Entre los días 22 - 25 de abril en la Nova Universidade de Lisboa se ha celebrado la «V International Conference on Multimedia and ICT in Education».

Traemos a los lectores de nuestro blog la reflexión que aportamos al citado encuentro y que ha sido publicado en el libro de actas del referido encuentro.

Abstract

Companies use many different marketing strategies in order to make their products known and place their corporate image and branding in the market. Besides, nowadays, being on the Internet is a must for every company striving for success.

A company devoted to open and distance learning such as Master-D Corporation is a clear example of how a proper and planned use of the different possibilities offered by the Web 2.0 ?based on blogs- allows a company to achieve bigger market shares and brand positioning following the Win ? Win Principle.

Blogs are, undoubtedly, channels of communication that prove the power of attraction of good information.

Key words

Open learning / Social web / Training Company / Blog / Log-book / Blogger / Internet user / Post / Information / Marketing.

 Introduction

 We can?t think of a better way to begin this brief reflection than sharing the first paragraphs of the introduction to the book The Company?s use of the blog. How to prosper in the society of conversation:

 «We live in times of change. Contradictory times. On the one hand we have a massive globalisation movement that has brought markets together in a way never dreamt of, and has blurred national boundaries and augmented social complexity.

 All over the world, this tendency can be seen particularly in the most developed countries. In a certain sense this is compensated by the constitution of a vast network of relationships that exist through information technologies where millions of people are passionately and altruistically participating in the first person». (Ortiz de Zárate, 2008:15).

On the other hand, and at the same time, we want to leave on record our personal conviction that: any company that doesn?t adapt ends up disappearing. This is an idea that has been in evidence for nearly 5 centuries in the sense that all that aspires to prolonged success must move with the times.

«This is the conduct that a prudent prince must observe: (?) accumulate knowledge in order to use it in times of adversity, so that, if fortunes change, he is prepared to resist them». (Machiavelli, 1513:77).

«The prince who blindly trusts in fortune perishes when it changes» (Machiavelli, 1513:128).

«(?) if he changes his conduct along with his circumstances, his fortune will not change» (Machiavelli, 1513:129).

It is evident, therefore, that companies of today ?Master-D is no exception in this sense? have no option but to adapt to the changes that we are living through, in this case, they come from Web 2.0. Ultimately, it might be to do with an approximation of to what Andrew McAfee[1] called Enterprise 2.0 or what Julen Iturbe Ormaexte[2] called Empresas 2.0.

At the heart of it has to do with taking advantage of the possibilities of technology, being aware that acting in this way we can end up proposing other models and end up generating a change in the value system of the organisation.

Some keys for this new business scenario

We are without doubt in the middle of a technological revolution. Digitalisation and the networks are the origin of a good number of changes just as much in the media as in the means of communication. The means of communication between company and client (internal and external) everyday impose more adaptation to this situation.

These new media allow you to address and respond to the client in a much more personal way. This situation begs, among other questions, that the contents and information in the channels that we employ to reach the client must be stressed. Information is not now dictated by the periodicity of the media; today updating can be continual and in real time.

Today companies are more and more aware that the model of diffusion of information, brand creation and client acquirement is surpassing the paradigm «point ? multipoint» (that furthermore is unidirectional). Bit by bit the «multipoint ? multipoint» model is being imposed and furthermore is multidirectional. It is the user that accesses the servers where the information that they search for or want is. Furthermore it is this user that generates what some people call viral marketing[3].

«Viral marketing and viral publicity are terms employed to refer to marketing techniques which exploit pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increments in brand recognition by means of viral auto-replication analogues to the spreading of a computer virus. It is usually based on word of mouth communication by means of electronic media. It uses the effect of social networks created for the Internet and the modern mobile telephone services to quickly reach a great number of people».

Suffice to say, therefore, that in this context the user/client is «king». In the present moment companies have to be aware that the means of client acquirement have to follow a «user centred» model (Aguaded, I. y Fandos, M., 2008) which aims not only to obtain feedback but also, where possible, interactivity.

Not only is it to do with acquiring clients, but also gaining their loyalty. The actions in this sense achieve, in the first instance, two important objectives: brand creation and improving brand recognition. The simple fact is that in talking about something or offering something to potential customers, obliges companies to be constantly up to date with this knowledge.

