JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 101 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature) Vol. 8 No. 1, February 2023 ISSN (print): 2502-7816; ISSN (online): 2503-524X Available online at https://ejournal.unib.ac.id/index.php/joall/article/view/24364 https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.24364 Successful Indonesian startups’ product blogs: A digital genre analysis and its pedagogical implications 1Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari , 2Novitasari, 3Tri Astuti Handayani, 4Cita Nuary Ishak , 5Nafisya Alfiani Aisyah 1,5English for Business and Professional Communications, Politeknik Negeri Malang, INDONESIA 1,5Jalan Soekarno Hatta No. 9, Jatimulyo, Lowokwaru, Malang, Jawa Timur 65141 2,3English for Tourism Industry, Politeknik Negeri Malang, INDONESIA 2,3Jalan Soekarno Hatta No. 9, Jatimulyo, Lowokwaru, Malang, Jawa Timur 65141 4Graduate Program of English Language Education, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang, INDONESIA 4Jalan Semarang No.5, Sumbersari, Lowokwaru, Malang, Jawa Timur 65145 ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received: Oct 25, 2022 Revised: Nov 7, 2022 Accepted: Dec 7, 2022 Blogs can be deemed as an alternative digital media which have been strategically employed for business communication. One of the realizations is product blogs. As startups, which are identically linked to digital media, have been skyrocketing in number, product blogs play an integral role to accommodate their business communication. In writing an article for the product blogs, startups often open an internship vacancy for, among others, polytechnic students majoring English for business communication. However, generic structure of a product blog article is quite different from academic essays. There is a need to equip the students with adequate product blog article writing skills before they embark on internship. This study aims at empirically delving into generic structure of successful Indonesian startups’ product blogs. To achieve the aim, this research employed corpus-based research methodology. There were 33.430 tokens of product blogs from two unicorn startups. The framework for analysis was adapted from Askehave and Nielsen (2005). The findings show that there were three moves in the corpus, namely contextualizing product, detailing product, and soliciting response. Each move consisted of steps which were categorized into reading mode and navigating mode. The findings lead to pedagogical implications—inculcating the moves to polytechnic students majoring English for business communication—as an attempt to link and match between vocational pedagogy and industry requirements. Keywords: Product Blog Corporate Blog Digital Genre Analysis Move Analysis Business Communication Conflict of interest: None Funding information: Politeknik Negeri Malang Correspondence: Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, English for Business and Professional Communications, Politeknik Negeri Malang, INDONESIA nfanyassari@polinema.ac.id ©Authors This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA 4.0 international license. https://ejournal.unib.ac.id/index.php/joall/article/view/24364 https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.24364 https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.33369/joall.v8i1.24364&domain=pdf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5300-8856 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6048-1323 Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 102 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 How to cite (APA Style): Anyassari, N.F., et al. (2023). Successful Indonesian startups’ product blogs: A digital genre analysis and its pedagogical implications. JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 101-124. https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.24364 Blogs and businesses can be deemed as two inseparable entities. Businesses, by nature, need to communicate their goods, services, even corporates to target audience. Traditionally, printed media, such as newspapers, and broadcast media, television for example, were primarily chosen to accommodate the communication needs. As internet has been massively occupying human’s life, digital media conjure up prominence. Blogs, one of digital media, eventually perform as a strategic instrument for corporate communication. Cho and Huh (2010) argue that blogs offer unique channel to accommodate one- or two-way communication process between a corporate and its public. Similarly, Maurya (2011: 72) asserts that blogs have evolved to be an “indispensable and potential” medium to facilitate online business communications. More and more companies have used blogs for their business communication (Colton and Poploski, 2018). Blogs employed as a corporate communication tool to achieve organizational goals are called corporate blogs (Puschmann, 2010). One of the suggested approaches to analyse corporate blogs seen from applied linguistics field is genre analysis (Breeze, 2013). Swales’ (1990) genre analysis in English for academic purposes and Bhatia’s (2014) genre analysis in English for specific purposes are two fundamental theories to depart from. There is a need to extend previously well-established genre analysis, which focuses more on printed texts, as corporate blogs are considered as a (emerging) digital genre (Puschmann, 2010; Fronczak, 2021). Basing their research on Swales’ genre analysis, Askehave and Nielsen (2005) extended the analysis on digital genre. They