Company Blog Checkup: HomeGoods

In last week's Company Blog Checkup for Kodak, I pointed out that Kodak should make a point to find and link to its online evangelists. Home furnishings chain HomeGoods has one-upped them, and made their evangelists the writers for their OpenHouse blog! But is that enough to equal a great company blog?

HomeGoods is a low-price home furnishings chain according to its main site, and OpenHouse is its blog. At OpenHouse, 5 of HomeGood's customers write for the blog. HomeGood does a nice job of disclosing upfront that none of the bloggers are paid, and states that the chain asked several thousand of its 'most passionate customers' if they would be interested in writing for the blog, and from that group chose Alli, Janice, Deb, Cathy, and Betty. Again, they are turning the blog over to their evangelists, which is a very bold move.

One of the first things I do when looking at a company blog, is examine the blog's comments. Are they getting any, and are the ones they do get being replied to? The bloggers at OpenHouse do a fantabulous job of replying to comments, and joining the conversation. I even noticed one writer replying to a particular commenter and telling her that she always left the best comments. Great stuff. A quick scan showed that the last 10 entries had a combined 46 comments, and every post had received at least 2 comments. That's a great sign of a healthy blog. And to be honest, I think this is one of the biggest advantages of using online evangelists as writers for your blog, because they are more likely to understand blogs, and the importance of reading and replying to comments.

Next we shift to the all-important discussion of the blog's content. You might think that if a company blog is written by customer evangelists, that we shouldn't have a problem with too much self-promotion, but that's not always the case. Customer evangelists are extremely passionate about their favorite store/brand/company and WANT to promote them, and show everyone how great they are. And I think we have a bit of this going on with the writers at OpenHouse. Ideally, the blog would focus exclusively on home furnishings and decorating. But at OpenHouse, there's no shortage of discussion of how one of the writers found an item at a great price at their local HomeGoods, even going so far as to mention how some items were a fraction of the price that competitors charge.

And then there is this snippet I found from the blog's 'Code of Conduct':

Advertisements and Solicitations. Do not post advertisements or solicitations concerning, or market or promote, any business or commercial self-interest. Do not post comments that contain any overt promotional messages from competitive companies.

Uh-oh. It appears that HomeGoods is saying that they can promote their products, but that you can't promote your's. So if one of the writers just gushes about finding an item for $50 at her local HomeGoods, and a commenter points out that Michaels has the same item for $35, will that comment be yanked? Based on the language above, I would guess so. That's dangerous water to tread in, as bloggers get diaper rash VERY quickly when you start censoring their comments.

My advice for the writers at OpenHouse would be to tone down the promotion of HomeGoods products a bit. Some promotion is fine, but overall I think it would be better to have less promotion, and let your readers 'come to you' in terms of trying to learn more about the products. If a reader asks in the comments for more information about a product in a posted picture, then you let them have it, because they have just given you permission to promote HomeGoods' products to them.

Now let's move to the sidebar. From an organizational standpoint, OpenHouse's sidebar is very clean and functional. They have recent posts, categories, archives, and a place to search the blog, and meet the bloggers. And something they add which I think is great, is an area featuring reader-submitted photos of items they purchased from HomeGoods. That is a great way to let satisfied customers promote the chain, and it's on the sidebar, so the promotion isn't intrusive. But they commit the same blogging sin that Kodak did in that they have NO non-company links on the sidebar. There HAS to be some home decorating/furnishing resources on the web that HomeGoods could be linking to. Remember guys, position your blog from the reader's point of view, not yours. Is the reader coming to your blog to learn more about HomeGoods' products, or because they have an interest in home decorating and home furnishings? Assume it's the latter.

Overall, I think OpenHouse is a better than average effort. The writers are all over managing comments, but need to tone down the promotion for HomeGoods a bit. Shift your thinking from discussing great buys at HomeGoods, to more of a discussion about great decorating ideas. Some promotion of HomeGoods' products is fine, but at the same time, don't be afraid to promote a great find at a competitor either. Might seem counterintuitive, but if I see a writer for a HomeGoods blog mentioning a great home furnishing buy at Target, that makes me far more likely to respect and trust that writer.

