Marketing Beyond The Blog Buzz

© Bloomberg Marketing 2005

Marketing Beyond

The Blog Buzz

September 8, 2005


Our Game Plan

What is a blog?

Marketing Applications

RSS

Monitoring the

Blogosphere

Journalists & Blogs

Challenges

How to Begin

Key Take Aways

blog

website


“People can say I’m a classical violinist if they

want to, but I’ve always viewed myself as a

musician who plays music and not just a

certain part of it.” Kennedy, Classic Violinist

After All Is Said And Done…It’s Still Marketing


What is a blog?


What is a blog?

A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a

human guide who you get to know.

There are many guides to choose from,

each develops an audience, and there's

also camaraderie and politics between

the people who run weblogs, they point

to each other, in all kinds of structures,

graphs, loops, etc.

Heard it from: Dave Winer

http://newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs

->[Courtesy Link]

http://newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs


The Essence of Blogging

1. People Talking To People

2. People Listening To People

3. People Interacting With People

Within the environment of a website


Blog Activities

Blogger Reader

Author Blogs

• Information

• Entertain

• Community

• Ego Read Blogs

• Inform

• Entertain

• Community

Monitor Blogs

• Company buzz

• Customer sat issues

• Trends

• Influencers

Promote via

Blogs

• Ads

• Bloggers

•Comment

• Trackback

• Request

• Journalists sources


Building Corner Store Relationships

People like to do business with people they like.

“People-based relationships and performance will continue to be

the most important formula for success.” Lorraine Tribe, Quest Personnel

Markets are Conversations Cluetrain Manifesto

Markets Are People


Anatomy of a Blog

Post

Video

Delivery Options

Value-add

Blog Title

Title Tag


Anatomy of a Blog

BlogRoll

Archive Category Unique URL Links From Other Blogs

Post


Anatomy of a Blog

Original

Post

Trackback

On Blog

Comment

on Blog


Blog Posting Interface


A Website - even the best websites are

usually static information that is difficult to

update and with no ability to generate p2p

(person-to-person interaction)

conversations.

How Does A Blog Differ …


A Chat Room: A blog maintains a conversation history,

unlike most chat rooms.

A Listserv: A blog does not require email distribution,

unlike most listserves.

A Bulletin Board: A blog is easy to read, unlike most

bulletin boards.

How Does a Blog Differ from …


Blog Best Practices

1. Title and title tag Descriptive

Optimized for organic search

2. Posts in reversed chronological order

3. Blog writing style - conversational

4. About Me page – credibility

5. Social networking/community building Comments

Trackbacks

Linking strategy

6. Blogroll


Blog Best Practices

7. Blog Mantra

Honest | Passion | Transparency | Authentic


Growth of the Blogosphere

PubSub Total sources

15,690,065 <9/4/05>

12,886,771 <7/13/05<

Active sources

9,909,665 <9/4/05>

7,634,306 <7/13/05>

1,905 <8/12/05>

1,857 <7/13/05>

new items per minute (average

over the past two hours) *9-4 Labor Day Weekend


Major Corporations

Are Already Blogging


Marketing Applications

“The 4 P’s of Blogging”

Point | Passion | Personality | Perseverance


Crisis Management

Winber Medical Center: Stopping rumors


Customer Relationships

Non profit - community of bloggers B2C - customer bloggers


Search Engine Optimization

If there is a silver bullet …


Building Community & Influencers

74 people say happy birthday Business bloggers help cause


Informal Marketing Research

Intuit Quick Books


Thought Leadership

Research - multiple author Consulting –multiple author


Recruitment Strategy

American University –

Perspective Students Page


Displaying Information

Photo Blog Blog As A Portal


Non Corporate Blogs

Network of Blogs Sponsored Blog


Short-term Campaigns


Business & Marketing Blogs: Can A Small Business Own A Niche?

<http://qualityservicemarketing.blogs.com/quality_service_marketing/>

Company: Quality Service Marketing

Industry: Services Marketing/Consulting

Goals: Website presence,

position Sybil Stershic as a

thought leader, interest publisher

Sybil’s Lessons Learned

Outline topics

Write ahead

Read blogs

Market within your network

Jump in and go!


