Brafton recently reported that marketing blogs are burgeoning tools among SMBs, with nearly half (43 percent) of U.S. companies planning to use blogs by 2012. Businesses that doubt the efficacy of blogs in the face of social media may look to the success of social marketing company Flowtown's blog as evidence that quality content fills a niche purpose in attracting consumers.
Flowtown is a social media marketing platform that helps companies turn email subscribers into customers, but the firm uses a blog to spread word about its services. GigaOm reports that Flowtown cofounder Ethan Bloch says the company blog is the business' main marketing tool. Blogging is clearly working for the firm as Flowtown boasts 15,000 business clients and it recently secured $750,000 in funding.
Bloch told the source the Flowtown blog brings 150,000 unique visitors to the site per month. The blog offers online consumers everything from social media "how to" guides to comical reviews of the latest foursquare marketing campaigns. Its content is regularly updated according to breaking industry news, and the site promotes user-generated content by giving readers opportunities to comment.
Notably, firm uses the blog both to establish itself as a thought leader and to engage consumers in conversation. Flowtown blogger Dan Martell recently posted a comment to a blog piece asking consumers to share opinions, writing he'd "love to hear your thoughts."
Marketers may want to follow in Flowtown's footsteps and create an interactive blog to attract more clients and investment dollars to their businesses. Notably, marketing blogs now have the potential to catch more loyal readers among online searchers as Google recently announced that it improved its blog search to help consumers find full blogs – instead of simply posts – that are relevant to their queries.
