Below the Line

A Conversation with TypePad

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the TypePad headquarters for a Meetup event. It was great meeting some of the TypePad team members and other bloggers in a small group setting. 

They talked about some of the new TypePad features. For instance, they've now made it easy for TypePad users to integrate Facebook's "Like" feature in their blogs. The new Like functionality is something all brands should be adding to their sites - it basically does what RSS should have done all along, which is make it "really simple" to subscribe to content.

They've also created a new search widget which bloggers can add to their sites - it will search comments, tags and photos as well as posts, which is extremely useful.

However, the most interesting development for brands is TypePad Conversations. Sparked by the insight that blog posts that end with questions get more comments, TypePad Conversations is "a social media question and answer tool designed to spark engaging conversations around interesting topics which bloggers are actively writing about."

 

The TypePad team writes the questions, which select brands/partners can sponsor, and a cadre of bloggers can post the questions on their blogs, thereby engaging their readers in discussions on relevant topics. TypePad aggregates the answers, so you can essentially get input and engagement from across the web in one place. This solves two problems: it is a way for brands to get their names in front of blog readers without using banner ads, and it saves brands from having to rely on their PR team's database of bloggers or troll the blogosphere to find relevant blogs.

In addition to user engagement, TypePad Conversations has the potential to become a useful market research tool.

 

TypePad Product ManagersMatt Jacobs and Kimmie Nguyen, caught totally by surprise. That's Hubert Nguyen (no relation) from Ubergizmo.com in the background.

The purpose of the TypePad Meetup was not to get marketing people to blog about them - in fact there was only one other marketing person there. However, we did get free pizza and Francis Ford Coppola Wine. The other bloggers ranged from a funny lawyer to a bicycling gourmand.If you want to start a blog with TypePad, please use this link or click on the logo above - I might get a few cents towards my next slice of pizza.

Social media "rock star" becomes actual rock star

Seth Silverton, a self-proclaimed social media guru who blogs about how to become a social media guru has topped the Billboard Download Charts with his number one single "Top 10 Tips for Social Media Rockstars".

Silverton said his hit single started as as a blog post that was "link bait" designed to improve his search engine ranking. His link bait attracted the attention of blogger/personal branding expert/disc jockey DJ BlogzALot who quickly saw the potential of Silverton's post.

BlogzALot and Silverton then crowdsourced the melody and commissioned musicians to record the tune with the promise of "publicity and blog traffic".

"People really seemed to connect with the song," said Silverton. "Especially the part where we break into a rap about OPB: Other People's Blogs."

"Who know after blogging about this song incessantly for six months, sending thousands of tweets, directly engaging with our Twitter followers by sending '@ messages' with links to download the song, setting up our own Facebook Fan Page and sending scores of micro-targeted social media press releases that we'd have a hit single."

The ultimate re-brand

Is your web site re-launch as important as this? The White House updated their web site as soon as Obama became president. Kudos to the team that made this happen with impeccable timing.

BritBlog.com is no more!

BritBlog.com, the British Blog directory, has closed its virtual doors. A reliable resource for over four years (a lifetime in the blogosphere), BritBlog.com closed on April 23rd because of “a recent hacking incident and the constant battle against spammers and spam blogs”.

BritBlog.com was a valuable resource for finding British bloggers – I’ve found many blogs and been found this way. However, it was a labor of love for founder Mark Sweeting rather than a source of income and he was unable to continue the massive time commitment required to run the site.

This highlights a problem that many corporate sites should consider – vetting inappropriate comments, monitoring spam and otherwise policing a community site takes considerable effort.

The only way most sites can manage this is to rely on the community to report infractions. Wikipedia has a host of avid users who are quick to remove any user-added pages that don’t meet their notability guidelines and Flickr has managed to generate a friendly community that does not thrive on slamming other users’ contributions. However, YouTube has had on-and-off legal battles over copyright infringement for not screening users’ content (they only remove illegal content after it has been reported).

On another note altogether, the departure of BritBlog.com leaves a gap in the marketplace – someone, act quickly!

Social Media: what Clinton should be doing

Recently the Hillary Clinton campaign asked for ideas on how they might do things differently. Here are my top-of-mind thoughts:

Clinton needs to up her game in blogging and social media. Obama is getting a lot of support from the "young" people online, but Hillary could tap into certain social networks and make an impact – social networks that are topic specific rather than just a generic MySpace / Facebook presence.

Clinton's campaign should appoint someone on staff to take the lead on social networking. They should:

• Identify blogs with a mid-level of readership (forgetting about the likes of Huffington post) and engage with them.
• Offer these bloggers content and/or access not available to others.
• Consider hosting an online chat with Hillary that is available only to key bloggers, or create a video / commercial that they can post on their blogs prior to being aired on TV – this could in turn become a "news" story and garner the campaign some free press.
• Search for relevant blogs based on popularity on www.technorati.com – it is free to do, but labor intensive – a perfect opportunity to use some volunteer resources.

Other groups they could focus on are topic-specific social networks. For instance, they could approach women's groups on sites like NING or gather.com.

