Marketing Roadmaps

Archives for 2009

See ya, 2009

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Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

2009 has not been a banner year. The economy really impacted my business, as it has so many. Among other things, the competition for projects got quite fierce. When full-service agencies slash their fees to the bone, it is pretty hard for an independent to match it. And the projects that did come in tended to be smaller than in previous years.

Things seemed to pick up a little toward the end of the year, which makes me hopeful for 2010. I’m also always looking at all my options. If  you’ve got something in which you think I might be interested, whether a project, long term assignment or full-time job, please never assume I am too busy or wouldn’t be interested. I am always interested. Always.

There were some highlights over the year:

  • I have some wonderful clients, both long-term and recent, and  am tremendously grateful for the confidence they have in my work. I just want more like them! And fewer deadbeats who never pay their bills.
  • I am excited to be working on my first book, Professional Blogging for Dummies (Wiley, Summer 2010).
  • The community response to the Blog with Integrity initiative made me proud — once again — to be a blogger. We’ve got some exciting plans for next year, so stay tuned.
  • The trip to Africa with my mom and brother was the experience of a lifetime. Full reports on my travel blog and a dedicated site set up by my brother MashatuTiger.com
  • I started writing about Digital Parenting for BlogHer’s Family Connections project.

But no lie, I am ready to kick 2009 to the curb and say hello to 2010.  There’s a lot to look forward to. I’ve just started work on some challenging new client projects and as I mentioned above, we’ve got good stuff in the works for Blog with Integrity. And of course the book. I have to write a chapter a week every week until mid-March. Doesn’t sound like much until you start to do it, and then it’s a bit like having a term paper due every week. Worth it in the end though.

I’m also honored to have been invited to speak at a number of conferences over the next few months, starting with the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas. Here’s the schedule, through April 2010.

CES, Las Vegas, January 8, 2010 —

  • MommyTech Summit – Mommy Power 101 panel. Moderated by Beth Blecherman of TechMamas.com, the panel will talk about how technology advancements have empowered moms and changed our lives.
  • Help, My Mom Friended Me on Facebook, part of Kodak’s in-booth television studio. Session will stream live over the Internet (January 8, 11 am PST). The panel, which also includes Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of NYC, will be talking digital parenting and the impact of technology on our children and our families.

BlissDom ’10, Nashville, February 4-6, 2010 —

  • Social Media & the Women Who Love It. Advanced Social Media Workshop (Feb. 4, 2010)
  • You Should Know Better:  A Blogger’s Guide to Legal, Accounting and FTC Guidelines. Session. (Feb. 5, 2010)

ETC 2010, Providence, Rhode Island, February 6, 2010 —

  • Navigating Social Media: A Hands-on Approach. Workshop.

Mom 2.0 Summit, Houston, February 18-20, 2010 —

  • Got Strategy? session (Feb. 19, 2010)

BlogPaws, Columbus, Ohio, April 9-10, 2010 —

  • Gulp! The FTC? What the New Guidelines Mean for You (April 10, 2010)

New Comm Forum, San Mateo, California, April 20-23, 2010 —

  • Introduction to Social Media for Business. Pre-conference workshop. April 20, 2010
  • Social CRM Stories: Case Studies, Challenges & Emerging Best Practices. Moderator. April 22, 2010
  • Disclosure: It’s Not Just for Bloggers. Impact of the new FTC guidelines on corporate social media programs. April 23, 2010

If you have a moment over the next few days, please take my blogger survey about marketing pitches and Facebook contests. Only 10 questions! Results will be reported here and on the Blog with Integrity Facebook page early next week.

I’d like to end the year with the lyrics from Louis Jordan’s holiday classic May Every Day Be Christmas (listen to it on Last.fm). Sums up my wish for all of us in the coming year:

May every day be Christmas
And every day be blessed
Let the end of every day be filled with happiness
And may the Lord be good to you with every rising sun
All through the day have a smile for everyone
[repeats] At night time comes a longing to be with ones you love
To sit around the fireside and dream of stars above
So may God bless you and keep you, come what may
Then every day will be a happy day [end repeat]
May good times come to you every day.

Radio silence

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I’m officially going dark on the blog until after Christmas. Book deadlines looming and I’d like to enjoy my family over the holidays a bit too. When I come back, I hope to have some updates on the Blog with Integrity webinars for next year. I’m also going to be digging into whether companies doing blogger outreach and affiliate marketing are informing bloggers of the obligation to disclose.

Or not. So far, it’s looking like not.

The design of Marketing Roadmaps changed last weekend from a custom design to the Thesis theme. While I am a proponent of  custom design, I wanted to document the process of using a template for my book, Professional Blogging for Dummies (Wiley, Summer 2010). It was pretty smooth sailing except for the graphic header.

As you can see (if you are viewing the blog not just the feed), I am still using the custom graphic Roadmaps header, but as of this writing, we still haven’t figured out how to extend the header to the orange background without losing the padding to the left and right of the content areas.

So, please don’t email me that the header is getting chopped off to the left and right. I know. A friend who knows Thesis has offered to help next week.

Stay tuned, and have a happy holiday.

Bits & pieces: My Canadian TV debut and some blogger relations reminders

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Last week, I was a guest on After Hours with Andrew Bell, a financial news program on Canada’s Business News Network. Think of it as the Canadian equivalent of Bloomberg News. Topic: the new FTC guidelines and potential impact on companies. You can watch it online here.

Later this week, I’ve got a bad pitch to share with you but I want to spend some time on the post, a luxury I do not have today. I thought I’d get us all in the mood by sharing a few blogger relations tips.

Good blogger outreach has to go beyond the product and its features. That brilliant features-based pitch with the clever tagline you are about to send? May be enough for the blogger to consider buying your product, but I can almost guarantee you, it will not be sufficient to get him to write. You’ve got to go beyond the features, and tap into something the blogger really cares about.

If you are planning any programs aimed at mom bloggers, take 13 minutes and listen to this 360 Public Relations podcast. It was taped at last fall’s Mom2Mom Summit, and features top mom bloggers and marketers discussing what works, and what doesn’t, in the mom social media space. Full disclosure: I edited the podcast for 360.

Broken record though I may be, do not forget that, as of December 1, if you compensate a blogger, whether in cash or free products, the new FTC guidelines on endorsements and testimonials require you to:

  • inform the blogger that she has an obligation to disclose,
  • monitor for compliance as well as accuracy of product claims in any resulting posts and
  • take steps to correct inaccuracies.

While this is not retroactive, if you are in the middle of a program, I would err on the side of caution and comply with the new Guidelines.

Gaze into my crystal ball: Predictions about impact of new FTC endorsement guidelines

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iStock_000003370366XSmallThe new FTC guidelines for commercial endorsements and testimonials take effect today. How will that impact social media outreach programs?

Here are my predictions.

Companies and agencies that practice good blogger relations will continue to do so. They achieve excellent results by building close relationships with bloggers and developing targeted, relevant programs for their communities. They probably already do most of what the FTC requires simply because it is best practice.

However, there won’t be nearly as much free expensive, high-end product going around. Or costly boondoogle trips.  Companies will, and should, be much more careful about big programs and selective about who they invite to participate.

This may result in a shake-out in some blogging communities. Bloggers who write because they love to write will continue to do so. Bloggers who blog for the free stuff? If the flow dries up? Maybe not.

Hopefully, it will also result in more creative programs that add value to the community and the brands.

On the other hand, there’s going to be more mass marketing. Guaranteed, there will be more spammy press releases. Addressed to Blogger.

Twitter broadcasts. Lots, lots, lots more contests on Twitter. And not just trivia, which is at least amusing. Tweet “brand name and #hashtag” to enter.

