What is Marketing?

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Marketing is used to identify the consumers needs and wants and to appeal to them with targeted campaigns through a variety of different channels. Digital Marketing involves utilizing all of the available online channels such as Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing to promote a marketing message. Online Marketing is becoming more and more and more popular and in 2012 is expected to surpass print marketing spend. A recent  eMarketer study claims that online advertising is expected to generate $39.5 billion in sales this year compared to a sum of $33.8 billion on print.  The 2 most  important differences are the measurability of digital marketing with each click and view tracked and the relatively low cost compared to traditional marketing channels.

What is a Blog?

The term blog evolved from web log which was a personal journal published on the web consisting of a series of posts typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs can be the work of an individual, group, or more recently a business or corporation. Blogs often have a specific theme or topic  and have become the most common way of sharing information, interests, ideas and beliefs on the web. Easy to use, free sites such as WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr have made blogging available to anyone with an idea or a penchant for writing. Whole business models have been built around blogs such as Mashable, Techcrunch and CopyBlogger. It has also become a really important tool for SEO generating a significant number of links and utilising the principles of blended and social searching to improve search engine rankings for linked websites.Blogs are also important from a digital marketing perspective as it allows businesses to connect with consumers and convey information in a more informal arena. Blogging is gradually replacing traditional news sources as the most common way to find information.