Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

Ben Southall, the Briton who won the ‘best job in the world’ competition to be Queensland Tourist Board’s PR representative this summer has confessed the six month experience has left him tired out and in need of, yes, a holiday.

During his tenure as a one man publicity machine the tourist board calculate that Southall posted sixty blogs on www.islandreefjob.com representing 75,000 words, along with 2000 photo uploads and 750 tweets.

“It was a job that needed 18 to 19 hours work every day,” he said. “Not just the interviews and the social side of it, but also sitting up late at night blogging and uploading pictures, it’s very time consuming.”

The demands on the normally indefatigable Southall’s time show through in his recent Twitter posts: “Bashing out the last of this years blogs - its Boxing Day what on earth am I doing!?!”

Leaving no social media channel unploughed,  Southall also recorded 47 video diaries, the last of which is below.

It’s not all over for Southall though, Queensland Tourism have rehired him on an 18 month six figure contract to promote Queensland around the world. Meanwhile, he’s got a few, very well deserved days off.

The standout figure for me from Econsultancy/Bigmouthmedia’s Social Media & Online PR research is that 54% of companies see lack of resources as the main barrier to better customer engagement.

Tell me about it, maintaining a daily blog or any other type of regular online content is no frivolous task. No way most companies are going to pull that off without some outside help.  While content is hard, you can at least measure the bejesus out of it.

No more mealy mouthed EAV (equivalent advertising value) conjecture for online PR, oh no, the free magic that is Google analytics will tell you exactly how well each post is doing (I have big hopes for this one).

So while there are thousands of similar, fit looking 27 year old footballers turning out all over the country on a Saturday, there’s only one that scored 5 goals in a Premiership match last week. How a good blog became Jermain Defoe I’m not sure, I’m not even a Tottenham fan. What I do know, is he’s a goal scorer (pick him Fabio), as is this week’s Ad Age top ranked viral from Heineken:

YouTube link

Embedded this at the bottom of a post on Wednesday but it really deserves separate billing, especially on a Friday. Indebted to @gsterling at Local Social Summit #lss09 for showing it to us.

Ford Motor Company, who recruited 100 bloggers for its Fiesta Movement social media initiative in March has posted a 5% increase in year on year car sales for Q3, representing a 2.2% increase in U.S. marketshare.

While the bankruptcies of GM & Chrysler and the government’s trade in initiative ‘Cash for Clunkers’ no doubt had an effect, Ford’s bold social media initiative has been a runaway success with figures last month showing 4.3 million YouTube views, 500,000+ Flickr views, 3 million+ Twitter impressions and 50,000 interested potential customers, 97% of which don’t own a Ford currently.

Speaking at Blogworld & New Media Expo in October, Scott Monty, Ford’s multimedia communications manager said ”Companies that don’t acknowledge and engage in this new social Read the rest of this entry »

Based on a survey in August of 1500 businesses by Hubspot, those that blogged had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.

Most businesses accept, even if they don’t anticipate these sort of figures, that a blog will revolutionise their static corporate website, but trying to get momentum for that internally can be a trying business. Who’s going to write it, what will it look like, who’s going to build it.

Outsourcing the build and content provision makes sense from an operational standpoint, it requires the minimum of internal input and you benefit from the expertise of people who are 100% blog content and blog marketing focussed.

Hubspot say 55% more visitors, on average, anecdotally we’ve seen much, much more than that. How does 1000% more visitors sound (albeit from a low base). Read the rest of this entry »

Speaking at the Government’s digital creative industry conference C&binet (surely they meant C@binet)  late yesterday, Simon Fuller, Spice Girls’ creator said that content providers were the key to future success online.

Fuller describes digital media as a “war zone” where creative ideas will dominate. He referred to his own operation, 19 Entertainment, as a “bespoke aggregator”. “The next big idea could come from some kid in India. That’s the way it should be – I’m excited,” he said, quoted in The Guardian.

Fuller said that while he believed certain companies – such as Google and Microsoft – have a “big head start” in online there is still room for many players in the emerging digital media market. Read the rest of this entry »

Procter and Gamble loo roll brand Charmin is searching for five “super-fun” bloggers to record hundreds of thousands of customer visits to its temporary restrooms in Times Square for five weeks from 23rd November.

Part of Charmin’s ‘Enjoy the go’ campaign, successful candidates will be appointed Charmin Ambassadors whose role will be to blog about their experiences and share content on Facebook and Twitter. Alarmingly they’ll also be posting video content.

This is not the first time Procter and Gamble has set out its stall in Times Square. In 2008 Charmin ran “Plush Potties for the People” tour across the US which also finished in Times Square. The 2009 campaign is  however the first time P&G has used blogging and social media to push the brand and the first time it has hired a consumer as a spokesperson.

The five appointed will be paid $10,000 each but they’ll have to be prepared to answer questions like “why do you ‘enjoy the go’ more than anyone else” and “how will you entertain bathroom guests”. Interviews will be held on November 5th at The Hilton Hotel, NY if you’re interested. Read the rest of this entry »

In a post on his blog yesterday Stephen Fry reflected on his role in the Jan Moir Twitter storm last week and also a regretted comment  he made on Channel 4 the week before “let’s not forget which side of the border Auschwitz was on.” Fry explains “The words just formed themselves in a line in my head, as words will, and marched out of the mouth.”

It was odd to see Fry talking politics on Channel 4 in any case, especially in that shirt he was wearing and of course the opportunity to gaffe live on TV as an entertainer is multiplied many times, as Anton Du Beke and Brucey have experienced recently in that highly controversial political show, Strictly.

Writing something first before sending it anywhere at least gives you the chance to weigh up and edit what you’re expressing. My rule of thumb on Twitter is never to say anything too negative, if I can help it. Read the rest of this entry »

Whatever your politics, the release of a behind the scenes video showing David Cameron and William Haig chatting about putting together his keynote speech today is an impressive demonstration of how You Tube can work in party politics if the content is right.

In a week when Cameron has been attacked for being an inscrutable toff with a talent for spin, what better way to counter than show him informally at large, in his work place, chatting to class busting favourite William Hague about not making his speech too dull. Read the rest of this entry »

The US Federal Trade Commission has released new guidelines which will force bloggers to disclose any commercial interest they have in products they promote. In the first update to its endorsement guidelines in 30 years, the FTC’s move is seen as an attempt to bring the blogosphere into line with endorsement codes long followed by broadcast stations, newspapers and magazines. 

“We look at it from the perspective of the consumer and the principle being that a consumer has the right to know when they’re being pitched a product,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director of FTC’s advertising practices division. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s an email or Twitter or someone standing on a street corner.” Read the rest of this entry »