Blog marketing masterclass: The Revolution Masterclass on marketing with blogs

strength from numbers. A lone blogger might not carry much weight, but a
blogosphere that draws together millions of individuals can present a
very powerful voice.

Blog monitor site Technorati.com currently tracks 13.6 million blogs; up
from 13.3 million just two weeks ago. Thanks to tools like Google's
Blogger.com and MSN's Spaces, blogging has become an outlet for
individuals who want to create and publish commentary in text, audio and
visual form.

Combine this with the wider availability of broadband and increasingly
cheaper media production tools, such as iMovie or GarageBand, and
blogging has become a trendy way to publish opinions on the web.

Blog entries could include the diary of a gap-year student's travels
around the world or public opinions of your brand. Blogs are "a powerful
social networking tool", points out Eric Winbolt, digital media manager
at EMI Records. So, can brands get in on the act? And, if so, how?

User power

Web sites such as US destination Epinions.com are useful for online
shoppers, who can type in a brand name and read other users' comments.
Adopting this idea, brands can use the blogosphere for research, either
by monitoring what's out there through sites like Technorati.com or
Blogpulse.com, or by running a blog themselves.

Brands that want to run their own blog can seek inspiration at
iPodlounge.com, hosted by Apple. Allowing users to upload ideas for the
next generation of iPods, Apple benefits from brand building and
receiving ideas to improve design. The site is transparent and doesn't -
directly - try to sell anything.

A company can also build its brand by hosting a blog that offers
customers a service and value. For example, Swedish spirits importer
Svedka Vodka launched lifestyle blog Gardenofsweden.com to target
trendsetters with gritty, underground content, such as sex, nightlife,
'what's on' and films.

"It isn't pushing what they're selling, but there's a very subtle
branding message. They are subconsciously associating the brand around
these experiences," says Wayne Bickerton, head of partnerships and
emerging media at Diffiniti.

Blogs enable a brand to develop a dialogue with its audience and build
communities with subtle messages. For example, Piaggio USA-owned Vespa
is launching two new weblogs later in the year, to be written by owners
of the bikes, at Vespablogs.com. It plans to recruit four bloggers - two
per blog - and explains why on its site: "Blogs are an ideal way to
connect with Vespa brand loyalists and encourage them to become online
evangelists."

Blogs can also raise natural search-engine placements. The engines like
them as they are frequently updated and use RSS (Really Simple
Syndication); a format easily picked up by search spiders.

Brand control

However, it is extremely important to pay careful attention to managing
a blog as the potential pitfalls are enormous. Take bike-lock company
Kryptonite: a blogger described how users can open its locks with a
Biro, costing the company a reported £5.5 million in
replacements.

Brands that allow employees to discuss sensitive information are asking
for trouble, reckons Matthew Warneford, head of interactive at
Dubit.

"Weblogs are often run by employees who could accidentally, or
maliciously, release sensitive, proprietary, confidential or financial
information about the company," he says. "Information, once released on
the internet, becomes difficult to manage or control, and it can be
subverted beyond your intended purpose."

But, he adds, "this can work both positively and negatively". An example
of best practice is GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz's personal blog at
Fastlane.org, where he openly engages customers. DaimlerChrysler
discusses problems and solutions though blogs; American Airlines
communicates with staff through them, and IBM's employees use blogs to
discuss software development projects and business strategy.

But a marketing message disguised as a blog can damage a brand. For
example, Cadbury Schweppes' Ragingcow.com featured product endorsements
from children who had been sought and rewarded by the company. It was
badly received and shows that transparency is key. At the same time,
however, brands have to be brave and allow negative comments to appear
alongside the good.

Andy Hobsbawm, chairman of Agency.com, says: "These conversations,
between customers or employees or partners, cannot be controlled and
companies need to let go of their brands. They should concentrate on
creating consistently superior and interactive experiences, built on
such principles as giving customers control and letting them discuss,
remix, customise, co-create and share the brand on their own terms," he
adds.

But blogs are only now emerging as marketing tools. "Blogging hasn't
reached critical mass yet," says Diffiniti's Bickerton. "It is not going
to reach millions of people at the moment. A lot of companies are still
thinking about how it's going to evolve." However, he says the potential
"is more about establishing dialogue and generating information for the
company. The best users of this channel are companies that are heavily
involved in branding activity and want to establish a dialogue."

Diffiniti has introduced a customised advertising service to help
companies extend their online presence by placing ads on blogs or blog
networks.

The agency creates blogs for clients to encourage communication between
the brand and customer. First, clients have to consider how a blog will
fit into their overall marketing strategy and how they expect to
benefit. "Why are you setting it up? Justify your reasons for having
one. What are the people using it going to get out of it?" asks
Bickerton.

"Are you prepared to have a conversation and not just broadcast a
message?," asks Warneford. Done well, blogs can offer rich rewards.
Mykindaplace has managed it without veering from its brand image (see
case study) and The Guardian is talking to brands about building
microsites based on blogging software, where users can interact with
them.

