Regular Readers: This is the presentation I did for the Marketing 2.0 conference, If you have any questions feel free to shoot them at me. Thanks to everyone that helped.
All the readers from the Marketing 2.0 Conference: Welcome to my blog just click on the links below to see the examples. If you have any questions from the presentation feel free to write them in the comments section.
We are currently looking for another person to join The Population team. I have used Gavin Heaton'sSocialMediaJobs site to advertise the position of Social Media Executive, so check it out and if you know someone who would be good for the job make sure to pass their details on.
The creators have made $15,000 profit from selling t shirts. I was surprised to hear that they had made so much money from this. I cannot think of another way of monetising this not so politically correct media property that would bring this much profit. Any ideas?
The Melbounre social media crew is well over due for a catch up. So I have proposed a beersphere (idea stolen from Faris).
The date has been set Sunday 28th September The time has been set 2pm (that will give you enough time to work off the Grand Final party hangover) The venue has been set St Jerome's(see map), 7 Caledonian Lane, City (City location, so there is no excuse why you should not be coming).
These could all be separate posts but just needed to get them out.
1. PRIA Panel Speaking on a panel at the PRIA Conference ‘PR In the Fast Lane’, this afternoon with Laurel Papworth, Steven Noble and a number of other people. The conference is on what PR Agency will look like in the future. Market Cross is the first thing the jumps to my mind. If you have any ideas or good links I would love to check them out.
2. Jenni Beattie is awesome A big thanks to Jenni Beattie who helped me out with the presentation for Marketing 2.0 conference, I decided to give her the complimentary ticket. Thanks a lot to Gordon Whitehead, Athan, Katherine Liew,Ben Cooper, Kelly, and Paul Wilson, ; if there is anything I can do for your guys, just let me know.
3. Melbourne Beersphere Meet Up I am organizing a Melbourne Beersphere on the Sunday of Grand Final Weekend, I am going to invite all the bloggers, podcasters and just the generally interested. More details to come.
4. Sydney Social Media Meet Ups If you are in Sydney and are not coming to the Friday morning Social Media breakfast meet ups then you are really missing out. 8AM, Single Origin Café, 60-64 Reservoir St, Surry Hills.
5. BK getting it right I am really digging the latest media collaboration of Burger King with Seth MacFarlane. Great example of giving value back to the community by funding the awesomeness of Seth MacFarlane to make more work. What is your first impression?
6. Logo We got pushed forward on the public launch of the company hence no website (we are building it at the moment). However we did just get our logo design, I like it, it has a bit of David Armano Ripple 2.0 feel about the ‘O’ of The Population. I wanted it to have a feel of people gravitating towards an object, however also noting that everyone is different (with a different size of influence) hence the different sized red dots. I know you dont look into something that much but it is nice to have a little back story. The colour is a bit out too!
What happened to the Creative Agency people in Australia?
Oh, they are on Youtube.
This is an award recognising the best ‘copy/paste’ direct from Youtube efforts done by Australian Advertising Agencies.
There is nothing wrong with getting inspiration for an idea but directly ripping off an idea and not giving credit where it is due is another thing. So join with me and celebrate these great efforts and feel free to share other great examples.
3rd theBrandshop With the disqualification of Droga5 brings theBrandshop up into 3rd place with their work for Cruios SkipHarder.
Selling Noodles was always going to be a tough sell. However Creative Director for Clems have stated ‘Rather than going after the mums like some of our competitors, our strategy was to target the user themselves."
When the target market found out that they were ripping off a Youtube clip, they were no where to be found?!?!
Patts convinced everyone including the Cannes judges about being original thought leaders. George Patts Y&R stated to the Inspiration Room ‘It is the fruit of many peoples hard work and conviction.’
I can understand the hard work, there are millions of clips on Youtube it is hard work having to watch all of them.
Patts effort
Original
George Patts, theBrandshop and Clems this is an open forum, please feel free to prove me wrong you have the right of reply on this one.
Edit: I originally had Droga5 and Ric Cantor up here for his efforts on VB Gold. Matt pointed out that Ric Cantor was actually the writer on the original Manstrokewoman piece so it would probably be better as collaboration rather than a direct Copy/Paste. I totally agree and am officially disqualifying them from the awards. Thanks, Matt and if anyone knows any backstory on the other cases please include. Check out the interesting conversation going on in the Youtube comments section.
