(Part 4 of a 5-part blog series on Selling to the Future)  

Teenagers and young professionals of Generation Y are the true ambassadors of the blogosphere.  Not only are blogs vital for a strong inbound marketing campaign - increasing your search engine visibility through inbound links to your Websites – but also a great way to share content and create discussions.

A 2007 report, Teens and Social Media, highlights creative content sharing as a growing trend.  The report is based on a national phone survey of 935 youth ages 12-17 conducted in November 2006.

• Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64 percent of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57 percent of online teens in 2004
• 39 percent of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories or videos.
• 33 percent of online teens create or work on Web pages or blogs for others, including friends, groups they belong to or school assignments.
• 28 percent of online teens have created their own blog, up from 19 percent in 2004 - almost completely driven by the popularity of blogging among girls.
• 27 percent of online teens maintain their own webpage.
  

Making Blogs Work For You
Blogs thrive on two-way communication – publishing interesting content, and communicating directly through comments, linkbacks, and social bookmarking through StumbleUpon, digg and more.

In a Seth Godin blog post titled “The wealthy gardener,” he states:

“The best bloggers make money, but mostly as a side effect, not as a direct result of setting out to use a blog to make a profit…If it makes you happy (and your readers happy) it's a great place to start. Step by step you get better at it, and then you discover the ancillary benefits. But the benefits kick in best when you don't set out to achieve them...”

A great place to start is to search where your target markets are hanging out in the blogosphere by doing a blog search on Technorati or Google Blogs.  This will help you get a feel for what’s already being said and where you can fit in.  

In addition to using blogs to connect with customers, corporations are also seeing the benefits of internal blogs as employee communication tools.  

How organizations are using blogs in business

• Establish professionals as experts, thought leaders and innovators.
• Educate employees, customers, prospects and the media.
• Manage crisis situations.
• Optimize Websites for improved search engine rankings.
• Publish company news, information.
  

Not sure if blogging is right for your business?

Check out the Corporate Blog Creative Brief posted on the PR 20/20 Blog, or contact a PR 20/20 Internet marketing consultant today.

With 1.4 blogs created each second, and 22 of the top 100 Websites being blogs, maybe it’s time your business thought about blogging.

Part 1 - Connect to convert

Part 2 - Learn your XYZs

Part 3 - Facebook is life for college students and beyond

Part 4 - Blogging in business

Part 5 - Don't call us, we'll text u (coming soon)