Pay a Blogger Day – How to reward a blogger’s work?

Have you ever paid a blogger? Paid for your content love? I mean not for writing some good PR for your business. Just for them being bloggers, sharing valueble content, thoughts, ideas, and providing new food for thought. In some days you can do that. The “Pay a Blogger Day” is here to come. Some thoughts that came to my mind with it…

Some months ago, Flattr started their outreach program to bloggers. And some months ago, they were on their way to revolutionize the monetization of blogs. Those days, the Flattr button went live on my blog, and in every post. I rewarded blog posts, and got some rewards. Just the way Flattr works. They had the idea for the “Pay a Blogger Day”.

On Flattr Cents pass from bloggers to bloggers to… Well. Companies never paid anything. They have the biggest budget pockets though. And I asked myself if bloggers want companies to engage in the monetization process, or if reputation is of higher value for them. And why should companies pay a blogger for something they produce for free. Still trying to figure that out…

Some blog posts generated some Cents immediately through Flattr, never enough for some nice ice-cream in a week though. Somehow the activity to “donate” for a well-written piece of thought or idea felt like an act of charity. Some Cents felt like a pat on the shoulder. Sometimes, I discussed with bloggers if that is encouraging, or frustrating? Every blogger argued differently about this gesture. Many were not convinced. I have seen not many buttons on blogs since.

And often when I wanted to spend some Cents, those bloggers did not use Flattr. So, my reward for them often ended in a Retweet. Maybe Retweets are the killer of positive blog comments…

The main problem many bloggers saw in Flattr was that it will be challenging to get attention for this payment theory outside the bloggosphere. Sounded like: “Bloggers will pay themselves and thus reward their work within an inner circle of the blogging community.” One of the reasons why I finally decided to remove the button from my blog.

Now, Flattr starts -in cooperation with Bambuser, Twingly and Posterous- the “Pay a Blogger Day!” on November, 29th. They intend to start a movement with the mission “Give something back to bloggers!” A good idea…

How to reward a blogger’s work?
If I may inspire you -companies, marketers and managers- with reward opportunities for bloggers, then maybe you want to read this…

a) Companies that have used shared knowledge to improve their business could write a reference quote for the blogger why and how they benefit from reading a blog. It could be a comment, tweet or a blog post on their blog. Just be creative…!

b) Managers that have used shared knowledge for their career purposes could send a present when they think the blogger has deserved it (does not need to be on the “Pay a blogger day!”). A flower (digital or real), a freebie of your products or an invite to a paid for workshop about corporate blogging. And hey, chances are high, bloggers might write about it. Just be clever…!

c) Marketers that have used shared knowledge for their campaign ideas could start thinking about whether they shovel money into a print grave, rely on TV reach or hope for radio commercial payback. Maybe they want to start sponsor a blogger who is worth it as they act like brandvangelist, testimonial or brand advocate for a brand or company. And why are not many marketers trying to make use of bloggers in the offline world? Just be curious…!

d) Followers, fans, “plusers” and bloggers that have used shared knowledge could start discussing the monetization of their work in an authentic collaborative manner. Do you want banners ads, text links, affiliate programs, brand advocate prgrams, or…? What is authentic blog monetization? Or is it reputation only? In short: money, products or reputation currency like Floout.me?

Here is how Flattr wants to inspire you to reward a blogger…

Think about the thoughts and then start acting! I am sure, bloggers know how to say “Thank you” and all bloggers would love to see some of these rewarding opportunities. Right…?

National Geographic makes Augmented Reality go live…

The opportunities to attract peoples’ attention are increasing with the use of Augmented reality. Appshaker recently launched a fantastic way for people to interact with the world of National Geographic Channel’s content from around the globe. The set-up obviously took some budget. With the use of augmented reality, people could virtually interact with different scenes in which they were able to get in touch with dolphins, leopards, the space landings, dinosaurs and more.