 Our experience

Master-D S.A. is an international group (based in Spain) whose commitment is defined as follows: «we assess, prepare and train people to triumph in the achievement of their professional and personal goals». In this way the defined objectives of this company are formation, preparation and training.

To achieve these objectives we have developed a model of open formation (Aguaded, I. y Fandos, M., 2008b) that at the present moment allows us to have 30,000 new students each year (over the last 5 years).

The company has its own strategic and marketing plan which basically aims to achieve 2 objectives: the acquirement of new clients and the strengthening of the company?s brand image.

For the last 2 years a series of weblogs have been being implemented gradually, along with control and follow up mechanisms (which are still very simple and in a state of constant revision). These allow for the checking of the level of acceptance and the implications derived from them from the different weblogs which have, little by little, been put on the WEB:

This group of 7 blogs in reality corresponds to two types: one block of 3 blogs that have a more corporate application (with their own characteristics for different countries) and one block of 4 blogs that are orientated toward 4 very distinct profiles of the public.

As you can see they are still very new but we have derived the first conclusion from the results: we want to continue to penetrate this line of implementing, putting on the web and maintaining and feeding these and other blogs with information that we currently have under investigation.

We are aware of the important potentialities that these blogs offer companies (Villanueva, J.; Aced, C.; y Armelini, G., 2007)[4]. For the moment, we are only beginning with the external dimension of these blogs.

In the first phase of our analysis, we have observed that a correlation between the visits to our different blogs and the traffic generated in our corporate web page (www.masterd.es) exists. In the same way, we have verified that a percentage of this traffic that comes to our corporate web page ends up requesting some kind of information and a percentage of these visitors end up being clients of the company. In this way, the presence of the weblogs firstly achieves the acquirement of more clients and therefore a greater business opportunity.

Evidence of the range of the results:

We must not be so naïve as to believe that the growth in traffic in our corporate web page is due only to the visits that our weblogs have received. We know that this is not the case. The traffic on the web has increased substantially over recent years for many reasons but this is not the moment to address this issue.

To be able to determine what traffic is generated or derived from the different blogs, we did a test as an experiment. We put «pilots» on blogmasterd.es at different moments that allows us to better trace the origin of the visits. We proved that without doubt, the traffic to the blogs correlates positively with the traffic on the corporate web page.

Obviously, the traffic that supports the different weblogs relies on the «posts» and «tags» used on them.

Amongst the many remaining tasks, the priorities would be to improve these matters and achieve a better syndication (RSS).

 Some conclusions

Still with caution, but with the security that this line of work is producing satisfactory results, we can say that corporate blogs offer a demonstrable competitive advantage to companies.

It is evident that blogs are a potent corporate communication tool that facilitates interactivity with a public that can potentially become clients of the company promoted by the blog. Without a shadow of a doubt the first result is that it improves the positioning of the corporate web page in search engines.

In any case, it is a tool that must be clearly aligned with the strategic and communication plan of the company and be perfectly attuned to the company?s culture.

Furthermore it provides an important source of information regarding the opinion of the users (potential clients) and also the work and developments of other companies competing in the same sector.

Therefore, suffice to say that this option (and the corresponding risks) brings with it «visibility» of the company, as we said, for the best positioning in internet search engines. Firstly, it builds community «networking» between other blogs (and their corresponding bloggers), and even for the directives that feed the thematic blogs to be able to be considered an authority and reference in this area of knowledge. It allows for an immediate «feedback» and compels you to update (and create through diffusion) specific knowledge. This allows companies to «encourage talent» of their employees.

From a «stricto sensu» publicity standpoint, the company becomes its own billboard through its blogs. This, taken to the extreme, could even make it a trend setter.

 References

AGUADED, I.; FANDOS, M. (2008) «Web 2 (y 3).0 desde una óptica empresarial» [artículo en línea]. EDUTEC, Revista Electrónica de Tecnología Educativa. Núm. 26/Julio 2008. [Fecha de consulta: 04/03/2009]. http://edutec.rediris.es/revelec2/revelec26/

AGUADED, I.; FANDOS, M. (2008b) «Blended Learning: The Key to Success in a Training Company» [artículo en línea]. ITDL. Intenational Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Vol 5. Num. 8. [Fecha de consulta: 26/11/2008].

MAQUIAVELO, N. (1513): El

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