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miercuri, 21 noiembrie 2012
Pinterest Weekly: 30 Days of Pinspiration
Just for You from YouTube: Weekly Update - Nov 22, 2012
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Watch Live: President Obama Pardons Your National Thanksgiving Turkey
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The Top 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Prior to Launching Your First Blogger Community
The Top 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Prior to Launching Your First Blogger Community |
| The Top 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Prior to Launching Your First Blogger Community Posted: 20 Nov 2012 06:49 PM PST Posted by MelyssaTweeting This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. The power of blogs, from their passionately vocal owners to the amount of quality traffic and brand awareness they deliver, is an undisputed precedent here in our online marketing world. Playing the role of confidante, advocate, and subject matter expert for their readers, bloggers bring a unique voice and perspective that readers appreciate and resonate to, making them highly influential. With the beginning appearances of “mommy blogs” first being hailed as hype, no one could have estimated the massive impact these vocal moms would have on consumers and brands alike. This turned the blogging industry on its ear and ignited the first wave of paid influencers that brands scrambled to adopt. Flash forward to today, where contracted blogger relationships are very much the standard de facto of many brands’ digital marketing strategies. If you are amongst the many considering the possibility of starting your own in-house blogger program, take a pass at these five questions you should ask yourself prior to tackling your first blogger program initiative: 1. Are you ready?Running a formal blogger initiative takes time, dollars, and resources. Whether you are working with a single blogger or several, it requires dedicated program management (read: man hours) and a true willingness (read: commitment) to do what it takes to achieve success. When evaluating your blogger program readiness, here are a few key questions to ask yourself: Q: Do I, or someone within my company, have the bandwidth on a daily/weekly basis to put dedicated hours against this to ensure the program’s success? When building out your first program, you can expect to invest upwards of 120 hours as you ready the program to launch, and once launched, spend 3–7 hours a week per blogger. It’s also important to consider other team members’ time who will be working on the program as well, such as your lawyer (or whomever will be drawing up the contracts), your content developer (if you will be providing new visual content for the program), and possible others. Q: Do I have the appropriate amount of funds available to support this type of initiative? Taking a good look at your budget and understanding what you have to invest in this effort will help to determine your program capacity, such as how many bloggers you can afford, how many posts per blogger and how many weeks that you will be able to run your program. Q: Do I have the support I need, to include my internal stakeholder approval and sign-off? 2. Do you have a plan?As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Planning out the primary objective of your program, what the program will accomplish, how it is going to accomplish it and how long it will take to accomplish will be key in helping you to set marching orders for those involved later on. When building out your plan, be sure to: Set the primary objective for your program Your primary objective statement doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple, “We are engaging with blogger partners to explain the value of our product, increasing traffic and email sign-up via our .Com site” would be perfect. Remember, it doesn’t need to be complex; it just needs to clearly communicate what your goal is. Define your KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) Once your program is in market, you will be able to adjust tactics based on your quantified goals and how well your program is delivering results against the KPI's you have set. Estimate your budget and costs Think through everyone who will touch the program, from copyediting to creative, legal to program manager. Assign roles and tasks by the hour, with a specific cost associated with each tasked hour. By getting granular with your program costs, you will be able to get closer to a true Cost-Per-Visit and Cost-Per-Acquire number associated with the traffic and conversions your soon-to-be blogger program will deliver, which are critical to know as you analyze your program’s success. Note: feel free to use this Google Docs Template to help you hit the ground running when estimating your program 3. Have you built the brief?The program brief is your best friend: a quick, easy-to-read, one-to-two pager that you will use when shopping potential program bloggers to see if they want to opt-in to your program. It clearly states your program background, objectives, and rules of the road. Here is where you will identify: The business opportunity: What need are you meeting that your customers and potential customers are wanting a solution for? Here is where you identify your target audience, the channels that you will be targeting them in, and the solution you will be providing for them. Your program objectives: This should ring a bell as you identified your primary objective earlier when you built out your plan. Now you can insert that very same statement here, to ensure that all program participants are clear on the program objective and wanted outcomes. Your program participation and offering: Designed to clearly communicate the actions that you want your program bloggers to take, this informs them of the program particulars, to include specific milestones they must meet to be in compliance (and thus receive compensation) with your program. Your program mandatories: This section is for defining your program’s absolute musts. You can use this section to provide “do’s” and “do not’s” – be sure to identify the critical must-do’s here so your potential bloggers can have a clear understanding of your program’s absolute requirements. Your key milestones: It is helpful for potential bloggers to understand the timeline that they would be accountable to prior to signing up to participate. Setting hard deadlines and major milestones for your program ensures that expectations are clearly communicated, helping to facilitate program compliance. A quick note on when to share your brief: I am often asked when the appropriate time to share the brief is – a sound business practice to put into place is the execution of a Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to sharing your brief. Typically, once you have vetted your potential blogger (as in qualified their traffic, writing, promoting capabilities, and audience reach) and they have expressed interest in working with you, requesting the execution of a simple Non-Disclosure Agreement will put your mind at rest and protect the sensitive nature of your brief. Most professional bloggers will not have an issue with this at all, as it has become standard business practice amongst most brands. Stuck on building the brief? Take a gander at this quick-start Blogger Program Brief you can use to help kick-start your own 4. Have you come to mutual consent through contract?Good contracts make for good business, and your blogger program is no exception. After sharing your brief and gaining opt-in, the next step is to execute the program contract. Much like the NDA, this is a common practice and your blogger most likely will be receptive to it, as it helps to protect both parties and layout best practices for a successful engagement. When thinking through what is contained within your blogger program contract, this is the time that you want to consult your legal counsel or an expert who specializes in Internet Marketing Law. There are nuances to these types of contracted relationships and having a professional walk you through the implications is well worth the dollar investment. After all the time and effort you have invested, the last thing you want to do is take the risk of jeopardizing your brand’s reputation because your contract hadn’t been thought through properly! When you meet with your legal counsel, a few of the critical subject areas you will want to be prepared to speak to will include: Program performance benchmarks and compensation Full disclosure statement and placement proximity Non-allowable concurrent promotional items True story: One of our program bloggers decided to use her blog to voice her opinion about the legalization of marijuana. Her post lived right next to our client’s ad and promotion post. Our client didn’t want to be affiliated with her personal views. Because we had thought through that possibility ahead of time and it was stated in the contract that she had agreed to, we were able to ask her to take it down. Program non-adherence and right to cancel 5. Have you set your bloggers up to succeed?Blogger programs are just as much about the relationship you have with the bloggers inside of your program as it is about the relationship they have with their readers. Ultimately, heavily investing in the upfront “getting-to-know-you” part of the relationship can pay dividends as your relationship and program matures. Some great ways to help ensure that your bloggers are set up to succeed: Onboarding and kickoff calls Set up a private program hub through Basecamp or Zoho Projects Give them what they need Let them know how much you appreciate their work If you have signed off on all of the above questions…Congratulations! You are well on your way to rocking that blogger program. You will find that when done right, blogger programs are a viable tool in your digital toolbox, bringing increased awareness, traffic, and conversions. I wish you the best with yours! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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