Rolling Talks

Where in the world are social networks?

Source: Social Media Group

Little book of travel

Kris Hoet just launched a new blog the little book of travel. If you're a frequent traveller - or not so frequent- and have travel experiences who want to share in a funny way, drop him a mail. Or just go and rss it.
 

And if you wonder how I find so quickly a new blog (hot from today), it's because like thousands of Europeans bloggers I've become addicted to Facebook (now you know what I'm up to these days- am practising the 'Relax' concept- and not only with ultra sounds Luc). And I saw right on my profile page this late afternoon that my friend Kris has created a new group (invitations will be sent soon!). If you haven't done it yet, register NOW with Facebook. But you've been warned: VERY addictive..

Enjoy your new journey Kris!
This one's for you: "Travels instead of broadening the mind often merely lengthens the conversation" (Elizabeth Drew)

"I'm not just a kid- I'm a producer, publisher and promoter'

Interesting reading on the impact of SN in kids life and the influence on marketers. Chosen bits:

• "Kids want more freebies, more connection and more production utilities, and brands have the opportunity to jump in and facilitate." 
• "the majority of teens are spending more time with new media than traditional media."
• "Nearly half (47%) of 9-17 year olds, including more than half (55%) of teens, report participation in one or more advertiser branded activity types in the last month."
• "Overall, 20% of teens report adding branded content to their own websites in the last month"

On what they want:

Buzz marketing, WOM marketing, conversation marketing- what's the difference?

Buzz Marketing: entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand

Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: giving people a reason to talk about your products

Conversation Marketing:giving people a reason to talk about your ideas, beliefs, issues relevant to your product, organization.

Source Foghound communication &WOMMA

Who said PR agencies are slow to catch on social media?

While doing research for my first contribution to the Belgian Press Relations Center's newsletter, I was reminded 3 studies done recently by major international PR companies in the social media field:

• 'The business value of blogging' - a 30 page- pdf by Mark van der Wolf from Lewis PR (which was also referred to at the Euroblog07 in Gent and at the IAB European Blogging Workshop). Delivers an interesting 4 step guide to blogging and insights on the European and Asian cultural differences concerning blogging attitude.
• An explicit 'Corporate blogs are still outsiders in Belgium one page by Leads United (which initiated the debate over blogging organised by the BPRC in April).
• and the 'New wave of advocacy' from Weber Shandwick, introducing the 'badvocates' neologism, opposed to the brands' advocates.
  

The greedy me particularly enjoyed Mark's "Blogs come in different flavors".
Implying that " any decision on blogging should therefore start with an in-depth analysis of the business benefits that the various types of blogs might bring to a company." Mark, you've been warned, I'm going to use this- probably unquote ;-)

All of them are definitely worth reading. And now time for a guide on ' Crisis blog- the best practices' :-)

7 ways to pitch a blogger

I just read the '7 ways to pitch a blogger' written by Ogilvy. Since this paper dates back from March 2006 i must have read something about it somewhere the last days but i can't remember where.. Anyway, here's a sump-up (could be part of the answer to the question asked by a Belgian PR):

1- Before you pitch, read their blog

2- Help them get more trackbacks and comments

3- Bloggers are experts. Treat them like experts (note: i like that one :)

4- It's not always about their readers (note: AHHHH, this one i completely relate to , so here the full idea):

Many bloggers are writing for themselves, and their blogs serve as an online manifest of their personality and thoughts. While many blogs have huge readerships, ultimately most bloggers are wrting because they have a genuine passion for the subjects they write about. Therefore, bloggers won't write about something 'newsworthy" if it doesn't personnally interest them. And unlike journalists, they don't have to.  (Note: i would add i have no problem posting about some 'old 'document as long as it learns me something and i want to track the data - like this document ;-)

5- Giving them free stuff is ok - (note: Sure :-)

6- Know who else is talking about you so you'll have an idea of how they feel about you before you approach them

7- Don't throw away your traditional media relations playbook or in other words apply the best PR best practices

By the way Ogilvy offers more than a dozen feeds on blogs subjects mainly -looks like a cool ressource. I just added them to the great RSS reader Kris showed me. I started 2 weeks ago and i have now 80 feeds on my favorite subjects around social media.. I just thought it would be cool to share them with 'my community', to have some automatic check for the feeds we have in common and those we can share,  and to add those automatically. Great stuff for Great News ??

