Adgully Exclusive | This space is going to be exciting for not just bloggers but for brands as well: Team IndiBlogger

Today Blogging has become one of the key trends. It is also a topic of discussion in various forums and media. Whether it's a personal blog or a corporate blog, it has become an important medium of communication. With increasing awareness of this medium, it is expected to create a buzz all over. IndiBlogger, a famous blog network has been really active in the space.

As described by Indian Bloggers, IndiBlogger not just brings together the readers and brands but it is an umbrella entity that brings together the large number of Indian bloggers scattered all over India and abroad. With no language barrier, IndiBlogger acts as a motivator. Also it is a fabulous platform to meet likeminded people. It allows you to meet fellow bloggers, connected by the passion of writing and divided only by the frequency.

Adgully caught up with the IndiBlogger team to know more about the growing trends of blogging.

Explaining the tips to be a successful blogger, the team told us that there are some simple rules to better blogging, the most important being to blog consistently and regularly. However, it is also essential that the blog posts are insightful and offer value to the reader. Every blogger should respect the readers and their time. Some of the best blog posts are those with pictures, videos, info graphics, etc. It is so because readers can sense the effort that goes into something like that.

Another great tip is that a blogger should maintain a neat blog without too many widgets, pop-ups etc. Successful bloggers know that readers come for content, and that is the prime focus. Everything else is secondary; since readers understand what's written with passion and experience and what's not. That passion needs to be translated very clearly in the blog posts.

When asked do they see corporates playing a active role in blogging, the team said, "Yes, the corporates have been waking up to the blogosphere engaging with them in many ways." If you have noticed, worldwide, most companies maintain their own blogs where they connect with customers and employees in a more personal way. The role anyone can play in online media is that of a participant; and no company or brand can ever be bigger than the bloggers.

Further explaining the benefits of blogging for Corporate/Brands and the need of blogging, the team said, "Firstly, a company that has its own blog will have a human face to it. That is just one aspect of blogging; while the other is blogger engagements which are driven hugely by experiential activities and marketing."

Bloggers are the key drivers of word of mouth publicity in the online space; and are considered to be more trusted and credible source of information."We work with some of the biggest brands in India and their involvement and investment in the blogosphere goes to show how important such engagements are and that brands have embraced it as a medium of choice," the team added.

Today search engines have become smarter and they also look at the social mentions for something you're searching for, and that is what Google +1 is all about. But most social networks are closed; and content available only within that network whereas blogs are on public domain and they greatly help in SEO for the brand and on the keywords related to that search which is one of main components of earned media.

Explaining how the efficacy of the Blog is measured, the team told us that there are two perspectives to this - the bloggers' and the readers'. For a blogger; he/she needs to look at the number of readers, the comments, social sharing, etc and IndiRank which is the only scoring algorithm for bloggers in India. IndiRank takes in statistics like Page Rank, mozRank, the recency and frequency of blogging. For a reader; the things that matter are the relevance, the usability, the networking potential from the blog and the content.

Being a blogger it is equally important to know how to promote your blogs. Telling the two key things a blogger needs to know for promoting his blog, they said, "Promoting within the right audience is very important otherwise the blog would be seen as spam. This is why IndiBlogger offers tools like Forums and IndiVine which gives the bloggers the right platform to promote it within specific interest groups. Secondly, for a blogger, it's important to be networked on all social media platforms which can considerably increase his or her reach."

Well with the increase in the number of bloggers in the base it is an indication towards the fact that blogging might become a trend in coming years. When asked whether they see Blogs becoming a key trend in 2012, the team conclusively said, "We would also see a lot of corporate blogs coming up; and blogger engagement would be the new mantra of marketing. This space is going to be exciting for not just bloggers but brands as well." | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]