Blogging Essential to Marketers

While I don’t love sitting down every other day to blog, I do realize that my blogging experience will give me a competitive edge when I start interviewing for my first job. However, as you mentioned, the benefits are far more than just gaining blogging experience. Obviously, the more you blog the more comfortable and familiar you are with blogging, the better your writing will be and there is the possibility for networking. One major benefit I think many of us in Robert’s classes fail to recognize stems from the fact that we not only have to blog, but we have to comment on other people’s blogs. In order to comment, we have to seek out and read other blogs and are thus exposed to different views and issues. This requires us to actually think for ourselves (which is unfortunately a dying skill) and form an opinion and tell why we agree or disagree with someone. I have personally found that commenting in other blogs has been just as beneficial as writing in my own blog.

It was also interesting to read that you have 315 pages of text from only one year of blogging. I would have never thought to organize a book through the use of a blog, but that is a great idea! Thanks for the blogging encouragement and best of luck on the book!

It seems that blogging is taking over the world of public relations communication as we know it. Maybe not completely yet, but it seems that it is only a matter of time. I’m glad to know that, through Robert’s Style and Design class, I will have gained the necessary skills to ensure that I set myself apart as a competent, techno-saavy PR graduate.

As the trend toward a blending of public relations and marketing continues, I believe that marketers should be required to learn and perform this skill. Blogging could be a tool that helps link PR and marketing (not that they aren’t already combined enough as it is). Shared forms of communication and message channels could help increase continuity between the two departments of a company or between individuals in a marketing/public relations department of a company.

I agree that putting your thoughts out for all to read on the web can be a little unnerving. But as mentioned, the more you practice, the easier it becomes. Now in our fourth week of blogging for Robert’s Style and Design class, I actually (dare I say it) enjoy blogging. It helps to make me aware of the current issues and hot topics in PR. Blogging only increases my knowledge of our discipline so that I can have an intelligent conversation about relevant PR matters with teachers, fellow students and even potential employers. Blogging helps me think critically about others’ ideas so that I can effectively add to any team.

As much as I dreaded blogging in the beginning, I’m actually thankful now. It can be time consuming, but I know that it is helping set myself apart for future jobs.

I think it’s great that blogging is mandatory in your marketing department. However, at AU, it’s our public relations department that requires blogging – not the marketing department. As part of our PR curriculum, we are required to take three marketing classes. I’m currently enrolled in Retail Management and I find it perplexing that the word “blog� has yet to come up in the textbook or a class discussion. While I’m learning about the importance of blogging in my PR classes, it seems like our marketing department isn’t up to par. Target, which is one of the largest retailers in the country, is currently looking for a Senior Manager of Media Relations that has a strong knowledge for Internet journalism, which includes blogging. When the day comes that my future employer asks me to blog, I will be anything but blog-shy. I will have Robert’s Style and Design class to thank for this. With all of the technological advancements, so many tasks have become effortless. Blogging encourages me to be proactive and put my critical thinking and writing skills to good use. I’ve heard people say that they learned everything they needed to know once they got a job. Why wait until I get a job to start blogging when I can do it now and get ahead? I agree with you that everything gets easier when you blog. Therefore, blogging is a tool that all public relations AND marketing majors should be familiar with.

I remember first learning about blogs in Robert French’s Foundations of Public Relations class. To be frank, I was skeptical. Why would people want to read what I think? I’m no expert. Plus, how could you ever know if someone was telling the truth? The whole concept seemed stupid.

OK. I realize I might have been a little off on that assumption.

If I’ve learned anything through the blogosphere, it is the vast opportunities it offers through communication. Building relationships is crucial in any business, and until the past decade or so, it was extremely difficult to get your thoughts heard.

As a marketing communication tool, blogs are brilliant. In the age of the Internet, we are loosing a lot of personal contact, and individuals are pressured to trust mundane websites that show only what they want you to see. Through blogs I feel like a better judgment call can be made. It allows your public to get a rough grasp on what interests you, how you communicate, and hopefully, how smart you are among other things. When I see a blog featured on a website, even if I don’t read it extensively, I love to see what makes people tick. With any luck, (and I’m feeling lucky) company’s target publics feel the same way.

