Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

New Comm Forum, blog move, Star-Ledger on Camp Baby

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Just a few quick updates.

First, I will eventually get the slides from the Alumni panel at New Comm Forum up on the conference wiki, but for now, I’ve linked them here (PDF 2M). Thanks again to Jen McCLure, executive director of the Society for New Communications Research for supporting the panel and giving it such a nice slot on the program, and to the four alumni who shared their stories: Wendy Harman, Bob Siller, Doug Bardwell and Chris Turner.

Don’t miss the Star-Ledger’s story on Johnson’s Camp Baby. No news in it for readers of this blog, but nice to see mainstream media do such a balanced blogging story.

Finally, Marketing Roadmaps will be moving to Word Press sometime this summer, but I promise to give plenty of warning and will run in parallel for at least a month. Thanks to everyone for their advice and words of encouragement.


SOCAP Social Media 101 Workshop

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On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of giving a social media & blogging 101 workshop at the SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business) International Symposium here in Boston.

Here are the slides for those attendees that want to download them. If you have trouble downloading just shoot me an email at sgetgood@getgood.com and I will email them to you.

If you are interested in the workshop for your organization, it lasts about two-hours, and focuses on the application of new media tools like blogs and Twitter to customer service and consumer affairs. Email me to discuss in more detail.

Download Blogging101_SOCAP.pdf (2396.7K)

Will you follow me?

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Friends and long-time readers, will you follow me if I move this blog off Typepad, which is driving me progressively crazy, over to a new address?

Here’s my problem. This blog has a custom design. Which means I cannot easily use ANY of the Typepad widgets to add functionality. Everything has to be done by hand.

And some things don’t work too well. Like the weird narrow delicious linkroll. Why is it so narrow? Who knows. I’ve messed around for a bit and it just gets narrower. I finally had to move my Blogroll to a separate page because it became one word per line and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. Admittedly, I did not set up my design. But still… When I mess around with my WordPress blogs, I can usually figure out what is going on. Here, not so much.

So I am contemplating switching over to WordPress. I would leave the old Typepad blog up as an archive — a single user Typepad account is not that expensive — and just move forward on the new site from a cut-over date. With the flexibility of WordPress, I think we could even have a search into the old content if you wanted it.

I am well aware that this move would put my rankings into the toilet, but since I don’t really care about that, the more germane issue is: Will you come with me when I move? You I care about.

Should I do it or just continue to suck up the irritation that Typepad is becoming?

Power

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crossposted to Snapshot Chronicles. Warning: long post

Power. Of the collective. Of the parent. Of the blogger. That’s today’s topic.

Let’s start with what the collective can achieve when we come together. In this case, for charity. As you may recall, about two weeks ago, in one of my Camp Baby case study posts, I suggested that companies interested in reaching women bloggers put their money into the charities that we care about. Not that we don’t like schwag or free products, or hell, even some link love. But I have yet to meet a parent blogger that doesn’t contribute what she or he can to charity. It’s why BlogHers Act has such resonance for the community.

Which is why I was thrilled to get an email from Kristen Chase this morning telling me about the latest Parent Bloggers Network BlogBlast campaign. PBN has teamed up with Johnson’s to promote Johnson’s Baby Cause, the company’s new charitable giving site to support the health and well-being of mothers and children worldwide. Details of the promotion are on the PBN post, but short version, blog about how you’d like to be recognized on Mother’s Day. Both Johnson’s and PBN are donating prizes; I love the PBN prize — a $25 credit to donate to the cause of your choice at Baby Cause. Ten winners. There’s also a charity auction for gently used celebrity baby goods on eBay that will benefit Baby Cause.

Why do I like this so much? To start with, charity. That will get me EVERY TIME. Which I am sure Kristen knew when she emailed me. And then there’s the Johnson’s component. I absolutely love that this Parent Bloggers Network campaign came about as a result of Lori Dolginoff from Johnson’s and Kristen meeting at Camp Baby, a fact which I confirmed with Lori before posting tonight. (And perhaps of  Lori and Julie Marsh, Kristen’s partner in PBN, not meeting for all the reasons we already know.)

I’m sure the broader charity effort was well underway before Camp Baby earlier this month but as a direct result of the event, Johnson’s decided to team up with PBN to promote it. In short, it learned how valuable it is to work with people within the community, and that, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

Okay, you get here for free, but you know what I mean.

Another way we exercise our power as bloggers is when we help build our community. As Kim Moldofsky did today with a "link love" post for her Camp Baby friends on parentcenter. Yet another consequence, and hopefully not unintended, of getting 56 women with common interests together.

