Business Blogging: can you tell me how, and give me numbers?
Well I’m back home, it’s 3am and my flight was delayed yet again in Houston. This time for two hours as the flight computer was repaired. Folks got annoyed, some left, but I made it back safely.
The main purpose for my trip to Washington DC Alexandria was to speak at this business blogging panel. The duration of 45 minutes was far to short for the 5 panelists, I don’t feel we even scratched the surface. There was a lot of discussion of ROI and connecting with bloggers, so it was a very different feel from previous conferences where I was challenged on “what” and “why”. Seems like folks have evolved and now want to know “how”.
One of the great attendees lead us to the conversation of ‘pitching to bloggers’. Which is where most companies know, that the opinion of a trusted peer to a prospect is valued the highest. Here’s how I told the audience to pitch to bloggers…you don’t.
What you should do is: 1) Identify the bloggers in your community 2) Read their blogs, subscribe to them, and really read them 3) Leave comments on their blog, or link to them from your blog 4) build a real and human relationship with them, get to know them 5) treat them with the same types of importance as other forms of influencers (media, press, analyst) 6) Grant them exclusives, invite them over for lunch, get to know them. 7) Be human.
Here’s a secret: Some of the companies that I have written about feel like people I know, or people that have become my friend within the context of this social media world. I don’t feel like they are using me, pitching me, but rather that I’m part of their ecosystem. So, before you email me your pitch (I get many) consider the steps I provided above.
My esteemed panelists included:
David Doucette, from Fairmont Hotels Rick Short, from Indium Corporation Peter S. Mahoney, Nuance.) Grier Graham, our moderator from Techdirt. Lee Aase, from Mayo Clinic
I think much of the world is starting to get wind of social media, but they’re not aware of the many tools that are coming out, such as twitter, facebook, live streaming and whatever comes next. It’s hard to keep up, but if you subscribe to my blog, I’ll bring you with me.
Lee continues to do a great job live blogging his sessions (such as ours), he’s the type of guy conference organizers should invite to attend as media.
I met a lot of great folks, just a few pics:
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I enjoyed your presentation at the Frost & Sullivan Conference. To this point, all of the conferences that I have attended are exclusively B2B with a strong showing from the tech industry. As you noted, attendees at this conference were not very far up the Web 2.0 learning curve. At another session I attended, many folks indicated that blogging was not sanctioned by their organization. When I spoke with the eMarketing Manager at Steelcase last night, she noted that many of the organizations here are old manufacturing firms located in the conservative mid-West. Another way to look at this audience is that this is the next wave of Web 2.0 development but the messaging to these folks is very different than in the Valley.
Hi Jeremiah, Great meeting you at the session. I was impressed with the elevated level of discussion too. My only problem with the session was that it was too short. The great thing about this session was that the panelists people with first hand experience deploying strategic social media strategies that utilized blogs (aka corporate blogging:). Note to the people at frost — there was strong interest in that room and a desire to learn, that session could have gone on for another hour or two.
Great feedback all
Santioned or not, the next generation of workers is highly networked (Facebook, myspace) and will be connected to each other, employees, prospects, customers, and even competitors as they join the workfoce.
It’s one thing to say “we’re not doing this” but yet another to shut ones eyes to what’s happening.
[…] back from giving a business blogging presentation at the Frost & Sullivan conference in DC. He posted seven points today that I think are great advice for business […]
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now and really like it. I’ve subscribed and look forward to learning more from you.
Mike
Fantastic! Thanks for doing this.
Jeremiah,
You bring up some great points on being human and working bloggers in naturally to ones eco system.
I am a believer of exclusive offers, but as you noted bloggers are busy people, many of them have day jobs
I’ve got one offer of interest just waiting in my comments, but have yet to set aside the time to get to it.
Jeremiah,
I enjoyed meeting you. Additionally, your insights were really valued by the seminar attendees. Great job.
[…] Strategist Jeremy Owyang gives some pointers on how to get some proper blog PR. Share This These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover […]
Hey Jeremiah, couldn’t agree with you more about forging real relationships with bloggers. They definitely become partners with us as we go about campaigns that require the help and assistance of a blogger whose audience may not reside in the realm of traditional media anymore -)
One of my challenges though, is keeping things interesting for the bloggers, and having senior management give a clearance for having bloggers involved in some of our media events. still working at it though! -)
[…] Business Blogging, can you tell me how and give me numbers? 1) Identify the bloggers in your community 2) Read their blogs, subscribe to them, and really read them 3) Leave comments on their blog, or link to them from your blog 4) build a real and human relationship with them, get to know them (tags: blogger relationship) […]