How are organisations encouraging consumer involvement via a blog? CONTENT CREATION

Its all well and good businesses creating a blog, but what's the use unless its engaging with viewers? How are businesses actually encouraging consumers to comment, share and ultimately buy? CONTENT CREATION. 

Content creation has been defined by Rowley as a marketing communication in an online environment that is associated with creating presence, relationships and value through engaging and relevant material (2008). Additionally, an article by Craig Bailey refers to the Bill Gates 'Content is King' article, it stated; 

                

                         'If people are expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up to date information.’

                ‘...there needs to be an opportunity for personal involvement.'

                                                                                                          (Bill Gates, 1996)

So how do businesses actually achieve consumer involvement? According to Ahuja & Medury an organisation must adopt one of the typologies, or possibly even all 3 of them! The 3 typologies are as follows: 

•   PROMOTIONAL – Content that engages with consumers and influences/persuades in                                                       order to converse into sales. 

•   ORGANISATIONAL – Content that enhances the organisational brand image and builds                                                          a relationship with the consumer. 

•   RELATIONAL  – Content that rectifies/requests consumer opinions such as rumours and                                                consumer concerns or promotes feedback from consumers.

                                                                                                                                   (2010)

      An example for each of the typologies will be presented below in order to help you understand how content creation works in practise. 

                                                                    Promotional 

      This blog posting by Thorntons provides content to encourage sales by offering a new product range in time for Fathers Day. Promotional blog postings primarily focus on new product ranges and product features to entice consumers to buy. 

                                                

                                                               Organisational 

      Organisational content provides information regarding the businesses history and heritage, CSR initiatives, current activities, and employee stories. This blog posting shows how Starbucks have recently taken a trip to China. This helps readers to feel like they know the brand personally at a deeper level. According to Gobe organisations that display a personality are able to form a relationship helping to increase consumer involvement (2001). 

                                  

                                                               Relational 

      Battlefield use relational content to ask current consumers for their feedback regarding a product feature. It is suggested that this method is the most effective as it directly asks consumers to involve themselves and offer their opinions (Ahuja & Medury, 2010). 

       It is evident to see how content creation has been successfully utilised by existing organisations to encourage consumer involvement, however consumers are an extremely powerful influencing tool. Surowieki suggests that a group of peoples opinions provide a much stronger answer than a sole individual (2004). Therefore, if one consumer was to have a bad experience with an organisation and post negative feedback, it could potentially encourage other blog viewers to post negative feedback. 

   

     Whether you already operate a business blog or are considering a blog as an option, a content creation method could possibly be extremely beneficial. However, remember this method welcomes participation so make sure you are confident in your businesses ability to please consumers, and be prepared to deal with any harmful feedback!

      

      References 

Ahuja, V. and Medury, Y. (2010) Corporate Blogs as e-CRM tools – Building consumer engagement through content management. Palgrave Journals, 17, 91-105.

Battlefield (2014) 'Tell DICE: What should we balance next?' [Online] http://blogs.battlefield.com/page/2/ [Accessed: 6th May 2014]

Craig Bailey (2001) ‘Content is King by Bill Gates’. [Online] http://www.craigbailey.net/content-is-king-by-bill-gates/ [Accessed: 6th May 2014]
Gobe, M. (2001) Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. 1st edition . New York: Allworth Press. 

Rowley, J. (2008) Understanding digital content marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 24, 517-540.

Starbucks (2010) 'History in the Making'. [Online] http://www.starbucks.co.uk/blog/history-in-the-making/780 [Accessed: 6th May 2014]

Suroweicki, J. 2004, The Wisdom of Crowds. 1st edition, London: Little, Brown Book Group, Pg 235. 
Thorntons (2014) 'Toffee Banoffi Dessert'. [Online] http://blog.thorntons.co.uk/recipes/toffee-banoffi-dessert/ [Accessed: 6th May 2014]