Blognomics – Written by David Lee (Nuffnang Australia)

How Marketers get it wrong with Mummy Bloggers – AdAge Video

AdAge ran a great interview with Elisa Camahort Page, the founder of BlogHer, with tips for Marketers to interact with Mummy Bloggers.

Check out the video here:
http://adage.com/aboutdigital/article?article_id=138043

Or if you don’t have time…. here’s a quick summary:

Set Clear Goals – Most marketers enter social media without clear goals.  Whether it is to drive awareness or shifting perceptions, marketers must be able to evaluate it’s success after 6 months.

Allocate Resources – Often marketers treat social media like a campaign and push this responsibility to an individual that may not necessarily have the time or the experience to manage or broker relationships with bloggers.  Like all marketing programs, there are either human or financial resources required to reach that set goal.

Know the Blogger – Spend some time to get to know the blogger.  There are plenty of bad targeted pitches used to engage bloggers.  Like any traditional campaign, we should get to know the journalist and know their preferences.  Bloggers are slightly different, they don’t get paid or their job to write.  It is totally their own opinion and assuming your press release interest them, they may be bothered to get back to you.

Develop a Relationship – Bloggers are not obligated to write anything you tell them too.  Which is why PR may not necessarily work.  You should treat them with the same respect as a journalist because of their audience, but also treat them with care as they may also be your customer.

READ their blog - The most common approach marketers use to reach bloggers is through an email blast of bloggers.  Even if the marketers may gain traction from some bloggers, they are quickly found out when marketers have not read the blog.

Set up Brand Ego Alerts – Set up an RSS feed of all the blogs you are engaging (Nuffnang has compiled a list of hundreds which we have a Community Manager that follows their content).  So that when they do mention your brand, you will know and follow it up with a thank you.

No Spam Campaigns - Don’t ask bloggers to spam your campaign.  Their readers and followers don’t like it.

Learn to Engage – Marketers have to understand bloggers are a highly engaged audience such as sharing opinions and giving feedback.  We can engage the community by creating the opportunity to talk.  Brands can start the conversation by asking a question and brands sponsoring the conversation.  The brand receives credit as bloggers mention the brand through their blog post.

Eg. Nuffnang ran a campaign with Village Roadshow for the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You.”  We asked female bloggers to tell us “Your 5 tips in understanding the opposite sex” or “Tell us a time when you misunderstood the opposite sex” to win a double pass for the movie launch.  In a week, we generated 20+ bloggers posting about the movie with multiple comments.

They key point from this video is the conversation (blogger’s post) don’t have to “be“ about the brand but the brand to be “part“ of the conversation.