We’ve noticed a groundswell of NZ firms moving from thinking about blogging and peer media to actively trying things out.
Here’s a top line view of our approach to blogger relations for one client, a Kiwi software exporter, which I’ll update as we go.
In this case, we’re just at the stage of identifying the most influential bloggers in our target market (international freight and logistics). With so many bloggers in the world, mostly at the wrong end of the long tail (even within their niches), who is worthwhile talking to?
We use a variety of blog search engines. Some to identify and some to analyse blogs. Google Blog Search or Bloglines.com are great to find posts containing our keywords. One reason I use Google, is because the end-user audience is likely to be using it too. Audience-centricity is more important than technical sophistication. Also it searches keywords not tags. Then other tools like Technorati.com can analyse the blogs found in more detail.
A key principle I subscribe to is that: the unit of analysis is the conversation, not the blogger. So, if it’s the conversation that matters, why shortlist bloggers? Well, the blogger is the point where you engage with the conversation.
We developed four criteria for shortlisting bloggers:
- Relevance. Does the blog regularly talk about important keywords? (A keyword strategy should be the cornerstone of a Search Engine Optimisation and Online PR programme.) One pitfall to avoid is going too niche. A blog on software in general can still be interested in software for specific verticals on occasion.
- Popularity. This isn’t popularity for old-school awareness’ sake, but rather share of voice within the relevant conversation. Unique Page Views are difficult to measure and compare reliably for blogs, and evoke a false comparison with webpages. Since we’re looking at a conversation, share of voice is what we’re interested in and to measure that we need a consistent evaluation tool (so no one blog is over or under reported). Technorati.com’s blog Rank provides a like-for-like comparison between blogs.
- Online Influence. Connectivity equals influence. Technorati.com’s blog Authority rating considers the number of other blogs linking to a blog in the last six months, a measure of how popular the blog is and whether its comments spread to other blogs to form an actual conversation.
- Offline Influence. The type of person who puts effort into developing their personal brand with a blog often puts in the effort offline as well. Many key bloggers have other roles that give them influence and credibility – they may be analysts, consultants, industry association officers or end-users. This is even more likely for bloggers in specialist niches.