In other news anyone who was wondering where the Top 50 list is, it is actually going to be coming out October 1.
Irony Part 1 Thanks for lunch Pimp My Kettle (I was walking through Central Station in Sydney when I came across the van)
Irony Part 2 Many people don’t know but my parents actually made television commercials for a full time gig. Thanks to Ad Agencies choosing to make Television Commercials I was able to gain a great education. Who would of thought I would of chosen to go down a career that would take money away from commercials and allocate it to initiatives which will actually drive more value to a company and its customers.
Sorry Mum and Dad, I wanted to follow in your footsteps but it just doesn't look like there will be that many opportunities in your industry : (
After speaking only a month ago about the 2009 Australian Social Media Revolution being an article in the Australian Financial Review. It was great to see that the company (The Population) that I moved to Sydney to help form and work for, got a great feature in today’s AFR.
The Population will be Australia’s first fourth pure play Social Media Marketing Agency. I feel like everything is in place for this to be something really big, the opportunity to work with the very talented and experienced Tony Thomas and the fact Photon Group has seen the enormous potential and backed it.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity which I believe will make up for everything that I had to give up in Melbourne including an amazing girlfriend, my close group of friends, my Masters degree and a close relationship with my family.
3 months on from Youtube announcing Video Annotations and here is 3 examples of companies using Video Annotations. Think of it as your own Adspace Pioneers Blog Annotation, you can choose between 3 examples of video annotations.
1. Follow Your Instinct Samsung You may want to put your young urban male sunglasses on to enjoy this one.
2. Italian Washing Powder 'Pril 7' Anyone know Italian?
3. Find Kitty This last one is a lil cop out, it is more SMP films showing how they could use this technology for your business. You have to find the their cat Sparta. Good luck.
Does anyone know any other examples of brands using Video Annotations?
I am speaking on Wednesday 17th September at the Marketing 2.0 Conference and I was able to convince the organizer to give me a complimentary ticket (worth $2,960) to give away to my readers. It should be a good conference with International guest Rajat Chopra Director of Bell Canada , Mark Pollard Lead Digital Strategist from Leo Burnett and Campbell Sallabank CEO of LinkMe also speaking.
I have got 30 minutes to talk turkey, I am interested to know what you think the most interesting content I could speak to these Marketers (I am guessing a low knowledge of social media) about. Some potential areas;
The person who gives me the best idea for the conference, the ticket is all yours. I will choose next Tuesday (9th September) but most of all I really am just interested in your suggestion and help.
In medieval days when a town decided to set up a market they would erect a Market Cross. It acted as a reminder ‘not to defraud by cheapening’. It was a sign to traders to not be dishonest to locals and it was a sign to buyers to make sure they didn’t barter the traders so low that it was not worth returning for the traders.
I think at the moment we are going through a stage where we are creating an online Market Town. Companies (Traders) are seeing the value in the Australian blogosphere, they are interested in getting involved in the blogosphere but they are going about it in the wrong way most of the times.
I think we look to often at the bad things that companies do, rather than looking at what we can do as the residents in this town. I think it is time that we work on our market cross. That is why I have decided to set up a discussion on Aussie Bloggers Forum about trying to create some Rules of Engagement for both brands and bloggers. Please add to the discussion.
5. 12 years old!!!!!! 12 years old !!!!! 12 years old !!! 12 years old!!!!!! 12 years old !!!!! 12 years old !!!12 years old!!!!!! 12 years old !!!!! 12 years old !!!12 years old!!!!!! 12 years old !!!!! 12 years old !!!12 years old!!!!!! 12 years old !!!!! 12 years old !!!
Tavi Fashion Editor of Vogue by 18?
For 19 years I grew up just being able to consume media, Tavi grew up being able to produce and consume media! What effect does that have on a generation?
I hate long posts, so if you are lazy just read the bold!
The American SMM revolution has been and gone, they are now booming and getting a massive head start on us in terms of innovative social media strategies. There is absolutely NO reason why the Australian market is behind. I do not believe for one minute the broadband argument! I know that some of my readers are of the camp that just let things take there course. However I think that we can help bring about the revolution ourselves.
