RESEARCH PROPOSAL: The Power of Blog: A Study on the Use of Blogging as an Internet Marketing Tool
The Power of Blog: A Study on The Use Of Blogging As An Internet Marketing Tool
Student Name: Tonny, Liu Tong Student ID: 06029986 Supervisor: Dr. Rod Allan A. De Lara
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction and Background………………………………………………………………..1 1.1 Blog ABC…………………………………………………………………………………….1 1.2 Business With Blogs……………………………………………………………………..1 1.3 They Are Blogging………………………………………………………………………..2 2. Review of Literature…………………………………………………………………………….3 3. Research Methodology…………………………………………………………………………7 4. Dissertation Structure………………………………………………………………………….8 5. Dissertation Timing Plan…………………………………………………………………….10
The Power of Blog: A Study on The Use Of Blogging As An Internet Marketing Tool
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1. INTRODUCTION
1 I N T R O D U C T I O N
1.1 Blog ABC Blog, short for Weblog, is basically a kind of web journal that is available on the Internet. Updating a blog is called “blogging” and someone who maintains a blog is a “blogger”. Blogs are typically updated daily by using blogware that allows blogger with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are mostly arranged in chronological order. “Blogs are perfect formats for frequent and timely information put online by the actual writer. No edit cycle and no web maintenance are necessary. Just write it and publish.” (Bailey, 2005) According to Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S., through comments, linking and trackback, bloggers share their knowledge with each other and develop and refine new ideas. Blogs were first introduced as a way to share personal journals. In addition to personal journals, there are now business blogs being used to promote products and services, publish company and other news, and provide customers with technical support
“Opinionated, informal, candid, emotional”, this is a simple but accurate definition for Blog by Peter Hirsch (Partner, Director, Corporate Affairs Discipline – Porter Novelli Inc.). Blogs already become a global cultural phenomenon during these years. The number of new blogs is increasing dramatically. Technorati as a well-known blog search engine was tracking close to eight million blogs in March 2005, up from four million just five months before. The number of blogs is continuous on a sharp up-going curve. At the beginning of 2007, Technorati was tracking around 63 million blogs.
1.2 Business With Blogs Businesses are also beginning to be grateful for the influencing power brought by blogs, a trend reflected in the business press. In Fortune’s January 2005 issue, they put blogs at No. 1 in its '10 Tech Trends to Watch for', arguing that blogs are changing working practices in the areas of advertising, marketing and PR (Kirkpatrick & Roth, 2005). Similarly, The Harvard Business Review named
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1. INTRODUCTION
blogs as one of its 'Breakthrough Ideas for 2005', commenting that 'blogs are the most conversational of all the forms of media, and marketers can't afford to be left out of the talk' (Sawhney, 2005). However, when the front cover of Business Week boldly proclaimed that 'Blogs will change your business' in May 2005, blogs had finally proofed that entered the business mainstream. 1.3 They Are Blogging Google Blog, http://googleblog.blogspot.com. The official Google blog, which advertises “Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture.” It is a multiauthor blog. GM’s popular FastLane Blog (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/) spreads news, provides information for enthusiasts, and creates a community space where thousands of aficionados can discuss what is important to thme Microsoft knows the power of blogs. Thousands of Microsoft product managers, developers, testers, and executives use blogs to talk directly with customers in a clear and authoritative way; to listen to customer complains, suggestions, and ideas; and to track what customers and partners are saying. In fact, Microsoft uses blog research so thoroughly that each product development team is directed to look for blog feedback before making significant changes to applications. Blogs don’t run Microsoft, but they do provide an unprecedented level of feedback for a company that needs to get real consumer information about products before it’s too late to do anything about it. Dallas Mavericks basketball team owner Marc Cuban started blogging because he was tired of “giving in-depth responses to a media question only to have the result be what the reporter or columnist intended to write and I was just fodder to help them make their point.” He saw blogs as an ideal way to “present my position on a topic in its entirety and not have to worry about how they condense a two-hour conversation into 500 words.” Cuban built a blog that allowed him to express his thoughts regarding issues and interests. His blogging passion served to energize his team’s fan base even further. (Mark
Cuban’s response to the question “Why are you blogging?” from the I Want Media website, September 6, 2004, http://www.iwantmedia.com/onequestion.html)
