Final reflection on blogging

A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary

During my time blogging I have learnt alot, not just about the subjects I have written about but about using blogging as a communication tool. I have come across businesses that use blogs to talk about their products, individuals talking about their profession, their lives or just about their thoughts and feelings.

According to a new study released by PR Week and PR Newswire, 52% percent of bloggers surveyed consider themselves journalists. This is an increase from 2009’s study, when just one in three had the same opinion. However, despite this, only 20% of bloggers obtain the majority of their income from their blogs; which is an 4% increase from 2009.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/study-52-percent-of-bloggers-consider-themselves-journalists/#ixzz0mV2aQoux

Blogs took off in 1999 when several companies and developers made easy blogging software and tools. Since then, the number of blogs on the Internet has now reached over 100 million. (About.com, 2010). Business blogs are a corporate tool for communicating with consumers or employees to share knowledge of their brand or products. Business blogs are a great way to connect with potential customers but just like everything they have their advantages and disadvantages.
Politicians have even joined the blogging world by working alongside bloggers to increase interest and communicate their policies. This is very important in the world of politics especially in the lead up to the 2010 election. Blogging early in the debate, Gary Gibbon wrote about Gordon Brown's opening statement: "Wow! What an opening address... Everything he hasn't done before: clear, forceful, he looked passionate and warned of peril." (Channel 4 News, 2010).

Public relations has typically been seen as a subordinate, support function to activities such as advertising, but it’s importance now appears to be becoming more recognised with the developments in electronic marketing. The web is now used extensively for public relations purposes. (Brassington, 2006). Blogging plays a bit part in the progress that has been seen over the past few years.
There are countless marketing blogs on the web. Successful marketing through blogs creates a community of interest where readers are involved in the use and lifestyle of a product or service. Blogging creates interactive communications using low cost self-publishing and syndication of content. It is not a way to make money or sell products. Companies that have used blogs to sell overtly have so-far failed and generated protest. (Horton, 2003).

Advantages of Blogging

Freedom of speech - Blogs enable people to write about what they want, when they want to. There are millions of blogs out there so the chances of someone reading your personal blog if they do not know you are very slim.
Share knowledge with other people - There are many professions out there who share their wisdom with the world through blogging. This can help smaller businesses get more knowledge and even help students with their studies. The knowledge that other people can share can be extremely valuable.
Make friends online - When writing blogs, a lot of bloggers gain regular readership or followers. These people can easily turn into friends as you are essentially letting someone into your world to read your thoughts and/or feelings.
Can be used as a diary - Blogs or online journals are very easily turned into a diary of your day to day life. This is a great way of keeping a permanent record of your life which can be reflected at a later date.

Disadvantages of Blogging

Need to keep it constantly updated otherwise you lose potential readers - When up keeping a business or marketing blog it is essential to regularly add posts to keep your readers going back for more. If a business slacks in the about of updates they give, reader will be lost and therefore potential customers too.
Easy to start, hard to maintain - Blogs are very easy to get going as most people will start a blog as they have something to say or a product to talk about. The key however to a successful blog is to maintain the site, this can be difficult as your business has to come first and time is often short.

Blogs seem to overall be a good support and communication tool for businesses. The research has showed that whether communicating a brand, a product or yourself blogs are a valuable tool to enhance your image. Readers like to feel involved with the blogger and receive a clear message. This fact is good for businesses as they have another tool to turn consumers into customers.

Segmentation, targeting and positioning

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning are marketing tools used by a company to gain competitive advantage in the market. They help the company to differentiate its product offering from that of its competitors and ensure that the same reaches the exact market profile for which it is intended.

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning together comprise a three stage process. We first determine which kinds of customers exist, then select which ones we are best off trying to serve and, finally, implement our segmentation by optimizing our products/services for that segment and communicating that we have made the choice to distinguish ourselves that way.

Demographic segmentation consists of a wide variety of bases for subdividing markets, and each of these is now discussed:

•Age is a good segmentation variable for such items as clothes where the fashion-conscious young are more susceptible to regular changes in style and older segments are perhaps more concerned with such factors as quality and comfort.

•Sex is a strong segment in terms of goods that are specifically targeted towards males or females and again an obvious example is clothing. Here, fashion is a powerful element when purchasing, and a whole industry surrounds this criterion.

•Income as a segmentation base is more popular in certain countries like the USA than others who regard such matters very privately.

•Social class is possibly the single most used variable for research purposes.

