Marketing Roadmaps

BlogHer

Two Truths and a Lie: the “if it seems too good to be true” edition

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This week we opened the show with a brief rundown of the BlogHer Creators Summit, and then moved to the main event, our discussion of fraud, the responsibility of the social platforms to remove hate speech and meme accounts.

It was my 14th BlogHer (not counting food, business etc., the offshoot shows of which I missed a few) but just the “main” summer event. The format was a bit different than past, with most of the action on the main stage throughout the day. Some of the highlights were: Christy Turlington Burns and Kirsten Gillebrand discussing maternal health and the need to VOTE, P&G exec Shelly McNamara on her experiences as an out gay executive in corporate America, Mattel’s new career Barbies and meeting Voice of the Year honoree Dr. Alaa Murabit.

Fraud is still very much in the digital media news. Instagram fraud had the headlines a few weeks ago, and likely will again (!) but last week saw an expose in the New York Times about YouTube fraud and concerns from advertisers about GDPR fraud in the form of false consent strings.

Truth number 1 this week is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t. True. 

Impressions, views, page views are all important starting points to understand DELIVERY but we need to focus on the engaged audience, and our results in that context. Looking at engagements instead of reach starts to counteract the fraudsters. Not completely, but a start. Artificial Intelligence cuts both ways. It is easier for the bad guys to create fake accounts and fake comments, but it is also getting easier to spot them. When we remove the suspicious activity from the results, we can look at the legit activity and engagements, for a better answer.

At long last, this month the platforms began (finally) to take action against hate monger Alex Jones. Apple removed it from podcasts, Spotify, Facebook and YouTube took action, removing content and deactivating accounts but there is still a great deal of inconsistency within the platforms. And Twitter did nothing.

Truth #2 is that while we should be grateful for less Alex Jones on the Internet, we need to hold the platforms accountable to do more.

Any action by the social platforms to reduce the volume of hate speech and lies by bigots like Alex Jones is a GOOD thing, no matter how excessively long it took them to get there or how incomplete the response. There is LESS Alex Jones on the Internet today and for that we should be grateful. But…. it did take far too long and we must hold them accountable. They do not get a pass on resolving the inconsistencies among their different services.

In the SNCR fake news survey last fall, marketers said that platforms had a responsibility to resolve the problem of unsafe, untrue content. Part of the response must include clear consistent policies across all services and enforcement thereof.

The myth or lie —
Bots and Meme accounts can replace authentic influencer content, and since they are much easier to control, are a good alternative to customer activation. No, no, a thousand times no.

If you want to make a SOCIAL BOT or use chat BOTs in your strategy, that is a legitimate choice, and can be very successful, but be honest about it. If you are mimicking actual human SOCIAL engagement, the consumer deserves to know she or he is chatting with a bot. It won’t matter to many, especially Gen Z that is already so accustomed to engaging with digital avatars. But they should be informed.

As far as memes go, by all means use them. They are a crucial tool for earned social shares. But don’t think  meme accounts can replace the voice of your customer as an influencer, not just a re-share. Use them alongside influencers but not instead.

Blogger Compensation: How Much is a Sponsored Post Worth?

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Cross-posted on BlogHer

Disclosure: I am Vice President, Sales Marketing at BlogHer. Advertising and social media marketing programs are a significant source of revenue for my company and for the bloggers in our advertising network.

BlogHer 2014. We just celebrated the 10th anniversary of a little conference held to tell the world: Here are the women who blog.

Many things have changed in the social media landscape since July 2005. But a constant, at least in my little corner, is that social media offers consumers an opportunity to have a voice about the products and services they buy. To share their customer experiences (good or ill). To actively participate  in the marketing cycle as endorsers of the brands they love. Preferably compensated.

Compensation. That’s our topic today. What should a blogger be paid for a sponsored post? How much is that tweet worth?

In my job at BlogHer, I lead the teams that create and execute our custom sponsored programs. Blogger payment is a topic that we address on a daily basis, and I shared some of our practices in a Business Fundamentals session about monetization in a session during the conference.

Here’s the gist.

Task + Reach + Performance = Fee

The baseline for payment for a sponsored blog post is the task.

  • What are we asking the blogger to do?
    • Simple post? Cover an event? Develop a recipe? Create a Craft or DIY How-To? Produce a UGC video? Participate in a custom video program? Is travel involved?
  • Does the blogger have special or unique expertise?
  • How many hours will this take? At a reasonable hourly rate?

