♔ THE REAL VALUE OF BLOGGER OUTREACH

The digital age has brought about consumers that are no longer passive receivers of brand messaging (if they have ever been), but engage in active relationships with the brands they love or hate. In these relationships, the brand promise is under constant evaluation: is a brand delivering on its promise or breaking it?

As a marketer, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the 1% rule — that just 1% of your brand’s follower’s are responsible for the majority (over 80%) of sharing. They share your campaigns with their larger social network, passing on links to your contests, promotions, deals, and other marketing campaigns. These key influencers are more than just fans — they’re brand ambassadors.   It's the same reason hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts are given to actors at the Oscars each year (and the same reason Kim Kardashian will tweet your brand for $10,000).

Simply because these key influencers can drive between 30 up to 70% of ALL visits to their campaign pages, beating out display and search advertising as the most efficient driver of traffic to their sites.  That’s pretty incredible, considering activities require no media buys and costs are (comparatively) next to nothing to implement, whereas banners and search ads are a huge expense.  These “super influencers” drive an even higher share of conversion — on average influencing 30% or more of all conversions on marketers’ sites just by recommending a brand’s products, content, or promotions to their online communities.   If you can reach out to this 1% target by directly offering them special promotions, thanking and rewarding them for their influence, they will be motivated to share early and share often.  

Identifying your key online influencers is fairly straightforward. There are a wealth of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand, see what type of content they’re sharing and with whom, and how they are sharing it (e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, their own blogs, etc.). Once you find these influencers, the trick is activating them to share even more. The bottom line though is that the opinions of bloggers are heard and respected by thousands, even though many brands still ignore their potential reach.  

For most brands, this is because Blogger outreach is still relatively unknown – though the science of targeting the influencer (articulated by Razorfish as Social Influence Marketing (SIM)) is proven to build trust.  It’s a framework that extends real (BTL) grassroots activity that builds a groundswell of support and momentum.  By targeting and building relationships with bloggers that address your audience, you can garner effective, unbiased reviews of your products and services.  Their readers will then be introduced to your brand, get interested in it, visit your site, and hopefully buy based upon peer advocacy. 

Simply identifying your key influencers is not enough in today’s market. Instead, you’ve got to find them and then motivate them to share. Over the long term, your goal as a marketer is to increase the size of your influencer base by finding and engaging in a direct dialogue with your super influencers and turn more “followers” into “sharers.”

Some of the other benefits of blogger outreach also include:

• Peer Advocacy - People trust consumers (i.e. bloggers) more than they trust advertising (Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey 2009).
• ROI - It’s cost effective and ROI is measurable
• Amplification - It has the potential to go viral. People tweet and share good blog posts, and may do that with a blog review of your brand.

Agency's know that the the old methods of advertising and marketing simply aren’t cutting it anymore. The landscape changed. With sharing, community and conversation being today’s keywords, shoving a television commercial down consumers’ throats isn’t the way to create brand evangelists anymore. 

Integration - Like all media, blogger outreach should be interwoven into your wider marketing strategy.  For example, any time you see a new post referencing your brand on someone’s blog, tweet it, put it on your Facebook Page, share it on bookmarking sites, and link to it on your brand blog.  That will further amplify indexing, relevance and solidify the relationship for further partnerships.  Bottom line? If your brands looking for an edge (and have an appetite for innovation as a differentiator) - with 126 million blogs and growing, BLOGGER OUTREACH is something you simply can’t afford to ignore any longer.  

Need some help?  This is our specialty.  We can work with your team (or for your team).  Whatever’s easiest for your organization.  Contact us today.

♔ THE REAL VALUE OF BRANDED CONTENT

With so many different marketing, advertising and PR channels out there, it’s becoming harder and harder to be heard above the din.  The numbers change from source to source, but we know the average person is bombarded with thousands of marketing messages every single day.  The problem is that many messages can be blocked, through tools like digital video recorders, filters, or by simply clicking the X on an unwanted popup ad.  It makes you wonder why advertisers don’t develop content people actually want? 

The good news is that, despite ignoring corporate monologues, consumers are still hungry for relevant and contextual information. They seek knowledge and increasingly don't want to pay for it.   Just think of the last time you wanted to know how to do something, like give your dog a flea bath or get red wine out of carpet. You probably Googled "how to X."  Among the results were surely articles written by a company's representative. Maybe an article on "How to Give Your Dog a Flea Bath" was written by the marketing person at a flea and tick bath product company. Or maybe a carpet company rep wrote the one on the wine stain. The point is: these companies are providing valuable information to consumers and they're not charging for it. They're not asking visitors to register their email addresses or other transaction to get the information. So what are they getting out of it?

Trust.  By becoming a ‘go-to’ resource on a given subject, a brand can secure the trust of consumers, which makes the likelihood they will become customers ten times more likely. Think about your own buying practices. Do you buy brands because they are a (perceived) superior product? Of course. But what is also likely is that consumers have a level of trust with these brands that competitors don't - and finding ‘under-the-radar’ ways to permeate the consumer mindset and creating an emotional connection (and somatic markers) is imperative.