WOMMA pdfs online

If you're interested in word of mouth marketing -funnily enough i wrote at first worth of mouth marketing-, i highly recommend you click here .You'll find all the WOMMA pdfs presentations. A few titles to make your mouth water: Joining online conversation about your brand/ Using community outreach to build buzz/Online WOM: how it works and how it can be measured/Using blogs to speak With- not at - your consumers

!!!!!!!!!!!!!go go go!!!!!!!!!!I'm diving into it! See you in a couple of days...

Debate over blogging with Belgian PR

Yesterday i went to the debate organised by the Belgian PR Center and moderated by Philippe Borremans. You can see the video on Maarteen's blog so I won't go too much into details -the fact that i was typing with Simon's QWERTY keyboard combined with my natural inclination to be dyslexic while taking notes doesn't make me feel like going through mines, but i'd like to make a few points:

- yes there were some Voltaire's daughters bloggers too at the event, at least me. And i don't think there's less women who are blogging contrary to what was said: all the data i heard during the last presentations i went to over blogging recently seems to prove the blogging population is fairly representative of the online population - being more or less 50/50 male and female

- yes 2 out of 3 participants were Dutch speaking if not more - and 4 out of the 5 speakers- which proves once again than the Dutch speaking community is not only more active but also more interested in social media - vind ik ..

- yet yes the questions coming from the public showed that fear and control are still the first reactions when we talked about social media and that the potential is huge for those feeling like being evangelists - be it on the PR sector or others...

- but yes if you don't participate in the online conversations you don't exist. Bruno Segers pointed it out several times as  the 'I blog so I am' phenomenon

- and yes, sunny days for monitoring these conversations are here to stay and blossom

One professional -admitting not to know a thing about blogging - wanted to know how he could influence what's being said online. It sounds like ' don't tell me what it is about - because i'm scared to know?-  but how i can turn it to my profit'. Wrong way to start if you ask me...

Pretty interesting so - and good for my Dutch oral practise :-) and the networking part was not the worst of it: I was delighted to meet Bart from Metatale who told me more about his new product - which will be useful for an article i'll be writing over monitoring in a couple of days, along with Attentio's data Simon McDermott kindly provided me before the debate- and to speak with Phillipe and to be introduced to Robin! Now that i have listened to them, talked with them, i'm not scared anymore ;-) and to finish this post i wish a very dirtysomething to one of the naaicest members of this nice NL community ;-)

Just the beginning

New study release for state of corporate blogging in Belgium. Main findings taken from Philippe Borremans' blog :

• 93% of PR/Communications managers surveyed knew about blogs...
• but only 6% of the PR/Communications managers surveyed implemented corporate blogs.
• only 4% of the organizations surveyed have blogging policies in place.
• 34% of the PR/Communications managers do see an opportunity for the use of corporate blogs.
• 37% read blogs but only 4% write a blog themselves.
• Only 2 of the 70 people surveyed monitor blogs on a regular basis for their company/organization.
• 87% of the respondents mainly see corporate blogging as a potential external communications tool.

Full article and more data over the EuroBlog 07 i missed :-( Hopefully will meet Philippe late afternoon at the debate over  'Blogging: challenge & consequences" organised by the Belgian PR Center.

Blogging for dollars

"Some niche websites are full-time jobs for their owners, with six-figure incomes the reward, but for others Internet profits are still just a dream .

Jay Brewer of Arlington built Blogpire, a lucrative "blog empire," out of a cup of coffee. Three years ago, Brewer bought a Senseo coffee maker and posted a review of it at SingleServeCoffee.com -- a thriving niche website that led him to create 17 other income-generating product review sites, ranging from ShavingStuff.com to SuperCoolBaby.com.