Then we factor in reach, both monthly blog pageviews and overall social reach on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. If you’ve ever wondered why some bloggers get paid more than others for similar work (whether from BlogHer or another network or social media/pr agency), your answer starts with reach. Absent other data (and more about that in a moment), potential reach is the most common proxy for influence.

Influencers with more scale can get higher fees. Usually. But sometimes the program just doesn’t have the budget. We don’t mind if bloggers ask for more if a program appeals to them but the fee seems low. Just as long as they aren’t offended if the answer is no.

But task and potential reach are not end game. They are a good start, but end game is results. The more a blogger is able to link back to actual results achieved for brands, the better fees she can command for future work.

Bottom line: Size matters. Influence matters more. Results matter most. 

We’ve been doing sponsor programs since 2008, and have accumulated quite a bit of data on typical results. We use this data to predict program performance when calculating our guaranteed results for sponsored programs. Key measurements include number of post page views, both absolute and as a percentage of monthly traffic, total comments, earned social shares/pins, and clicks to sponsor site.

Starting later this summer, we will be sharing this proprietary data with the bloggers in our sponsored programs. Via their private BlogHer profiles,  they will be able to see how their own posts are performing and better understand how their posts and social sharing contribute to a program’s success. We will also share historical benchmark data so they can measure their performance. Eventually, and we will give our bloggers plenty of notice, we will be using this results data in our fee calculations. Task and reach will always matter, but historical results will be a factor. This should be particularly welcome news to mid-size bloggers with loyal audiences that read and engage with multiple posts every month; these “magic middle” blogs should compare quite favorably to much larger blogs that get a big chunk of their traffic from one-time search engine visitors.

Exciting times. And more to come.

 

The one about the swag

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Disclosure: I am Vice President, Influencer Marketing at BlogHer. While I work on digital and social marketing programs with many of the brands that sponsor our conference, I am not directly involved in the event side of our business and experience the Expo Floor much as any other attendee would. Except I can’t enter any of the sweepstakes 🙂 In my past life, however, I was in charge of event and channel marketing for multiple employers.

Other writers have already done an excellent job of sharing the attendee perspective on the brands at BlogHer and their promotional offerings.

I want to focus on the brand side of the equation. Whether you call it swag (PG version: stuff we all get), schwag (an alternative spelling) or trinkets and trash (a personal favorite), companies make the investment because it helps them achieve their marketing goals. Ultimately, the marketer wants the target consumer to buy her product, and she uses a variety of strategies and tactics to bring potential customers through the purchasing funnel of Awareness to Interest to Consideration to Purchase.

And marketers have been doing it for a VERY long time. For example this Coca-Cola coupon found on  Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia: Believed to be the first coupon ever, this ticket for a free glass of Coca-Cola was first distributed in 1888 to help promote the drink. By 1913, the company had redeemed 8.5 million tickets.

There are two kinds of swag — promotional items of varying utility (and price points) imprinted with the company name or other branding, and actual product, often but not always in sample sizes.

A defining characeristic of swag is that it is broadly distributed — at a conference, an event, as a product premium, on box, at the cash register etc etc. The intent is to reach large numbers of consumers. It is not deliberate seeding of product with known influencers, although with social media, the two tend to conflate, and there is more of an expectation that consumers are also influencers.

So, back to our two kinds of swag – promotional items (trinkets and trash) and actual product. CPG brands (food, cosmetics, household products) can more easily give away samples of their products than consumer durables like electronics, furnishings, and automobiles, but even they often offer promotional items, either instead of or in addition to product sampllng or coupons.

Promotional items

Why give away promotional items? In a word, awareness.

The more useful the trinket, the better the chance that awareness will lead to consideration. When I was an independent consultant, I gave away lens cleaning cloths in a little plastic case. People held onto them for years. At BlogHer 2008, I picked up a 3-outlet extender from Topix that I still use.

Utility doesn’t have to be longterm. Bottled water, personal fans and sunglasses may not make it home from the outdoor concert, but you can bet they will be well used during. It also doesn’t necessarily mean used by the consumer herself. Many trade show trinkets end up in the “look what I got you on my trip” bag that parents bring home to their kids, and that was just as true at the computer industry events I attended in my previous life as it is for blogging conferences. At BlogHer this year, I picked up pair of green sunglasses at the Turning Leaf booth, and my son wore them throughout BlogHer and our post-BlogHer vacation in Chicago.

