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9. Bloggers are united and are interlinked with one another. They read each oth-
er's blogs, give tips to other bloggers and link other blogs from theirs. Recent
research indicates that 96 percent of bloggers regularly read one or more blogs
and nearly half of all bloggers read more than 50 blogs a week and a quarter
of them read 100 blogs a week. They are bound together by trust and respect
and they will not hesitate to defend one another if the case arises. They are a
community with a strong affinity that allows one blogger to influence several
others. This means that, for luxury brands, access to one blog could mean the
opportunity to penetrate several others. It also means that when a company
crosses the line of fire with a blog, the ensuing result could be disastrous.
Blog readers or bloggees are as active (if not more so) than the bloggers
themselves. The blogging fever seems to be spreading at an alarmingly
fast rate and blog adoption is now as common as having an email account.
Bloggees, however, are not devoted to single blogs but tend to have a number
of blogs that they visit regularly. In general, blog readers use blogs for vary-
ing purposes: information, opinions, and products and services insights top
the list. According to the recent research, 75 percent of online shoppers con-
sult a blog prior to making a purchase for luxury products, whether they
intend to buy online or offline. Of them, 65 percent use blogs to seek other
people's viewpoints and opinions on luxury-related issues while 48 percent
click on blogs for light entertainment and 39 percent use blogs to keep them-
selves updated on news and general information on their areas of interest. For
blog readers, regularly updated blogs are also a crucial source of informa-
tion on the latest products and services from luxury brands as well as insights
into brand histories, heritage and production techniques, materials and more
recently the corporate responsibility acts of the companies and their initiatives
towards charity, environmental protection and giving back to the community.
Bloggees are also more likely to shop online for luxury and other kinds of
products than non-blog readers. The current state of luxury online is such that
there are hardly any luxury brands that provide the kind of online experience that
luxury consumers currently seek, therefore the clients resort to consulting other
consumers through blogs before shopping both online and offline. Blog readers
also care about the opinion of bloggers. They consider blogs as honest and relia-
ble and will even overlook errors in text and expressions on blogs. However, they
expect bloggers to be transparent and loyal to them. More importantly, they stay
with the blogs that demonstrate independence of thought and are unsusceptible
to marketing manipulations by companies, particularly in the luxury field.
The wealthy are also active bloggers. Reports have shown that social web
adoption, including blogs, rises sharply at higher levels of wealth and income,
shattering any notion that wealth, social interaction and technical skills are
somehow all mutually exclusive. Predictably, younger wealthy consumers
are the most avid users of blogs and other social media but adoption rates
even among those older than 55 years of age are surprisingly high, having
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