Always on the hunt for inspiration and ideas, I am constantly searching for and reading lists. Whether it is the ten best this or worst 50 of that- I am list obsessed. I blame my childhood ritual of listening to Rick Dees and the Weekly Top Forty for this obsession.  Anyway, I stumbled upon a provocatively and somewhat hilariously titled list called The 100 Must Read Blogs… by Women! posted last year on Blogtreprenuer. As I perused their choices (Ann Coulter and Michelle Maklin?!?) I noticed what all of these blogs should have in common besides the whole being created by women thing is that they should all contain that kind of more…

OMG! Is blogging DOA? Last week the Pew Research Center released a report that found blogging has slipped in popularity with teens and young adults. The 28% percent of teen Internet users that said they blogged in 2006 has now slipped to 14%. The study cites social networking and micro-blogging as the cause for the drop in popularity. Basically, kids these days can’t be bothered with long blogs about how their best friend stole their lip gloss when they can just post a quick status update on their Facebook that efficiently describes all of their drama in just a few words.

The study goes on to note that the majority of bloggers are ancient types (over 30 to be exact) who also read other blogs. It’s suggested that the over 30 set has the time and attention span to devote to reading and creating blogs. With specialized and professional blogs seemingly on the rise, it is hard to dispute the reports findings. This being said, let’s not shove blogging in the more…

This is the first in a  special series of  Thursday blogs that aims to give familiar but dated brands a digital face-lift by using social media, original videos, article marketing, mobile marketing and blogging.

The Patient: Hostess Snack Cakes purveyors of Twinkies, Cupcakes, and Ho Hos.

The Ailment: Hostess suffers from a chronically lame website, a lack of identity, a dwindling presence online, and a sagging social media strategy.

Prognosis: Grim. If the snack food brand refuses to step into 2010, Twinkies could be a thing of the past.

Recommended Treatment: When the going gets tough, the tough reach out for something fun. Sure, Twinkies are the exact thing films like Food Inc. are warning people against. Yet Hostess Snack Cakes like cheesy action films or reality TV serve their purpose: in moderation they provide a little fun and a little escape. So there’s no reason the classic junk food can’t get an update and survive well into the next decade.

First off, Hostess needs to lighten the heck up. Jeeze. It’s Ding Dongs, not prunes for crying out loud. Their website is a flat, bland affair with little reason to ever return other than the promise of coupons upon signing more…

I came across this really cool advertising stunt by Coca-Cola. The marketing geniuses responsible for the event rigged a Coca-cola vending machine to gave out extra goodies to college students who put their hard earned college coinage into the machine.  Students who visited the machine got a bevy of freebees designed to make people smile: free bottles of Coke, a pizza, a bouquet of sunflowers, even a very large sub. Imagine if your blog, website or social media campaign followed this same format. Instead of just regurgitating the same stuff over and over, what if a blog or a website or a social media campaign gave you doses of happiness. Okay, you don’t have to spread happiness, but you should strive to make people feel something. Whether you make them laugh, cry or get angry, you are doing what the Coke Machine is doing. You are getting people to engage with your brand. When people come to your site, blog or Facebook page expecting the same-old stuff and you give them a dose of something more…. bonus! And what do you get in return? You get loyalty, readership, engagement and possibly one more person out there who likes you. It’s a simple yet powerful lesson, one that i will aspire to practice as a marketer. So what have you done to spread the good stuff around?

Do you ever wonder how many hours a day the average person spends tweeting? Blogging?Commenting on videos shown on YouTube? Do ever wonder if this has a positive or negative effect. Does it effect your productivity? Does it turn you into a social outcast? How do your tweeting habits compare to the guy in the next cubicle? Well, now you can get all the pros and cons on this subject via a website that focuses in on the issues to create thought, critical thinking and discussion on the subject. ProCon.org created the new website www.socialnetworking.procon.org to explore the core question “Are social networking sites good for our society?” On the site you can read a detailed overview of the issue, over 20 pro and con arguments, fun facts in the “Did You Know?” section, an image and video gallery, a reader survey, and a listing of all sources used. Oh yeah, and if you were wondering, you can also find factoids there like this nifty tid-bit:

“Russians spend more time on social networking sites than people in any other country, an average of 6.6 hours per month compared to the worldwide average of 3.7 hours per month.”