The result..
1000s of people interacted with the National Geographic Channel brand in the process as it toured Hungary, with 1000s more people sharing snapshots and video on Facebook as a result.

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC from Appshaker Ltd on Vimeo.

CMO’s studies: Yes, Social Media is key! – Can someone gimme a plan on “Social”…?

CMO’s and marketers all over the world and across industries understand the increasing value of Social Media in (their) business. However, I sometimes wonder whether they really recognize how to use Social Capital and Social Business effectively.

How did I get this view…?

Well, studies show me the reality… and many seminars and webinars open eyes. Today, I came across two studies which might illustrate what marketers and CMO’s need to get their heads around. If they are good, they create brand advocate programs, if they act badly consumers will see brands as boring, poor, and even worse… not obeying the rules of social business. And today brands cannot miss out on “Social”. That is a fact, CMO’s understand…

Market Research vs. Social Research
In one of the latest IBM studies of 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and across 19 industries, 82% of CMOs stated that they will increase their use (or budgets?) of Social Media over the next three to five years. The flipside is that just 26% are currently tracking blogs, 42% are tracking third-party reviews and 48% are tracking the consumer reviews which might help change their market positioning, their marketing insights, their marketing programs. Let’s take the qualitative aspect of Social Research first.

From a quantitative research perspective, 80% rely on market research and corporate benchmarking to rely on as their primary sources for market insights. Obviously, most companies also obey other “non-social” monitoring tools to value the development of their business: 68% use sales campaign analysis for strategic decision making.

In the end, it comes down to numbers. 63% of CMOs believe the ROI on their marketing invest will be the primary measure of effectiveness by 2015. However, almost half of respondents don’t feel prepared to satisfy those business figure aspects. The reason is obvious: CMOs often don’t have enough influence on radical company-wide change processes. Over half of responding CMOs stated they have no impact on pricing process and even less have any impact on new product development or retail channel selection.

Community and Brand Reputation
On the other hand, another new Weber Shandwick study found out how companies understand and plan their social efforts. So, why are some marketers more social than others?

The challenge is to find the key tactics with best possible metric efficiency. Most marketers know about the impact of the 3 “r’s”… reviews, ratings, recommendations on their business efforts. 52% attribute their brand reputation to their online social presence. And even more, 65% project online sociability will boost their reputation in the next three years. However, I would doubt if they act accordingly.

Today, Social Media is part of CMOs marketing mix. The question is, why only 16% consider their efforts as “world class”. This study also makes clear that marketers have trouble establishing clear goals for their social media strategy. Finding the right KPIs is essential. No wonder, companies state they are not well-prepared for the social future in terms of effectiveness. Most o fhtese companies don’t really integrate their social engagement into their enterprise processes.

Spot On!
CMO’s and marketers need to get insights beyond traditional market sources like page impresions, click-throughs and superficial numbers like fans and follower. The good spot is that 54% of global executives experience rewards to outweigh risks – versus 23% the other way round, and some European bosses even focus their attention preferably on Twitter. Although, C-level often does not know how to leverage Social efficiency. The community gives input on the value of products, services and preferrences. When did we have that years ago?

Somehow, marketers are in a poor position as they are working in the transition period. Top down target-group thinking is out, community centric thinking is the future. In some day, we will publish a new strategic theory on this at the IBM JamCamp. Nice coincidence…

News Update – Best of the Day

Loss in productivity is the fear that all bosses of companies have since the beginning of the web surfing era. Two studies by the National University of Singapore now found that web surfing is more productive than monitoring or banning web access. The first study stated that bosses who monitor an employees Internet surfing time may be wasting more time than their employees. The test showed significantly “lower levels of mental exhaustion and boredom”. The second study found that “rather than reducing cyber-loafing, excessive monitoring increases its frequency, as employees invariably view such policies as a form of mistrust that the company has in them”. Blocking Web usage in office hours proves ineffective as it prevents the “restorative function” that web surfing offers.

