Yay Blogs!

You can find blogs on anything these days. The topics range from baseball to knitting and video games to...coupons, promotions, and contests! The truth is anyone and everyone can be apart of blogging culture. It is really easy to do and free to read a lot of the time. In a recent article I found by Donna DeClemente on Adotas.com, it seems that blogs are beginning to be used more for marketing purposes than just daily random thoughts.

"Interactive Promotions + Blogs = A Winning Combination" analyzes blogs as well as promotions as an opportunity for media growth. DeClemente explains that since there has been an increase in the users of social media, such as Facebook and MySpace, there has also been an increased desire to advertise on those sites. Even blogs are starting to enter the mix and want to be purchased by advertisers. However, advertisers do not seem to be jumping on the chance as fast as blog sites would like. Research suggests that by the large increase of blogs in the recent year, this soon will change. DeClemete reveals that blogs are popular because they allow millions to publish and post basically whatever they want online. It is then available for many more millions to read and comment on. The idea of instant response and recognition is an ever evolving one.

One way that marketers are gaining attention is interactive promotions. The article takes a look at a few of this year's Super Bowl ads like Doritos and Pepsi. Both of these programs require the consumer to be interactive and personal with the brand in their own way. Other brands such as Unilever's Sunsilk hair care, kicked off a consumer-generated contest promotion called Life Can't Wait that features Madonna, Shakira and Marilyn Monroe. Tide is also driving consumers to their brand by creating its campaign, My Talking Stain. This promotion invites consumers to produce and submit their own stain ad and play their Be the Stain instant win game to win other prizes.

According to the article, when asked what was their top online activity, 50% of consumers answered participation in contests or sweepstakes. Some other activities that scored higher include email, search, product research and buying and online billing. Interactive promotions have proven to be one of the most powerful ways to get consumers to a certain product's site. By targeting the right contest or promotion to the correct audience, you then gain greater attention for your product and brand name as well as create a stronger consumer relationship. DeClemete suggests that this bond between consumer and brand can be made even stronger by adding blogs. "Social Sweeps" as she calls it, is the combination of social media with engaging promotions. This would be beneficial because bloggers tend to enjoy giveaways and contests and they also like responding to and evaluating things. So the current trend is marketers approaching bloggers to try their products and even use as a prize giveaway. Marketers would enjoy this because they would be able to easily target consumers. It would also be beneficial to the bloggers because more people would be drawn to their blog. And the readers even have a chance to win something just by reading their favorite blog. Perfect situation for everyone involved!

The article then goes on to give some tips on how to incorporate a blog outreach program into your brand. To me, any program that involves giving me something or giving me the chance to win something for free is worth five minutes of my online time. And if it is added to something I already enjoy doing, like reading blogs, I will be even more likely to participate in them. Blogs are not going to go away anytime soon, so we might as well use them to our advantage. Advertisements are everywhere too. And we definitely know that those aren't going to go away...