It doesn’t make you feel so bad now, does it?

According to the 2009 State of the First Amendment Survey, most Americans prefer getting their news from traditional media.   In a recent press release, Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center said,

“…while new forms of obtaining information, including Twitter and social media are much discussed and growing in use, most Americans continue to rely on the same news organizations — including the news reports picked up by online news providers — on which they have relied for decades.”

This is not surprising since the majority of overall advertising budgets are still spent on traditional media, and only a fraction goes to new media. Wherever the most eyeballs go, so goes the budgets. But that small fraction continues to expand and will continue to grow as more people turn to the Internet for their information and entertainment needs. Some traditional media outlets have radically changed their models and have incorporated digital strategies like social media and blogging as part of their news network and are working with bloggers and tweeters to better take advantage of the digital frontier. However, some media sources, like AP News, are trying to regulate their content by putting forth strict guidelines designed to control how their stories are spread across the Internet. Last year, popular site TechCrunch announced it would ban articles and information coming from AP news in response to actions taken by AP News against a popular news aggregate which used their content without permission. More recently, TechCrunch wrote an interesting article titled,  “Behind The A.P.’s Plan To Become The Web’s News Cop”.  Also, in a recent ibrandcasting post, I wrote about popular bloggers in Germany who released a manifesto that appears to directly challenge traditional news outlets like AP News and promotes the free flow of information. The role of traditional media in the digital landscape is still a bit blurry. Whether traditional media embraces new technology or tries to mold it as they see fit, one thing is for sure; in the card game of news, traditional media still holds a pretty decent hand.

I’ve done my fair share of print advertising. Back in the days of yore, clients and media planners alike were attracted to magazines for their ability to target niche audiences. Print newspapers, too, were attractive mediums when you were targeting geographically specific markets. But the days when print could deliver hype-focused niche markets are fading away. Today it seems that advertisers are taking a serious look at blogging as a platform to get their brands in front of niche markets. But not just any kind of blogs. We’re talking blog networks. A recent NY Times article suggests that blog networks may be the next big medium for advertisers. According to the article, most advertisers shy away from the blog medium because they have no control of the content and may be frightened away by edgy content. But when you’re dealing with a blog network like Sugar Inc. or Gawker Media for example,  advertisers tend to let their guard down because the editorial content is all being handled from a single, reliable source; just like traditional print pubs once did. On Gawker’s home page, for example, they define themselves thusly;

“Gawker Media marries a traditional publishing model and an all-star editorial masthead with the audience engagement borne out of the candor, frequency and hyper-linking of the blog format.”

Sounds legit, right? Who wouldn’t want the safety of the traditional publishing model cross-pollinated with the targeting ability of the blogosphere. Traditional publishers focus on content. Digital publishing does the same, but with the added benefit of speed, distribution and hyper-focused targeting.  Here are my top five reasons why I think advertisers will continue to consider blog networks:

1. They offer lightening in a bottle. Blogs can be updated on the fly and can deliver information, news, opinions at Internet speed. Blog networks often employ a stable of writers that are at their keyboards 24 hours a day.
2. Tapping vast resources. In addition to tapping into great writing talent, blogs have loyal audiences that can interact with the writers. Often times, readers feed stories or leads to blog authors allowing the blog to get a scoop on a story before a traditional print pub can.
3. Stickiness. If you have a network of fashion blogs, chances are that if you offer fashion products on your blogs, your audience will click through. They’re already there for fashion content. All you have to do is entice them.
4. Original content. The beauty of creating original content is that you can use it as you see fit. If your original content is highly sought after, there’s no reason why you can’t spread it across your blog network and break fresh content before your print publishers even get their ink rollers wet.
5. A mention is worth a thousand clicks. A mention in a story or a hyperlink to a brand name may mean a significant spike in traffic, depending on how good the content is. While a banner may do little, content can increase sales if done right. Try doing that in print.

