By Ian, on January 26th, 2007 
Brian Clark is a tremendous blogger and copyblogger is a tremendous blog. You’d hope so, really — the guy is a copywriter and devotes his blog to passing on the tips of the trade. Really valuable information for anyone involved in writing at any level. This week, he’s been holding a poll on whether or not he should use the term ‘linkbait’ any more. This post is my vote. The gist of the argument is that if we agree that ‘linkbait’ is simply compelling content, then we shouldn’t be using what sounds like a disparaging term for it. The new word for this stuff is ‘viral copywriting’, which would have sounded even worse a couple of years ago, but now sounds very cool. My vote on the issue is to continue to call “linkbait” what it is. Linkbait-y blog posts are not ‘compelling content’. They are deliberately written to get people to strongly agree or disagree, and then write about them on their own blogs or submit them to social news engines like digg and reddit. They have titles like ’10 Reasons Why Microsoft Vista Will Ruin The Company’ or ‘iPhone Heralds End of Humanity’. That’s the sort of thing you see on digg’s front page every day. It gets people excited. But in my view, it’s not at all good news for the quality of writing on the web. It makes people want to write an article people will link to, rather than the article they were really able to put together. Probably these would have titles like ‘4 Reasons I Don’t Fancy Upgrading to Vista’ and ‘Why I Probably Won’t Buy an iPhone’. The truth is normally banal; deal with it. Linkbaiting, on the other hand, drives people to extremes and it gets in the way of the truth. Getting linked to is generally a good thing from a Google and a profile perspective; hitting the digg front page feels very nice (I expect). However, when someone forces themselves to write something they probably wouldn’t do otherwise solely in order to achieve these aims, they’re probably not being true to themselves. I think that’s more important. It’s the difference between writing and copywriting. Technorati: blogging, blogs, writing By Ian, on January 25th, 2007 Charlene Li of Forrester Research has now released (blog post) her research paper into measuring the return-on-investment (ROI) of business blogging. I was promised a copy of the paper when I signed up for a webinar on the subject back in October, so hopefully I’ll be able to report in more depth soon without coughing up the $279 that Forrester is asking. [Update: Yay — got my copy. May take a few days to digest.] Li says that the report found six main benefits cited by those companies interviewed: “greater brand visibility in mainstream media on the Web, word of mouth, improved brand perception, instantaneous consumer feedback, increased sales efficiency and fewer “customer service-driven PR blowups.” In relation to the GM Fastlane blog, researchers found that when all these factors were costed, the blog “generated $578,000 in value on an investment of $291,000″. Impressive figures. However, these benefits were measured against quite specific goals: “to share information about its products and to start a dialogue between GM leaders and customers” was a main one (or two). The report measures the cost of getting 100 people to comment on the blog, compared to the cost of getting equivalent customer insight through focus groups “at the cost of $15,000 a month, or $180,000 a year”. This kind of begs the question — or two questions. First, are those two things equivalent? I’m a big fan of company blogs, make no mistake, but I am not sure they are. Second, what about if you only spent $5000 a month on those focus groups? Does that mean that your blog actually made a loss? Yes, it would, if your stated aim is obtaining that feedback and nothing else. A similar case might be brought against ‘word of mouth’ as a goal. If you take the ‘advertising equivalent’ approach — a common, if unpopular, metric of PR activities — then you may or may not be able to show a return. But are those things ‘equivalent’? Surely, you’ve achieved something very different by not using advertising to stimulate word of mouth. Lots of questions, and I’m not an expert. I guess my feeling is that: (a) While attempts to distil blogging ROI into an Excel sheet are undoubtedly a very good idea, and perhaps the only way some marketing execs will be able to get the plan past the grumpy FD, I think it’s a good idea to make your aims fairly broad. Measuring the power of a blog against the cost of focus groups (or advertising; or traditional PR; or more service reps; or a longer development cycle) is potentially putting the blogging champion into a corner if the aforementioned grumpy FD turns round with an alternative, less costly plan to deliver the same result. (b) It’s pretty hard to measure the returns on something that’s actually very different to its alternatives by costing up those supposed equivalents. Having a business blog is not the same thing as doing some PR, some advertising and some focus groups. It can allow you to achieve some of the same aims, but it also has its own unique benefits that aren’t easily achieved in any other way. I’d say that achieving the impression that people are listening at your company is one of the main advantages of the blog format, for example. So is having a better Google position for your CEO’s name. So is the ability for customers to talk to that person in an intimate way. The equivalence model doesn’t really help measure ROI on these benefits. Check Li’s blog post — linked above — for a good list of blogging ROI FAQs. Look forward to getting my hands on the paper. Technorati: blogging, blogs, Forrester, ROI By Ian, on January 25th, 2007 Have now upgraded the blog to WordPress 2.1. Most of the new features will be invisible to readers, as they should be: they’re mainly concerned with content management and foiling hackers. A big bonus for me is a new version of the invaluable Akismet anti-spam feature: it can now be set to automatically discard detected spam comments on older posts. That saves me time since there are very few false positives when it comes to spam on older posts. There are basically two differences you might notice, and they’re both related to plug-ins. - The ‘subscribe to comments’ function now works properly, thanks to a new version of the plug-in it’s using.
- The category cloud had to be replaced with a different plug-in. Looks a bit big and ungainly at the moment — will tweak over time.