And again, the promotion is simply evangelists evangelizing HomeGoods. This is what evangelists do. I think the onus falls on HomeGoods to stress to the writers to position OpenHouse as a blog for readers that love home decorating and home furnishings, not as simply home decorating with products from HomeGoods.

And now to the scoring:

Content: 31 (Out of a possible 35) - I'm not a fan of truncated posts, but otherwise the content seems to be perfect, focused on interior decorating, not HomeGoods products.

Comments: 32 (Out of a possible 35) - Not every post receives comments, but the ones that do usually have many, because the writers do an amazing job of replying to comments left by readers.

Posting Schedule: 10 (Out of a possible 15) - The blog averages a new post about every 3 days. Which isn't bad, but sometimes it will have no posts for several days, then 2 in one day. I'd like to see those spread out to close the gaps.

Sidebars: 15 (Out of a possible 15) - Love the pics of the writers and links to their bios. I could quibble about the collapsible menus, but all the features are there either way.

Total Score: 88 (Out of a possible 100)

If anyone from HomeGoods wants to discuss this Company Blog Checkup with me, feel free to leave a comment here, or email me. If you're a company that would like to hire me to do an extensive checkup of your blog, you can click here for more information on my blog and social media consulting services.

UPDATE: Stephanie from Hill-Holiday, the agency that worked with HomeGoods to create the OpenHouse blog, adds in the comments:

...As you’ve noted, we found that there are many HomeGoods shoppers that are really passionate about the brand, and typically share their great finds with family and friends through word of mouth. We thought we’d tap into social computing tools like blogging in an effort to amplify the conversations that were already occurring naturally, albeit offline. We’ve been really pleased with the traction the blog has gotten in the month or so that it has been live. And we are of course indebted to the five fabulous women who agreed to embark on this effort with us, and bring so much fun and energy to the project.

Nother UPDATE: Alli and Cathy, two of the writers for the OpenHouse blog, have also chimed in with their comments.


Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, HomeGoods, Company Blog Checkup

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Technorati is down...

Which is a reminder that too many widgets can make your site a pain in the RSS to load if their site suddenly goes down.

UPDATE: TRati is still down, so I've temporarily removed all their widgets. So the blog should load fine now.

Nother UPDATE: TRati is back up now, so I've put everything as it was.


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London Olympic Logo Has Everyone Talking/Blogging

It's official, London has announced its logo for the 2012 games. And there it be.

Not exactly gorgeous, is it? And if you're like me, you'll have to scratch your head and squint for a few minutes before you finally realize that the logo is in the form of 2-0-1-2.

And not surprisingly, most bloggers hate it.

But I also noted that Edelman invited bloggers to attend the 'launch' of the logo, including Hugh at Gaping Void, who is one of the few bloggers that actually likes the logo.

But whether bloggers hate or love the logo, a LOT of them are taking about it. And as long as people have a strong opinion one way or the other, that's usually a good thing.

It will be interesting to see how the conversation online tracks for the logo. My guess is that you'll eventually have some of the bloggers that just hate it now, shift to 'ok it's not that bad', and then to 'actually it's growing on me'. One thing I will say, it's definitely more interesting than previous olympic logos.




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ROI: Return on Involvement

After leaving the first post in my Company Blog Checkup series on Kodak last week, I received the following email from Tom Hoehn, the Director of Marketing and Customer Experience/kodak.com, and one of the writers for their blog 1000 Words:

Mack, Thanks for your most excellent post about our blogs at Kodak. We'll have to watch that huge "no-no." We do want the conversation to flow and try to balance that aspect of things when responding to comments. Your observations are duly noted and we'll take a look at that flow. I assure you we do pay attention to every single comment. We have found the experience rewarding and have risen to the challenge of publishing every business day on 1,000 Words since it went live on September 6, 2006. An active blog is a healthy blog! Take care and thanks for checking us out and then some!
tom hoehn -- one of the Kodak
blog contributors. My posts on the Kodak blog: http://tomhoehn.1000words.kodak.com/

Tom tried to leave the above as a comment to that post, but it didn't go through. And I told him I wanted to go ahead and post it here, because I felt it deserved its own post. It reflects well on Tom and his brand that he is aware of, and responding to what is being said online about Kodak and its blogs.