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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Literature review summaries the main arguments in using blogs as a marketing tool. As business blogging hasn’t begun to feature as a research topic in academic journals yet, the materials for review will consist largely of popular business books, articles, and research reports in the business press or blog postings. According to Wright (2006, p.xi) blogging is a communication tool, a marketing technique, a listening device, and a way to interact directly with customers one-to-one on a global scale. A business can learn a lot by reading blogs to determine what customers and non-customers alike are saying about the business. Your business can benefit by using blogs to spread the word about what your company has to offer its customers and to gain immediate feedback from customers. According to Wright (2006, p.4-6) an open and honest public blog, written by an authoritative voice from within your company, allows your business to create a different type of experience between you and your customers: it allows you to create legitimate conversations that simply weren’t possible before online blogging. Blogging means your company will no longer need to depend on expensive focus groups, feedback forms, e-mail, and other time-consuming and tedious methods used for gaining feedback. If your want to know why your latest product isn’t selling, you can ask your customers on your blog; they’ll tell you the truth. If an executive was recently fired for a corporate scandal, you can tackle the issue on your blog in an open manner. Such honesty makes an impression with your customers, which will be more real than almost any media article on the subject. Even more important is that any person who reads your blog is doing so by choice-he or she came to your blog to see what you have to say. Blogs are just about the only marketing tool for which holds true. How do we know if a blog is credible? Shel, H. (2006) has wroted that blogs build credibility the same as any other information source. If we see an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times stating that space aliens have landed in Washington, D. C., and are having a summit and enjoying Texas-style barbeque with George W. Bush, we’ll believe it. We will stop and read the article because those publications have earned our trust. We may not always agree with their opinions but we trust their facts. In contrast, if a similar headline appears in certain tabloids that usually appear at the grocery
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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
store checkout line, we’ll probably ignore them and certainly not take them seriously. Certain tabloids seem to make ridiculous, although very amusing, claims about space aliens and other absurd topics regularly. They have certainly not earned our trust. Blogs need to earn trust just as any medium does. If A-list blogger Robert Scoble says Microsoft is renaming Windows to Doors, we’ll believe him and so will thousands of others. If we see the same information in a blog we’re not very familiar with, we won’t believe it, at least not without confirmation. However, trust is not confined to A-list bloggers. Blog readers tend to trust the blogs they read, regardless of popularity. We read quite a few blogs, and trust the majority of them. Some of them may have only five or ten readers-we don’t know or care-but they have earned our trust. Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006, p. 313) agreed to the point by Teten, D. & S. Allen. (2005), ‘Setting up a simple blog requires a minimum of effort or involvement from the IT Department, and can be done for a modest cost.’ Also Foremski, T. (2005) ‘Once set up, blogs can be very effective in promoting products and services, which can help to reduce advertising and marketing costs.’ And they supported the points from Sessum, J. (2005) ‘Blogging allows for greater Web visibility and can gain search engine prominence, helping to direct Web traffic to the company Web site’. They also think about Goodwin, K. (2003) ‘Oftentimes blogs are ranked higher by search engines because the information is updated more frequently.’ Bailey, B. (2005)’s point is that, there's really nothing mysterious except the name. It's just a collection of HTML pages, usually mostly text. Anybody can do it. Even with pictures and graphics. And Blogs are perfect formats for frequent and timely information put online by the actual writer. No edit cycle and no web maintenance are necessary. Just write it and publish. According to Gardner (2005, p. 20), 'the biggest strength of blogs is in establishing dialogue with readers'. Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006, p. 313) supported the views of McMillan, R. (2004) on ‘The technology allows businesses to expand their audience without having to rely on traditional, and often inefficient, means of communicating with their customers’. Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006, p. 313) also consider Sessum, J. (2005)’s point that an effective organizational blog helps the organization to participate in business enhancing conversations to build relationships for both current and future customers, partners, and employees. Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006, p. 313) Blogs help an organization better understand the needs and wants of their customers, obtain feedback on products and services immediately, and in effect
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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
have customized and personalized market research. Blogs also provide organizations an opportunity to respond to criticism from the media and others who might be posting negative comments on other blogs [Ziegler, D. (2005)].