The power of the collective to effect change. Use it. Write a post. Help a friend with a little link love. Donate, to Baby Cause or BlogHers Act. But I’m thinking, buy a new diaper bag. 

Parent bloggers have power. And that’s the segue into my next topic, which is to tell you about a project that launched its public beta today called ParentPower. Full disclosure: I’ve been consulting for the company developing ParentPower, advising them about the parent blogger space.

What is ParentPower? It’s an application for parenting blogs. There’s a lot to it – a desktop widget, an index of top parenting blogs, links to sites we visit all the time like Flickr, Twitter and parenting sites, an RSS reader, the weather, and more. More details in the overview on the site.

Why do I like this project? Because Active Access, the company that developed the app, asked. And they listened. And not just to me and my colleague Kami Huyse, who brought me into the project. They did focus groups with parent bloggers. They’ve started talking in Twitter. We’re talking with BlogHer about the best way to work with the community. And we are asking for even more feedback in the beta process. So if you decide to download the app, please complete the Polldaddy survey or send email to myvoice@parentpowerindex.com

As everyone who reads my Marketing Roadmaps blog knows, I have my concerns about indexes, but Active Access has done a good job here. There’s no subjective component in the Parent Power index and blogs that score the same get the same rank.

Personally, I’m LMAO that my personal/parent blog Snapshot Chronicles, which isn’t even a year old and has a very small number of loyal, wonderful subscribers, currently has a better ranking on ParentPower than Marketing Roadmaps (three+ years old, 1000 plus subscribers) has on the AdAge Power150. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but (hint hint) I think the ParentPower algorithm is better (no offense meant,  AdAge 150), and  hope those parent bloggers whose blogs are not yet included in ParentPower will add them and knock me down the pegs I probably deserve.

The power of parents. That’s truly what the folks behind ParentPower want to support, and I urge you to give your feedback. On the application, on the index, on whatever floats your boat. The feedback from the parent blogger focus groups was invaluable, and really, we just want "more, more…"

And finally, power. As in laptop power supply. Marketing Roadmaps readers will remember rmy sad tale, posted on April 3, of a broken iGo power supply during my trip to NYC for BlogHer, the 4-hour search for parts and the $130 I spent on new cables because, contrary to the information provided by iGo support, neither Best Buy nor RadioShack stocked the part I needed. Well, today I got an email from a marketing manager at iGo offering to replace my broken part. While I am tickled pink? purple? some other color? at the fact that finally, a company actually read my frakking blog and responded, customer support already sent a replacement part at no charge to my home. Which is great and much appreciated, but does not compensate for the added costs or the wasted time while I was in NY. Nothing really can, but if they respond back to my  reply, I will tell them that I’d be thrilled with some  free product to give away on Snapshot Chronicles. (Sorry Roadmaps readers, all giveaways happen on the personal blog.)

We do have power as bloggers. Our opinions of companies do matter, as this study by SNCR demonstrates, and companies are starting to listen. Slowly.

So use that power wisely. Don’t bitch to hear the sound of your own voice or read the melody of your own words.

Write to change things for the better.

That’s power.

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Addendum – credit where credit is due (4/30/08)

Kim Moldofsky wanted to make sure everyone knows that
credit for the weekly post sharing idea goes to Jodi at www.momsfavoritestuff.com 

In my zeal to be transparent about my small part in the
ParentPower project, it came across to some readers as though this was my
project. While I think ParentPower is a great product and hope folks try it
out, I simply provided some advice about the parent blogger space. ParentPower
was developed by Active Access. Livingston Communications and Kami Huyse led the product marketing,
strategy and PR, and Shannon Whitley developed the Index algorithm.

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Camp Baby: Final Chapter, including Johnson & Johnson’s perspective

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There’s little doubt that as an event, Camp Baby was a success. The mom bloggers who attended had a great time, and when I spoke to event architect Lori Dolginoff last week, she told me that Johnson & Johnson considers the event a success based on both their interactions with the women at the event and the emails she personally received from attendees afterward.

"We accomplished our goal of building relationships with the mom bloggers. We wanted to get to know the women face to face, not just through email. Even though there was risk attached in doing an event like this — there are always people that won’t like something — we felt it was worth it. Overall, the bloggers seem to appreciate that we are making an effort so I consider it a win. For me personally, seeing the women enjoying each other’s company was very rewarding."

