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This is a very interesting article I came across from the Daily Yomiuri in Japan. Alhough it initially appeared that not many Japanese businesses are adopting blogging strategies from some recent survey data I came across, it does appear that they are being used for sales and marketing efforts.

They site a bunch of real life examples of how blogs are being used to sell and market products and services from cars to books to Public Relations, so this is definitely worth a read. Two things piqued my interest that I thought I would share.

According to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, blog-related business generated 3.4 billion yen in fiscal 2004 and is expected to expand to 137.7 billion yen in fiscal 2006.

That is over 1.26 Billion US in Japan alone, which is a significant figure.

Also, I read an amazing example of how one company is giving the public free blogs in exchange for the promotion of their products and services.

Anyone who registers with Rakuten can set up a blog on the company's network and receive benefit from the program. Bloggers must advertise products available on the main Web site and post a link to purchasing pages. If somebody purchases the product after jumping to the page from a blog, Rakuten will give the blogger reward points, which can be used to purchase products via the main Web site.

Absolutely brilliant. I have consulted with many customers on setting up viral marketing strategies for community blogging applications, but this takes it one step further by incenting bloggers with “rewards points” which the customer can redeem for discounts on additional purchases through the provider. This is a great strategy that alot of companies should seriously consider with any large blog service roll out. 

MSN is trying something a little unique by holding a contest to try and attract more British bloggers to their free blogging platform.

Basically they want users to acquire a UFO picture (If you don't have one, they are happy to provide one) and post this to their MSN Spaces blog with a small article that will then enter them to win all kinds of neat stuff such as MP3 players and digital cameras.

Great idea to flaunt the brand, create some awareness, and get users in to try the tool, although a strategy premised on a ficticious topic may not be the best bet to create repeat or long term bloggers. All this seems to do for MSN in the long term is create a bunch of populated blogs.

Considering how much they have been number tossing regarding the millions of users they have in North America as of late, I can see how this would be a great way to beef up the numbers in that locale….