Check trends

In a campaign planned by Manning Gottlieb OMD, SonyPlaystation used
blogs as the main component of its Freedom Explorer competition this
summer.

It aimed to recruit as many video-bloggers - Vloggers - as possible.
They were asked to keep a video diary of their summer exploits, from
gigs to festivals, and post their 'Vlogs' on the PlayStation Freedom web
site (www.playstationfreedom.co.uk) each week to share their
experiences. The public then voted for a winner, who received a year's
expenses-paid entry to gigs, festivals, films and events.

The media agency has also secured sponsorship of mobile blog
BusyThumbs.com, to which users can send photos from their handset for
others to rate.

A chart of the most popular is compiled each week.

Aside from creating their own blogs, companies can monitor those of
others to gain valuable insight. "There are opportunities to monitor
trends in various crucial sectors of marketing here," says Bickerton.
For example, Blogpulse.com can track who is talking about topics that
are of interest to a brand, and their context. It can track trends in
the blogging world to see which topics are being discussed each day.

"We use weblogs not just for marketing but also as a research tool,"
Warneford says. "Teenagers are open and willing to share through their
weblogs, so that gives us an insight into their needs and desires.
Listening to their emotional needs helps us develop campaigns that
support teens and not just try to sell them products." He points to the
marketing blog on Joelonsoftware.com. "Joel's flagship product, FogBugz,
is a defect-tracking database for software developers, aimed at small
teams. His articles reach hundreds of thousands of software developers -
the market his product is aimed at," he says.

EMI Records' Winbolt believes bands' blogs help to bridge the gap with
fans and sees implications for companies outside the music industry.
"This is applicable to brands using the issues or opinions raised by an
individual the public is interested in, especially with the obsession
with celebrity. It's a way to take the pulse of what's happening, create
feedback and filter opinions."

"This might be applicable to a health brand," says Winbolt. "If you are
marketing a health product, you can promote the idea as long as it is
something that affects or interests them." Flora recently ran a campaign
on its site to push its low-cholesterol spread, pro.activ, where singer
Lulu kept an online diary of her daily battle to lower cholesterol.

"There is also the rise and rise of blogs as political tools," continues
Winbolt. "Brands can use this as a way to promote social interactivity
by raising issues that are relevant." For example, Christian Aid's
campaign site, Pressureworks.org, saw a six-fold increase in visitors on
2 July, when bloggers filed hourly reports from the Make Poverty History
rally in Edinburgh, which ran alongside web clips from the day (see
Campaign of the Month, p69.)

GlaxoSmithKline's French arm runs a weblog called Avenir de la Sante
('the future of health'), aimed at sparking debate over the country's
plan to reform the healthcare system. GSK France's public affairs
director, Veronique Delvolve, launched the blog to inform the public of
the issues involved.

Mobile provides a way of keeping blogs immediate and portable, and O2 is
one brand seeing success. It teamed with mobile services firm YoSpace
for its Mobile Model Search 2005 campaign. Blog technology was used to
invite would-be models in the UK to submit a photo via MMS that would
appear for public viewing on the O2 site. It chose 12 finalists who were
invited to London Fashion Week to take part in a selection day, which
involved a catwalk show and assessment by experts. In total, there were
11,000 MMS entries, more than one million web impressions and over
570,000 WAP page impressions. Promotional blogging like this can
encourage valuable interaction.

Mobile blogs

EMI Records promoted new band Starsailor by inviting fans to download
pictures from their mobiles to a blog site during a gig on the Isle of
Wight, in association with Nokia. The images were instantly viewable
online or from WAP sites. The promotion followed similar activity
carried out last year when EMI Records launched a mobile version of the
band's site to coincide with Glastonbury, enabling fans to text photos
from the festival to a similar blog.

Winbolt puts the "much larger response rate" down to a lag in the number
of users understanding what the mobile internet is, and not
understanding the features of their mobile phone.

While the future direction of blogging has yet to be defined, it will
play an important role in the media. Personal publishing on portals such
as photo-blog site Flickr.com and news-blog sites Indymedia.org and
Ourmedia.org are increasingly popular and may lead to man-on-the-street
reporting.

Increasingly, media owners are beginning to incorporate blogging
elements in their web strategy and work with individual community
content creators.

Observer.co.uk has added a blog, which enables readers of the newspaper
to provide feedback on articles and add to stories that have already
appeared. Similarly, users can add to the Guardian's blog on
Blogs.guardian.co.uk/online and have their say on Dailymail.co.uk though
blogs.

"Being able to aggregate the voices of many people creates something
that is much louder than any media organisation," says Winbolt. "People
need to communicate with others and if a brand can find a way to harness
this, they are on to a good thing."

He elaborates: "I just got back from Glastonbury, and was interested in
the event and wanted to look up all the pictures of people covered in
mud. Rather than going to the traditional media web sites like the BBC,
I went to Flickr.com.

"This is a huge blogging community that is especially good at hosting
blog photos downloaded from mobiles. There is no media association in
the world that could compete with the range of photos on there. The
sheer range of material is threatening the role of traditional
media."

