Five Brands Take On Blogging

A blog is one of the best tools a company can use to connect with its customers. According to Dechay Watts, a blog gives your company a voice, creates a place to talk about your products and services, and it is a place to let your brand's personality shine. I took a close look at five different blogs to see how the brands are engaging with consumers, in the hopes that I could learn a couple things that I could use to improve my own blog. Here's what I found!

1. Express - EXPLife

The clothing store Express maintains a professional blog that's purpose is to inform young adult's about the latest fashion trends, and to showcase the brand's clothing. One thing that really stands out about EXPLife is how the site goes beyond push marketing, and really focuses on entertaining its intended audience. In a post about campus fashion you can listen to a popular Ke$ha song, there is a link for an app that puts your pictures into a collage, and there is a recipe for jungle juice (right). EXPLife goes beyond trying to sell their products, and posts things that are relevant to young adults. The targeted content on EXPLife reflects that Express is a brand for trendy, young adults.


Express marketers drive traffic to their blog by posting new content regularly. If there's always something new to see or read, people will continuously checkin with your blog. EXPLife also provides buttons that link to the brand's Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram and RSS feed, and there is a sidebar displaying the brand's latest tweets and Instagram posts. These social media links allow readers to connect with the brand and share the brand on multiple platforms, which magnifies the brand's reach and drives traffic to the blog. At the bottom of every EXPLife post, you have the option of liking the story on Facebook, tweeting the story, or sharing it on Google Plus. These share buttons, the links to social media networks and publishing content on a regular basis are the aspects that make EXPLife successful.

It would benefit Express to place its social media buttons higher on the blog, because that is the most viewed and clicked area. While some of the links were near the top, I had to scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to the brand's Pinterest and Instagram accounts.

Because EXPLife is a blog for a retail store, there are no advertisements on the blog. It wouldn't make sense to display clothing ads for any of Express' competitors! If the brand was going to add advertisements, they might consider showing advertisements for brands that they work with. On the blog there are video segments that Express does with GQ. Since the two brands are already working together, EXPLife could have advertisements for the magazine.