prominently underline that in analysing digital genre, researchers are required to distinguish between two modes: reading and navigating mode. Reading mode positions a reader as a traditional reader who reads the text sequentially; while, navigating mode allows a reader to construct reading path through interconnected sites via hyperlinks. Despite having significant inputs on how to analyse digital genre, Askehave and Nielsen overlooked the other nature of digital genre, that is, being multimodal. Xia (2020) asserts that in analysing digital genre researchers need to consider multimodality, which involves the use of multiple communicative modes such as images and videos. Xia’s suggestion is worth elaborating as digital genre, in nature, is interlinked and multimodal. Corporate blogs as digital genre can be further categorized to accommodate different communication objectives and audience. Puschmann and Hagelmoser (2015) divide corporate blogs into five types based on functions, authorship, and audience: product blog, image/lobbying blog, https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v8i1.24364 Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 103 recruitment blog, executive blog, and knowledge blog. Product blog can be deemed as the first blog an early-stage corporate—a startup—must have. A startup needs to communicate its products or services to prospective customers, and product blog can play a role in it. Compare to other types of corporate blog, product blog is the most open to public, even an external party such as a product customer may write one (Ho, Chiu, Chen, and Papazafeiropoulou, 2015). Interests in digital genre analysis in the area of corporate communication have been growing profoundly. Some studies have focused on website homepages such as five-star hotels’ websites (Suen, 2009), Malaysian SMEs’ websites (Johari and Ali, 2015), crowdfunding websites (Liu and Deng, 2016), oil and gas companies’ websites (Isa, Ali, Fadzillah, and Mohamad, 2017), and Pakistani clothing brand website (Farrukh and Shehzad, 2019). Following the interests, some other studies have paid attention to corporate blogs. Puschmann (2010) has studied corporate blogs from pragmatics and language point of view. Seen from digital genre analysis, Fronczak (2019, 2021), using Puschmann’s corporate blogs corpora, analysed 500 blog articles from five IT corporates and focused her study on language use and common patterns of article structures. Despite being influential, Fronczak’s and Puschmann’s works shared little attention to generic structure of product blog type. The scarcity of research focusing on product blogs might be due to unawareness of blog as an important business communication medium and preference to other media such as electronic product catalogs (e.g. Palmer, 1997). As now digital marketing is fast growing, product blog is becoming prominent, and it gradually will usurp traditional media (Maurya, 2011). In addition, customers nowadays have a tendency to seek comprehensive information about a product via internet before their purchase. Of course, product descriptions as in product catalogs will not suffice. As a result, product blog, then, plays an important role in accommodating the behavior. As the number of startups is growing, the needs to write a product blog have come to attention. This might be the reason why job vacancy as content writers and copywriters has been high in demand. The practice sometimes invites student interns to occupy the needs. Internships are identical to polytechnic education, at least in Indonesia. As a vocational education, polytechnics adjust their curriculum to job and industry requirements (e.g. Handayani and Brodjonegoro, 2015). Despite the industry requirements on writing skills, some writing classes in vocational education remain focusing on academic writing. Students in the class are exposed to essay and argumentative writing, which in fact contain more academic values rather than practical ones. Therefore, it is important to equip students with apt writing skills which go in line with the recent industry requirements. By Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 104 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 knowing generic structure of product blog, for example, students can get an initial exposure on what writing skills is currently sought for by the industries. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap in literature. There are three research questions this study addressed: 1. what is the generic structure in reading mode of successful Indonesian startups’ English product blog articles? 2. what is the generic structure in navigating mode of successful Indonesian startups’ English product blog articles? 