04 Nov 2008
Last week JupiterResearch and BuzzLogic released the results from their Harnessing the Power of Blogs survey; a study of more than 2,000 online consumers in the U.S. Aside from revealing a 300% growth in blog readership in the past four years, this study confirmed that consumers are “strongly influenced” by blog content when it comes to purchasing a product. Not only are these consumers discovering new products from blogger reviews, they are using blogs to refine their choices, get support and answers, and even assure themselves of their purchase decision. So how you can you tap into the purchasing power of blogs? Implement a blogger outreach program for your brand! Below are 3 tips for successfully marketing to bloggers. 1. Be authentic. I can’t stress this point enough. Always disclose that you work for the company/brand/product before you start your pitch. Full discloser helps build trust between you and the blogger…
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01 Nov 2008
Listen to our Podcast: Show Notes: Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews ReadWriteWeb's lead blogger and social media consultant, Marshall Kirkpatrick. In this podcast, we discuss: 1. Quick Advice for what's working best in blogging these days (unique analysis, being first to release the news, posting out to others and broader participation in new social networks). 2. What's exciting in terms of new social media tools? Friendfeed's new instant messaging integration, enabling people to be more consistently engaged in online conversations. 3. ReadWriteWeb and their latest project, Jobwire. 4. How the state of the economy is effecting social media. The importance of Community Managers in social media: Do startups need Community Mangers? 5. The need for a Community Manager as it relates to drawing out the highlights of conversations, team building and response. Note: Talking with Marshall is always a treat because he is so effectively tracking with what matters most in practical applications…
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27 Oct 2008
“What are you doing?” If the answer has anything to do with attempting to improve your online marketing or customer service, then Twitter better be a part of it. Ok, I can almost hear it now. “This again? Please Jason, not more fanfare about this geeky tool. Why must I broadcast my thoughts in 140 characters or less? Are companies really using this? Really?” Yes. Still don’t believe me? Then wake up and smell today’s Wall Street Journal article, Twitter Goes Mainstream. Companies called out specifically in the article include Dell, Zappos and Comcast. I’ll be the first to admit that using Twitter has a set of issues that deserves mentioning in a separate post. From a business perspective, we at Room 214 approach it like any other social media tool. We start by listening (see Brogan’s How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter). When considering most of my colleagues, I’m a…
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23 Oct 2008
One of our readers just asked me what “virtual community” refers to regarding point 3 in my post about the top 5 things Chief Marketing Officers want. Although virtual communities can be defined within a broad range of social media properties (like Facebook) – CMO’s are saying, I wish to leverage them so I can better “understand my target audience.” This discussion can quickly get more involved than how a company might use Facebook, because now we are talking about the use of intentional business tools. One local company and customer of ours that provides the kind of tools I’m referring to is HiveLive. With the goal of better understanding a target audience, one of the advantages of using a virtual (online) community platform comes in leveraging multiple audiences. The audiences I’m referring to specifically are employees, customers and partners. If you can effectively create the space through which these audiences can…
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