Comments on: why marketers are so interested in blogs

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:36:36 +0000

.. and
That Johnnie is a clever fellow.

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:35:55 +0000

Very apt story and useful image and metaphor … transparency in action, as it were
Listening, seeing, understanding and responding in useful ways, to create more meaning for any given person, is what marketing “should” be about.
It will indeed be interesting to see what forms it takes and with what dynamics in another decade or so.

By: Stuart Maxwell

Stuart Maxwell — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:34:32 +0000

Damn, Hugh, but that cartoon makes me laugh.

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 10:13:12 +0000

Douglas,
I agree with you it’s not a question of money.
In fact, from a marketer’s position, I evaluate a (corporate) blog to be quite an expensive investment, both to start and to maintain active, attractive and fresh.
Ideally it should be the relationship that should drive marketers to build and publish blogs. Unfortunately they sometimes do not get the whole idea from the beginning or they mistakenly take blogs as distribution channels for more or less formal press releases.
Hugh, I think that the number 1 advantage of corporate blogs (and of those marketers that now the art of doing these blogs right) is the chance to listen to the customers and react in a positive and constructive way.

By: Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:12:57 +0000

Hmmm… I think there’s a HUGE piece missing out of this. I don’t think money has anything to do with it… great marketers recognize that the key to building patronage and retaining customers is building a relationship.
Pre-web marketing never allowed us to do that… print media didn’t provide enough space, television enough time. Billboard and other mediums also didn’t connect.
Marketers love blogs because they afford us the opportunity to build relationships with others. We always know that that was the key to marketing. It’s the key to marketing ourselves and the key to marketing products and services.
As well, we can see the results in real time and utilize that data to adjust accordingly. No other medium allows for that. Marketers don’t mind spending money, but we’d rather work on getting results. That’s what blogs have done for us!

By: Sean Buvala

Sean Buvala — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:30:19 +0000

How good to read about the power of a story (you called it metaphor) to impact, even when that story is about grade-school science. That is why, in the midst of Web 2.0, that I am a storyteller. Yep.