3. what is the generic structure prototype of Indonesian-based startups’ English product blog articles? By empirically delving into digital genre analysis of Indonesian startups’ product blog, this study provided generic structure prototype of product blog articles both in reading and navigating mode. We argue that the generic structure is, then, beneficial in vocational education as an attempt to link and match learning outcomes to industry requirements. METHOD Research Design This research employed corpus-based approach as it brings authentic data from the field (Baker, 2010). The corpus built for this research is categorized as specialized corpus because it is small in size and a restricted set of texts (Baker, 2010: 99). A framework for digital genre analysis by Askehave and Nielsen (2005) and multimodality suggested by Xia (2020) were applied in a pilot study to develop an analytical framework. Based on Askehave and Nielsen’s framework, researchers should distinguish between reading mode and navigating mode in analysing digital genre. Although Askehave and Nielsen’s framework was used as the basis, their findings only focused on analysing website homepages. As a result, an analytical framework to analyse product blog needed creating. The corpus was then analysed based on the analytical framework. To assist the analysis stage, a corpus toolkit named AntConc 4.0.11 (Anthony, 2022) was used. In addition, following Safnil (2013), inter-coder reliability was employed in this study to corroborate the findings. Building the Corpus Three criteria were constructed to build the corpus. They were: (1) successful startups mean those which have been labelled ‘unicorn’ startups by 2021, (2) those startups’ websites contain ‘blog’ as the breadcrumb, (3) there are English product blog articles posted within January 2021-February 2022. Based on Tempo (2022) and Kompas (2022), there were nine unicorn startups by 2021, namely Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Bukalapak, OVO, J&T, Xendit, Ajaib, Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 105 and Kopi Kenangan. The unicorn startups’ websites were then observed to accommodate second and third criterion. Table 1 shows the result of the observation. Table 1. Observation results based on criteria to build the corpus Criterion 1: Unicorn Startup Criterion 2: Blog as the Bread- crumb Criterion 3: Product Blog in English Criterion 3: Articles in Jan 21-Feb 22 Remark Gojek Yes Yes Yes Included Tokopedia Yes No Yes Excluded Traveloka Yes Yes yes (only two articles) Excluded Bukalapak Yes No Yes Excluded OVO No No No Excluded J&T No No Yes Excluded Xendit Yes Yes Yes Included Ajaib No No No Excluded Kopi Kenangan No No Yes Excluded From Table 1 above, product blog articles from Gojek and Xendit were included in the corpus as they achieved all three constructed criteria. Traveloka, despite meeting all of the criteria, was excluded due to inadequate number of articles (only two articles). From these selected product blogs, the corpus accounting for 33.340 tokens was built. Pilot Study A pilot study to build an analytical framework was conducted by randomly selecting 20 articles, 10 from each startup. Those articles were then analysed by one researcher and two co-researchers. The co-researchers have frequently conducted move analysis on various academic or ESP texts. Discussions between the researcher and the co-researchers were done before and after analysis. Table 2 below shows the pilot study findings. Table 2 Pilot study findings: an analytical framework Move Steps Multimodality and Digital Navigation Contextualizing product (CP) 1. greetings (GRE) image, video, hashtag, hyperlink keywords 2. problem (PRO) 3. solution (SOL) 4. opportunity (OPP) 5. venture growth (VEN) Detailing product (DP) 1. overview (OVE) Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 106 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Move Steps Multimodality and Digital Navigation 2. procedure (PROC) image, infographic, table, video, hyperlink keywords 3. strengths (STR) 4. target market (TAR) 5. FAQ (FAQ) 6. venture growth (VEN) 7. testimonial (TES) 8. traction (TRA) Soliciting response (SR) 1. call to action (CAL) hyperlink keywords, email, action button, hashtag, social media share button 2. take away phrases (TAK) 3. restatement of product strengths (RES) 4. venture growth (VEN) From Table 2 above, three moves structure product blog articles namely contextualizing product, detailing product, and soliciting response. Each move has several steps in reading mode. In addition, it has multimodality and digital navigation in navigating mode. The pilot study findings above were then used as the analytical framework to analyse the corpus. Data Analysis Procedures Analysis was done by the following procedure: (1) tagging generic structure in reading and navigating mode based on the analytical framework from pilot study, (2) inter-coder reliability and discussing discrepancies, (3) rechecking the analysis results by using AntConc4.0.11, (4) counting and summarizing the occurrences, (5) calculating the percentage. In reading mode, the corpus was manually tagged based on the analytical framework from pilot study. In navigating mode, the corpus was analysed in its digital form as it appeared on the websites, and the result were added to reading mode tags. These two analyses from each article were juxtaposed simultaneously to maintain validity. To corroborate the analysis results, following Safnil (2013), inter-coder reliability was employed. One coder was trained to analyse the corpus. The coder was preferred because of various experiences in analysing genre on ESP texts. Inter-coder reliability was analysed by using Cohen’s Kappa which valued for 0,69. The Cohen’s Kappa value allows tentative conclusions to be drawn between coders Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 107 (Carletta, 1996; Di Eugeneio and Glass, 2004). Tagged corpus was then rechecked by using Word, KWIC, and Plot feature in AntConc 4.0.11 (Anthony, 2022) and quantitatively calculated in percentage. The findings were then presented in table and interpreted qualitatively. FINDINGS Generic Structure in Reading Mode The finding of generic structure in reading mode is shown in Table 3 below. Table 3. Generic structure in reading mode Move Step Xendit % Gojek % CP GRE 0 0% 11 24% PRO 10 59% 20 43% SOL 10 59% 20 43% OPP 