bloggers.  

- Not updating often enough. The more often you update, the more popular your blog will be. Many blog readers like to read their favorite blogs on a daily basis. If you do not blog regularly, you run the risk of losing readers.  

Statistic on use of blogs by Inc. 500 companies, an elite group of the fastest-growing companies within the United States. For detailed report click http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studies/cmrblogstudy2.pdf

Examples of how Microsoft and IBM’s blogs look like.- Microsoft Blog – http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/PortalHome.mspx- IBM blog – http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/  
Blogs are written by employees, key technical personnels and user experience professionals to provide clients with insights and opinions about using Microsoft/IBM technologies and software.  

What is the difference between a blog and a forum?
A blog is owned by just one person, or a small group of people. The blog owner chooses the topics of entries on the blog, and controls who can read and comment on these entries. Although people can comment on entries, this is not the main focus of the blog, and it is possible for the blog owner to create private entries which cannot be viewed by anyone else. Because the blog owner has complete control over what appears on their blog, the blog can form a personalised reflection of the work, interests and ideas of one individual.  

Forums are not controlled by one person – instead, any member of the forum can start a topic for discussion. Forums rely on responses from the community to initial posts in order to form a discussion, reflecting the interests of the group rather than of an individual.  Suggestions on how to implement blogging to market our events
- Create an account where multiple authors are allowed to contribute to the blog. Get a couple of TTG editors/speakers/industry colleagues to write a short article daily (can be on a rotating basis if it’s too much work)

- Or post some of the more interesting TTGTravelHub.Net Daily News on the blog to encourage comments from visitors. - Entice visitors to visit or add comments to the post by letting them win prizes etc. This is to encourage them to visit our blog and drive traffic to our website. In summary, I feel that corporate blogging is just an additional feature to the corporate website. In the hope to have a more personal connection with our target audience and to establish a long-term relationship which will translate to increase revenue. 

Findings on Podcasting will be published on my blog soon. Do subscribe to RSS for updates of my blog.