Doe-Anderson

Eyeballs or Talent: What's the Best Model For Blogger Compensation?

November 20, 2009 – 6:00 am

It’s been a whirlwind month or two here at Doe-Anderson’s EnthusioNation.

David and I have both been traveling quite a bit. First, to BlogWorldExpo to sharpen my saw as a social media strategist, and then to SEMA on behalf of our client, Optima Batteries, to put those skills into action on a very cool social media program.

So I’m just now getting to catch my breath a little, and peruse ye olde Google Reader to see what I’ve been missing in the social media fishbowl for the last month.

As it turned out, this was an excellent day for me to pop my head back into the conversation.

Monday, PR guy and fellow highly-caffeinated person Jeremy Pepper posted a few thoughts on using bloggers as a means, not an end unto themselves. I’d encourage you to bop on over there and read it if you haven’t already, but the part that was swirling around in my head in particular was the part about “blogger junkets,” the “pay me mentality” and what might be, for lack of a better and less touchy-feely term, a sustainable model for brands and bloggers to work together.

Right now, we have a few different models, none of which seem to really work all that well for either side.

We have the “shell out for some banner ads on my site because my audience is your target, and I will talk up your brand because I love my sponsors” model.

We have the “send me freebies, and I will love you and say nice things about you because I love free stuff” model.

Let’s be honest. Both of these models are the modern day equivalent of Lucille Ball giving you a :30 commercial, in character, in the middle of I Love Lucy. Only in 2009, no one is naive enough to think that Lucy is motivated to say those nice things by anything other than a paycheck. Wasn’t the point of WOMMA that people don’t trust old school advertising anymore?

But public relations-ish approaches aren’t much more evolved than advertising-ish approaches.

We have the “bad blogger outreach” model, where PR people treat bloggers as just another media outlet to spam with press releases and other potential “content sources.”

We have the “better blogger outreach” model. I think Jeremy’s blogger junket falls somewhere in the neighborhood of this model–where at least bloggers are receiving the same respect and “journalistic cred” as traditional media members. It’s not entirely awful, but it’s also not really scratching the itch fully for either party.

All of this is made even more convoluted by the fact that bloggers themselves have trouble coming to agreement about what’s ethical, fair and reasonable.

And don’t even get me started about the FTC…

There’s another model, though, that I think bears more thought: treating bloggers as creative talent. Hiring them to provide high-quality content, and using their social promotion talent, on a brand-owned website.

To a certain extent, this is what Crayon and Panasonic have done with their recent “LIHD Insiders” initiative. It makes sense from both sides.

What do you think? Where is the best value for both sides? Paying for eyeballs, or paying for talent? Other thoughts?

I’d love to hear from you.

img Accordion courtesy SXC

By Kat French | Posted in Corporate Blogging, Featured | Comments (0)

Norton Healthcare and Doe Win Two MarCom Awards

November 17, 2009 – 3:18 pm

Campaigns created by the Marketing & Communications Department at Norton Healthcare and Doe-Anderson recently won two MarCom Awards, which are administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals.

The companies collected a pair of awards, including a Platinum Award in the Marketing/Promotion Campaign/Corporate Branding category for the Kosair Children’s Hospital “Just for Kids” branding campaign. The Platinum Award is MarCom’s highest honor. In addition, the Norton Healthcare “Real people. Remarkable care” branding campaign won a Gold Award. MarCom received nearly 5,000 entries for this year’s competition.

The MarCom Awards are an international competition for marketing and communications professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of marketing and communication programs and print, visual and audio materials. Every year, the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals receives entries from corporate marketing and communications departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers from the United States and across the globe.

Congratulations to everyone at Norton and Doe who made this happen!

By kkorvela | Posted in Our Work | Tagged Awards, Kosair Children's Hospital, MarCom, Norton Healthcare | Comments (1)

Social Media: It's Therapy, Not Triage

November 11, 2009 – 1:30 pm

People sometimes ask me what skill or ability I find most helpful in my work as a social media manager.

While my background as a web copywriter is certainly useful, and my ability to quickly shift mental gears comes in handy fairly frequently, I would say that what’s been most helpful is my tendency to be slow to panic.

