Emergence Media

The SF Conservatory of Music has hosted a blogger event.
What has your company done?

Along with the tidal wave of Social Media buzzwords hitting marketing and PR departments, “blogger outreach campaigns” is a big one. Blogger Outreach Campaigns are seen as the new “word of mouth” campaign, which is being looked at as a way to virally increase brand awareness and even help drive sales, all at a lower cost than other channels.

Moving Beyond a One-Time Blog Outreach Campaign

As David Wilson pointed out, Social Media Marketing is not a one-time event. David was using a Digg Article submission for an example, but the same applies for Blogger Community Outreach .

Don’t contact bloggers just when you have something to promote. Bloggers will catch to this very quickly. Just as your PR team keeps a steady relationship with reporters, keep a steady relationship with A-List, B-List and Upcoming bloggers and community beyond promotional emails: asking for feedback on your product/service, invite them for small get-togethers dinners, etc.

But companies will say: “But that takes too much resources to maintain blogger relationships, let’s do a one-time campaign”. Sure but keep in mind the following:

1. Blogs are apart of the your Brand’s Ecosystem
   For the brand Spirit Airlines, a blog post with the title “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines” ranks 3 on Google and below it is a blog post on a very damning alleged leak from the Spirit Airlines CEO
2. Restoring a Brand is Difficulty and Lengthy
   According to BtoB, nearly 1 of 5 brands takes 2 years to recover from a crisis affect their brand image, sales or profits.
3. Customers probably Trust Bloggers more than you
   According to Nielsen, 66% of North Americans find Consumer Generated Media, like blogs, as reliable source of news. What are those blogs saying about your brand?

Conclusion: Social Media is Bigger than a Single Campaign

Social Media has opened up a whole new world for marketers and PR folks, which requires a long-term strategy beyond a one-off campaign: Community Marketing & Relation needs to be part of a companies normal PR and Marketing function.

Blogger Outreach campaigns have their place, but they must take place within a larger strategy of maintaining communications with bloggers and reaching out to those discussing your brand on forums, blogs and elsewhere.

See below for more details on those three points

1. The Community is Part of your Brand Ecosystem

When I’m asked by companies, “Why should we talk to bloggers or listen to what they say?” I make it clear that they, their brand and even their CEOs, are already being talked about by bloggers. They can join and help shape the conversation or let it shape them.

A quick search for “Paypal” on Google will show “PayPalSucks.com” as #2 on Google. I believe it was Dave McClure that mentioned that while PayPal was reluctant to promote a forum for their users to talk to Paypal, users were going to the PayPalSucks forum instead.
Stephen Spencer of CNET noted how Bloggers were increasingly present brand search results:

a. For Zappos

In the top Google Search Results, a search for “Zappos” presented “I Heart Zappos” blog post and a blog post by Start-Up Review rank top 10.

First Page Google Result for “Zappos”:
A business blog on Zappos and posting called “I Heart Zappos”

b. For Spirit Airline

Zappos received stunning reviews by the two blogs in the brand search, but not so for Spirit Airlines. A search for “Spirit Airlines” in Google led us to a blog post called “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines” and a blog that posted an alledged leaked memo from the CEO, stating “Let them tell the world how bad we are” in response to a customer complaint.

A search for Spirit Airlines reveals some severe customer/PR relations issues.

2. Does Your Customers Trust Bloggers More Than You?

Recently, Nielsen conducted a global survey on people’s attitudes towards different advertising channels. Unsurprisingly, Word Of Mouth is king and online banner is second to the bottom.

qasd

3. Your Reputation is at Stake

Dave Wilson recently wrote on a BtoB report that reveal that 57% of marketing executives say they do not have a crisis plan in place in case of any crisis that can lead to negative coverage, declining sales, or reduced profitability. And 53% have experienced such crises.

More telling is how long it took to recover from such crises

• 23% of respondents said it took three months to a year for their brand to fully recover from a crisis
• 13.3% said it took more than two years to recover
• 17.7% said they have yet to recover after two years.

As part of crisis plan, it helps to have the ear to the ground – understanding what bloggers, reviewers on Amazon and forum members are saying – to look out for potential crises and know how to handle bloggers and others when it happens. You need to keep your ear to the community.