Dubit's Warneford adds: "I would expect weblogs to become an important
and influential journalistic force. As people learn how to syndicate
feeds, consuming weblogs will become a quick and easy part of their
daily ritual, just like reading a newspaper."

So, as blogging evolves as a tool, brands should respect its
potential.

To paraphrase David Ogilvy, "the blogger isn't a moron, the blogger is
your wife".

MASTERCLASS PANEL

Wayne Bickerton is head of partnerships and emerging media at Diffiniti
(formerly Carat Interactive), where he has worked for six months. Prior
to that, he spent about three years at Carat; clients included Royal
Mail, Beiersdorf and News International.

Eric Winbolt is digital media manager of EMI Records.

He joined EMI in 1990 and moved to its digital media division when it
was set up in 1998, handling web retail and catalogue promotion. Two
years later, he was digital media manager of EMI:Chrysalis.

Matthew Warneford is head of interactive at Dubit. He joined Dubit five
years ago and has been instrumental in creating 3D chat technology. He
focuses on creating immersive projects and communities for young
people.

Clients have included Sky Sports and Motorola.

MYKINDAPLACE LAUNCHES FREE BLOGGING SERVICE FOR USERS

Teen web site Mykindaplace launched a blogging service for its 600,000
registered users in July, which is free and ad-sponsored.

Chris Thorogood, business development director, says extending the
Mykindaplace brand through blogging will have an important role to play
for newly relaunched Mykindaplace.com.

Mykindablog.co.uk keeps the look and feel of the site. It has paid-for
banner and Skyscraper ads, which may be expanded to overlays. At launch,
these included a rich-media ad for Mary Hogan's new teen novel, The
Serious Kiss, and a clickthrough ad offering the chance to 'win a room'
in HabboHotel.co.uk.

"We debated how to fund this thing," says Thorogood. "Essentially, there
are two business models - subscription-based or through advertising. If
you look at the US, you have many mass-market blogs, but if you want
additional features you have to pay a monthly subscription.

"US mass-market blogs don't make a lot of money through advertising, but
we're a defined niche and can add advertising on to our existing
delivery through Mykindaplace," he explains.

"It is a slightly different story to mass-market blogs. Our bloggers are
14 to 16-year-old girls and advertising will be sold accordingly,
through our normal media sales route. Our blogs are free and will remain
free for the foreseeable future. There is a possibility that we might
add features under subscription, but teenagers cannot buy online," he
adds.

At the moment, teens can download photos and write journals, and soon
there will be a mobile element that lets them download MMS.

Mykindaplace will track the site and pick out the most popular blogs,
which will be put on a messageboard of 'what's hot' and the top five
most-visited sites.

The technology was supplied by mobile service provider Mobrio, whose
chief executive officer, Julian Swallow, says: "A blogging service with
Mykindaplace branding, fully integrated with the whole Mykindaplace
experience is likely to attract significant numbers of users."

TOP TIPS ON MARKETING THROUGH BLOGS

1. A blogging and editorial policy is vital, but don't be too
restrictive; balance the rules with the freedom to let users blog in
their own style.

2. Choose your blogger carefully. They should communicate well in
writing, and have a sincere passion and expertise for their subject.

3. Remember you're building a community. Your readers, if treated right,
will become your advocates. Be inclusive and show your commitment by
sharing knowledge and listening.

4. Transparency is vital. You need to be clear about your intentions and
honest about your company. If it is not in your firm's culture to share
your innermost workings, don't blog.

5. Be authentic; don't fake it. If you use your blogs as billboards, the
blogging community will give you a public roasting. Blogging is about
the human side of companies, not PR speak.

6. Scour the web for your network. Read their blogs regularly, identify
the influencers, talk to them and exchange information. Your network
will help publicise your blog, boost search rankings and gain visitors
through recommendations.

7. Post regularly and keep it fresh. Don't leave your blog untouched for
weeks.

8. Plan for feedback. Let your customers talk to you through comments on
your blog and be prepared to manage a two-way conversation. How will you
manage spam and abuse?

9. Plan for negative PR. Create a management plan and have a rapid
response team.

10. Build campaigns around your established blog. Think big. As well as
publicising to customers, tell your staff and suppliers.

Thanks to Katy Howell, MD, Immediate Future

CHECKLIST

Questions that should be considered when thinking about corporate
blogging

- Can your firm be transparent, enter dialogue with customers and
respond to negative PR?

- Have you evaluated blogs in your market, found a niche and set up a
monitor of relevant ones?

- Have you agreed your objectives, target audience, strategy and content
schedule?

- Do you understand the rules of blogging?

- Have you agreed target keywords and phrases, and a link strategy to
maximise search value?

- Do you have a crisis management plan?

- Have you chosen and empowered your blogger, allocated time for them to
blog, and agreed a consistent tone and editorial policy?

- Does your blog's graphics, design, photos and copy reflect your
brand?

- Does your software allow others to syndicate, link to, categorise and
distribute your blog?

- Is your blog integrated into your marketing?

- Are you monitoring the impact of links?