Marketing Roadmaps

Marketing

Character blogs, collaborative blogs

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A good friend of mine refers to the type of conversation we are having about character blogs as "inside baseball." It’s the kind of conversation where those inside it are very engaged and those outside of it can’t follow it, don’t want to follow it, and if they do manage to figure it out, think it is pretty silly. That said, I just can’t seem to let it go, so "batter up."

Rok Hrastnik posted an essay about character blogs, and used as an example the Buffyverse. In his example, he cites different types of blogs that the creators of the two television shows that comprise the Buffyverse [Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel] could create to entertain the fans of these two dearly-departed shows.

The reason I think character blogs have potential is that pretty much all the examples he cites have already sprung up, albeit in unauthorized fashion, in the online fandom already.

Fan fiction. WHEDONesque, a fan blog where Whedon posts from time to time. Spoiler sites. Bulletin boards. Role plays in which people take on the characters and create a collaborative story (often using livejournal). There is an obvious hunger to interact with these shows and these characters as well as the real people behind them. And the interactions among the fans are pretty real — friendships and flamewars alike.

Rok’s example resonated with me because I am a fan of the Buffyverse. If Joss Whedon, the creator of the two shows, decided to build a character blog as the next installment in the story, and brought his talents, his great writers and perhaps even some of the actors to occasionally give voice or visual to the new story, I would subscribe. I’d even pay 🙂 I would not be alone, not by a longshot. Are you listening, Joss?

This would be a character blog for which I AM the audience, and only then would I judge its content. As I have said before, we have to separate the form, the character blog, from the content.

BTW trust me, I know "Spike" is just a character. I still really love the lifesize cardboard figure of him that my mom gave me for Christmas. To my husband’s chagrin, it is still in the living room.

Neville Hobson also posted on character blogs today: Just because you could doesn’t mean you should. He’s got a nice definition of the difference between character and fake blogs, and also provides a bit of a recap of yesterday’s Hobson and Holtz Report discussion on the topic.

Okay, enough about character blogs. Intellectually, I think they deserve a shot, and that’s why I have been so vocal on the topic.

Personally, however, I think the blog form that holds the most promise for companies is the collaborative weblog. As I mentioned a while ago, I am working on one for a client. We are just about to start promoting it, so I should be able to post more details by the end of the week. To whet your appetite, here’s a preview.

We went with a blog for two key reasons: it fit with the overall marketing strategy and it gives voice to our customers.

The company is in the education market, which is particularly fertile ground for collaborative and online communications. The company has happy, loyal, articulate customers and we wanted to find a way to include them in our marketing efforts. We believe that their experiences, both with our products and in general, would be far more useful to our prospects than any brochure we could develop. In the past, we might have posted a bunch of case studies on our website. The collaborative weblog offers a much richer communications environment.

Initially, our bloggers will be drawn from our customer base; hopefully, over time, other educators will join us, first on the blog and then as customers.

Our goal is to create a rich community resource about topics that are at the intersection of the company’s and the customers’ interests. We will post company information from time to time, but the intent is for the bulk of the content to be community created. The combination of the blog content and our sponsorship of it should drive interest in our products without "lame marketing posts." In other words, we do good by doing good.

More later this week.

Persona Redux

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Okay. I have a few more things I want to say about fictional blogs and personas, and then I am going to get back to some real work. Or maybe go out and sit in the sun, since Spring has finally sprung.

Personally, I have absolutely no interest in doing a fictional blog. I think it would be very hard to maintain the quality and consistency of voice that would be required. I’m just not that good a writer. BUT I can imagine that an excellent writer, one who could get really into character, could pull it off, and create a fun experience for his or her readers.

There are tons of examples of role play games on the Internet (the grandchildren of Dungeons and Dragons) where people do something very similar. Each writer takes on a role and they collectively write the story. Not hard to imagine that the same people who enjoy this activity might get into having a conversation with a fictional character, even a "for-profit" one.