Occasionally, my tendency to ingest WAY too much caffeine results in some pretty frenetic activity and some fairly high-pitched, fast-paced talking on my part. Which, to the uninitiated, might seem like I’m freaking out. But most of the time, I’m actually quite calm on the inside. I’m just being calm at an incredibly high rate of speed.

Which is fortunate, because trust me, there are a ton of situations in handing corporate social media where it would be tempting to just freak out completely.

Most of the brands and clients I represent are affinity brands. The nature of Doe-Anderson’s core competency as an agency means that often for my clients, their biggest concern is figuring out what to do with their large contingent of rabid fans.

I know. Tough job, right?

But what I often find is that however hot the fires of passion burn at the "fan" side of a brand, you can expect an equal and opposite blaze of hatred at the other end of the spectrum.

No matter how much you try to prepare a client, those blazing fires of hatred never fail to catch them off guard.

Which is usually when we have to have the "therapy, not triage" talk.

It can be tempting to look at social media as public relations triage. When your brand has been hit by a metaphorical Mack truck on the highway of online public discourse, it’s tempting to think that social media can swoop in like a first responder and clean up the damage.

In some cases, that’s not a bad analogy. Absolutely, you should have at least an outline response plan. If you don’t have a crisis communication plan of some sort in place, you’ve failed on basic old school public relations preparedness.

And social media tools do allow you to respond publicly more quickly than was previously possible. See: Dominos pizza, Motrin Moms, etc. And while social media "gurus" will dissect and criticize whatever response you go with endlessly (because it’s in their best interest to keep someone else’s controversy going as long as possible), the general public will probably cut you some slack and give you credit for making the effort.

Social media used in that way reminds me of an old Daffy Duck cartoon. Frustrated by several failed attempts to upstage Bugs Bunny, he finally succeeds by swallowing several combustible substances and blowing himself to smithereens. As Bugs tells his ghost the audience loved the act and wants an encore, he can only respond "I know, I know, but I can only do it once."

Which is really sort of my long-winded and pop-culture intensive way of saying that you have to commit to a two-way dialogue over the long haul. If your "social media presence" is limited to damage control during emergencies, you’ll quickly lose all credibility.

You can only do it once.

The truth is, short-term "social media tempests" like the Motrin Moms debacle and even the Dominos Pizza mess are forgotten as quickly as they come up.

Those "triage moments" can make it possible for you to ignore two things that are vastly more important:

1. Long-term, wide-spread systemic gripes about your brand based on (A) genuine product or service problems or (B) misinformation that hasn’t been adequately addressed. Note: This is the stuff it took Dell a couple of YEARS of talking through and working on to turn around.

2. Your brand’s fans and friends who could use something a little more exciting than "I think Brand X is awesome" to share with their friends.

Those are two issues that have far greater long-term impact on your brand than a short-term crisis. Both issues require a long-term commitment to engagement.

Should you respond to the short-term crisis? Sure.

But in the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t Panic.

By Kat French | Posted in Social Media Marketing | Comments (0)

Does Your Brand Really Need an iPhone App?

October 16, 2009 – 2:41 pm

Everybody has an iPhone, and every corporation thinks they need to have an app! However, the real question is, "does your brand really need it?" With the increasing rise in popularity of the iPhone, its easy to think that the only way to reach the consumer is through the latest and hottest trend. Sounds good, but before you run off and spend thousands of dollars having an app designed for you, it would help to answer a few questions.

5 Vital Questions to Answer Before You Jump

What are your business goals?
What goods, products or services are you currently offering your consumers?
What would be the purpose for the consumer to have your app?
What advantage would the app give your brand?
Are your consumers using iPhones?
Is your current site optimized for mobile?

Often times, a good way to segment into a full blown iPhone app is to optimize your current site for mobile. Check out the Canadian Broadcasting Channel for a simple and well built mobile web site. You can even check out this site (thesocialenthusiast.com) on your mobile device to see it optimized for mobile.

The mobile site is a good way to allow your consumers to gather information, engage with your content and even purchase your products from your current web site. Some of the more popular content management systems have plugins that will optimize your web site to be viewed from a mobile device. With a little programming it can have the same branded feel as your web site.

While it would great to unveil your new iPhone app, you may want to start with a optimized mobile site. Monitor and measure your mobile activity and then build from there. After watching how your consumer is engaging your content from a mobile device, you can take that data and use it to plan the development of your iPhone app.

