How relevant is blogging? Should brands adopt it or forget it?
Blogs are not important for big brands, isn't it?
If blogs are so important for people wanting to express themselves on a regular basis using the web, blogs are also an important part of big websites or portals. Believe it, it's a fact.
Most big producers, sellers and service providers have their blogs where they update customers about their new products. The more savvy ones go beyond that; they discuss new technological or marketing developments in their area of work and also give tips on how to make the best of the product/ service. Big brands know the value of blogs. And of course they know that for more direct and instant communications, there are better options. They use social networks or chats or more traditional methods (email, phone). So, different platforms supplement each other and create synergy.
Even platforms that seem to compete with blogging also have blogs!
Have you been keeping updated about what your favorite networking platform is offering? If not, look for its blog and you might find valuable insight. In fact, most social networks have more than one blogs to talk about technology, media, business offerings and so on.
Similar is the case with the top web companies in the world.
Twitter announces its latest tech developments on the Twitter blog. Twitter has other thematic blogs and also country-specific blogs.
This Facebook blog talks about its tech offerings. It has blogs on media, news and other aspects too.
Pinterest blog, Instagram blog, Snapchat blog, Whatsapp blog, Telegram blog ... When these social biggies have to announce things and explain them, they use their blogs!
Yahoo has its blogs on Tumblr. One of its blogs is this: Yahoo search blog. And this is Google's own blog. Bing has a blog too.
Interestingly, Blogger has its own blog and so has Wordpress!
Two major webmaster tools, provided by Google and Bing, have their functional blogs where they discuss new tech developments in aid to website analytics, optimization, etc:
When blogs themselves are brands
Some of the most influential sites on the web, especially in the field of IT, are either the evolved versions of erstwhile blogs or are websites run in the form of blogs (regularly updated and interactive).
Hope you know them already. If not, just have a look at these: Huffington Post, Mashable, Gizmodo, Life Hacker, Tech Crunch
But brands are not creative and responsive enough to have blogs!
Many big brands of today used to have a blog as part of their outreach. That function is now fully taken over by social networking. However, what some of them do not appreciate is that blogs serve a purpose that social networks, static webpages and news pages together can't serve.
We would deal with this aspect sometime later in detail. For now, let's show you some blogs of big companies and organizations and see for yourself how blogs serve the brands/ organizations by beautifully adding a social/ consumer perspective:
