The night began with everyone looking around a little nervously. However after a few drinks the room was full of Michael Jackson impersonators. By the end of the evening we had music bloggers getting “Off the Wall” and going head to head with MJ bloggers and seniors members of the Ubisoft team.

I headed home realizing that my gym membership card was in need of being dusting off and put to good use, while everyone else went back home moonwalking! A great night in which I definitively sold myself on buying a wii!

From the looks on everyone’s faces it’s going to be a BAD Christmas.

Makes big boys want to play

Guests included pinnacle members of London’s blogging scene as well as press people and Bond lovers. The DB5 model car was the center of attention, with members of the design team on site to answer any questions. Overall the event was an intimate affair, but it’s safe to say that a great time was had by all!

For more information on the event head over here.

London views from the Penthouse

Bloggers are powerful and many have audiences bigger than traditional press publications

A lot of people talk about blogger outreach but what does it mean and how does it add value? Here’s an overview of what it involves, what you should expect and some tips on how to get the best results.

At its simplest level blogger outreach is the integration of blogger relationships into a Social CRM strategy. By building long-term relationships with relevant and interested bloggers it’s possible to open up a whole new means of broadcasting your message to niche audiences who are actively interested and engaged. In addition, word-of-mouth recommendations from bloggers can be very influential, especially if they have a faithful readership that trust and follow their opinions.

However, it’s worth noting that blogger outreach is one of the hardest aspects of Social CRM to get right as a poorly thought-out strategy can easily backfire and possibly even damage your brand or reputation online. Bloggers can be savage and merciless in exposing ill-informed or overly tactical approaches, and this is why (most but not all) PR agencies often get it wrong.

If you plan to work with bloggers as part of your strategy it’s essential to remember to treat them as individuals and not just another marketing channel. For some time now bloggers have been increasingly treated by some marketers as just another outlet for press releases – yet this technique is the social media equivalent of being cold-called by a double glazing salesman.

Bloggers do not want to feel that they are being used or sold-to. Bloggers are motivated by personal relations and taking part in or initiating on-going conversations. As a result bloggers will almost always only respond to truly personal approaches and will ignore anything that seems like a blanket press release or marketing message. While some bloggers are now very professional, with huge audiences, it’s still important to treat them with respect and remember that unlike traditional media they do not need you or your content to survive.

In exchange, bloggers are often happy to use exclusive content or information that is relevant to them and their readership, once you have begun to build up a direct relationship. Products to review, invitations to events and competition prizes can also be effective – depending on how relevant these activities are to your sector – as successful blogs often rely on a steady stream of constant updates. Expect blogs to be honest however, and don’t expect to guarantee good reviews or favourable coverage if you’re not confident in your product. Bloggers will tell you what they think, not necessarily what you want to hear.

If you can make the process work for you though and you keep your blog contacts happy, you can not only hope to achieve wider online coverage for your product (many blog audiences now surpass traditional  magazine readerships) but also access to another measurable online marketing channel, and the chance to engage with possible future brand advocates.

Neoco now has several years of experience in building strong relationships with selected bloggers across key industries, and this has enabled us to develop a range of tried and trusted strategies. Blogger outreach is frequently included in our planning strategies from the outset and this enables us to plan and maintain our relationships, even during the quiet periods between campaigns. This often puts us ahead of other agencies, as you’re not paying for the initial learning curve, you’re paying for our experience.

Here are our five top tips to consider when drawing up your own strategy:

1. Aim to build long-term stable relationships and not short-term contacts
2. Know your audience and keep it relevant. Use appropriate forms of communication.
3. Be honest – bloggers will expose bullshit
4. Ask bloggers what they want or need from you
5. Look after your message online – keep it coherent and consistent

Social CRM assignments rarely get any better than this!  Going to a lovely beach side festival on a summers day and posting on the goings on / activity unfolding at the event.  Pitched up by the Just Dance Disco Bus, with my laptop on a speaker and perched on a deck chair I posted, tweeted, updated and blogged about all the fun that was happening on the bus and the cool goings on around the festival.

Where will I be blogging from next…

V festival, oh yes.. Bring it on!

Find out more about the Just Dance Disco Bus by clicking here

NaBloPoMo recruits some celebrity help

NaBloPoMo stand for National Blog Posting Month and is an initiative to get more people blogging. Great idea, but it feels like actually just calling it ‘National Blog Posting Month’ would of made it feel more accessible to those who are not already involved… but I guess that would of been to dull for the digital marketing peeps.