Who in Robert’s class actually celebrated at the thought of blogging? I am going to go out on a limb here and say very few. No offense to our teacher who was excited at the thought of teaching us this marketable skill, but we were not convinced. That was in the beginning. After a few weeks of placing our thoughts out there in the blogosphere and being vulnerable to critique, I can honestly say that I have heard great things from my peers.
I for one am actually starting to enjoy my time spent at my computer and pouring out my thoughts and ideas about PR. It has been affirmed for me these past two semesters that PR is for me. I love the idea of finding out the best way to reach a certain group of people and have a specific message targeted to them. It is like a puzzle. A puzzle of human emotions and psyche is what a PR professional has to figure out to have a successful campaign.
I am on the bandwagon with my peers who now agree that blogging may actually work out to our benefit. I am excited to see if I will in fact be able to set myself apart from others trying for the same job as me with blogging. The opportunity will certainly present itself soon enough and I am excited at the chance to use this knowledge that I was once skeptical about.

I was, and still am a little “blog-shy.” I feel like my words aren’t as good or big as some of these big-shot bloggers who read and post hundreds a day. It’s a little hard finding time to sit and write them too. I feel mine aren’t really so much pr-related either.
The good thing is that I am learning, and hopefully by the end of the semester, I will be a star blogger! I love news and reading different papers and websites, so it is fun for me to look around and find something to write about for the day. I also love reading other blogs. I posted on one a few weeks back and i got an email from the guy! That was exciting. It’s also great to start early so when it comes job time, I will have that extra little something.
It’s true! Everything does get better when you blog!

I’m never going to be a big “blogger,” but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with the idea of blogging being beneficial to marketing/pr skills. Like I have said in previous blogs, I enjoy blogging about things that deal with my passions…college football, drumming, basketball…things outside of those passions just don’t make me want to get online and tell people how I feel. HOWEVER, in another regard, I did find myself getting online to blog about suggestions for the new NCAA Football game for the Xbox 360. Nerdy as it sounds, I love playing this one video game, and I found myself giving suggestions to the producers of the game (EA sports) so that they capture the college football (auburn’s in particular) atmosphere EVEN MORE in this year’s game. So is blogging huge for marketers? Indeed it is. If you just look at this one case, you will see that much beneficial information and great ideas stem from this non-traditional form of media that is sweeping the world of PR/Marketing/Advertising.

It’s funny, for some reason it never occurred to me that one of the benefits of blogging is that it helps to improve our writing skills, which is vital for public relations. Now, I have never had much trouble with writing and speaking my mind and expressing my thoughts. But, we must always strive to improve ourselves, even in areas that we feel we excel in. I did, however, recognize the benefit of blogging that requires us to constantly look at everything with the mind of a PR practitioner. Ever since I started keeping a blog, I find myself thinking about everything from a PR point of view. I am constantly noticing the flaws and perfections. I critique things more closely and ask myself “How could they have executed that better?”

Other than the improvements of our thinking and writing skills, I have found that blogging benefits marketers by allowing them to get that much closer to their customers and publics. Blogging allows the organization to keep their publics informed about any events that might be coming up or any products that might be entering the market soon. It also allows them to educate their public about the organization itself and what its goals and mission statements are. Blogging also gives the public the chance to be heard, as well. If they are unhappy about something or if they are very pleased with what a company is doing they can let that company and other members of that public know about it by either commenting on the organization’s blog or by making a blog of their own.

There is certainly something to be said about disagreeing with someone that is highly more qualified than myself right? That something may be that I’m an idiot, or that something may be that I just want to go against the flow this one time. That’s my humble entrance into the controversy.

The one part about this blog that I do agree with are these few sentences, “You learn how to read fast and to find the stuff that’s important. Your writing skills will get better every time you write. And your ability to analyze and critique what others are postulating will sharpen your ability to compete for a place at the decision-making table. You will improve your ability to be a journalist and to reach journalists who are important to your program.” Those are definitely important qualities to continually improve on. But let’s be serious, “everything gets better when you blog”? I’m not convinced about that yet.