In a sentence we need
AIM: To get a CMO/CEO of a blue chip Company to state the success of an Australian Social Media Strategy in The Financial Review.
You may ask why?
1. A Blue Chip Company
It is great for Jim and Marie Butchers in Woodend to have a success with social media but they do not drive the business community in Australia, there is about 20 companies who run this market.
2. CEO/CMO
We can talk till we are blue in the face but it is only when someone with credibility/high profile in the mainstream business market states their success with social media that the rest of the community will follow suit.
3. Australian Financial Review
Although I would love to think that Sol Trujillo reads my blog….it probably does not happen.
4. Social Media Strategy To me a social media strategy has got to be an example of a company responding to conversations happening in the social media environment. I think we need a Dell Hell, or a company to employ a Social Media Response Unit or a Idea Storm.
I think that we can help this happen. I came close with Connex, I had a seat at the table in front of their CMO and Corporate Affairs but because of unlucky circumstances the meeting didn’t go ahead. However I am not giving up on that as well.
I think that as a community we should really work together to find a Blue Chip that we should aim at talking too with the aim of implementing a strategy.
I also think we should view this as an investment in our future. I was willing to volunteer my time to help set up a Connex employee to respond to the social media environment because I saw the time/costs as a long term investment.
Who is with me? Which Blue Chip should we help? How should we go about aiding them and imparting our knowledge?
A 2 min Vlog on why we should work together!
UPDATE 29/08/08 David Gillespie made a great comment countering my video blog, he suggests that we should not be trying to compete against someone else (aka Management Consultants) because that is when you actually loose the game.
He is right, Management Consultants are not the competition marketers not knowing how to get involed with online communities and how it affects businesses is the barrier we must overcome. What I think stays the same is that we must be trying to inform marketers about social media.
Having the aim of getting a CEO/CMO to come out and state the success of their social media strategy in a credible publication is still paramount to achieving this goal.
Jye, Scott and I decided to give a lesson to all those Advertising/Digital Agencies who keep telling us that they have created a 'viral'. Ad Agencies claiming a 'viral' is kind of like an amateur musician claiming that they are already a Rockstar.
Hightlights O:54 Julian: Did you hear about the secret show on Myspace? Old Man: *Sheepishy shrugs* Nope...(We don't believe him)
1:07 Jye: Would you like a photo with me? Girl 1: Yep Girl 2: That is going on my wall!
As part of the Market Cross (I really need to write a post on this here) everything that I slag off on my blog, I try to give constructive criticism on how it can be done better next time.
Hint to Advertising Agency If you really believe that you are going to have a ‘viral’ on your hands, instead of just saying it is ‘viral’ tell the journalist what is so remarkable about the product that is going to make the thing spread. If it doesn’t sound strong enough to the journalist how do you think people are going to pass the message on???
You create the content, the people decide whether it is ‘viral’
Although the Australian Social Media Marketing industry (is it even bigger enough to call it that?) maybe trailing the USA and Europe. It is definitely promising looking at the up and comers practitioners in our market.
Well, I am compiling the second edition of the Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneers Blogs. Here is the list of Australian Marketing Blogs*, If you know of anymore to add to this list that would be great.
I know there is a little debate at the moment on lists and the effectiveness of them. I agree that they are a quick sure fire link love builder but I also think that they are good for uncovering a lot of blogs that people might not see. I kind of like thinking of it as shining a light on the dark and mysterious Australian Blogosphere and finding the lay of the land of Marketing Blogs in Australia.
What do you guys think, should I just do the Top 50 or should I do scores for all 80+ blogs??
I have decided to try my hand at video blogging. I am planning to keep the episodes bite size at under 2 minutes and they will act to complement my written post that I currently write. Positive and negative feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Introduction to Adspace Pioneers Vlog
Batman vs. Captain Planet (Social Objects as Relationship Builders)
-Check out Episode 70 on Marketing Today Podcast where I talk in detail about Public Assembly with Peter Wagstaff and Cori Hodge. -Here is Linda and Ceri's site Public Assembly
My friend Meg Rayner is a journalist at The Courier in Ballarat (Victorian Country Town). In March, Meg reported about an upcoming auction for a local girl Layla Wright who has been battling cancer for the past 2 years. Through Meg's article she turned the projected small auction into a grand event which helped raise $20,000 for Layla, this allowed Layla to achieve her one wish of going to Disneyland and help pay for her chemotherapy. Meg last year was a university student, this year she raised $20,000 for a child in need, WOW!!!!
