Today, I’m gone a explain reasons why using blogs in a digital marketing strategy is efficient for a digital marketing campaign.

First of all, the most important thing to have an efficient communication is to have a large audience.  Blogs have a large audience on the internet, for example, 50% of American internet users are blog readers, this represents more than 94 millions of people (Teich, A.G. 2008). Also, there is a more than 6.7 million of bloggers in the world which show there is a large variety of bloggers on the internet so companies could find easily the best blogger to help them to promote their brand or their product. (Hubspot and state of inbound, 2016).

Another reason why blogs are efficient when used in a digital marketing strategy is the trust of users. Nowadays, internet is the most important media and is seen as the media of the 21^st century and information people can find here are credible in their opinion. (Teich, A.G. 2008) Furthermore, blogger are totally free to share whatever information they want, this characteristic of blogs helps internet users to believe in authenticity of content they read. Today, blogs are considered as the 5^th most trusted source on the internet (Ross, 2014).

Blogs have the particularity to encourage engagement from readers. On most of blogs, people have the opportunity to leave a comment on the post and on many social media accounts used as blogs, users have to opportunity to like and share blog articles. Blog is the only tool which could obtain approval from a community to a specific product. (Boram Park, SooKyoung Ahn, HaeJung Kim, 2010). This « informativeness » is considered as an advantage from blogs over other sources of information. (Boram Park, SooKyoung Ahn, HaeJung Kim, 2010) From this engagement, the company can find some customer feedback about the product to improve their offer. This approach was discovered through two surveys conducted in 2004 and 2005, the first Corporate Blogging Survey 2004 conducted on the PR Communications blog and the second Corporate Blogging Survey run by Backbone Media in 2005. (Cass, J. & MyiLibrary 2007) Some MNE already used blogging to improve their products and developp new ones such as IBM, Microsoft and Macromedia. (Cass, J. & MyiLibrary 2007)

The interactions described above also have a direct impact on companies’ sales performance. When companies look at who is following their blogs or blogs talking about them, they can find people interesting in the brand or the product and convert this interest into leads. As a prove, B2B companies who have their own blog receive 67% more leads. (Ross, 2014) Even if the blog doesn’t convert directly an interest into sales, it could help to improve the brand image and the communication around the brand as companies who use blogging receive 97% more link to their website (Allen, 2015) This engagement could also makes word-on-mouth easier as Robert Scoble and Shel Israel affirm in their book Naked Conversations that, ‘‘blogging is the best tool so far for enabling companies to convert customers into word-spreading evangelists.’’ (Teich, A.G. 2008)

Results of blogging activities are very positive for the company but what’s make it even more efficient is the cost. If a company decide to run a blog, the only thing it will cost them is time. (Allen, 2015) Companies can open their own blog from their domain name if they already have a website, so it doesn’t cost more (Zac Johnson, 2016) If the company wants to use influencers through their blogs, they will have to pay a fee, but it is still cheaper than TV advertising.

In addition, blogs increase the credibility of the company. A classic website gives some very formal information and don’t really add value to the company. To the eyes of the reader, it looks like a self-promotion which doesn’t have a big interest. A blog is more unformal and add a personal touch to the content. It is perceived as a direct dialogue between the brand and the consumer. (Zac Johnson, 2016)

Another reason why blogging is efficient for business is the boost on SEO. Creating a blog article on a company or a product increase results found on search engines because it gives them a reason to add another results in the researches. (Whittemore, 2017)

So, for all theses reasons, blogging is a very efficient method in a digital marketing strategy.

Boram Park, SooKyoung Ahn, HaeJung Kim, (2010) “Blogging: mediating impacts of flow on motivational behavior”, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 4Issue: 1, pp.6-29, https://doi-org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/10.1108/17505931011033533

Cass, J. & MyiLibrary 2007, Strategies and tools for corporate blogging, Butterworth-Heinemann, London;Amsterdam;

Christine, B. WHITTEMORE. 2018. Simplemarketingnowcom. [Online]. [5 April 2018]. Available from: https://www.simplemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/the-benefits-of-blogging-for-business

Hsieh, C., Kuo, P., Yang, S. & Lin, S. 2010, “Assessing blog-user satisfaction using the expectation and disconfirmation approach”, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 26, no. 6, pp. 1434-1444.