Maybe I need to get a few more years under my belt or get out of school and get into the “real world” as they say. I’m just not convinced that blogging in the professional world is the next big thing as PR professionals. I believe it is often used as a form of IneedsomethingtodowhileI’matwork tool. It’s fun and all, and sure, people read it and maybe learn a thing or two from PR blogs. But does “EVERYTHING get better when you blog”?

I would like to refer back to Sarah’s and Emily’s posts about our marketing department. Not only do many classes not mention it, some frown on blogging. I am currently in a marketing class with whom the professor takes every opportunity to make a demeaning remark about public relations and the tactics we are currently exploring. I felt looked down upon during the first week of class because I was a public relations student, and it wasn’t until I explained I was a business and marketing minor that I felt my status as a qualified student had been redeemed. He believes in the bottom line. Anything else is fluff. But as Octavio said in an earlier post, blogging is pure communication-many times between the customer and the company. How can we be good marketers without good communication skills? We can’t. In business, money drives the goals of the company. But without customer service and the exchange of new and fresh ideas with your contemporaries, you have nothing. And on that note, I still don’t understand why as public relations students we are required to take several business classes, yet marketing students don’t have to take communications courses! I feel that my education will be well-rounded because of my exposure to the “other� side of selling. Blogging is essential in the future, and I am excited that I can one day put my technology skills on my resume.

Going back to what Sarah mentioned about our marketing department at Auburn not having a clue or their foot in the door when it comes to blogging, I think that it shows you just how up and coming blogging is. I think our marketing deparment needs to step it up and start requiring the students to blog, just like the PR students are doing. Blogging is essential in today’s competitive industry, no matter if you are a pr practitioner or in marketing. It is another valuable resource that can be used for marketing to get your name or product out there. By having a blog, it’s an easier way to communicate to target publics and a more convenient way for other clients to look at what you have to offer.
Now blogging for class is a great idea and I’m glad Robert is making us do it. It will help improve my writing skills just like Amy pointed out earlier. We are required to post about public relations two times a week and comment on two other contibutors blogs for style and design. For survey research we post about examples of surveys or types of research that has been done in the past. This is keeping you aware of what is going on in the blogging world and what others have to say about issues relating to public relations. It is all helping to enhance your writing skills and make you more comfortable with blogging, so when you go out into the real world and they ask you if you have any experience in blogging, you can tell them, why yes, plently of it.

Robert gave me my first exposure to blogging. I had no idea what it was, what it would be used for, or how it would benefit me or anyone else. Even now, after five weeks of it, I find myself still intimidated by it. Much like you mentioned in your post that many marketers are “blog-shy,” I tend to think that way of myself. It’s not so much that I wonder what people will think of me based on what I write (although I’m sure that’s part of it), but more of the fact that people CAN make decisions about me solely based on what I write. That puts a lot of pressure on myself and my fellow student bloggers. We present an impression of ourselves, and this is often the only impression many of you get. I don’t know about the rest of the students, but that intimidates me. I do much better in a face-to-face atmosphere (in my opinion), or at least on the phone. It’s so hard to develop an accurate opinion of someone based on computer interaction. And it doesn’t make it any easier that Robert continually brings up the possibility of job offers based on these impressions. YIKES!! For me, I understand the benefits of blogging, I understand how it can help me and others, but I’ve psyched myself out by letting myself think that my future could be determined by how I blog and what I blog about. I’m hoping that as I get used to blogging, as it becomes more natural, the pressure will wear off and it will become second nature. I guess we’ll see…

Blogging…oh the wonderful world of blogging! I have actually already commented today about how common blogs are in today’s world. I noticed when I visited both the FOXNews and MSNBC websites that they have blogs. And every other website that I visited today had a blog, as well! I guess the business world is already taking advantage of the wonderful world of blogging.
It completely makes sense to use blogs in public relations. I like what you said about it being cost efficient. Blogging is a great tool to use when trying to reach a large audience. It is yet another way to communicate. The great thing about blogging is that it is FREE! There aren’t many other things in this world that are free, especially tools for businesses to use to communicate!!
The more I blog, the more I get comfortable with using this as a communication tool. It really is interesting to see what other people have to say about issues today. And I can completely appreciate “comments,” because I love getting them on my posts! I will be interested to see how far the blogging world goes. And in a couple of years when we are in the business world, I hope that I can use my blogging skills to my benefit!