Why? Because when it’s mass and untargeted, there’s no material relationship to disclose. In this context, Facebook’s decision to impose tighter controls on sweepstakes and contests makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?

Mass isn’t always bad. Brands will use conference swag bags even more widely to distribute free samples of inexpensive and even moderately priced products. This supports the community as well as the bloggers, and goes in my column of good consequences.

So far, there are at least three different models for Twitter disclosure. By January, I bet there will be a few more, and one or more will have a monetization strategy. [I’ll be writing about these models later this month.]

Measurement and monitoring tools will add functionality to track disclosure statements on blogs.

There will be at least one FTC enforcement action in the social media space next year. My guess is that it will fit one of these three situations:

  • a company or agency does not properly inform the people participating in its word of mouth or blog marketing program of their obligation to disclose;
  • an astroturfer, i.e. a company stuffing review sites with unattributed positive reviews of its products;
  • an affiliate marketer does not monitor or correct inaccurate statements about its products made by affiliates.

Someday, an astroturfing company is going to try to claim “rogue employee” as a defense, and offer its social media policies and training programs as evidence, but it will turn out that the employee — probably an intern — was directed or at least subtly encouraged to post the fake reviews.

Bloggers will figure out how to disclose their affiliate marketing relationships when linking in posts.  For example, Mir Kamin is now using hover text on affiliate links on her shopping blog Want Not,  an elegant and relatively non-obtrusive solution. Read her  disclosure page for the details.

It won’t take long for most of us to get used to this brave new world. Even celebrities.  We’ll make a few changes. Think about things a bit more carefully. And just get on with it.

Until the next thing that is.

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Other posts and articles this week about the guidelines:

Companies’ obligations under FTC endorsement guidelines

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As I noted in last week’s post, companies using social media marketing tactics have an equal, if not greater obligation, than bloggers under the revised FTC guidelines. It just hasn’t gotten as much media coverage. In part because the story isn’t as  provocative as “Bloggers are Shills! Big fines!” and in part because it’s not news. The advertiser has ALWAYS had liability under the deceptive advertising statues.

In short, companies using word of mouth marketing and their agencies are required to:

  • Disclose their relationships when posting, commenting or tweeting. Including reviewing products on websites. Let’s call this the anti-astroturfing provision;
  • Provide guidance to people participating in their campaigns about their obligation to disclose;
  • Monitor to ensure both compliance with the disclosure requirements and accuracy of information;
  • Take steps to correct inaccurate or misleading information.

What does this mean in practical terms?

Companies must revise their social media policies to require employees to identify themselves as interested parties when posting or commenting about the company and its products. This does not preclude the ability to post anonymously. It’s not the employee’s name that’s important. It’s the fact of employment. What you are — an employee — is more important than who you are — your name. The same requirement applies to agencies acting on the company’s behalf. If you work for Brand X’s PR firm and leave a comment on a review site, you’d better identify yourself. Companies also must train all employees about the disclosure requirements and their responsibilities.

Companies engaged in blogger outreach and word of mouth marketing programs must inform participants about the obligation to disclose. In my opinion, this advice must be specific to the program, not a generic statement about the need to disclose.

Updated to add: I think affiliate marketers are obliged to provide disclosure guidance to their affiliates, and expect responsible affiliate programs will be making changes to their agreements to reflect both the disclosure requirement and the affiliate’s (the blogger’s) responsibility. Assuming, as I do, that affiliate marketing will be under the FTC’s microscope, I would not be surprised to see non-compliance as grounds for removal from the program.

The company’s monitoring program must be fine-tuned to look for the proper disclosures as well as the mention of the brand. Processes must be developed to surface and correct inaccuracies and other misleading statements, including,  I imagine, missing disclosure statements.

And, of course, all of this must be carefully documented should it be needed as a defense in an enforcement action. You can’t just say you did it. You have to be able to prove it.