*by the way, WTF is internet ’shorthand’ for What The F*ck?

We often get clients asking us about all these different channels and the best way to communicate across them. Good news is that we are going to start running workshops and training days to help expand the knowledge and ability of our clients and their internal teams. This is open to people on either side of the fence (client or agency side).

Are you interested in any of the following? If so, go to http://ping.fm/rSWYc and register your interest.

* Mobile Marketing – Harnessing the power and potential of media targeting
* Online Marketing – Getting to grips with the power of online marketing
* PR – Getting to grips with how online fits into the PR mix
* Audience Building – Unlocking the keys to boosting your traffic and retaining customers
* Blogging – Authoring blogs that get readers and ratings
* Community & Web 2.0 – Building effective online communities
* How the Internet works – Understanding the key components that make up the Internet
* Podcasting – Getting to grips with designing and building podcasting strategies
* Media Targeting – Harnessing the power and potential of media targeting
* Search for Advertisers – Getting more profitable customers through search
* Search for Agencies – Getting more profitable customers for your clients through search
* Email Marketing – Getting to grips with email marketing
* Viral Marketing – Creating effective viral marketing messages
* Research for Online Audience Behaviour – Understanding your customers
* Word of Mouth & Advocacy – Engaging and motivating your audience to promote your brand
* Widgets – The way to create widgets that get results and exposure
* Trends – Understanding the strategic trends driving the digital economy
* Web 2.0 – Harnessing Web 2.0 practices and technologies in your business
* Web Project Management – Running web projects to deliver on time and within budget
Go to http://ping.fm/IqnOz and register your interest.

Every now and then something happens to remind me of the power of the Internet and why I love it. The latest came in early February this year when the celebrity gossip website TMZ published a recording of Christian Bale throwing a bit of a strop on the set of his new movie, Terminator Salvation. Within hours the recording had hit YouTube and clocked up millions of views, with people from all over the world listening to it and blogging about it.

The recording quickly became an internet meme and computer geeks the world over flocked to their laptops to create their own versions and remixes.

RevoLucian’s Techno Remix was one of the first: (NSFW)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=PL&hl=pl&v=YTihsJQHt48]

YouTube user ‘TheMaeShi’ went as far as creating their own song: (NSFW)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oFjz6JfACk]

While my personal favourite played out a re-enactment on the streets of Hollywood: (NSFW)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq-ojRAlWJU]

It even got the family guy treatment (NSFW – again!)

Peter tells his friends about his run-in with Christian Bale

Eventually it hit mainstream news channels around the world. The BBC had to apologise for accidentally broadcasting the un-censored version, and even Christian Bale’s mother had her say. Bale was forced to make a public apology for something that he probably never thought would be listened to by millions of people.

Thanks to the internet I got to spend a few hours laughing at an overpaid Hollywood prima donna making an idiot of himself, and you can’t say fairer than that!

highly original posty logo

Currently supported networks are: Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr, Friendfeed and the recently added Identi.ca. Simplify your microblogging!

More than half of all the arrests have been made in China, Egypt and Iran with prison sentences given to many. The average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months and the longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years!

Its not just the Middle East bloggers though – in the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested.  Arrests tend to increase during times of political uncertainty – so with upcoming elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US, arrests are predicted to high an all time high.

For more details about the report visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7456357.stm

We’ve just come across a really nice article, explaining how the web has impacted  journalism. The article, written by independent journalist, Bill Thompson, outlines some of the key changes relating to news online, and how they have affected journalism. These include:

• Blogging turning from a ‘curious habit of the self-obsessed into a defining use of the internet for all forms of communication’
• News feeds, aggregators and personal recommendations on social network sites replacing the front pages of major news providers, as the way that people find out about breaking news
• The Guardian moving from a newspaper with a nice website, to an online information source that also publishes a dead tree edition
• New services like Twitter offering alternative ways of getting the news, in the form of short updates about breaking news or links to longer pieces

In terms of the future of journalism, a key thinking point from the article came from a comment made by Solana Larsen, one of the managing editors of Global Voices (a site that offers easy access to many of the world’s bloggers and tries to “aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online”). She believes that in 5 years time, the “foreign correspondent” – sent off to a strange land to report on the activities of the “natives” – will no longer be needed. The main reason being that there are becoming more and more places online where we can simply ask those who are living through the events what they think of them, and seek insights and analysis from those who know the people and the places involved.

Whether you agree with this or not, the full article is definitely worth a look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7338238.stm