As Bloggers we are in fortunate position to have the time and reach to a large audience which sometimes can rival traditional media. What we do with this ‘time/reach’ is up to us.
This is gold! 30 examples of big companies doing Social Media Marketing. We are lucky in Australia to be 12 months behind the United States in terms of adoption of Social Media, therefore this acts as a great resource to help clients see what Social Media can do.
In this clip Joseph Jaffe speculates to why the Australian Market is currently ranked 15th in terms of social media in marketing. This is part of an interesting series that is going on at Marketing Magazine at the moment. Thanks for the tip off Scott
My new BFFJoseph Jaffe (sorry Zac) is coming to town. The king of the Social Media will be sitting down and helping us hatch a plan to start the Australian Social Media Marketing Revolution.
There will be some local heavyweights there too, Gavin Heaton (arguably the leading thinker in Social Media Marketing), Scott Drummond (Online Editor of Marketing Magazine) and I am sure Top 10 Aussie Marketing Bloggers Laurel Papworth and Katie Chatfield will be attending too.
So in the famous words of Australian Hip Hop Juggernauts Hilltop Hoods,
‘ We have a whole lotta superstars on this stage here tonight.‘
The stage is set, Blue Hotel Bar Woollmooloo,Sydney, the time is set Tuesday August 19th (9:30pm), come along and help shape the revolution.
1. Amazon Review Section May 15th 1997* One of the antecedents to ‘Web 2.0’ people were given the facilities to produce content online, in the form of reviews for products. This little application would change the way that people would buy products and the way that marketers communicated their products.
2. Friendster March 22 2002 The launch of the first of the big social networking sites, the site was modelled on dating sites and lost its popularity when they started banning music bands and fictional characters from creating profiles. Myspace encouraged bands to create music and the fans moved with the decision. 3. Technorati 20th November 2002 Technorati launched and helped to create a metric that goes beyond traditional measure of effectiveness of media channels (reach measures). They help to measured the influence of a media channel (blogs) through how many people were speaking about a person ideas (Authority), a very BIG step in the right direction. 4. Mysace Fox Interactive Media pays $580 million for Myspace July 16th 2005 Booyah, Social Media is worth money! ... or is it? 5. The first viral Youtube clip - Evolution of Dance April 06 2006
6. Jaffe Juice holds Curry to ransom September 7th 2006 Jaffe Juice holds Adam Currie to ransom for not giving any link love to Jaffe after Adam appeared on his show and made no mention of the episode in his own podcast. Only Joseph Jaffe could peform such a stunt and get away with it. Read story here 7. Transmedia Planning: Idea Propagation October 3rd 2006 Not really about the content (which is an amazing piece) but through the propagation of the message, he published the idea on his blog in the form of a post and it spread across the internet like wildfire! October 3rd 2006 8. Dove Evolution Viralwins Cannes Ocotber 7th 2006 Dove Evolution helped to show that social media was valued by the old advertising heads picking up the Grand Prix Cyber Lion. 9. The first flog:Fake McDonalds Monopoly winners blogOctober 31st 2006 One of the first cases of abuse of Social Media by a Advertising Agency. The interesting thing was not that marketers would do such a thing but the punishment that was dealt to McDonalds at the hands of real bloggers. People now have more power to make your mistakes visible. 10. Dell Ideastorm launches February 16th 2007 Dell capatalised on the power of masses to help innovate and develop new ideas for Dell products. Social Media is now seen to change the research and development stage for businesses. The product was a creation of Salesforce who created the platform for themselves first with Salesforces Ideas 11. The Age of Conversation March 22nd 2007 The post between Drew McLellen and Gavin Heaton which was the catalyst for the book The Age of Conversation. Taking the Dell Idea one step further and created a product from the collective content of social media participants. 12. Power 150 ranking moves to Ad Age August 7th 2007 Todd And Power 150 moves to AdAge and boasts over 700 blogs now, a huge step in connecting the Marketing Community.
