Can Blogs by Useful for Event
Marketers?
by Rick Hendershot
originally published in
Trade Show Tips
Blogs (web-logs) have become very popular. If you are not up to speed
on what "blogs" are, just think of them as online journals. The owner
of the blog makes regular posts on whatever topics he/she chooses, and
readers are free (or not) to make comments.
If you think blogging is symptomatic of a youth culture enamoured of
brainless activites like "reality" TV shows, text messaging and
endless cell phone chatting, you are only partially right.
Like your typical teeanage cell phone
conversation ("Hi. Where are you now? I'm at the mall. We're gonna
hang out for a while. Got to go...") blog content can be nothing more
than navel gazing:
"Well, I'm back after a couple of days. Don't really have much to say,
because not much has happened. Think I'll go for a drive to the mall
and wander around for a while. Need some underwear and might pick up a
pizza. G2G..."
It is probably true that the <i>immediacy</i> and <i>regularity</i> of
blogging lends itself to this kind of empty content...
Ooops. Time to make my blog entry. What's that? Can't think of
anything to say? Well then, I guess I'll just talk about that... OK...
"Here I am again. It's time to make another entry in my blog, but I
can't think of anything to say. I hate that. Life can be so boring.
Don't you agree? Well, G2G..."
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But as with all attempts to communicate opinions, ideas, or to be
creative in new and exciting ways, the medium is only as creative and
as interesting as the people using it. Bloggers (like all the rest of
us) don't say much in their blogs because they simply don't have much
to say. So it is important to get past the superficiality of much
blogging and ask whether the medium might be useful for more
significant(?) activities like marketing.
Good things about blogs
On the whole I think blogs have a lot
going for them. They have a sense of immediacy and a more
conversational tone than regular websites. And their structure is
simpler and more straightforward than your typical online forum or
newsgroup.
Blogs generally have a single theme and so "what you see is what you
get". This makes them much more "interactive" than most other web
communication media, because it doesn't (normally) take a week's worth
of visits to figure out what is going on. Certainly blogs are
more interactive than traditional websites. And they make email-based
ezines seem downright old fashioned.
But does this make them useful for marketing purposes, and are blogs
likely to replace traditional websites and ezines as the go-to formats
for online marketing?
No and Yes.
There are things we can do with ordinary static websites that are not
suited to blogs. Catalogue or reference material, for instance, must
continue to contain reliable, stable and therefore relatively static
detail. The same goes for much product description material, legal
mumbo-jumbo, and technical information.
But blogging is ideally suited to ongoing communication with clients,
customers and prospects. And this is why it is particularly important
for marketers.
For instance, a client of mine who is a
real estate agent
wants to make new listing updates available to subscribers. A blog is
a perfect place to do this. He can post his regular listings on a
daily basis, and mix in other news and promotions along the way.
Regular email messages can be sent out to his subscriber base
reminding them to "check today's new listings in my blog". He can even
turn it into an "RRS Feed" and syndicate his blog information so other
webmasters can post it.
Promoting Events with an Event Blog
Could blogging be useful tool for event
promoters? I think so. Compared to a static event website that just
sits there as a resource for people interested in your event, an
interactive blog is never "finished". It is an on-going "work in
progress" where you can add unfolding news, changes in plans,
adjustments to schedules, "how it's going" updates.
This is the whole point of a blog — to use it as a journal where you
enter regular progress reports, comment on developing news, and share
opinions on things that will be taking place at the actual event.
It is not hard to see how this can keep people more interested than
they might be in your static (unchanging) website. The regular updates
provide much more incentive for them to return and have a fresh look
at your blog.
And of course you can have interaction with blog visitors. This is
definitely one of the attractions of blogs. People come back and check
them out for useful information shared by contributors and visitors.
In the case of your event blog, most of your visitors will be
customers and prospects. Keeping in touch with them and sharing
information about your products and services is one of the most
important advantages of blogging.
In the next couple of articles in this series I will report on my own
experiences with a couple of blogs I have started. I'll also talk
about some of the blogs I've visited, and give some suggestions on how
to get your own blog going.
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Rick Hendershot is the publisher of www.click-partners.com, and publishes numerous websites including www.small-business-online.com, www.click-partners.com, www.real-estate-radio.com, and www.america-banners.com.
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