Influential Marketing Blog

Untangling Your Brand: 4 Marketing Lessons From Lost

Last night was the season finale of the TV show Lost - and just in case you haven't watched it and have it sitting on DVR waiting for you, don't worry ... there are no spoilers in this post. Actually, though I'm an enthusiast of the show, the reason for this post isn't to gush about how great I think it is. It is about what you learn from how the show has been promoted. Like many recent dramas, it is not an easy show to follow. It isn't about nothing, and you can't just miss a few episodes and still get into it. Yet as I wrote about in PNI (search for "Lost" with the Search Inside feature on Amazon - it is Page 108) - the show's unique format of taking you into the backstory of each characters builds an emotional investment from the viewer in a way that many other shows never manage to do. You believe in the characters because you know about the situations that make them the way that they are.

There is a marketing lesson in that, as there is in several other choices the show's producers and marketing teams have made. Here are a few things that the show does and the marketing lesson that you can learn from them:

1. Share the backstory. As I mentioned above, giving viewers a look at where the characters come from gives each of them a sense purpose and allows you to feel more empathy towards them. As any good screenwriter knows, the point isn't for you to love every character - it's for you to feel something towards them. Once you do that, you're engaged in the show. Marketing Lesson: Make sure you share the story behind your brand so you can give people a reason to believe in it.
2. Untangle the complexity. One of the smartest things the show does is they feature a simplified 3-5 minute version of every episode untangled (see video below in this post). These descriptions are from the outside looking into the show, referring to a character who wears too much eye makeup as "eyeliner" and poking fun generally at the actors in the show and the way they portray their roles. Alongside this irreverance, Lost Untangled explains the plotline of every episode in a way that allows you to understand it despite the complexity of time shifting, multiple characters and hidden clues. Marketing Lesson: If you have something complicated to sell, get creative about how you can simplify it.
3. React to your critics. Early in the show, the creators were criticized because they got people emotionally invested in the core characters of the show, and then introduced new characters and shifted the focus. Many viewers were confused because the characters they knew had essentially vanished. Though this was presumably part of the broader story arc, the producers recognized that viewers needed some connection to the characters they already loved, and found a way to bring that back - while still progressing their story and introducing the new characters they had planned to. Marketing Lesson: Don't ignore your critics, but don't change your strategy because of them either.
4. Have a finite ending. As the trailers after last night's finale noted, next year will be the final season of Lost. For a top rated show, it cannot have been an easy decision to let the show end at what seems to be the height of its popularity - yet having a finite end is important for both audiences and for the writers of the show. Everyone knows that the show is leading toward something. There is a sense of anticipation and excitement, as well as urgency to watch. It's not a soap opera where people go into comas, die, wake up and go on again. Marketing Lesson: Having an ending is important - even if it's just a campaign that ends so you can start a new one.

Friday Poll: Do "Social Media Experts" Need A Blog?

Earlier today I posed a question on Twitter about whether anyone calling themselves a "social media expert" should be required to have their own blog or at least contribute to a blog. It was inspired by the recent trend that many people have noticed of everyone who has ever visited a blog claiming that they are an expert on all forms of social media. And as some people noted, it was also a subtle comment on the fact that there are even people that do title themselves as a social media expert (which, by the way, I have never called myself - I prefer to describe myself as a Professional Marketer - or as an Author now that I have a book.)

Regardless, I also promised to make the results of the poll public, so without further ado - here are the updated results through 2pm EST based on the responses received on the first poll, as well as the second edition when the first one hit 100 responses and automatically closed.

Question: Can you be a "social media expert" if you do not have (or contribute to) a blog?