What do you think, mobile app. or mobile web site?

By dfinch | Posted in Featured, Social Media Marketing | Tagged mobile marketing, social media, social media tools | Comments (0)

Are You Leaving Your Online Community Homeless?

October 16, 2009 – 6:00 am

Think about your most valued customers. These are the people who love your brand, promote your products and generally want to share what makes you great with everyone they know.

Let’s say a group of these brand enthusiasts wanted to hold a party to celebrate your brand, or what it stands for. Let’s say they contacted you and said "Hey, we’d like to have a big party with a few thousand people who thing your company is just great. We’ll come up with the entertainment. We’ll promote it. We’ll get as many people as we can to attend." Would your response be "That’s great. Tell us how it goes."?

Or would you tell them they can have their party at your headquarters?

Would you give them some cool party favors and invites?

Would you do what you could to make sure it was easy for them to find as many other brand enthusiasts as possible?

If you’re an affinity brand (or if you want to be) you have brand enthusiasts. These are people who are passionate about what you do or the things you make. They appreciate the effect you’ve had on their lives.

These people make up your community—and trust me, in 2009, they’re online. That’s where they congregate, find each other and share their interests—including your brand.

Are you leaving them homeless? Are you saying, in effect, "We know you love us… but can’t you just love us from afar?"

Many companies hear the term "online community" and automatically think "website build." Sometimes that’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s not. That’s not what this post is about.

The point of this post is that if you don’t declare a place that is "home base" for your online community, you’re being a bad friend to the people who you should understand are your best friends. These are the people who are going to save your bacon as trust in traditional advertising and overall brand loyalty continues to plummet. At a minimum, you owe them acknowledgement, an open channel to communicate with you (within the bounds of respectful conversation). If you’re smart, you’ll go beyond that and provide them with the best possible place and resources to have their party on your behalf.

If you can’t justify the resources to set up and manage a Facebook Fan Page, or a Twitter profile, or a blog, or some kind of human-powered touchpoint, then you’d better be prepared to increase your advertising budget considerably. Because it’s going to take a lot of media-buy shouting to drown out your silence in response to their digital love notes.

By Kat French | Posted in Featured, Online Community | Tagged brand ambassador, brand enthusiast, Online Community | Comments (0)

The Down 'n Dirty Details of Blogger Outreach

October 6, 2009 – 5:43 pm

Can I share a little secret? I really don’t like doing blogger outreach.

I know, I know–I’m a sad, sorry excuse for a social media manager.

There are a number of reasons that blogger outreach is considered the slogfest of social media work. One reason is that it’s a fundamentally awkward process.

Journalists and other traditional media members expect to get calls and emails from media relations reps. they may not always like it, but it’s a known part of their job. There’s a built-in context for that relationship. Do some inexperienced or just plain bad PR reps sometimes mess up that natural relationship? Sure. But I’m guessing they rarely get a shocked "How the heck did you get my email/number and who the heck are you?" as a response.

Blogs began as strictly personal communications tools. Many of the billions of blogs on the web today still are personal journals–even ones with a very wide readership. So calling or emailing a blogger and pitching a story can be a bit like asking someone "Would you like to write about us in your diary?"

It can be a little weird and messy.

That said, many bloggers are consummate professionals. They’ve worked hard to build up their audience, with the expectation that their visibility on the web will get them access to exclusive information and other opportunities. Working with a problogger is effectively the same as working with a traditional publisher. Even the FTC now understands that.

In a lot of niches and verticals, the most prominent online influencers are often somewhere between the "you found me where?" guy and Darren Rowse. This is where blogger outreach can get really dicey. The rules of the road are still not set in stone even for probloggers, much less for the "semi-pro" or "ranking amateur" class blogger.

Still, here are a few helpful tips I’ve picked up lately in performing blogger outreach for my clients.

1. Be clear about who you are and what brand you represent. Typically, you’re reaching out to bloggers whose interests likely make them fans of the brand you’re representing. Or if not, they’re people who will naturally be very curious about that particular brand’s product or service. If they’re not–you’re probably pitching the wrong person.

2. Get very quickly to why you’re contacting the blogger… which is usually something along the lines of "We discovered your blog and think it’s full of awesome."

