Loading ...Not wanting to publish a blog post before it’s ready, I usually leave my ideas sitting as drafts for a while. Unfortunately, I forget about them and never return to finish them. Well, I’m applying for a blog-related position at Anheuser-Busch and thought I’d add a little bit more to the blog to make it look better. If you guys are reading this, I’ve got some good ideas and would love the opportunity to talk to you about them.
A while ago in the Wall Street Journal was an article entitled “How to Get Attention in a New-Media World.” It was about promoting products through blogs. I’ve touched on this before and it’s always something in the back of my mind. There is a rather large problem facing marketers today: how to reach people in this “new-media world”. People have TiVo/DVR and don’t watch commercials, we change the radio when we hear ads, and newspapers are selling less and less as people get their news online. This problem is even greater for younger generations who typically have shorter attention spans and multitask more.
I spoke to Jay Cunningham a while back at a networking event. He manages a team at Anheuser-Busch that is looking at ways to promote Beer as a general category especially in new media forms. He had some interesting comments and I was impressed how much he new about aspects of this new kind of marketing.
As far as blogs and website go, here is my knowledge of what makes them successful:
1) Quality, constantly updated content/product – Most blogs publish good stories once a day or multiple times per day (lifehacker, gizmodo, engadget, make blog, etc.)
2) “Network” and get your name out there - Get other blogs to link to you in return for linking to them. These things are related: if you do a good job of #1, you’ll inevitably get links. We got on make blog and then on digg based on our content and filling out the make blog submit page.
3) Target a segment - You can’t be everything to everyone. People read and interact with things that are familiar to them and helpful to them. If you create a community targeted at a specific demographic or interest you can focus on catering to it. It also helps to pick a segment that has a high number of people reading existing blogs, but not one that is oversaturated. It helps to be specific in your content – people read webpages looking for information, they don’t want to hear about how your day was. (Keep in mind, our wiki content has been successful, our blog needs work before it takes off.)
That’s all I got for now. I have a few more ideas about successful blogs and I know others have written on this topic. I’ll do some research and some of my own thinking and publish more on this subject in the near future.
-Ray
