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Latest Updates: Blog Marketing RSS

  • Going to the Blogs

    Pat McCarthy 10:00 am on March 15, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing

    One of the darlings of new media is the blog. What started as a new form of personal expression is now big business. These new found influencers are now signing on with media sellers. Companies like Federated Media and Bloggerwave based their business models around the traffic blogs receive. Any brand who is now salivating over the potential of utilizing this new outlet should be aware of the rules though. A few years ago, the blogosphere was like the old west where ethics played second fiddle to personal goals. The FTC has established disclosure laws that if disregarded will not only bring financial penalties but also public backlash.

    Read more about the development of blog marketing at Axcess News

     

  • Student Review of WOM COMM

    Pat McCarthy 10:52 am on March 4, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing,

    One of our recent WOM-COMM graduates, Teresa Siles of Nuffer, Smith, Tucker PR, chronicled four of the courses six sessions. We were so impressed that we couldn’t help but give her work a shout out. Thanks Teresa! Read her articles on:

    Social Media Strategy
    Web Design for Web 2.0
    Blogger Outreach
    The Effectiveness of Social Media

     

  • Brand Blog/Personal Blog\Personal Brand

    Pat McCarthy 10:49 am on February 18, 2010 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing, ,

    blog-word-cloud

    We are in quite an amazing age. People are publishing left and right due to the ease of blogging. Now innovative minds can become their own brands, quite influential ones at that. The problem though is that these people work 9-5 at jobs where they might also contribute to a company blog. Here we find a dilemma. The brand wants the best of their employee’s insights, but the employee wants to leverage their expertise as much as possible. Forrester recently decided to restrict their analysts/bloggers from publishing outside the company domain. This is one way to solve the dilemma, but I imagine it leads to a little discontent among employees. Ogilvy, as explained by John Bell in the cited article, allows the personal branding. They avoid brain drain by being sure these employees have good reason to stay with Ogilvy. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Certain guardrails are appropriate for any blogging or social media operation. Finding the right one for your company has to correspond with your plan and goals.
    Read Ogilvy’s Social Media Guidelines for 2010 at their blog, Fresh Influence

     

  • Happy FTC Compliance Day!

    Pat McCarthy 11:48 am on December 1, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing,

    Though this may not be a yearly holiday, it is the start of a new tradition, disclosure. Bloggers nationwide are adding little disclosures to their blog posts that were inspired by gifts or payments. On one popular shopping blog, agirlmustshop.com, a post praising a Perricone MD skin product is appended with “Blogger Disclosure: A Girl Must Shop received free product from Perricone MD.” Simple, brief and entirely honest. A lot of brands and bloggers are worried about the new rules, but it isn’t terribly hard. Brands need to make sure bloggers who receive product reveal it. Blogger need to make sure brands know that they will publicly reveal their relationship.
    More on how brands and bloggers are getting FTC compliant at Boston.com

     

  • Payola Redux

    Pat McCarthy 8:58 am on October 7, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing,

    Before the Internet, the general public wasn’t in the business of marketing or advertising. TV, radio, print and outdoor were the only options. When DJs started secretly accepting money to play certain records, the government stepped in and put an end to the practice. This has happened once again. On Monday, the FTC revamped its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Bloggers are now officially part of the marketing and advertising game. They must adhere to disclosure rules or face fines up to $11,000. These changes may affect your favorite blog or not. Many bloggers who were accepting gifts and/or payments openly disclosed this to their readers prior to Monday. But those who didn’t should change their policy ASAP.
    More on the new FTC Guides at AdAge

     

  • Blogging without Purpose

    Pat McCarthy 8:56 am on October 7, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing, ,

    There are about 133 million blogs on the Internet. Standing out is hard these days, but when Julie Powell started hers in 2002, the field was much more open. She wrote about cooking her way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Other Child fans caught on. Her blog eventually led to a book and a movie. But what is unique about Julie’s blog was its organic nature. It was simply a way to express herself without some profit making agenda. Every year many new blogs are started with profits in mind. The new FTC rules may curb this trend. The organic blog may see a resurgence if new bloggers are hesitant to become professional bloggers.
    More on blogs and their differences at The New Star

     

  • FTC Lays Down the Law

    Pat McCarthy 10:24 am on October 6, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing, ,

    Bloggers, marketers and celebrities have a little reading to do this week. Yesterday, the FTC finally released its new “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This is the first time the Guides have been updated in twenty-nine years. Bloggers now must disclose any paid reviews or freebies or face fines up to $11,000. The new guides essentially maintain what was true for the rest of the marketing and advertising world, but until now didn’t explicitly include bloggers and user-generated testimonials. WOMMA is pleased that many of the changes correlated with our Ethics Code. We will be hosting an in depth webinar with Paul Rand, WOMMA’s President Elect, and Tony DiResta, WOMMA’s General Counsel this Thursday at 11am CST. To register, please visit http://bit.ly/FTCwebinar.
    For more on the new Guides, visit CNET

     

  • Paid Journalists and Passionate Bloggers

    Pat McCarthy 10:29 am on September 8, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing

    PR folks send out releases to journalists and bloggers alike. Both produce content that the public reads, but their motivations are different. Journalists are writing because it is their career. Bloggers write because they are passionate. Understanding this difference is essential. Journalists get paid to sort through piles of PR releases and decide what to write about. Bloggers feel inundated because they are trying to express their opinions while dealing with a dozen different people trying to cram something down their throat. Motivation is the key, and in this case, it’s paycheck versus passion.

    The full story at Bad Pitch Blog:
    http://badpitch.blogspot.com/2009/09/real-difference-between-journalists.html

     

  • “Blogger” or “Online Journalist”

    Pat McCarthy 10:48 am on August 31, 2009 | 0 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing

    The word “blogger” has been a blanket term for anyone who types something up and posts it on the Internet. The variety of style, quality and trustworthiness covers the entire spectrum. That is why many people are calling for a little more diversity in terms. Reputable journalists who run blogs are forced to align themselves with aluminum foil hat conspiracy theorists. In this article, we see many different prominent bloggers discussing what they should be known as. Many feel the term “blogger” will become as vague as “writer,” begging the “what kind?” question. But others say there is really nothing to discuss. They say reading a blogger is very much like listening to anyone at the local bar or restaurant. As time passes, blogging will ingrain itself into our culture like any other medium. Users will learn how to gauge the value of the information portrayed just as they do with the nightly news and their local papers.
    The full story at Science Blogs:
    http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2009/08/bloggers_vs_audience_is_over_o.php

     

  • Resume Update: Twitter Followers?

    Pat McCarthy 11:05 am on July 28, 2009 | 1 Comments Permalink | Post Your Comment!
    Tags: Blog Marketing,

    The recession has put many people in the unemployment line for months, but not all of them are patiently waiting for interviews. Rachel Levy was laid-off from her marketing position a year ago. She expected a few months off ending in a similar job. But the job market had different plans. Instead of moping around the house, she spent some time learning about social media. Her following grew to 5,000 people. She regularly updated her blog and made sure to include links in her emails to potential employers. Eventually she landed a job through one of her Twitter followers. Lots of people are unemployed, but Levy made herself stand out with exactly what employers needed her to do, social media. In marketing, results are the easiest selling point. And 5,000 followers is a pretty good result.

    The full story at The Wall Street Journal:
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124872913797784831.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

     

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