It is no news brands and companies are struggling to find alternative and cost-effective ways to sell, survive and possibly stand out in the over-crowded world wide web.

 

Following that Darwinism trend, the model

seems to become

(the “with” is very important. At least, some have started picking up on that.)

 

As the second model relies largely on social media (because this is what you want, “socialize”, right?) now brands are beginning to open blogs to reach to the Chinese consumers.

 

I’d love to quote a phrase in article the 7 deadly sins of blogging featuring on excellent blog Copywriter :

Since brands are stepping in the blogosphere, they might want to apply the same principles :

 

1. Give before asking or taking. Don’t be selfish

2. Provide valuable content.

3. Engage in a dialogue, talk about them and not about you

 

 

When we take a look at the Levi’s blog in China, it appears none of these principles were applied

 

I can’t help but think :

- What’s in it for me?

- Content is too much text and looks corporate. I do not want to click through.

- 4 articles talking about Levis : Brand story, Levi strauss and the 501 product story (+ 1 article “hello world” which is actually the default wordpress article whenever you open a blog…(sigh)

 

No offense but just because setting up a wordpress blog is easy does not mean you have to do it if you don’t know how to have a strategy and :

 

1. Build content : Give something, aka valuable and entertaining content

2. Build context : the content based on your universe. Levis could bring for example news like hipsters trends or whatever close to the brand

3. Engage in a dialogue by providing a mix of brand stories/news/original content

 

Now the good thing is that as it seems it’s just getting started, Levis blog (and many others) can still change their strategy before investing too much time and energy into something that will make them say

 

 

1 cookie point for blogging, but for the rest, go back to your room and finish your homeworks.