The writers of anonymous blogs can also create new personas for themselves. There is nothing wrong with anonymous blogging, but when the persona is created, versus your "real" self (and online, what is that anyway, but I digress…) it is pretty much the same thing as the blog by a fictional character like Spencer Katt. The difference of couse is that often you won’t know that the anonymous blogger IS a persona. In fact, Jozef Imrich who commented on my previous post on this topic included a link to an article about just such a situation in the legal profession.

For me, the key is transparency: if you are open and honest about the nature of your activity, you should be free to try out all sorts of new ideas. Some will work. Some will fail. Some people will hate ’em. Others love ’em.

Something isn’t "lame" just because you don’t like it. Something is "lame" if the people for whom it was intended, the desired audience for the thing, think it is lame. My 5-year old son loves a lot of TV programs that I personally think are pretty silly but he loves them (and the products advertised thereon). Home run for Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go, among others.

There is room for more than one opinion, more than one approach, and in the end, it will be the customers who decide what works and what doesn’t. No amount of posting and cross posting is going to change that.

Roadmaps Round-up

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Just a bunch of good stuff. Have a great weekend!

Fusion Brand: Great post on Brand vs. Customer Architecture: Which is More Effective?

How to Blog for Fun and Profit has a short post about a Cnet comparison  of Typepad and Blogger 

Quite some time ago, Steve Rubel (and others) blogged about InfoWorld’s special report on blogs and wikis. I have been intending to include it in a link round-up for weeks, so here is the link to Steve’s post. 

Another great resource post that I have been sitting on is from NevOn: Tips for successful media relations  This post Introduced me to David Tebbut’s Teblog.

Yahoo is offering free 5-page websites to small US businesses, to be hosted in Yahoo! Local. Thanks to Nick W at Threadwatch for the info. 

Fake blog. Fictional blog. Potato. Poe-Tah-toe

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Nice commentary by Shel Holtz on the whole fake blogs issue (courtesy Topaz Partners)

Here’s what I said on the subject about 2 months ago when the fake blog conversation started (remember LincolnFry).

Net it down: there are fake, or false, blogs, that purport to be something they are not. A fake blog is trying to deceive you. It doesn’t acknowledge its sponsorship by a company or let you know that the author isn’t a real person.

A fictional, or character, blog is simply using the form of the blog, but is upfront that the characters are fictional.

Shel nails it here:

“Ultimately, though, a blog is a lightweight content management system that allows people to comment. If someone wants to use that for traditional marketing, what’s wrong with that? It can fall into the category of “lame marketing blogs.” They may be lame. They may also work.”

And that is, of course, the key. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Just because I may think something is lame doesn’t mean that the intended reader of the “thing” doesn’t get into it, get something out of it, enjoy it, whatever.

Potato. Poe-Tah-Toe.

Upcoming events: BlogherCon and Camp WorldWIT

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BlogherCon to be held July 30:

"Where are the women bloggers? We’re right here. . . www.blogher.org  This flagship event is open to all bloggers—including men and beginners—interested in enhancing their online exposure, learning the latest best practices in blogging, networking with other bloggers, and specifically cultivating the female blogging community.”

Not sure if I will be able to attend, due to other commitments, but it is shaping up to be an interesting event.

However, I will be at Camp WorldWIT: Women in the Lead from May 19-22, speaking on a marketing panel, "First to Market: Make Your Name Hit and Stick," Friday, May 20 from 2 – 3:15pm.

"Camp WorldWIT 2005: Women in the Lead is WorldWIT’s second annual global conference for women in business and technology. From May 19-22, 2005, we’ll gather in beautiful Williams Bay, Wisconsin, at the rustic and comfortable Conference Point facility. During the long weekend, campers will share entrepreneurial and corporate learning, hear outstanding keynoters and on-point breakout speakers, and have ample opportunities to network and share best practices."

My presentation will (surprise, surprise) be about how to use weblogs in a marketing strategy to build a sense of community among your customers and enhance your expert reputation in your field.