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Blogs are experiencing something of a second wave. As blogging becomes even more mainstream, it's given an increasing number of consumers a shot at global publishing power. For the online marketing world, understanding how to leverage these independent publishers as a means to carry a message -- whether it's ad placement or editorial coverage -- is critical.
By 2012, approximately 145 million people -- or 67 percent of the U.S. Internet population -- will be reading blogs at least once a month, according to a recent study by eMarketer. Here's what online marketers and advertisers need to know in order to manipulate, exploit, and influence this medium:
Understand the psyche of the social media consumer
Advertising on blogs can mean reaching highly engaged pockets of readers. However, advertisers need to think differently about the psychology of the social media user to ensure their approach is on point. Often times, blog readers are very passionate about the topics they are researching, and they are highly invested in what they are doing at that exact moment.
The potential pitfall? Distracting readers from the task at hand and annoying them in the process, which ultimately hurts your relationship with the blogger. If you’re going to place an ad on a blog, you are going to have to be smart about how you’re diverting reader attention. Make sure your ad is an extension of the conversation.
Don’t forget that social media is “social”
Today’s online media landscape is a vast network of socially connected content -- think of it as a footprint. The ability to understand how this footprint was generated and the relationships among all the different touch points is invaluable for guiding both an ad strategy and a PR-focused one.
Blogs shouldn’t be looked at as a static list of sites: They are platforms to host conversations. It’s your job to understand what those conversations are, who is leading them, and who is participating.
Define success upfront
It’s important to think about what success looks like before the start of every marketing campaign, especially in the social media space. Current measurement standards like clicks and page views are under fire as marketers are able to reach a whole new level of engagement with prospective customers.
For now, the best way to get around this issue is to think long and hard about what realistic examples of success look like for any campaign. Establish your ideal metric upfront, whether it's click-throughs, conversions, subscribers, or comment and pass-along velocity.
Authentic distraction techniques
Now that it's time to write your ad copy, there are a few rules you should follow. Don’t replicate creative used for traditional ad buys for your social media campaign. Also, ensure you are writing for a specific audience, not a general one. Work to leverage the language uncovered in the conversation footprint.
You can even ask trusted bloggers themselves for ideas on ad copy and test concepts out before launching a campaign. Posing questions or doing polls is another interesting tactic that helps draw the reader into the conversation around your brand.
Understanding social connections holds powerful promise for marketers. The granddaddies of the social media ecosystem -- blogs -- are here to stay. Blogs account for the “media” in social media. They generate the kind of hyper-connected ideas and memes that are drawing customers away from the portals and into the long tail. It appears content is still king indeed.
— Rob Crumpler, President and Chief Executive Officer of Buzzlogic
Rank: Cave Painter
Wednesday June 11, 2008 7:08:38 AM
I think there is an important point that the blogs should understand and use it to their advantage. The level of interest of audience in the different things on the blog is different hence the advertising model should also take care of it.
If some content is very very popular I should charge more to the advertisers as compared to the other comparatively less popular stuff
IQ Crew
Tuesday June 10, 2008 11:27:33 PM
The New Riders series has long been on the forefront of web standards and sound website design. Arron Walter wrote an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone interested in Blogging and site development in general : Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO and Beyond.
What impressed me the most, surprisingly, was not the technical tips on how to improve your site and avoid being blacklisted, but The section entitled "Using your Moral Compass to Find Your Way." It reminded me that Bloggers get a free pass onto the world stage. We didn't have to earn our Journalistic Stripes over time...
It bears reviewing and rethinking the idea of what you are going to say in conjunction wit the power to instantly reach a global audience.
In addition. "The Deepest Desires of Search Engines" was very informative to me.
(Chapter 5 is devoted to "Building a Findable Blog.")
Researcher
Tuesday June 10, 2008 12:27:28 PM
I guess that problem has existed since the marketing concept was first talked about. Most people generally dislike being "attacked with thousands and thousands of advertisements.
We are used to seeing and not paying attention to mass advertisement. We have trained our eye to go through ads without even bothering to read them. All but those that really stand out are a waste of money but it's a vicious cycle - we somehow know which products are there, and if we don't see some sort of promotion we wonder if something is wrong.
As for targeting an online user, marketers have the ability to use all the information the user is giving them and updating the promotion to better suit them. But the problem is still there, IMHO, users don't want to be seen as targets. I don't mind reading an article and seeing a link in the text to something I might want to buy or look at but a window in me the middle of the text that I came in to see is just disrupting - I can't tell you how fast I try to click the "No, Thanks".
Researcher
Tuesday June 10, 2008 11:22:21 AM
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the marketig tips. I particularly like the one in which you admonished marketers to treat social medi as being 'socila'!! I think this is where they are missing the point and resorting to counter productive measures. In the recently concluded Advertisng 2.0 conference, panelists dilated on the difficulties of monetizing social media and i think a reason for this is that marketers are still dealing with social media with thir traditional thinking caps.
I think in dealing with social media, marketers should be able to recognized which part of the social graph they occupy. Failing to recognize this will be like an uninvited guest who broke the peace of the party. I particularly like "The Hot Dog Analogy" and the more marketers know that they are part of the social grapgh, the better they will be in strategizing ways of reaching members of that social graph with relevant ads.
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previous posts from Rob Crumpler
Advertisers are desperate for new inventory and business models, and the marketing promise from the sheer eyeballs alone within social networks can be huge. But what about advertisers that want to rely on both relevance and true “influence” to reach a more engaged consumer? Consider that some of the most influential conversations on the Web are happening outside of social networks, within the blogs whose credibility and expertise drive a large and loyal following of Internet users.
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