Bullets on Blogging

A little while ago I spoke at an online marketing conference in Mexico City. If you think public speaking is intimidating try back translating and re-translating a Spanish PowerPoint in front of 150 people on the fly... Needless to say, those were some of the longest 45 minutes of my life. At any rate, my topic was an introduction to “Blogging and Podcasting” and the possible uses of both in brand marketing. I thought it might be interesting to post some of my points on blogging as a marketing tool:

For Brands that are Actively Blogging:
• ideal place to integrate consumers into the entire marketing cycle (including initial product design)
• puts a personality or face to the message
• creates transparency for a brand
• builds added value through content for your brand’s web presence
• HIGH possibility to distribute brand truths/values here
• HIGH possibility for word of mouth through cross-blogging
• higher natural search rankings
• blogging creates conversations between:
• consumers and the brand
• consumers and other consumers (about your brand)

For Brands that are not blogging but within the blogsphere (ie: actively listening):
• one of the best ways to listen to the customer, the competition, marketing trends, marketing buzz
• get insights on opinions and preferences of consumers

Some Pointers for Branded Blogging:
• DO NOT aim to advertise
• aim to create connections and dialogues
• aim to create strong content - a draw to your brand/website
• aim to entertain and engage, be informal
• aim to have other people blogging about your brand (WOM)
• Recruit, sponsor, or reward bloggers who favor your brand - mold them into online brand ambassadors

Microblogging DOES Have a Purpose!

So there has been a lot of noise generated lately about micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku. While I really like the site and use it, I have been wondering who, other than my mother, would care to read posts about what I'm doing...in real time. I also started thinking (and reading) that perhaps that's not the point.

Twitter is beginning to be used as a handy 'headlines' service - allowing you to follow your favourite opinion leaders as they post or link to articles, as well as tracking posts from your friends - sent in via SMS messages. However the underlying great idea behind Twitter is that it's a great way to post something of value (hopefully) with the minimal amount of time spent and intrusion on your day-to-day life.

Then I started thinking about the possibilities in applying the Twitter idea to a branded site. There is a laaaaarge number of companies trying to get you interacting with their site through blog posting, forum comments or other content uploads - www.nike.com/running is a good example of that. One of the issues that we often come across however is that without an incentive, such as some kind of premium to be won, site users are often reluctant to make such a large commitment in time or mental effort on a site that is branded and not really their own. That Nike site for example upon not-so-closer inspection has had the majority of its entries posted by "Running Girl" ...who is quite clearly a Nike employee.

Ironically, that main thing that makes Twitter tick is precisely what eliminates all these issues. So perhaps the solution here is to adapt a Twitter-esque strategy when trying to woo these types of interactions. Instead of asking site visitors for lengthy and involved posts or stories we can just ask to get the point form version - under 140 characters (á la Twitter) or in bullets, or something dynamically generated via selectable menus - or, if thinking about image and video - content that is simply uploaded from your cellphone.