Juju Cole wrote a pretty neat article a few weeks about about how awesome the Australian social media marketing bloggers are. The article talks about the ridiculous amount of free content and resources available to brands wanting to establish themselves in this space.The only problem, of course, is that brands need someone to tell them they should be adding these bloggers to their RSS Feed in the first place. Just like someone needs to tell them they should have a Google Alerts account set up.Both are free, but to know about them you already need to be inside the social media circle. Getting there isn't hard, but the majority of brands need someone to push them in.So perhaps social media marketers, agencies and consultants should be looking to pull clients inside that circle?...

I guess this is one of those posts that if I were to die tomorrow I would be annoyed this came up first on my blog. But. I have a question which probably falls best under the Almost Pointless Blog Design category. Should the "Older Posts" button at the bottom of every blog be on the left hand side or the right hand side? If you read chronologically from left to right then I imagine it should be on the left. But if you want your blog to open like a book I suppose it should appear on the right. Thoughts?...

Something that has always bugged me is how people suggest good bloggers should be consistent with their content.I don't understand why this medium of new media needs to comply with traditional media practises.My Dad reads his newspaper every morning. Therefore his news paper must land on his doorstep at 6am each day. But I don't read the newspaper, I have an my RSS Feed. I want things to come in as they are published, not once a day at the same time.I try to post every second day. But sometimes it's longer and sometimes it's shorter. People subscribe to my blog and pull my feed into their reader when a post is published. So why does my content need to be consistent?...

Bigpond started using Twitter. At first they sucked. But it appears they've listened and turned things around. However during this process some legal implications were raised, specifically the Spam Act 2003. After research of my own, speaking to the Australian Communications and Media Authority and getting in touch with Dr Melissa de Zwart from the Faculty of Law at Monash University, I have summarised the results...

The way I see it, new media is the umbrella that encompasses everything from social media marketing to viral marketing to mobile marketing. Essentially, anything that does not interrupt a consumer with a great focus on consented, engaging and value providing content. So what is social media? A few days of research, thinking and graphics work have lead me to two key strategies that can be undertaken when it comes to social media marketing. The first, which I'll be covering here is Response and the second, which I'll be posting tomorrow, is Broadcast. Above the line is from marketer's point of view. Below it, is from the consumer's. Monitor Before jumping into the pool it is important to test the water. Observe your consumer and community in focus from afar. Before posting a comment on someone's blog, you must first understand what they're talking about. You should be scoping the scene out to see if you can firstly join the conversation and secondly add to the conversation. Identify There are too many blogs, social network profiles, YouTube videos and tweets for you to respond to them all. After monitoring your consumer and community it is important to identify the most influential people within this niche. Using these opinion leaders and those with loyal audiences (not necessarily large), you will be able to more effectively and efficiently target your key customers. Engage After monitoring and identify the influential consumers within a community, you can now engage with them. This relationship might be a short or long but either way it should be a case of providing meaningful and relevant value to consumers and their community. UGC You have now engaged with the consumer and started a relationship which has been built on the mutual exchange of value. Here the marketer gives up control of the message and the community takes over with the creation of user generated content. It could be something small like establishing and spreading buzz online (or offline) through social networks or something much more involved like writing a blog post or publishing a video on YouTube. The Body Shop do this extremely well. Not only do they have a blog (see Broadcast), but actively respond to influential bloggers. As a result, I'm creating content about them right now. This is one of two strategies I have identified that could be used when approaching social media marketing. The other is Broadcast. Please feel free to offer any thoughts or critique. Edit: I have since updated this model here. ...

Before I began blogging I was quite a naive young student. I thought, as you logically would, marketers would only run campaigns that had profitable returns. Branding issues aside, common sense would suggest that expenses should at least equal income. So when my local real estate agent does a mail box drop of 10,000 pamphlets they must be covering their costs. When telemarketers call random numbers, they must be selling enough to cover their hourly rate. But blogging has changed this rather naive view of mine. Brands don't always make logical decisions....

Small time blogger Jeff Simmermon posted about his experience at a coffee store.The passionate owner has very strict policy on the quality of his coffee and would note serve the customer an expresso on ice. Boing Boing and Metafilter picked up the story and the original post soon had over 200 comments. Shortly after, the owner of the coffee store replied. Note the use of "Fuck you, Jeff" and "If you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your dick." I don't think there are many brands that could get away with this kind of behaviour. I know my bank couldn't. Neither could my university. But personally, I feel this coffee shop does it and does it well. They may have lost Jeff but they just gained me. Contracting the size of your market doesn't seem logical. But when you focus entirely on loyal customers and brand evangelists, you can guarantee they will repeat purchase. More often than the guy who just stopped by for a coffee on ice anyway. Great use of a small business blog too....

Character blogs just don't work. At the start of the year a character blog was established to launch a movie. It was a great way to generate a little buzz, especially around the blogosphere. I'm sure they even picked up a few regular readers and maybe a couple of RSS subscriptions. But it hasn't been touched since April. Movie launches have a lifetime of only a couple of months but blogs carry a long tail. You can't launch a blog and build up an audience to abruptly stop. Blogging and short term strategy just don't go together. Sure they might put out another post when the DVD is released but their small (but passionate) community will be long dead by then. Fictional television characters might have it a little eaiser. Dwight Schrute from The Office has his own blog which is immensely popular. But take a look back a few months ago and you will see a massive gap during the Writers Guild of America Strike. You need to pay a writer to maintain a character blog which can't always be done. So when do they work? When done in parody and non commercially. The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog is a great example where Daniel Lyons maintained a successful blog for several years until he was revealed in August 2007. He still posts daily under the character and it is as successful as ever. Marketers shouldn't be using fake blogs for more reasons than just transparency issues. Unless anyone can prove me wrong with an example?...