There are many reasons for creating a blog, mine was simple: people. While working abroad I needed to keep in touch with family and friends, having a blog was the best way to share pictures, videos and interact (through a private/restricted blog). At that time, I've also worked with two bloggers and want to thank them for the inspiration: Ed Brill (@EdBrill) and Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo).
As a marketer, you certainly meet with many different people: clients, partners, research and development, analysts, journalists, students...working on various activities ranging from market analysis, product development, business strategy to digital tactics...so why not giving back parts of this journey to your community?
Here are 5 reasons for jumping into the blogosphere (for the 'how', click here (French):
- Your market/product knowledge is worth sharing (see ideas worth spreading)
- You have great content (testimonials, demos..), make them more personalized
- Learn from the outside, blogging obliges you to look around/to benchmark
- You know the ecosystem, bring it inside, by connecting the dots with your experts
- CMO and CIO are now friends, leverage blogging to strenghten your Web culture
Some say 'People are the Brand', very true in a consumer world. But in a B2B world, expertise, relationship and ecosystems matter. Brands are People. No worry, as a blogger you have no obligation of loosing your personality! Write when you want (but still on a regular basis :-), about topics you know best, to people you want to connect with...respecting some basic guidelines (such as the one we have in IBM). Try to identify your core audience in order to meet with your objectives (channel enablement, press relationships...).
In a continuous effort of change management, our Digital team (represented by @henririmbaud) has produced a short video explaining why some of us blog (initially this video was targetting IBM employees). When Brands are People...
Thomas, thank you very much for the kind words. I'm glad my efforts helped inspire you and others.
Blogging is a very important component of creating an identiity for the products, brands and beliefs that you represent. It helps form a community while at the same time establishing who you are. No blogger is completely humble, we all have to admit to liking the attention!
While it is wonderful that there are several tools/services available today to get your message out there, in some ways I find having blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. frustrating. The dissemination of information actually makes it harder to keep up with all the conversations. Thankfully there are tools that link all the diverse places together. For example I was made aware of this blog post because someone mentioned it on Twitter!
I hope all is well and look forward to speaking with you again.
Posted by: Alan Lepofsky | 03/06/2011 at 15:53
Fantastic post. I will certainly for sure use the data on my site for my end users.
Posted by: trykkeri | 25/05/2011 at 20:37
Fantastic post. I will certainly for confident use the facts on my website for my users.
Posted by: trykkeri | 24/05/2011 at 20:46
Merci Isabelle, il existe beaucoup d'autres raisons pour ouvrir un blog lorsque l'on est au marketing / à la com'...si tu en as d'autres n'hésite pas (notamment par rapport à l'activité 'demand generation')
Posted by: Coustenoble | 24/05/2011 at 19:46
woao, super post Thomas :-)
Posted by: Isabouriaud | 24/05/2011 at 17:31