Really exciting change is happening in my life at the moment, I have decided to move on from Naked Communcations and Monash University to embark on a really exciting project. I will reveal more when I can.
However I just thought it would be a great opportunity for me to thank the people who have helped me to get to where I am today. I will be indebt to you for providing me such great value/lessons/opportunities in my life.
I really hope that I can show you, that the time that you gave me was not wasted and that you can see that you made a valuable impact on someones life.
Thank you to the following people Naked Communications Mat Baxter – Was able to recognize my talent Adam Ferrier – The reason I started at Naked Mat Topfer – A great boss and role model Monash University Peter Wagstaff – Gave me confidence in my knowledge, helped me make the right decision Cori Hodge – I will always be his protégé Irene Powell – Helped me produce a great thesis Emily Greco – Student Rep Camps helped me with great personal development Marcus Phipps – PHD Workout mate (Mind and Body) Zac Martin – Helped take me to the next level Hunter Simmons – Pushed me to be better than the average Natalie Khoo – Gave me my first big break as Editor
Outside Jeremy Smart – Number 1 Work Mentor Scott Drummond – Gave me a great opportunity with Marketing Magazine Katie Cincotta – Best god damn journalist friend ever Laurel and Gavin – Although they don’t know it yet, they provided great Australian blogging role models Faris Yakob – First blog I real religiously Sheryl Allen – You showed me to follow my passion Susie Cole – Made me make my own opportunities Mr. Wallace – Made me love maths
From Chris' list I have picked these 6 gems that I think any blogger can write on to help define their brand and distinguish them from the blogger clutter that is going on.
1. A little bit about us. 2. A walk in our neighborhood 3. Giving back to the community: our plan 4. What we think is unique about us. Do you agree? 5. Video - a tour of the plant, and a day in the life of your product 6. What we worry about over the coming year
Funnily enough I did as Chris suggested and made a video of my workplace about a year ago.
1. Social Networking around a false hobby Where the hell is the consumer insight in this one? When have people ever tried to Pimp their kettle. We already have a social networking site, it is called Facebook, why do we want another? People created Nings around social objects/niche passions people have(no one loves pimping kettles)
2. Fake people Kill me now, this is reminiscent of Skip Harder, why don’t you do a bit of research find someone who actually does do this and use them as your poster boy, Instead of trying to pull the wool over your dumb target markets eyes(I am in this market and find it offensive) 3. Google Pimp My Kettle Where is your site? Do you think everyone is going to remember and type your site URL straight in. Who the hell launches a site and does not even get the SEO.
Why am I laying into this campaign so hard? Because it is these sorts of campaigns that wreck the name of Social Media Marketing for the people who actually know what they are doing. Here is some advice; Clemenger BBDO get someone in who knows what they are doing, or stick to above the line! It is good to see your creatives are stealing their ideas straight from Youtube too.
This clip was produced a year before the Fanatastic Noodles campaign
Fanatastic Noodles when Clemenger tell you they have had success with the social networking side of things. Have a look at who has joined, all the profiles (there is only 49 at last count) are from Adelaide, is this any coincidence that this campaign came out of Clemenger Adelaide?
Bloggers call out these rubbish campaigns because if we don’t they will just tarnish the reputation of Social Media Marketing.
I think the core issue is that the idea to incorporate social marketing into the media mix seems to have come from a need to reach the target rather than extend the idea. I can't really be bothered going into how terrible the site is; I just don't think it warrants any critical perspective. These things happen all the time - think recent Vegimite campaign.
What I found interesting though, is the giant lift-out I found in this month's Vice magazine. Vice got Ed Woodley from China Heights (and Oxford Art Factory) in Sydney to pimp a kettle for the campaign. It's fucking cool. Which means it could have been done well. It was actually a fairly OK idea. Although it was a 'rip-off', so was the Honda 'Cog' Ad. And everyone loved that. Some call it appropriation and others copying, but whatever people say, execution is the biggest difference between the two. And if the execution is done well, then ripping-off becomes referencing and everyone's happy.
