Aamir Khan on a recent post on his blog decided to direct attention to his nephew Imran Khan and his upcoming production Jaane Tu. “This will be the first film of my nephew Imran, I think I’ll post a photo of him. Tell me what you think of the promo, and him” he writes.

Aamir Khan is one of those celebrities who has used his blog extremely well. We can look at why this has worked, and how it benefits Aamir Khan.

I noticed that some of the newspapers weren’t carrying too many pictures of Imran Khan (because they weren’t released?) and thus Aamir has decided to include a picture of Imran in his post (a rarity on his blog).

Benefit 1: Blogs as a medium for Controlled Communication with respect to Celebrities and known figures

I also noticed that Aamir is asking readers to look at the promos and give them his feedback. The promos are feely available on YouTube and are out on the Idiot Box as well. Aamir wanted readers to go to view the promos either on TV or on the film’s website (www.jaanetu.com). The least he could have done was inserted a hyperlink to the website! Alternately he could have embedded a video within the post. These nitty grities however probably do not matter to Aamir’s loyal readers (the post has received over 1800 comments)

Benefit 2: When the writer is an established and known face, he can elicit many responses and his blog can be used as a medium for market research of the ‘soft kind’. You can get the general mood of the market. The drawback however is that one might not get the most accurate responses because most fans would tend to be ‘kind’ (In India people are scarcely cruel to celebrities).

Aamir is cross promoting his films on his blog (just like the Big B)

Benefit 3: Blogs are great marketing vehicles. They generate trust, they can be used to impart information and insights that may not be easily available everywhere. Incidentally, our sister concern WATConsult receives a lot of work because people who approach us read WATBlog.

Benefit 4: Blogs also build a community. Even though Aamir Khan doesn’t have an official ‘community’ feature on his blog, he has effectively built a community of readers who love his blog. For non celebrities this can take time, and can be difficult. But it has been tested. It works!

You will note that whenever a journalist interviews Aamir Khan, atleast one question is with reference to his blog. The blog seems to be working pretty well for Aamir.

Aamir has not tied up his blog with Mass Media activities. That synergy could be strengthened. In his case he rarely issues statements in the press and thus journalists are forced to look up his blog.

He can learn from the Big B who recently replied to criticism levied against him by Union Health Minister. The popular press picked it up.

Over time I have also noticed that content which is ‘dumbed down’ often tends to receive a large number of responses from Indian audiences. A roadmap for bloggers in India on the path to ‘popularity and success’?

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