As a result of Tom's taking the time to address my post, I'm now far more likely to keep up with his blog, to blog about Kodak promotions, and maybe even buy Kodak products (or at least consider them). The real question is, how much money would Kodak need to spend on 'traditional' marketing to get me to the point that one email did?

Taking the time to listen and respond really does pay for itself.


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Do not adjust your browser...

I think you guys know me well enough by now to guess that if I suddenly stop posting here, it probably means I'm up to something. For a while now, I've been toying with changing The Viral Garden's look. While I think the old blog template was decent, I was never a fan of the light green on dark background, and I wanted more options for organizing content here.

Finally, after about a week of tweaking, I've settled on the look you see here. What I love about this template is that it gives me the ability to move almost all of my personal/business information to the top of the blog, via tabs. I've added sections for speaking and a link to my Daily Fix posts, and I've also completely redone my interviews and articles sections. Both are now much cleaner and easier to use.

Basically, I think the layout is much cleaner and less cluttered than it was. And besides it was time for a new look anyway. I apologize to the feed readers that have had to deal with my sending through multiple revisions to old posts, and ask that you please bear with me for the next few days since I still have a bit of tinkering I want to do.

Also, if anyone knows the code for adding a 'recent comments' widget to the sidebar of a Blogger blog, let me know, as I want to make that change as well.

Hope you like it, and at least hope the new layout is easier to navigate. And no apologies for the banner, I like it. Thanks to Tara, CK, Armano, and Ann for giving me feedback prior to 'launching'.

UPDATE: Are any of you not seeing all the tabs at the top on one row? Luc is on a Mac and said the 'FAQ' tab was rolling over so that it was on top of the 'Home' tab. He's helping me get it fixed now. I set it up with a PC running Firefox, but it might not look right on other systems. If something looks off, please let me know!

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 58

Here's the standings for Week 58:

1 - Creating Passionate Users - 8,460
2 - Seth's Blog - 8,452
3 - Gaping Void - 3,728
4 - Logic + Emotion - 1,406
5 - Daily Fix - 947
6 - Converstations - 914
7 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 800
8 - The Viral Garden - 742
9 - Jaffe Juice - 736
10 - Church of the Customer - 710
11 - Diva Marketing - 706
12 - Duct Tape Marketing - 701
13 - Servant of Chaos - 671
14 - What's Next - 666
15 - Influential Interactive Marketing - 651
16 - Hee-Haw Marketing - 648
17 - Brand Autopsy - 618
18 - Community Guy - 571
19 - Flooring the Consumer - 563
20 - CrapHammer - 560
21 - Customers Rock! - 547
22 - Shotgun Marketing - 534
23 - Coolzor - 532
24 - CK's Blog - 525
25 - Tell Ten Friends - 521

Your first sign that the Top 25 isn't blogging in Kansas anymore should be that we have a new #1. This list is now based on Technorati rather than Alexa. The blogs are ranked based on number of blogs linking to each blog, as counted by Technorati. The higher the number of links, the higher the blog ranks (Whereas with Alexa, it was lower number was higher rank, which is better). You'll see some of the blogs are about where you would expect them to be, some are higher than expected, others are lower. Then again you could say the same for the Alexa rankings.

Seven new blogs enter the Top 25, six of them for the first time. What I'd like for everyone to do, especially the readers that don't have a marketing blog, is let me know over the next couple of weeks if this Technorati version of the Top 25 is more difficult or easier to understand than the Alexa method. My fear has always been that Alexa's method of ranking was counterintuitive, or maybe I didn't do a good job of explaining how it worked. As you can see from this week's list, both versions have their pluses and minuses.

Either way, let me know which version you think serves you better, and yes it is entirely possible that I should have listed your blog and just missed it. Give me another week or 2 to get everyone in place.







Next update is next Wednesday.


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Company Blog Checkup: Kodak

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Marketing Profs entitled 'Eight Ideas for Revitalizing Your Company Blog'. The article has been well-received (hey even WOMMA liked it!), so I decided as a result to incorporate a new feature here at The Viral Garden, the 'Company Blog Checkup' series. I'll periodically look at a particular company blog, and see how well it is matching up to the criteria I mentioned in the MP article.

And our first contestant is.....Kodak.