Conclusion: Poorly executed campaign mixed with social media being chosen too late in the process. There are other things as well - just to name a few: A confused selection of media placement eg. poster in Vice, terrible use of irony in street posters, a mainstream look trying to target an underground populace, and not to mention a great list of (hopefully well-payed) artists that the vast majority of the mainstream gen-y audience will not give two shits about.
The big agencies don't really get it. Not to mention most creatives thinking they're cool and hip-to-the-scene but in fact being complete wannabee douche-bags. I have no problem in saying that because I see it all the time. Although I must say the guys at Publicis Mojo are the antithesis of that statement. A little less so after Toby & Serene left for Fallon a year ago. Sad, but as an industry we need more of those people.
I wholeheartedly agree we need more critical perspectives on campaigns like this so that others don't fuck-up social networking for the rest of us who are trying to do it properly.
BACKGROUND A post by Duncan Riley a few months ago alerted me to NAB leaving commercial unrelated comments on a number of blogs. When questioned their PR agency (Cox and Inhall) defended their position suggesting it is a public space. I thought I would help illustrate what they had just said by going into banks and spamming my blogging message.
For NAB response from spokesperson Felicity Glennie-Holmes check out Jim Stewart video interview.
‘Julians branch spam stunt adds nothing to the debate but may work as a profile-booster for Colesy as a maverick blog personality’
and here is another quote about the video from his blog
'It’s not very funny, but does say a lot about how one blogger approaches self-promotion.'
I actually respect Gerry cause he has challenged me a number of times (He is not a fan of self promotion through the Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs either).
You gotta love the complement of ‘Maverick Blog Personality and added nothing’. However I think that Gerry is being a little short sighted in thinking that this is the only benefit.
Trying to explain the blogosphere to people who have never published or commented on a blog is a hard challenge. Being able to give analogies of what it is like is a very important learning tool. If my video has made one company think twice about blog spamming (The Marketing Manager thinks what it would be like if they came to our store and did it) then I think you could not argue that I have added nothing to the debate. At the very least I allowed more people to get involved or engaged in the issue.
However if you were trying to say that I have not added anything constructive to NAB, I have to agree with you.
I am a firm believer in constructive criticism and that is why I have offered Felicity Glennie-Holmes NAB Media Manager a ticket to the upcoming AIMIA Advertising and Marketing through Social Media Event (disclosure: I will be speaking at the Conference). I think that this Panel (Andy Jamieson, Andrew Cordwell and Nick Cummins (my old boss)) will give valuable insight too NAB on how they should get involved in social media in the future.
Your friends drive your social media choices. Don’t believe me? Answer the following two questions.
1. What do you prefer to use Facebook Status or Twitter/Plurk?
2. What platform are most of your friends on?
The answer to the two questions will have the same answer.
I was in a critical meeting the other day with someone who was testing my social media knowledge. He started indirectly questioning me about Twitter and my Twit friends.
I walked away from the meeting feeling a little pissed off. This guy was going to measure my knowledge of social media by my low involvement in a social media channel.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
At the end of the day Social Media comes back to the people who are driving it, which are your friends. In my case all off my offline friends are on Facebook, only a select few of my marketing friends are on Twitter.
I know that a lot of the social media/marketing community is on Twitter and Plurk and I try to make an effort to stay in touch but I find it hard because it is not my number one form of microblogging and information sourcing, I use Facebook Status and my RSS reader for that.
Social Media succeeds by being 80% Social (Friends), 20% Media (Technology Innovation)!
Twitter has not failed it just has not grabbed the critical mass of my friends yet, therefore I don’t use it.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Centre for Marketing Research recently conducted a study showing that a greater proportion of the top 500 fastest growing private firms in the US are now turning to blogging for marketing purposes compared with last year.
It said that 39 per cent of these firms now have a blog, compared with 19 per cent in 2007.
I think there is a perception amongst marketers that there is a huge risk of the unknown and that social media is just a 'fad'. Evidence like this helps proves our case otherwise. It helps our cause in convincing clients to allocate time and money to social media. If you have any other gems please share them! :)
I feel indebt to my parents for all the opportunties that they have given me.I have had a very fortunate upbringing, I was lucky enough to go on a number of family holidays when I was growing up, these were great experiences because and they taught me a number of life lessons.