14 82% 32 70% VEN 6 35% 18 39% DP OVE 12 71% 41 89% PROC 13 76% 29 63% STR 8 47% 34 74% TAR 3 18% 5 11% FAQ 0 0% 5 11% VEN 2 12% 9 20% TES 1 6% 2 4% TRA 0 0% 5 11% SR CAL 17 100% 37 80% TAK 0 0% 11 24% RES 1 6% 5 11% VEN 3 18% 1 2% Move 1 contextualizing product (CP) provides introduction about the product by narrating the context in which the product is applicable—to solve a problem for instance. In reading mode, there are five steps namely opportunity (OPP), problem (PRO), solution (SOL), venture growth (VEN), and greetings (GRE). The first four steps prominently occurred in both startups; meanwhile step GRE appeared only in Gojek’s product blog articles. Interestingly, step problem (PRO) and solution (SOL) appeared consecutively in both Gojek’s and Xendit’s product blog articles. Although product blog articles may be deemed as a result of creativity, from which patterns can barely be extracted, this study found frequently-appearing patterns in Move 1. The patterns were OPP-VEN, PRO-SOL, OPP-PRO-SOL. Excerpts below describe those patterns. Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 108 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Excerpt 1 [X160321B] PayMaya is one of the biggest e-wallet players in Philippines. With the growing number of users of PayMaya, the needs of making this channel available as one of the payment methods available for the customers to checkout through Wix has been growing rapidly (OPPORTUNITY). Xendit is proud to announce that we can now help merchant in the Philippines to enable PayMaya payments on their Wix store (VENTURE GROWTH). Excerpt 2 [X150321] We understand that transaction reconciliation is a complex and painful internal process that all businesses, including our merchants have to go through (PROBLEM). Xendit always aims to make payments simple. That’s why in addition to our new views, Transaction and Balance, we have recently released two sets of API to help automate the reconciliation process: Generate Report API and Transaction View API (SOLUTION). Excerpt 3 [G101121] Have you started investing yet? Lately, investment has become a hot topic. Especially during the pandemic, a lot of people talked about it and started using their funds to invest. Especially now that there’s a lot of available access that people can use to invest (OPPORTUNITY). If done right, investment can indeed help us meet financial needs such as buying a house or even achieving financial freedom. However, doing it wrong can make us lose money instead. This is why a lot of people hesitate to start investing (PROBLEM). For those of you who are still not sure because of this reason, you can start first by joining Cuan Festival (SOLUTION). Move 2 detailing product, as its name, proceeds to explaining the product in details. There were eight steps in reading mode namely overview (OVE), procedure (PROC), and strength (STR), target market (TAR), FAQ, venture growth (VEN), testimonials (TES), and traction (TRA). Unlike Move 1, frequently-appearing patterns in Move 2 were not able to detect. Excerpts below show each step. Excerpt 4 [G310521] So, the Ganbatte Game Show Quiz is a 30 days quiz program, starting from Monday to Saturday. There will be different games every day, such as trivia, guess songs, guess pictures, guess scenes, instant ganbatte, and many more. Also, this event will be hosted by exciting hosts such as Vedie, Liza, Rifky & Ayonk and even, there will be Robot Go as a host! It’s really exciting, right? (OVERVIEW) Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 109 If you can make it to the Top 3 on Monthly Quiz, 2 free tickets to travel to Japan will be yours! But if you don't make it to the Top 3, it's okay too, because you still have the opportunity to win GoPay worthed up to millions of rupiah by scoring high in other Ganbatte quizzes (STRENGTHS). How To Join Ganbatte Game Show Quiz: 1. Download the GoPlay App or you can visit this site https://goplay.co.id/live 2. Login / Register your GoPlay account using Gojek registered phone number 3. Choose the Ganbatte Game Show Quiz on the Live Events list 4. Join the game show every day at 20.00 WIB and gather the points as much as you can 5. Ever correct answer will be count as 1 point 6. Don’t forget to turn on the reminder, so you’re not miss the quiz (PROCEDURE) [X020221A] Interested in getting these new features? We have just released the new features in BETA to selected customers. Please check your email to see if you’re already selected. Otherwise, if you’re interested to try the feature before the release, you can contact us to become a beta tester and become an important part of our development. Your participation and feedback will help us keep improving. Once you’re selected to try this feature, the following toggle will appear on the bottom left of your dashboard sidebar. Click the switch button and you will see the new view right away. You can switch back to the old view anytime by clicking the switch button again, and you will be reverted to the old view immediately (PROCEDURE). Excerpt 5 [X061021] Direct Debit is ideal for • Ecommerce business – Increase payments acceptance rates for high value items with direct debit and receive payments with fast settlement times • Subscription services – Auto debit (recurring) from your user’s bank account without the need for authentication each time. Some examples include collection of membership fees, SaaS services, Over-the-top (OTT) media services (TARGET MARKET) Excerpt 6 [G020821] For now this feature will only available in Solo, but don’t worry soon your city