• Yes - having a blog is optional (61 responses - 51%)
• No - no blog = not an expert (58 responses - 49%)

These results in themselves were interesting (I actually thought a lot more people would respond "no" but it turned out to be evenly spread), but the reasoning and comments that some responders left were also illuminating. The full list of comments is included as a downloadable PDF as the end of this post, but the responses mostly fell into one of four categories:

1. Yes, blogs don't equal social media. Several responders noted that blogs are not the only type of social media and felt that saying you needed a blog in order to understand social media was the same thing as saying you needed to drive one particular brand of car in order to get a driver's license (or, my favourite analogy from the responses, saying men shouldn't be gynecologists!).
2. No, blogs are the cornerstone of social media. Most of the people who responded that it was indeed necessary to have a blog to be an expert reasoned that though blogs are not the only part of social media, they are easily the most visible and therefore can be used as a barometer to see if someone qualifies to be an expert or not.
3. Yes, people's blogs are hidden. This was a point of view I didn't even think of, but sometimes you cannot tell if someone has a blog because they may blog privately or on a corporate intranet. You could argue that this means they do have a blog, so this response should actually go the other way, but it's an interesting point of view anyway because it forces you to not be so quick to judge.
4. No, calling yourself an "expert" means you're a wanker. Many people felt that calling yourself an expert of any type, social media or otherwise, was a sure sign that you actually weren't. This was something of a non-answer to the actual question, but interesting to note that there was this backlash against the idea of people self identifying themselves as "experts."

Thanks to everyone who participated - all in all, I think it was a successful Friday poll experiment. Maybe I'll turn this into a weekly series if people find it useful ...

How To Use Curation To Make Your Blog Better: Lessons From Postsecret

If you talk to most successful bloggers today, they will likely tell you that some part of the formula for their success has been their ability to adapt their blog to what people actually wanted to read and interact with instead of sticking to a closed vision of what their blogs should or could offer. Last night I had the chance to participate in a great event put on by Shashi and his crew from Network Solutions to promote their new online community called LinkTogether. The two speakers were Frank Warren, the founder of Postsecret.com and myself. As I listened to Frank talk about the rise of Postsecret from a local art project in the DC area to one of the top ten blogs on the Internet today - the word curator came to mind to describe how he treats his blog.

Curation evokes that powerful idea of working on something larger than yourself. Museum staff curate the works of art and historical significance that line their walls. National archives that store the lessons of the world's past are similarly curated. It also applies to what Frank does as he sorts through thousands of heart felt secrets that people send him each week, and chooses a new 20 to post on his blog every Sunday. On the surface, this type of blog is the exact opposite of what most blog consultants would tell you to do. Frank has very little editorial or information about himself. There is hardly any branding on the site, his email address to contact him is hard to find, there is no archive of old content, and he only posts once a week,

Undeniably, for his site, this works. Here are a few counterintuitive lessons I took from Frank about using this curation model to make your blog more successful. I'm hoping to put some of these lessos to work for my blog:

1. Focus on quality instead of quantity - Frank may be in the enviable position of getting all his content sent to him for free, but his painstaking effort in going through and selecting the best postcards shines through. It makes the fact that he only posts once a week less important.
2. Put yourself in the background - This is something most bloggers don't do well (including myself). But on Postsecret you won't find big headshots and bios of Frank. The site is about the secrets and anything else is extraneous to his mission. My big lesson from this is that sometimes the best thing you can do is try to leave your ego behind and just focus on creating the best content possible.
3. Make it harder to find you, but welcome those who do - It's not easy to find Frank's email address, and he likes it that way ... but for those who do and email him, they can expect a warm thoughtful response and for a relationship to start. He often asks people to share more details about their secrets with him, and even has a postcard he will be publishing this weekend that a guy will use to propose to his girlfriend with while they read the site together.
4. Become what your site needs you to be - This may seem like a bit of zen advice, but much of what Frank talks about accidentally goes in this direction as well ... perhaps the result of his spending the better part of every day carrying around other people's secrets. He shared in the meeting how Postsecret helped change him into a person with a mission and allowed him to become the curator that the site needed. I can see why Hollywood producers are hot to talk to him - it could make a great movie.

If you believe in Frank's mission or want to support the great work that he is doing to bring his message of hope to the world, you can ATTEND HIS SPEAKING TOUR (see video below) which is starting today and will bring him around the country or PURCHASE ONE OF HIS BOOKS. And while you're at it, think about what Frank's lesson of curation could do for your blog. I'll be doing the same thing.

