Marketing Sherpa’s Popular Media Study, reporting on their study of social media use by US consumers, looks at a group they’re calling Max Connectors - people with more than 500 social connections.

Max Connectors are especially valuable targets for online marketing activity because they can spread a positive brand or product experience so widely.  A great example of a Max Connector is blogger and technical evangelist Robert Scoble, who has over 111,000 followers on twitter.  Not bad for a self proclaimed geek.

Persuading these Connectors to engage with brands and companies through social media channels means giving them something for their trouble, something that they can in turn share with their own connections.  This might mean exclusive access, perhaps in terms of online content, sneak peaks at new features or products or the opportunity to contribute to product or service development.

A while ago I contributed to Neil Perkin’s excellent ‘a presentation about the community, by the community’ crowdsourced presentation.  Neil suggests that every online community has Super Users; high authority, highly active people (Max Connectors by another name).  But my point was that community has layers – and you should respect them all:

Although Super Users or Max Connectors are undoubtedly valuable targets for social media activity, the Sidekicks, who might write niche blogs with limited reach or have a smaller circle of connections can be really important if you want to access their particular specialist niche target audience (like, say, anesthetists).  So size isn’t everything!

posted by gemmaT

The online world is one big global community, right?  Not always.  Online PR is about getting your brand talked about by the right people, in the right places – and if these people are very culturally and geographically specific, you might be well advised to look for online PR experts that really know and understand the same.

Its not about geographical proximity to your target audience – its about having an innate understanding of a particular online neighbourhood and the cultural norms associated with it.  So if you only want to talk to Mums in the North of England, hiring an online PR agency in San Francisco might not be the best place to start (although as an office full of Northern Mummies, OnVisible would love to help!).  Likewise if you are specifically targeting new Moms in Washington USA and come to see us, we’re likely to recommend you use an online PR specialist with on the ground Mommy Blogger contacts in the DC area.

In a virtual world where brands are without borders, the ability to act virtually, work globally and think strategically online is crucial and in the majority of cases, its not about where you are based, its about how you engage.  But sometimes nothing beats a little local knowledge.

posted by gemmaT

In last weekend’s Sunday Times magazine, India Knight wrote about the difference the online world has made to women’s lives. She looked at how the internet celebrates the minutiae of existence as if it mattered a great deal, offering a world of kinship, help, support and solidarity for women.

India describes the (sometimes over) sharing of Mummy (and Mommy) Bloggers as an act of extreme generosity, sharing the good times as well as the bad, both trifling and huge, silly but important, dull but gripping, ephemeral but permanent – and universal.  As she puts it, if its frankness, extreme or otherwise, that you’re after, you’re spoilt for choice.

So how can online online reputation building and engagement specialists like OnVisible reach out to these bloggers and their communities of readers?  By being every bit as frank, open and honest as they are.  Sisterhood Central has conditions of entry and they involve behaving like any good friend would.

posted by gemmaT

One of the most important differences between traditional and online PR is found in blogger relations.  The crux of it is that unlike journalists, the majority of bloggers don’t get paid to blog. 

At a recent meeting between food bloggers and PRs reported on and co-organised by The Guardian, Anthony from Silverbrow on Food said “I blog because I like doing it.  I write about what I feel…writing’s not my job, but it’s also not my job to make it easier [for PRs] to sell in to a chef.”

Jim from Biggest Jim’s Food Blogs put it even more succinctly: “PR people have a specific aim, the clients have a remit.  I don’t.  How do you join that together?  You’re paid to represent a client.  I’m not.”

So how can online PR specialists persuade bloggers that what they have to offer is of real value?  By creating relevant, adaptable content and cool stuff that bloggers really want to talk about and engage with.

posted by gemmaT

There have been quite a few negative comments online following the BlogHer annual blogging conference (for women who blog) last month.

The comments didn’t concern the breath and depth of the conference itself, the brilliant opportunities to meet fellow bloggers in real life or the great parties.