Social Class

"the overall rank of people in society; people who are grouped within the same social class are approximately equal in terms of their social standing, occupations and lifestyles" Soloman 2006

Social class is a very important topic to understand, as it is very important to the lives of most people in society. It is often difficult to tell which class a person is in, as this can be measured in a number of different ways. There are two major definitions of class, these are called objective and subjective definitions.

Objective definitions of class focus on things that can be measured about a person's life, such as their occupation (job).Occupation is a good example of an objective definition of class.

Subjective definitions of class focus on things that can not be measured, such as the social class that a person thinks they are in. For example, a person with a lot of money may still consider themselves working class. They may live in a working class area and have working class friends. In other words the class that a person thinks they are in, is likely to affect the way they act.

Measuring Social Class in Great Britain

Today social class is established largely according to occupation, and for many years, British marketers have used the grading system below. It has been widely used to group consumers, whether for research or for analysing media readership.

A – upper middle class - Higher managerial, administrative or professional
B - middle class - Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1 – lower middle class - Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2 – skilled working class - Skilled manual workers
D – working class - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
E – lower class - State pensioners or widows, casual or low grade workers

Soloman 2006 states that in many animal species, a social organization develops whereby the most assertive or aggressive animals exert control over other and have the first pick of food, living space and even mating partners. People are not at all different from this, we have developed a natural 'pecking order' where we are ranked in terms of our standing in society.

In our lecture on social class we were given the task of creating a mood board of a particular class. My group were given middle class which I found a hard class to categorise as there is upper middle, middle and lower middle to cover. Due to this I found it hard to complete this task in the lecture but have had another go and this is what I have found.

Middle Class

These mood board are of working class and upper class and were put together in the lecture by the other groups.

Working Class

Upper Class

We discovered that classes are quite difficult to define in terms of products and someone who fits into the working class category can still enjoy the luxuries in life so marketers still need to target all classes with high class products. Its the same with less expensive and luxurious items, the middle classes will still purchase these items if they are marketed in the correct way.

Group Conformity

A group is two or more individuals who share a set of norms, have role relationships and experience interdependent behaviours.

This is an interesting article on conformity, http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologyexperiments/a/conformityexper.htm

If someone does something or acts in a certain way, do you think you would follow as they lead or do what you think is correct? Watch the video below and you will be amazed what some people will do to fit in.

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs show that belonging as a big factor, people naturally want to belong to something. This might be a group of friends, a social society, a sports team or whatever. People need to fit somewhere to have that sense of belonging that everyone craves.

You can also belong to a group depending on your social class, the way you dress or where you shop. For example 'The Chav' It came into everyday language in 2005, I didn’t remember hearing it much before that. It refers to a type of youth, supposedly uncultured, maybe a bit anti-social, perhaps even violent, but certainly marked out, at least from the point of view of the critic, by very bad taste. Chavs are supposed to wear a lot of flashy jewellery, white trainers, baseball caps, sham designer clothes, girls expose a lot of mid-riff. Soloman 2006 states that reference groups may exert either a positive or negative influence on consumer behaviours. In most cases, consumers model their behaviour to be consistent with what they think a group expects of them. In some case though, consumers may try to distance themselves from other people or groups who function as avoidance groups. He or she may carefully study the dress or mannerisms of a disliked group and go out of their way to avoid buying anything that might identify them with that group.
Burberry for example have struggled with their reputation since the media have portrayed Chavs to be seem head to toe in Burberry style clothing as before they were seem as a high class fashion brand.

In Britain today there is public debate suggesting that we are losing this essential sense of belonging and that globalization, for example is far from bringing people closer together it is actually moving us apart.
We hear that our neighbourhoods are becoming evermore impersonal and anonymous and that we no longer have a sense of place. On one level, belonging is certainly changing. While in the past a sense of belonging was more defined in terms of the traditional markers of social identity such as class or religion, people are now far more able to choose the categories to which they belong. We are now able to select from a wide range of groups, communities, brands and lifestyles those with which we wish to align ourselves and which, in turn, shape our social identities.
At the same time we may, or may not, remain rooted in our families or in the place in which we were born. We have much greater opportunity these days to opt in and opt out of various groups but we still want the same things from membership of these groups. We have timeless needs for social bonding, loyalty, security and acceptance. These have been with us since the Stone Age and throughout our history we have created social networks and groupings to serve these ends. So what does this landscape look like today? Is it that much different from that of the past?