A New Way of Advertising by William Shultz

My Entrepreneurship class is taking its first steps into the world of blogging. Here is a first post by student William Shultz. Thanks Will!

It seems that there is a new way of advertising your business or product, however the concept of how is not new. For a long time, companies have sold their logos and advertised their products on shirts. When you wear a Coca-Cola shirt, you advertise their company and a specific product from their company. You also pay for that shirt and they make money that way, too. Now there are social networks which can be used to the companies advantage, not through advertising of their own, however. Once consumers who use the social networks buy their product or hear news about their company, they tend to blog about it. They can say how wonderful the product is and say how they like certain features, the low cost, etc. The blogging will get the word out about the product even faster than advertising. News can be on the other side of the planet in a few seconds. However, this method of advertising can backfire. If someone doesn’t like a product or company, they can say bad things about it and not get in trouble. They can spread the word about a common malfunction or mention any other issues with the product or company such as poor customer service. The most common malfunction that I hear about is the Red Ring of Death that the Xbox 360 gives out a lot. I probably would never know about it without blogging. Whether it’s a friend blogging or me blogging, the news traveled fast and to just about everyone. Social blogging can be the best thing in the world for a company, but it can also be the one thing that brings a company down.