by Christopher Kyalo, 1/5/2006
"Blogs will change your business," screamed a BusinessWeek magazine cover story headline a few months ago. In what has to be the most detailed and yet entertaining coverage of this subject in recent times, this fascinating BusinessWeek article went on to threaten; "Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up... or catch you later."
Developments on the World Wide Web since that memorable BusinessWeek article appeared have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that this was no idle threat. More and more businesses of all sizes are hiring writers to blog on their behalf. Enterprises everywhere are taking blogs very seriously. And what's more many of them have the results to show for their efforts and a hefty return for the resources invested to blogs and blogging.
So what is it about blogs and blogging that these corporations as well as small businesses know that the rest of us don't seem to be able to see yet?
The Most Powerful Marketing Tool In History
Blogs are the most powerful marketing tool ever invented. What other marketing device in history has been able to carry out so many functions with such precision? Instant research, lead generation, image building, to name a few. And to do all this at virtually no cost. It probably sounds too good to be true that something that costs next to nothing has the potential to generate millions of hits in targeted traffic and ultimately millions of dollars in corporate profits. Only that it is happening all the time.
The Power of Blogs As Image Building Tools
The true value of a brand or business is its' image. Image will allow one business to charge an obscenely high price with a hefty mark-up while another venture in the same industry struggles to get clients to pay a few dollars for the same service or product. No enterprise with a poor image will survive for long.
In the increasingly crowded marketplace, blogs are emerging as extremely effective Public Relations and image building tools. A new generation of spin-doctors is learning how to use blogs to create the image and position their client products and services in the minds of prospects and potential customers.
Your image-building strategy can be as simple as getting a writer to set up a blog that talks favorably about your product even as it passes on useful, practical information to prospects.