Archive for October, 2009

Posted on October 16, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

BlogWorld Notes: State of the Blogosphere keynote by Richard Jalichandra @jalichandra CEO of technorati @blogworld #bwe09

BlogWorld Notes: State of the Blogosphere keynote by Richard Jalichandra @jalichandra @blogworld #bwe09
Keynote link: http://blogworldexpo09.sched.org/event/25e08630a9d573177753f49af79d031e

Notes:
The state of the blogosphere is strong
The blogosphere is not dying or leveling off but thriving
Blogging is becoming mainstream
Mainstream is using blogging platforms and writing style
Blogs are media

Professional bloggers are keeping the blogosphere strong

Hobbyist – 72%
Professionals 28%
Professional Self-Employed
Professional Corporate
blog full-time for a company

Who are the professional bloggers?
2/3 male
60% 18-44
More affluent and educated than the general population hobbyist bloggers
2 out 3 blogging more than 2 years
Average of 4 blogs
17% say blogging is their primary source of income

Professional are even more prolific in 2009
Main stream media says bloggers are unprofessional,

Why are people blogging more:
Enjoy interacting with audience
interacting with other bloggers
valuable for promoting business
enjoy the attention

Professional bloggers and mainstream media
40% of bloggers have worked with traditional media
27% are still employed by traditional media
73 agree blogs are taken more serious
more agree newspapers won’t be around

Twitter
73% of bloggers use twitter
All bloggers #1 use of Twitter is to promote their blogs
Share links
understand what people are buzzing about
interact with readers

Style & Tone:
Hobbyist Personal, Professional Topical

Professional invest more time & resources
24-32% blog 10+ hours a week
10% blog 40+ hours
Pros invest 7x more money
The top 5,000 generate 100x more post
Professional are using tools:
a. commenting
b. search
c. trackbacks
To drive traffic
a. technorati
b. google
c. paid ads

The upside of bloggging
Success metrics
a. unquie and page views

Pros’ the benefits of credibility
a. 71% have greater visibility in their industry
b. 63% clients have purchased
c. company now a thought leader
d. asked to speak

Monetization and Revenue
Professional bloggers monetize their blogs via
a. 40% display ads
b. search ads
c. affiliate links
d. paid postings
e. self-employed bloggers are likely to sell their inventory through a blog ad network
f. 2 out of 3 part-time bloggers use self-serve ad platforms

Brands and the blogosphere
a. 70% of bloggers blog about brands

Professionals plan for the future :
Expansion and brand extension
a. blog more frequently
b. expand the topics that I blog about
c. Publish a book
d. speaking opportunities

Advice from the pros
a. Be Passionate

So…..How Many bloggers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

On Monday morning Technorati will start posting the State of the Blogosphere on Technorati.com

Posted on October 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

@blogactionday blog action day 2009: climate change

http://www.blogactionday.org

If you’re anywhere near the blogosphere today then I’m sure you know today is Blog Action Day and this year’s topic is climate change. I’m currently at Blog World Expo and I honestly I’m not a climate change “expert” so I wanted to highlight a few blogs that have already posted about climate change.

• Blog Action Day 2009: Bloggers vs. Climate Change
• A Green Blog Action Day
• Fast Fission Podcast #7: Climate Change Blog Action Day – Why am I so passionate about nuclear energy?
• The human face of global warming: Blog Action Day 2009
• blog action day ’09

Personally I hope everyone finds a way to look at their daily lives and  find at least two or three ways you can adjust your habits for a greener lifestyle.

What are your thoughts on Climate Change?

Posted on October 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

BlogWorld Notes: Sponsored Conversations panel. What does the Tweets say

Sponsored Conversations:
http://blogworldexpo09.sched.org/event/a9c8a662737c21bd982764e5572d242b

Panelist(s) Jeremiah Owyang (Moderator), Ted Murphy, Wendy Piersall
Panel Goal: To identify the goals of sponsored blogging. Pros and cons

What are sponsored conversations:
When a brand or advertiser give a product to a blogger to blog about it in an editorial conversations.
During the session they used the tag #sponblog

PS: This was a

Posted on October 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

BlogWorld Notes: Internet Marketing For Smart People Panel at @blogworld #bwe09

Internet Marketing For Smart People

Panelist(s)
Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan

Notes:
Story behind #Tribe3

Is email marketing dead?
No, email marketing drives traffic on days
Is a great connecting point
Is good for connecting the brand
Don’t abuse your email newsletter
It’s not cool to add me to your email newsletter if you receive an email from me.

