As media of connection and interaction, the internet is providing us with a brand new channel as the digital technology develops. The technical and environmental development is changing the human communication paradigm and the user's position changed ...
As media of connection and interaction, the internet is providing us with a brand new channel as the digital technology develops. The technical and environmental development is changing the human communication paradigm and the user's position changed from a passive receiver to an active position such as active participator, producer and involver. Blog that started by combining the necessary functions responds to the individual desire of self-expression and socialization with others. It also is taking its position as the third communication tool after the bulletin board and e-mail. In 1996, blog first started in USA and it has a short history in Korea but people are motivated to use it as a tool for socialization, acquirement of information and entertainment. It is now growing fast for the internet conditions of Korea.
Observing the blog as a new marketing tool, companies are looking for different methods to approach it and this is similar to the effort the companies showed when the community first appeared on the internet. In the convergence marketing, Yoram Wind says, "In order to establish one's own convergence marketing that can combine new with old and online and offline, it is necessary to create a new access plan. Companies should create new strategies for personalized service, community, channel, competition value and decision-making methods. Under such process, they can find the convergence point of different functions in the organization and they can recreate the basic marketing principles with every member of the organization."
Companies try to react fast to the new environmental change and create profits. Therefore, the marketing concept became more detailed and precise. It is also changing to the direction of emphasizing the individual value and this is why the companies focus on blog that is an individual media as a new marketing tool. The companies in Korea is starting to react to the new communication media and under such circumstance, the study tries to investigate the companies' thoughts and usage of the blog marketing as well as the users' reaction and attitude to the commercial advertisement in blogs.
The investigation result shows that the companies are ready to carry out the blog marketing actively but compared to their high recognition on necessity and effects, they did not have sufficient professionalism such as personnel assignment and lack of fully responsible departments. However, it shows that the companies highly recognize its appropriateness as a tool for long-term customer management.
Even the survey on the detailed management plan shows the individual characteristics of blog. The companies showed a high level of recognition on importance of emotional approach and necessity of individual communication between the manager and the client. Such characteristics show that the blog can be developed as a new marketing method.
Most of the blog users use the blog for 1~2 years and mostly add a person they know when adding a new neighbor. They showed active responses to scrapping and replying information they want and are interested in. This tells that when carrying out the blog marketing, the companies should manage and provide honest and faithful information along with management of emotional images.
The individual users have much experience of using blogs for public relations and sales promotion of a company. This shows that the users' negative reaction to the blogs managed for the brand management and the commercial marketing activity is relatively small, and the users showed a high level of favor for things they are interested in. When the users have a long usage period, their recognition is positive. Most of the users responded the individual permission is necessary and the companies should increase the efficiency by providing effective information and different benefits through appropriate data mining for the blog users' information.
The study looked into the difference between companies and an individuals. The result shows that companies recognize that the information productivity is important as a marketing tool whereas individuals recognize the familiarity of media is important as a marketing tool so this tells that the difference in the recognition of companies and individuals is very clear.
The individual users highly recognized the blog's value as an information source for brand reliability, company reliability and new product. The companies recognized that the marketing through blogs is efficient and especially, they highly recognized its positive effects on purchase intention and improvement of brand and company reliability. Also, they recognized its advertisement and interactivity very positively.
Blog has clear characteristics such as nonlinear characteristic of the internet, network infra, interactivity, conductor-centered activeness, and unlimited time and space. Also, blog can allow an individual to express one's ego and it allows a private space where one can form a relationship with another so it is growing fast.
Companies show a high level of recognition on necessity and effects of the blog marketing but since it is still in its beginning stage so the professionalism is insufficient. The individuals showed relatively positive attitudes so when the companies focus on providing different benefits through communication with the individuals and offering honest and faithful information, the blog marketing can be the best tool for management of company image and production of profits.