will taste this experience as well (VENTURE GROWTH) Excerpt 7 [X061021] On top of that, merchants can enjoy instant settlement and fees significantly lower than traditional credit card fees. One of Xendit’s merchants who have enabled Direct Debit channels on their platform is AQWIRE, a Global Property Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 110 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Marketplace that fully utilizes Smart Contract technology to process cross- border real-estate transactions. Xendit’s Direct Debit helped them to reduce cost by more than 95%. Before Xendit, we could only accept card and e-Wallet payments. Xendit’s online banking option helped us reduce our fees by more than 95%. Inno Maog, Chief Marketing Officer (TESTIMONIAL) Excerpt 8 [G240821] During the pandemic, GoFood recorded a 20% increase in transactions, mainly due to an increase in the number of newly registered SME merchants. At GoFood, SME merchants account for more than 80% of the overall transactions and also dominate the RTD (ready to drink) business (TRACTION). Move 3 soliciting response (SR) invites readers—who are expected to be prospective consumers—to do an action after being exposed to content in Move 1 and Move 2. The action varied from customer service, product trial, or product purchase. In reading mode, there were four steps. Step call to action (CAL) appeared significantly high in the entire corpus. The remaining steps are taken away phrases (TAK), restatement of product strengths (RES), and venture growth (VEN). Excerpts below show those steps. Excerpt 9 [X020221A] Join thousands of other businesses in making payments simple with Xendit (CALL TO ACTION). As you can see in this post, we keep on improving to deliver the best experience for our customers and help them grow (VENTURE GROWTH). Find out more about Xendit, or sign up now to try our dashboard! (CALL TO ACTION) Excerpt 10 [G030221] By implementing J3K protocol together, #ThereIsAlwaysAWay to make life more comfortable. (TAKE AWAY PHRASES) Excerpt 11 [G150921] At Gojek, your safety and protection as a passenger are our top priorities. Along with procuring reliable insurance facilities that can protect you from the risk of accidents, we also continue striving to provide training for driver partners. We provide complete protection so you can drive without feeling anxious. (RESTATEMENT OF PRODUCT STRENGTH) In conclusion, three moves in reading mode were realized by various steps. Some steps appeared more frequently over others. In addition, patterns were detected in Move 1 contextualizing product. Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 111 Generic Structure in Navigating Mode The findings of generic structure in navigating mode are shown in Table 4 below. Table 4. Generic structure in navigating mode Move Multimodality Total % Digital Navigation Total % CP Image 50 79% Hashtag 2 3% Video 1 2% Hyperlink keywords 3 5% DP Image 24 38% Hyperlink keywords 19 30% Video 7 11% Infographic 1 2% Table 5 8% SR Action button 35 56% Hyperlink keywords 18 29% Email address 13 21% Hashtag 6 10% Social media share button 63 100% Move 1 contextualizing product was mostly equipped with images illustrating the content of articles. They appeared usually under the articles’ titles. The images also functioned to attract readers to read the articles. There were also hashtags and hyperlink keywords in Move 1 despite having low frequency. Figure 1 and 2 below depict the finding. Figure 1. An image in Move 1 Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 112 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Figure 2. Hyperlink keywords in Move 1 Move 2 detailing product consisted of images, videos, and hyperlink keywords. Images in Move 2 were a bit different from those in Move 1. Images in Move 2 were frequently found in step procedure (PROC) to extend the information visually. Likewise, videos were oriented to provide motion visual on step procedure (PROC) explanations. Hyperlink keywords mostly appeared in Move 2. The function of hyperlink keywords was to connect existing product blogs to other pages either within or outside the startups’ websites. Figures below show those steps. Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 113 Figure 3 Images and videos in Move 2 Figure 4 Hyperlink keywords in Move 2 Move 3 soliciting response consisted of hashtag, email, hyperlink keywords, action button, and social media share button. All of Move 3 steps in navigating mode were situated to accommodate readers to do actions. Figure below shows those steps. Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 114 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Figure 6 Move 3 steps in navigating mode To conclude, in navigating mode, multimodality appeared in Move 1 contextualizing product and Move 2 detailing product; meanwhile digital navigation appeared in Move 2 and Move 3 soliciting response. Generic Structure Prototype The generic structure of startup’s product blog based on the findings in this study is divided into reading mode and navigating mode. In reading mode, there are two move categories namely obligatory and optional. Obligatory moves were inferred from prominent percentage of occurrence, which ranges from 35%-100%. Meanwhile, low percentage of occurrence, which ranges from 0%-25%, was categorized as optional ones. In navigating mode, each move in reading mode was equipped with digital navigations. Findings presented above lead to a generic structure prototype of a product blog as a digital genre. The prototype is