Many corporate blogs fail because they forget two things:
* A blog is not a traditional news publication. It didn't spring from the ether. It's a conversation.
* A blogger is not a journalist. Journalists report facts. Bloggers connect and share.
So many corporate blogs make the mistake of trying to become a newsletter or an online news site. They are strict and regimented. Even worse, they are self-contained, only read and relevant to those within the company. No surprise, they don't get a lot of traffic and no one links back.
Why? Cause they are talking to themselves. It's like someone shut them in a room and they are just chatting away. Yes, some of what is said is good, but who's gonna hear it?
You have to remember that conversations have two parts: listening and participating.
"We monitor what's being said on other blogs. That's how we figure out what to write in posts."
BAD! To continue the room analogy even further, what you are doing is holding a glass to the wall, listening to the neighbor and then talking to yourself.
I'm not saying it's bad to just lurk--what's bad is to lurk and write. If you want to be a member of the blogosphere, however, you have to engage with it. That means that you should reply and respond to the posts you read. If you don't want to write a comment everytime, that's fine. Just link back to that post on your blog when you write something based on another idea you read.
You'll start to become a member of the community. You start finding ideas out in the wild. You identify conversations, share them with your readers, and add your own idea to keep the conversation going. Then *you* will become a faciliator of conversation. You start to feel like a moderator--finding key points, asking relevant questions, and steering the conversation towards things you feel the audience will want to hear.
Eureka! You are a blogger, weaving the best of the web into something beautiful. You are a poet, telling stories of....data centers, micro-processors and networking solutions.
Article by :Chris Lynn
Thursday, November 6, 2008
When Times Get Tough, the Tough Escape Online
In troubled economic times, one of the few sectors that remain recession proof is the entertainment industry. Bars, Movies. Music – all stay in business. Call it escapism, diversion, or whatever you want, but entertainment companies seem to prosper when the economy falters. Even if we can no longer afford them, we seem to get even more enthralled in what celebrities are wearing, what the action hero is driving, and where the rock star is touring. Let’s be honest, when your 401K is crumbling, it sure feels good to escape into the latest romantic comedy, RPG alternate reality, or neighborhood watering hole for a couple of hours.
This is great news for web sites dedicated to covering and providing entertainment as well as advertisers targeting this demographic. Just as lines at the movie theaters grow when the Dow plummets, so does traffic to web sites focused on gaming, movies, and celebrity. This is particularly true of affinity sites where the users are engaged and can spend hours sharing their passion in a social community. Because these niche environments have a higher level of user engagement, brand marketers have a better opportunity to connect with the users and communicate their marketing message. Many of these niche sites also allow for more integration sponsorship opportunities that go beyond traditional banner advertising. My personal recommendation: integrated contests and sweepstakes. What movie buff or gamer doesn’t’ love “free stuff” when there’s a world-wide credit crunch.
As an added benefit, for suddenly budget conscience advertisers, these midsize and smaller niche sites tend to have lower CPM rates than the portals and larger sites – making them a real value buy. So when the economy stalls and media budgets get slashed, advertisers should spend their remaining media dollars where consumers are spending more of their time – affinity entertainment sites.
Article by: Mike Dodge is SVP/General Manager of AtomicOnline
This is great news for web sites dedicated to covering and providing entertainment as well as advertisers targeting this demographic. Just as lines at the movie theaters grow when the Dow plummets, so does traffic to web sites focused on gaming, movies, and celebrity. This is particularly true of affinity sites where the users are engaged and can spend hours sharing their passion in a social community. Because these niche environments have a higher level of user engagement, brand marketers have a better opportunity to connect with the users and communicate their marketing message. Many of these niche sites also allow for more integration sponsorship opportunities that go beyond traditional banner advertising. My personal recommendation: integrated contests and sweepstakes. What movie buff or gamer doesn’t’ love “free stuff” when there’s a world-wide credit crunch.
As an added benefit, for suddenly budget conscience advertisers, these midsize and smaller niche sites tend to have lower CPM rates than the portals and larger sites – making them a real value buy. So when the economy stalls and media budgets get slashed, advertisers should spend their remaining media dollars where consumers are spending more of their time – affinity entertainment sites.
Article by: Mike Dodge is SVP/General Manager of AtomicOnline
Dark side of digital growth: Bad creative, Unsold Inventory
Ad Age has a terrific piece evaluating the impact of rapid growth in our industry. All the extra money and attention is great. But there have been costs.
Overwhelming complexity: With all the new ad nets, ad-supported websites, social nets and other media outlets, the process of media planning and buying in the digital space has gotten pretty complex. One expert estimates, "it takes 2.5 times as many people to execute a digital-marketing campaign as a traditional-media campaign."
Unsold inventory, the big get bigger: "As fast as dollars have shifted online, they might have flowed even faster had there been more talent to sell it," reports Ad Age. "It's also a reason why spending online remains concentrated among the top sites and portals rather than following consumers to niche sites."
Bad Creative: "The talent squeeze on the creative side meant some pretty dismal online ad campaigns." And not only does that annoy consumers, bad creative has also "helped drive down ad rates."
Maybe a slowdown in ad spending is just what the industry needs. One agency exec told Ad Age, "a slowdown of cash and slowdown in the need for talent will give this industry a bit of space to breathe."
