Blogging as a business tool.The blogging Writing Weblogs. See blog. business is booming. What once was the realm of conspiracy theorists and teenage girls has evolved into a viable business tool that can be used to provide everything from personal customer contact to on-site on-site adj. Done or located at the site, as of a particular activity: on-site monitoring of a production run; an on-site film shoot. event coverage. Since the first Agri Marketing article on blogging in March, the medium and its related technologies have continued to develop at a robust pace. WORLD DAIRY DIARY--A CASE STUDY BLOG John Rozum, sales manager sales manager n → gerente m/f de ventas sales manager n → directeur commercial sales manager sale n → at World Dairy Expo The World Dairy Expo, or World Dairy Exposition, is a cattle show held annually at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Considered the largest and most important dairy cattle Show in North America, it has been held in the first week of October since 1967. , was unable to attend this year's National Agri-Marketing Association convention in Phoenix this past April, but was a subscriber to AgWired, a blog that covered the conference. By watching the blog, he was able to sit at his computer in his office and "virtually" follow the whole meeting. As he did, Rozum immediately saw the potential for using the medium for World Dairy Expo. A phone call to ZimmComm, then several brainstorming sessions later and World Dairy Diary (www.wdexpo.org) was born. In this case, the blog is fully owned and operated by ZimmComm, in cooperation with World Dairy Expo. ZimmComm is responsible for the development of the blog, all sales and marketing and all postings. The Expo is providing content information, publicity and sponsor promotion, as well as other assistance as needed as needed prn. See prn order. . GOALS The primary goal of World Dairy Diary is, of course, to promote the World Dairy Expo, scheduled for Oct. 4-8 in Madison, Wisc. The target audience includes dairy farmers Dairy Farmers is one of Australia's largest and oldest dairy manufacturers, established in 1900, supplying products to local and international markets such as eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. , processors, industry representatives, allied businesses and the media. Reporters are encouraged to view World Dairy Diary as an online media kit and are free to use the articles, releases, audio and images that are posted on the site. The blog will also provide regular information for those attending the event to help them keep up with all that is happening, much like an electronic convention newsletter. DEVELOPMENT World Dairy Diary was developed to complement the World Dairy Expo's "traditional" Web site by enhancing the Expo's visibility and providing visitors with what some call a "river of information." The first task was to create a unique Web domain, host, name and look for the blog. The basic blog was actually created in about two hours, using a simple temporary template (1) A pre-designed document or data file formatted for common purposes such as a fax, invoice or business letter. If the document contains an automated process, such as a word processing macro or spreadsheet formula, then the programming is already written and embedded in the to start, while a Web artist worked on a custom "skin" for the site. The name World Dairy Diary was chosen because it ties into the show name while leaving the door open to additional types of information on topics related to the dairy industry. The blog contains daily information during the show, plus fresh content throughout the year to keep visitors coming back. Next, the blog was integrated into the World Dairy Expo Web site structure by using interconnecting links to both sites. PROMOTION World Dairy Diary was first made public with a news release that was distributed internationally to journalists using PR Web, Talking News Releases and Expo's own media list. Simultaneously, World Dairy Diary was also registered with more than 30 Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the search engines. This simple registration process greatly increases the exposure of the site because blogs are "crawled" on a regular basis by search engines. Visitors to World Dairy Expo will also be encouraged to visit the blog in the daily Expo newspaper and through audio billboard announcements throughout the event. Regular updates and posts throughout the entire event will be designed to both inform and entertain. MEASUREMENT At the time this article is being written, the Expo is still over a month away, but the blog has been in existence for almost two months. As the number of posts increases, the amount of traffic to the site increases because it creates more information on the Web that can be picked up by search engines. Traffic to the blog will be analyzed an·a·lyze tr.v. an·a·lyzed, an·a·lyz·ing, an·a·lyz·es 1. To examine methodically by separating into parts and studying their interrelations. 2. Chemistry To make a chemical analysis of. 3. using a number of Web statistics programs and compared with the World Dairy Expo Web site statistics. Success will be somewhat subjective--after all, this is the first time a blog has been used to promote a farm show. Ideally, it is intended to create new awareness of the expo internationally, provide media with a new source of material to cover the event and give dairy industry representatives an on-site, personal view of the expo. This may be the first farm show blog, but it most likely will not be the last. Chuck Zimmerman is president of ZimmComm, Holts Summit, Mo., which offers interactive marketing services to the agribusiness agribusiness Agriculture operated by business; specifically, that part of a modern national economy devoted to the production, processing, and distribution of food and fibre products and byproducts. industry. He's an avowed a·vow tr.v. a·vowed, a·vow·ing, a·vows 1. To acknowledge openly, boldly, and unashamedly; confess: avow guilt. See Synonyms at acknowledge. 2. To state positively. agriblogging evangelist evangelist (ĭvăn`jəlĭst) [Gr.,=Gospel], title given to saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four evangelists are often symbolized respectively by a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, on the basis of Rev. 4.6–10. . |
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