Seihaku’s Blogmarketing Bible

Everyone in the multilevel marketing knows that is the easiest way to make money in the Internet is by gathering people. Portals, especially make enormous advertising profits by collecting individual blogger contents, yet we all know there are no feed-backs or incentives to all contents creators. As long as blogs stay at the personal level, and blog contents take the mere role of sharing knowledge, all authorities root from the mass-communication.

Today, such behavior of portals are quite similar to authorities shown by the mass-communication and this trait will continue. Let’s find out about how most bloggers, who raise the value of portals, should think to open the age of Web 2.0. Many bloggers of today thirst for blog knowledge, almost to a fanatic level, searching for a contents law that can elevate the value of their blog.

This social phenomenon seems somewhat obvious but such approach cannot resolve the root of the problem. Let’s be honest. What bloggers focus on, is it the number of clicks? or quality contents? In this aspect, you can easily see that most bloggers focus on simple clicks. If the clicks are that significant, why don’t the corporates ask you do their blog marketing when your click figures are quite imposing?

Here we can see that the viewpoints of a pure blogger differs from that of the corporate marketing department. From your viewpoint, you’d dream of being scouted, having so much influence and knowledge about blogs. But from the corporate viewpoint, blogs aren’t so productive and is merely a personal identity yet to materialize. No matter how hard you try to scrap great articles, losing countless nights of sleep, it just won’t satisfy the needs of a corporate.

Eventually, you would try your best to win google’s favor by using more ads in your blog to make money based on clicks, but in the end realize that it falls much short of the efforts you put in to create contents and maintain them. Consequently, you will try harder to use more ads and lose all hope in that fact that there is no other way to generate an added value.

If the approach, in this aspect, is an ad, your existence and your contents are unconsciously forced to take the role of an instrument that elevates the ad effectiveness. Eventually, you will become a barker of google or portal sites such as naver, restricted in a pit without freedom nor added value.

Eventually there is only one solution.
The your created contents must provide wisdom, not knowledge. Contents that others can take but cannot utilize 100% of due to its value, they’d feel your need. In other word, a level of contents that only you can create where others cannot even mimic. You should not just create any contents what you want, but be smart in providing what the corporates need and want to scratch their itchy spot with intensity that is just right.

There are countless bloggers who stand at the guideline of ‘that is enough’ according to your standards. And many more who will provide your level of contents to the firms for free.

You must decide now. Will you at this point, be a pimp blogger with a adequate amateur mind, or be one of the best pro-blog marketer?

In developing blog marketing, an adequate communication and understanding of a firm management is necessary. Although the blog only takes the role of customer contacts within the marketing department, the blogger must be a corporate and the proceeding must comprise of a concept or theme suggestions by the corporate, which then its contents are created by the blogger, approved by the corporate and then posted. And in maintaining a blog, you must first decide whether it would be a corporate type blog, in which the corporates takes responsibility for the ownership and right of contents; or an individual blog, where the blogger’s independence is recognized, therefore corporate and the blogger comes to a general agreement, yet the responsibility of the contents goes to the blogger himself.

Blogger must be supplied with adequate information pertaining to the products or the items, and its competing products in addition as well from the firm. Furthermore, various themes must first be arranged to expose to customers, in the aspect of management strategy, short-term advertising, and marketing direction. These themes must be appropriately utilized in many categories such as seasons, cultures, issues to carry out a upper level blog marketing.

This step must best suit the management direction of the firm; be categorized into separate parts in being able to harmonize with the marketing team, aiding the blog, and a provocative approach in forming an issue; and be able to find the strategy to express most effectively. Representation strategy can be discussed with the firm or can be done independently in its creation, but in any case, it isn’t ideal to use the corporate contents as is.

Many experts gather to come to an agreement in creation of contents. It is most important to equip a system that can create the most effective contents through the discussion of storyteller, photographer, cameraman, movie editor and the music artist. In forming such a team, storyteller takes the most significant role due to the fact that the quality of contents depends on the ability of the storyteller, so it is crucial to match the visions of a storyteller and the blog marketer.