Kodak actually has two blogs, and in this case I think that's a good thing. The first one, A Thousand Words is aimed at the more 'general' photographer, while A Thousand Nerds is aimed at the techie. Both blogs do an excellent job of NOT focusing on Kodak products. Instead, A Thousand Words is basically a 'storytelling' blog, making ample use of photographs to help tell those stories. I'm assuming the photos were taken with Kodak products, but it isn't clear, and it doesn't have to be. The message here is obvious: photographs help us stay connected to those special moments in our lives.

A Thousand Nerds goes down a different path. It delves deep into the technology behind photography, everything from the camera itself, to the paper, even related technologies such as DVD and Blue Ray. If you are a hardcore technie, this stuff is right up your alley, but for most of us it is over our heads. Which is why Kodak giving the 'Nerds' their own blog was an excellent decision. As with A Thousand Words, there are plenty of pictures, but very little mention of Kodak products.

Content-wise, both blogs are huge home runs. So often, company blogs are far too company/product-centric. The way to go, as Kodak does, is to focus on presenting the content from the reader's point of view. Readers don't want to come to Kodak's blog to get information about their products, that's what Google is for. Kodak is smart enough not to go down this beaten path, and instead focuses on why people buy cameras in the first place, to preserve precious memories.

But the two blogs do have their differences. For one, while the 'Words' blog authors post faithfully every weekday, the 'Nerds' blog authors only post on Tuesdays. But on the other hand, the 'Words' authors aren't responding to reader comments ( a HUGE no-no), while the 'Nerds' authors seem to be pretty good about that. This is especially odd, considering that with the Words blog, many readers will be able to relate to the stories that the authors are sharing, prompting them to comment. The Words authors are missing a great opportunity by not interacting with their readers that offer feedback.

And then there is the matter of who the blogs link to. If being too company-centric is the biggest blog sin a company can commit, not replying to readers' comments and not linking to readers/non-company sites, is the second biggest mistake. While both Words and Nerds have excellent content, both blogs only have a few links, and all are devoted to Kodak. *Sigh*. You cannot tell me that there aren't plenty of bloggers that evangelize Kodak products, or photography-oriented forums that Kodak could be linking to. Linking to your evangelists and outside information sources is a great way to not only increase reader interest in your blog, but it gives your readers a better experience.

All-told, I think both Kodak blogs have a very solid foundation to build from. Their key focus moving forward needs to be on rewarding reader comments by not only answering them, but LEAVING the Kodak blog and following readers back to THEIR blog and commenting. Hey, they took the time to comment on your blog, why can't you return the favor? And Kodak please find your online evangelists, and link to them. Trust me on this one.

And now let's turn to the scoring (These scores are for the A Thousand Words blog):

Content: 27 (Out of a possible 35) - I like that the blog's main focus of pictures taken with Kodak cameras. I would like to see the direct promotion of Kodak products toned down a bit, and perhaps give readers more input by letting them contribute some of their pictures and post them on the blog.

Comments: 26 (Out of a possible 35) - Most posts have comments, and the writers tend to do a decent job of replying to reader comments.

Posting Schedule: 14 (Out of a possible 15) - The blog follows an almost perfect schedule of a new post each day during the week.

Sidebars: 9 (Out of a possible 15) - I like how each blogger has a pic on their posts, but I notice that the 'blogroll' is really a collection of links to Kodak sites. More non-Kodak links and a recent comments section would be a huge improvement, as well as bios for the writers.

Total Score: 76 (Out of a possible 100)

If anyone from Kodak wants to discuss this Company Blog Checkup with me, feel free to leave a comment here, or email me. If you're a company that would like to hire me to do an extensive checkup of your blog, you can click here for more information on my blog and social media consulting services.

If you've got a company blog you'd like me to do a 'Checkup' post on, feel free to click on the 'Email Me' link below. And thanks to Tara for giving me the heads-up on both Kodak blogs.



Tags:The Viral Garden, Blogging, Kodak, Company Blog Checkup

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The Conversation Monetizes Itself

A few posts back, Kevin left this comment:

I attended a conference today. At one session, an agency presented Web 2.0 concepts, then talked about "Return On Interaction", or something like that, saying you don't need to monetize this activity. Then a co-worker got up, and said that you do have to figure out how to monetize this stuff, because businesses are in business to sell stuff, not just to have a conversation.