Article by: Mario Sgambelluri
Overwhelming complexity: With all the new ad nets, ad-supported websites, social nets and other media outlets, the process of media planning and buying in the digital space has gotten pretty complex. One expert estimates, "it takes 2.5 times as many people to execute a digital-marketing campaign as a traditional-media campaign."
Unsold inventory, the big get bigger: "As fast as dollars have shifted online, they might have flowed even faster had there been more talent to sell it," reports Ad Age. "It's also a reason why spending online remains concentrated among the top sites and portals rather than following consumers to niche sites."
Bad Creative: "The talent squeeze on the creative side meant some pretty dismal online ad campaigns." And not only does that annoy consumers, bad creative has also "helped drive down ad rates."
Maybe a slowdown in ad spending is just what the industry needs. One agency exec told Ad Age, "a slowdown of cash and slowdown in the need for talent will give this industry a bit of space to breathe."
Article by: Mario Sgambelluri
The Next Big Change
For most of us, the Internet has changed the way we work, communicate or even shop. It has opened up a whole new world of opportunities. However, while most of us are trying to keep pace with the ever changing Internet, not many of us are aware of the next cycle of changes that are waiting to happen.
We know the Internet will soon change because the present IP protocol - version 4, usually called IPv4 - is going to hit its limit. Vint Cerf, father of the Internet, in an interview with The Times said “The Internet is running out of numbers. This is like the internet running out of telephone numbers and with no new numbers, you can’t have more subscribers”. It will be replaced by IPv6, which has addresses enough for about 3.4x1038 addresses, or 5x1028 for each of us on Earth. That is like having a sizable network for each one of us.
One does not have to wait long to see the profound effect the Internet would have on the world. The internet is all poised to touch our lives in ways we wouldn’t have imagined a few years back. Geoff Mulligan, Chairman of the IPSO Alliance (a coalition of technology companies) recently said “We could incorporate Internet protocol (IP) into nearly everything, there’s no reason why the Internet shouldn't be in every single appliance.”
For someone like me, who comes from a digital marketing background, this implies huge potential. Just imagine if everything around us – Microwaves, Washing Machines even our toasters, could be networked.
So, what does this mean to Advertisers? It means a greater reach to audiences, a greater network of smart devices to deliver their ads and a lot more data. Visualize a world of advertising where different channels are now combined to serve ads across a variety of devices; each of these devices is networked and is able to communicate with each other and the Internet.
You have a baseball match to watch and have set a reminder in your DVR. Based on your behavioural data, your smart refrigerator (which of course is networked to your DVR) knows that you’d like some beer when you watch the match. As luck would have it you have run out of beer. Smart sensors in your refrigerator detect this and relay a message to your mobile. You will then be displayed with an ad of the nearest store that supplies beer. You have an option of messaging for supply of beer (Pay per Message) or calling for supply of beer (Pay per Call).
The possibilities are immense. Yes, the debate on whether we end up treating the Internet as a system where we become enslaved to our devices or whether we treat it as a truly open framework where everything around us can be integrated smartly will go on, but as we all know – Change alone is unchanging.
Article by : Mr. Sudhish Shetty - Manager, Solutions Consulting at Theorem Inc
We know the Internet will soon change because the present IP protocol - version 4, usually called IPv4 - is going to hit its limit. Vint Cerf, father of the Internet, in an interview with The Times said “The Internet is running out of numbers. This is like the internet running out of telephone numbers and with no new numbers, you can’t have more subscribers”. It will be replaced by IPv6, which has addresses enough for about 3.4x1038 addresses, or 5x1028 for each of us on Earth. That is like having a sizable network for each one of us.
One does not have to wait long to see the profound effect the Internet would have on the world. The internet is all poised to touch our lives in ways we wouldn’t have imagined a few years back. Geoff Mulligan, Chairman of the IPSO Alliance (a coalition of technology companies) recently said “We could incorporate Internet protocol (IP) into nearly everything, there’s no reason why the Internet shouldn't be in every single appliance.”
For someone like me, who comes from a digital marketing background, this implies huge potential. Just imagine if everything around us – Microwaves, Washing Machines even our toasters, could be networked.
So, what does this mean to Advertisers? It means a greater reach to audiences, a greater network of smart devices to deliver their ads and a lot more data. Visualize a world of advertising where different channels are now combined to serve ads across a variety of devices; each of these devices is networked and is able to communicate with each other and the Internet.
You have a baseball match to watch and have set a reminder in your DVR. Based on your behavioural data, your smart refrigerator (which of course is networked to your DVR) knows that you’d like some beer when you watch the match. As luck would have it you have run out of beer. Smart sensors in your refrigerator detect this and relay a message to your mobile. You will then be displayed with an ad of the nearest store that supplies beer. You have an option of messaging for supply of beer (Pay per Message) or calling for supply of beer (Pay per Call).
The possibilities are immense. Yes, the debate on whether we end up treating the Internet as a system where we become enslaved to our devices or whether we treat it as a truly open framework where everything around us can be integrated smartly will go on, but as we all know – Change alone is unchanging.
Article by : Mr. Sudhish Shetty - Manager, Solutions Consulting at Theorem Inc
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