It is desirable to mix the components of contents - photos and movies, with a variety of adjective themes such as fun, joy, surprise, happiness and opportunities. In first creating contents, don’t post right away, but secure about 10~20 contents and then post, which can be effective in informing the visiting customers that there are more to read about.

Besides, a profile must include real name, contact information, email and a detailed self introduction, which should show that you are ready and willing to communicate with a customer. In this process, it would be a good approach to link the corporate marketing department to launch a concentrated attack on the search engines and meta blog sites.

The development of blog marketing is formed by the network between complicated individuals and may go through a misfit in the beginning, so an enthusiastic aid from the corporate is a must. The most effective blog marketing is when locally separated team members can post related contents in real time, as the idea is derived. And in this process, eliminating the time to respond for the competition.

A firm utilizing blog marketing would be quite relaxed in such circumstances, and may find a suitable response after observing the competing firm’s reactions. Moreover, any problem caused in the process is a responsibility of the blogger, so the firm only needs to sit back and watch the progress as if playing a game.

Blogger must clearly recognize when to move forward and retreat according to the given duty and can maintain the attention of all competing firm to the blog, with appropriate provocation and offense. A typhoon like energy is only created when the corporate, blog marketer and the contents creator become one team, on equal terms to develop marketing.

Mental guidelines for management’s introduction of corporate blog

Corporate blog can either be a product blog or a brand blog. The fact that corporate introduces blog brings in difficult situations in terms of managemen. Looking at Korean corporate and its characteristics, corporates hide what they want to hide and notifies the press of only the profitable portion, wanting to take control of and predict the system of client communication. Due to this, corporates have limited their client windows to PR or marketing department and have intercepted further information to remain intact.

In such situation, corporate wants to control all aspects of product or brand blogs, demanding prior approval of individual contents. But what’s important is that corporate and blogs must remain independent. When a corporate takes total control of the blog and use it as an advertising or marketing tool, blog is no more than a corporate department. Today, several firms are proceeding blog marketing is such way where the corporate takes care of contents project and blogger works only to touch up its contents which then gets approved finally by the company executives. As of now, such blogs are called, corprate blogs.

From the corporate standpoint, blog is most safe and ideal yet why do they fail and become extinct? This problem can be condensed down to two core points that the contents quality of corporate blogs are low and that is fails to draw customer interest. In order to get approved by the executives, it must satisfy their taste and this usually means the exclusion of customer benefits. This is no different to the conventional home page which works as an advertising instead as an information and no matter how hard they try and apply by developing various topics of interests, it cannot overcome the generation gap that is between the management, who aren’t aware of the Internet trend, therefore deciding on a textbook like material then posts it.

Also, any responsibilities related to contents are attenuated through internal approval which puts a limit on creating genuine contents and even if they continuously post contents in a short term basis, but eventually need to shutdown like a dried up well.

If so, what would be blog marketing guideline that corporate managements can accept? How should approach in order to achieve the effectiveness of blog marketing?

It must be able to portray a recognition that ‘Corporate and blog are independent” and it should remain independent in real life as well. Corporate should restrict blog contents related intervention and keep it minute as possible. Blog marketer should obtain sufficient prior knowledge of corporate product and brand. Corporate should also try to keep a distance when a blogger is promoting various issues or promotions. This allows the corporate and the blogger to be a separate entity which acts as an element in increasion the blogger’s reliability.

In the process of comparing its product to another competing product, a blogger becomes exposed to an attack from the competing firm. In this process, to protect the firm, a blogger should engage in a fight as a lone entity who should make create values and make a decision based on personal identity.

From the corporate standpoint, recognizing the independence of a blog marketer is the core element of establishing the 2nd brand. There is nothing more foolish than to introdue a content approval system. If your blog marketing introduction has failed, it just means that your firm hadn’t recognized the value of a blogger enough.

Provide sufficient information. Give full authority related to blog marketing. Provide full support in contents development. Announce that there’s no connection between the firm and the blog, stress on it on the home page, tell your competitor. Support your blogger’s creativity, acts of outburst and issues.

Blog will repay you many times over your provided costs. Surely.