New Media Philippines » Blog Marketing

2nd Blogger Fiesta Manila 2011 this Saturday, August 20

Carlo Ople — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:21:36 +0000

Social media has radically changed blogging. It’s much easier to get more readers, build communities, and distribute your content because of Facebook and Twitter. Another powerful and yet untapped tool is Google+. Not all bloggers are taking advantage of these platforms and it will be my job to share with everyone how to do so. This coming Saturday, August 20, I’ll be doing a talk at the 2nd Blogger Fiest Manila 2011. It will be at the SM North Edsa Cyberzone. My topic will be Blogging powered by Social Media Steroids! Lol, just came up with that title as I’m typing this, haha!

Do blogger endorsements really work?

Carlo Ople — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 09:53:28 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot of material lately about bloggers, endorsements, and brand evangelism. One thing I picked up is that the reason why bloggers are credible to their readers is because of their independence. The moment they give that up then it’s literally the same as a paid advertorial on a magazine. Blog marketing is picking up here in the Philippines and we’ve seen several companies do “blogger challenges”, “blogger endorsers”, and other similar activities but the question I’d like to throw to the brand managers is was the campaign effective? Did it actually get the readers of the blogger to buy your stuff and eventually become loyal customers? At the end of the day you’re still running a business and everything you spend money on needs ROI.

Professional blogger Darren Rowse summed it up nicely on Twitter when he said that blog marketing campaigns should be WIN WIN WIN. Win for the advertiser, blogger, and the reader. A relationship with a blogger forcing him to not say anything bad about your products and anything good about your competitors might be a “WIN” for the advertiser but it’s a big “LOSE” to both the blogger and the reader. Nobody really likes reading canned content (copy pasted press releases anyone?). From an advertiser’s perspective, the WIN WIN WIN approach is better because the only way to actually get the readers of the blogger to buy is if what the blogger says sounds authentic, sincere, and genuine.

Trying to create a pseudo environment of credibility also won’t work. There have been several blogger contests lately where bloggers write about how effective the product is for them while they’re using it over a period of time. First I’m pretty sure that you if you ask the bloggers to get the unique number of views those “update posts” you’ll see that it’s much less than what he normally gets. Don’t make it a blogger challenge. Just let them test the product and let them blog on their own volition. If they like it and they sincerely post an article endorsing it without any strings attached then it becomes a huge WIN-WIN-WIN.

Anyway, just something to chew on.

Selecting Blogger Brand Ambassadors

Carlo Ople — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:04:06 +0000

Tips for selecting blogger brand ambassadors

Got an e-mail from a reader asking how they should select potential blogger brand ambassadors. I just have a few thoughts about this matter that I’d like to share with everyone. To make this quick and easy-to-understand I’ll put it in bullet points.

Ask for all of their Google analytics data.
Don’t get blinded with the Unique Visitors, Visits, or Page Views.
Check where the traffic is coming from. If you’re product is selling here in the PH and 60% of his traffic comes from outside the country then it’s not really a wise move unless the traffic is really huge.
Try to measure INFLUENCE. How? Check the NEW VISITORS metric. This shouldn’t be really high unless the blogger is doing a marketing campaign to drive traffic to his site. If this metric is constantly at 60-80% then that means he only has regular readers of 20-40% of his actual monthly numbers
Check where the traffic sources are. Is it search engines? Correlate this with their bounce rate. Bounce rate is the number of visitors who leave after hitting their first page. If the search engine visitors are high and the bounce rate is high then that means the visitors don’t really follow the blogger at all. There are some bloggers who get 30-40% (or more) of their traffic from articles that aren’t even related to their niche.
It should be WIN-WIN-WIN. Win for the blogger, advertiser, and the reader. Don’t spoon feed everything to the blogger because it might be WIN for you and the blogger (because he gets paid) but the one who loses is the reader. Get bloggers that REALLY believe and use your products. Also make sure that the blogger profile matches your target market.
Check their social media accounts. How many followers on Twitter? What’s the quality of the tweets of the blogger? Check their Facebook fans. Is there any interaction going? Or is it all just one sided?

If there’s anything I’d stress from the points above is that advertisers shouldn’t get blinded with the traffic. It’s the quality the matters.

Protesting DTI Sales Promotion Permit for Blogger Giveaways

Carlo Ople — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:12:47 +0000

I just came across a blog entry saying that the DTI is requiring bloggers to get Sales Promotions Permits for their giveaways and raffles. Note that one of the pre-requisites for this is a Mayor’s Permit — which means you need an office and Barangay Permit as well. This is just ridiculous and I vehemently protest this policy.

Here’s the reality: majority of bloggers blog out of passion. They don’t earn money out of it! If ever they do, only a few make significant amount of cash on a regular basis. Giving away prizes through giveaways is a fun activity that thanks readers and drives traffic to the blog. This doesn’t guarantee any sales or revenue for the blogger.

Layers upon layers of RED TAPE
I’ve been in digital for a couple of years now and I can tell you that the DTI will ask for tons of documents and will even charge you fees (honorarium) so that you can just hold contests and promos. Putting this burden on bloggers is unfathomable! Bloggers don’t have the time and resources to be able to comply. Professional agencies have trouble with this. What more can we expect from people who aren’t in the advertising industry?

This is already a policy, we need to change it
I called Mike Palacios who was present in the meeting and he said that IMMAP didn’t push for this to happen. This is just what DTI told them during the briefing. This means that this is the current policy and hundreds of bloggers are probably violating it as of this writing. The next logical move is to have this amended. If ever this has to happen then we need to work with DTI to make sure that the application process has minimal fees involved and the processing is fast and efficient.

I’m more than willing to help out in the process. I heard that several groups are already planning on reaching out to DTI. If you need an extra hand, just let me know.

Why isn’t my site traffic growing? Probably because of Churn

Carlo Ople — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:55:16 +0000

The most asked question during blog conferences and seminars is “how do I drive more traffic to my blog or website?” After blogging for several years now I think that’s no longer the best question to ask. What we should ask is “how do I get loyal visitors to my blog? The ones who come back.” Why is this important? Because one of the best ways to grow your community is to get previous visitors to read regularly.

Here’s the math:

Question… how many absolute number of readers of yours checked your site last month and didn’t bother coming back? Open Google Analytics and do the math I said above to get the number. We have to work on bringing that number down!

How to Address Churn — Build Databases
You need to create platforms or channels which will enable you to notify your previous readers that you have new articles. There are a lot of ways to do this including creating Facebook Pages, E-mail Subscriptions, RSS, and Twitter follows. Personally the most effective for me has been RSS and E-mail Subscriptions. I’m not saying you dump everything else. In fact you should do your best to create a lot of platforms to remind your readers to check back with you. However for me the one that gave the most results are the e-mail and RSS subscriptions.

You need to give readers as much incentive as possible to connect with you. Try holding contests like raffles to those who subscribe to your e-mail newsletter. You can also offer free content like eBooks, songs, and other downloadable media content. Like what Seth Godin said — get their permission for you to market to them freely.

Build channels and platforms to connect with your readers. Once they give you that connection don’t abuse it though. Send notices weekly or maybe twice a week at most. Anything more than that might be too much for their inboxes and they’ll just end-up unsubscribing.