Seihaku’s Blogmarketing Bible

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.

Truly, what is a profitable blog?

I can’t help but to ask seriously. What do you think is a profitable blog? And why do you think so?

A fascinating question so many Korean bloggers think: “What is a profitable blog?”. Even till now, many clever bloggers are looking for the answer to the question.

Corporates are posting similar contents on numerous blogs in order to expose itself more to web searches. In the process, many blogs are created to post the related contents, yet in most cases they are just created; but fail to manage it constantly. This is due to the misunderstanding of the blog’s fundamental property. Blog contents are hard to maintain from a conventional corporate marketing approach because the essence of blog contents isn’t advertising or marketing even though it may sound paradoxical.

If you observe personal blogs, contents are created quite steadily but they are limited to personal interests or even yet, just a collection of other contents through scrapping. In other words, we are at a stage where it’s difficult to verify the ability of a blogger to just pay and demand a specific blogger to create contents and furthermore at a point where the basic unit costs haven’t been determined yet. An this is precisely the big obstacle that’s stopping corporates from proceeding with blog marketing. On the blogger’s standpoint, it is also difficult to raise the contents standard to a level that the corporates are demanding, due to lack of experience in ad agency planning. It isn’t also as easy as you think to just create quality contents steadily that incorporates the works of storyteller, copywriter, photographer, copyrights to music, movie editing and so on.

Eventually, only a few bloggers will be creating corporate contents due to the realistic issues. Especially, the bloggers who were successful in producing an outcome will be evaluated highly. Only those will be treated as ones who can create added value; in other words, a profitable blogger.

Empas are promoting business blogs and naver made a separate section called ‘brand blog’, revealing its expectation of the blog market. What’s important to observe here is that there is a house called ‘corporate blog’, yet it’s but an empty house upon entering.

Naver’s brand blog? Did you really think it would work?

The captain of blog contents is the storyteller.

Blog contents are being developed in various ways, being closely related to the human feelings and communications. We need to pay attention to the importance of the storyteller here. Living through the initial Internet age where text was the only means of communication, Internet users sought variety of ways to express themselves. Their wish became reality as the development of Internet technology enabled the usage of various pictures, music and multimedias such as movie-clips. Then what would be the core of contents as the freedom of expression is of avail?

Photo taken attractively? or an arousing movie clip? or is it a smooth article?

It is noticeably the storyteller which takes the most significant spot; not any other. Storyteller is an expression used to denote literary imagination and creativity, it makes the root of the content. In a broader sense, the role of a storyteller is to fine tune the professionals of every field such as the photographer, cameraman, editor, musician and the interviewers to find the most effective approach method in communicating with the user therefore requiring a keen seen and management skills.

Eventually, it is a solid story rather than a dazzling display of visual effects or sounds and we can experience this through a medium called cinema. The ability of a storyteller can be shown clearly by just reading it. Yet an actual competition lies in not writing a great article; but in adjusting the eye level. By adjusting the eye level we mean; sharing with the customers who are reading the article; and becoming a friend or a intense debater, being able to change and adapt, with the customer without being fixed, ultimately touching them.

A storyteller’s unique logic and speech is influencing not just the blogs but the whole corporate and it seems more of a gift than a mere effort. Therefore it is tough for corporates to find a storyteller that exactly suits their needs.

A powerful storyteller can breathe life and soul into a product by re-creating the products value and associated accounts. Accordingly a customer purchases a story rather than just the product and it can become a process which can secure many enthusiasts regardless of the product life expectancy.

All bloggers, diligently posting mere information, bow down before the creative storyteller now!