I guess the family holiday are symbolic of the reward for this hard work and making the most of your opportunties. Therefore one way that I always imagined that I would repay them was by being able to pay for a family holiday for all of us one day. I hope when I have made it in Marketing I will be able to do this and they will know that it was all worth it.
In this photo is my talented father Alan Cole, one of Australia’s finest Directors of Photography, my gifted sister Bryony Cole, who is amazing at everything she sets her heart too, and my clever mother Susie Cole, who is still regarded as one of the finest TVC Producers in Melbourne. But most of all they are my best friends and the best god damn role models a person could ask for.
Here is the Top 5 must use quotes on company blogging.
1. Blogosphere Economics- The blogosphere has disrupted the economics of publishing, dramatically lowering the costs of content creation (most bloggers are not paid), content production (free blogging platforms) and circulation development (free links by other bloggers).
Eric Kintz, Global Marketing Strategy at Hewlett-Packard
2. Touch Point Discontinuity The biggest risk for brand in initiating corporate blogs is creating what I’ll call “touch-point discontinuity." At the end of the day: we need present ourselves consistently across all consumer touchpoints.
Pete Blackshaw is Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics
3. Blogs as catalyst of change Blogging is a great way to put a fresh new face on a corporate structure, but the rest of the organization can't be too far behind. As corporate leaders, we need to develop the right strategies and tactics to ignite and catalyze positive change leveraging blog tools and methods while keeping the rest of the organization in tow
Pete Blackshaw is Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics
4. Blogs are Consumer Affairs A blog should sit within consumer affairs department, customer service wants to reduce attention to company where marketing and PR want to increase attention.
Pete Blackshaw is Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics
5. Blogging is the ultimate Marketing Challenge Anyone who runs a successful blog should consider themselves a marketer even if they are not. The reason for this is simple. The blogoshphere is filled literally millions lf blogs—over 55 million and growing. That’s a lot of noise and clutter. It’s not very different from the traditional marketing challenge which entails developing content and experiences that break through clutter and connect with the consumer. And further, most influential bloggers act as “personal brands” meaning that they connect with their readers on a personal if not emotional level and foster “brand” affinity and loyalty. So if you’ve been able to do this a blogger, then you’ve learned something about the meaning of brands and relationships
Amazon has always been one of the pioneers in terms of Social Media Marketing. Amazon was one of the first to create Web2.0 tools, with product review tools.
Recently they have started twittering their Deal of the Day. This is slowly becoming more specialized with AmazonMP3 Deal of the Day as well. They join Woot, as examples of online e-commerce site spruiking their daily specials online. These are two great examples of companies creating their own platforms of communication (Platform Creation) with consumers. Thanks to Marketing Geek for the tip and Get Elastic for the Woot example.
I took part in Melbourne’s first Marketing Podcast Smackdown. It was an awesome collaboration between Marketing Today and The Gen Y Podcast. The recording revolved around a debate on whether Viral Marketing was a waste of money, with the heads that we had conversing in that room it was always going to be a great debate.
Another great collaboration that I am loving at the moment is Hilltop Hoods (my favourite Australian Hip Hop act) who have just come together with the smart Australian outfit Lowrider to remix the HH classic Roll On Up.
The latest is a bit of hip hop news but it is great example of the difference between Idea Propagation and Platform Creation. There has been a recent beef (argument) between old school gangster Ice T and 16 year old New Media Juggernaut, Souljah Boy. You probably remember Souljah Boy from his song/video/dance ‘Crank That’ which started as a grassroots movement on Youtube and pushed over too traditional media channels and became a dance classic of 2007.
Anyway Ice T came out on little known DJ Cisco Mixtape and dissed Souljah Boy by saying he ‘single handley killed hip hop’ and he can ‘go eat a dick’. Anyway Souljah Boy responded by posting a response video on his Youtube channel. The video has now been viewed by over 1,000,000 people while the mixtape is riding off the success of the beef.
Your always going to be stronger if you have your own audience and do not have to borrow an audience from another media property. Ice T initial comments were probably heard by 5,000 people who bought the mixtape whereas Souljah Boys response was heard by 1,000,000 people through his own media platform (Youtube Channel).