Jonny Ross. 2014. Searchenginepeople.com. [Online]. [5 April 2018]. Available from: https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/925-business-blogging.html

Teich, A.G. 2008, “Using Company Blogs to Win over Decision Makers”, Publishing Research Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 261-266

Today, I will focus on how search engine optimisation works for cars manufaturers. To conduct this reflextion, I enter few brands name on google to look at the resluts provided by the first page of this search engine. This is the most important part of SEO because according to Jansen and Spink (2006), 73 percent of search engine users never look beyond the first page of returned results and because Google represent more than 85% market share on search engine market .

For many brands, it appears first a sponsored link, most of the time to the company’s website. It allows the company to be sure to have content they control as first result of the research.

If the link to the company’s website is not sponsored it appears generally in the firsts results. Many links can bring the user to the company’s website. As theses website are big, links can bring to different pages of the website. Here for car manufacturer, theses links can bring to the car model of the brand or to the after-sales service. It can also bring to configurator to allow the user to personalize his future car.

Another kind of information which can be found when I enter a brand name is nearest retailers. The retailer given by google depends of your position and the pages filled on google. This show to user the nearest place he can buy a car. These results show it is very important to have retailer who fulfil their google page to be found easily. Fulfilling this also allows users to find easily information they need to go to this retailer. Usually google show a link to its maps service to show where the retailers are located. Using correctly this tool is very important because it can help car manufacturer to tunr interest into profit.

On the Right part of the result is the nearest Audi’s retailer

Some corporate information not written by the company could be found. The main example is Wikipedia. Articles from the shared encyclopedia are shown by google many times and can be found easily. There is also some article from website specialized on cars who wrote a company background about the company. This also shows information such as the CEO name, profit over last years or company history. These information are out of control from the company but many times they are written with a neutral point of view.

A special function from google which gives latest information from online newspapers talking about the company. For example, Renault and Nissan announce they will spend 200 millions of dollars in start-up during next years; this information appears on the first page. For this reason, it is important for companies to communicate about positive news they have such a good profit year or a new strategy.

In the other hand, this is a section out of control from companies as online newspapers are fully independent. For example, during the diesel gate, Volkswagen name was associated with many article about this negative news.

A last thing appears when I enter the name of a brand on Google. They show associated researches to the name of the company. These results could be considered as searches from other users which Google think you could be interested too. For car manufacturer, it could be models sold by the company or other car manufacturer from the same group or from the same market position. For example, Audi is part of the Volkswagen group, so other brand from this group such as Seat, Skoda or Volkswagen could be proposed but also main Audi rivals such as BMW or Mercedes.

Associated research after I enter Peugeot in Google, on the top are main Peugeot cars and on the bottom, Opel and Citroën are shown as part of PSA group when Renault, Fiat and Volkswagen are shown as main competitor.

To conclude, I can tell that Search Engine Optimisation for car manufacturer is not controlled at 100% by the companies. The objective through SEO is too promote the brand, but also to give the maximum information about the brand to users of the search engine.

Jansen, B.J. and Spink, A. (2006), “How are we searching the world wide web? A comparison of nine search engine transaction logs”, Information Processing and Management, No. 42, pp. 248‐63.

Lee, S., Jang, W., Lee, E. & Oh, S.G. 2016, “Search engine optimization”, Library Hi Tech, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 197-206.

Today, we will focus on how energy drinks communicate on social media.

Brand’s social media pages and account have several objectives. It could be, to create a relationship with customers and creating interactions with fans and consumers. Brand’s social media pages are consider as fan pages for people who really like the brand, want to stay connected with the brand and want to show it as a part of their personality. Being a brand’s fan could be compared as being a signer fan or a sports fan. As a place to communicate with fans, I found out that it is very usual for brands to answer to comments in their post and create interaction with fans.

