Corporate blogging and virtual communities

Bradley Jobling (2013) states that in the UK, 78 per cent of all businesses that create content for marketing purposes were found to keep a blog. Through the course of the journal Jobling (2013) produces a suggested strategy for developing a blog, focused mainly on business to consumer marketing.

He proposes a 5 step framework that will help to create a successful blog; 
Listening and research
Defining purpose, mission and goals
Installing the editorial calendar, defining roles, regulations and procedures
Reaching out through social media platforms and other bloggers
Analysing, refining and regrouping

He suggests listening and research & Defining the purpose, mission and goals can be done at the same time as they can contribute to one another. It is also stated that listening and research is possibly the most important but also the most overlooked. This is backed up by a survey form 2012 where 75% of marketing executives monitored social media content, however, only 25% were extremely satisfied with the results.

Jobling encourages research as it helps to define the audience and will produce higher levels of engagement through more relative content which increases traffic through the blog. The suggested research is based on 8 questions:

Is there a demographic?
Can the blog be classified by type?
What are the norms and practises in the community?
What is the purpose of the blog?
Do readers and other bloggers want anonymity?
Does the community use specific platforms?
Is the community currently discussing a product or service and what are they saying?
Who are the key influencers?

Looking up site rankings and Twitter rating scores will locate the more popular blogs and influential bloggers. 

Defining the purpose, mission and goals is essential to create a meaningful blog, it is stated that this should be a reoccurring objective to keep the blog relatable to the community. This sort of research allows the writer to; gain feedback, communicate change, provide a personal side to the company, build relationships within the community and expand the marketing mix. It's suggested that as blogging increases so do the expectations of the community. 

The next stage 'installing the editorial calendar, defining roles, regulations and procedures' relates to the team and scenario planning, for example who will be moderate the blog, complaint handling and comment analysis.

Reaching out through social media platforms and other bloggers is represented in figure 1 below.

This basically suggests that the firm must diversify across all platforms for maximum coverage. However not all platforms are useful, ones that increase KPI's are often the most useful for web analytics.

The final aspect of the strategy, Analysing, refining and regrouping, is a short section explaining the constant changing wants and needs of consumers. therefore, the blog must be revisited and analysed periodically in order to stay relevant. 

There you have it, the framework for writing a successful blog.

http://henrystewart.metapress.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,9,11;journal,4,5;linkingpublicationresults,1:122831,1