As Wright (2006, p.5) first listed three points that shows what does blogs can do for business as an important Internet marketing tools.
Provide Information: Telling your customers what you’re doing and finding out what they are thinking. Build Relationships: Building a solid base of positive experiences with your customers that changes them from plain-old consumers to evangelists for your company and products. Knowledge management: Having the vast stores of knowledge within your company available to the right people at the right time.
After that Writht (2006, p.6) wrote his opinions on blogging:
Blogs are effectively a form of free advertising that your customers are begging for. Blogs are easy to track, provide a means to generate and measure buzz, and allow you to create positive experiences, and ultimately customer evangelists simply by being real.
On the internal side of company, Wright (2006, p.6) wrote about how to use blogging as a communication tools through out the whole company:
You can also use blogging for exciting internal purposes to help employees generate and try out new ideas, involve and empower employees, and improve your ability to communicate internally. Whether you’re a global Fortune 100 company or a mom-n-pop plumbing supply retailer, internal blogs can help you stay organized and external blogs can change the way people relate to your business.
Compare to other customer communication and management systems or software, e.g. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Base on Wright, J. (2006), CRM was designed to try to pull together information from various systems to provide an idea of not only whether a customer had interacted with your business, but what kind of interaction occurred, who was involved in the interaction, and what it meant to the company. Unfortunately, most companies could get only limited answers to these questions: whether a customer had bought a company product or ever called in with a question or comment, and whether his or her current contact information was valid.
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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
CRM software didn’t contextualize any of the information it collected. It simply created a repository of information. It didn’t create any data on what the customer actually thought, nor did it allow a way for customers to provide direct feedback. To supplement this CRM data, business began to hire customer relationship specialists and product evangelists---individuals whose sole job was to make customers aware of the company products on a one-to-one basis---to interact with customers directly. For most businesses, this created some sense of value, but the practice simply couldn’t be applied to a large number of customers. Because each individual customer relationship staffer had only so much time, the staffer typically spent most of his or her time nurturing the relationships that had the greatest return---the big spenders---and the majority of other customers were left out in the cold. Although bolgs has tremendous advantage to a business organization, it also contains drawbacks, as Klear, J. & Tuttle, H. (2007) write, the popularity of blog has forced employers to consider how to protect their company and themselves from the unregulated, unrestricted, and constantly anonymous, negative comments that employees make while offsite about the company, its products. Left unaddressed, these negative blogs may ruin a company’s reputation and unfavorably affect the company’s financial condition. Concerned with protecting the company’s interests, employers often struggle to balance an employee’s First Amendment free speech rights with the company’s desire to monitor employees’ conduct. According to Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006)’s points, they got the same feeling about blogs negative effect. Blogs present a substantial opportunity for the introduction of personal bias. They also provide a window to the weaknesses of individuals, especially with writing and expressing ideas. While blogging is an excellent way to connect with groups and individuals, it is also a risky venture if firm guidelines are not established. Clear and publicly posted rules governing the language and content for a company blog, and written policies for personal blogs linked to the company blog are essential. Bloggers making careless statements about the organization could see them used in litigation, and careless or untruthful statements about employees and individuals may jeopardize the organization to litigation for privacy infringement. Whatever technical approach is taken, there will be an investment in personnel, time and mone
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3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH
3 METHODOLOGY
The research aims to conduct an investigation on bloggers’ experience of blogging, and how they use blogs as an Internet marketing tools. The researcher plan to use qualitative survey approach, in order to get the most accurate data from interviewees. Cassell, C. (2006) writes about qualitative research that is ‘initially one might assume that qualitative research is simply defined as research that does not use numbers or statistical procedures; however defining qualitative research is not as straightforward as it might seem. The main reason for this concerns the range of different approaches that are subsumed under the heading “qualitative” (Symon et al., 2000), indeed this diversity is exacerbated in management research precisely because of its multi-disciplinary (Brown, 1997), and interdisciplinary (Watson, 1997) nature’.