Ah yes here we go again. Business doesn't want to jump into social media and 'have a conversation' until it can figure out how to monetize that conversation.

You don't have to; The conversation monetizes itself.

Communication=understanding=more effective/efficient marketing=lower marketing costs.

The conversation monetizes itself.

UPDATE: David adds his take on 'The Magic Formula'.


Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, Social Media

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The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 57

Here's the standings for Week 57:

1 - Seth's Blog - 6,848 (-124)(LW - 1)
2 - Creating Passionate Users - 14,068 (-482)(LW - 2)
3 - Duct Tape Marketing - 25,604 (-721)(LW - 3)
4 - Gaping Void - 27,426 (+297)(LW - 4)
5 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 63,424 (+168)(LW - 6)
6 - Marketing Shift - 64,601 (-4,331)(LW - 5)
7 - Daily Fix - 64,860 (+130)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Interactive Marketing - 72,279 (-1,183) (LW - 8)
9 - New School of Network Marketing - 85,790 (-1,130)(LW - 10)
10 - The Viral Garden - 89,627 (-1,854)(LW - 11)
11 - Logic + Emotion - 91,063 (-2,316)(LW - 12)
12 - Converstations - 91,338 (-7,021)(LW - 9)
13 - Marketing Hipster - 95,201 (-1,031) (LW - 13)
14 - Coolzor - 97,287 (+423)(LW - 14)
15 - Brand Autopsy - 133,601 (-2,167)(LW - 15)
16 - What's Next - 146,183 (-2,603)(LW - 16)
17 - Jaffe Juice - 153,703 (+1,225)(LW - 17)
18 - Marketing Headhunter - 169,943 (-940)(LW - 18)
19 - CK's Blog - 186,691 (+5,149)(LW - 19)
20 - Conversation Agent - 196,776 (+11,371)(LW - 23)
21 - Diva Marketing - 199,666 (-5,910)(LW - 20)
22 - Marketing Nirvana - 202,102 (-3,820)(LW - 21)
23 - Servant of Chaos - 220,194 (-10,957)(LW - 24)
24 - Church of the Customer - 221,254 (-17,721)(LW - 22)
25 - Experience Curve - 232,879 (-20,085)(LW - 25)

More of the same, as 18 of the Top 25 were down. There were some bright spots, as Drew's Marketing Minute enters the Top 5 for the first time, and CK's Blog and Conversation Agent have nice moves upward.

I'm probably going to switch to Technorati to rank the Top 25 starting next week. One of the main reasons why I chose Alexa to rank the blogs was because I assumed that most bloggers understood how Alexa calculates its rankings. Instead, many bloggers had never heard of Alexa! On the flipside, everyone knows about Technorati, and how they rank blogs. So I think switching to Technorati will make the Top 25 much easier to understand. We'll see how it goes.





Next update is next Wednesday.


Technorati Tags:
The Viral Garden, Marketing, Top 25 Marketing Blogs

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I don't care how smart you are now...

...Ryan is smarter than you were when you were his age.

As CK said "Um, was I that smart as an undergrad...am I (gulp!) that smart now?"

For me the answer to the first question is definitely no, and....thanks for stopping by.


Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, Ryan Karpeles is annoyingly smart

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Thought for the day

Major marketing smartitude from Spike at Brains on Fire:

As the engagement and involvement of your community – your passionate fans – increases, the less money you need. They are happy to help. Happy to be asked their opinion. Happy to spread the word for you because they are now a part of you. Your identity has become a part of their identity. And vise-versa.

I am constantly blogging about the need for companies to join their communities of customers. To attempt to match their wants and needs to those of their customers. Spike just perfectly explained why this is so important.


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Does Your Company Need a Community Evangelist?

James Lim wants companies to start hiring online community evangelists. He explains:

This is how fast (agile if you will) the world is changing. There is a person that you need to hire today into your company, but there is no real title for them. You can’t find a them under a category under Monster.com. In fact, it’s amazing to say, but the most talented person out there for the job may not even know that they are the perfect candidate. What I’m speaking of is a Community Evangelist or Community Manager (again, there are all sorts of titles. At Microsoft, they call them Community Program Managers). For simplicity, I’ll stick to the title, Community Evangelist for this title since I think that it’s most appropriate being that the job is one that requires a great deal of faith, belief, and passion against the odds of encouraging people to change the way they communicate with others.

