The Blogs are Here: Umair Naeem
Thursday, March 27, 2008 9:41The advent of the Internet and digital media as an information gathering tool is something that has been mentioned time and time again; and their importance only increases as Pakistanis move forward and become more internet savvy. I wrote about Viral Marketing and its implication as a marketing tool in an earlier column, and this week I’ll focus on how Blogs can be a powerful tool for external communication and marketing a brand. On the surface, Blogs are simply Web Logs, or online diaries that help a person project his or her ideas and wishes to the global community through the Internet.
Dig a little deeper, and you will be amazed to find a world where popular Blogs are read and referred to as if they were opinion pieces from the New York Times. Users access Blogs for reviews of gadgets, brands, books, websites and what not! It can be argued that Blogs are not that much of a phenomenon in Pakistan, but that is a misconception.
Firstly, in this age of global brands and international marketing, if a popular Blog is written in Australia lambasting a technology that is being brought into Pakistan, then the company bringing in that technology is already on the back foot.
All consumers making an investment more often than not scour the internet to gain a better understanding of the service or technology that they are investing on, and that is where popular opinion Blogs come into their own. Secondly, Pakistan is not as far behind the world in Blogging as you may consider; on the contrary, it is active and growing at a rapid rate.
For instance, the Pakistan telecom industry is one that has spawned a number of review and opinion Blogs, some of which are so well detailed and informed that they are excellent decision making tools. http://pakistantel.blogspot.com/ is a great informal resource to be informed about the latest developments in this sector, while http://telecompk.net/ is a brilliant website/Blog that takes an in depth look into the state of the industry in Pakistan, by offering informed opinions and comparisons between the different telecom service providers and fair evaluations of the technologies that they use.
The implications can be massive. Technology and New Products spread through the market and consumers through a process of diffusion and adoption. Innovators and the Early Adopters are segments of the markets that are always keen on being the first to try out and utilize these new entries into the market, and become experts of the said technology in the process. Many of these Innovators and Early Adopters are the very opinion leaders that initiate opinion Blogs, and influence the Early Majority into following suit on the said New Products, and this process is often the very key that companies look towards when initiating technology diffusion.
Companies can also potentially be more proactive in this regards, and rather than waiting and hoping that Opinion Leaders and Bloggers will welcome their technology and move towards disseminating information regarding it, they can start the process themselves. An excellent example of this is the official Google Blog, at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ which has postings from programmers, product managers and others responsible for Google’s portfolio of services. This is an ideal destination for the above mentioned technology experts and innovators, who always want to be the first to know about relevant information.
Through Blogs such as these, Viral Marketing and diffusion can be initiated. Blogs can also be a great tool for Internal Communications for Global Companies that employ a cross cultural and multinational mix of employees. Telenor’s Trainee Blog at http://trainee-blog.telenor.com/ is good instance of the said. The site can not only help trainees from one country understand how trainees from other countries work and live, thus breeding acceptance, awareness and multiculturalism; it can also be an excellent forum where potential candidates can get a feel for the company’s culture and work ethics.
I have mentioned a few illustrations of the versatility and power of Blogs, and it is clear that their potential can be huge if they are properly tapped for digital marketing techniques and technology diffusion. I will end this week with a salute and the Rant of the Week. The salute first, and it goes out to Mir Zafar Ali, who became the first Pakistani in living memory to pick up an Oscar. He and the team he was part of, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on ‘The Golden Compass’. It’s a great achievement for him and for Pakistan. This week’s Rant goes out to the wonderful people responsible for putting up a huge Advertising Tele screen on Shahrah-e-Faisal, near a well known hotel.
The screen is set up such that the traffic stopped for the signal at that point can view it, but what apparently slipped up the mind of those who put it up there, is the fact that the point has become something of a traffic clog on the road. The addition of the Tele screen only adds to the distraction of the drivers. Here’s hoping that sense shall prevail and it will be taken off.
Till next week, stay safe! “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.” From George Orwell’s 1984.