Rhea Becker , on the other hand, dreams about going pro, but makes only a dollar or two a day from The Boomer Chronicles, a blog that mixes personal anecdotes from her Jamaica Plain neighborhood with advice for baby boomers". Full article to be read on the Boston Globe site.

As for Rolling Talks, i'll be hosting my first ad next week and will greet Eurostar - Vero left so no connection.. or has it? ;-). With my 25 euros, i will not buy me candies Brother. I'll rather keep my blog's profit for your moto licence and with a bit of luck, you'll take me for a ride on my 69th birthday :-)

Blogging code of conduct

Voilà la première réaction de prémunition à l'incident mentionné dans le post 'the Dark side of blogging'. 2 parmi les bloggeurs les plus influents (Tim O'reilly et le fondateur de Wikipedia Jimmy Wales) ont commencé la rédaction d'un code de conduite. 

"Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.” New York Times

But talk about trying to set rules in the blogosphere and you'll have an idea of what Free Speech means. The majority of the bloggers' reaction is hugely negative. For a few insight, see Jeff Jarvis (the Dell guy).

Dark side of blogging: the exception not the rule

Have been reading this story for an hour..wondered for a sec if i'd put it on RT...but i think it reveals that even the 'damage side' is indeed part of the journey to the truth .

Le fait que les acteurs/victimes soient des bloggeurs très influents et qu'ils sont très désireux d'en tirer des leçons positifs incitera sûrement une majorité de bloggeurs a en faire autant, et aussi à mettre en place des actions pour se prémunir, punir, etc.

Complete story here

Blogrecords

"Begin 2005 telde de Amerikaanse de gespecialiseerde zoekrobot Technorati wereldwijd acht miljoen weblogs. Vandaag, twee jaar later, is dat aantal gestegen tot 72 miljoen. Maar heel waarschijnlijk zijn er sinds deze telling van vorige maand al weer heel wat nieuwe blogs bijgekomen.
Technorati telt dat er gemiddelde dagelijks 120.000 nieuwe blogs worden aangemaakt. Per dag zijn er 1,4 miljoen blogs die worden “bijgewerkt”. Source: 6 minutes newsletter.

Percentage of active ones?  around 55% last October. Corporate ones? too few ...

Social networks: far more good than damage

This is probably what has been most repeated during the Blogging for Business event yesterday in London, or at least the one I heard the most and it can answer the opening question of the conference 'how social media is changing your business?'.

Probably because attendees seemed to be more agencies and brands than experienced bloggers or social networkers- if we except the speakers themselves- and that they came to be informed and reassured about the social tools they should be using already or asap.

This is one of the reasons why this event was completely different from my experience at Le Web 3 in Paris last December. The fact that women were almost 50% of the audience (pity they use toilets only to make up though :-), that they were almost zero PC on tables and thus zero complaints about slow connection but some about too few desserts still :-), no presence of any politics except for the virtual presence of Hillary Clinton whose blog was mentionned, real interesting panels with mostly passionate speakers, all these and more made it a far more valuable experience to me too:

If you're not talking about you, someone else is!

One good exemple on the importance to (1) monitor the blogosphere, (2) interact with it is brought by Tom De bruyne :

" This week, a student from Antwerp made the news with a very simple campaign. He created the website www.gertje.info, in which he urged Gert Verhulst, who became multimillionaire in the Belgian kids entertainment branche, to stick to his promise he made 16 years ago in a song, in which he sang (translated from Dutch) : 

"If you had 10 million,
What would you do?
I'd share liters of lemonade
And 100 kg of Chocolate"

The website quickly got picked up by the Blogosphere and by traditional media." Go on reading on i-wisdom

Will the next buzz be initiated by Gert Verhulst? Watch this space!

2% of Amazon purchase traffic comes from blogs

Yahoo only provides 3%.