The great thing about Platform Creation is that you get to choose what information gets out to your audience and when, whereas Idea Propagation will suffer from being controlled by when the media channel wants to publish their content.
I had heard a lot about my mates new girlfriend and she sounded like a right royal bitch.
I knew I would not like this girl.When I met her for the first time a weird thing happened.
I really liked her. I thought about it later and figured it out.
The first thing she did was offer me a Carmello Koala and said that she had an addiction to chocolate and likes to share it. That was so nice I thought. After that I could only look at her in a positive light.
When I thought about it a little more it reminded me of what companies can do with social media. Companies have the ability to come to the table and offer the first piece of value. Whether it be entertainment value like the Sprite Truth Hunters videos or valuable marketing advice like StickyAdvertising does.
Giving this initial piece of value is important in getting potential customer to view your company in a positive light.
Nike is set to release the Marty McFly Nikes sneaker, which is a great example of companies putting the SMM dimensions of Marketing Intelligence to use.
Nike decided to release the sneaker after the overwhelming support for the petition website McFly2015, according to the site
‘It's a grassroots movement to get Nike to make available to consumers the futuristic-looking sneakers seen in the 1989 movie Back to the Future Part 2.’
I think this will be the first in a number of examples of companies moving on Marketing Intelligence gathered through Social Media. Thanks to Gen Y Podcast for the scoop on the release.
Guest Blogging has been mentionedinanumberofplaces as a form of improving your personal brand, however I think the person who can demonstrate the power of guest blogging the best, is none other than Justin Timberlake.
When it comes to music collaborations, Justin Timberlake is the man. He has collaborated his way from being a cheesey boy band member to becoming a respected RnB artist. Justin did this by collaborating with other artist to reach their audience and gain credibility. He first entered the Rap scene with his collaboration with Nelly on ‘Girlfriend’, then collaborated with a number of other Rap/RnB stars (T.I, 50 Cent, Timbaland, Nelly Furtardo) in doing so reaching a wider RnB market. This was also good for these Rap Artist as they were able to attract a more mainstream audience.
I am currently doing a Justin Timberlake with my collaboration with Marketing Magazine. I currently write a blog for them, this is great for expanding my audience as Marketing Magazine has a great following with a lot of Marketers that are not reading my blog. It also works well for Marketing Magazine as I introduce them to my audience as well. A WIN-WIN situation!
So the question is, Who are you collaborating/Timberlaking with?
You can learn alot about Corporate Blogging from hardcore music groupies. They are the ones who have been with you since the start, saw you play at your first concert, have all your cd's and have shrine to you in their bedroom.
Writing a corporate blog will no doubt start with a low level of traffic coming to your blog. This may make you skeptical of the power of blogging and whether you are just wasting your time. However this small audience (groupies in the making) will be the most valuable to your company.
The first few reader to your blog will invariably be your brand fanatics. These are the people who want to go out and source new information about your brand. These are the people who speak about your brand to all their friends and swear by your products. As like my previous example of AC/DC and corporate blogs your first fans with be your dedicated groupies who are passionate about the music. Embrace these people.
Here are 10 great resources to help you find things on the interweb.
31. Viral Video Charts (site) This is a great resource which shows you what videos people are blogging about. Kind of like Youtube Most Played list before boob screen shots were introduced.
32. Google Alerts (tool) Find out what new information is being published about your company.
33. Top Marketing Blogs in the World(site) A ranking of the Top 150 (now 600+) blogs on Advertising and Marketing in the world
34. Technorati (site) Gives you a great indication of the power of a blogger and their reach.
35. Local Blog Index (site) In Australia we are blessed with the Australian Blog Index, which indexes a large number of Australian Blogs
36. Facebook search (tool) Type in the name of your company and see how many people list their company in their career and other groups/fan pages/profiles that are using your name.
37. “ ” (advice) Google searching with the word in commas will return better results
38. Business News Searching (website) If it is business news that you are searching for then Plugger is the site to go to.
39. Employment searching (person) Shai Roitman from Xpand is the man to see for Digital Marketing jobs in Australia.
40. Find out what people are twittering about (website) Find out what everyone is saying about you on Twitter.
