Friday, February 13, 2009

Why Irish Ad agencies should blog. Three practical reasons...


Image courtesy of athena

Why don't Irish marketing agencies blog?

A few do. Brando, Bloom, Cybercom and a few others have embraced it. But most do not. I'm not sure why they choose not to. Loads of good UK agencies blog.

But here are 3 practical reasons to start:
  1. Blogging allows clients and potential clients to know and understand you. Your culture. What excites you. And most importantly, how you think. You are in the ideas business. Let us hear your insights and ideas.

  2. The practice of blogging keeps you alert. Finding interesting new content every week is not easy. Creating original regular content is harder still. But planners and creative folk are good at this stuff. So it forces you to stay current, which is a good thing. For you and your clients.

  3. The blogging community is growing. Becoming more and more influential. Some are receptive to promoting products. Some are not. (See Damien Mulley's and Piaras Kelly's posts about recent PR/Blogger discussions.) Either way, bloggers have a voice and there is little debate these days that they can influence our perceptions of brands. Being a genuine part of the blogging community is the first step in building relationships with bloggers. Unlike other publishing media, you can't just arrive on a blog, get out your wallet and start talking cost-per-thousand.
I posted before that I believe clients should blog too. For different reasons. Mostly to understand customers, open up conversations with them. Hopefully we'll see more of this soon. And I believe we will.

For a more insightful view on ad agencies and possible reasons why they don't blog, drop over to Nick's blog and ask him.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

I think it is because they fear it. Just fell over metaphorically when I saw that Curious wines had won an award for Digital Media. I was a wine rep in 1995 when such things were first being mooted. and we thought it would make us extinct as wine reps.

Now here I am blogging myself.
xx

ORLAITH BLANEY said...

Mr D
I am a recent visitor to your blog. Our agency, McCann Erickson has just started out on the blogging adventure, as we have been a bit busy dealing with all the excitement of a recession ;o)
mccannerickson.ie is a blog and we've featured our work on flickr and you tube, rather than as a website - we've only just kicked it off, but as an experienced and highly thought of blogger, you might cast your eye over our weblog...over to you

Paul Dervan said...

hi Orlaigh,

I'm flattered. As it happens, I've read through your posts earlier in the week, and added you to my rss google reader. So far I like both your content and the design. I'm hoping you guys will talk about stuff that interests you. Some Irish agencies fall into the trap of just talking about their own campaigns on their blog, and wonder why nobody visits. I see the very talented faris has joined your ny office.

You mind if I add you to my blogroll?

P

ORLAITH BLANEY said...

please please add to blogroll - delighted and yes, more opinions appearing up there now...my blog on the PRII Conference today and one on our view of Tubridy decision - keeping up mo,mentum is key and making it interesting and relevant - thansk for taking the time - trust all well at O2. OB