@IAMAI-Web2.0: How To Market To Bloggers…And How Not To
I missed half of the second session: had to send some mails but there was no WiFi at the conference and the Tata Indicom data card wasn’t detecting any network: in fact, am still struggling with connectivity for posting while in Mumbai. (Is Reliance any better?)
The second session at the IAMAI conference on Web 2.0 was moderated by Jaspreet Bindra, Country Manager, Windows Live and MSN India, and focused on the marketers perspective. Tarun Bangari, Head-Product Marketing for Akamai outlined the social media mix for marketers: creating ones own community, banner advertising on social networking sites (SNS), creating sponsored spaces on existing SNS, for CEOs and senior officers to start blogs, or working with thought leaders. Garima Chaudhry, Head- eAlliances for Citibank India emphasized the importance of listening to the customer. They’ve shied away from participating on blogs –users don’t want direct information. One is talking not to customer segments, but to individuals. It’s not easy to track CPL, so they’re trying to define a whole new set of metrics – how the users propensity changes, and understand how it leads to conversions.
Kiruba Shankar, the blogger on the panel, said that advertisers make the mistake of treating bloggers as just page views. He gave the example of Royal Enfield that initially that initially sponsored a Chennai bloggers meet, but also took 5 minutes of the meet for a marketing pitch. That worked against them, but they came back and offered people bikes to try for four days - people loved that. There were lots of good reviews on Enflield, and this is something that I’ve also endorsed in the past – look to create fans, and the rest takes care of itself. Shankar said that bloggers are anticipating the advent of Panama and MSN Adcenter, and kick Googles butt for more revenue share for bloggers.
Shailesh Rao, MD Google India said that marketing has gone from an expense to an investment. The job is to facilitate a conversation, but not to prescribe it. There is no control. Pushkar Sane, Head Asia for Starcom IP feels that people tend to believe blogs more. In organizations, people at the top and bottom are clued into blogs, but the people in the middle are the bottlenecks. Ratish Nair, CEO of Interactive Avenues listed adsense as one way to market on blogs without being intrusive.
Posted In: Social Media
Newsletter
Comments (5)
Jun 24, 2007 10:59 AM
About the marketing through blogs (banner ads on blogs), the 2-3 marketers present there thought that it wasnt such a good idea because that will supposedly bias the blogger and pollute the sanctity of the blog and its audience.
I couldnt believe what I was hearing—someone should have pointed them to Techcrunch or gigaom or readwriteweb—all these are the worlds biggest bloggers and they make money from banner ads. There’s nothing wrong with having banner ads on blogs as long as it meets the bloggers requirements (non intrusive, non audibles etc…)
on a side note, looks like kiruba’s started taking ads on his blog :)
Jun 24, 2007 2:11 PM
The main thing to understand is that when companies interact through blogs to thier customers they get bonded with the company. Like an example i could give is the one about my grand dad going to a specific bank because his freind used to be the manger there and he used to get insider information from this friend of his and this made him trust the bank more .
A blog has a similar effect on people.
In my opinion all companies that deal with a customer base that needs to come back to them should blog because that will make the customers bond with the product
One thing i have noticed in the resent time is that Adsense is being used by people to market wrong content also.With KEY words that attract Teens i have been writing about how teens are being affected by this kind of marketing and other such lures on my blog a recent entry http://socialitesnet.blogspot.com/2007/06/your-teen-and-internet.html talks about how its not softwares but more parent child interaction that will save our teens. The abuse of marketing tools is a serious issues. I use adsense on my blog but i try to filter out such advertisers.
Jun 24, 2007 9:34 PM
Pranav: very true…the problem is that some of the marketers want to interfere with/influence content, which is something that I am - we are - totally against. Of course, there are some blogs from India that I know of, that seem to publish sponsored content, but never really demarcate it as that.
Jun 28, 2007 8:08 AM
Sponsored content is definitely a way of biased Marketing. You are actually purchasing loyalty of a blogger and then using blogging techniques by the user to BUY loyalty. Blogs and Bloggers have comea long way today. Unfortunately India is waking up to the idea and yet to realise the true potential of the power of blogging and its techniques. To put creativity to its test on a bloggng platform is certainly powerful and has its huge beneficial advantages.
Regards,
Jun 25, 2008 10:02 PM
True said Bhave, Marketing via blogger is biased way even though impact of marketing via blogger is very high and attracts more users then any other way or marketing can.