3. Do your homework before you contact them. It would be lovely if most bloggers could or would fork over their analytics data to show how many visitors they get, what their average time-on-site is like, etc. That’s usually not the case. Poke around on Quantcast or Compete to get a rough idea of their traffic, and do some searches on social media tools to get a gauge of the value of their network. It’s unfortunately not an exact science, but the more information you have going in, the more you know how important it is or isn’t to get this particular person on board your brand’s love train.

4. Understand that you may not be able to see the full scope of their network. Sometimes, their online footprint is just the tip of the iceberg. Or for some really savvy social media guys, the part of their online footprint that’s viewable from outside it is the tip of the iceberg. Their personal social network could be as vast and untrackable as an organized crime syndicate, and just as powerful–but if so, it’s up to them to prove it to you.

5. Even if things don’t work out as planned, leave ‘em smiling. Sometimes, as much as you might want to work with a blogger, or he/she wants to work with you, it just doesn’t work out. Blogger outreach is about establishing relationships with smart, influential communicators. Don’t get so focused on today’s pitch that you forget there will be other opportunities down the road. Make it clear that you value the relationship, not just the post, video or link.

Blogger outreach may be awkward, but it’s the foundation of any solid social media marketing program. Very few folks are great at it from the beginning, but it’s definitely a skill that is worth mastering.

Got any funny or embarrassing tales of blogger outreach attempts you’d like to share? Unburden yourself in the comments.

img courtesy ajmac on sxh

By Kat French | Posted in Featured, Social Media Marketing | Comments (0)

For Everything, There is a Season.

September 23, 2009 – 12:26 pm

As we make the switch from hot summer nights to cool autumn mornings, sundresses to sweaters and summer reruns to the new fall TV lineup, Doe has made some changes as well. The agency recently hired two employees: Ellen Doolittle and Cordell Lawrence.

If you ask Ellen Doolittle what her idea of a perfect day is, she’ll tell you that she’d prefer to be relaxing outdoors with a good book or a brisk walk. But when she’s at Doe, Ellen’s working hard as an Assistant Account Manager, handling a variety of clients, including Sun Tan City, Humana, PharMerica and Schott. Prior to joining the agency, she worked as an Account Coordinator at PriceWeber Marketing, as a Marketing Coordinator at Traffic Builders, Inc., and as a Contemporary Marketing Representative at Anheuser-Busch.

What’s her favorite part about this new season? Halloween, of course! “The temperature gets cooler and the bare trees create such a wonderfully spooky ambiance,” said Ellen. “Who can resist candy, costumes and ghost stories ‘round the campfire? Not me!”

Whether it’s by plane, train or cruise ship, Cordell Lawrence is a man that loves to travel. He’s been to some pretty exotic locations—Marrakesh, Morocco, and Alicante, Spain, are two of his favorites. But Cordell loves the city of Louisville as well and feels that it can compete with other major cities. “We have a great restaurant scene, and the amount of culture, including performing and visual arts, the city has makes it special,” he said. “There’s a lot of diversity in the architecture here, too.”

Cordell’s newest role is that of an Assistant Account Manager, helping to manage accounts like Optima Battery, Laphroaig, Ardmore and Central Bank. His previous positions include Sales Director and Marketing Analyst for English Emprise and Communications Director with the Build the Bridges Coalition.

Cordell is excited for autumn in The Ville, because that means it’s almost time for the St. James Court Art Festival…and, of course, the changing of the leaves.

By kkorvela | Posted in Employees - Past or Present | Comments (0)

What do we have in common with Ashton Kutcher?

September 23, 2009 – 11:29 am

We may not have as many followers on Twitter as Ashton (although we’re getting closer every day!), but we have something else in common—we’re both SAMMY Award winners. The SAMMY Awards honor excellence in social media, marketing and advertising. Doe-Anderson received a 2009 SAMMY Award for Best Social Integrated Cross-Media for our work with Jim Beam, beating out competitors like Bausch & Lomb and McDonald’s. Not too shabby. Congratulations to all of our employees who worked so hard on this project.

http://sammyawards.com/

And, just for fun, follow us on Twitter if you aren’t already doing so.

