Blog as a marketing tool.

Enjoying writing my experiences with Toyota Kijang made me realized how powerful the function of blogs as the new way for marketing research. It is also a new way of marketing, and it will convey better the "word of mouth marketing" (a review for Andy Sernovitz's book was written by Tuhu Nugraha in Bahasa Indonesia, it can be read here)

As a loyalist to a brand name, costumer will not really count for the prize given in a blog competition like this. Of course the prize will add the fire to write it down, but the possibility of winning is always so thin...it's like gambling! The important aspect of voicing our experiences is the ability to have a better product development in the future, and a better after sales service from the producer of the product.

Indonesian costumers are not very well protected. I've heard from a friend that in the USA we can give back a product we bought if we are not satisfied with it. Here, even if the product has something wrong from earlier period of buying it we couldn't even exchange it.

I had several bad experiences with presents. My kids had Christmas' presents which could not function, but we could not claim it back as it was already passed the seven days of claim period. Hunting Christmas' presents surely took more time than a week! And the exchanging period will only work for big stores, small stores are not counted in.

Recently my camera was stolen. My cousin who knows that I really need that camera to enriched my articles, gave me a new camera for my birthday present. I was really happy, the camera she gave me is from a well known brand name. Unfortunately the camera worked only for several shots and then it were out of batteries. Changing the battery could not help it. Claiming it to the store was not really helping me, instead I was asked to buy rechargeable batteries. I did so...And it turned out that the camera was not working at all when I was about to take pictures from some art exhibitions.

As it was a gift, and I live a bit far away from the shop where my cousin bought it, I asked her to help me claim it back to the shop. The camera is barely new...but we (the costumer) are always the misfortune one who was blame for the problems found in the product. My cousin was a bit furious because she did not get a nice service attitude from the store's attendants. I don't know how that camera case will ended up...

Back to the blog writing competition. As a costumer's point of view, having a chance to show our appreciation to the producer would also benefit us the costumer as we'll have a better service next time!

Revealing part of personal life is also fun. Some readers like to have more personal news than the usual opinion or news' collection. I think that's the essence of blogging, revealing a part of ourselves to others.

I am still looking to find the ethical code for using others' pictures. Sometimes I've received some pictures through e-mails, forwarded by friends. I don't really know the source of that pictures but it would be a perfect picture to add in my article. It would be nice to know how to use it without breaking others' creative or intellectual rights.

Blog as a marketing tool would be very interesting to study, as it would open a wide and global world to a product. The knowledge to combine it with the conventional advertisement will help everybody. The media still need advertisement to finance them, yet blogger could also be a real input for the advertising company and to the company of the product itself (R&D, Production, and Marketing will all gain input from users).