Out-And-Out

In an article in the New York Times, blogging was said to have become a “regular reading” for business travelers. Yet another sign that people are starting to “warm” up to the idea of blogs. Within the last two years, companies in the travel business have been forging their way in the new medium with blogs by Southwest Airlines and Marriott International.

At first, the concept was risky. Now the concept is becoming mainstream and companies that have not embraced the idea of blogging and reaching their consumer base through the Internet are being left behind. New companies are jumping on board the social media marketing wagon including Coca Cola who just released their blog this week (look for a review soon!). The question is becoming who isn’t using social media tactics including a blog/message board rather than who is?

Both Marriott and Southwest Airlines among other companies have done an excellent job at not only promoting their products through these mediums, but allowing business travelers to share their experiences and complaint (the scariest part). Complaints are complex. You can’t control them and you can’t have an answer or come back to every post either. Despite these complications, they are not necessarily something you want people to see, but at the same time they are absolutely necessary in gauging public opinion and directing future product, customer relations and communication improvements. As hard as it is to take, constructive criticism makes us all better people and companies.

Independent business travel blogs have also been successful including the Informed Traveler, CloudTravel, and Gridskipper. The success of these blogs is embedded in their ability to share quality content while conversing with its readers. These blogs are able to connect with their readers and give them information that they want. To the dedicated readers like these business travelers, the blog becomes a confidante or friend. Its like you’re receiving advice form a friend on what to do when you visit a certain city say like Chicago. It tells you the best sites to see (the ones that are actually worth seeing) and where the best deals are as well as where to stay and eat. The blog gives business travelers good advice. It allows visiting business travelers to take out their clients to excellent restaurants. The concept also works because if you give good advice, they are more likely to come back to you the next time they need advice. That’s how these blogs have loyal readers. They received good advice once and they are coming back for more. It’s all about being a valuable resource becoming someones own expert. Another business travel blog benefit is that the information is always accessible with an Internet connection. You don’t have to carry around a book or tear out the column from the newspaper and remember where you put it. The information is just there and stored on the Web for you.

The success of blogging is just beginning. Its not a fad anymore. The future of blogging is now and it continues to look brighter.

Guiness World Records just launched a social media community where enthusiasts can create a profile, join groups, watch videos, share photos, listen to audio, discuss records and blog. The site should be a huge success among enthusiasts and great entertainment for people of all ages. The site embraces and expands upon concepts started with YouTube. It seems to take some of the YouTube market taking the extreme videos and placing them on the record site. The community also will allign itself nicely with the book providing visual content. Most impressivley, the Web site has global potential and has links to sites in about 12 different languages including English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic among other languages. Despite a slightly annoying banner, the site is fairly clean and organized. As of now, the site is also easy to use and easy to navigate around. Overall, the social media community with proper marketing tactics to the target market of 14-39 year olds should be a success. They just need to get the word out!

 Check it out or even join:

http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/kickapps/service/displayHomePageExperience.kickAction?page=Homepage&as=7691

In recent news, Facebook Inc. has just announced that their applications can be run on other sites. The change will likely occur soon. This is HUGE news for Facebook and web developers in general. Companies no longer have to just build applications for Facebook, they can provide the application on their own Web site or even as content on other social media sites. The shift will help further leverage brands and their relationships with their users. Companies will now be able to further expand on these relationships. Experts are deeming this as another means of protecting the company against the social media gains of Google. With all these changes (now and in the past), it will be interesting to see the reaction of the Facebook community.

For more information and opinions from professional bloggers, please see the link below.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9059518&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top

 Media has been around forever. There is evidence that it has existed since humanity and the creation of art. People have been communicating with each other through mediums since the days of the cavemen

Shortly after the age of television in 1951, the first computer was commercially sold. The development of the Internet was in the works shortly thereafter and was used by the government. The World Wide Web surfaced in the 1980s. Finally in 1994, the American government released control of the medium allowing it to become public.

The term “weblog” now simply known as a “blog” was created in 1997. A “blog” served as an online journal. Despite its early debut, the blog did not become a popular marketing tool until the 2004 Presidential Election (in a later issue we will examine the role of the blog in the current Presidential Election). Blogs immediately became a popular political tool. During this time, ‘podcasts’ and ‘RSS’ feeds were further developed. About two years later, social media marketing became one of the most important and fastest growing marketing tools.

Social media marketing is an umbrella term for a medium that uses the Internet to create conversations and to share content. There are two categories: social media optimization and general social media. Social media optimization practices are on-page tactics that improve Web sites like blogs, discussion boards and links to various media services. Whereas, social media is more the writing of marketing content like Facebook, YouTube or MySpace. There are several popular forms of social media marketing including blogs, social networks, news aggregation, social bookmarking, photo-sharing, video-sharing, wikis, search engine advertising and virtual realities. Social media is even expanding beyond these mediums. The field is growing everyday. The opportunities for new networks are endless.

Despite being considered a growing medium, social media marketing is already quite prevalent in our society according to some startling statistics.

The number of blogs on the Internet is difficult to determine. The Technorati (a search engine function we’ll explore later) claims that there are about 60 million blogs. Another source claims that there are over 23 million active blogs. An even more staggering fact claims that there are over 125 million Facebook and MySpace users with about 65% of all Facebook users logging on daily.

Future? The future of social media marketing is unknown, but for now it is here to stay and many companies have already taken notice. Here is a list of several companies that are already using social media tactics (will be discussed later on) include GM Fastlane Blog, Southwest Airlines, Xerox and etc. More companies are working on developing social media marketing plans daily. The medium is starting to attract attention among the mass market which is causing companies to open up their wallets.

Over the next couple of months, I will be studying the effects of social media marketing in the communications field. I will be reviewing several books on social media marketing, commenting on current news, analyzing the seriousness of the supposed threat that social media marketing poses to traditional marketing tactics and examining ethical issues surrounding our new Web based world. I will also include several how to tips about various social media sites including SWOT analyses on sites. I hope that this blog will not only provide insight on the application and usage of social media sites, but provide a deeper perspective and understanding of the issues surrounding our new world.