There is a Hillary Clinton blog on the campaign site. The campaign should promote the blog at the bottom every e-mail they send. They should encourage people to sign up via RSS, digg the posts, etc.

However, I'd advise that this blog from a cursory view just looks like a diary of events. The blogosphere is more about a person showing their own voice and letting their personality come through. If Clinton is too busy, then have a staffer write an official – yet uncensored – blog, giving people a real behind-the-scenes view. This will also encourage other blogs to link to yours

These were my top of mind suggestions. I'd be interested to hear what other ideas people have. I also think the Democratic Party has a long way to go in terms of branding, an area where the Republicans have them beat hands down. This is something the party should think about in advance of the general election.

How to get online PR? Just ask.

I started my first blog in February 2003, when there were probably still less than two million blogs, so it's probably fair to say I was an early adopter. But there are now 94.7 million blogs, according to Technorati, so it surprises me that some people just don't get it. Yes, even otherwise savvy online marketers. They haven't engaged with the blogosphere, so it remains a mystery.

There are some blogs with massive readership. There are some blogs with no readers. There are even inactive, abandoned blogs. But in between, where most of those millions of blogs fall, there are blogs with a small (or medium) group of dedicated readers.

Something I'm hearing a lot of with clients and agencies is "how can we get the bloggers to start talking about us?" The answer is simple: just ask. There is no secret formula. The people writing the blogs are just people. So, treat them as people and you're likely to get a response. E-mail them a mass press release, and you're not likely to get a response.

Recently, I was contacted by the founder of ParkatmyHouse.com. He said he was checking out technology blogs on Britblog and came across my site. In five short sentences, he explained what they do, asked for feedback on the site and asked (if I thought my readers would benefit) whether I could mention them in my blog.

Clients take heed: they didn't need a forum of "A-list" bloggers or a specialist PR agency to write an online strategy. They just asked. So here it is. ParkatmyHouse is a great idea. If you have a space in your driveway or garage you can rent it out and earn some cash. If you need to rent a space as a one-off or on an ongoing basis, you can look for the nearest spot by post code. It's simple to use, and they are doing all the things you'd expect from a young web 2.0 site: blog, RSS feed, Google Earth interface, widgets and even affiliate marketing. They've made the affiliate marketing so easy, I'm giving it a try: Rent a Parking Space with ParkatmyHouse.com

Are you using an internal blog yet?

If you work for a marketing agency, I’m guessing the answer is “no”. Why not?

Part of the problem is the bureaucracy of agencies. To set up a new technology and to change any part of the process, you have to get buy-in from all of the stakeholders and from managers who might not really understand the benefits of blogs. In addition, if the I.T. department has to get involved the idea can come to a screeching halt because pretty soon you’re having discussions about set-up costs, maintenance costs and lead times.

The truth of the matter is that you can set up a password-protected blog for internal company use for about $150. Add to that a few hours of an eager staffer’s time to set it up and explain it to the rest of the team, and you’re in business.

Why set up an internal blog?

·         To replace a company newsletter or e-mail

·         To replace those “all agency” or “all team” e-mails, e.g. communicate deadlines, new procedures or industry news to your team. An added benefit is that the posts will also be saved and archived so that each employee doesn’t save the e-mail individually, using up server space

·         To collaborate on a project and share learnings

·         To communicate between your agency team and the client team

If your company is using blogs internally, I’d love to know how well it’s working.

RSS is suffering from an image problem

Marketers, do you know what RSS is? If you don’t, you should. RSS is a technology that helps users consolidate content in one place. Customers can be notified every time their favourite web site has been updated, rather than having to manually check to see what’s new on each site. RSS has been around for a number of years, but it is becoming more widely used with blogs.

How does it work?

Customers subscribe to an RSS aggregator which either sends them an e-mail (through a compatible program such as Outlook), or compiles the posts on a web page such as My Yahoo!. Each time a blog or other site with RSS is updated, the customer will have instant access to the information.

So, what’s the problem?

Only 18% of bloggers offer RSS feeds and as of June last year and only 9% of internet users even knew what it was, according to a Pew Internet Report.

What could be the next step in opt-in communications has hit a brick wall in terms of user acceptance. I think it just sounds too complicated for most users: syndication, aggregator, feeds. To the average person, this does not sound really simple.

Furthermore, many podcasters are having to clarify that just because the terminology for getting a podcast is to “subscribe”, customers don’t have to pay for the content. “Subscribe” is a loaded term; this is what we get when technology people rather than marketers (or linguists) are creating the lexicon.

A lot of people in the blogosphere forget that most internet users just want to be consumers. They don’t want to have to take time to learn the technological jargon – unless they absolutely have to.

My view on user adoption of technology is that anything new needs to be so simple that anyone can learn to do it, or so essential that every one must learn to do it.

Why marketers should pay attention

RSS will either prove to be an essential technology, or a better evolution of RSS will come along that as marketers we should be aware of and understand. A new site or service that utilizes RSS as an enabling technology in an unexpected way may be the internet’s next big thing. Or some kid in his/her college dorm will dream up an even better way of pushing content out to users. Let’s just hope he gives it a better name.