When Marketing, Don’t Forget About Blogs

With all the hype surrounding social networking sites, it’s easy to forget how integral blogging is to a successful social media marketing effort. Reaching out to bloggers can create all four essential components of a great social media marketing push: User-created content, positive third-party feedback, search results and social networking.

From Adotas:

As the number of social networkers and Twitter-ers continues to grow, advertisers and marketers often find themselves employing tactics such as setting up a “Fan-page” on Facebook, posting tweets on Twitter or developing applications to attract consumers to their brand.

But all of these tactics ignore a critical player in the online marketing game—blogs.

The fragmented nature of social networks is also a factor when considering which strategy will be most successful in generating positive ROI. By focusing on one or a handful of social networks, marketers are placing limitations on the reach of their brand and message.

Instead, brands need to revisit the original form of social media – the blogosphere – to reach the masses. Having evolved into a reliable source of information for consumers, blogs play a bigger and more important role for marketers than ever before. Bloggers allow marketers to successfully engage consumers around their brand through countless outlets including the micro-blogs that are essential to giving everyone a “voice.”

There have been a recorded 77.7 Million unique visitors to blogs versus 41 Million visits to Facebook and 77 percent of active Internet users read blogs. These statistics indicate that visits to blogs far outweigh visits to social networking sites.

The fragmented nature of social networks is also a factor when considering which strategy will be most successful in generating positive ROI. By focusing on one or a handful of social networks, marketers are placing limitations on the reach of their brand and message.

Increasingly, consumers are turning to blogs for news, reviews and recommendations. Trust in “a person like me” has tripled, from 20% to 68% from 2004 to 2006. Marketers still wary of letting outside sources control their brands should keep in mind that most word of mouth is positive.

When Marketing, Don’t Forget About Blogs

With all the hype surrounding social networking sites, it’s easy to forget how integral blogging is to a successful social media marketing effort. Reaching out to bloggers can create all four essential components of a great social media marketing push: User-created content, positive third-party feedback, search results and social networking.

From Adotas:

As the number of social networkers and Twitter-ers continues to grow, advertisers and marketers often find themselves employing tactics such as setting up a “Fan-page” on Facebook, posting tweets on Twitter or developing applications to attract consumers to their brand.

But all of these tactics ignore a critical player in the online marketing game—blogs.

The fragmented nature of social networks is also a factor when considering which strategy will be most successful in generating positive ROI. By focusing on one or a handful of social networks, marketers are placing limitations on the reach of their brand and message.

Instead, brands need to revisit the original form of social media – the blogosphere – to reach the masses. Having evolved into a reliable source of information for consumers, blogs play a bigger and more important role for marketers than ever before. Bloggers allow marketers to successfully engage consumers around their brand through countless outlets including the micro-blogs that are essential to giving everyone a “voice.”

There have been a recorded 77.7 Million unique visitors to blogs versus 41 Million visits to Facebook and 77 percent of active Internet users read blogs. These statistics indicate that visits to blogs far outweigh visits to social networking sites.

The fragmented nature of social networks is also a factor when considering which strategy will be most successful in generating positive ROI. By focusing on one or a handful of social networks, marketers are placing limitations on the reach of their brand and message.

Increasingly, consumers are turning to blogs for news, reviews and recommendations. Trust in “a person like me” has tripled, from 20% to 68% from 2004 to 2006. Marketers still wary of letting outside sources control their brands should keep in mind that most word of mouth is positive.

Android Drawings Revealed

“Android Guys” has published an engineering drawing of T-Mobile’s soon to be released Android phone (T-Mobile G1).

From CNET:

The images show more information about the device than any of the other mock-ups that have zipped around the blogosphere.

One of the more interesting tidbits from the drawing is a slight tilt of the bottom part of the phone where the trackball is located. The device has a full QWERTY keyboard with nicely spaced buttons. The Android Guys note this is reminiscent of recent Sidekick designs, and the site gives it a thumbs-up.

The blog “Android Community” has used the drawing to calculate the phone’s dimensions and reports that the thickness of the G1, also known as the HTC Dream, is approximately 0.64-inches or 16.35mm. Apple’s iPhone, which doesn’t have a flip-out screen, is 12.3 mm thick. It also looks like the G1′s screen size is comparable to the iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen.