A Trailer for Frank Warren's PostSecret 2009 Event Tour.

Letter To The CEO: 6 Ways To Help Your Brand Survive In 2009

Several months ago, I was invited by Jeff Rohrs of ExactTarget to participate in a smart campaign they put together to get a few marketing minds to write a fictional "letter to the CEO" about what they would recommend to do differently in 2009. Jeff and his team have put all these suggestions together into an attractive PDF which you can download at http://www.exacttarget.com/letters. It features thinking from people like Andy Sernovitz, Ann Handley, Pete Blackshaw and many others, including myself. Here's my contribution below - and you can download it in PDF format too.

LETTER TO THE CEO:
==================
I know you’re working on some big changes right now. You mentioned that you don’t plan to walk into 2009 with the same plan you had for 2008 and you’re looking for some ideas on how you might want to focus your attention. Here are some thoughts that might help:

1. Don’t force a comparison between 2009 and 2008. If your team feels like the only way to explain something to you is in terms of comparing it to last year, they won’t try something new at exactly the time when they should. Give them the right incentive to experiment.
2. Find a way to embrace your accidental spokespeople. In the social media era, anyone can be a spokesperson for your brand, from regular employees to passionate customers. Find a way that your brand can connect with these voices and amplify them.
3. Measure effectiveness, not volume. Forget the days of reporting about the millions of impressions that you received and patting yourself on the back. You need to let your organization know that management doesn’t care about the impressions. What you do care about is sales and effectiveness, which sometimes means the numbers will be far smaller. To explain it, use this line: "I want us to reach the right 500 people instead of the wrong 5 million."
4. Do whatever it takes to listen more. Your customers are talking online about your brand right now. If you’re not listening to them, your competitors will. And, they can use that knowledge to try to steal your customers. More importantly, your customers will leave for brands that ARE listening. So ask your team what’s their listening strategy, and if they don’t have one, force them to get one.
5. Lock customer service in a room with marketing. If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not. Only good things will happen if you force these two groups to talk to each other in a way that they usually don’t. Maybe you need to literally lock them in a room, or change a seating arrangement, or set up a buddy system. Whatever you do, by getting these groups to communicate more, you’ll uncover (and start to fix) problems you didn’t even realize you had.
6. Make authenticity a priority. At the base of most of these suggestions is a corporate culture shift that means you need to get your team to re-focus on authenticity. This comes from the top. So lose the corporate jets and find a more reasonable way to demonstrate you’re a real person. Start by taking a few employees out to lunch and go from there.

Forrester Finds Consumers Think 84% Of Corporate Blogs Suck

Consider this piece of data that leads a new Forrester Research report (free registration required in order to download report): only one in six consumers (just 16%) trust company blogs. For believers in the power of social media, this just doesn't seem right. After all, using a blog to put a more human face on any business should be the most trusted form of communication, right? It turns out that many businesses who are launching blogs are doing so solely to promote their latest marketing messages. As the report points out, "companies that selfishly blog about their products [are reinforcing] the idea that blogs can't be trusted." In other words, 84% of corporate blogs today probably suck.

What's driving this prevailing consumer distrust? It can be many things, from pressure within an organization to make sure that a blog is "branded" enough in what it talks about, to inexperience of a random member of the marketing team charged with launching a blog but without a strategy in mind for how to make it something compelling. Usually, the deficiency comes down to content. Launching a blog with nothing to say is like paying for a blank magazine ad ... sure you own the space, but you've done nothing with it.

So what's the solution? As Forrester's report argues, part of it is to make sure that blogging is part of a larger social media strategy. Intel is a good example. They have launched several corporate blogs - but more than that, they have an innovative program to bring social media influencers behind the scenes at Intel, they have many employees who have their own personal blogs, and just yesterday Intel publicly launched their official Social Media Guidelines which demonstrate to employees and the world exactly what their commitment to social media is within the organization.