I asked Lori why face-to-face was so important to them. She told me that J&J wanted to be seen as a leader in working with the mom blogger community and felt that the only way to do this was to meet the women. Clearly they wanted to make a strong public statement about their commitment to the community by entering it in a big, visible way.

But what about the long-term? Do wine and dine events make a solid foundation for long term relationships? For J&J or any company? I asked Lori how they intended to follow up Camp Baby with both the women who attended and the larger population of parent bloggers who didn’t enjoy the antics of Ted Allen, a free Nintendo DS and the wonderful world of Wii at the Frog and Peach dinner. Even though it is still early days yet, J&J must have some idea on how it intends to build on what it learned at Camp Baby.

She told me that moving forward, J&J will be focusing on growing the one-to-one relationships they began at Camp Baby as well as working with  groups and networks of women/mom bloggers to make sure that future programs and communications are relevant. She said that  J&J already has two specific initiatives in the planning stages, but could not give me any details at this time.

One hot topic among the moms who attended the event was chemical additives in baby products. Lori said they knew this going into the event and wanted to address it up front by having a speaker on the subject: "We are listening and looking at the best science. The feedback is very important and we definitely captured everything." 

I wasn’t at Camp Baby, but from what I’ve heard and read, my sense is that they had hoped to convince the women of the safety of the additives and J&J’s science, and were somewhat surprised that the moms didn’t just take their word for it. That said, we should give J&J a little time to take action. Especially since the feedback may not have been what they expected.

I also asked Lori about the unacknowledged product component in the sessions. She said they needed to have it in order to have a place for the questions about specific issues, but that Camp Baby was about relationships, not publicity:

"We didn’t introduce any new products, as I would have at an event for press. By having it all there, we could then determine who was most interested in a given issue or product. For example, many women didn’t know that Neutrogena was one of our brands. We are now planning some Neutrogena giveaways with some of the bloggers."

No one really minded the product pitch component; the women expected it and most commented that it was very soft-sell. Nevertheless, I would recommend that companies doing a similar big event be even more explicit about any product component. Especially if attending a product expo or site visit is a required activity in order to participate. It’s like sitting through the timeshare presentation in order to get the free gift. It’s okay if you know that’s the bargain you’ve made. Not so much if it is a surprise.

As I said in my first post about Camp Baby, set the right expectations. I’d also recommend a few sessions, educational as well as recreational, that have absolutely nothing to do with products or company initiatives. By the way, I’m still baffled by the hair braiding session. There has to have been some other way to tie in hair care products….

I don’t want to revisit the pre-event criticisms too much because Lori stepped up, personally responded and addressed folks’ concerns as best she could. Anyone who has ever planned a big event,  personally or professionally,  knows that there are always a few kinks. However, one area I would recommend paying particular attention to is the invitiation process. J&J invited somewhere between 100-150 women for the 56 spaces and aggressively recruited women that it ultimately had to turn away.  Think carefully about the ratio of invites to expected attendees and leave sufficient time between first outreach and follow-up to gauge real response.

I asked Lori what she would do differently next time:

"We would develop a website or area on our site explaining the program details. Our instinct with Camp Baby was to handle everything one-to-one with the women. In hindsight, it would have been better to also do some broad communication up front to address common questions. I also think we would have benefited from the extra layer of a senior person’s eye on the outreach, to understand things like if a woman recently had a baby, she might want to bring the newborn with her."

I agree 100%. Both of these things, a blog site and having people with more experience involved in blogger outreach, would make the process much smoother. It also bears repeating that you have to do your homework (prepare) and participate in a community before you jump in with a pitch or a program. Regardless of the level of research J&J did during the planning of Camp Baby, the company  was simply a big company to the mom blogger community when it started the outreach. There was no trust, no relationship. They jumped in at the middle — the pitch — before it had laid the proper foundation.

Lori told me that as hard as it was to have all the critcism up front, she feels it was worth it: "It’s hard to explain, but we might not have had the level of engagement with the community if there hadn’t been some hiccups."

While I am glad it worked out for her, setting off a blogstorm is not a strategy I recommend. It wasn’t until she stepped in as a real person to address the criticism that things started to calm down. It’s so much easier to start the relationship with that personal engagement, and then invite bloggers to your party.

Whether Camp Baby ultimately is a success? Only time will tell. J&J certainly has made a splash and has the opportunity to engage with parent bloggers over the long term. But it has to stay the course. One date does not a relationship make, and more importantly, if you ask someone’s opinion, you have to be willing to take action. 

That’s what the mom blogger community will be watching for — will J&J walk the talk?

Stay tuned.

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My previous Camp Baby posts:

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