Categories: Articles

Is Blog Marketing A Non-Issue?

When I first entered the search business, there was no Google. The only people even claiming to know how to monetize the search engine space was an auction-based pay-per-click company called, GoTo.com, that most pundits felt would never make it. GoTo eventually became Overture which is now Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google came out with AdWords and we all know the multi-billion dollar industry it has spawned.
The reason for this preamble to this ramble is that more and more I am being asked my views on how brands should be marketing themselves with Blogs, or what is Blog Marketing?
I think we’ve all come to realize that a Blog is an amazing marketing tool in terms of starting a conversation, in a human voice, with your respective audience. Now, brands want to know how to leverage other Blogs as marketing channels and, I’m afraid, my answer to immediate success is “disruption.”
For a Marketer to be successful at Blog Marketing there will need to be some kind of “disruption” – a time and place where their message can inspire the conversation that falls outside of the Blog owner’s voice. It’s a disruption because the regular flow of the Blog must be breached no matter how relevant, timely and personal the marketing message is.
I have high hopes that true Blog Marketing will eventually just be great content. Great content that is relevant to the context of where it is being hosted. But, we have a ways to go until we’re there. Until then, it’s going to take someone with the stones to disrupt the conversation. This worked for search engines. When GoTo first came on the scene, the thought of search results being ranked by who paid the most was ludicrous. It was even more insane that the top-payer could simply be outbid, at any point, and loose their spot.
Blogs will also have to go through this primordial goop of advertising to find the right groove. It’s almost one-hundred percent counter to the notions of The Cluetrain Manifesto. It makes no sense in the context of “markets are conversation,” and it’s probably the type of talk that would make David Weinberger’s eyes roll (and rightfully so).
It’s Friday, we have all weekend to think about it. If Marketers want to build a business out of Blog Marketing, what’s the alternative? I hate to see the thoughts of this Blog post come true. I actually believe there is a way to build a Blog Marketing industry that in no way begins by going down the traditional paths of disruption and conversation interruption. The challenge is for Marketers to all agree that this is not the best way to gain revenue from Blog Marketing and start thinking about ways to engage the conversation that would result in more revenues for their products and services.
The true challenge? It’s far too easy to disrupt than it is to be creative. Don’t believe me? Just watch five TV commercials in a row.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.