Here is an example of Red Bull’s reply to a comment on a post on their Facebook page.

Managing fans is very important for brands. Having more fans means more attractiveness to the brand. If a brand have a lot of fans, potential customers will have a positive image of the brand. They can think fans like the brand because of the quality of the products or and of the services. Brand fans can communicate an enthusiasm about the brand through the brand’s page or through their own pages. (Kozinets 1999)In addition, brand fans generate more positive word-of-mouth, and are more emotionally attached to the brand than non-brand fans.

To analyse their strategy, I looked after their communication on Facebook. First of all when I entered the name of one of these brands on the search bar, I found many official pages from the brand. I consider official pages as pages where the name of the brand is included and the Facebook certification as an official page. This means that energy drinks brand’s communication is not only through a page dedicated to the product or the brand itself but it could be also through events sponsored by the brand. The objective is to create a “brand spirit” to associate the brand with a way of life.

When I enter “Red Bull” in the search section on Facebook, I found all these official pages. When I scroll to look after next results, I found that the ten firsts pages where related to Red Bull activities and sponsored events or sportsmen. My Researches concerning Monster Energy leads to similar results.

I completed my research by looking at posts made by the brand page itself. On the two most popular energy drinks’ Facebook pages, I had to scroll more than ten publications to find an image of a energy drink can. Most of publication I found on their official page talks about extreme sports athletes or team they sponsor. From my analyses, on Red Bull’s brand page, on the last 24 hours, they post thirteen times and I saw a can only once.

As part of their brand image, energy drinks brand also use hashtag especially on Twitter. The objective is to communicate their message to the most and to associate their brands with images and content they want.

Energy drinks companies don’t use social media to talk about their products. You will not find any post made to push sales directly through special offers and discounts. As an illustration, Monster Energy and Red Bull Facebook pages are not described as companies providing food and beverages but as companies providing sports and leisure or Medias and news.

Energy drinks marketing on social media illustrate their global marketing strategy. Brands try to get the highest level of exposure through massive sponsorship to have a high level of exposure and stay in people’s mind. On social Medias, they relate many activities from projects and activities they sponsor to generate buzz. With this strategy, they are able to offer premium content to their fans and they position themselves as premium brands.

References :

• https://www.facebook.com/redbull/
• https://www.facebook.com/search/pages/?q=red%20bull
• https://www.facebook.com/search/str/monster+energy/keywords_pages
• https://www.facebook.com/MonsterEnergy/
• Food Regulation Standing Committee Caffeine Working Group. Food Regulation Policy Options Paper- the Regulation of Caffeine in Foods.
• Kozinets, 1999
  • Robert V. KozinetsE-Tribalized Marketing?: The Strategic Implications of Virtual Communities of Consumption
  • European Management Journal, 17 (3) (1999), pp. 252-264
• McAlexander et al., 2002
  • James H. McAlexander, John W. Schouten, Harold F. KoenigBuilding Brand Community
  • Journal of Marketing, 66 (1) (2002), pp. 38-54
• Buchanan, L., Kelly, B. & Yeatman, H. 2017, “Exposure to digital marketing enhances young adults’ interest in energy drinks: An exploratory investigation”, PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. e0171226. Available at : http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0171226
• Rambe, P. & Jafeta, R.J. 2017, “Impact Of Social Media Advertising On High Energy Drink Preferences And Consumption”, Journal of Applied Business Research, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 653.
• http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/2013/07/23/industry-analysis-how-the-energy-drinks-industry-uses-social-media/#gref
• Impact Of Social Media Advertising On High Energy Drink Preferences And Consumption Patient Rambe, Central University of Technology, South Africa Retumetse Joyce Jafeta, Central University of Technology, South Africa
• L. de Vries, S. Gensler, P. S.H.Leeflang (2012) Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages : An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing Volume 26, Issue 2, May 2012, Pages 83-91 available at : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1094996812000060