This may be selfish, but I am glad the marketing department is not teaching blogging. For instance: A marketing major and myself apply for the same job. It is not really a marketing job or a PR job it is more of a communications job. But we both apply and both want the job. I will probably have a better chance at getting that job than the marketing major because of my blogging experience. I can’t help but see that as a good thing. I don’t know about ya’ll, but I want a job when I graduate. It sucks for the marketing majors, but blogging is very helpful for us.
That being said do I think marketers need to blog? You know it! It seems that everyone agress that blogging is important. I have no proof that it is not, and I can see how it has helped me already. So yeah they should blog. Is it bad that I want to succeed over a marketing major? I don’t think so. People go to the best schools to get the best education to become the best employees/employers. Robert is giving us that upper-hand for the future and we all should be very thankful…..I

Just as much as blogging is essential for our future careers, it is also helping our voices be heard as consumers. On my blog I posted a compliment to Orvis’s Public Relations. They have a great way of asking people to donate to conservation that lets their public know that they care about the nature that their customers enjoy. It was an efficient and non-invasive way of asking for the donations in itself also. I was delighted to see that the Communications and Conservation Manager for this big company had found my post and replied to it, thanking me for my input and the attention.

It gave me faith that big companies are using this blogging stuff and taking it seriously as it relates to what their publics are out there saying. Basically, it turns out this will be useful in the future!

I didn’t know what blogging was until taking Robert’s class. I didn’t realize how popular and important it was. I had no idea what to do and at times I still find myself wondering if I’m making any sense. I’m sure many of my blogs are less than perfect, but I am pleased to know that I have the opportunity to look a little silly now rather than in the work place. I feel fairly certain that there is a strong possibility that I will have to blog in my future career. Therefore, gaining the experience now will prove to be beneficial. Although I sometimes find myself not in the mood to blog on my site the required 3 times a week plus 2 comments, once I get started, I usually get into it. Blogging encourages me to research new topics and learn new information. When I received my first blog comment I was excited, yet nervous. It was the realization that someone else was actually reading what I wrote. That’s pretty scary. But I agree with you when you say practice makes perfect. And the fact that I’m a PR major, I’m definitely going to need some good practice with writing. I must admit that I’m glad to have the opportunity to learn how to blog thanks to Robert.

I must admit when I first started blogging, I thought why in the world would someone want to sit at their computer and post their thoughts. It seemed like a waste of time, a way to pass the minutes when you are sitting at your computer suffering from boredom. Although I may complain about blogging to Robert, I can see the beneficial factors. I notice myself being able to write more and it actually have substance. Blogging has showed me a whole new side of the World Wide Web, and as Dale Wolf said it has helped me sharpen many of my skills. Getting caught up in the blogging world can be beneficial, because there is a lot of beneficial information and intelligent people that have something to say.

I agree with you that blogging has become a large component in marketing that allows marketers to reach mass audiences. Just yesterday I heard a commercial advertising the Olympics that mentioned a place to blog about the Olympics. A blog for the Olympics! With that in mind, how can someone not understand the magnitude of blogging. It is everywhere, and people are finally realizing that.

Now hold that thought and consider what would be an effective way to reach an audience. People are fascinated with blogging, and in many consumers’ eyes blogging is new. People see blogging as a new technology, and we all know the buzz new techology receives. So why wouldn’t marketers want to use this buzz to generate buzz about their products or services.

One concern I do have is that although many people do recognize blogging, some of my marketing professors don’t even know what it is. And if they do they don’t see the purpose behind it. They describe it as a fad and an ineffective way to approach an audience. These are people who should be emphasizing its popularity, and understand its magnitude.

Again, blogging is a new idea, but lets just hope that sooner than later many more people are going to appreciate it.