As the data collection part, the researcher plan to conduct survey on around 15 interviewees who are (small) business bloggers representing a wide range of business types and personal backgrounds. And the interview will be conducted by using the telephone, Internet telephony, face-to-face or e-mail. The voice interviews will be recorded and compiled in paper type. In order to experience the direct blogging technology, the researcher plan to set up a blog with the name of “The Power of the Blog” during the researching period. This blog will contain links to popular blogs and articles about business blogging, and also contains the records of the interview with the business bloggers.
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4. DISSERTATION STRUCTURE
4 D I SS E RTAT I O N S T U R C T U R E
Chapter 1: Introduction Background of blog & blogging Research aims and objectives
Chapter 2: Review of Literature Literature overview Reason why should business blogging Why blogs can be use as an Internet marketing tool Blogs help in product development Promote products by using blogs Use blogs as an communication tool with customers Comparasion with CRM system Chapter 3: Research Methodology and Data Collection Research methodology Research questions Selection of Interviewee Data Collection Method
Chapter 4: Research Results Presentation and Data Analysis Data presentation Data analysis
Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusions
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5. DISSERTATION TIMING PLAN
5 D I S S E RTAT I O N T I M I N G P L A N
Task Name Writing Research Proposal Submit Research Proposal Duration Dissertation Started 3 weeks 17-Sept-07 05-Oct-07 Start
Starting Dissertation Information Collection Write Chapter 1 Preparation of Conducting Interview Survey & Write Chapter 2 & Revision Survey & Write Chapter 3 & Revision Write Chapter 4 & Revision Write Chapter 5 Last Revision Dissertation Finished Submit Final Dissertation 21-Dec-07 11 weeks 06-Oct-07 10-Oct-07 13-Oct-07 15-Oct-07 29-Oct-07 12-Nov-07 02-Dec-07 17-Dec-07
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6. REFERENCE LIST
6 R E F E R E N C E
L I S T
[1]. Wright, J. (2006) Blog Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill. [2]. Hewitt, H. (2005) Blog: understanding the information reformation that's changing your world. Nashville: Nelson Books. [3]. Shel, H. (2006) Blogging for Business : Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care. Chicago: Dearborn Trade. [4]. McCormick-Jennings, R. (2006) ‘Blog business: Milwaukee companies testing benefits, pitfalls of free-form communication’ The Business Journal, MAY 19, p. A27, A28 [5]. Gardner, S. (2005) Buzz marketing with blogs for dummies. Indianapolis: Wiley. [6]. Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative researching. London: Sage Publications. [7]. Sawhney, M. (2005) ‘Blog-trolling in the bitstream’. Harvard Business Review, 83 (2), pp. 39. Available at: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/email/pdfs/R0502Af2_H arvard_site.pdf (Accessed: 28 September 2007). [8]. Bailey, B. (2005) ‘BLOGS for Business’, Wood Street Jounal, 3 (7), pp. 1-2. Available at: http://woodst.com/downloads/newsletters/pdfs/vol3/vol3_7.pdf (Accessed: 28 September 2007) [9]. Kirkpatrick, D. & Roth, D. (2005) ‘Why there's no escaping the blog’, Fortune. 151 (1), pp. 64. [10]. Wood, W. & Behling, R. & Haugen, S. (2006) ‘BLOGS AND BUSINESS: OPPORTUNITIES AND HEADACHES’, Issues in Information Systems. 7 (2), PP. 313 [Online]. Available at: http://iis-online.org/iis/2006_iis/PDFs/Wood_Behling_Haugen.pdf (Accessed: 28 September 2007). [11]. Klear, J. & Tuttle, H. (2007) ‘Protecting Employers from Negative Employee Blogs’, NEW JERSEY BUSINESS. PP. 70 [Online]. Available at:
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6. REFERENCE LIST
http://www.drinkerbiddle.com/files/Publication/ae62e515-9e39-4b5e-b 1d7-17358eaa9bd8/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/14c907d5-5e4 6-4646-8aa0-1b6b891a79a5/Blog.pdf (Accessed: 2 October 2007). [12]. Cassell, C. (2006) Qualitative Methods in Management Research. Bradford, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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