Business & Marketing Blogs: Can a manufacturing company leverage

the goodwill of an internal celebrity?

Company Indium

Industry: Manufacturing

Goal: Reinforce industry

thought leadership,

customer loyalty

*Build on following of company

& industry leader

<http://www.indium.com/drlasky/>

http://www.indium.com/drlasky/


<http://www.stonyfield.com>

Company: Stonyfield Farms

Industry: Consumer Dairy

Goal: Personalize relationship with

customers, differentiate the brand

Business & Marketing Blogs: Would Growth Cause Loss of Customer Relationships?


RSS – Real Simple Syndication

“Information overload and user need for control will

drive consumer RSS adoption” - Charlene Li, Forrester Research

A little peep, signal or peep that

comes from a blog or site telling

your computer that it has been up

dated. Seth Godin

Continuous search

XML format

Pull strategy – customer is in control

Allows consumption of huge amounts

of information

No spam or opt in/ opt out issues

5% of internet users use RSS feeds


GM FastLane Blog


Aggregator/News reader

Header/Post Reviews


My Yahoo


RSS – Real Simple Syndication

RSS Website Uses

Media releases

New product

updates

Newsletters


Monitoring Blogs

Influencer Relationship Management

The most priceless commodity

in times of crisis is trustworthy information. Forbes


Monitoring Blogs Influencer Relationship Management

Where would you prefer a controversial

conversation about your brand occurs?


Monitoring Blogs Influencer Relationship Management


Journalists Tapping Blogs

11th Annual Euro RSCG Magnet Survey of the Media, done

in partnership with Columbia University

51% of journalists use blogs regularly

28% rely on blogs for day-to-day reporting

Blogs used for:

reporting

research

story ideas

finding sources

uncovering breaking news

Source: http://www.magnet.com/index.php?s=_thought


Blog Marketing Challenges

Time & Resources

Blog strategy

Corporate guidelines

Corporate liability

Negative comments

Comment spam


On The Horizon

In Feeds On Blogs Blog Ads

Podcasting & Vblogging


Blog Ready?

First Question: Will the company culture support a

blog strategy?

Second Question: Will blogs help solve or support a

business challenge or marketing strategy?


Developed by Pheedo.com

Blog Implementation

Model


Ready Set Go … Blog!

Whisper Strategy

Subscribe to a news reader

Read and subscribe to blogs

Monitor the blogosphere

Join the conversation

>Free blog software for PR pros complements of Robert

French, professor Auburn University

http://www.prblogs.org/


Tracking Metrics

Blog Specific *May be measured by unique or total posts

Search rankings

Visitor hits

Page views

Trackbacks

In bound links

Comments

Conversions

Newsletters subscriptions

Sales

Leads

White paper/other down loads


Tracking Metrics

Buzz Podcasts, vlogs and other interview

Blog mentions, comments, links, trackbacks

Media mentions/quotes

Intangibles Customers’ emotional involvement with the bran

Increase in brand loyalty

Provide customers with the opportunity to talk with people within a company and ensure that customers are heard, responded to and respected by those people who are assuming the role of the public “voice” of their company


10 Key Take Aways

1. People talking to people – no corporate talk

2. Easy to maintain, update & publish website

3. Blog elements encourage real-time interaction,

creates and maintains relationships

4. Focused on a topic, industry, niche or

personality


10 Key Take Aways

5. Establishes the author as a subject matter expert

6. Provides readers with renewing sources of credible,

trustworthy information, insights and commentary

7. Blog writing is different from other customer

communication forms – relevant, informal

conversation

8. RSS allows content to be pulled by readers


10 Key Take Aways

9. Blogs must be integrated into your marketing strategy to be effective: goals, objectives

10. Blogs promotion includes traditional/internet and blog-specific (social networking: linking, comments, trackbacks; organic search optimization)

Bonus: If you do nothing else –

read blogs & monitor the blogosphere!


What Are Blogs?

1. People Talking To People

2. People Listening To People

3. People Interacting With People

… and much more!


//Blogs//:

Toby Bloomberg

Bloomberg Marketing

[email protected]

www.divamarketingblog.com

Marketing & Blog Strategies For Business

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.divamarketingblog.com/

Marketing Beyond The Blog Buzz

Business

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