Sunday, January 19, 2014

BUS572-1 Important concepts associated with Blogging

The first most important concept I learned so far in our course that I would like to talk about today is what a search engine does and how it works. Search engines are involved with four main functions which are the crawling spider, index, process queries, and return results. The crawling spider or bot is used to search through page after page in order to create an index. The library or index is used to process user queries based on keyword databases in order to return the proper results that are being requested. Because there are literally billions of pages, keywords are needed to help narrow results. The results are referred to as SERP or the search engine results page which provide the requesting user with the pages they were searching for. An example of this is anytime you go on Google and do a search this will be the process that is conducted based on your keywords which will return results within seconds of the request being made. Understanding how a search engine works is a very important concept in my opinion as it is a tool that one must understand to use properly. Being able to identify how a search engine works will drastically allow users to return proper results in both digital and global marketing. With this concept I would caution the reader as before our reading this week I never realized how much of a difference your wording can make when using search engines such as Google. Has anyone else seen a drastic change in the results they received based on the different terms or keywords they have entered? 

The second concept I would like to mention from our book that I learned about within the past two weeks is McCarthy's four P's of marketing. The four p's of marketing include product, price, placement and promotion. A product or service is always what the company is attempting to sell to its consumers. The internet has drastically changed the variety of products and services people are able to obtain around the world. The second p in McCarthy's four P's is price which has drastically been changed on many products due to search engines and options offered through many sources. Placement or distribution is dramatically enhanced with a strong global marketplace that provides a nearly unlimited amount of sellers. However there are limitations on what markets one should be entering and this should be approached with caution. The final P that McCarthy mentions is promotion. Promotion and the internet go hand and hand today as it has become the largest promotion feature for any business to reach out to its potential customers. This is an important skill to acknowledge and understand due to the subject matter involved. All four P's are greatly affected by the global marketplace and should be understood by all who are attempting the use of global marketing. I do not see any potential negative consequences with the four P's however I would caution people to thoroughly understand the use of this concept before entering a global marketplace. While I have dealt with the four P's in the past I was not familiar with McCarthy putting them together in a single concept until this course. Has anyone has had experience with the four P's in a global marketplace?

The skill-set I would like to mention from the last two weeks is something I am completely new to which is blogging. I have always heard people talk about their blogs and have always wondered exactly what they were doing. Now that we are required to blog for this course I finally got to learn exactly what blogging is and what it does. Essentially blogging can be one or multiple people writing experiences and information with a particular subject or set of subjects. An example of blogging with multiple subjects and a variety of bloggers is the NFL blog. As I write this I am completing my first blog for our first concepts involved with our Global Marketing course. With today's highly efficient and technology based working environments blogging is an extremely important asset to understand. By understanding how to blog and read blogs you are able to learn about people, subjects, and places that could impact your future. Because I am not familiar with blogging I do still have a few questions regarding its uses and if it does have limitations. For instance at what point does a blog become useful in the business world? Because this type of tool is something that millions of potential users can see I would caution those who are blogging to be careful what you are blogging about. We have all seen how the internet can blow things out of proportion and impact people’s lives in both a negative and positive manner. 



Reflecting on the past two weeks I would like to mention how many new terms and concepts I have been introduced to so far in the course. Global marketing is a learning experience for me that I lack any type of expertise in. While I do not know a lot about global marketing, what I have been introduced to so far has changed the way I view marketing in general. I found blogging and some of the other new techniques such as anchor text to be a bit difficult at first because I have never done them. Although so far the course has been a bit of a challenge to get familiar with I believe the next few weeks will provide me with a vast learning experience that I can carry with me in my future business adventures. I look forward to the upcoming weeks and challenges ahead associated with global marketing!

4 comments:

  1. I agree with your points, Mike. I definitely think that the four P's were a very useful topic to learn during the past week. I like the contrast you made to the Internet and how you explained how the Internet has drastically altered aspects of the four P's, such as price. The Internet has allowed virtually anyone to sell products. Even eBay and Craigslist has allowed everyday people to sell their products and name their own prices.

    I also liked how you introduced different types of blogs, such as the NFL. This type of blog is definitely trending now, especially since the Super Bowl is a couple of weeks away. Blogs such as the NFL's has allowed folks from around the world to come together and discuss topics of interest.

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  2. After reading Mike's specific concepts I have looked more in depth to McCarthy's 4 P's of Marketing. I agree that there should be caution in using this concept due to the constant change of the global marketplace. I would like to point out the new 4 P's of Marketing that was developed by Idris Mootee. I believe the concepts: Personalization, Participation, Peer to Peer communities and Predictive modeling, may be a safer concept to use with the uncertainty of the global marketplace.

    Like Mike, I too was brought to my knees by blogging. I really enjoyed learning the different tips Mike had to offer through the examples of NFL.com and I share the same question on the relevance of blogging to the business communities. It is sometimes worrisome how the internet can affect an individual or company through social media. Hopefully we all develop a finesse when it comes to the right ways of blogging! Thank you for your insightful entry!

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  3. Mike, I like your insight on the use of blogs. When I was an undergraduate I interned at the Women's Law Project of Pittsburgh. One my assignments was to blog for the firm. Often my supervisor would assign me an issue and I would write a 4-6 paragraph post informing blog readers of the issue and the firm's view/stance on it. I found it was a great way for the Law Project to get involved in social networking and speak with people on a more human basis. The blog posts excluded law gorgon making them easy to read and accessible for everyone!

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  4. Thanks Mike for an informative and upbeat post! Glad that you're approaching these challenges with a positive attitude!

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