Source: Market Sentinel

Blogs acknowledged marketing tool n°1

Alongside e-mails and brand sites, elected by 58 marketeers from 25 different countries. Wonder if Belgium was part of it? Let's see if we can convince 58 top Belgian marketeers this year :-)

Source: Journal du Net

Beware of great first impressions

I'm probably not a real blogger yet (but while i thought i was doing this feedback a bit late i went to have a look on Le Meur's blog and i see he did not post since Monday :-).
I found it very difficult -and to be 100% honest not so essential- to blog during the conference. Difficult because constantly fighting to get connected to the wifi network on the 1st day (Loic the food was great thanks for that, work on the web 1.0 based applications now ;) And not so essential because while it gives a lot of ideas to develop Antidot services and products, few data were 100% blogs related - and by essence can't be found on my blog :-)

I swear to Blog that

1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.

These are the 10 principles included in Womma's Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines willing to "provide specific guidance to prevent problems before they happen, and to help marketers train their staff on ethics." The guidelines were issued after the Edelman/Walmart issue.

And not specifically related to blogs but surely appropriate too for any company willing to do so, are a list of 20 ethical questions to ask before launching any word of mouth marketing campaign:

PR agency called to order for Walmart flog

Edelman, the PR agency responsible for the Walmart flog has been put under review by the WOMMA, the official trade association for the World of Mouth Marketing profession in the USA. The association eventually decided to take action towards one of her leading and co-founder member after several influential members urged her to do so.

The guilty agency has been commanded to :

Meet at Le Web 3

Registration is open for the 3rd edition of "Les Blogs".

"The first Les Blogs was held in April 2005. Entrepreneurs, bloggers and web2.0 players around the world will be in Paris on December 11th & 12th 2006. " Meet you there ! 

Recommandé par des Influenceurs.

Thanks Pascal for the news ;-) Coming?

"Every French company is watching blogs

to read what's being said on themselves". Or so said Loic Le Meur last Friday on BFM*. To do so companies use Google or Technorati but mostly watch blogs from influential bloggers. According to Le Meur this is the 1st step companies take to 'participate' in the blogosphere in France. They still seem to scared to develop their own blog. No news so far..

Yet France seems to be far ahead of Belgium as long as blogs are concerned :-). And if what's Le Meur said about blogs watching is true that's definitely right. How many Bel 20's are doing blogs watching in Belgium? Let me know..

*Thanks to Alex for sending me the warning sms ;-)

Blogs create the need for pre-launch PR

"As marketers increasingly court bloggers in advance of product launches, especially in the area of technology and gadgets, public relations firms are being brought in to manage product rollouts well in advance of the actual commercial launch. To help manage the relationship between marketers and bloggers, PR firm Edelman is creating a new tracking service with blog search engine Technorati". First article in IAB smart brief this week. More on International Herald Tribune

Last findings on American Bloggers

"Seventy-six percent of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others. Sixty-four percent of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others. "

More on MediaPostPublications!

Lower trust in blogs?

On Friday, IAB smartbrief first article titled Consumers don't trust blogs, online forums. and go on with announcing the fact that a survey released by JupiterResearch suggests that only 21% of consumers trust information on such sites. I was a bit surprised with that high percentage having in mind the information released in a Technorati survey (among bloggers and back in 2005, true) where less than 9% of respondents find a blog endorsed and produced by a company untrustworthy .

Reading further, this 21% referred to truth regarding product information within such social media when mulling a product purchase. And more surprisingly in the Technorati survey the percentage related to 'product information' was even lower, about 6% -which would tend to give the Jupiter number a positive growing impact ( but what's in numbers, specially coming from 2 different surveys?..).

What's more interesting - and unfortunately not mention in the Jupiter key findings- is that more than 60% within the first survey respondents would trust others bloggers when looking for product information.

Thus re-inforcing the common say about not using blogs directly as a promotional/sales vehicule ("such sites" being the ones set up by the companies themselves) but using influentials bloggers to start the conversations and even better, become a better company so that people will talk about it in a positive way without any compensation..:-)