Blog Definition

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2.3.2 Blog Definition

Huang, Shen, Lin, & Chang defined blogs as “personal journals on the internet arranged in reverse chronological sequence that facilitate interactive computer mediated communication through text, images, and audio/video objects” (2007). “A blog is an easily, instantly, and frequently updated Web site, focused around a topic, industry, or personality”

(Wibbels, 2006). Thorson and Rodgers (2008) consider interactive blog a form of eWOM.

Researchers have categorized blogs under diverse criteria. Blood (2002) distinguishes three types of blogs by their functions. Krishnamurthy (2002) proposes to classify blogs into four types by two dimensions of a blog's orientation: personal versus topical and community versus individual. Herring, Scheidt, Wright, and Bonus (2005) modify Krishnamurthy's categorization and ascribe blogs into five categories. Dearstyne (2005) suggests five types of blogs by their uses.

There are seven characteristics that distinguish blogs from other media:

1. Interactive

Of all communication tools, blogs are the most interactive (Claxton & Woo, 2008.). Its engaging nature allows bloggers and readers to have two-way conversations via comments, trackbacks, or message boards.

2. Accessible

Blogs can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as long as the internet works. There are all kinds of blogs (e.g. v-log: video blog, k-log, knowledge blog) in blogosphere, and they are open to the public, unless locked from the bloggers.

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3. Personality-driven

There is no set rule of how a blog post should be written; instead, the beauty of free speech makes blogging a “creative outlet” (Wallace, 2008, p.8). Many personal blogs are self-expressive and do not represent any party except the blogger himself/herself. The tone of a personal blog is usually informal and identical with the bloggers’ own personality.

4. Cost-Efficient

Unlike its mass media counterparts, to communicate on a blog is inexpensive (Brown, 2007, p.21). Using an existing blogging software or platform, such as Blogger, Wordpress, or Wretch (Taiwan), is usually free. Once a blog is set up, one can promote his/her business, product, service, or cause for no cost.

5. Easy-to-manage

To start a blog does not require computing skills (Brown, 2007, p.21), nor much technology knowledge. There are existing blogging software/platforms for people to create their own accounts and blog whenever, and wherever. It is easy to manage a blog, even if one decides to stop his/her blog, there will not be any managerial cost or loss involved.

6. Insightful

A blogger can be any person, from middle school student to the president. In face, there are many bloggers with rich knowledge on specific topics; they offer in-depth analysis or useful information via links(Wibbels, 2006, p.27) and oftentimes, give advises or recommendations.

This theme-based blogs that concentrate on certain fields of knowledge is referred to as knowledge blogs, also known as k-logs (Herring et al, 2005).

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7. Up-to-date

Blogs offer fresh content on a frequent and regular basis (Wibbels, 2006, p.27); they provide a “new breed of ‘citizen journalists’ to supply real time eyewitness accounts of events around the world that the mainstream media does not, or cannot, cover and instantly communicate reports” (Wallace, 2008, p.10). A blog post is put online instantly (Brown, 2007, p.22), unlike a news report needs to be edited or a TV commercial requires long production time.

8. Credible

Traditional mass media are bought to promote a product/service/organization, yet blogs are consumer-generated-media that reveal real-consumer experiences or opinions. Thus, word of mouth generated via blogs, as the AIDEES model shows, has undergone the stages of

bloggers’ own experience, and being enthusiastically shared in the blogosphere that can generate great buzz. Readers trust recommendations from bloggers more highly than from traditional advertising (Wibbels, 2006, p.22). The credibility of blogs and bloggers will be further discussed in following literature.

Blogs have been viewed as one of the most influential and effective means in current integrated marketing communications (IMC). What blogging can achieve is the more specific and direct targeting (Claxton & Woo, 2008). Professor Kotler and Keller (2004) have named 14 shifts in marketing in their reputed book Marketing Management; within which they mentioned the market has changed from organized by products unit to organized by customer segments as well as the market used to sell to everyone, but now the market serves the well-defined target market. The major purpose of targeting is to reach precise consumer group, further building strong customer relationship. The distinctive outcomes of targeting are its preciseness, customization, directness, reinforced customer relationship, and effectiveness.

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New Identities, a marketing agency located in New Jersey, names “the process of putting products in front of potential customers at the exact moment” the pinpoint marketing, which is in contrast to the more expensive and wasteful interruptive marketing, such as television or radio ads.

Consumers are not homogeneous; each consumer has his/her own preference, cultural background…etc. Mass marketing communications in many cases, such as advertising, result in ineffectiveness for both the company and customers – company would waste money and lose profit as well as customers would waste energy and make wrong buying decision, which may deteriorate the building of customer loyalty. The best for a value of certain

product/service to be delivered thus is suggested as “the right product to the right consumers in the right way” (Kotler, 2004). The readers of blogs are of selected groups with specific interest on certain topics. It is now the targeting or customer segmentation that plays an important role in marketing and integrated marketing communications, either in

macroenvironment or microenvironment.