explained in Table 5 below. Table 5. A product blog generic structure prototype Move Steps Steps Realizations Reading Mode Navigating Mode Move 1: Contextualizing product Obligatory: Opportunity Multimodality: Illustration image narrating the context or trends in which a product is Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 115 Move Steps Steps Realizations Reading Mode Navigating Mode applicable and a business can grow Problem describing a painful problem which a product can solve Solution explaining how a product can solve the previously mentioned problem Venture growth (new product) introducing a new product based on the trends and potential business growth Optional: Greetings addressing target market personally and uniquely Move 2: Detailing product Obligatory: Overview Multimodality: Procedure images/videos Digital navigation: Hyperlink keywords describing a product in general Procedure describing how to use a product in details Strengths writing product strengths and benefits the prospective customers may get as an attempt to promote the product Optional: Target market indicating to whom a product is oriented FAQ providing answers for frequently asked questions related to a product Venture growth (product growth) describing how well a product has been circulating in the market and indicating the growth of the product (e.g. opening new branch) Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 116 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Move Steps Steps Realizations Reading Mode Navigating Mode Testimonials inserting testimonials from key source person about product use Traction providing valid data as the evidence that a product has been gradually sold in the market Move 3: Soliciting response Obligatory: Call to action Digital navigation: Action button Hyperlink keywords Email address Hashtag Social media share button Inviting prospective customers to do an action related to a product Optional: Take away phrases writing a phrase or sentence that remains in prospective customers’ mind to conclude a product blog article Restatement of product strengths restating product strengths which have been mentioned in Move 2 Venture growth (personal) Creating prospective customers’ desire to try the product by mentioning that many people have been using the product then inviting them personally to join Generic structure prototype of product blog above was drawn from two modes. In reading mode, the texts were treated as a ‘printed’ format which readers usually read sequentially; meanwhile, in navigating mode, the texts were analysed as a medium to bring to other texts. Properties of texts as a medium such as hyperlink keywords, action buttons, images, and videos were added to the first analysis. As the nature of digital genre, these two modes, therefore, should not be separated. Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 117 DISCUSSION Communicative Purposes The first finding is about the generic structure in reading mode. Move 1 high- occurrence steps were opportunity (OPP), problem (PRO), solution (SOL) and venture growth (VEN). Step opportunity (OPP) indicated that the startups follow the trends where their business can grow. Mentioning opportunity or setting where a business run is important for a business because it is expected to grow sustainably in the future. A business should keep on improving the products based on the trends as it realized in step venture growth (VEN). Puschmann and Hagelmoser (2015), in their corporate blog classification, mention that the target audience of a product blog is customers. Indicating business growth is one way, among others, to pitch customers (Baehr and Loomis, 2015). Step problem (PRO) discussed realistic, yet painful problem, and step solution (SOL) explained how the product solved the problem. Step problem (PRO) and solution (SOL), which appeared consecutively, are also an attempt to convince customers. Baehr and Loomis (2015) assert that the core of business is problem solving. The finding of step problem (PRO) and solution (SOL) was in line with the analysis on common structure of corporate blogs by Fronczak (2021) although the researcher did not clearly state what type of corporate blogs used for the corpus. The researcher found that problems or challenges in business world were introduced in corporate blogs. Step overview (OVE), procedure (PROC), and strengths (STR) in Move 2 appeared frequently high in both startups. Since products in this study are in the form of apps, customers need to know how to use them. Easily- understood explanation and interesting presentation in step procedure (PROC) may become an external factor of choosing the products. Customers love simple operating apps. The finding shows that step procedure (PROC) was written step-by-step either in the form of list or block. Step strength (STR) explained product uniqueness among competitors. By knowing the strength of the product, customers are expected to convince themselves in choosing the product. Step call to action (CAL) in Move 3 appeared high in frequency. The step invited customers to do an action regarding the product. This is in line with the nature of blog which accommodates two-way communication (Herring et al., 2004). However, the finding seems to contradict to Puschmann (2010) who stated that readers can post a comment to respond to the blog author. There was no comment section in both startups’ product blogs. This clearly indicates that the anticipated responses of product blogs are taking an action rather than discussion. The actions varied from