The intricacies of online advertising in Hong Kong

Since the first blogs appeared a little over a decade ago, they have inspired as much controversy as they have content. In many ways also, blogging has spurred more fundamental changes in journalism than any other aspect of the internet revolution.

Indeed, a debate continues to rage in the media industry as to whether blogging can be considered journalism in its truest form or a corrupted offshoot.

Outward blurring of distinctions between blogging and journalism has occurred as both centre on writing and prolific writing at that. However, the two disciplines diverge in their make-up.

On a simple level, blogging is mere content dissemination, that is, blogging is mostly opinion mixed with a modicum of fact and the readers are implicitly expected to read with that in mind, at least in theory.

Journalism on the other hand aside from deliberately advertised commentary and op-ed pieces begins with and ends with the reporting of facts. Bloggers can become role models themselves, building cult followings whilst traditional Journalist remain in the background with their reporting taking primacy.

And the most crucial distinction of all is monetary, with blogs openly and sometimes covertly collaborating with brands and advertisers a state of affairs still considered a taboo in legacy media.

It is the issue of advertising that is causing the greatest controversy in the blogging world. As a new medium, blogging is unbound by traditional constraints such as physical location and time.

Moreover, bloggers are not subject to deadlines; the frantic pressure from editors or annoying attention of pedantic sub-editors and fact checkers.

Simply put, there is no blogging ethic or structured professionalism and for those reasons blogging has become so big and courted so much interest. To many, blogging has democratized journalism for the better.

However, the ‘editorial’ content found on blogs is not subject to the same level of scrutiny found in traditional forms of journalism. This lack of structured ethics can lead to and has led instances where bloggers have bowed to the will of advertisers or other financial interests to promote particular brands or products, which in itself is not the most pernicious development.

The more troubling aspect is when the bloggers do not declare such arrangements or worse pass them off as normal occurrences within the ecosystem of that particular blog.

So should you advertise with bloggers or journalist?

There are many upsides to paid advertising with blogs. Of course, there is very little dispute even amongst journalists that blogs zero in on some advertisers target audience.

The caveat for advertisers, however, should be to be wary of the hype, the jargon and the sometimes inaccurate numbers and statistics that some bloggers provide. As with any form of advertising, the key is to thoroughly research the platform ahead of time.

Advertisers also need to fully understand the lack of significance with measuring click-through-rates (CTR). If the goal of the advertiser is to engender brand awareness or even long term ROI, CTR is in many ways contradictory to what display advertising stand for, positioning, segmentation and brand consciousness

A much better way to engage with Internet marketing and advertising on blogs is brand building. Just as you would offline. Brand strategies online should not be completely isolated from overall brand strategy, indeed, they should become part of the overall narrative.

Psychologically, advertisers and brands need to see Internet as just as important branding medium as television, print or outdoor.

Lastly, advertisers should put their benchmarks for effectiveness at the centre of any campaign that includes the feedback indicators on strenghts. Some will continue to consider CTR as a good measure, and if you do, be aware that for Asia, Media Mind reports a 0.1% average CTR for standard IAB display banner advertising.

Crucially, as aforementioned, advertisers should always be wary of the numbers coming back from social media and online media networks as there no quality control and the breakdowns are still hazy.

Where possible, advertisers should look to have audited feedback or better an audit report from websites and blogs before they advertise. Audit companies like Comscore and Nielsen Netrating provide such information but always ask for site specific info on traffic, where it comes from, what type of devices and other such metrics.

This detailed number breakdown will separate the truth from fiction on traffic numbers and if a blog or website isn’t so forthcoming then its probably best to avoid them.

Advertising on blogs and online generally does not need to be the hassle that in some ways it has become. As long as advertisers do their research with real and audited numbers and moreover, build their brand online as they would offline, Internet brand building can be incredibly competetive and cost effective.