There is also a “menu” button on the G1, according to the drawing, which will likely be used to launch Google services.

The device is expected to be priced at about $399 full retail or about $150 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile. One blog reports that the device will go on sale October 13, 2008, with pre-orders for existing T-Mobile customers to begin September 17.

Credit: Android Guys

The HTC phone is expected to be the first phone that will use Google’s Android operating system. Rumors about the phone have been running rampant over the Internet for months in anticipation of its launch.

Photos, video and now drawings. It appears that Android may actually show up after all. I’m still waiting to see the product before I draw any conclusions whether the product will live up to the hype and be what consumers have been “dreaming” about. Thoughts?

TechCrunch: The PR Roadblock On The Road To Blissful Blogging

As always, I found a very interesting piece from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch today.

In my profile, you will read that I am a public relations professional in the Silicon Valley. Working here, I’ve had the opportunity to be at the center of the high tech universe and have had the opportunity to read thousands of postings from all of the top technology bloggers out there. I think that Arrington hit on a some very key points in this posting but that everyone must be aware that there are also other aspects to a PR professionals job than just pitching the media.

From the article:

Most PR professionals I know are flat out busy right now and being really picky about new clients that they take on. But the way that they do business is under fire. Today’s volleys are just the most recent example, although one of PR’s own is leading the charge (Steve Rubel from Edelman, a master at his craft).

The issue Rubel brings up is whether PR really serves any purpose today given that more and more journalists, particularly tech journalists, are finding the interesting stuff on their own and ignoring the canned pitches that hit their inbox daily.

Most PR folks don’t read blogs and certainly don’t understand them. All they see is a Google alert with their clients name, and rush to put out a fire. Down the road they may try to bring those bloggers into the fold, largely relying on word of mouth as to the best way to approach them in lieu of actually reading the blog itself.

That leads to the occasional massive clusterfuck and some truly hilarious moments that I would like to write a book about some day. To sum it all up, the relationship between bloggers and PR firms is shaky at best. Or at least it should be. Some bloggers really cultivate PR relationships, but for me PR is the last refuge when I’m attacking a story. They keep trying to put out the fires I’m starting.

This is a very interesting way to look at PR. I’ll agree that not enough people in our profession read blogs and understand the complete ramifications of social media. Social media has changed the way that people receive news and has changed our lives.

What we must also be aware of is that PR is about telling a story that brings audiences together and will allow us to reach our desired end result for our clients. There is a lot more to PR than just media relations but this, of course, is a major portion of our job each and every day.

My hope is to always be aware of what is being discussed in the blogosphere and understand who the writers are/what they write about so that I don’t end up being thrown into the category  with lousy PR professionals. Thoughts?

Landslide Victory For Barack Obama May Not Be In The Cards

You knew that this couldn’t be a landslide victory for Barack Obama, right?

From Politico:

From the fever swamps of the blogosphere to the halls of academia, there is a chorus of voices who have come to the same conclusion about the presidential election: Barack Obama is going to win in November, by something resembling a landslide.

Yet for all the breathless analysis and number-crunching that has convinced observers Obama is en route to an epic victory, there is one key historic fact that is often overlooked—most popular vote landslides were clearly visible by the end of summer. And by that indicator, 2008 doesn’t measure up.

In five of the six post-war landslides (defined as a victory of 10 percentage points or more) the eventual winner was ahead by at least 10 percentage points in the polls at the close of August, according to a Politico analysis of historical Gallup polls. Over the past week, however, Gallup’s daily tracking poll pegs Obama ahead of John McCain by a margin of 2 to 5 percentage points.

I don’t expect Obama to lose the election to John McCain, but I also don’t expect him to run away with the Presidency. It has been a rough couple of years for the economy, the US and its people. It is obvious that the people are ready for a change, but I’m not sure if the country is sure of who they would like to see in office.

Time will tell who will win the general election in November. This month will be very interesting as we have the Democratic National Convention in Denver in just two weeks followed soon after by the Republican National Convention.

Obama will be announcing his candidate shortly, via text message, and I for one believe that his choice of a running mate may be the ultimate decider whether he wins in November, or loses. At least now we know it won’t be John Edwards, right? Thoughts?