The biggest lesson in all this is one of commitment. Launching a corporate blog or deciding to engage with social media is something you need to commit resources and attention to. The cost is one of human labor, not hard cash. And in a recession, the one thing you should be willing to commit more readily to than anything else your time and the time of your employees to something that can have a big impact if done right. Should you be worried that only 16% of people trust corporate blogs? Not at all. The thing you should worry about is whether or not your customers trust your blog.

*Disclosure - Intel is a current client of Ogilvy PR and I have worked on their business and advised them on social media in the past (but I did not work on the social media guidelines mentioned in this post).

The 30 Day Blog Makeover Project

Every blogger has the same list I do. A list of things they want to fix on their blogs, if only they had the time (or technical ability). For me, they range from small things like wanting the titles of my blog posts to be clickable, to bigger things like finally getting a real logo and brand for my blog. So today I'm launching a new experiment. By January 1st, exactly one month from now, I'm planning to relaunch this blog.

Over the next 30 days I'm going to tackle the small things and big things that I have wanted to change on my blog for months (and sometimes even years) since I launched it. More importantly, I'm going to share the results of the project here, in case some of you readers are comtemplating doing the same thing with your blogs, or just interested in seeing how this experiment turns out. 

To start, here are the simple steps that I'll be taking - including a few opportunities for you to participate as well:

Step 1: Launch an open call for design help to develop a new brand identity.
Step 2: Create a survey for readers asking for feedback on what to change.
Step 3: Make a list of desired changes and categorize them high or low priority.
Step 4: Implement all the high priority changes and relaunch the site.
Step 5: Do all of the above for less than $250 and in under 30 days.

The first two steps are now live, so please check them out and share them freely. The rest I'll be working on over the next few weeks, and I'll share what I've learned from the experience once I make it through.

BE A PART OF THE 30 DAY BLOG MAKEOVER PROJECT!

SUBMIT YOUR DESIGN IN MY LOGO COMPETITION >>
TAKE THE INFLUENTIAL MARKETING BLOG READER SURVEY >>

4 Ways Social Media Could Save The Arts

Last week I had the fortune to be part of an event that we should all care about. It was a meeting of the National Arts Marketing Project, a conference sponsored by the Americans for the Arts and designed to help art based organizations around the country use marketing to drive more engagement, subscriptions, and attendance with patrons (a much better word than consumer, by the way). To understand the vibe of the event you need to look no further than a colllection of titles from some of the sessions put on during the three day conference:

• Are You An Urbanite? Attracting Young Ticket Buyers and Donors
• Hacking Copyright: Making "Free" Work In The Arts
• She Says Pithy, I Say Prissy. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off: How Marketing And Development Can Sing In Harmony
• I Can't Do That! How To Make The Big Ask For A Major Gift
• Release Your Organization's Inner Blogger
• Strategies For Countering The Reasons Patrons Resist Subscribing

My own session was called "Embracing Your Accidental Spokespeople: How Obama Let His Best Supporters Speak For Him, And Why You Should Too" and in the roundtable format, we talked about how to find the voices that are passionate about what you do, and unlocking them to share their experiences more widely online and through social media. Over the course of two round table discussions, I learned a lot about the unique challenges that many arts based organizations are facing, as well as discussed several engaging ideas for solutions. Here are a few of the creative solutions that we all came together and discussed as a group about how social media and interactive marketing techniques might help arts based organizations to better promote themselves:

1. Create a sonic brand. Though more specific to groups that create or promote music, one idea that we collectively talked about was what it might be like if every venue or group had a sonic brand. So, for example, like you might hear the Intel jingle at the end of an ad, you would hear a signature piece of music to signal the end of intermission. Something that offers a recognizable brand for a music based organization, while offering an apt extension of a brand based on something that is inherently a part of it.
2. Offer creative material openly for mashups. As more and more people create content online, they will need material like music, still images, and video clips to incorporate. One of the marketing tactics I am fond of at istockphoto.com (a site I use all the time to purchase images to use in my posts and presentations) is having an image for free download each day. What if an arts organization created their own collection of content and offered it for free reuse, dependent on giving credit back to the organization? It could be a great way to spread some brand awareness, as well as offer something viral and useful to content creators.
3. Invite social capital donations. Many people using social media tools are supporters of the arts, but not necessarily donors or people to go to art events. Though it may be difficult to convince them to open their wallets, it may be much more acceptable to have them donate their influence. One brilliant example was a campaign run across both parties during the recent election where you could "donate your Facebook status" to remind people to vote for your guy on election day. It's an example of letting people donate their social capital instead of real money.
4. Allow patrons to share their experience. This topic raised some concerns among the group for a variety of reasons. The two most vocal were that sometimes performers have union contracts that prevent any recording, and that sometimes the artists are afraid of negative criticism that may come with letting their work be freely shared. Still, there are other ways to let people share their experiences - perhaps through live Twittering, or making a cast available after a performance for flipcam interviews with video bloggers. The point is that every arts group needs to find a way of helping word of mouth about what they are doing to travel.

Unpacking The "Pepsi 25" Social Media Rebranding Campaign

By now you may have seen some posts from several social media influencers (Peter Shankman, Chris Brogan, PSFK, Jason Falls among others) in the marketing and advertising field about Pepsi's innovative new campaign being dubbed by many the "Pepsi 25" for their choice of 25 bloggers to single out and send three packages over the course of an hour. Since I don't have my camera at work with me today, I'm going to gratuitously grab the image Steve posted on Adrants (another of the 25 chosen blogs) with full credit back to him of course:

I was one of the Pepsi 25, but unfortunately didn't get the boxes until making it back to the office today after some prolonged international travel. But being a bit late to share my experience actually gives me the benefit of some hindsight about the campaign, and seeing what many of my fellow bloggers had to say it. So far, the discussion about this strategy has landed on three main points:

1. The new logo looks a lot like Obama's logo (though presumably it was in progress before Barack Obama came up with his logo).
2. Speculation about who these 25 influencers are that Pepsi chose, and how they chose them.
3. Observations that this campaign won't necessarily get any of the bloggers to like or drink Pepsi any more.

I would argue that this is a very well executed campaign for one simple strategic reason that ironically some of my fellow marketing bloggers are missing ... the point of sending these cans to the 25 bloggers was not to get them to start drinking or liking Pepsi. It was presumably to get them to write about Pepsi's new brand to generate awareness and coverage within the marketing industry. Going by the compiled list of participants on Darryl Parker's site who have written about it (and including this post you are currently reading), their hit rate is 15 out of 25 bloggers so far who have posted about it.

Though some, like Mack's post couldn't possibly be called positive coverage since he doesn't mention the brand and didn't have that positive of an experience, the follow on effect of other bloggers talking about the campaign would have to be judged a success. The choice to make it exclusive, the undeniable marketing story of seeing the 100 year brand logo evolution of one of the largest brands in the world on a series of cans (which most marketing bloggers would care about on some level), and the generally positively reviewed new logo means that Pepsi will probably get exactly what they wanted from this campaign ... for a handful of marketing bloggers who collectively reach a large percentage of the marketing community to all be talking about Pepsi's new logo.

More importantly, many of whom (like me) who have never posted about Pepsi before now have a reason to. They are trying to keep the dialogue going in a community on Friendfeed called the Pepsi Cooler - and though I agree with some of my fellow bloggers that this campaign alone may not offer me a reason to continue talking about Pepsi beyond this one launch, on some level if I were Pepsi I would look at this effort and call it a successful experiment in engaging bloggers and hope to see many more such efforts from the brand.