Relationships
Blogs going from your blog to “our” blog
Be a match maker and set your blog readers where they can interact with each other as much as possible
Being a part of a community is a privalge
The one sell marketing is the kiss of death
It’s all internet marketing even if you call it, content marketing, social media marketing, blog marketing
You have to have relationships with other people in your market
Sometimes having a big blog is a like a battleship
Sometimes smaller blogs having a smaller tighter community is better

What is it do you have a sell and how to find out what to sell?
Listen to your community and see what they want
Provide different type of content to sell
Ask your community before you start selling
Don’t ask for anything, then ask once
Don’t be afraid of selling (baby got to eat)
Wrong: selling is trying to get people to buy something they don’t want
Our entire economy

Audience Question:
Q. Thoughts on Google sidewiki
A. I think it’s stupid

Q. Thoughts on the FTC ruling
A. It’s OK, there are no difference between beginners and professionals selling products
B. Honesty is a great selling point
C. Don’t believe the hype

Q. How do you determine a price to sell.
A. Never ask your audience what they should pay
B. Look around for similar products
C. Check your competition

Q. How do approach and schedule your content
A. You schedule content if you don’t have time
B. Rhythm, find yours and stick
C. Create an agenda and deliver value with your content
D. Social media is great for creating something out of nothing
E. Try to get your reader to transit from a reader to a customer

Q. Discussion between social media marketing / internet marketing / marketing/ PR
A. Add social media to your existing marketing
B. Media is marketing
C. Become a media outlet

Q. How is important is video in the future conversations
A. Video takes work
B. Use videos to help build relationships
C. Video shows your personality

Announcement: 3Tribe
Inside the 3Tribe new product
Copy Blogger Email Newsletter: Internet Marketing For Smart People
Education is the best selling tool.

Posted on October 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

BlogWorld Notes: Social Media Success Stories panel at @blogworld #bwe09

Social Media Success Stories Panel:
Samantha Gammell (Oscar Mayer), Justin Levy (Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse), Brian Wiegand (Alice.com), Frank Eliason (Comcast)
Panel url: http://www.blogworldexpo.com/blog/2009-speakers/?p=564

Notes:

Brian Wiegand

Frank Eliason
Put the passionate people in
Care about your company and product but be passionate about your customers
Do try to be like others, but be yourself and be passionate about what you love
You can learn a lot about a brand by searching Twitter,
Companies don’t improve customer service on numbers but by the story of customers
Which social network works better, (comcast, Frank) Twitter, it depends on your customer base
Facebook is good for meeting people you know already.
Everything we do is about the community and finding a way to understand and help.

Samantha Gammell
Uses blog, twitter, and facebook fan page
People love content and interactions

Justin Levy
Instead of focusing on trying to be on the front page of google, they focused on using social media and saw an good increase in traffic and sales.

Using blogs from users to talk about the products vs just having employees blog about the company product.

Audience Questions:
Q. Why does being ranked on Technotri matter?
A. Some companies what to be cataorized as the thought leader and they measure that by how they are ranked on http://technorati.com

Q. Trying to get your company to use twitter for customer service?
A. Start by tracking tweets, have person do more than twitter such as checking email, forums and blogs
A2. Have everyone involved not just one person

Q. How do you personalize the content posting from your brand using social media
A. Companies need to personalize the brand, people don’t care about logo but people
A. People want to know the people behind the company

Q. Advice to get people engaged and use a new social media community
A. You have to build a community around things that are interesting to the community
B. Once the community is establish, love the community, treat them well and engage with them

Q. What has social media done for the wienermobile
A. Allowed them to meet more people
B. Reach more people where the demand has been greater
C. Before you start using the tools make sure you’re real and have a true authentic voice

Q. Does it matter to being 1st in the space.
A. By being first you are looked as the though leader or first one to do something but it still comes back to how you use it.
B. You have a unique opportunity but never stop learning

Q. As a large company, how should they use social media
A. Every person in the company should not being using social media
A2. Companies should have an aproprerate social media policy
A3. Build a method where employees can manage interal communications
A4. Make sure you have the right employees using social media

Q. How have you changed the way you are using old “legacy” media (print, radio)
A. They don’t promote the profiles, they try to meet the customers where they already are.
B. Try to mashup both traditional media and new media in various creative ways

Q. What would be the one thing you would do better if you had to start over?
A. Hire better
B. Plan and make sure the entire company is behind social media
C. Wish they would have used tools in different ways first before others have