providing customer support, product trials persuasion, or product purchase persuasion. The directed actions are in line with company website’s purposes proposed by Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 118 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Nielsen (2002). This can be understood because the product blog is embedded on the corporate website. From the findings above, it can be drawn that the communicative purpose of a product blog is to persuade audience—customers in this case— to take an action about the product. The communicative purpose is similar to promotional genre, advertisement, for example (Bhatia, 2014). Planning advertising in order to promote a product needs a careful execution. One of considerations is customer’s decision-making process. Belch and Belch (2003) point out that there are several stages of customer’s decision-making process, namely problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post-purchase evaluation. Product blogs can perform as a tool to provide information to persuade customers to take an action, that is, product purchase. Steps in Move 1 may accommodate problem recognition, and Move 2 may accommodate information search and alternative evaluation simultaneously. After being well-informed about a product, a customer usually makes a comparison with other similar products. Advertising planners have to be able to get the customer remained to choose their products by stating a “sustainable competitive advantage that a competitor can hardly copy” (Belch and Belch, 2003: 257). Multimodality and Interactive Communication The second finding is about generic structure in navigating mode. It was divided into two, multimodality and digital navigation. Multimodality was included in navigating mode because its tendency to attract readers to navigate what information they want to read. Multimodality in the form of images appeared frequently in Move 1 and 2. The finding is in line with Herring et al. (2004), despite taking personal blogs as their data, who found image entry as one of blog features. The similar blog characteristic indicates that blogs in nature is multimodal by employing relevant images. Digital navigations frequently appeared in Move 2 and Move 3. They were in the form of hyperlink keywords, email address, social media share button, and action button. Those navigations are identical to findings of personal blog (Herring et al., 2004) and other digital genre analyses such as website homepages (Suen, 2009; Johari and Ali, 2015; Liu and Deng, 2016; Isa, Ali, Fadzillah, and Mohamad, 2017; Farrukh and Shehzad, 2019). The navigations characterize digital genre compare to traditional one. In digital genre, users have full control on what information they want to be exposed via digital navigations. Product blog, simultaneously, performs as a medium for its readers to do further actions. The action may vary such as sharing product blog articles to social media platforms, contacting customer services, trying or purchasing the products. Those anticipated responses are in line with Michael Ray’s Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 119 alternative response hierarchies in Belch and Belch (2003). According to the hierarchy, customer’s response after being exposed to advertising message may vary from cognitive (learn) to affective (feel) to conative (do). If the anticipated response is affective (feel) in which customers develop fondness upon the article content, social media share button may accommodate the action. If the anticipated response is cognitive (learn) in which customers want to know more about the product, hyperlink keywords or customer service email address may help. If the anticipated response is conative (do) in which customers want to try or purchase the product, action button may facilitate. Product blog writers should be aware of this characteristic in order to maximize the communicative purpose. Product Blogs and Academic Essays The third finding is about generic structure prototype of English product blog articles. Finding shows that the generic structure of a product blog consisted of three moves namely contextualizing product, detailing product, and soliciting response. This is similar to common academic essay structure namely an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Students might be more familiar with types of academic essays rather than product blogs. The former embodies traditional genre, meanwhile the latter is more on digital. Based on the finding, product blogs share some similar structures with academic essays. The purpose of contextualizing product is almost similar to an introduction. Davis and Liss (2006: 8) state that an introduction “engage(s) readers’ attention (and) give(s) broader picture of the subject matter to be discussed.” Move 1 contextualizing product aims at orienting readers to the context, in which products are applicable, by narrating the business trends (Opportunity), introducing products as part of the trends (Venture Growth), posing problems (Problem), and situating products as the solution (Solution). Move 1 has similarity to introduction of problem-solving essay. Step problem (PRO) and solution (SOL) in Move 1 contextualizing product appeared hand in hand in both startups. It indicates that to convince readers, product blog writers can post a problem to which a product provides a solution. In a problem-solving essay’s structure, Evans (1998: 78) introduces problem in introductory paragraph. It then is followed by some possible solutions in body paragraphs. Although