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Posted August 8th, 2007 by Char Lyn
Today Freakonomics, one of my favorite blogs, “moved” to the New York Times. Though I will no longer be able to read the full posts in my feed, the move proves there is economic value to blogging. In addition to Dubner’s post announcing the move, Levitt posted a brief video clip on the value he finds in blogging, which is to see how people react to his ideas.
We all blog for different reasons, but a blog must have supporting economics to last. Whether the value to the reader supports ad revenue for the writer, or the thought leadership established by the blog brings a company new or more loyal customers, a blog has economic value. Even personal blogs in which every post is a venomous rant have economic value to the blogger, because blogging is a lot cheaper than therapy.
So, why read DIGtrends? Our hope is that you read it to get insight on what is happening in the world of social media and that you are able to occasionally apply that insight to improve your business. And if it happens to throw some business our way, we won’t complain.
Posted July 30th, 2007 by Char Lyn
Tell me your problems and I’ll tell you mine—at least that is what a new social network called PrayAbout.com feels like. The site bills itself as a “prayer service ministry that welcomes people of all faiths,” and gives them an online medium for requesting the prayers of others. The site is carefully constructed to be inviting and reassuring, providing people with a sense of doing good, but the requests for prayers are, as one would expect, stories fraught with medical woes, depression, family troubles, and unemployment. To make it a community, PrayAbout employees lighting candles the way digg.com uses member voting to “illuminate” prayer requests supposedly deserving of more community recognition.
In concept, the site is filling a social need, but to me it feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While each member gets one candle for free, other candles are earned through 1) writing a popular prayer request, 2) lighting a candle for prayers that become popular, 3) getting other people to join the network. If you can’t/don’t want to earn your candles, you can purchase them with a real money “donation” (which the Boston Globe indicates are $5 per 20 candles). The money helps support the site, which is owned by Notati, a for-profit company that admits to using PrayAbout to experiment with “predictive market techniques, virtual goods, and community spam filtering.”
As a religious individual, I am frustrated that a company would seek to make a profit from people’s prayers, even if the profit comes later through re-use of the technology developed by donations toward site improvement. As a social marketer I am fascinated by the use of a social cause to improve a networking platform. What do you think?
Posted April 5th, 2007 by Char Lyn
April 17 is fast approaching. Yes, this year you get two extra days to file your taxes since April 15 is a Sunday and April 16 is Emancipation Day in Washington D.C. Here in Boston, the South Station post office stays open until midnight on tax day so you can really procrastinate. Some people used that extra time to upload an original rap to TurboTax’s YouTube contest. The contest is now closed to entries, but you can still vote on your fave.
In honor of tax season, I thought it might be fun to do a little math and estimate the revenue generated by the contest. To do this, we need the following facts and assumptions:
- ≈ 1.5 million views of contest promo videos by rapper Vanilla Ice
- 370 entries submitted by YouTubers
- ≈ 3000 views per entry (assumption based on a range of 800 to 10,000 views per submission, with many in the 2000 range)
- ≈ 5% of viewers will visit TurboTax.com (assumption based on available research of 0.4% to 20% click through rates on video campaigns)
- ≈ 5% of site visits will result in product purchase (shot in the dark assumption)
- standard purchase price is $ 49.95
Now for the math:
If you read through the assumptions, you know that this is very soft math, but with a microsite, they will be able to track the actuals very closely. And, that is the advantage of this type of campaign. Unlike traditional magazine and TV ads, a company can track the success, or failure, of an online video marketing campaign.
Posted March 6th, 2007 by Char Lyn
Bill Marriott (yes, that Marriott) is new to corporate blogging, but he’s done his homework and listened to the right people. After reading just a few of his posts, it was obvious that the blog was a well planned initiative to provide his personal touch to as many customers as possible. The buzz his blog is getting proves he’s managed to accomplish that in just 2 months. Many of our clients ask how they can create the same kind of magic in a corporate blog. Here’s the short version of our response.
1. Have a plan and a purpose, and state it in your byline.
2. Stay focused and on topic, within a post and through the blog.
3. Set an editorial calendar, but stay flexible enough to address issues that pop-up.
4. Don’t be afraid to take a stand, as long as you mean it and will follow through.
5. Be honest—if you are tempted to bend the truth in a post, write about something else.
6. Proofread—your readers will appreciate it.
7. Don’t spill company secrets. Ask yourself if the content could get you or the company in trouble BEFORE you post it.
Bill is doing all of this beautifully. And he manages to be inspirational at the same time. (I see a book in Bill’s near future—probably full of blog posts). Bill, if you’re reading this, I only have one suggestion. Don’t end every post with the same “on the move” line. It’s okay for a customer you only see once in a while, but for those who read every post, it will start to get old fast.
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