Blog Loyalty

Why are we so attached to our brands? Why do ballers crave to wear Nike/And1/Reebok shoes? Why do girls need to have that "in" look, whether it be that LV handbag, that burberry scarf, or those Jimmy Choo shoes?

Perhaps its in the marketing. The emotional attachment we have to certain brands. We swear by it. Perhaps its in the way that it makes us feel good inside - that intrinsic feeling. The way that people notice and gives us respect and acknowledgement for wearing that brand.

Brands that we are loyal to usually are consistent in their quality, pricing and final delivery We usually know what we are getting. That's why Starbucks coffee always taste the same (bland!). Ok, bad example.

It's the same with blogs. It's just like any product, commodity, service out there. Blogs have a market that consists of you, you and anyone else out there in the blogosphere. In a way, our readers are our customers. Our service/product is the information we disseminate. The bloggers pump out the entries and the readers consume them. You laugh with us, you cry with us, you experience our greatest highs and lows, depending on what we tell you.

In a way, the best blogs out there are very much like the very best brands out there. They differentiate themselves and are good at what they do. Often they have a particular style or focus, whether it'd be fashion, food, hip hop, sports, politics or even the most trivial of things. There might be a number of reasons why they have become so popular. It could be that they are very entertaining, humorous, refreshing, or able to develop an intimate connection with the reader. Whatever it is that they have, over time these particular blogs have built up a loyal following and have expanded in readership.

In many ways it is very similar to "brand loyalty" but I call it "blog loyalty". Unlike last time's use of the phrase "agile corporation", I did a google and wikipedia search and there's only one person who seems to have been using it or laid claim to developing that phrase. I don't want some guy who's written 3 books selling on Amazon.com claiming he came up with that word!

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. Usually, a blog's most dedicated readers have been down with us since day 1. Our friends, family, associates, co-workers, uni friends. It's exactly like any small business - we attracted the closest ones to us, because these were the only people interested in what we have to say/sell!

But it got bigger than that. The online community took it to the next level. The global nature of the internet, its ability to reach people from the US to the Ukraine, from Germany to Ghana, Brazil to Bankstown. The fact is, anyone and everyone can read your blog, especially people who you dont even know! By word of mouth and exploration, we stumbed into a new world filled with ideas, dreams, passions, criticisms and comments.

There are millions of blogs out there. But we keep coming back to the same ones. Partially because they belong to our friends or people we know. But even if they do, the fact that it belongs to someone we know can only sustain our interest for so long. Again, we might come across another blog but what draws us back is "blog loyalty". It's that quality of the blog that brings the reader back time after time and makes them our biggest advocates to other people.

Blog loyalty - you heard it here first!

I'm out like Tim Cahill's anonymity,

DJ Ho.