Which blogs and forums should retailers target?

Amongst the ranting blogs and the videos of cats, there’s a handful of truly useful sites on the web that are increasingly influencing what people buy.

Recommendations on blogs like Susanna Lau’s Style Bubble and Sasha Wilkins’ Liberty London Girl have unusually high click-through rates, and parenting network Mumsnet claims 79% of its users consult the site before buying a product. Meanwhile 5.5 million people receive the weekly email from MoneySavingExpert.com.

Sites like these have built up real engagement with their readers, meaning what they say matters. Not all of them will be relevant to every retailer, but our recent feature on online engagement outlines the basic rules for working with them. The websites might even provide some tips on how to increase engagement on a retail site.

As with most online social spaces, transparency and authenticity matter. Critical comments are inevitable, and the experts advise working carefully with them to make sure this is a medium that works in your favour. Blogging and online forums are a relatively new medium, meaning some recent teething troubles in how they interact with the established world of commerce. Each retailer also needs to choose carefully – as Wilkins explains, “Some blogs can increase people’s desire for a product, but not necessarily increase your desire to pay for it.”

Click here to read the full article - “The power of the network”