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Posts Tagged ‘blogs’

Turning sports fans into brand fans

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

sports-fansWhether it’s baseball, soccer or cricket, sports provide incredible marketing opportunities because they transcend nationality, language and culture. Firms can use sports marketing to leverage the power and passion of these events and fans to generate far-reaching exposure for their brands.

In a departure from traditional advertising channels, “fan-centric” sports blog networks like SB Nation provide advertisers with a unique platform from which they can target and interact face-to-face with the hardcore and casual sports fan on a national and regional level.

Large brands like Citizens Bank gain access to broad audiences with diverse sporting interests. Regional brands can leverage SB Nation’s local networks in a city like Boston, where there is a rabid sports fan base and five established blogs with active followers.  Advertisers can also target specific events that appeal to a potential customer base, like the NFL playoffs, and then sponsor a hub that aggregates NFL playoff coverage.

SB Nation is unique because it goes beyond traditional web campaigns.  Brands can leverage its Social Media/Web 2.0 capabilities as a listening post where they can get unvarnished reviews of products and/or campaigns.  This delivers a better understanding of public sentiments toward products, aids strategic planning for brand development and develops relationships with “industry influencers” that can help offset or clarify negative brand opinions online.

Ultimately, fans connect with a voice and insight. The legitimacy of SB Nation revolves around the authenticity of its voice.  Success comes down to blogger voices (and the communities built around them) that are trustworthy and credible.  There is tremendous potential for brands to build off this trust and connect with their potential customers.

For the record, my favorite destinations are overthemonster.com and patspulpit.com.

Liam Doherty
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Mommy Bloggers’ Dirty Little Secret

Friday, July 17th, 2009

mommyblogHow much should you trust the veracity of what you read? If it’s about tips on motherhood, parenting and products, well, you’ll need to apply a little more scrutiny than perhaps you thought. That’s the dirty little secret about Mommy bloggers that Newsweek highlights in its recent issue.

Once a community simply looking to share advice, concerns and ideas, mommy bloggers are increasingly courted by companies to, essentially, serve as concierges to the 18 million U.S. women who turn to blogs for advice or recommendations. They’re lavished with everything from baby food and diaper bags to cars and vacations in hopes that positive reviews (and they generally are) will reach the segment that makes most decisions in the household.

That these bloggers, who number in the thousands, are trying to commoditize this popularity isn’t a problem. Hardly. It’s sound business, taking advantage of an opportunity. That there are no acceptable standards of transparency is a different story. It’s begun to raise serious questions of authenticity, which eventually reflect on what we do.

As PR practitioners, these Mommy bloggers can play an important role in utilizing new media to reach consumers. We should, however, strive for the same transparency that we would elsewhere. Otherwise, their vanished credibility eventually will eliminate another avenue to tell our stories.

Todd Graff

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The new mass media: certainly massive, not always media.

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

massmediaYou’ll have to get through the name-dropping and the fawning, and - admittedly - that may be more aggravating than navigating the Bourne Bridge on a summer Friday. But tucked inside this recent New York Times piece is an insightful look at how communication, and the subsequent role of public relations, forever has changed.

At its core, the piece (penned, ironically, by an old media flagship) reinforces the reduced role that traditional media plays in connecting brands with their target audiences. Consumers have access to information and thought leaders so many ways that it has transformed the definition of “mass media” from delivering information to the masses into the delivering of that information by the masses.

Key influencers no longer fit into a neat and well-defined group of news outlets and reporters. While those still play roles, they are not necessarily more important than a mushrooming collection of executives, analysts, observers and independent thinkers with no traditional media ties but powerful social media platforms to opine and inform directly with loyal audiences. These individuals can sway constituencies in as few as 140 characters and have significant appeal among consumers who have the choice to hear what they want to hear, when they want to hear and how they want to hear.

The challenge, as always, is identifying and engaging these influencers in a way that inspires a brand’s target audience. That said, “influencer relations” may just become a better fit than “media relations.”

Todd Graff

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Social Networking’s Finest Hour?

Friday, June 5th, 2009
Nick Glasgow

Nick Glasgow

I admit it. My social media skills are severely lacking. Unlike most others here at CTP, I don’t have a Facebook page. Or a MySpace page. I’ve never even Tweeted. I shake my head when I look over my wife’s shoulder at her Facebook page and see that one of her friends “has nothing to do today.” Who writes this stuff? Who reads it?

But yesterday, I learned of a moving example of how social media can be used in a powerful, positive way. A way that just might save someone’s life.

A 28-year-old employee of EMC who works in California, Nick Glasgow, was diagnosed with Leukemia in March. He’s been through three rounds of chemotherapy but has yet to go into remission. His best, and perhaps only hope, is to find a bone marrow donor. But because he is part Asian and part Caucasian, the odds of finding a donor are long.  At one point Nick’s doctors told him there was a “zero chance” a donor would be found. But Nick’s long odds may have changed, at least a bit. (more…)

Fred Conover

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