Doug in Chicago, note green Turning Leaf sunglasses. (c) Susan Getgood 2013

In addition to utility, another factor to consider when selecting promo items is alignment with brand messaging. Fitness items align with wellness messaging, makeup accessories with cosmetics brands, cooking tools with food brands, and so on. Years ago, I worked for a company that made software for tire dealers, and we gave away tire gauges.

Finally, cost. Promotional items do not have to be cheap trinkets and trash. Luxury brands use promo items too, but their distribution is usually more limited than what we are discussing here, the use of promo items in a mass consumer marketing strategy. Generally, the cost of a promo item for mass distribution should be commensurate with the cost of the actual products as well as your overall trade show budget. Bottom line, don’t spend a lot but don’t default to the cheapest item in the catalog either.

Product samples

Product samples make their appearance at events in all sorts of guises — from sampling on site (usually supported by generous coupons and/or a promo item) to free product in trial or full sizes. Regardless of size or form, their role is to encourage trial. in other words, to jump the consumer right to the consideration stage. At BlogHer and other social media events that attract influencers, the brands want to connect with the consumer on two levels, as both a customer and an influencer of other customers (hopefully with some scale!)

Food and many beauty products lend themselves very well to onsite sampling, while others (shampoo, body wash, household cleaning as examples) work better as trial or full size “take-home” products.

The key is to integrate the promo item or sample into your marketing strategy, with a clear objective and desired result. In other words, don’t just give stuff out because everyone else is. Understanding the ROI of your swag can turn it from a cost item in your event budget to an investment in your brand.

All the exhibitors at BlogHer this year did a good job with their booths and swag. I didn’t really see anything that didn’t work for its intended consumer — and keep in mind that not every attendee at BlogHer was the consumer for every brand. That’s why there’s a Swag Swap set up for people to drop off the stuff they don’t want. Whatever is left at the end is donated to local charities.

That said, I do want to call out a few that are great examples of my points above.

Topix outlet from BlogHer 2008 and AloMune waterproof pouch from 2013

Starting with two very small items in the official conference swag bag. Verizon had a USB car charger plug that scores on all my promo item criteria – useful and reinforces Verizon’s branding as a mobile solution provider at a reasonable price point. Immune supplement manufacturer AloMune distributed samples of its product in a very useful cell phone sized waterproof pouch. Neither item was terribly expensive, but almost every attendee probably could find a use for them. Or knows someone who could. And bonus: small and packable so likely to make it home, even with attendees who were not checking luggage or shipping stuff home.

CVS was a sponsor at BlogHer and another conference I attended earlier this summer, Reviewer’s Retreat. At both events, it took the surprising, generous (and not cheap) approach of handing out swag bags of full size products. Not just one or two items — I didn’t count, but it was about what might fit in the hand basket you’d grab when you’d run into the store for a few things. At both conferences, it also was a wide variety — cosmetics, bandages, a first aid kit, cookies and other snack items, hand creme, sunblock and so on. Some of the items were CVS-brand, others were well-known (and not inexpensive) brands like Lubriderm, Roc and Aveeno.

Now, I don’t have first-hand visibility into the brand’s marketing strategy, but I’m guessing one objective is to increase the average basket size (purchase), and that is the goal supported by the generous swag bag. It’s a bold and noticeable move to reinforce the brand messaging — that CVS carries a wide range of merchandise, including food and snack items, at a variety of price points. It isn’t limited to prescriptions, toothpaste and OTC medicines.

I also really hope that the number of items isn’t a coincidence — that someone really did think about how many (as well as what) to include, to mimic that basket size.

Using my focus group of one, I’d say it works. A few days before we left for BlogHer, I had to pick up a prescription ($20) and while I was there, I picked up make-up remover wipes, vitamins, shampoo for my son and a bunch of other stuff, about $50 worth. I know I considered and purchased some of the CVS-brand items as a direct result of the Reviewer’s Retreat swag bag.

So, next time you hear someone bemoaning the swag and promotional items at conferences and events, remind them that swag is an important element in the event marketing mix, brands rely on it to achieve their marketing objectives and consumers welcome it.

And if you don’t want it, just don’t take it. It’s that easy.

'THAT WAS EASY!'

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