The reality is that many companies are still slow to join the content bandwagon, so chances are, you can still beat your competitors to it.  By providing all the useful information you can on your industry, you stand out as an expert, and people like companies that know what they're doing and talking about.

The Value of Branded Content  
Your content, in its many forms, is what will connect your brand to consumers in today's crowded marketing environment. By providing useful content, you can successfully extend value while connecting your brand to your prospects and customers. 


Our suggestion is to publish topical, relevant and professional content on a regular basis. Content that introduces and/or reinforces brand attributes, adds supplementary branded content, and also amplifies your brand while aligning it with relevant trending ‘topics’ (of interest to your sector).  This will have a positive affect, both on your SEO and PR activities.


Content marketing (in this case using articles) has proven to be one of the most cost-effective ways to establish your brand as a thought leader and expert in your industry.  The resulting amplification leads to increased sales and dove-tails into all other activities by intelligently integrating with digital properties (i.e. Blog/RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other relevant social properties.)  The best part is that all content can be measured on a case-by-case basis and can be optimized moving forwards, therefore extremely cost-effective.

Need some help putting a framework in place or developing branded content?  We can help.  Contact info@goodbuzz.ca for more information.

☼ Social Influence Marketing (SIM)- Cheat Sheet

Socializing the “Cristiano Ronaldo” Brand

World Cup Team Portugal player Cristiano Ronaldo pulls it all together on his new website, which integrates his own Twitter updates with those from his fans.

The site features photos of Ronaldo in action and his dialogue with his 6 million fans on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.

Facebook

LEGO, AND THE ART OF STAYING RELEVANT - SOCIAL MEDIA

Brands like Lego are highly dependent on brand communities.  Understandably, as ‘sense of community’ is one of the major tenants of self-definition. Moreover, belonging to the "group" can give meaning and association (as well as emotional safety, a sense of belonging, and identification.  LEGO learned along the way that these social constructs hold more brand-building potency than any other form of communication. 

Long before the LEGO company's official website went live in 1995, the group noticed that hundreds of sites, created by LEGO fans all over the world, were already live. Most sites paid tribute to the brand and expressed values the company just wouldn't have been able to claim themselves with such credibility. LEGO didn't really know how to take the situation. The company's culture had, until 1995, been focused on preventing anyone using its brand name. This attitude helped the company survive through the eighties when hundreds, if not thousands, of competitors tried to imitate the well-known plastic bricks. On one hand, the sites that were popping up on the web were misusing the brand's identity and name. On the other hand, they gave LEGO a type of positive exposure that the brand could never communicate itself.  By the late nineties, this exposure had helped LEGO attain cult status among teenagers who proclaimed their admiration.  In Japan, for example, the brand even became such a hit that the product could even be purchased in the hottest clothing stores.

LEGO had such potent brand spirit that its consumers adopted the badge as their own - forming brand communities that provide permanent testimonial to the excellence of these brands.  LEGO consumers have assumed stewardship of the brand, and as such do a great deal of the communication work for them as part of an extended brand community.

Staying Relevant

Lego Group has been smart about keeping its brand relevant among kids, as potential distractions have increased substantially since the Lego building blocks hit the market more than 60 years ago. The company has attached the Lego brand to a variety of popular, critically acclaimed video games based on the "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" and "Batman" franchises. There's even an iPhone app called Lego Photo for making digital pictures colorful and blocky.

Lego has also recently added a bit of technological wizardry to drive foot traffic into its stores. The toy manufacturer is setting up augmented reality stations in its more than 50 shops worldwide. Customers can pull a Lego package off the shelf, hold it in front of the Digital Box kiosk and see an animation on the screen of the completed Lego project overlaid on the box in their hands. A camera interfaces with the screen to pull off the augmented reality trick and it seems to be an effective way of using high-tech gizmos to wow mall shoppers into buying a thoroughly low-tech construction kit.

As we’ve mentioned many times recently, augmented reality is one of the more popular technologies recently, and now even Lego boxes are getting the augmented reality treatment. The boxes were created by the Danish toy company and augmented reality experts.   Users simply  hold up the LEGO box and the QR code will activate the augmented reality feature, showing you a 3D model of the Lego kit inside. If you twist and turn the box around, the 3D image twists and turns accordingly too, allowing you to see how it’ll look like from all angles.   

Watch a video of Lego’s AR effort or check out the supporting website.

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Razorfish - Brand Experience Report (2009)

Publicis-owned digital agency, “Razorfish” released its annual (2009) Brand Experience Report called “FEED”. Traditionally this report focused almost exclusively on charting how consumer behavior adapts to advances in Internet technology and web services. This year however, the report also explores how consumers interact with brands online.

The report answers questions like - what does the future hold for brands when everything is just a click away? If consumers really are in control, what can we learn from their interaction with brands today? The goal is to offer a snapshot of relevant online consumers who have broadband, spent $150 online in the previous 6 months, visit community/social media sites regularly, and consume digital media.

Some interesting facts from the report: 25% of those surveyed followed a brand on Twitter, and 40% are fans of brands on Facebook. The report provides rationale and reference to support the proof point that digital drives sales.

Read or Download the Report here.

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THE NEXT 5,000 DAYS OF THE WEB - TED PARTNER SERIES