Technorati: blogs, wordpress By Ian, on January 24th, 2007 An article on CNet.com suggests that children born since 1981 are doing more communicating than ever before — albeit through different channels than their predecessors. They’re also used to being in control of their media intake. There’s no evidence cited, and I cringe at the jargon, but I can see the point they’re making about children’s relationship with technology. “What we’re talking about is a generation that has the ability to be in touch with each other immediately at earlier and earlier ages,” said Nancy Robinson, vice president and consumer strategist at Iconoculture, a Minneapolis company that tracks consumer trends for consumer giants like Nestle and Sony. “If you asked someone 10 years ago about the necessity of a cell phone for a 5-year-old, they would have laughed and walked away; now you can buy that at Target.” Think of Generation We kids as a product of Generation Xers–a demographic born roughly between the years of 1961 and 1981 whose influence over pop culture peaked in the ‘90s. Parents of Gen We are not only savvy about media and advertising, they’re also comfortable with technology. They’re taking those skills into parenting, encouraging their offspring to understand that with technology, the kids can be in control.
Technorati: communications, culture, youth By Ian, on January 22nd, 2007 Attended the eighth annual Edelman Trust Barometer launch this morning (social media release here — hey — put down those pitchforks, angry bloggers!). I have to say it was a fascinating piece of research with all kinds of implications about how politicians, businesses and NGOs might change the way they behave and communicate in order to inspire greater trust. Quick hint to the many CEOs of multinational organisations reading this: socially responsible behaviour — in particular, attention to the global warming agenda, listening to employees and treating them fairly — is now one of the key stimulants of trust in Western organisations. As far as social media is concerned, the subject of this blog, there’s not quite as much to say. The bad news is that bloggers come at the bottom of the trust league table according to the report. (click for bigger) 
This year, only 6% of people in Western Europe view the blogger as a credible source, down from 10% last year. We’re even lower than a PR, for goodness’ sake! ;) Similar distrust was exhibited by US respondents. That’s not quite the whole story, though, and I think we bloggers might be able to wrestle a sort-of victory out of the jaws of defeat. ‘A person like yourself’ is the joint top-most trusted source — 45% of us would trust that sort of person — only doctors get the same amount of respect. And so who exactly are the bloggers that you read? OK, probably we all read some blogs that represent the opposite viewpoint to our own: it’s often inspiring and thought-provoking. Just like a Guardian reader might pick up the Daily Mail from time to time. But think about your favourites, the ones that make you smile and think ‘well-said’. People like yourself, I’d wager. It all depends on how you frame the question. Do I trust bloggers? As a species, probably not. Do I trust John Smith, who I happen to connect with through his blog? Yes, I do. Panellists made the same point about the distrust cited towards politicians. No, I don’t trust politicians (an appalling 16% rating in the survey), but yes, I do trust Tony Benn [insert your own favourite elder statesman, but I recommend Benn]. As Hugh MacLeod says in his piece about this event, “Trust has a personality.” Similarly, perhaps, ordinary employees of companies are trusted dramatically more than their CEOs (28% versus 18%). In that case, who is it that you want spreading the good word about your products and services? The CEO blog is often very interesting and gets written about, because CEOs are powerful, mysterious and weird creatures; but in terms of persuading people to trust and maybe do business with your company? Supporting Jane in Marketing’s blog (or indeed Jane’s marketing blog) and giving her time to work on it may well be a better business move — and maybe those produced by a bunch of other people in the company. More detailed coverage from David Brain here. But then he had to write a good post — he’s Edelman’s European CEO. Bloggers Stuart Bruce, Iain Dale and Hugh MacLeod (op.cit) were also in attendance. Technorati: Edelman, events, trust By Ian, on January 21st, 2007 In the three weeks since the year began, I’ve been hearing about a whole host of new, hyperlocal online community services launching: - Outside In: aggregates local news and provides forums, etc.
- Parkmatch: social networking for parking spaces (yes, really).
- Front Porch Forum: email your neighbours.
- Placeblogger: aggregates local blogs.
- Peuplade: Parisian neighbourhood network; not a launch, but reported on by the BBC.
Suffice to say that local is hot. So there may be some nervousness greeting this news story from the Washington Post about the troubles at the, yes, hyperlocal social networking site, Backfence. The site received $3mn in funding in May 2005, but doesn’t look like it’s going to earn any of that back in a hurry: Media analysts agree that many readers are looking for hyperlocal content, but they say most citizen-journalism sites aren’t mature enough to tap into the lucrative local advertising markets. “Realistically, it’s going to take close to 10 years for the business models to be there and for there to be enough advertisers willing to give money to hyperlocal start-ups,” said Vin Crosbie, managing partner of Digital Deliverance, a Connecticut media consulting firm. “Backfence’s problem is that it was too early.” […] [Co-founder Susan] DeFife said Backfence sites [13 in total] had sold 550 ads to local businesses since April and got 2 percent of community members to register. “We were making significant strides,” she said.
I can see why very local social networks might seem like a great idea. The BBC story about Peuplade was very inspirational. However, like the analyst says, it seems like it will be some time before such sites are able to make much money on the basis of advertising. At the same time, this social media approach certainly seems like a great way forward for local council websites and a way for them to demonstrate their usefulness. Technorati: hyperlocal, social networks, website | About this BlogSocial tools, devices and web evolution are creating epochal change in media, society and business. The plan is to hide under the floorboards till it’s all over document some of the interesting parts of that change. More….
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