Internet Marketing
It is very difficult to both understand and dissuade if some elements of Internet marketing like commercial blogging are an honest work. For this research paper, blog website www.petbloglady.com will be used for marketing analysis purposes. Blogposts were read, and some comments were checked from some of the readers. It seems that no one is objecting the blogger for its purpose of promoting pet foods, pet accessories, or even veterinary services. In fact, the readers of the blog are sharing information on how to take care of a pet and offering compliments for sharing a pet grooming tip. The blog publisher uses Typepad for content sharing, management and support purposes.
Over the years, the Internet has slowly formed a community amongst different users and became the most accessible/preferred media tool today. Thus, the term Internet marketing was born – and eventually became an advertising practice, albeit in a digital way. Marketers care about the said blog because it gives them a new platform to promote their products and services. Online blogs also give marketers a new avenue for exposure, for creating a customer base, and for building reputation. Why marketers are willing to pay for brand exposure? Advertisers at petbloglady.com are not just on the website, but they advertise on related blogs as well. Advertisers are constantly finding the right customers, and that is by determining who can purchase a product attributed to his interest. Products and services owners are persistently trying to increase their market advantage and their probability of making a sale, and that is by advertising their product on the right avenue.
Marketers and bloggers, regardless of their goal to have themselves exposed, should always expect tight competition between one another on the Internet. Website performance evaluation of petbloglady.com was done via alexa.com. According to Alexa.com’s analysis, there are no sites related to petbloglady.com. However, there are other websites related to pet humor, pet grooming, and pet product reviews. Like any other websites, they also compete for exposure in order to attain maximum profit possible. By judging at petbloglady.com’s popularity, it may seem that it is not doing well on that department – with a blog website ranked at 319,106th in terms of user traffic. When compared with competitive websites, it might seem a long shot. Since the website focuses on a certain niche, it might be able to match pretty well with other websites with a similar niche. One popular blog website is I Can Has Cheezburger, an online community dedicated to cats. These two websites differ in terms of content and niche. However, the cat-centric website had its appeal and made a heyday due to its humor-centered content.
How much does the website earn annually? The answer is not expected to be at exact values, but will be determined by using existing variables. According to analytics from Alexa.com, Pet Blog Lady posted two views on a daily basis. However, the website reported that there are 10,000 unique visitors a month. Let us assume that the blog website earns $5/page view, has 75,000 impressions, and the average RPM is $2 due to website category. In marketing, it is usually possible that the advertiser’s cost per impression (CPM) and the publisher’s revenue per impression (RPM) are the same. The cost per click is usually determined when dividing the calculated impression costs by half. Automatically, this sets the revenue per click price is $1. Based from the computations, the blogger could earn at least $75 a month or at least $900 a year as commissions from advertising. It could be inferred that the blog owner could earn more for guest posts, sponsored advertising, and the like.
It is hard to trust people when trying to purchase a product sold on the Internet, but it has carved a niche of convenience for online buyers, sellers, and even promoters alike. Commercial blogging is a newer and more practical way of promoting a product/service. Many laud this new trend of Internet marketing and advertising strategy, but some have presented ethical and systematic flaws in such strategy. What made commercial blogging a center of controversy? Is it within the flow of the system, or is it within those who undertake such practices?
There are many reasons why commercial blogging makes sense from both financial and mechanism standpoints. Jackson (2003) compiled different reasons on why commercial blogging creates benefits for businesses, and most reasons stated continue to ring effectiveness. First, setting up is a few clicks away and inexpensive. Second, most business blogs tend to exude more credibility and authority by being transparent customers while building relationships along the way. Majority of the entrepreneurs operate small businesses, and it is important for those businesses to generate and utilize content aimed for both sharing and informing others through different avenues of interaction (Fagan, 2014).
While commercial blogging creates an intuitive sphere for new ventures, it potentially creates a breeding ground for an unethical cause. Commercial blogging may be the root of legal issues for some companies. Goold (2014) cites misrepresentation as a problem – that even though lawyers hire writers or do some writing on their own, someone who did not write the content could simply claim it as their own work. These writers lawyers hire are called as ‘ghost writers,’ and being one is prone to acts of misconduct in any writing-related activity. Paraphrasing, plagiarism, and article spinning are prevalent practices in writing blogs – especially in a world where some found convenience from existing ideas need not be though from scratch. Dawn (2012) cites one instance of unethical blogging, wherein he bumped into a well-rewritten article, and he was infuriated that the author who did the work took all the credit.
If you ask me, is commercial blogging honest work? For me, it depends on the proper tackling of objectives and ensuring proper placement of a brand. Honesty promotes sharing of ideas and a good avenue for providing arguments, but some could go as low as fabricating content in order to make the most of what is in the sharing. Personally, I believe that blogging about a product and service is not just about promoting products – but also a way of sharing information that future customers and clients could use as reference. One will never be sure after reading a piece of digitally written content, and it is all up to properly dissecting information and putting trust about/to the product/service being offered.
Works Cited
Fagan, Laura. "The Importance of Small Business Blogging (And How to Get Started)." Salesforce Blog. 18 July 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. <http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2014/07/small-business-blogging.html>.
Goold, Kailee. "Ghost-Blogging (Still) Raises Ethical Concerns – Should We Do Something About It?" Ohio Legal Ethics. 25 June 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. <http://ohiolegalethics.keglerbrown.com/?p=1289>.
Jackson, Matt. "10 Big Benefits Of A Busy Business Blog: (And How To Take Advantage)." Web Development and Design Tutorials, Tips and Reviews. 27 Mar. 2003. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. <http://www.webreference.com/authoring/bus_blog/index.html>.