Bingo. I'll go further and say that every major company should make a list of their community evangelists online, and from that list, hire at least one to serve the same role within the company. The value such a move brings to your organization is immense, as you are getting an evangelist for your company, that speaks with the voice of your customer.

This is why I absolutely love what LinkedIn did in hiring Mario Sundar to be its Community Evangelist. Suddenly, LinkedIn is relevant to me. And Mario is doing exactly what he was hired to do, he's bringing the voice of the community to LinkedIn. He's helped the site launch its first blog, and he's talking to other bloggers about what features LinkedIn should be adding. Previously if LinkedIn had tried to talk to me, I could have cared less. Then they hired a top marketing blogger that's an expert at building communities, and suddenly my mouse perks up. I've spent more time with LinkedIn in the last month, than I did the previous year.

James closes with this: "Find a Community Evangelist now to take your company into the future of customer dialogue using Web 2.0. Your customers will love you and you will see a measurable and significant ROI on this investment."

What he said.

Pic via Jeremiah

Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, LinkedIn, Community Evangelists

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The Dark Knight Goes Viral

With Batman Begins (and the addition of Chris Nolan), Warner Brothers restored my faith in the Batman movie franchise. Now the studio is attempting to soup up its marketing efforts for the movie's sequel.

The Dark Knight won't reach movie theaters until next summer, but WB has already launched an interesting online promotion for the film, with a built-in viral component.

When you go to the movie's website, you are greeted with the familiar bat logo, and nothing more. But if you click on the logo, you are taken to the site http://ibelieveinharveydent.warnerbros.com/, which has the picture shown above.

Now according to Muhammad at ProNet Advertising, the site ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com/ eventually comes up, with the 'vandalized' logo at the left. It appears that Batman's old nemesis The Joker has been at work. But Muhammad explains that with this site (which apparently can only be accessed from the above site first), you can enter in your email address, and you'll be sent the x,y coordinates of one pixel, and a new link where you can enter in the email's coordinates, and remove one pixel on the image to the left, revealing a bit of the image underneath.

However, you can only get one pixel per email address, so you're probably going to need help from your friends to see what image is underneath. This is where the viral component comes in, as everyone works together sharing coordinates, until the image underneath finally confirms our suspicions that The Joker has been up to no good. Muhammad adds that Warner Bros. seeded these sites on several 'socially driven communities', and according to Google Blog Search, the IBelieveInHarveyDent site has been already been linked to over 200 times since last Thursday.

Given that The Dark Knight doesn't hit theaters for another 14 months, I have to assume that this is just the start of a larger campaign for the movie. We're seeing more of these type of online efforts, especially considering how much exposure the incredibly elaborate online viral effort for the new Nine Inch Nails album garnered.

If smartly done, I'm a big fan of these type of efforts, because they generate a ton of buzz, while giving fan boys a chance to have some fun. At this point I am a bit confused by the launch of this campaign now, since we are heading into the teeth of the summer movie season, especially with 2 Marvel comic heavyweights in theaters. Perhaps a fall launch would have been better.

Then again, maybe this summer's movie marketing is big enough for a Silver Surfer, a webhead, and an obsessed millionaire/vigilante crimefighter.

UPDATE: Catch Up Lady blogs about the effort as well, and it seems 42 Entertainment is also behind this one, as they were the NIN campaign.



Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, Viral Marketing, The Dark Knight

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Bad Idea, Indeed Launches Blogger-Interview Series

Philippe at Bad Idea, Indeed is going to be interviewing several A-List bloggers (along with me) this week, featuring a different one every day. My segment is the first one up. I talk about what challenges are facing advertisers, what makes The Viral Garden unique, and some of my favorite marketing blogs. Philippe is also encouraging readers to give their own answers to the same questions, so make sure you chime in as well!

Thanks again to Philippe, and make sure to check Bad Idea, Indeed in the coming days as he'll have interviews up with some of the marketing blogosphere's heavy hitters. Should be very interesting!