Buy My Second Book Today (And Save The World)

Ok, before I get into too much trouble - let me explain. Today is the release of a project that I am honored to be involved in, and you could arguably call my second book, though I am sharing author credit with 236 other authors I highly respect. The book is called Age of Conversation 2, and is an exploration of social media and its impact on business. Engagingly subtitled "Why don't they get it?" the book is broken down into 8 key topics:

    * Manifestos
    * Keeping Secrets in the Age of Conversation
    * Moving from Conversation to Action?
    * The Accidental Marketer
    * A New Brand of Creative
    * My Marketing Tragedy
    * Business Model Evolution
    * Life in the Conversation Lane

I chose the "Manifestos" topic for my contribution, because it seemed like a big idea, and also because I knew it would come first in the book so my contribution would be earlier in the mix of over 200 others. That plan clearly worked, because my article titled "The Control Myth: An Inside Look At The Worst Advice In Marketing Today" is on page 5 (I can't help it, I'm a marketer even in a room full of marketers!).

Though I was not part of the first edition of Age of Conversation, that was also a great compilation, and this time around the project is twice the size and has contributions from many authors, bloggers and others that you will definitely recognize. No matter if you are a pro and already understand much of this world, or someone trying to figure it out, I guarantee you will find lots to learn from in this book. And you'll also help a worthy cause as all the proceeds from the book go to benefit Variety, the Children's Charity.

So what are you waiting for? Visit http://stores.lulu.com/ageofconversation and get your copy of Age of Conversation 2 in digital or print format. And flip to page 5 to see my counterintuitive contribution about control and branding. I'll give you a hint ... the future is NOT about giving up control. That's the control myth and in my piece I share the perception shift required to get past it.

Full Author List For Age of Conversation 2:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

 

Ariana Huffington Shares 4 Secrets Of Creating A Successful Blog

Yesterday at the MarketingProfs event, Ariana Huffington took the stage for a keynote presentation sharing some lessons she has learned about building a successful blog network with the Huffington Post. Though she definitely ignored my advice to speakers about spending some time at an event to get to know the attendees (she was barely off the stage before heading out the door), she did share some interesting points in her talk that should be useful to most marketers:

1. Make it easy for contributors to contribute. One of the hallmarks of growth for the Huffington Post has been the site's ability to become the defacto location for any big celebrity to share their thoughts via a blog post. Not a purist about blogging, Ariana's point of view on blog posts was simple - if someone shares their thoughts transparently and honestly, the site can publish it as a blog post. To make it easy for Hollywood celebs like George Clooney and Jamie Lee Curtis, she has a team ready 24/7 to capture blog posts via dictation, email, or any other method someone might submit it. Benefit: You don't have to try and teach Rene Zellweger how to use Wordpress (potentially a full time job on its own).
2. Have a point of view. In one particularly revealing moment, Ariana talked about how journalism should not be an exercise in covering all sides of a story, but an investigative search for the truth - which is usually on one side or another. Of course, anyone who reads the Huffington Post knows which side she thinks the truth is on ... but there is a certain logic in media seeking the truth instead of working hard to keep everyone happy with a mention of their points of view. The only trouble, of course, is who gets to decide the truth. Benefit: Visitors to your site have a clear idea of what you stand for and what your voice will be.
3. Provide a safe environment. As Ariana explained it, getting new contributors would be tough if they felt that they could be attacked on a personal basis on everything they wrote. For that reason, she also has a team of real time comment "pre-moderators" who approve or reject comments in real time. Benefit: Arnold Schwarzenegger can blog about California issues without getting an influx of comments asking what the hell he was thinking starring in that dumb male pregnancy movie.
4. Build on your big hits. One point when it was clear the Huffington Post arrived was when PerezHilton.com linked to the site. Interestingly, this big hit also offered a chance for the site to understand how big spikes like this relate to capturing consistent readers. Ariana shared that 72% of the visitors to Huffington Post from that hit never returned. Of the remaining 28%, they came and went, and over time, they found that 7% stuck around and became regular readers. Multiple that effect over three years of traffic and big hits, and the result is their current traffic of more than 20 million unique visitors per month. Benefit: Getting noticed consistently by the big sites can lead to a measurable subscriber gain if you focus on measuring it.