“No matter what, the very first piece of social media real estate I’d start with is a blog,” says Chris Brogan, founder of New Marketing Labs. Blogs, or web logs, are internet journals published and maintained by bloggers, and have committed followers who not only read, but comment on the same blogs as well as other blogs. Hence, it is an enormously powerful marketing platform as it influences thousands of readers who look up to blogs for commendations and criticism of any product or service, and then may blog about them. Blog marketing should be a major component of an organization’s social media marketing strategy.

Why a Blog is Important?

Any publicity or advertisement of a product, brand, service or website on a blog is considered blog marketing, and goes further to include recommendations, reviews and promotion by readers on the original blog or on other multiple blogs. The advertisements are usually paid for, to the owner of the blog; however, the free publicity that is gained through references and reviews of readers is priceless. Blog advertisements can vary and are not limited to video representations that are made for television. They can be simple texts, text links, banners, audio and video clips, streaming video, flash animation, or whatever the next technology might be.

Strategies for Blog Marketing

Since blogs are published on various subjects, ad placements should be decided accordingly. The subject of the blog usually decides the readership, and hence blog ads can be tailored to suit the tastes of the reader. A blog is a remarkable way to attain publicity through information and persuasion, attaining exposure fast, especially if the subject catches interest and spirals into a huge wave as thousands begin discussing it on various blogs. This spiral marketing can help build up a good reputation quickly. However, the inverse can occur just as swiftly, as bloggers can be very negative in their blogs, and then the organization will have to deal with the spiralling negative publicity. Blog marketing requires strategizing well, so that the message is not lost amongst the others. It should be simple and clear, so that it is retained by the reader, and will be discussed in other blogs.