Technical and Professional Communication: Marketing- Blogs and LinkedIn articles

This article looks at how consumers (customers and online users) view blogs and online advertisements. Bloggers suggest products to use in blogs. Blogs are also great places to form relationships with people that have similar interests to them. For example, two bloggers may play the same videogame or have the same education. “In the online world, trust and credibility are still paramount in attracting consumers’ engagement with the website, bloggers, or social media.” In other words, bloggers need to be trusted by consumers so that the consumers will buy their products. Additionally, “companies can use bloggers as the mediating person to reach their intended audiences, bridging the gap between the company and consumers.” In other words, bloggers are like online salespeople creating connections with consumers to form trust.

Benefits of blogging include stress relief, releasing emotions, “express (ing) one’s identity,” “community support, the expansion of social networks, increased friendship satisfaction and the building of reputation." Other benefits of blogging make bloggers better at reading and writing. For this study, interviews were conducted with adults aged 60 years old or older living in Spain writing blogs. Patterns were created from the interview data through thematic analysis. The benefits are relational, cognitive, and identity. The relational benefits are that self-esteem is increased when bloggers meet new people and learn new things. The cognitive benefits are that it “helps your brain work and stops it from getting rusty.” The identity benefits are that positive comments make them feel positive about themselves.