the appearance of solution is different in the structure, problem-solving essay may become a mnemonic that eases students to write product blogs. The purpose of detailing product is in line with a body in an essay. A body “contain(s) the supporting details” of the subject matter, which has been initiated in introduction (Davis and Liss, 2006: 9). Detailing product explains and describes products in details. It can be done by providing an overview of Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 120 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 the product (Overview), describing the procedure on how to use the products (Procedure), and boosting product strengths or specialties among similar products (Strengths). Although both essays and product blog have ‘conclusion’ part, the purpose of each is different. Davis and Liss (2006: 11) mention that “a conclusion brings an essay to a close.” This means that the discussion in an essay has finished by a conclusion. The communication process in an essay is one-way as an essay author does not invite readers to interact. In a product blog, on the other hand, based on the findings, the purpose of soliciting response—the same level as a conclusion—is to invite readers to do an action related to the products. CONCLUSION This study analysed generic structure of product blog articles in English from two unicorn startups in Indonesia. This study has proposed a prototype of product blog generic structure which is important to equip polytechnic students’ writing skills, as vocational education is oriented to industry requirements. To teach writing a product blog article, it is better to introduce the communicative purpose of product blogs to students. Students need to know about the concept of customer’s decision-making process as the basis to develop a product blog article. Then, they also need to know about the concept of response process, so that they can adjust the content of a product blog article to anticipated response from target audience. By putting these all together, polytechnic students will not only be capable of writing a product blog article but also aware of what they write. The commonalities between product blogs and academic essays can be used as schemata to inculcate the generic structure of a product blog article in writing classes. Learning should not be made discretely from students’ background knowledge. Brown (2007) suggests that associating new information to students’ existing knowledge will lead to better retention and make learning more meaningful. By connecting product blogs to types of essays, problem-solution essay for example, students are expected to transfer their general writing skills to industry-driven writing skills, which is very strategic to polytechnic students. Last but not least, the nature of product blogs as a form of digital genre should not be neglected. It is not enough to write a product blog article on a piece of paper. Students should be exposed to writing on digital media along with steps in navigating mode. Free blog sites or web sites may facilitate the practice (see Anyassari, 2022 for an example). There, students can simulate writing a product blog article by implementing generic structure in reading mode and navigating mode. Successful Indonesian Startups’ Product Blogs… JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 121 This study, however, mainly focused on software application products. As a result, the findings transferability to other forms of products needs investigating. In addition, this study analysed generic structure of product blog articles. It is suggested that further studies extend the findings by analysing linguistic features of product blog articles. 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She obtained her Master’s degree in English Language Teaching from Universitas http://dx.doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v24i2/180-200 https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/1546423/ada-kopi-kenangan-ini-6-startup-unicorn-indonesia-2021 https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/1546423/ada-kopi-kenangan-ini-6-startup-unicorn-indonesia-2021 https://doi.org/10.18485/esptoday.2020.8.1 Nugrahaningtyas Fatma Anyassari, et al. 124 JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature), 8(1), 2023 Sebelas Maret. Her research interest is English for specific purposes in vocational higher education. Tri Astuti Handayani is a faculty member of Diploma IV English for Tourism Industry Politeknik Negeri Malang. She teaches English Grammar, Writing, Speaking for Business Communication, Introduction to Linguistics, Reading, and English for Preseantation. She obtained her Master’s degree in Literature from Universitas Indonesia. Her research interests vary from literature and culture, gender study, and tourism. Cita Nuary Ishak is a non-permanent lecturer at English Department Politeknik Negeri Malang. She teaches English skills, business English, and English for Journalism. She is now pursuing her Doctoral degree in English Language Education at Universitas Negeri Malang. Her research interests include business English and L2 writing. Nafisya Alfiani Aisyah is a faculty member at English Department Politeknik Negeri Malang. She teaches English skills, English for Public Speaking, and Business Simulation. She obtained her Master’s degree in English Language Teaching from Universitas Negeri Malang. Her research interests vary from critical thinking skills, discourse analysis in English teaching, as well as language skills.