Many companies think about using Groupon to boost their marketing efforts or to upsale their revenues figures, or just to get some (often old-fashioned or outdated) in stock products out of their halls. To be honest, I found it quite amazing how much loss the company made last quarter, and I was asking myself why to spend money on a company that cuts their own marketing budgets. However, these are just superficial thoughts, Jeff Gibbard explains in three steps why Groupon does not make sense for companies: no financial uplift, no brand loyalty but many bargain hunters.

The Facebook “Like” button offers many opportunities to promote, push and place notion of your products on the Social Web. More importantly, it offers the chance to be creative around its intelligence. Two advertising students Jeena and John from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam created a virtual showroom where IKEA highlights the most liked items.

IKEA “The world’s most liked showroom” from Jeena van der Heul on Vimeo.

Sharing study: Men or Women the best brand advocates?

Women are from Venus, men from Mars. And John Gray’s famous book title, can be applied to the different Social Web usage as well as the genders are also different in terms of sharing information on the Social Web. 

A recent study by AOL and Nielsen shows that men are more likely to share online content than women. A fact that could become interesting for marketers when thinking about the importance of brand advocats, and if you intend to build a strategy approach for your brand around this fact. 

The study that was published by MediaPost states that there are more women online than men – 53% versus 47%. However, slightly more men (51% vs. 49%) share more content on the Social Web than women.

The funny thing is that women are obviously valuable brand advocates, too. The results tell us that women (33%) are slightly more likely than man (31%) to share information related to interests like arts or news for parents.

Still, men are far more likely than women to share information that helps them “position themselves as experts,” says AOL’s senior marketing director, Kristin Kovner. 42% of men will share information such as thoughtleadership reports but only 32% of women.

Spot On!
Although many marketers acknowledge the challenge of addressing gender properly with quality social content, many marketers lack the opportunity of having the right resources for production. The study stressed the importance of social content marketing which should be a top priority for 2011. And I would add… See social content marketing from the aspect of custom content marketing, and have a look at this study to see that many marketers spend a lot of their budgets for it this year. And then try to figure out if men and women react different to brand advocate programms based on content sharing.

Travel industry marketers like Twitter… and not Facebook?

Finding benchmarks for online marketing practise and business system structures was the idea of an internet-based survey by Verma and McGill. They polled 426 senior marketing executives in lodging and destination organizations looking at budget levels, marketing strategies, and organizational structures.

Twitter seems to be quite popular amoung the travel marketers. 80% of respondents stated they produced Twitter campaigns and Social Media promotions in-house versus pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SSEO) which are in most cases outsourced. However, there is a fine difference between accommodation firms and destination marketers: While accommodation firms often outsource all Social Media activities (i.e. Twitter campaigns and pay-per-click management), destination marketers prefer to handle those activities in-house.

“Each year well over 700 marketing executives gather for TravelCom, which is a high level marketing conference that was held this year in Las Vegas” (…) One major theme this year was online marketing, but we realized that there was no overall knowledge of where the industry stands in this area. This study provides those benchmarks.” Cornell Professor Rohit Verma, Executive Director, Center for Hospitality Research (CHR)

The bigger portion of the respondents (two-thirds) said their 2010 e-commerce budgets had increased compared to 2009. 71% of destination marketers and 60% of accommodation marketers see again an increase for 2011.

Spot On!
The travel industry is in a real change mode seen from a web perspective. Web traffic to travel brand sites decreased by 8% in March 2011 versus March 2010. During the same period, visits to Facebook pages jumped 20% according to the first-ever L2 Digital IQ Index. According to a report by PhoCusWright, an industry research group, the unmanaged business trips reserved online will rise twice as fast as the rest of the market. One in three trips will be booked online in 2012 and reach a value of $313bn. If you look at these numbers it surprises me that not more travel marketers are looking at ways to use Social Media and focus more on Facebook than on Twitter, i.e. like OmniHotels offers direct bookings from Facebook now.

Just a thought…

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