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Missing the (Social Media) Boat

My latest post is up at Daily Fix, entitled 'Are Marketers Missing the Social Media Boat?' The post is born out of frustration, because I am seeing more and more mention of how marketers are integrating social media into their marketing plans, but not as they should be.

Social media holds enormous potential for marketers, because blogs, podcasts, Twitter, and other forms give marketers the ability to bring the voice of the customer into a company. These tools allow companies to communicate with customers, and in turn, feedback collected from customers can alter a company's marketing, making it more effective and efficient.

Instead, many marketers seem to be using social media as simply a new selling channel. The WSJ recently wrote about how CBS selected a group of 'mommy' bloggers to come to the set of 'The New Adventures of Old Christine'(Thanks again for the link, Paul). CBS let the bloggers meet the cast and shoot videos with them to be posted on their blogs, and heaped freebies including DVDs on the bloggers.

But in the article, I saw no mention of any attempt by CBS to actually TALK to the bloggers and get any type of feedback from them. Apparently, CBS simply wanted to fly the bloggers in, let them meet the cast, throw them some DVDs, and let them run to their blogs with stars in their eyes, happily posting about how they loved the entire experience. And you know what, I'm pretty much ok with CBS reaching out to what it feels are the show's online evangelists, as long as CBS also makes a sincere effort to get feedback from the bloggers, and attempts to talk to them and learn how they can better understand the show's audience.

Instead, it appears that CBS did what many marketers have done, they showed the bloggers a good time, and gave them some freebies hoping for positive blog posts about the show. In other words, CBS didn't view blogs as a communication tool with its target audience, but as another selling channel. This is TERRIBLY short-sighted, and means that CBS is 'leaving money on the table'.

But CBS isn't alone, most companies are viewing bloggers as simply another sales channel. I've blogged extensively about my participation in Nikon's 'Picture This' program. And while I am on record as saying that this program is one of the best 'blogger ambassador' programs I've ever seen, I also think that Nikon could be doing more to collect feedback from bloggers that are involved in the program. To be fair, Tom Biro from The MWW Group has emailed me a couple of times asking if I had any questions, but there doesn't seem to be a real effort to give the bloggers that are participating in the program a way to have input in the program's direction. We got the cameras, we got a couple of emails soon after asking if we have any questions, and that's been it. I was hoping for at least a blog specifically for the program that would allow Nikon to highlight the bloggers involved, and also give us the chance to give more feedback on the program. And such a blog could also give tips on using the camera, and show some of the pictures we have taken with the camera, but I guess that won't be happening. Overall, the 'outreach' part for 'Picture This' has been minimal.

Which I obviously think is a shame in this and all cases. Sure I understand that for marketers, the urge can be there to tap into popularity of certain bloggers to 'sell more stuff'. But that's way small potatoes, the best way that companies can utilize blogs and other forms of social media in their marketing efforts is to view these tools as vehicles for communicating and understanding their customers. Social media offers marketers the enormous potential to bring the voice of the customer into its marketing efforts, which leads to more effective and more efficient marketing.

If Nikon has any additional 'outreach' components to the 'Picture This' program that I don't know about, please leave a comment here, rather than email me. I think it would make more sense for Nikon or any company executing a 'blogger ambassador' program to attempt to constantly collect feedback from participants, but maybe Nikon has something planned for later. If so, feel free to drop a comment here explaining those efforts.



Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, CBS, Nikon

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Viral Community News

Buncha shoutouts and congrats I wanted to send to bloggers such as....


1 - Drew McLellan, David Reich, and Cam Beck each had their debut posts at Daily Fix recently, and all 3 started with a home-run out of the gate. Ann continues to be an incredible community-builder. Also, Drew has created an e-book to help recent college graduates get a job.

2 - Congrats to David Armano, who is joining Critical Mass. It's been incredibly exciting to see David's star rise over the last year, and we all knew he was going to get some spectacular opportunities such as this one.

3 - Two of the blogosphere's leading ladies are celebrating blogging anniversaries. First, CK marked her one-year anniversary on Friday, then yesterday, Toby Bloomberg announced that The Diva Marketing Blog had hit it's 3-year anniversary! Congrats to both of you!


Congrats to everyone, so good to see all my blogging buddies doing good!



Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing

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Who benefits the most from your idea?

Seth raised this point recently on his blog:

Which brings us to Guy Kawasaki and his new project. I disliked this project from the very first moment I saw the beta. It's unlikely that it will fail. It will almost certainly generate a lot of traffic and a huge ROI for Guy. For the rest of us, it demonstrates just how easy it is to start a web company today, and just how important it is to create one that makes the world better, not just noisier.

I agree with Seth on Truemors, I don't like the idea, but it will likely be a success, and draw attention to Guy Kawasaki. But to Seth I would ask, isn't that exactly why you created a Squidoo lens for the Z-List, and added a voting feature? Wasn't your goal to draw traffic and attention to Squidoo?



Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing

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The "Breakup" Video

You may have already seen the "Breakup' video created by Geert Desager, as everyone is talking about it.

Pretty funny and painfully accurate video, and I'm glad to see Geert getting his due. Geert might have been the first blogger I ever talked to, waaaay back in his Brandopia/blogspot days, before Microsoft was smart enough to snap him up. I talked to his colleague Kris Hoet, and asked him if Microsoft knew about the video:

He started the idea with the agency, defended it internally to get the budget (which he didn’t have locally) and to be able to do it the way he wanted (together with Openhere) starting with the blog where he wanted to share everything starting from the agency brief etc. It took some time to get it all done, get the needed approvals and stuff but eventually they let him finish it like he wanted and what you see is just like he wanted it to be. So short, yes they knew - but he did a great job driving & defending it. Kudos

As expected, CK has taken it to the next level. She offered a conference call to Geert and Kris to discuss the video, and Sean Howard will be chiming in. Canada, Belgium, and the United States all on the same concall! Check out CK's post and especially the comments from Geert and others.

Congrats again Geert!

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing, Geert Desager, Microsoft

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The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 56

Here's the standings for Week 56:

1 - Seth's Blog - 6,724 (-308)(LW - 1)
2 - Creating Passionate Users - 13,586 (-419)(LW - 2)
3 - Duct Tape Marketing - 24,883 (-976)(LW - 3)
4 - Gaping Void - 27,723 (-351)(LW - 4)
5 - Marketing Shift - 60,270 (-1,843)(LW - 5)
6 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 63,592 (+323)(LW - 6)
7 - Daily Fix - 64,990 (-110)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Interactive Marketing - 71,096 (+165) (LW - 8)
9 - Converstations - 84,317 (-1,915)(LW - 9)
10 - New School of Network Marketing - 84,660 (-1,264)(LW - 10)
11 - The Viral Garden - 87,773 (-1,917)(LW - 11)
12 - Logic + Emotion - 88,747 (-502)(LW - 12)
13 - Marketing Hipster - 94,170 (+2,426) (LW - 13)
14 - Coolzor - 97,710 (+1,688)(LW - 14)
15 - Brand Autopsy - 131,434 (+487)(LW - 15)
16 - What's Next - 143,580 (-1,498)(LW - 16)
17 - Jaffe Juice - 154,928 (-3,914)(LW - 17)
18 - Marketing Headhunter - 169,003 (-2,225)(LW - 18)
19 - CK's Blog - 191,840 (+3,767)(LW - 21)
20 - Diva Marketing - 193,756 (-1,596)(LW - 20)
21 - Marketing Nirvana - 198,282 (-6,564)(LW - 19)
22 - Church of the Customer - 203,533 (-5,655)(LW - 22)
23 - Conversation Agent - 208,147 (LW - UR)
24 - Servant of Chaos - 209,237 (-2,526)(LW - 23)
25 - Experience Curve - 212,794 (-2,192)(LW - 24)

In what's becoming a trend, most blogs in the Top 25 were down, and we had at least one new entry. 18 of the Top 25 were down, including 8 of the Top 10.

Valeria Maltoni's Conversation Agent is the week's new entry. Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog, Emergence Marketing, and Beyond Madison Avenue just missed the cut.













Next update is next Wednesday.


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The Viral Garden, Marketing, Top 25 Marketing Blogs

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(My) Thought of the Day

"A great marketer speaks with the voice of the customer."

Inspired by Jim's question at Daily Fix and the excellent discussion that resulted.



Tags:The Viral Garden, Marketing

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