I believe that blog networks will continue to gain momentum and increase their clout among advertisers. The image of the blogger clad in pajamas at the typer pouring his/her heart out to the world has given way to real money-making platforms that are both powerful and interesting ways to reach an audience.

Fifteen of Germany’s most prolific bloggers have stirred up quite the hornet’s nest by releasing what they are calling “The Internet Manifesto. How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.”  According to TechCrunch Europe,  just hours after the release, servers got slammed by an onslaught of visitors and the site shuttered. The instant attention it gained was a magnificent example of how powerful a medium the Internet can be. The manifesto appears to be a direct shot across the bow of traditional media and aims to further challenge news and media outlets to adapt or change the way they think about this brave new world. I found the second tenet of the manifesto most interesting. It says,

2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication.”

In other words, journalism is becoming less a platform for making money, and more a platform for spreading ideas, information and news. This implies that the days of paying for your news and information are slowly winding down. The manifesto has thus far been translated into nine languages and will continue to spread on the Internet. This puts the concept of journalism on the world stage where people of different cultures can take part. Where else can you do that? And you can expect traditional pulp based news to carry the story in addition, gaining even more momentum. In Europe, it’s already shown up in ink of the non-digital ilk. When was the last time some copywriting gained the attention of the entire world? OK, maybe The Bible falls into that category, but even that took a few thousand years to get take hold.

I came across two articles on IKEA this weekend. The Swedish mega-brand is known for their propensity to attach umlauts to furniture names and also for their acumen in advertising and marketing. So is it just serendipity that I came across two related articles on the Swedish home furnishing manufacturer this weekend while perusing the news? Or is it a well-crafted PR maneuver? Or could it be something else entirely? When researching Blog material, I get to spend countless hours perusing news and entertainment stories from traditional sources like magazines, newspapers, press releases and news wires as well as non-traditional outlets like other blogs, micro-blogs and online videos. I’ve also noticed that news articles on specific topics (like IKEA, for example) spike the interest of journalists at the same time. Journalists often reference recent stories and craft their own spin on the news piece. For example, in today’s Los Angeles times there was an IKEA related article referencing how IKEA is able to garner a billion impressions over the last year by keeping in the news. A few days before, I was reading the paper edition (yes, I still read the pulp) of the New York Times and came across an article discussing IKEA’s recent typeface change to their catalog. Today I did a quick search and found similar stories on TIME, NPR , CBS News and ABC news just to name a few. The reason for the flurry of IKEA activity? Often times these stories are coming from the same source like a news wire. Back in the old days, news would  come in on a ticker tape-style machine that newspapers had hooked up in their offices and they would use those stories to fill the pages of their editions, or they would use them as a jumping off point for a new story. Today, you can get the same kind of news experience on any number of newsfeed services with the click of a keyboard mouse. While you may think this creates the same content over and over, it does more than that. In the case of the Los Angeles Times article mentioned above, it comes at the story from a local angle. While the story opens with a reference to the “typeface change”, the LA times gives it a localized stance and they do their own research and interviews to make the story a rich reading experience. You can say one story begets another with a different perspective. I think this is a good thing. People like me come to the LA Times for the local perspective and want to see the world through the lens of an Angelino. While some may argue that news with a perspective is opinion, I would reply that you cannot extract perspective from anything. Even in the history books, we are reading accounts from an individual or a group of people who had the perspective of the event that would later become history. Or we are getting the readers perspective. Having the ability to have multiple points of perspective allows the reader to sift through the content and come up with their own perspective. And so on.