Twitter: DoeAnderson

By kkorvela | Posted in Bourbon, Creative, Employees - Past or Present, Interactive, Our Work | Tagged Jim Beam, SAMMY Awards, social media, Twitter | Comments (0)

Finding Your Passionate Fans Where They Already Are

September 9, 2009 – 3:36 pm

As one of the nation’s oldest advertising agencies with a reputation for great traditional work, we often find that people are surprised that we’ve embraced social media so quickly and so enthusiastically.

Michael recently wrote on this blog about how passion powers purchases. The idea of connecting to your brand’s most passionate fans and enlisting them as your marketing team and sales force is a cornerstone of the Brand Enthusion process.

So with that in mind, it’s not all that surprising that we’ve made a solid commitment to providing social media expertise to our clients. We’ve simply recognized that the social Web is where people share their passions at this point in time.

Three years ago, one of our PR team members, Jason Falls, approached me with the desire to start exploring social media and the communication opportunities it offered for our clients. Over the next three years, we added two more social media professionals to our staff: Kat French and David Finch. Each of them came to Doe-Anderson with solid experience managing and executing successful social media efforts.

Even though social media is a relatively new discipline, we’ve gotten the opportunity to do some groundbreaking work for some of our clients in the last few years, refining our process along the way.

We’re proud of the work we’ve done in social media and proud of what we’ve learned over the last few years. Because of that, I’m proud to announce a new Doe-Anderson blog, dedicated to sharing that knowledge toward the goal of building a confident, social brand. Be sure to check out The Social Enthusiast.

Our goal with The Social Enthusiast is to provide practical, actionable advice to marketers about entering social media as a brand. Topics that we cover include monitoring and measurement of social media, effective corporate blogging, social media marketing and managing your brand’s on-line community of fans.

We hope that you’ll find some valuable resources there. And if you’re ready to enlist some agency help, be sure to contact us.

By Todd Spencer | Posted in Brand Enthusion, Our Take | Comments (0)

Using Monitoring to Achieve Richer Customer Insights

August 31, 2009 – 4:41 pm

Hot Potato Topic of the Week: Social Media ROI

Measurement of social media activity to determine ROI is a hot (and controversial!) topic on the web right now. You can see some examples of just how controversial it is here, here, here and here. Hat tip to Chuck Fitzpatric of ImpactWatch blog for those examples and more (and for the sound of dueling banjos that played through my head as I scanned the list of headlines).

Still, few people will argue that social media doesn’t have clear, distillable value to companies. Social media monitoring, in my opinion, is one of the most easily translatable value-driven elements of corporate social media, especially when viewed as an add-on to existing brand research efforts.

Getting a Clearer Picture of Your Customer

A better understanding of your customer is critical to effective communication with them. Put it in the context of your interpersonal relationships. How many communications misfires do you have in your personal and professional relationships due to a poor understanding of the other person’s perspective?

Brand research is an excellent tool for gaining a basic understanding of your customers and prospects from a demographic and psychographic standpoint.

If you’re using personas in any capacity in developing your marketing communications, social media monitoring can be hugely helpful in creating fully-rounded, three-dimensional personas instead of stereotypes and cardboard-cutouts

By monitoring social media for references to your brand, your products, your industry, and your competitors, you can gain additional insights that can often help flesh out and provide depth and dimension to your understanding of your audience’s attitudes, opinions and vernacular.

These insights can help your organization speak your customer’s language more like a native, and less like a tacky tourist.

Particularly for businesses whose customer base is largely made up of passionate enthusiasts in a particular activity or lifestyle group, having greater authenticity in your communications with them is critical to success.

The Plural of Anecdote Isn’t Data, But That Doesn’t Mean We Don’t Like Them!

We’re always anxious to hear stories of ways in which social media monitoring has been applied effectively to improve brand communications. Got an anecdote you can share? Drop it in the comments. Or if you’d like, contact us about doing a case study guest post. We’d love to have it!

img "mannequin" courtesy SXC

By Kat French | Posted in Monitoring & Measurement | Tagged brand research, ROI, social media monitoring | Comments (2)

Eyeballs or Talent: What's the Best Model For Blogger Compensation?

img Accordion courtesy SXC

Norton Healthcare and Doe Win Two MarCom Awards

Are You Leaving Your Online Community Homeless?

For Everything, There is a Season.

Finding Your Passionate Fans Where They Already Are

Pages

Subscribe

Cultivating Brand Enthusion

Categories

Archives

Search

Sites We Like

Meta