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Abstract
Irina Edilbaeva
Marketing Power of Blogging, 39 pages, 2 appendices
Saimaa University of Applied Sciences
Faculty of Business Administration Lappeenranta
Degree Program in International Business
International Business
Thesis 2014
Instructor: Principal
Lecturer Minna Ikavalko, Saimaa University of Applied
Sciences
The purpose of the research was to study blogging as a powerful marketing
tool and find out the relevance of business blogging
and blog advertising in
local area. A blog is a marketing tool that can be used by many companies.
Blogging has many different benefits. As an example it helps to present
company values and communicate with customers. Blogging is a low cost
marketing tool.
In some cases, blogging can be a source of money.
Companies that are interested in blogging as a social media-marketing
channel can utilize this study for defining the main advantages of blogging.
Social media managers and bloggers can find useful information about the
relevance of blogging in the local area.
The thesis is divided into a theory part and empirical part.
The theory part
begins with a description of the main concepts of marketing, marketing tools,
online marketing and social media marketing. Furthermore, it describes the
phenomenon of blogs and blogging. Also, the
theory part discusses the
differences between business blogging and blogging for profit. In conclusion,
theory part defines the benefits of blogging as a powerful marketing tool. The
data for the theory part was gathered from literature, articles and Internet
sources. The empirical part of the thesis includes the survey that was carried
out in Lappeenranta by handing out a questionnaire to representative persons
of local companies. Furthermore, the research part contains an interview that
was conducted especially for the thesis. The
qualitative method has been
applied for the researches. The data for this thesis were collected and
analysed.
The result of the study includes the description of actual blog marketing
benefits and disadvantages. The result indicated
the differences between
business blogging and blogging for revenue. It also investigates blogging as a
social media-marketing channel. The relevance of blogging in local area was
determined based on the findings from the empirical research. Further study is
required to find out the efficiency of online advertisings in blogs.
Key words: blog, blogging, marketing,
Internet marketing, social media
marketing, blog marketing