It was all about the swag.

It seems that a combination of enthusiastic online PR types keen to reach out to influential Mommy Bloggers and Blogher delegates equally enthusiastic to get their hands on Free Stuff resulted in a 1,500 strong, 95% female, rugby scrum.

A lot of BlogHer delegates are sharing the resulting swag with their readers (with lots of attendant exposure for the brands concerned), but with many bloggers also questioning whether Free Stuff really creates a relationship between brands and bloggers, maybe its time that events like this had some kind of ‘rules of engagement’ for swag distribution?

posted by gemmaT

Two of the top five UK ‘Mummy’ bloggers have seen their success translated to the printed page – Wife in the North and Petit Anglaise (who is based in Paris but still classed as a UK mummy).  And over in the US, last year 25 ‘Mommy’ bloggers collaborated to produce Sleep is for the Weak, ‘a naked narration of Life After Children’.

It’s another clear indication that Mummy/Mommy Bloggers are a popular and powerful force, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they are interchangeable. 

With a larger audience of readers to aim for and earlier mass uptake of broadband, the Mommies were always going to enjoy more impressive visitor figures (Confessions of a Pioneer Woman averages over 10M page views a month) than their UK counterparts. 

But there also appears to be different traffic drivers for the US and UK blogs.  In the UK, forums like MumsNet (which now have their own book deal) and NetMums (ditto) provide a first point of call for information and advice, with blogs mainly relegated to more of an entertainment role.  However in the US, mommy bloggers have expanded their remit and joined forces to build their own portals like AlphaMom, complete with searchable advice columns on pregnancy, parenting and homemaking.

Culturally, the British have always been a bit more reserved and not so quick to overshare their birthing horror stories or relationship problems and this seems to apply to commercial partnerships too.  While big Mommy bloggers like Amalah happily blog about their Hewlett Packard and Sony swag, the tale of the Mummy Bloggers who were treated to an all expenses paid trip to the US to experience the Disney magic for themselves resulted in national press stories about the ‘Disney Seven’ and a flurry of blog posts clarifying what bloggers thought was appropriate behaviour by brands and their PRs.

It’s important we remember that online content is still generated by people who live offline and are influenced by the technology, culteral norms and environment in whichever part of the world they live in.  Engaging with bloggers and forums needs to reflect this and understand each blogger’s policy for PR contact.

posted by gemmaT

Blogger relationships and blogger outreach has always been an intrinsic part of any online PR or reputation management strategy.

The blogosphere is over 130 million strong, but it is thought that 95% of blogs are dormant, abandoned and unloved.  That still leaves about 6.5 million active blogs worldwide. 

The challenge for online PR practitioners is to decide whether you are going for a blogger contact strategy of quality or quantity (in effect the long tail versus the short tail) and exactly which blogs are the best fit for your message.

Like any communications channel, you can have niche blogs with limited reach that are really important if you want to access their particular specialist target audience (like, say account planners).  Then there are other blogs that might not have a very impressive reach but their audience is made up almost entirely of influential Alpha Consumers, the first to know, the first to try and the first to buy.

Which means that understanding exactly which blogs are delivering the target audience for your particular campaign is what differentiates sharp shooting online PR professionals from the scattergun approach of less skilled practitioners.

The OnVisible team work with our own data and cutting edge online tools that allow us to target the most appropriate blogs with content that is relevant, timely and interesting.  More than that though we’re bloggers ourselves – we’re part of the community and understand that blogger outreach should be tailored, timely and about creating dialogue.  We track the coverage achieved on our target blogs but whenever our clients are mentioned or discussed on blogs, websites or even twitter, we know about it and we respond.  Acknowledging our blogging colleagues and linking to their site is essential to develop a true partnership.

So yes it’s about sharp-shooting but it’s also about understanding, dialogue and community.  After all, there’s no point in firing if you don’t know how the gun works or whether you hit the bull’s-eye.

posted by gemmaT / Deborah C