This is my blogging experience final I wrote for IMC 619. Grade: A+

1. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
Summary of Blogging Experience
The Value and Advantages of Blogging to Marketers
Even though, “78% of CMO’s believe custom content marketing, like blogging, is
the wave of the future, many companies still grossly underestimate the value of
blogging” (Watson, 2014). Many organizations often begin blogging campaigns, only to
quit shortly thereafter, because they do not see quick and definitive results. However,
what many companies do not understand is that successful blogging takes time,
consistency, and patience. These three qualities are the foundation to a blog’s success,
and they unlock a variety of advantages that a successful corporate blog can offer.
• Low Cost Marketing Channel: “Blogs are cheap — even free. Blogs are easily built
into an existing website and can be maintained at dedicated hosting sites all over the
web for low or no cost” (7 Key Benefits, 2015).
• Excellent Avenue to Build a Network: “Every business needs a network; an internal
network between divisions and an external network with other companies and
customers” (7 Key Benefits, 2015). A regular written blog can allow companies to
immediately reach thousands of targeted customers at any time and any place.
• Enhanced Company Visibility: “Closely related to networking, blog marketing
benefits a company by keeping it visible” (7 Key Benefits, 2015). On-site and off-site
blog links additionally increase traffic and SEO results.
• Increased Product Exposure: “Blog marketing is extremely useful for gaining
mainstream visibility for products. The product line may be the focal subject of a
company blog — a place where consumers or prospective customers can be
educated on product features and use, or a place to debut new line additions” (7 Key
Benefits, 2015).
• Enhanced Company Persona: “Blog marketing is one way to come down to a more
personal level with customers” (7 Key Benefits, 2015). Both the voice and style of the
blog allows a company’s customers get a feel for the brand, and if they want to be
involved with it.
• Improved Customer Interaction: “Comment features on blogs are ideal ways to get
to know your customer base. An engaging business blog is a place to hear kudos and
complaints, as well as, conduct informal focus groups to determine how else
customers’ needs might be fulfilled” (7 Key Benefits, 2015).
• SEO Optimized Content: The addition of a blog to a company website creates
additional featured content. “It is essential to employ tools like Wordtracker.com and
Hittail.com to identify targeted keywords that blog posts can be written on. The key is
to include the keyword in the blog title as well as in the post and technorati tags” (7
Key Benefits, 2015).
Personal Blogging Strategy
My blog, “Emerging Media Musings,” was a bit of a leap of faith for me. I felt
pretty unsure of myself going into this blogging adventure. I had no idea what I would
write about, or if anyone would even read my posts. Honestly, I can easily say that I felt

2. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
very intimidated of this whole “blogging experience” at first. Thankfully, that feeling of
uneasiness did not last long. The longer I worked on my blog, the easier blogging
became.
My strategy for my blog was simple: I would write authentic posts that covered a
variety of emerging media topics which interested me. From the beginning, I also chose
to incorporate both “categories” and “tagging” on each of my blog posts to increase
traffic, SEO, and ease maneuverability around my site. As seen from the attached
image, the most popular tag was “marketing.”
It received 53 views. “Wearable technology,”
“advertising,” “technology,” “Apple,” and
“Apple watch” were the second most popular
combination of tags and categories. They
received 44 views. Finally, “mobile
marketing” and “mobile” were the third most
popular combination of tags and categories.
They received 11 views. Something
interesting I noticed was that the tags “Apple”
and “Apple watch” were only found in my final
blog post for the class, but interestingly
enough, they ended up being some of the most popular tags viewed. I believe this
showed evidence to my blog’s growth in traffic and readership over the past 9 weeks.
Challenges of Blogging and Solutions
• No Comments from Visitors/Readers: “It can
be very frustrating to dedicate time creating a blog
post, only to sit and wait for comments that never
come. The interactive aspect of blogging is what
draws many people to get started with their own
blog, but in reality many new blogs have trouble
attracting comments” (Snell, 2011).
• Personal Solution: As stated previously, this was
one of the main fears I had with my blog. In order
to overcome this challenge, I regularly left
comments on my classmate’s blogs. Many of my
classmates noticed this gesture, and I often found
them returning the favor on my blog posts. In
addition, I also responded to comments left on my
blog by others. I believe this act of engagement
showed the commenters that I appreciated their comments and helped build a
community around my blog. I also engaged with my followers’ comments on areas of
social media including: Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• Not Enough Traffic: “Possibly the most frustrating challenge for many bloggers is
trying to attract more visitors. In fact, most bloggers don’t give very much thought to
how they will attract visitors until after the blog has been launched and they find that

3. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
not many people are visiting” (Snell, 2011). This challenge is oftentimes very
discouraging to first-time bloggers and will cause them to give up altogether.
• Personal Solution: My buzz-building efforts are discussed in detail in the final section
of this paper.
• No Clear Purpose: “Every blog should have a clear purpose. If a company is
blogging for business purposes, they should have an idea of what you want to get out
of blogging. Many people start blogs because other people are doing it and they feel
that it is important, but they don’t always know specifically why” (Snell, 2011). Without
a clear purpose, it is hard to keep visitor’s interest and their repeat traffic of coming
back to the blog.
• Personal Solution: My blog’s purpose was to post about emerging media concepts
for this class: IMC 619. Each of my posts centered around areas of this common
theme in hopes that it would attract new visitors and create traffic on my blog. The
layout design of my blog was simple, and I believed this look would allow my visitors
to view my thoughts in an “expert” or “professional” manner they could take seriously.
• Very Few Repeat Visitors: “While getting traffic is certainly a concern for many
bloggers, repeat traffic really is what is most important to a blog’s long-term success.
In order for a blog to achieve and maintain a high level of success, it must be able to
build a community. The community of users are people who come to the blog on a
consistent basis, hopefully they leave comments at least occasionally, and they’re also
more like to share a link or vote for the content on social media sites” (Snell, 2011).
• Personal Solution: I found that over time, I did begin to build a somewhat consistent
following on my blog. My page views and visitor counts increased each month, which
was something I was extremely happy with. One way I succeeded in doing this was
by posting content regularly — at least once a week. Consistent posting allowed me
to build a stronger community around my site and led to more repeat visitors. In
addition, I also promoted my posts regularly on social media. Again, this is discussed
in more detail in the final section of this paper.
Goals and Learning Takeaway
This blogging experience did allow me to accomplish my goals, for the most part.
I had a goal of at least 100 views per month, and I received 221 views in January, 230
views in February, and 125 views to date in March for a total of 576 comments. I had
views from the United States, Japan and even Brazil. In addition, I had 222 visitors
view my blog over the last 9 weeks. The only area I wish I could have improved on was
comments on my actual posts. I received 33 comments over the course of this 9
weeks. While I did receive plenty of comments on social media — getting that audience
to transition to commenting on the blog was a difficult task. I contribute this to the fact
that many of my friends may not have had Wordpress accounts and did not want to take
the time to make one. It was easier just to comment on the social media post itself. My
learning takeaway is that blogging can be very enjoyable if you are patient and
consistent with it. I am not sure if I will keep this class blog going, but I may attempt
blogging sometime again in the future. It was a great way for me to express myself and
begin to build an online community around a topic that interested me personally.

4. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
Emerging Media Musings Blog Posts
Date: January 14, 2015
Post: Uninterrupted, Real-Time Marketing — Happening Through Emerging Media
Near You
Date: January 23, 2015
Post: Watch Out Tech Giants — Here Comes Microsoft’s Hololens
Standout Comments: gregstroud: Fascinating stuff. I had the pleasure of seeing Shelly
Palmer speak at CES this year and he talked about augmented reality as a big game
changer. He was talking about how close we are to interacting with our computers with
voice commands and simple movements of our bodies–rather than with keyboards. He
predicts that the next generation won’t even understand or know what a computer
“mouse” is, or why we even needed it. The world is changing fast!
Date: January 29, 2015
Post: WARNING: You are Being Tracked
Standout Comments: tkinwv: LBS is one idea I get in theory and from a marketing
perspective, I see the benefits of using location based advertising. However, personally
I get weirded out by the thought unscrupulous use of my data. I would prefer that the
ads I see are relevant, but I am fine with clicking away from those I don’t want to see in
order to maintain my (perceived) privacy.
Date: February 4, 2015
Post: Honda Takes Advertising to the Next Level
Standout Comments: bmariesmith: I had never seen this before, but I loved it! Very
cool. I’m not even sure I’ve ever really seen a successful ‘interactive advertising’ piece
now that I’ve seen this one. I think Honda was definitely able to capture both sides of
the story with this piece and it even though it was a little long, the fact that you could
swap between story lines by pressing the ‘R’ key keeps the viewer engaged and
curious. Very well done. Thanks for sharing!
Date: February 11, 2015
Post: How “Secure” is Social Media?
Date: February 18, 2015
Post: Money Goes Mobile
Standout Comments: gregstroud: I have used the tablet at Chili’s. Even though I’m a
marketer, the last five reasons they work for Chili’s bother me. I read a good article this
weekend on the psychological impact on tipping of these devices. Tips for taxi drivers
for instance have gone up. While part of that is great, especially if you’ve read “Hand to
Mouth Bootstrapping in America” the other manipulation part isn’t. Consider that a
higher tip also means more revenue for the credit card companies, so it’s to their
advantage to get you to spend more.

5. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
gadelle: I have been at both a Chili’s and an Uno where these have been used. They
were both effective, and it was great that you could divide the order up right there on the
screen if you were dining with friends. I believe it was the one that Uno that also
contained games for kids to play while they were waiting for their food – very effective,
unless you have two kids that want to play.
Date: February 25, 2015
Post: And the Academy Award Goes to . . . Google for Best Execution of Real-Time
Advertising
Standout Comments: Ashley Peterson: I absolutely love this approach by Google!
Though it’s surprising to see written down, the fact that public interest lasts 15 minutes
in awards scenarios actually makes sense because, within a couple of minutes, viewers
are thinking more about the next category, performer, or even commercials that they
see. I’d love to see how this turned out for them and see how they may incorporate it
into future live events. It definitely takes relevancy to the extreme without being
overbearing or even “creepy”. I am a huge fan of The Grammys and it is probably the
one awards show where I am most social on Twitter so my favorite comes from last
year’s when Arby’s took the stage with their “Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat
back?” tweet. Classic!
Date: March 5, 2015
Post: Multiscreeners 4.0
Standout Comments: Dawn E: I find myself stacking more so than meshing; I have the
TV on and doing something completely different on my phone. I noticed that my sister is
the opposite—she meshes to the max. She sees an attractive actor or a catchy song on
a show and immediately looks up the bio or artist. Barely does she stack.
I mentioned in my first blog post that I was watching a movie with my dad and on my
phone at the same time when he asked me if I wanted to watch the movie later because
I “wasn’t paying attention”. It’s called multi-tasking and multi-screens, Dad! I should
send him your post!
Julie Link: I’m raising my hand — yes! Why watch TV without doing something else?!
(Says the person who has only worked at TV networks her entire career and really
needs people to engage with TV content in order to keep doing what I do!)
Second-screen extends the viewing experience and that works for a lot of different
genres of programming.
Date: March 11, 2015
Post: Now That Apple Watch is Here, What Does That Mean for Marketers?
Standout Comments: gregstroud: Bryan Kennedy said that “The Internet is an
advertising medium.” I think the same will hold true for the Apple watch. It’s not a watch.
It’s an wearable billboard. Good for marketers, but will it be good for the consumer?
Also I wonder–if these watches and smartphones are being used primarily to send me a
marketing message, why don’t I get them for free?

6. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
Buzz Building Efforts
My buzz building efforts focused mainly around social media. I added share
content buttons at the bottom of each of my blog posts so that my content could be
easily shared across social media channels like: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn,
and even Google+. Every week after I made my original post, I would click on those
icons and immediately share my content across my personal Facebook page, LinkedIn
account, and Pinterest account. I do not have a personal Twitter account, so that is why
I did not share my posts on Twitter. In addition,
I shared my posts on my personal Instagram
account. I would screenshot images of my
blog, upload them to Instagram, and guide
users to my blog web address in my biography
section. From the beginning of this class, I
shared content strictly on Facebook and
LinkedIn, but about halfway through, I began sharing content on Pinterest and
Instagram as well. For Pinterest, I created a blog posts board, where I could easily pin
my blog entries. Unfortunately, I did not have any “re-pins,” but I think with some
continued effort, and perhaps the incorporation of hashtags, I may have had more
success. I found social media sharing to be an extremely effective way of driving traffic
to my blog.
The most successful social media channels for this
exercise were Facebook and Instagram. It can be seen
from the inserted image, that Facebook surpassed all
other referrers by an extremely wide margin with 140
views. This was something I noticed specifically each
week as well. Every time I would make a post, I always
saw the most activity and traffic from Facebook. As
stated previously, I also received many comments and
shares on Facebook as well. However, my audience
seemed to have a tough time transitioning their
commenting and sharing on my original blog post. I also
had success on Instagram, particularly with engagement
rates. I believe this was, in part,
because of my incorporation of
hashtags on my posts. For example,
every time I posted on Instagram, I
incorporated specific, related hashtags
that would make my content easy for
viewers to find. Some examples of
successful hashtags I used are:
#blogging, #blogger, #IMC, #marketing
#apple #mobilemarketing, #applewatch,
etc. The results were many “likes” and
comments from Instagrammers who

7. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
were not already following me. Unfortunately, I was not able to measure the click-
through rate on Instagram due to the platform’s capabilities, but I did notice that my blog
traffic increased after I started sharing my posts on Instagram.
I also worked to build buzz for my blog through engagement — meaning that I
commented on other people’s blogs and responded to comments on my own blog and
across all social media channels. “A blog with an active community builds upon itself,
as readers are more likely to leave comments on blogs with plenty of reader
participation” (Artman, 2015). As stated previously, these acts of engagement were
often returned with acts of engagement. For example, if I commented on another
classmate’s blog, I noticed that I soon received a comment on my blog post. When I
responded to comments and questions, I often got more comments and questions.
Engagement breeds engagement. This created a little community around my blog that I
am quite pleased with after this experimental past 9 weeks.
The only buzz building exercise I wish I would have been able to participate in
was involving a professional in the marketing field or blogosphere on my blog — either
through an interview or featured blog post. I believe getting featured on their blog, or
them sharing my content would have driven a high rate of traffic to my blog, which
would not have been possible for me to create in these early stages myself.
Unfortunately, I still do not have a lot of connections in the marketing world, but perhaps
I could have interviewed a previous professor here in the IMC program or someone like
that. It definitely is a buzz building exercise I would be interested in seeing the results
of.
However, I still found that my buzz
building methods of engagement and
consistent sharing across social media
channels created positive results. As
previously stated, my blog had 576 total views,
222 visitors, 9 “likes,” and 33 comments. My
most popular pages and posts included: the
home page, “Watch Out Tech Giants,”
“Uninterrupted,
Real-Time
Marketing,” “Now that Apple Watch is Here,” and “Money
Goes Mobile. My home page received 228 views, “Watch
Out Tech Giants” received 49 views, “Uninterrupted, Real-
Time Marketing” received 46 views, “Now that Apple Watch”
received 46 views, and “Money Goes Mobile” received 37
views. With a little more time and some expanded effort, I
truly believe my blog could have been even more successful.
This assignment gave me the courage to blog, and it taught
me the skills I need to be able to start a personal or
professional company blog one day in the future.

8. Jamie Huggins IMC 619 — Final Paper 1
REFERENCES
7 Key Benefits to Blog Marketing for Your Business. (2015). Street Directory. Retrieved
March 16, 2015, from http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/113659/
blogging/7_key_benefits_to_blog_marketing_for_your_business.html
Artman, J. (2015). How to Build Buzz for Your Blog. Chron. Retrieved March 16, 2015,
from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/build-buzz-blog-28712.html
Snell, S. (2011, March 24). 5 Common Blogging Problems, and How to Overcome
Them. Vandalay Design. Retrieved March 16, 2015, from http://
www.vandelaydesign.com/common-blogging-problems/
Watson, B. (2014, September 4). Why Your Company Should Reconsider Blogging
Value. Adobe Digital Marketing. Retrieved March 16, 2015, from http://
blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/company-reconsider-
blogging-value/