BLOGS IN A BUSINESS CONTEXT

Nowadays blogs are acknowledged as a real trend on the Internet and companies have integrated the phenomenon by using it as a new way of doing business. Blogs are a cheap, efficient and the risks attached them seem very little.

A tool of communication

As mentioned earlier, companies use blogs for external communications with their clients and customers. Launching a new product, creating a buzz around the product, getting in touch with people’s opinions, building up trust and following its success directly… Companies have found a new opportunity to get closer to the market.

The main advantages companies see in blogs are their cheap cost and the possibility for them to keep track of how their message is being perceived by their customers.

The iPhone story

The launch of the iPhone was a hot topic in lots of traditional media, but the biggest beneficiary, according to Nielsen[1], was the blogosphere. The traffic generated by the phone was higher than any launch they had monitored before, as reported by the Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics. “Some 1.5% of all blog posts mentioned the iPhone in the week following Steve Jobs unveiling of the product in January 2007.”

The following technology blog http://www.engadget.com saw its traffic jump by 30% since the release of the phone was announced. The blog covered the unveiling of the event live and received in counterpart a tremendous hit of 10 million page views.

This example suggests that tech blogs may replace other forms of media, because they provide detailed and exhaustive information about technology products. The iPhone is one of those products, but this example shows how some products may interest people in a fascinated way, and how this new form of media may have strong impacts on companies.

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[1] Http://fr.nielsen.com/site/index.shtml